Now You See Her (18 page)

“So, let me get this straight,” Christopher Murphy said when she was through. “You’re saying you spied on the O’Connor house, that you followed Shannon to the park—”

“I didn’t follow her to the park. I was already there—”

“But you
had
followed her previous to that meeting in the park?”

“I was hoping she’d lead me to my daughter.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Shannon where to find her?” was the next logical question.

How many times had she asked herself the same thing? “Because I was afraid that if Devon knew I was here, if she
knew I’d seen her, then she’d disappear again. And I couldn’t take that chance.”

“Who’s Devon?” Johnny asked, his unlined brow wrinkling in confusion.

“My daughter.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you said your daughter’s name is Audrey.”

“Audrey is the name she’s using.”

“Why would she be using an alias?”

“Obviously because she doesn’t want to be found,” Marcy replied testily.

“You don’t think she’d be happy to see you?” Colleen asked.

“No.”

“Why is that, Mrs. Taggart?”

“Because there were issues.…”

“What kind of issues?”

“It’s complicated. Our relationship was …”

“Complicated,” Johnny repeated.

“Yes. Devon was having a hard time. She blamed me for a lot of her problems—”

“Such as?”

“I’d really rather not get into that.”

“If you want our help, isn’t it best we know all the facts?”

“I’m not asking for your help,” Marcy said.

“Why not?”

“What?”

Christopher Murphy reasserted his position as leader. “I assume you have pictures of your daughter. Can I see them, please?”

Marcy reached inside her purse and pulled out the photographs of Devon, placing them in his outstretched hand. The other two officers immediately pressed against his side, passing the pictures back and forth across his midriff.

“Pretty girl,” Johnny remarked.

“Can’t say she looks familiar,” Colleen said.

“No. Don’t know her,” Officer Murphy agreed. “Tell me, why didn’t you come to us when you first saw her?”

Marcy stared at him blankly. Another question for which she had no satisfactory response.

“I mean, I think I understand your not wanting to confront Shannon,” he continued gently, “but we might have been able to help you find Audrey.”

“How could you have helped me?”

“Well, that
is
our job, Mrs. Taggart. We help people. Or try to anyway. We could have circulated her picture, talked to Shannon in an official capacity, asked around, found out about Audrey, made sure she really is your daughter.”

“What are you saying? That you don’t believe me?”

“I’m not saying that at all. It’s just that you only saw her for half a second through the front window of Grogan’s House,” the senior garda reminded Marcy. “If I’m not mistaken, those windows are covered with advertisements.”

“I know what I saw.”

“I don’t doubt it’s what you
think
you saw.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like my husband,” Marcy said with a sneer, instantly regretting voicing this thought out loud.

“Your husband thinks you might be mistaken?”

“My husband’s thoughts are no longer my concern.”

“Have you spoken to him about this?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”

“And?”

Marcy swallowed her growing frustration. “He prefers to believe our daughter is dead.”

“Why would any father want to believe his daughter is dead?”

“Because sometimes it’s just easier that way. And Peter has always preferred to take the easy way out.”

“Always?” Christopher Murphy asked, his eyebrows moving toward the bridge of his nose. “You’re saying this has happened before?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Has
it happened before, Mrs. Taggart?”

“Has
what
happened?” Marcy demanded. Then, before he could answer, “Look. I’ve had enough of this. I appreciate your wanting to help, I really do, but it’s not necessary. So if you’ll just give me back my passport, I’ll be out of your hair.” Instinctively Marcy’s hand reached for her head, her fingers disappearing into a mass of frenzied curls. I must look like a lunatic, Marcy thought. No wonder they think I’m deranged.

Officer Murphy pressed her. “This isn’t the first time you’ve thought you’ve seen your daughter, is it, Mrs. Taggart?”

“I don’t understand how any of this is relevant.” How many times had she said that already? Maybe it was she who was irrelevant.

“Has this happened before, Mrs. Taggart?” he repeated a fourth time.

