The Night Parade(23)

“Does Mom know about the quarantine back home?” Ellie asked.

He hesitated too long on the question, causing the girl’s eyes to narrow again. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Have you told her?”

“No, not yet. We can tell her when we talk to her.”

“Or maybe she saw it on the news,” Ellie said.

“Maybe,” David said.

Ellie opened her mouth to say something more, but no words came out. Instead, her mouth just widened as her chin sank lower. She had her gaze fixed on the TV above David’s head.

“What?” he said. “What is it?”

When she didn’t respond, he turned around and looked up at the TV.

There were two photos on the screen—one of him, one of Ellie. He recognized the photo of himself from a vacation in Ocean City two summers ago. Kathy had taken the picture. Beneath the photo was his full name, David James Arlen. They did that with criminals and presidential assassins—used their first, middle, and last names. So there would be no confusing him with all the other David Arlens there might be in the world.

The photo of Ellie was more recent. A school photo, with a fake woodsy backdrop. In it, she was bright, vivacious, and somehow cunning. Her smile was a thing of beauty. Beneath her photo was her own name, Eleanor Arlen. She was an innocent, so there would be no need for her middle name, which was Elizabeth.

The first thing that hit him was a jarring sense of disbelief. He was sitting here, looking at himself smiling in a photograph on a TV news broadcast. The second emotion that struck him, nearly instantaneous with the first, was pure fury at having been violated in such a fashion. Because they would have had to break in to their house to obtain those photos. There was no other way. Which also meant they had started looking for them sooner than he would have thought. Or hoped.

That white van . . .

He caught the final few words of the male newscaster, whose voice was superimposed over the photos: “. . . have issued an AMBER Alert for the pair, who are assumed to be driving a black Ford Bronco with Maryland tag number M-one-five-nine-seven-two. Arlen is being sought for questioning following the death of his wife, Kathleen Arlen. Police also advised that Arlen’s daughter, eight-year-old Eleanor Arlen, is in dire need of medical assistance. If anyone knows the whereabouts of David Arlen, police are requesting you contact . . .”

David turned back to face his daughter. Briefly, the whole diner seemed to tip to one side. His skin prickled with heat, yet at the very core of his body it felt like a solid rod of ice had formed, restricting his movement and freezing his guts.

A single tear spilled from Ellie’s eye. When she looked away from the broadcast and found her father’s face, David saw that his own vision had grown blurry and threatened to break apart.

Ellie mouthed, “Dad . . .” But only the slightest whisper of sound escaped her. Ellie’s lower lip quivered. A second tear burned down her cheek and pattered onto her plate.

He was already digging his wallet out of his pants before he knew what he was doing. He tossed a handful of bills onto the table, not bothering to count them, then reached out to his daughter with one hand. She did not move, did not recoil from him as he feared she might, and he was able to grasp her around one wrist. With his other hand, he stuffed the wallet back into the rear pocket of his jeans. Distantly—or seemingly so—there sounded a muted thunk, and it took him several seconds to realize that it was the sound of the handgun coming loose from his waistband and landing on the cushioned seat behind him.

“Shhhh,” he said. It was somewhere between a whisper and a moan. “Look at me, Ellie. Look at me. Don’t take your eyes from me.”

He released her wrist just long enough to tug the bill of the ball cap lower so that it obscured her eyes. With his other hand, he felt around the seat until he located the handgun. When he did, he stuffed it down the back of his pants again. The gun’s cool metal slid freely along the sweaty pocket of flesh at the small of his back.

Ellie groaned. It was a tiny sound, and it approximated the word “Mom.”

“Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s go. Let’s get up and go.”

He took her by the wrist and gave her a gentle yank out of the booth. She went limp and he caught her with an arm around her shoulders. He whispered nonsense into the side of her face, then begged her to keep it together, keep it together, they needed to get out of here without making a scene . . .

Their waitress studied them with a puzzled expression. She was wedged between two vinyl bar stools at the counter and thankfully didn’t approach.

“He doesn’t feel well,” David said.

His hand atop her head, he kept her facing the floor as he ushered her through the diner and out into the parking lot. He felt her go limp again and threaten to collapse to the ground, but he held her upright by the forearm and refused to let her go. He never slowed in his trek across the parking lot to the car. His shoes stirred up dusty white clouds.

“Shhhh,” he said.

“No, no, no,” she said, her voice choked with tears.

His grip on her arm tightened. “Let’s get to the car.”

She uttered something—a sound so pathetic and alien to him that it seemed impossible it had come from another human being, let alone his daughter.

He directed her around to the passenger side. It seemed to take forever to get the door open. And when he did, Ellie refused to move.