Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

thought it would go this far, when the whole thing started, did you? First Bechman and then Celia. That’s how it is. You take that first step off the path and then in no time everything is out of control, out of your control, that is. And then one day you have to look at yourself in the mirror and you have to ask yourself, was it worth it?” I shook my head. “Was it, Ted?”
    But he didn’t answer me. He was barely moving now, his hands as heavy as lead, his legs like two sawn logs, his eyes getting glassy, his lids drooping the way one of Madison’s did. I glanced back at the posters of Ted in costume, then pulled out my cell phone and dialed the precinct.

Chapter 35

    It was eight-thirty by the time I went upstairs and knocked on Leon’s door. If he was surprised to see me, it didn’t show.
    “Where’s Madison?” I asked, still standing in the doorway, waiting for Leon to move out of the way so that I could go in.
    “Reading in her room,” he said.
    I nodded.
    “Do you want to see her?” he asked.
    “Not just yet, Leon. I’d like to talk to you first.”
    He stood looking at me before standing aside so that I could walk in. There was music coming from Madison’s room, the first time I’d heard that, the first time I’d heard her do anything that made noise. I guess that’s why she hadn’t heard me knock, and for now, though I’d avoided this conversation as long as I could, I was glad she hadn’t heard me. I was glad I could talk to Leon alone.
    We walked into the living room. Leon sat on the daybed. I sat on the love seat.
    “I have a lot to tell you, Leon, maybe too much. I don’t know how much of it, how much of the detail, you’re going to want to hear, so I’m going to tell you the bottom line first.
    I had a lead about Sally, something old. I had, I thought, the slimmest chance on earth of finding her, but I promised you I’d try my best and I always try to keep my promises. When you and Madison took care of Dashiell, I was in Florida looking for Sally.”
    He never moved while I spoke, not his hands, not his posture, not anything on his face. Somehow, I thought, it would have been easier if he looked heartbroken, if he showed hope, if I could see what he was feeling in any way. But that didn’t happen. Not yet anyway.
    “I found her,” I said. “So at least we know she’s alive.“
    “At least? What does that mean?”
    “She’s not going to come back, Leon. If I went back now, or you did, she wouldn’t be there.”
    For a moment, we just sat there, Leon staring into his lap, me wishing I were somewhere else, anywhere but where I was.
    Then I asked him how much he wanted to know, and he said he wanted to know everything. So I told him how Sally had left the house to walk the dog because she needed to get out and didn’t want to be questioned. I told him how she kept walking, how she kept delaying going home. I told him about Paul, the truck driver, and about Sally going down to the Keys, to the place where she got pregnant with Madison. I told him, as best I could, about the life she was leading, a life with as few demands on her as was possible, a dead-end off-the-books job for subsistence, a library card in another name I was sure, the ocean across the road, her only companion the dog.
    “She still has Roy?” he asked. And for a moment, Leon Spector came to life. She hadn’t thrown everything of him away. At least she had his dog.
    “She does,” I said.
    I took the digital camera out of my pocket and showed him the pictures, Roy waiting at the shore, as focused as if he were holding a flock, and then Sally, her mask still on, Roy swimming out toward her.
    “That’s all?”
    “I couldn’t take more. It would have made her run sooner. I wanted, at least,” there it was again, “to get the story for you. I thought you’d want to know what had happened.” Thinking there was no way I could tell this that wouldn’t be like driving a knife into his heart, no way at all.
    But Leon was no longer looking at me. He was looking past me, toward the far end of the living room. I turned, and there was Madison.
    She was wearing pajamas, but she had a baseball cap on and work boots that were several sizes too big for her feet. She wasn’t wearing dark glasses and I could see that the droopy eyelid was a tiny bit less droopy, which was good, but the other eye was twitching like crazy and her cheeks were jumping as well. But the worst of it was her right arm, slightly