But Brie would have spotted them for who they were.
Brie would have waved.
“Oh my God!” Isabel had shouted, no longer thinking to whisper as her mother lay sleeping. “Oh my God!” she’d said a second time.
And then she had started running, pushing Norman and Albert out of her way. She raced from the room and down the hospital corridor to the elevator. She pressed the down button, but after five seconds she no longer had the patience to wait. She spotted the sign for the stairwell and dashed off in that direction, with her husband and brother right behind her.
She scurried down the stairs, not quite coordinated enough to jump every other step, but she made good time just the same. When she emerged from the stairwell and into the hospital lobby it took a moment to get her bearings, having zigged and zagged her way down to the ground floor, not sure which way to go to exit the building and reach the lot.
“This way,” said Albert, who’d reached the lobby half a second behind her.
The three of them emerged from the building and circled around to the parking lot, but there was no one there.
At least, not the woman they had seen waving to them.
“Are you sure this is the right lot?” a breathless Isabel asked.
“This is it,” Norman said. “There’s the red Corvette.”
“Where is she?” she asked. “She couldn’t just disappear into thin air!”
Albert looked back, and up, at the building. “There’s Mom’s room right there. This is the spot. This is where she was.”
Isabel nodded. Norman appeared miffed, as if she needed assurance from her brother over him.
She spun around, scanning. “This is insane. Where did she go?”
“It did take us a couple of minutes to get down here,” Albert said, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees as he struggled to get his wind back. “That’s enough time to run away or get in a car or God knows what.”
“Let’s split up,” Norman said urgently. “I’ll go that way, you guys head down the sidewalk in different directions, meet back here in a couple of minutes.”
Isabel didn’t need a second opinion from Albert. “Okay.”
They fanned out. And, as Norman had suggested, they regrouped a few minutes later. No one had spotted the woman.
“I didn’t believe... I didn’t believe it was her,” Isabel said. “I didn’t think it was possible, not until... not until she waved.”
“I know,” Albert said. “I mean, it could have been her, but it could have been a lot of people who looked a bit like her. But when she spotted us... Christ. It was like she knew who we were. Like she recognized us.”
Isabel was starting to look unsteady on her feet. Norman and Albert flanked her, each taking an arm, in case she suddenly fainted.
Crying, she said, “Oh God, could she really be alive?”
“I don’t know,” Albert and Norman said almost at the same time.
“If she is, why do this? Why torture us this way? How does she know Mom’s in the hospital? Is Brie watching us? Is she keeping tabs on us?”
“Izzy, Izzy, calm down,” Albert said. “We need to... we need to...”
“Need to what?”
“I don’t — maybe we should call her.”
“Call her? Call Brie? How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“No, not Brie. The detective. What was her—”
“Hardy. Marissa Hardy. Yes, yes. Call her. Call her now.”
Albert got out his phone. “I don’t know if I still have her in my contacts...” Before he’d found a number, he stopped himself. “She’ll think we’re crazy. She’ll think we’re seeing things. And you... you were always on her case.”
Isabel looked defensive. “I was not.”
“You were, demanding that she arrest Andrew.”
“I had reason, and you know it. She never went after him hard enough. She should have charged him! That man should have been put on trial and—”
She stopped herself.
“Unless,” Albert said.
Isabel needed a moment to put it together. “If it is Brie, then...”
“Maybe we should be calling him.”
Isabel considered that for a second. “No, no, not him. We don’t know that was Brie. He’s not getting off the hook for this yet. Call that detective.”
Albert went back to scrolling through contacts on his phone. “Hang on, I think I still have... Here she is.”
Norman watched as Albert took the lead, tapping the screen and putting the phone to his ear, listening for the rings.
“It can’t be,” Norman whispered to Isabel. “There’s just no way.”
Isabel, ignoring him, said to Albert, “Is she answering?”
“Jesus, just hang on. Not yet— Hello? Is this Detective Hardy?”
Isabel sidled up close to him so she could hear both sides of the conversation.
“Yes, this is Hardy,” the detective said.
“You might not remember me, Detective, but my name is Albert McBain. Six years ago, my sister—”
“Our sister!” Isabel shouted loud enough to be heard at the other end of the call.
“Our sister, Brie, disappeared and you were the lead detective, and—”
“I remember. What can I do for you, Mr. McBain?”
“We weren’t even sure whether we should call you. Our mother, she’s in the hospital. We’ve been visiting. And we were looking out the window, and in the parking lot — I know this is going to sound pretty out there, but we think we might have seen Brie.”
Detective Hardy was silent.
“Hello?” Albert said. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Hardy said slowly. “When did this happen?”
“Just now. Like, ten minutes ago. We’re in the parking lot. We saw her, this woman, and rushed down, but by the time we got here she was gone. I mean, maybe it was someone who looked like her, but when she saw us in the window, she waved. It was like she recognized us.”
“That’s... interesting,” the detective said.
Isabel snatched the phone from her brother’s hand. “Detective Hardy? It’s Isabel.”
“Hello, Isabel.” Hardy’s voice suddenly sounded wearier.
“What do you mean, interesting?”
Another pause from the detective. “There was another... possible sighting of your sister this morning.”
“What? Where? Where was this? Why didn’t you call?”
“I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions, but it was at her last known address, on Mulberry. The neighbor said a woman pulled into the driveway and seemed stunned that the house that was there several years ago was no longer standing.”
“He said it was Brie?”
“He said she looked something like your sister, but the identification was far from conclusive. Look, Ms. McBain, give me some time to look into this.”
“Do you think it’s even possible? Could Brie be—”
Hardy cut her off. “I said I’ll look into it. If you see whoever this was again, call me. Anytime, day or night. Goodbye.”
Isabel was ready with another question, but the detective had ended the call. Isabel, visibly annoyed, handed the phone back to her brother.
“She says she’ll look into it.”
“Do you believe her?” Albert asked.
Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Norman spoke up. “My guess is she’s just shining you on. It’s crazy. She’s not going to do anything about it. If I were her, I wouldn’t take this seriously. I mean, come on.”
Albert was shaking his head. “If she says she’s going to look into it, I think she will. I’ve never known her to bullshit anyone.”