Heartstopper Page 4

  The whole thing was his fault after all.

  He’d been arguing with Pauline because she’d forgotten to call the plumber about the leak in the faucet of the bathroom sink, and the damn dripping was keeping him awake half the night, and she’d promised she’d do it first thing that morning, and of course she hadn’t, which meant he’d have to endure another night of Chinese water torture, and then he’d have to call the plumber himself tomorrow, when he was supposed to be working, and he was still irritated—hell, he was irritated now, almost eight months later—when he saw Amber in the kitchen helping herself to the last of the peach pie in the fridge—the piece he’d been saving for himself—and he’d made some stupid comment about how if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up like Kerri Franklin’s daughter—talk about the pot calling the kettle black—and next thing he knew, the pie was in the garbage and Amber was dropping pounds as if they were flies, and now she was maybe 125 pounds—six feet tall and 125 pounds!—and it was all his fault. He was a lousy parent. A terrible husband and a worse father. So how could he go home when every time he walked through the front door of their messy bungalow, he was greeted by his own failings and swiftly wrapped in the open arms of despair?

  He’d tried talking to Pauline about their daughter, but she’d brushed aside his concerns. “Pas de problème,” she’d sniffed in her annoying habit of throwing French phrases into their conversations. It was the style to be superskinny these days. She rhymed off a bunch of television actresses he’d never heard of, then pointed to the covers of half a dozen fashion magazines that lay across the bed, like squares on a quilt. All boasted pictures of shapeless young women, their monstrous-sized heads overwhelming their sticklike bodies. Whatever happened to tits and ass? he’d wondered.

  Of course, if tits and ass was what you were looking for, there was always Kerri Franklin.

  John shook his head, trying not to picture the voluptuous woman writhing beneath him, trying not to hear his name escaping those obscenely lush lips. Their affair, wedged in between husbands number two and three, had lasted only a few months, although it had enjoyed a brief resurgence after the departure of husband number three. That was after the surgery on her eyes but before the latest round of implants, and definitely before Ian Crosbie had arrived on the scene. John wondered if there’d be another heated reunion once the good doctor came to his senses and went back to his wife. He wondered what it felt like to have silicone breasts and collagen-enhanced lips. He wondered why women did such terrible things to themselves, why they were so willing, even eager, to turn themselves into living cartoons.

  Skeletons and cartoons, John was thinking as the phone rang. He reached across his desk and picked up the receiver. “Weber,” he announced instead of hello.

  “Good,” his wife said. “You’re still there.”

  John smiled. Finally, he was thinking. Something they could agree on. “What’s up?”

  “I was wondering what you felt like for dinner.”

  John felt instantly guilty—for thinking ill of his wife, for his affair with Kerri Franklin, for dredging up excuses not to go home. “I don’t know. Maybe—”

  “I thought you could pick up something from McDonald’s. They’ve been showing these commercials for McChicken sandwiches all afternoon, and it’s really put me in the mood.”

  John rubbed at the bridge of his nose, scratched at his receding hairline, and let out a deep breath. “I’m not sure what time I’ll be getting home,” he began, grateful when he saw a late-model, white Cadillac pull into the parking lot, and Howard and Judy Martin emerge, a look of grim determination on their faces. Clearly something was wrong. Just as clearly, he would have to stay and find out what it was. “Looks like I might be tied up here for a while—”

  The line went dead in his hands.

  “Thank you for being so understanding,” John continued, waving the Martins inside his office. “Howard … Judy,” he said, rising to his feet and motioning toward the two brown, high-back chairs in front of his desk. “Is there a problem?” It was a stupid question, he realized, sitting back down, and noting the stiffness of Howard’s posture, the anxious twisting of the tissue in Judy Martin’s manicured fingers, the look of fear in their matching blue eyes. They’d been the best-looking kids in high school, and twice been crowned prom king and queen, an honor that had yet to be repeated. Judy had gone on to win a host of local beauty pageants—Miss Broward County, Miss Citrus Fruit, second runner-up to Miss Florida—before marrying Howard, and her brown, upswept hair always looked as if it were awaiting its tiara. But even with too much makeup—John tried to remember if he’d ever seen her without it—she was a beautiful woman.

