The Silent Girl

There he waits in stony darkness through the centuries, until the day when he is needed. A day when evil is in the world, and the Monkey King must emerge once again to wage battle.

Jane turned the page and confronted an image of Sun Wukong, clutching a long fighting staff. Though it was just an illustration, that glimpse of the Monkey King made the hair on her arms stand straight up. She stared at sharp teeth jutting in a black mouth, at a crown of silver hair, and could not look away.

She remembered an afternoon at the zoo when she’d been six years old, and her father had held her up to see the spider monkeys. They took one look at her and the cage erupted in terrifying chaos, the monkeys shrieking and vaulting among the branches, as if they had just glimpsed the face of Satan himself. A zoo employee came running and ordered everyone, Back away, back away! I don’t know what’s scaring them! But as Jane’s father carried her from that cage of screaming monkeys, Jane knew that she was the one who’d set them off. She was the one they were terrified of. What did they see but a six-year-old girl with dark curls? she wondered. Or was there something else that they’d recognized even then? Something about who and what she’d one day become?

“So how’s it going with the monkey books?”

Korsak’s voice made her glance up with a start. He was dressed in his Sunday best-at least, the best that he was capable of pulling together for dinner at Angela Rizzoli’s. At least there were no ketchup stains on his white golf shirt and khaki Dockers. After a heart attack a few years earlier, he’d lost thirty pounds on a heart-healthy diet, but his weight was starting to creep back up again, and despite a newly punched hole in his belt it was straining against an ever-expanding belly.

“It’s for a case,” said Jane. She closed the book she’d been reading, relieved to blot out the image of Sun Wukong.

“Yeah, I heard all about it. Got yourself another weird one. Started off with that dead lady on the roof, didn’t it? Makes me wish I was back in the saddle.”

Jane looked at his belly and thought: God help any horse that you climb on.

Korsak flopped down in the armchair-the same armchair that her father used to sit in. It was weird to see him lounging in Frank Rizzoli’s old perch, but her dad had forfeited all rights to that chair the day he walked out on Angela and moved in with the Bimbo. That’s what they all called her now, though they knew her name well enough. Sandie Huffington, Sandie-with-an-e. Jane knew all about the Bimbo, including how many traffic tickets she’d racked up in the past ten years. Three. Because of the Bimbo, Vince Korsak was sitting in this armchair, fat and happy on Angela’s cooking.

Jane didn’t want to think about all the other ways that Angela made him happy.

“Chinatown,” Korsak grunted. “Strange place. Good food.”

He would, of course, mention food. “What do you remember about the Red Phoenix shooting?” she asked. “You must’ve heard the gossip back then.”

“That one was a wicked shocker. Why would a guy with a cute little girl shoot four people and blow out his own brains? Never made sense to me.” He shook his head. “Such a sweet kid, too. Real daddy’s girl.”

That surprised her. “You knew the cook’s family?”

“Not really, but I used to eat there a lot. Those Chinese, they don’t know how to take a day off, so the place was always open, all hours of the night. You could get off a late shift and still have dinner. I was there once at ten on a Sunday night, and that little girl brought out my fortune cookies. It’s like child labor. But she looked like she was happy to be hanging out with Daddy.”

“You sure it was the cook’s daughter? She would’ve been pretty young.”

“She looked pretty young. Maybe five? Cute as a button.” He gave a sad sigh. “Can’t believe a father would do that, leave a wife and kid behind. Not to mention all the other families he screwed up. A few weeks later, daughter of one of the victims got kidnapped.”

“Charlotte Dion.”

“Was that her name? I just remember it was like a Greek tragedy. Bad luck piled on top of bad luck.”

“You know the really weird part?” said Jane. “Two years earlier, the daughter of one of the other victims was snatched as well. The waiter’s kid. She disappeared on her way home from school.”

“No shit? I didn’t know that.” Korsak thought about this for a moment. “That’s freaky. Really makes you wonder if it’s more than just a coincidence.”

“One of the last things Detective Ingersoll said to me on the phone was something about girls. What happened to those girls. Those were his words.”

“Those two girls? Or other girls?”

“I don’t know.”

He shook his head. “All these years later, and here we are still thinking about them. Weird to realize they’re probably nothing but skeletons now.” He paused. “But that’s not what I want to be thinking about tonight. Let’s pour some wine.”

“I thought you were a beer man.”

“Your ma’s converted me. Wine’s better for the old ticker anyway, you know.” He heaved himself out of the armchair. “Time to talk about happy things, okay?”

Not about dead people, thought Jane. Not about mass shootings and kidnapped girls. But when Gabriel came into the house holding Regina by her tiny hand, Jane couldn’t help thinking about Charlotte Dion and Laura Fang. She helped her mother carry platters to the table, a steady succession of ever-more-impressive dishes. Crisp roast potatoes. Green beans drizzled with olive oil. And finally two sumptuous roast chickens, fragrant with rosemary. But even as they sat down to eat, as she tied the bib around Regina and cut her meat into child-sized morsels, Jane was thinking about missing girls and devastated parents. How could a mother go on? She wondered if Iris Fang had ever considered ending her own misery. A leap off a rooftop, a handful of sleeping pills. How much easier than living with grief, day in and day out, pining for loved ones whom you’ll never see again.

“Something wrong with your meal, Janie?” said Angela.

Jane looked up at her mother, who had the uncanny knack of knowing exactly what had gone into the mouths of every guest seated at her dining table. “It’s great, Ma. You outdid yourself tonight.”

“Then why aren’t you eating?”

“I am.”

“You took one bite of chicken, then you started moving things around on your plate. I hope you’re not on a diet, because you don’t need to lose any weight, sweetie.”

“I’m not on a diet.”

“All these girls, they’re always on diets. Starving on salads, and for what?”

“Sure ain’t doing it for men,” mumbled Korsak around a mouthful of potatoes. “Guys like a little meat on a girl.” He winked at Angela. “Take your ma. Built like a woman’s supposed to be built.”

Jane couldn’t see what was happening under the table, but her mother suddenly bolted straight in her chair, laughing. “Vincent! Behave.”

Please behave. Because I can’t watch any more of this.

“You know,” said Korsak, slicing into his chicken. “This is a good time to bring up you know what.”

Never had three words sounded so ominous. Jane’s chin snapped up, and she looked at her mother. “What’s you know what?”

“It’s something we’ve been talking about for a while,” said Angela. “Vince and me.”

Jane glanced at her husband, but as usual Gabriel wore his FBI face, giving away nothing, even though he’d probably guessed where this conversation was going.

“Well, you know that Vince and I have been seeing each other for quite a while,” said Angela.

“Quite a while? It’s been only, what? A year and a half?”

“That’s plenty of time to get to know someone, Janie. To see that he has a good heart.” Angela beamed at Korsak, and they leaned in for a noisy, lip-smacking kiss.

“You dated Dad for three whole years,” Jane pointed out. “Look where that ended up.”

“I was fifteen when I met your father. He was only my second boyfriend.”

“You were fifteen and you’d already had a boyfriend?”

“The point is, I was just a kid, and I didn’t know what the world had to offer. I married too young, had kids too young. Only now do I know what I want.”