If he asks me that again, Marcy thought, I’m going to punch him right in the mouth. She closed her eyes, shook her head. “Yes, it’s happened before.” She reopened her eyes in time to catch the knowing look that passed among all three officers. Just what is it you think you know? Marcy demanded silently. Trust me, you know nothing.

“So, it’s possible you could be mistaken this time as well, is it not?”

“No, it’s not poss—Yes, I guess it could be possible,” she said in the next breath, deciding she might as well tell them what they wanted to hear. She’d been a fool for thinking she
could trust them or that they might be able to help her. Tears filled her eyes and fell the length of her cheeks. They stung where her flesh was bruised and tender, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Christopher Murphy said with a sigh. “I believe it is.”

“Good. Then I can go?”

“You can go.” He reached toward the pile of paperwork on his desk, retrieved Marcy’s passport, and handed it to her along with the pictures of Devon.

Marcy tucked them into her purse as she rose to her feet. “Thank you.”

“Would you like us to call someone for you, Mrs. Taggart?” Colleen asked gently.

Marcy thought of Liam. She could use a friendly face about now, she thought, shaking her head. “No. There’s no one.”

“Actually, I believe there’s someone waiting for you in the hall,” Christopher Murphy said, reaching for the old-fashioned black rotary phone on his desk. “Jenny, is that gentleman still waiting for Mrs. Taggart?” he asked. “He is? Good. Tell him she’ll be out straightaway.”

Marcy made an effort to smooth down her hair as John Sweeny opened the door to the hall. Thank God for Liam, she was thinking, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble for taking off work or that he wouldn’t be held responsible for the damage she’d caused. Mostly she hoped she didn’t look too awful.

She stepped into the dust-lined, narrow hallway, her head turning from side to side, looking for Liam.

She saw the blue eyes first, the rest of him only gradually coming into focus as he pushed himself off one of the folding chairs lining the wall.

“Marcy,” Vic Sorvino said, rushing to her side. “My God, look at you.”

W
HAT HAPPENED?” HE ASKED
, his eyes darting from her black eye and bruised cheek to the tops of her scuffed shoes and then back again. “Are you all right?”

“Vic! What are you doing here?”

A sheepish grin crept onto his sweet mouth. “You left without saying good-bye.”

“What?” Was he serious? What was he saying?

“I was worried about you. The way you just took off …” He paused, took a long, deep breath. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Then they told me you’d been in a fight—”

“Who told you? I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” Marcy asked again.

“I stopped by Grogan’s House. The waitress told me what happ—” He looked around. Officers Sweeny and Donnelly were listening to their exchange from the open doorway. “Look, why don’t we go somewhere more private?”

Marcy wasn’t sure this was such a great idea in light of what had happened the last time they’d gone somewhere more private. Still she allowed him to lead her by the elbow out of the station and onto the busy South Mall.

“Take care,” Colleen Donnelly called after her.

“Did they hurt you?” Vic was asking. “Because if they laid a hand on you, we can contact the American embassy—”

“I’m Canadian,” Marcy said, reminding him. “And no, the police were really very kind. I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” she asked a third time, stopping in the middle of the busy street. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Italy?”

“I decided Italy could wait a few more days.”

“But why?”

A flush of embarrassment stained Vic’s cheeks, visible even in the growing darkness of the early evening. “I would have thought that was pretty obvious.”

What was he saying? “I’ve never been very good with the obvious,” Marcy admitted as pedestrians surged by them on both sides. “I’m afraid you’ll have to spell it out.”

Vic took a quick glance over both shoulders. “Look. Why don’t we go grab a beer or get something to eat? It’s almost six o’clock.”

As if on cue, the bells of St. Anne’s Shandon Church began ringing out the hours.

“I’m really awfully tired,” Marcy said. “It’s been one hell of a day.”

“Where are you staying?”

Should I tell him? Marcy wondered. Vic Sorvino was a
thoughtful, decent guy who’d been nothing but nice to her. So why was she hesitating? She tried not to recall the tenderness of his touch, the way his hands had gently caressed her body. Yes, they’d been good together. Maybe even great. Still, a one-night stand was a one-night stand. What was he doing still hanging around? “At a little bed and breakfast over on Western Road,” she told him.

