Sweet Lamb of Heaven (37)

After I pressed the END button I stepped into the shower and let hot water beat down on my face.

What about those chips people implanted in pets, I thought—what about them? Could I have been implanted with a chip? Could I pick it out from under the skin, as I’d once seen in some otherwise forgettable movie?

Scratch, scratch, blood, and a loosened nub of metal dug out of the flesh.



IF I HAD been guided to the motel by some sense beyond the usual five, some navigational instinct having to do with magnetism or light, I wanted to know what for.



THE STATE POLICE finally got to us hours after we’d first called. It was two officers, polite and attentive in their note taking. We made them sit with us in the back office, where we felt Ned might not be able to hear, and I told them everything I could think of—about Beefy John, B.Q., Ned’s driver, his rented SUV. Black and American, was all I could say, and of course he might easily have switched it out. A couple of times I had to stop, and the cops waited patiently, their faces presenting sympathy.

I wrote down the address of our house in Anchorage, where as far as I knew Ned still lived. I had no idea where he’d been staying locally—there weren’t other motels nearby, said Don, you had to drive at least half an hour for the closest lodgings open this time of year.

“Or he could be staying with local contacts,” said Will. “That mechanic, maybe? John something . . . Pruell, maybe,” he told the police.

“Ned—my husband isn’t the type to sleep in his car,” I mumbled. “He never stays in hotels under four stars.”

The policemen looked at each other.

“That narrows it down,” said one. “He ain’t in Maine.”

I had a tin ear. My sense of humor had left with Lena.

We were surprised at how soon the cops went away again. I’d thought they would stay near, I thought there’d be a task force, something—in movies policemen walked around the house or apartment of the kidnapped child’s family, tapping phones, watching at windows. But in fact the two policemen left after their brief interview of me and an even briefer search for the concealed microphone (they found nothing). Their expressions were mild.

“We’ll do our best to find your daughter, ma’am,” said one. But I didn’t like how he said it—casually, as though it wasn’t life or death.

In the silence after the lobby doors swung shut Don said Ned had to have got to them, that their placid demeanor was unnatural. He said we should assume they weren’t going to move quickly and I had to just call the FBI. But I wasn’t so sure, I was more afraid of Ned’s capabilities than they were, so instead I went online and then I borrowed Will’s phone, distrusting my own. I hired a private investigation company based in Portland.

They’d assign a team right away, they said.

I called my parents next. My mother seemed shell-shocked, as though Lena’s abduction was a sheer unreality, and offered to help with money. Her voice was so faint that I could barely hear her.



I COULDN’T SIT in the motel, I found, waiting for someone else to look for my daughter. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone who didn’t already know what had happened.

So Will and I got into his truck, a beater with worn Mexican blankets over the seats, and at my request he drove slowly up and down the icy streets, up and down, back and forth, prowling. The streets were fairly empty of traffic, only the silence of blinking Christmas lights on house fronts and in yards. There were teams of reindeer pulling sleighs, yellow outlines of bells.

Now and then someone would honk behind us or angrily pass, swerving to make a point. It felt as bleak as it looked, the houses spread out, the odd signal flashing the white walking figure to an empty corner. But I had it in my head that I needed to drive every street, and Will was willing to humor me, likely knowing I was on the edge of hysteria.

There was a worn map in the glove box, there was a half-dried-out pink highlighter in the armrest compartment, and Will pulled over and showed me how to mark the route we’d already driven. Even though it signified nothing, since we weren’t knocking on doors or looking in windows, I colored furiously. As he drove I stared out the window, checking driveways for black SUVs, trying to imagine the potential of each business or house to be harboring her. I tried to intuit Lena’s presence. Would I feel it? Would the other animals’ senses come to my aid now—detection of the Earth’s magnetic field, navigation by smell?

When we stopped at a stop sign or rare traffic light I’d trail the highlighter down the map, along the road we’d driven, which gave me a brief, businesslike feeling. Then I’d raise my face from the map. The next moment, I thought, the next moment it will be . . . I willed myself to see a face at the window, to see her small figure in the puffer coat.

“We need to stop now and go home,” said Will after a while. He said it bluntly but kindly.

I was a child myself now: as soon as you were a victim, as soon as you were deeply hurt, you were a child again.

Helplessness was the one true fountain of youth.



IT WASN’T CLEAR what Ned wanted to accomplish. He’d ordered me to cancel the divorce filing, sure, but that could easily be restarted once Lena was returned. And any contract would have been signed under duress, and not binding.

After his first texts I heard nothing for days. Christmas passed without anyone seeming to celebrate it. Or if they did, I didn’t see. It passed and faded and never was.