Dina Santorelli (23 page)

Charlotte threw her head back in laughter. She poured more
water down the wall until she stopped and let out a big yawn. Jamie knew how
quickly children could decelerate and, sure enough, Charlotte dropped the cup
into the bathwater, blinking her eyes lazily.

Jamie
released her hand a little from Charlotte's back and reclined her until the
little girl was lying straight back and resting on her right hand. She lifted Charlotte up and down in the water, causing tiny waves to ripple along the sides of the
bathtub, marveling at how pliant she was, how restful and trusting, and how
easy she was to hold in the water. Jamie submerged her more until everything
except her head was underwater and with her left hand, Jamie smoothed down the
wet curls from Charlotte's face, her hair floating out in all directions. She
looked like a pudgy little mermaid. Charlotte's eyelids drooped as the water
caressed her cheeks.

The
water
. Jamie thought about the river.
They had seen those people in canoes, but there was no relying on when the next
one would paddle by. She had to get across. It was the only way. But with a
baby?

Jamie
took a deep breath and lowered her hand further down into the bathwater until
its surface crept up over Charlotte's ears. She held her there, and Charlotte opened her eyes wide, perhaps confused by the change of sound and sensation, but
then closed them again.

"It's
all right, sweetie," Jamie soothed.

Charlotte's lids opened at the sound of her voice, and their
eyes met. Then they closed again. Jamie had the little girl's complete and
total trust. She glanced at the bathroom doorway. No one was there.

Then
she lowered her hand to the bottom of the tub, and the child's head went with
it, submerging completely.

Before Jamie could lift
Charlotte up out of the water, the little girl's survival instincts kicked in,
and she pushed herself forward with a jolt. Gasping for air, eyes closed, Charlotte reached in Jamie's direction to get out of the bathtub at once. She coughed up
tiny drops of water, her pale, wet face blotched red from the strain, her
confused wails bouncing off the ceramic tiles.

"It's
okay, it's okay, I'm sorry." Jamie only wanted to dip her quickly, just to see.
She pulled Charlotte out and onto her lap and was patting her back when Bailino
stormed inside the bathroom.

"What
the hell happened?" he roared.

"She
swallowed some water, but she's okay. She's crying. That means she's okay,
she's breathing."

"She
doesn't look okay!" Bailino's yells were making Charlotte cry even more. He was
bending down, towering over them as Jamie wrapped Charlotte in a towel.

"Please
stop yelling," Jamie said. It had become claustrophobic in the small bathroom.
"You're scaring her."

"
I'm
scaring her? Get her dressed now!"

With
her arms wrapped around Charlotte, Jamie ran out of the bathroom while Bailino
sat down on the lid of the toilet bowl, gripping the top edges of the bathtub
and sink, suddenly feeling all of his forty-seven years. His heart was thumping
in his chest, and he pressed back against the cool of the toilet tank as the
steam in the air filled his lungs with soothing vapor. The sight of the little
girl struggling to breathe had knocked the wind out of him—her clenched face,
the sucking of air. It wasn't until that moment that he realized how much
Charlotte Grand resembled her father.

***

Phillip Grand's head was
being yanked out of the small bucket of water, probably the only water around
for miles in the Iraqi desert; he was gasping, begging for them to stop. The
Republican Guardsmen, dressed in their four-color desert uniforms, were
laughing, having a good old time. No sooner had they pulled Phillip's head out,
and he had gotten oxygen into his deflated lungs, did they put him back in and
hold him there. It took both men to hold Phillip Grand—although he was skinny
and soft-spoken, he had considerable strength.

Bailino
was lying facedown in the hot sand searing his face and palms as he held onto
his M16, but he lay still. Like a gray wolf, Bailino relied on his stamina,
rather than his speed, for hunting. As far as he could see, the two men were
alone, and they hadn't seen him. His walkie-talkie rattled, but Bailino ignored
it, inching closer. He was going to do this alone. When he thought he was close
enough, he readied his weapon, and just as they forced Phillip Grand's head
down again, Bailino fired two times, shooting both men once in the head. As the
bodies collapsed to the ground, Phillip came thrashing out of the water, his
tall, lanky body recoiling into a fetal position as he coughed up sprays of
inhaled water that pooled in the hot sand and immediately evaporated. Phillip
looked up, his dirty-blond eyebrows and lashes wet and full of sand, and saw
Bailino.

