fireplace with white and brown stone. And then suddenly I was in that field behind the playground. I called you, Daddy. I don’t even know… how long was I gone?”
She started crying then. Erik put his arms around her.
“It’s okay,” Erik said. “Whatever happened, it’s over now. You’re safe.”
Claire was in the yard. She sprinted up to the car. Aimee managed to get out, but she could barely stand. Claire let out a primordial cry and grabbed for her daughter.
They hugged, they cried, they kissed, the three of them. Myron felt like an intruder. They started toward the door then. Myron waited. Claire looked back. She caught Myron’s eyes. She ran back to him.
Claire kissed him. “Thank you.”
“The police are still going to need to talk to her.”
“You kept your promise.”
He said nothing.
“You brought her home.”
Then she ran back to the house.
Myron stood there and watched them disappear inside. He wanted to celebrate. Aimee was home. She was healthy.
But he didn’t feel in the mood.
He drove again to the cemetery that overlooked a schoolyard. The gate was open. He found Brenda’s grave and sat next to it. The night closed in. He could hear the swishing of highway traffic. He thought about what had just happened. He thought about what Aimee had just said. He thought about her being home, safe and with her family, while Brenda lay in the ground.
Myron sat there until another car pulled up. He almost smiled as Win stepped into view. Win kept his distance for a moment. Then he approached the headstone. He looked down at it.
“Nice to have one in the win column, no?” Win said.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Why not?”
“I still don’t know what happened.”
“She’s alive. She’s home.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough.”
Win gestured toward the stone. “If you could go back in time, would you need to know everything that happened? Or would it be enough if she were alive and home?”
Myron closed his eyes, tried to imagine that bliss. “It would be enough if she were alive and home.”
Win smiled. “There you go then. What else is there?”
He stood. He didn’t know the answer. He only knew that he had spent enough time with ghosts, with the dead.
CHAPTER 55
The police took Myron’s statement. They asked questions. They told him nothing. Myron slept in the house in Livingston that night. Win stayed with him. Win rarely did that. They both woke up early. They watched
It felt normal and right and rather wonderful.
Win said, “I’ve been thinking about your relationship with Ms. Wilder.”
“Don’t.”
“No, no, I think I owe you an apology,” Win continued. “I may have misjudged her. Her looks do grow on you. I’m thinking that perhaps her derriere is of a finer quality than I originally thought.”
“Win?”
“What?”
“I don’t much care what you think.”
“Yes, my friend, you do.”
At eight in the morning Myron walked over to the Biel house. He figured that they were awake by now. He knocked gently on the door. Claire answered it. She wore a bathrobe. Her hair was disheveled. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
“Aimee is still sleeping,” Claire said. “Whatever drugs the kidnappers gave her, they really knocked her out.”
“Maybe you should take her to the hospital.”
“Our friend David Gold — do you know him? He’s a doctor. He came by last night and checked her out. He said she’d be fine once the drugs wear off.”
“What drugs did they give her?”
Claire shrugged. “Who knows?” They both stood there a moment. Claire took a deep breath and looked up and down the street. Then she said, “Myron?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to let the police handle it from here.”
He did not reply.
“I don’t want you to ask Aimee about what happened.”
There was just enough steel in her voice. Myron waited to see if she’d say more. She did. “Erik and I, we just want it to end. We hired an attorney last night.”
“Why?”
“We’re her parents. We know how to protect our daughter.”
The implication being: Myron didn’t. She hadn’t needed to mention again that first night, how Myron had dropped Aimee off and hadn’t looked out for her. But that was what she was saying here.
“I know how you are, Myron.”
“How am I?”
“You want answers.”
“You don’t?”
“I want my daughter to be happy and healthy. That’s more important than answers.”
“You don’t want whoever did this to pay?”
“It was probably Drew Van Dyne. And he’s dead. So what’s the point? We just want Aimee to be able to put this behind her. She’s going to college in a few months.”
“Everyone keeps talking about college like it’s a great big do-over card,” Myron said. “Like the first eighteen years of your life don’t count.”
“In a way, they don’t.”
“That’s crap, Claire. What about her baby?”
Claire moved back to the door. “With all due deference — and no matter what you want to think about our decisions — that’s not your concern.”
Myron nodded to himself. She had him on that one.
“Your part in this is over,” she said, and again he heard the steel. “Thank you for what you’ve done. I have to get back to my daughter now.”
And then Claire closed the door on him.
CHAPTER 56
A week later, Myron sat at Baumgart’s Restaurant with Livingston police detective Lance Banner and Essex County investigator Loren Muse. Myron had ordered the Kung Pao Chicken. Banner had ordered a Chinese fish
