All the Missing Girls(38)

Her step faltered, but she kept moving. “I don’t know. The cops showed up an hour ago—”

“Cops or cop?” I asked. “Mark Stewart?”

She paused at the office door, turned to me with a quizzical look. “One cop.” She cleared her throat. “Asian, I think?” She blushed again, like that wasn’t the PC way to describe someone.

Just a guy. Just a goofy, sullen kid. Mark.

“And you let him talk to my dad? I will hold you all personally accountable if this”—I made an arm movement trying to encompass everything my dad was at the moment—“gets worse.”

She gestured toward the couch, then sat at the desk in the outer office. “I was in here. I have no idea what happened.” She picked up the phone and pressed a button. “I have Patrick Farrell’s daughter in the waiting room.”

Karen Addelson was outside her office, escorting a couple and making apologies for the interruption, within a solid minute. The director held out her hands. “Nicolette. Please, come in.” As if she’d been expecting me.

Her office had potted plants and a little Zen garden on a coffee table, a miniature rake with lazy curving lines through the sand. “What did you do to my dad? I saw Officer Stewart in the parking lot, and my dad is practically catatonic in his room. What the hell happened?”

“Sit, please,” she said.

I sat in the straight-back chair in front of her desk, ignoring the couch she was gesturing toward. Tough to feel self-righteous when you’re stuffed into an oversize couch in front of a Zen garden.

She took her time walking to the other side of the desk. When she sat, she folded her hands on top of the desk blotter, the blue veins running over her knuckles, making her look about ten years older than I’d originally thought. Sixties. Dad’s age. God, he shouldn’t be here.

“Ms. Farrell,” she began, “I cannot stop the police from questioning a patient, as much as I wish that weren’t the case. It was just a few questions. Apparently, your father might’ve been a potential witness to a crime.”

I laughed. “Sure. I’m sure they were hoping he’d be a great witness they could use on the stand.”

“Ms. Farrell,” she said, “even if he was deemed unfit legally, our hands are tied. It is not our legal right to ban the police from questioning a patient. That responsibility is yours.”

“Have you seen him? He’s a mess. Nothing he says makes any sense.”

“Look. He was talking to a nurse, and the nurse says he called her Nic, and he kept mentioning a missing girl. That he knew what happened. She had to report it, you see.”

I fought to keep the surprise from my face, but a wave of nausea rolled through, working its way from my stomach to my throat. “No, don’t you see? If he thought someone else was me, then he already didn’t know what he was saying. Don’t you see the fallacy in your logic? Nothing he says makes any sense.”

“On the contrary, your father is a very smart man. There’s always truth in there somewhere. Maybe you should ask him. Ask him about the missing girl, see what he says.”

“Were you there?” I asked.

She took a moment to compose herself, and I recognized her pause as a tactic Everett would use. Be calm, calm the situation. Keep the emotion low, grasp the upper hand. “No. He insisted it be private. They are the police, after all. My hands are tied.”

I pushed back from the table. When I got angry, I couldn’t stop the tears. As if the two emotions were all tangled up in each other. And that made me angrier, since I seemed weak when I wanted to seem confident and demanding, like Everett. The best I could muster was the grand gesture of storming out of the room.



* * *



IT TOOK OVER AN hour for Dad to recognize me, and I sat in his room the whole time, waiting it out. Then it all seemed to click. He looked at the picture on the wall and me on the guest chair in the corner. “Nic,” he said, fingers drumming against the surface of his dresser. “Nic, your friend. Your friend’s brother. Did you know he’s a cop? I didn’t know—”

“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll take care of it. Tell me what he asked. Tell me what you said.” I stood and closed the door, and he was watching me from the sides of his eyes.

“About that girl. That girl who disappeared.”

I shivered. “You don’t have to answer. It was ten years ago, and Mark probably doesn’t even remember—”

“No, not Corinne. I mean, yes, her. But also. The other. The other girl. The . . .”

“Annaleise Carter? You couldn’t possibly be a witness. You’ve been in here for . . .” I cleared my throat. “You were here when she went missing.”

“How long, Nic? How long have I been in here? It’s important.”

I paused. “About a year.”

He sucked in a breath. “I’m late.”

“Dad, what did they ask?” I said, trying to keep his focus.

“They wanted to know if I knew her well. And your brother. Always your brother. He never should’ve done that.” He stared at the side of my face as if he could see the mark Daniel left ten years earlier. As if it happened just a moment ago. I felt the sting rise to the surface like a memory, and I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheek, expecting to taste blood. The swing of his arm that had sentenced him to constant suspicion. “And if I thought they were related. Corinne and Annaleise. Yes. That’s what he wanted to know. There’s too much in that house, Nic.”