"Thanks,
brother," Phillip wheezed. Bailino slammed him on the back with the palm of his
hand several times until his breathing sounded clear.

"Where
... where is everyone?" Phillip asked.

"I
was just going to ask you that."

"They
left," Phillip said. "About a half hour ago. I couldn't understand them. But
there was one other..."

A
shot fired, and Bailino went down.

"Fuck,"
Bailino said, grabbing his shoulder.

Phillip
grabbed Bailino's gun. He fired back, hitting the Iraqi soldier in his thigh,
causing him to fall. The man was writhing in the sand when Phillip reached him.
The Iraqi turned his weapon on him, and Phillip shot him in the head. Without
wasting time, he ran back to Bailino, who was using whatever water was left in
the bucket to clean his wound.

"C'mon,
we have to get out of here."

"This
is the thanks I get for saving your ass," Bailino said, trying to stand.

Phillip
secured his arm under Bailino's armpit, and the pair ran south toward the
border.

***

Charlotte was still heaving
by the time Jamie got to the nursery. It was dark inside, and she fumbled for
the light switch. She bounced the little girl up and down, hoping the vertical
movement would quiet Charlotte's screams—it had worked for Peter when he was
colicky. It didn't. She laid Charlotte on the crib mattress, and as the child
rolled around kicking her strong legs, Jamie diapered her and then reached for
a clean onesie and snapped it shut. The little girl had reached that state of
delirium where the bawling had taken on a life of its own, and there was
nothing to be done but let her cry it out. Jamie watched, surprised by how
little guilt she felt for what she had done. She just had to know.

Charlotte was standing now and grasping the bars of the crib,
shaking them. Jamie picked her up and paced back and forth in the little room,
hesitant to leave, not wanting to see Bailino's outraged face again. She peeked
into the bedroom, but he wasn't there.

She
couldn't let Charlotte cry for much longer, but she also knew kids could find
the strength to cry for hours if they wanted to. She had to get Charlotte to relax. Across the bedroom, the black wood of the baby grand piano gleamed.
There was a quiet majesty about the instrument that was in sharp contrast to
the anarchic events playing out all around her. She had never seen anyone play
it and wondered if it was even in working order. Jamie brought the exhausted
child out of the nursery and peeked into the bathroom. It was empty.
Where
had Bailino gone
, she wondered. She stepped over to the piano, sat on the
small bench, and flipped up the little door that exposed the smooth black and
white keys. She placed Charlotte on her lap, opened one of her clenched fists
and placed her pointer on middle C, pressing several times and eliciting a
melodic
ding ding ding
.

Within
seconds, Charlotte's crying waned and then disappeared. As her little body
hiccupped, she pressed her tiny fingers, all of which fit on a single key,
down—but so softly that the noise emitted was imperceptible. Jamie placed her
finger over the child's and pressed until a
ding
sounded once again.

Charlotte smiled. "Mo?" she said with weak enthusiasm.

"You
do." Jamie placed her hands on the keys, and Charlotte pressed one and then two
keys at a time, making a symphony of loud, disjointed notes—a welcome change
from the crying.

As Charlotte played, Jamie looked outside the window and saw Bailino and Joey standing near a
large pine tree. Joey appeared upset, and Bailino had his hand on the teen's
shoulders.

"Mo,
mo, mo!" Charlotte banged on the piano with both fists, one after the other,
the chords rattling the bedroom like a preschool orchestra. But neither Bailino
nor Joey seemed to be able to hear the music; Jamie imagined the entire log
cabin had been soundproofed.

As
the little girl played, Jamie's gaze lifted to the trees and beyond, the music
carrying her into the clouds. She could see a divide, below which, she assumed,
was the river and all the way to the hills on the other side, which were in
full bloom. The array of greens created a natural complexity of shade that was
made dazzling by the setting sun. Her life was somewhere out there waiting to
be reclaimed. Or perhaps, she thought, it was in this pristine bedroom waiting
to begin.

