She panted faster and faster, heart juddering, sweat breaking out all over her body, hot and cold at the same time.
This couldn’t be real. She had to be in some kind of nightmare: the worst nightmare she’d ever had. Trapped in a box. Like a…
Satin lining. Walls of wood, maybe steel.
Like being in a coffin.
Her hands twitched, kept knocking against the hard walls, as she gasped over and over again: “No… no… no…”
She’d forgotten all about her headache.
That light-headed feeling that accompanied the hardness in her stomach and the coldness throughout her body, which she always felt before she passed out.
And she was gone.
9.
By the time I got back into the Defender headed down 128 South toward Boston it was after noon. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Marshall Marcus really did have a serious reason to fear that something had happened to his daughter. Something he’d actually anticipated.
In other words, not an accident. Even if it had nothing to do with the brief abduction a few years back. Maybe it was nothing more than a fight between Alexa and her stepmother, which ended with Alexa making a threat-I’m leaving, and I’m never coming back!-and then taking off.
Though it didn’t really make sense that Marcus would withhold that sort of thing from me. Even if he was being chivalrous and wanted to shield his wife from the embarrassment of airing the family’s dirty laundry, it wasn’t like Marcus to be discreet. This was a guy who happily discussed his constipation, his difficulty urinating, and how Viagra had improved his sex life even more than JDate. He was the king of “TMI,” as my nephew Gabe would say: Too Much Information.
Just as I was about to call Dorothy and ask her how we might be able to locate Alexa’s phone, my BlackBerry rang. Jillian, the office manager.
“Your son’s here,” she said.
“Uh, I don’t have a son.”
“He says you two were supposed to have lunch?” In the background I could hear cacophonous music playing way too loud. She’d turned my office into a dorm room.
“Whoops. Right. He’s my nephew. Not my son.” I’d promised Gabe I’d take him to lunch, but I’d forgotten to put it on the calendar.
“That’s funny,” she said. “We just had a long talk, Gabe and me, and I just assumed he was your son, and he never corrected me.”
“Yeah, well.” He wishes, I thought. “Thanks. Tell him I’ll be there soon.”
“Cool kid.”
“Yeah. That your music?”
There was a click, and the music stopped. “Music?”
“Could you put me through to Dorothy?” I said.
10.
Gabe Heller was my brother Roger’s stepson. He was sixteen, a very smart kid but definitely a misfit. He had hardly any friends at the private boys’ school he attended in Washington. He dressed all in black: black jeans, black hoodies, black Chuck Taylors. Recently he’d even started dying his hair black too. It’s not easy being sixteen, but it must have been particularly hard to be Gabe Heller.
Roger, my estranged brother, was a jerk, not to put too fine a point on it. He was also, like our father, in prison. Luckily, Gabe was genetically unrelated to his father, or he’d probably be in juvie. I seemed to be the only adult he could talk to. I don’t know what it is about me and troubled kids. Maybe, the way dogs can smell fear, they can sense that I’ll never be a parent, and so I’m safe. I don’t know.
Gabe was spending the summer at my mother’s condo in Newton. He was taking art classes in a summer program for high school students at the Museum School. He loved his Nana and wanted to get away from his mother, Lauren-who was no doubt relieved not to have to deal with him after school was out. My mother was hardly strict, so he was able to hop on the T and go into town and hang out in Harvard Square when he wasn’t in school, and I’m sure he enjoyed feeling like a grown-up.
But I think the main reason he wanted to be in Boston was that it gave him an excuse to see me, though he’d never admit it. I loved the kid and enjoyed spending time with him. It wasn’t always easy. Not everything worthwhile is easy.
He was sitting at my desk, drawing in his sketch pad. Gabe was a scarily talented artist.
“Working on your comic book?” I said as I entered.
“Graphic novel,” he said stiffly.
“Right, sorry, I forgot.”
“And hey, way to remember our lunch.” He was wearing a black hoodie, zipped up, with straps and D-rings and grommets on it. I noticed a tiny gold stud earring in his left ear but decided not to call attention to it. Yet.
“Sorry about that, too. How’s the summer going for you?”
“Boring.”
For Gabe, that was a rave. “Wanna grab some lunch?” I said.
“I’m only about to pass out from hunger.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I noticed Dorothy hovering at the threshold. “Listen, Nick,” she said. “That number you gave me? I’m not going to be able to locate her phone.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. That sounds… defeatist,” I said.
“Ain’t got nothing to do with defeatism,” she said. “Nothing to do with my ability. It’s a matter of law.”
“Like that ever stopped you?”
“It’s not-oh, hello, Gabriel.” Her tone cooled.
Gabe grunted. He and Dorothy had a history of clashing. Gabe thought he was smarter than she, which was probably true, since he was an alarmingly brainy kid-and better at computers, which wasn’t true. Not yet, anyway. Still, he was sixteen, which meant that he thought he was better at everything. And that just pissed Dorothy off.
“Here’s the deal,” she said. “The person whose phone you want me to locate…” She glanced at Gabe in annoyance. She was always discreet about the work she did for me, but she was being particularly careful.
“Can we speak in private, Nick?”
“Gabe, give me two minutes,” I said.
“Fine,” he snapped, and left my office.
“SOUNDS LIKE you’re actually taking the case,” Dorothy said. “Will wonders never cease.”
I nodded.
“Couldn’t pass up the money?”
I replied with sarcasm, “Yeah, it’s all about the money.”
“You got a problem with money?”
“No, it’s… it’s complicated. This is not about Marshall Marcus. I happen to like his daughter. I’m worried about her.”
“Why is he freaking out? I mean, she’s seventeen, right? Drives into town, probably to some club, hooks up with a guy. That’s what these kids do.”
“You sleep around a lot when you were her age, Dorothy?”
She gave me a stern look and held up a warning forefinger with a long lilac fingernail. I didn’t understand how she could type with nails that long.
I smiled. As little as I knew about her sex life, I knew she was hardly the promiscuous type.
“I don’t get it either,” I admitted.
“I mean, I understand why the dad could be losing it if this was right after she got snatched in that parking lot. But that was years ago, right?”
“Right. I think he knows more than he’s telling me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you need to ask him some direct questions.”
“I will. So tell me about Facebook.”
“Tell you about Facebook? All you need to know, Nick, is it’s not for you.”
“I mean Alexa. She must be on Facebook, right?”
“I think it’s a legal requirement for all teenagers,” she said. “Like the draft, back in the day.”
“Maybe there’s something on her Facebook page. Don’t kids post everything they do every second?”
“What makes you think I know the first thing about teenagers?”