Red Leaves

went to the living room and watched TV.'

'When did you read her the story?'

'About eight-thirty, I guess.'

'Don't guess,' Meredith snapped. 'Don't guess about anything, Keith.'

For the first time the gravity of the situation registered on Keith's face. 'She's really missing?' he asked, as if everything up to now had been some kind of joke.

'What do you think we've been saying, Keith?' Meredith asked.

'Listen,' I said to him. 'I want you to think carefully, because I have to call Mr. Giordano and tell him exactly what you tell me. So, like your mother says, Keith, don't guess about anything.'

He nodded, and I could see that it had sunk in fully now. 'Okay, sure,' he said.

'All right,' I began. 'You didn't see Amy again, right? Not after you read her that story?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' Keith answered emphatically. His gaze darted over to Meredith. 'I didn't see her again.'

'Do you have any idea where she is?' I asked.

Keith looked suddenly offended. 'Of course not.' He glanced back and forth between Meredith and me. 'It's the truth,' he cried. 'I didn't see her again.'

'Did you see anything?' I asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Anything out of the ordinary.'

'You mean like ... was she acting funny ... or—'

'Funny. Strange. Unhappy. Maybe wanting to run away? Did she give you any hint of that?'

'No.'

'Okay, how about something else,' I said. 'Somebody around the house. Peeping Tom, that sort of thing.'

Keith shook his head. 'I didn't see anything, Dad.' His eyes swept over to Meredith, and I saw the first suggestion of worry in them. 'Am I in trouble?'

Meredith sat back slightly, the posture she always assumed when she had no immediate answer.

Keith held his gaze on Meredith. 'Are the police going to talk to me?'

Meredith shrugged. 'I guess it depends.'

'On what?'

Meredith remained silent.

Keith looked at me. 'On what, Dad?'

I gave him the only answer I had. 'On what happened to Amy, I suppose.'

FOUR

Later I would try to define it, the uneasiness of those first few minutes. I would go over the phone call from Vince, the way Meredith and I had trudged up the stairs together then returned to the kitchen and waited for Keith. I would try to remember if I'd heard something during that otherwise silent interval, the sound of tiny insect teeth or a steady drip of water, small, insistent, relentlessly undermining. Now I know the chasm that yawned beneath the lives we had so carefully constructed. I hear a gunshot, a resigned murmur, and in those sounds all I didn't know flashes clear and bright.

But what did I know? The answer is clear. I knew nothing. And what do you do when you know nothing? You take the next step because you have to and because, in your ignorance, you can't possibly know how blind it is, the step you're taking, or how dire its unseen consequences.

And so after Keith returned to his room, I simply called Vince Giordano and told him exactly what my son had said, half believing that that might be the end of it for Keith, Meredith, and me, that whatever terrible thing might have happened to Amy Giordano, her spilled blood, if it had been spilled, would not wash over the rest of us.

'I'm sorry, Vince,' I said. 'I wish I could be more help, but Keith simply has no idea where Amy is.'

After a pause, Vince said, 'I have to ask you something.'

'Anything.'

'Did Keith leave the house while he was here with Amy?'

I had no way of knowing if Keith had left Vince's house at any point during the time he'd been there, but I suddenly felt the need to answer anyway, and so I gave an answer I deeply hoped was true.

'I'm sure he didn't,' I said.

'Would you mind asking him?' Vince's voice was almost pleading. 'We just can't figure out what happened.'

'Of course,' I told him.

'Just ask him if he left Amy ... even for a minute,' Vince repeated.

'I'll call you right back,' I said, then hung up and walked up the stairs, leaving Meredith alone and looking increasingly worried at the kitchen table.

Keith's door was closed but he opened it at my first tap, though slightly, so that only half his face was visible, a single eye peering at me through a narrow slit.

'Mr. Giordano wants to know if you left the house at any point last night,' I said.

The eye blinked languidly, like a curtain drawn down slowly then reluctantly raised.

'Well, did you?'

'No,' Keith answered.

It was a firm no, and yet his answer had come only after a moment of hesitation, or was it calculation?

'Are you sure about that, Keith?' I asked.

This time his answer came without hesitation. 'Yes.'

'Absolutely sure? Because I have to go back now and tell Mr. Giordano.'

'I didn't leave the house,' Keith assured me.

'It's not a big deal if you did, Keith. It's not the same as if you—'

'As if I what, Dad?' Keith asked, almost snappishly.

'You know what I mean,' I told him.

'As ... if I killed her?' Keith asked. 'Or whatever happened.'

'I don't believe you did anything to Amy Giordano, if that's what you're accusing me of,' I told him.

'Really?' Keith replied. His tone was petulant. 'It sounds like you do. Mom, too. Like both of you think I did something.'

'It only sounds that way to you, Keith,' I said, my tone now changing with his, becoming suddenly defensive. 'As a matter of fact, I told Mr. Giordano that you didn't leave the house before I came up here.'

Keith didn't look as if he believed me, but he kept his doubts to himself.

'Anyway, I have to call Mr. Giordano back now,' I said, then turned and quickly made my way down the stairs, Keith's door slamming sharply behind me, hard and unforgiving as a slap.

Karen Giordano answered the phone.

'Karen, it's Eric Moore.'

'Oh, hello, Eric,' Karen said with a slight sniffle that made me think she'd been crying.

'Has anything changed?' I asked.

'No,' she answered. Her voice was weak. 'We don't know where she is.' She was ordinarily a cheerful woman, but all her cheer had drained away. 'We've called everybody,' Karen continued. 'All the neighbors. Everybody.' Her voice softened still more and took on an oddly pleading quality, so that it struck me that dread was a kind of humility, an admission of one's helplessness, the fact that, in the end, we control nothing. 'No one's seen her.'

I wanted to assure her that everything would turn out fine, that Amy would suddenly appear out of a closet or from behind a curtain, shout 'April Fool' or something of the kind. But I had seen too many news stories to believe such a thing was likely. They really did vanish, these little girls, and if they were found at all, it was almost