Gone Cold (2 page)

It was possible he was already dead, of course. In which case, I’d spent the past year chasing a ghost. It was tough enough to locate the living. Looking for a corpse was an utter waste of time. Of that I was finally sure.

As sure as I was that Hailey had been murdered within weeks, if not days, of her abduction. I’d known that all along, never truly suffered under the delusion that my daughter might still be alive. Not since the FBI began taking agents off the case. Certainly not since Tasha’s suicide.

No, I’d started my own chase much too late. I’d never sought to find Hailey while she was alive. Instead I’d sat on the sidelines, let the Bureau do its goddamn job, just as they’d insisted. I didn’t begin looking for my daughter until she was dead.

And even then, I couldn’t find her. Couldn’t find the monster who’d taken her. Couldn’t find her body, couldn’t find her bones.

And sitting on that top step to my apartment complex, shivering in the freezing cold and scudding snow, I decided that I had known long ago that I never would.

Decided that I’d been deluding myself all this time after all.

*   *   *

Someone shook me awake. I searched the darkness for a face but all I saw was a crimson scarf wrapped around a hood, an indistinguishable pair of eyes hidden deep within.

Whoever it was unlocked the door, then held it open. When I didn’t attempt to rise, he or she lifted a doormat from the lobby and placed it in the frame so that the door wouldn’t close.

I mumbled some thanks but shut my eyes tight again. When I opened my eyes a few moments later, the man or woman who’d opened the door was gone.

Finally I pushed myself to my feet and slipped inside, kicking the doormat away behind me. I tried to shake off the cold but it had already burrowed itself deep in my bones.

I opened the door to the stairwell and started up, only now realizing I couldn’t get back into my apartment anyway. Without my keys I’d have to spend the night curled up in the hallway. Still better than the freezing cold, I supposed.

When I reached the fifth floor I leaned over the railing, hoping to relieve a bit of the nausea. Instead I dry heaved, nearly vomited onto the stairs leading down to the fourth.

I stood and shoved my way out of the stairwell and lurched the fifteen steps to my door.

There waited my keys, still dangling from the knob.

I tried to remember leaving them this morning but my mind drew a blank. But then, what did it matter? Either
I
was too sloppy to continue living, or whoever was waiting for me inside my apartment was about to get what he deserved. Only one way to find out.

Before removing the keys I tried the knob, felt it twist between my fingers. With my other hand I pushed the door open and waited a few seconds before crossing the threshold. The flat was dark and quiet.

I slapped the light switch. Everything seemed to be just where I’d left it, and there weren’t many places to hide. Quietly, I snatched my keys and closed the door behind me. Poked my head into the bathroom and exhaled. No one was waiting for me.

An irrational pang of disappointment struck my nauseated stomach.

I went to my desk and opened my laptop, pressed the power button and removed my old black leather jacket as I waited for the computer to boot.

As I tossed my jacket onto the bed my eyes fell on the refrigerator door, fixed on a photo that had been held there by a Jefferson Memorial magnet for as long as I could remember. The photo was of me, Tasha, and Hailey, standing in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom in central Florida, smiles all around. It was taken on our last vacation together, mere months before Hailey went missing.

The twelve-year-old photo was faded, curled on all sides from age. I’d stared at the picture so often that any new thought it conjured punched me in the gut with surprise. Yet now I thought,
That week may have been the last time I truly felt happiness.

“Quit pitying yourself,” I muttered aloud.

I fell into the chair in front of my desk and clicked on the icon for Firefox. The browser immediately opened and I pulled down my history and tapped on the address to my in-box.

Kati Sheffield’s e-mail was waiting for me, right at the top of the bin.

No subject line.

I opened the e-mail and quickly reread the message:
Finder
,
open the two attachments and call me right away.
It occurred to me that I’d have to charge my cell phone before I called anyone. My landline had been shut off two weeks ago for failure to pay. Not because I didn’t have the money, but because clicking on their e-mail and downloading the bill and entering my payment information had seemed like too much bother.

