The doorbell rang.
I looked at both of them. “You didn’t invite more church freaks, did you?”
“Tom. .”
“I’ll see who it is,” Chris said.
“Tell them to go to hell,” I said.
Abby stayed close, still watching me. “What did she say, Tom? Is it important?”
I shook my head. “She said. . something happened to her. . while she was gone. .”
“What? What happened to her?”
“We didn’t get that far. I. . we didn’t. .”
Chris came back, a tentative smile on his face.
“Someone’s at the door for you, Tom.”
“Who?” I asked.
“It’s a woman,” he said. “She says she’s a friend of yours, and she knows something about Caitlin. Her name is Suzanne or Susan.”
I found Susan on the porch, where she stood smoking a cigarette. She wore the same kind of clothes as the first time we’d met, except her sneakers had been replaced by muddy hiking boots. When I came outside, she turned to face me.
“Ah, Tom.”
“I didn’t know you made house calls.”
“We go wherever we’re needed.” She pointed to the two empty porch chairs, so we sat. “I apologize for the intrusion on your family life, but I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You were?”
“I saw your good news in the newspapers,” she said. “Your daughter is back. You must be a happy man.”
“It’s a complicated adjustment in a lot of ways.”
“Right.” She dropped the cigarette on the porch and ground it under her boot. “I’m sorry about this. It’s a bad habit I picked up in college and then returned to a few years ago. I do it when I’m anxious.”
“What are you anxious about today?” I asked.
She rubbed her hands together as though keeping them warm. It was a cool day, and I wished I’d worn a jacket.
“What has your daughter said about where she was?”
“Nothing.” I looked down. “She won’t talk about it. She told us not to ask her about it. Why do you want to know?”
“And so you haven’t asked her?”
“The therapist told us not to.”
“It’s best to follow the lead of the experts in these cases,” she said. “At least that’s been my experience. They know what’s best.”
“I take it you didn’t just come to talk to me about the merits of therapy,” I said.
“Like I said, I’ve been thinking about you. This story. It’s been in the papers, so it’s been in my mind. Do you still have that flower, or did you give it to the police?”
“I still have it. I should have given it to the police-”
“You probably should-”
“You know, I’m sort of in the middle of a larger crisis here. I appreciated talking to you the other day, but I don’t think I have time for whatever you’re thinking about. Just get to the point or go.”
“You’re right. Of course.” She dug into the pocket of her shirt and brought out a pack of cigarettes. Her fingers shook as she dug one out and struck the lighter. “Sorry,” she said, blowing the smoke plume in the opposite direction of where I sat. Around us, normal life went on. A few doors up, our neighbors raked their leaves onto a large blue tarp. A child laughed somewhere, a bright, distant trilling. “This man,” she finally said, “the man from the sketch, you believe he’s the one who took your daughter from you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I think you’re right, Tom. I think he did.”
“What are you saying? Because of the flower? What?”
She shook her head. “Not because of the flower.”
“Then what?”
“Tracy,” she said. “Tracy Fairlawn.”
“What about her? Did you talk to her?”
“Not for a while,” she said. “But I’ve spent a lot of time talking with her in the past. She’s a very troubled young woman. When you and I met the other day, I was trying to protect her, to value her privacy, the confidentiality of the things she has told me over the last year.”
“Drugs?”
“Among other things.”
“Are you saying she’s not reliable? Or believable?”
“I think she’s believable, Tom. Especially about this matter.” She looked down at the burning tip of the cigarette as though she didn’t know how it had ended up in her hand. “Tracy knows this man, the one she saw in the club. She knows who he is.”
I held tight to the armrests of the chair. My neighbor dragged his tarp full of leaves out to the curb.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know it,” she said, her voice acquiring an edge. “I don’t.”
“Tracy sent me to you.” My words came out sharp, ringing through the afternoon air. A picture formed. “You two are doing this together, aren’t you? She sends me to you, and you lead me around by my nose-”
“I can only guess at Tracy’s motives, but the thought crossed my mind that she wanted me to communicate something to you on this account. She was right. I knew about this when you came to see me the other day. Then I saw the news in the paper. I couldn’t keep it to myself. I looked your address up in the phone book and came over here.”
“You’re quite a saint,” I said.
“I thought long and hard about whether I should get involved further,” she said. “About whether I should tell you. But if I had to guess, I think Tracy wanted me to tell you about this. I think that’s why she gave you my card and name. She has a difficult time talking about this issue, and she probably wanted to use me as a kind of proxy. I have incomplete information as it is, and it feels like-it
“Don’t make yourself out to be more important than you are,” I said. “You’re not a priest or a therapist. Now where is Tracy?”
“I told you-I haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”
“I’m calling the police.” I started to stand. “They’ll find her. They’ll come down on you, too.”
“That’s not the solution, Tom. And neither is this anger.”
I was still on the edge of my seat. “What else do you know? There’s much more to this story, and you know it. Spill it.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Goddamn it, spill it!”
“Have you seen that ghost girl lately, Tom?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Have you?”
I paused. “Yes, she was outside our house one night.”
“Did she say anything?”
I slid back in the chair. “I went after her, but she ran away.”
“Remember what I told you about that?”
