The Other People: A Novel(65)

“If Izzy is out there—”

“If? Izzy is out there, and you have to find her!”

“We are doing all we can.”

“Right—along with pursuing every lead. Are lessons being learned along the way, too?”

“Gabriel—”

“I don’t need platitudes and clichés. I need you out there, searching for her.”

“We don’t have unlimited resources.”

“You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

“No. I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“We are doing our best. I am doing my best. Is there anything else you can tell us that would help?”

He hesitated.

“Until the day one of you dies. Do you understand?”

“I’ve told you all I can.”

“Right. Then let us do our job.”

He ended the call, just about resisting the urge to hurl the phone out of the window. So near, he thought. So near to finding all the answers. And yet, so far. He had pieces of the story. Fragments. But only one person knew the truth, and she wasn’t talking to anyone. And if the woman had, as Harry said, been caring for Izzy, looking after her all this time, who was doing that now? Who had his daughter?

Could he face more years of not knowing? Worse, could he face knowing? Could he face the crushing inevitability of that call when the police told him that they had found her, they had found Izzy’s body?

He brought up the photo of Izzy on his phone. Have you seen me? Yes, sweetheart, he thought. I see you all the time. In every dream. In every nightmare. But there’s so much I didn’t see. I never saw those first adult teeth come through. I never saw your hair darken and thicken. I never saw you learn to swim or stop saying “lellow” instead of “yellow.” You’re fading, slipping from my memories. Because memories are only as strong as the people who hold onto them. And I’m tired. I don’t know if I can hold on for much longer.

He let the tears slip from his eyes. They hit the screen, blurring the picture, until he could barely see Izzy at all. Going, going, gone.

And then his phone buzzed with a text.





She sleeps. A pale girl in a white room. Around her, machines whirr and buzz and an alarm flashes red. The window bangs open and the conch shell lies on the floor, shattered into sharp shards. The air resonates with the discordant chime of the piano keys.

This is what alerted Miriam first, even before the alarm on her pager. She runs into the room and takes in the scene. Her heart is pounding, legs trembling from where she has scrambled up the stairs from the kitchen. She stares around at the mess, the shell, the open window. What on earth is going on?

Then, as always, practicality takes over. She goes to the girl’s side, checks her pulse, heart rate, fluids. She resets the machines, presses buttons, makes adjustments. The machines resume their steady whirring.

She breathes a small sigh of relief. She’s getting too old for this, she thinks. It’s time she retired. But she can’t. She has a responsibility here. But sometimes she feels so weary. The burden of it all too much to bear.

She touches the soft piece of paper in her pocket again. He gave it to her when he first started searching for his little girl. She kept it to remind herself how much he has lost, too. Sometimes, she finds herself looking at it and wondering if it’s true—if his daughter really is out there, somewhere, just as she stares at Isabella and wonders if she is inside there, somewhere. Two young girls. Both lost. Except, as long as someone is still searching for you, you are never really lost. Just not yet found.

She brushes a tendril of hair from the girl’s face. It feels damp. Sweat? But Isabella doesn’t sweat. And, there’s a smell. Seawater, she thinks. Isabella’s hair smells of seawater. It must be from the open window.

She goes to close it. Outside, the sky looks sullen and thunderous. A storm brewing on the horizon. Miriam shivers. She is not given to flights of fancy, but she knows when something is wrong. She can feel it in the air.

She turns. A movement in the shadows behind the door catches her eye. A figure emerges. Miriam jumps. Her heart flutters against the brittle bones of her chest.

“Who are you?” she stammers. “What do you want?”

He smiles. White teeth glint.

“I got a lot of names.”

He raises a gun. Miriam clutches at the crucifix around her neck.

“But some people call me the Sandman.”





A traffic jam. Of all the times. Gabe would have laughed at the irony, if he didn’t feel like crying and screaming and punching a fist through the windscreen.

The line of cars in front stuttered and stopped. He watched the speedometer creep up to thirty, pushed the car momentarily into fourth gear and then immediately had to hit the brakes again.

He thumped the steering wheel. Once again, fate seemed to be conspiring against him. Stopping him from reaching her. Déjà vu. Always too late. Always just out of reach.

I’ve found your daughter. Meet me at the coffee shop. Junction 12.

Of course, the text could be a cruel joke. A prank. But why?

A dream is never more fragile than when it’s about to come true. The slightest wrong move and it could disintegrate into dust. He felt like a man teetering on a tightrope across a river of hungry crocodiles, heading toward a mirage. Risking everything for something that could vanish into a haze.