In recent months I’d been weighing every action I took, no matter how minor. The only question I asked myself was,
Will this help me figure out what happened to Hailey?
Far more often than not, the answer was no.

So doctor and dentist appointments had been missed. Haircuts became fewer and further between. Clothes were worn for two or three days straight without a proper washing.

I downloaded the first attachment, saved it to a desktop folder marked
KATI
. I clicked on the icon to open the file, and a face materialized on the screen.

It was a face I’d seen many times before. The visage of a beautiful young woman with long chestnut hair and warm brown eyes opened wide. It was a face that existed only onscreen, a computer-generated fantasy no more real than the cowboy from
Toy Story
.

On the bottom right-hand corner of the screen were several familiar words:
Hailey Fisk at 18 years of age.
The corners of my mouth lifted as they always did when I stared at this image of what Hailey might have looked like if she’d survived to this day.

My eyes watered. A familiar lump caught in my throat.

Quickly I minimized the screen and clicked on the second attachment. Once it downloaded I saved it to the
KATI
file folder and opened it.

Another female face appeared. This visage didn’t have the smooth skin of the girl in the other picture. The cheeks were blemished. Thinner, scarred, almost the color of ash. The eyes weren’t nearly as wide or as bright; they were narrow and dark, one slightly larger than the other, reminiscent of Lucky Luciano’s infamous mug shot. The hair was chopped short and dyed jet-black.

This was a real girl, probably in her late twenties or early thirties, a young woman who’d struggled with the world. She appeared tired and angry, almost ugly with hatred.

Here too there was a small caption:
Wanted on suspicion of murder: Garda.

My first thought was that Garda was the name of a local police chief or district attorney somewhere here in the States. Then it struck me. An Garda Síochána was the name of the police force in Ireland.

I stared at Kati’s message again.
Finder
,
open the two attachments and call me right away.

I was confused. I lined the two images up side by side on the screen and compared. One looked nothing like the other. Nothing at all.

Except maybe the nose.

I lifted the laptop and held the monitor a few inches in front of my face.

Just the nose
.

But no, there was more. The chin, maybe? The distance between the eyes? Since the second image was somewhat grainy—probably captured by a closed-circuit camera, then enhanced and magnified—it was difficult to tell.

I set the laptop down and decided to call Kati after all, the hell with the time.

The BlackBerry died as soon as I pulled it from the charger. I cursed then thought maybe I could make the call while the phone was still plugged in.

I was speechless when Kati answered on the first ring.

“Simon?” she said in the voice of someone who had clearly been awake. It was the first time she’d ever used my real name over the phone.

“Kati,” I said quietly.

“Have you seen the pictures?”

“Just now. Kati, what is this?”

I endured a silence that lasted an eternity.

Then: “Simon, don’t you see?”

My eyes remained glued to the screen. I felt stunned even though I was in no way convinced. My mouth became dry. So dry that I couldn’t speak.

“Simon, I know this sounds crazy. But the geometrical features in the two images are nearly identical. Bottom line: I’d bet my life that the girl in that picture—the girl wanted for murder in Ireland—is Hailey Fisk.”

Chapter 3

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Let’s see. Got four pairs of jeans, six T-shirts, eight pairs of socks, an inordinate number of boxer shorts—
Thank you, Tasha, very much
. Backup shoes, shaving kit, toothpaste, and toothbrush.

“You have
everything,
” Tasha says as she blows through the door into our bedroom. She’s wearing a light cotton dress, one of my favorites, with a multicolor knit cardigan covering her milky shoulders and bare upper arms.

I pull her close to me, breathe in the floral scent of her shampoo, say, “Everything, huh?”

“I packed a jacket in your duffel.” She pecks me on the lips, adds, “You are cleared for takeoff, Marshal Fisk.”

I brush aside a handful of her shimmering blond locks and find the sweet spot on her elongated neck and nuzzle. Feel her shiver in my arms, the gooseflesh quickly advancing upward from her wrists.