When
Jamie turned her attention back to Charlotte, she realized the noise had
stopped. The little girl had passed out, her head atop the black piano keys and
her hands spread out like wings across the rest. She lifted her up and carried
her to the crib. When she got back to the window, the two men were gone, but
Jamie knew that although Bailino had disappeared, it wouldn't be for long.

Nurberg returned to the
station still steamed from his showdown with Mrs. Grand. He'd heard plenty of
stories among the officers about run-ins with the First Lady and got a taste of
what it felt like to be in her crosshairs—and he didn't like it. What bothered
him the most, though, was that he had let her get under his skin. For years, he
dealt with scum-of-the-earth types, men who slapped around their women, mothers
who ran prostitution rings from their children's bedrooms, and he always
managed to remain cool—cool enough to earn the nickname "Ice"—a moniker that
belied his boyish face and friendly demeanor. Professionally, Nurberg was
unflappable. Until today.

He
tossed his notebook and folders onto his desk and threw himself into his swivel
chair, which rolled back toward the wall. It had been a long day. Katherine
Grand attacked him. Why? Yes, he understood her anger, but was there more? And
the governor's late morning stroll to "get air." What was that about? Nurberg
remembered Phillip Grand's face as he was leaving Taryn's—distraught, but was
he hiding something? After all, wasn't the First Lady right—doesn't it always
turn out to be the parents in these things?

Nurberg
leaned his swivel chair so far back that the front wheels came off the floor.
Both Phillip and Katherine Grand had been at Kliger Nursing Home from 11:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m. for the ribbon cutting and luncheon yesterday. Their appearance
was witnessed by hundreds of people, recorded for the evening news. They were
clean.
But couldn't they have had help?

Nurberg
imagined Katherine Grand barking out orders to a roomful of degenerates, her
beady little eyes piercing the dark like laser beams. There was no motive, but
did she need one? Was there a reason why anyone did anything? Because they can?
Because they "needed air"?

He
regretted asking Rosalia Garcia to stop by the station this evening for a few
more questions—a spur-of-the-moment decision he'd made after leaving the Executive Mansion. In his heart, he thought that the governor was right, that the nanny was
not involved in the disappearance of Charlotte Grand, but Mrs. Grand had gotten
him all out of whack, and he thought maybe another interview might turn up
something new. In other words, he was grasping at straws.

Nurberg
looked at his watch. Five thirty.
Mrs. Garcia should be here any minute
,
he thought. He emptied his pockets onto his desk—his house keys, three breath
mints, two quarters, his change from a two-dollar pretzel, and a thin wallet
containing two credit cards, his driver's license, twenty bucks, and an expired
library card.
Yep, that about summed things up.
He was feeling moody and
frustrated, as if he was trying to swim across an ocean, but could only tread
water. Underneath his wallet, a slim piece of white cardboard peeked out, and
Nurberg picked up John Callahan's business card. There was nothing
extraordinary about it, just your run-of-the-mill card with points of contact
and Callahan's photo in the top right corner. Once upon a time, real-estate
agents were the only ones with enough chutzpah to put their pictures on their
business cards and billboards, but nowadays vanity had become a commodity. He
thought of his police badge and how skeptical people were when he showed it to
them—they studied it suspiciously to be sure he was a real cop, as if they'd
know. Nurberg imagined nobody bothered doing that when handed the business card
of John Callahan—why would anyone pretend to be the manager of Dick's Sporting
Goods? But for a moment, Nurberg imagined his name on the card, of leaving all
his work at the office at 6:00 p.m. and going home to a house full of noise. He
imagined carrying a wallet that was fat, overflowing with family photos.

"Hey."
Missy Giles peeked her head into Nurberg's office.

"Hey,"
Nurberg replied. Missy had her hair in a ponytail now, rather than the freshly
blow-dried bob she wore early this morning, a telltale sign that it was the end
of the workday. She wore a gray pantsuit with flared legs that made her look
taller and thinner than she really was. Missy always wore a suit. She told him
once that it was because she had a youthful face and when working in a place
made up mostly of men—who tended to pat her on the head to show she had done a
job well—a
uniform
made her seem like one of them. Looking at the curves
of her hips under the polyester blend, Nurberg couldn't help but think
otherwise.