Missing (12 page)

But from the second we started talking about my settlement, the same damn thought kept popping into my head like a jack-in-the-box. I had to keep cramming it
back under its lid. I just couldn't help wondering: If I'd told Gaia my news, how would she have responded? Would the word
money
ever have fallen from her lips in that conversation?

I doubt it. She knows what it's like to be robbed of something more important than money. Just like I do. She's been robbed of a family, a home. I've been robbed of my legs. Compared to that, money really seems kind of silly.

Then again, maybe we're just both weird.

Sometimes being disabled had perverse advantages.

 

SAM COULDN'T SEE ANY POINT TO
getting out of bed. He'd let his clock-radio alarm play on for five minutes before it finally turned itself off. It was one of those “wacky” morning talk shows with lots of sound effects, some “dumb Italian” character, Eddie Spaghetti or something—and the requisite “slick-talking” guy who makes inane jokes while some poor woman is forced to laugh at them.

In other words, it was the perfect bonus to go with the tortured purgatory he reluctantly called his life.

After the radio went off, he tried to go back to sleep. He could sleep for days. What was the point of going outside? So he could endure more petty frightened stares and cold shoulders from his ignorant classmates? Why go to class? To study up for his defense when they hauled him off to jail? Too bad he was premed. He really should have been prelaw. . . .

Jail. I wonder what it's going to be like in jail. I wonder if it's anything like
Oz—
that show I saw on HBO when I went home for Christmas
—
with crazed white supremacists and rapists and killers and
—

Sam turned over in his bed. He pulled his pasty eyelids apart to see the time. Once his vision finally
focused, he could see it was 11:12 A.M. He still wasn't ready to get up, though. Not by a long shot.

What do they even have on me?

Whenever he asked himself that question—which was pretty much every few minutes—that's when the real anger kicked in. He looked around at the nuclear aftermath that was his room. He hadn't even bothered to clean it up. There was no point. No doubt they'd be back again. Bernard and Reilly were certainly tenacious; he had to give them credit for that. But he couldn't help but wonder . . .what made them so sure he was guilty? A lifelong diabetic's insulin kit? A couple of undeleted e-mails from Ella on his computer? They probably thought he killed Mike over some woman. As if Sam would ever have done something like that for Ella Niven—

At the mere thought of Ella, Sam's rage got the better of him. He threw the covers off his body and hurled them into the wreckage.
The sight of his own pale, thin body made him ill.
He was losing it—his health, his sanity, everything. He truly wished Ella were still alive. That way, he could kill her himself. Every ounce of this tragedy was her doing. If he could just tell someone about her . . .

That was the horrible irony of this whole situation. This entire investigation was intended to uncover who killed Mike Suarez. And Sam already
knew
who killed Mike. But who was going to believe him? Nothing like
a mysterious dead woman to bolster your case. Ella might as well have been the “one-armed man.” Or why not Dracula? Or the werewolf? The cops would believe any of those stories just as easily.

I could tell Josh about her,
Sam thought, almost desperately.
At least then someone else would know the truth.

But if he told Josh, Sam would probably lose the one guy he could even come
close
to calling a friend. No doubt such a crazy story would only frighten Josh away. And Sam didn't think he could deal with that. Still, what if the cops started asking about Ella? Someone other than Sam needed to know the truth if it ever came down to a trial with witnesses and a jury.

Of course, someone else did know the truth. But where was she?

Where are you, Gaia? Don't they have phones in Germany? Why haven't you called me?

He finally won Gaia's heart. They were finally together, and now, when he needed her more than ever, she'd vanished into thin air, somewhere in Germany with her uncle.

All he wanted was to talk to her. Just to talk. Even if only for a few minutes. Everything would feel so much more bearable.

But no.
No such luck for the cursed Sam Moon.
Which meant only one thing. Back to sleep.

 

ED KNEW THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE
he might knock a few students down in the hall at this speed. But quite honestly, he didn't care. He had to find out what the hell was going on.
Now.
Besides, it wasn't as if he'd lose any friends by barreling into some meathead jock or pitying girl . . .
the kind of girl who avoided looking at him at all costs for fear of acknowledging his wheelchair.
He picked up the pace, zooming past lockers and faces and black clothes in a blur, until he reached the office.

People in the office would have the scoop. They seemed to get off on knowing every student's deepest secrets—but never sharing them.

He threw the enforced-glass door wide open and rolled in—then hesitated. He didn't want to come off as too angry, too rude. No.
Sometimes being disabled had perverse advantages.
He would play up the hurt-puppy-dog angle. He hated to do it—but in this kind of situation, one in which he was asking for a favor . . . well, sometimes it was just best to pander to pity.

“Hi,” he said with a smile. “I was wondering—do you know where Gaia Moore is?”

The oldest of them, Mrs. Cross, shook her head. “Can't tell you,” she replied brusquely.

“Of course not,” he said. His smile faltered. “Did she call in sick or something?”

Mrs. Cross took her glasses (which had been safely nestled in her white hair helmet like another set of eyes) and lifted them down onto her minuscule nose, checking down the list of sick students one by one with her pencil.

“No,” she said finally. “Ms. Moore was not sick today. Is that all we want to know?”

Ed shook his head.
Amazingly, he was too distraught to be annoyed by the royal “we.”
He couldn't understand it. He'd checked Gaia's locker between every class. He'd even checked over at Gray's Papaya at lunch. He'd asked around. No one had seen her in a while.
In a while?
It was as if she'd just vanished. Now it was three, and the day was practically over—and Ed was fed up. First the deserted house and now this. He wanted some answers.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Please, Edward. I thought we—”

“Please
what?
I just want to know where she is. She ...she's my best friend, all right?”

