Long odds still happened to someone. And now it was happening to her.
Had these been anxiety issues-or had Tia been right all along?
Once again Tia’s cell jangled and once again she grabbed it fast, hoping with everything she had that it was Adam. It wasn’t. The number was blocked.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Baye? This is Detective Schlich.”
The tall woman cop from the hospital. The fear struck yet again. You think that you can’t keep feeling fresh waves, but the stabs never make you numb. “Yes?”
“Your son’s phone was found in a trash can not far from where your husband got jumped.”
“So he was there?”
“Well, yes, we assumed that already.”
“And someone must have stolen his phone.”
“That’s another question. The most likely reason for tossing the phone was that someone-probably your son-saw your husband there and realized how he’d been tracked down.”
“But you don’t know that.”
“No, Mrs. Baye, I don’t know that.”
“Will this development make you take the case more seriously?”
“We were always taking it seriously,” Schlich said.
“You know what I meant.”
“I do. Look, we call this street Vampire Row because there is no one here during the day. No one. So tonight, when the clubs and bars open again, yes, we will go out and ask questions.”
Hours yet. Nightfall.
“If anything else develops, I will let you know.”
“Thank you.”
Tia was hanging up the phone when she saw the car pull into her driveway. She moved toward the window and watched as Betsy Hill, Spencer’s mother, stepped out of the vehicle and started toward her door.
ILENE Goldfarb woke up early in the morning and flicked on the coffee maker. She slipped into her robe and slippers and padded down her driveway to grab the paper. Her husband, Herschel, was still in bed. Her son, Hal, had been out late last night, as befits a teenager in his last year of high school. Hal had already been accepted at Princeton, her alma mater. He had worked hard to get there. Now he blew off steam, and she was fine with that.
The morning sun warmed the kitchen. Ilene sat in her favorite chair and curled her legs under her. She pushed away the medical journals. There were a lot of them. Not only was she a renowned transplant surgeon but her husband was considered the top cardiac man in northern New Jersey, practicing out of Valley Hospital in Ridgewood.
Ilene sipped the coffee. She read the paper. She thought about the simple pleasures of life and how rarely she indulged them. She thought about Herschel, upstairs, how handsome he was when they met in medical school, how they had survived the insane hours and rigors of medical school, of internship, of residency, of surgical fellowships, of work. She thought about her feelings for him, how they had mellowed over the years into something she found comforting, how Herschel had recently sat her down and suggested a “trial separation” now that Hal was about to leave the nest.
“What’s left?” Herschel had asked her, spreading his hands. “When you really think about us as a couple, what’s left, Ilene?”
Sitting alone in the kitchen, scant feet from where her husband of twenty-four years had asked that question, she could still hear his words echo.
Ilene had pushed herself and worked so hard, gone for it all, and she had gotten it: the incredible career, the wonderful family, the big house, respect of peers and friends. Now her husband wondered what was left. What indeed. The mellow had been such a slow slide, so gradual, that she had never really seen it. Or cared to see it. Or wanted more. Who the hell knew?
She looked toward the stairs. She was tempted to go back up right this very moment and crawl into bed with Herschel and make love to him for hours, like they used to too many years ago, boink those “what’s left” doubts right out of his head. But she couldn’t make herself get up. She just couldn’t. So she read the paper and sipped her coffee and wiped her eyes.
“Hey, Mom.”
Hal opened the refrigerator and drank straight from the container of orange juice. There was a time she’d correct him on this-she’d tried for years-but really, Hal was the only one who drank orange juice and too many hours get wasted on stuff like that. He was going off to college now. Their time together was running out. Why fill it with nonsense like that?
“Hey, sweetheart. Out late?”
He drank some more, shrugged. He wore shorts and a gray T-shirt. There was a basketball cropped under his arm.
“Are you playing at the high school gym?” she asked.
“No, Heritage.” Then he took one more swig and said to her, “You okay?”
“Me? Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your eyes look red.”
“I’m fine.”
“And I saw those guys come by.”
He meant the FBI agents. They had come and asked questions about her practice, about Mike, about stuff that simply made no sense to her. Normally she would have talked to Herschel about it, but he seemed more concerned with preparing for the rest of his life without her.
“I thought you’d gone out,” she said.
“I stopped to pick up Ricky and doubled back down the street. They looked like cops or something.”
Ilene Goldfarb said nothing.
“Were they?”
“It’s not important. Don’t worry about it.”
He let it go, bounced the ball and himself out the door. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. She glanced at the clock. Eight A.M. At this hour it had to be the service, though she wasn’t on call. The operators often made mistakes and routed the messages to the wrong doctor.
She checked the caller ID and saw the name LORIMAN.
Ilene picked up and said hello.
“It’s Susan Loriman,” the voice said.
“Yes, good morning.”
“I don’t want to talk to Mike about this”-Susan Loriman stopped as if searching for the right word-“this situation. About finding Lucas a donor.”
“I understand,” she said. “I have office hours on Tuesday, if you want-”
“Could you meet me today?”
Ilene was about to protest. The last thing right now she wanted to do was protect or even help a woman who had gotten herself into this kind of trouble. But this wasn’t about Susan Loriman, she reminded herself. It was about her son and Ilene’s patient, Lucas.
“I guess so, yes.”
23
TIA opened the door before Betsy Hill had a chance to knock and asked without preamble: “Do you know where Adam is?”
The question startled Betsy Hill. Her eyes widened and she stopped. She saw Tia’s face and quickly shook her head. “No,” she said, “I have no idea.”
“Then why are you here?”
Betsy Hill shook her head. “Adam is missing?”
“Yes.”
Betsy’s face lost color. Tia could only imagine what horrible memory this was conjuring up. Hadn’t Tia thought before about how similar this whole thing was to what happened to Spencer?
“Tia?”
“Yes.”
“Did you check the high school roof?”
Where Spencer was found.
There was no argument, no more discussion. Tia called out to Jill that she’d be right back-Jill would soon be old enough to leave alone for brief spells and it couldn’t be helped-and then both women ran toward Betsy Hill’s car.
Betsy drove. Tia sat frozen in the front passenger seat. They had driven two blocks when Betsy said, “I talked to Adam yesterday.”