“Lead the way.”

SHE WAS FIFTEEN
years old the day she walked into her parents’ bedroom and found the now-familiar scene of her mother standing naked in the middle of the room, the contents of her closets strewn across her bed, the drawers of her dresser open and empty, dozens of delicate lace bras and panties thrown on the carpet like so much debris. Every necklace she owned appeared to be hanging from the wrists of her outstretched hands. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying.

“What are you doing?” Marcy asked, although she knew the answer well enough to mouth the response along with her mother.

“I have nothing to wear.”

Marcy shrugged and turned away. So it was starting again, she thought, her stomach twisting into a series of tight little knots. Why had she come up here? She could have simply eaten her breakfast and left for school with nothing more than a casual shout of good-bye up the stairs, as Judith had done, as her sister did every morning. No way Judith was ever going to find herself in this position—standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, her mother naked in front of her, at least a dozen beaded necklaces dangling from her arms like tinsel on a dried-out Christmas tree.

It had been almost a year since the last occurrence, a year in which her mother had dutifully followed her doctor’s orders and stayed on her medication, a year without major incident, a year of relative calm. A year in which Marcy had allowed herself to be lulled into a false sense of security. A year in which she’d permitted herself the fantasy that they were a normal family, that they could actually be happy, that she might be able to relax her guard.

Which was all it took for everything to go to rat shit, she realized when she saw her mother standing naked in the middle of the room—one moment when you weren’t looking.

“Maybe you could help me, darling,” her mother was saying, several long beaded necklaces falling from her wrist to the floor as she beckoned Marcy forward. The necklaces slithered across the carpet and came to rest at Marcy’s feet, where they coiled in on themselves like brightly colored snakes.

Venomous snakes, Marcy thought, taking a step back. “I’ll be late for school.”

“This will only take a minute.”

“You should get dressed.” Marcy stared just past her mother at the orange-and-black Calder lithograph on the far wall. It embarrassed her to see her mother in the nude, her once slender body now flaccid and lined with unflattering veins. “You’ll catch cold.”

Her mother laughed, incongruous tears streaming down her face. “You don’t catch cold from being naked, silly girl. You catch cold from a virus. Everybody knows that.”

“I have to go.”

“No. Please don’t leave me.”

“I’ll call Dad.”

“No, you can’t do that. He’s in court all day today. A very important case. We can’t disturb him.”

“Then I’ll call your doctor.”

“He’s on holiday.” A note of triumph crept into her mother’s voice, as if she’d been planning this for some time.

Marcy crossed the room toward the en suite bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet above the sink, and began rifling through the various creams and lotions for her mother’s medication. “Where are your pills, Mom?”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I flushed them down the toilet.” Again, that disturbing note of triumph.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Marcy said, lifting the cover off the toilet and staring into the empty bowl. The joke’s on me, she thought.

“I stopped taking them weeks ago. I don’t need them anymore, darling. They were just making me sick.”

“They were making you
well.”

“Then I’d rather be sick,” her mother said stubbornly.

“I have to go.” Marcy walked briskly out of the bathroom, heading for the door. “I’m going to be late.”

Her mother’s hand on her arm stopped her. Another necklace rolled off her wrist and dropped to the floor, coming apart on impact, its delicate orange beads scattering in all directions. “Why don’t you wear any makeup, sweetheart? A little blush or mascara would do wonders for you, take some of the emphasis away from your hair.”

In response, Marcy grabbed a pair of shapeless gray sweatpants from the bed and thrust them against her mother’s chest. “Get dressed, Mom.”

“Please, won’t you stay with me a little longer?”

“I can’t. I’ll see you later.”

“There’s so much cruelty in the world,” her mother said,
triggering the start of another crying jag. “All those poor abused children and animals, all those people dying in poverty.” She sank to the floor. “Sometimes I feel such despair.”