Mrs. Cross winced. Good. The pity was kicking in.

Another old crone, Mrs. Hadley, shuffled out to the front desk. “Are we having a problem, Mr. Fargo?” she asked.

“Yes, we are having a problem right now,” he grumbled, momentarily allowing his frustration to get the
best of him. “
We
want to know where Gaia Moore is.”

“Well, Mr. Fargo,” Mrs. Hadley said. “Ms. Moore is gone.”

Ed blinked a few times. The simplicity of her statement sent a sick chill down his back.
Her voice was utterly toneless.
It was as if she were telling him that the cafeteria was serving meat loaf for lunch or that the school colors had been changed.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Mrs. Hadley leaned closer to Ed. “It means that Ms. Moore's uncle called the school last week to place Gaia on an indefinite leave of absence. Are we satisfied?”

“No, she wasn't going to—”

Ed stopped himself. There was no point in conversing with this unfortunate but thankfully rare breed of evil elderly people. They didn't need to know what was on his mind—specifically that he knew for a fact that Gaia had decided to stay in the city.

Right. At least . . . that's what she'd told Ed the last time he saw her. Why did she change her mind? When did she change her mind? Why didn't she tell Ed? Yes, he had been away, but how about a simple phone call? She could have e-mailed. She could have at least said good-bye through somebody else....

Without another word, Ed turned around and rolled out of the office. He was numb—absolutely numb. Too numb to be depressed, even. Gaia was
gone. For good, probably. Rationally, he knew that he had a better chance of winning the lottery than ever seeing her again. But it just didn't seem possible. No— it couldn't be possible.
It was a nightmare, a surreal fantasy gone bad.
He wheeled down the hall with his head hanging down over his chest, watching the scuffed linoleum roll under his feet.

 

The
prison cell is no bigger than a cage. It is filthy, barren. A mattress on the floor. A hole for a toilet. It spits in the face of the Geneva convention. But few international authorities know of this place. It's the kind of prison they reserve for criminals beyond the scope of judicial norms.

I suppose I should feel honored.

They deprive me of nutrition, of human interaction, of any sort of mental or physical stimuli. They mean to break my will. In a way, it's amusing. I never imagined an intelligence agency could be so amateurish. Do they really think they can torture me? Do they think they can prevent me from continuing my work, even as I sit on this fetid mattress? I already have a man on the inside— a man who provides me with all the information I need.

Information about Gaia.

That is the only source of my suffering.

Tom is with her. Now. And every second he spends with her adds to the damage I know I will have to undo.

But I have accepted that. My private agony only strengthens my resolve.

And it will make my revenge all the more sweet.

A flicker of electricity shot through Gaia's body as she took it. Whatever this thing was, it was heavy.

 

GAIA'S FATHER HADN'T SAID A WORD
in the past five minutes. All he'd done was gaze at her, with this ethereal, twinkly grin—
somewhere between the Cheshire cat and a male version of the
Mona Lisa
(which, ironically, she'd just seen at the Louvre). Waiters passed. Water and wine were poured. A string trio played Verdi, and still Tom seemed to be oblivious to all sounds and external stimuli. If Gaia hadn't known better, she might have thought her father had just gotten majorly stoned before dinner.

The hotel restaurant was equally as cozy as its rooms: small and intimate. Everything in this city seemed to be bathed in white flowing cloth and dark ornate oak. In New York everything seemed to be coated in a layer of grime—at least the spots where
she
used to hang out. The more time she spent here, the less the two cities seemed to have in common. And the restaurant had the perfect addition of candlelight and fresh purple and white irises at every table. Definitely a step up from Gray's Papaya or those fast-food dives on Eighth Street. Gaia felt oddly at home. But why not? Anywhere with her dad
was
home.

She took a sip of wine. It rolled on her tongue, filling her mouth with a delicious warmth.

Tom had insisted that, being in Paris, they
had
to drink red wine at least once. Gaia had balked at first. Frankly, even though she didn't mention this to her dad, red wine gave her the creeps. Not the
fearful
kind of creeps, obviously . . . just the feeling of being unclean. The reason was simple: Red wine reminded her of her “family dinners” with her uncle Oliver.

Man, to think that he'd actually
impressed
her with that—letting her drink wine with him. It made her stomach turn. She'd shared wine and delightful conversation with that demented freak, the man who'd actually killed her mother.
How could she have been so blind to his lies and manipulations?
It didn't just make her ill; it made her feel insulted,
enraged.

But that was all in the past.

She smiled across the table at her father. It was so nice not even to have to speak. They could just sit here like this for hours. This was what being in a real family was all about. And now that Gaia looked back on it, those dinners with Uncle Oliver had felt like . . .
playing house.
It was as if Oliver were some sort of cardboard cutout of the perfect uncle. As if she'd wished for an uncle for Christmas,
and Santa had just dropped one down the chimney for her, all tied up in an Armani suit.
Like he was Streamlined Uncle Ken and she was Orphan Niece Barbie.

But now Gaia was in her own skin. She wasn't playing
anything
anymore. She even felt right in the one nice dress
she owned—the black one she'd bought with Mary and never worn. Finally. She'd known, maybe subconsciously, that it represented a part of her when she bought it, but it was a part that had been asleep for so many years, a part that had made her uncomfortable for so long, a part she could only have inherited from her mother.

She took another sip of wine. She had to admit, it felt good to give in. After all, her father hadn't suggested that they order a merlot to prove that he was some kind of “cool, permissive” authority figure. He was simply sharing something with his daughter. Something he liked. They were experiencing the elegant tastes of Paris
together,
as a family.