Still does it for her,
I think with a thrill.

Next through the doorway with a unicorn backpack on her head is Princess Hailey.

“Mommy says if I wear this over my face, I can sew away.”

“
Stow
away,” Tasha corrects her.

I pull the backpack from atop her tiny noggin and toss it on the bed, drop to one knee and wrap my arms around her tightly, then press her shoulders back just a bit to take in those fresh and inviting big brown eyes.

In my periphery Tasha parts her lips, most likely to remind me of something, but defers when Hailey shoots her a look that says, you know better than to interrupt our Daddy-daughter ritual.

I pull Hailey even closer and, squirming, she giggles and says, “Let me go,” as she always does, and I hold her to me even tighter, say, “Never, baby. Never,” as I always do.

Alas, no hug lasts forever, but this is a particularly good one, and as she finally pulls away I’m satisfied that I’ve got enough of her in my lungs to carry me through the next few days, until I fly back from Romania.

“You gonna catch the bad guy?” Hailey says.

Still on my haunches, I say, “Yes, of course. You know that. Your daddy always gets his man.”

I stand, take my wife, Tasha, into my arms and give her a PG-13 kiss on the lips, my tongue tempted to carry the embrace much further.

“
And
his woman,” I add, if for no other reason than to give my lips a much needed distraction.

“We’re gonna miss you,” Hailey complains. “Why can’t we come with you?”

“Budgetary issues,” I say. “Besides, you don’t want to go to Bucharest. Romania’s a nation in transition. They rid themselves of a cruel dictator just a decade and a half ago, and civilization hasn’t quite caught up yet.”

A horn honks in our driveway.

“That would be your ride to the airport,” Tasha says.

“What would I do without you, babe?”

I grab my navy suitcase and heave it onto my shoulder so that I can carry it down the carpeted stairs without taking a vicious spill.

“Call us,” Tasha says.

“Call
me,
” Hailey says.

When I hit the bottom of the stairs I lift my royal blue duffel off the marble floor in the foyer and hang it over my arm. Dragging my suitcase behind me, I open the door and step outside. Nod at the driver who’s leaning against his black Lincoln with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the high window.

One last look behind me at the massive house, paid for by the in-laws so that their daughter can continue to look like money, even though she’s married to a broke federal cop.

Christ, I resent that house. Probably always will.

But hey, the house makes Tasha happy, and that’s what truly matters, right?

Her and Hailey.

Long as I have them I’ve everything in the world.

Chapter 4

Hours after speaking with Kati, I was seated in coach on an Aer Lingus flight bound for Dublin. I’d boarded the plane at Dulles at dawn but it took nearly an hour for the wings to de-ice. During the downtime I tried to doze, but was repeatedly slapped back to consciousness by the squawk of the PA, the pilot seeing fit to advise us every six minutes that he’d received no further news regarding our impending departure.

Luckily, I had the aisle. Next to me sat a tiny, silver-haired woman who’d kept her face buried in a worn copy of
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
until takeoff. I typically avoided chatting with strangers on planes, but there was a warmness coming off this old woman the likes of which you hardly found anymore. So when she turned to me and said, “Are you traveling on business?” I replied, “The business of my life, I suppose you could say.”

She set her book down and looked up at me. Said, “My name’s Edie,” and offered her hand. She possessed a lovely British accent, not much heavier than my own.

“Simon,” I told her.

“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Simon, but you look like a man carrying the weight of the universe. May I ask why you’re heading to Ireland? Or is Ireland home?”

Sometimes it takes the sound of another’s voice to realize just how lonely you are. It occurred to me then that the only person I’d regularly kept in touch with over the past few years was Kati Sheffield, and my relationship with Kati was pure business. There was Casey, of course, but he worked for tips, and I’d never once seen him outside Terry’s. I sometimes wondered whether he slept there.

“I’m looking for my daughter,” I said.

“Oh, dear.” She paused. “Has she run off?”

“She was taken twelve years ago, when she was six years old.”