  Howard, tall, trim, and still boyishly handsome, grabbed his wife’s hand and held tight to her trembling fingers. “It’s Liana. She’s missing.”

  “Missing? For how long?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Apparently, she didn’t come home from school.”

  “Apparently?” John repeated, thinking he must have misunderstood. Howard and Judy Martin were involved, concerned parents. If one of their children hadn’t come home from school the previous afternoon, why had they waited until now to pay him a visit?

  “We were in Tampa,” Judy explained softly, as if reading his mind. “Howard had some business there, and Meredith was competing in this junior pageant. We thought we could combine…” Her voice drifted off. She stared out the window behind John’s head.

  “We called home last night,” Howard continued, “but the boys never said a thing about Liana not being there. Apparently they assumed she was with her boyfriend, and they didn’t want to get her in trouble.”

  “We got back around two o’clock this afternoon,” Judy said. “We assumed everyone was in school. But when Liana wasn’t home by five o’clock, I started to get worried. I asked the boys if their sister had told them she’d be late, and that’s when they confessed she hadn’t come home yesterday. I called Peter right away. He said he hadn’t seen her either.”

  “Peter?” John grabbed a pen, began scribbling notes on a pad of white paper. This was starting to sound more serious than he’d first imagined, although he was certain everything would resolve itself favorably in reasonably short order.

  “Peter Arlington. He’s been her boyfriend for about six months now.”

  “They fight all the time,” Howard added with a shake of his head. “They’re always breaking up, getting back together, breaking up again.”

  “You know how it is with young love,” Judy added, the words catching in her throat.

  John nodded, although, in truth, he didn’t know. He’d never really been in love.

  “Peter said the last time he saw Liana was yesterday at school. Apparently they had some kind of disagreement, and they weren’t talking to each other, so he didn’t call her last night. And then he wasn’t feeling well today, so he stayed home from school.”

  John narrowed his eyes, tried to picture Peter Arlington. The name didn’t ring any immediate bells. “You believe him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  John noted enviously that Howard’s hairline was still intact, although he was starting to gray at the temples. He’d grow old gracefully and with dignity, John thought, leaning forward in his seat and feeling the extra pounds around his middle press rudely against the desk. “This Peter kid—do you believe him?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” Howard admitted. “I just assumed he was telling the truth.”

  “Why?” Judy asked. “You think he’s lying?”

  “I have no idea.” John fed Peter Arlington’s name into the computer on his desk and was relieved when it came up empty. “He’s not in the system, which is good.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s never been arrested, never been to jail.”

  “Oh, no. Liana would never get involved with anyone like that,” Judy assured John.

  “Al
l right. Let’s back up a minute here,” John said. “After you called Peter, did you phone anyone else?”

  “Of course. I called all of Liana’s friends.”

  “They are …?”

  “Tanya McGovern and Ginger Perchak. They’re her best friends. I called them first.”

  John scribbled down the familiar names. Tanya had played one of Amber’s sisters in Torrance High’s production of Fiddler on the Roof last year. Liana Martin had played the other.

  “And then I phoned Maggie Mackenzie and Ellen Smythe. I even called Victor Drummond.”

  “Victor Drummond?” her husband asked. “Why would you call that freak, for God’s sake?”

  “Well, he and Liana played lovers in Fiddler on the Roof, and then she was partnered with him on that science project for Mr. Peterson earlier in the year, and she said he was really nice, that he wasn’t weird at all once you got to know him, and I had the feeling that she always kind of liked him—”

  “Liked him? What are you talking about?”

  “—so I thought I’d take a chance.”

  “She wasn’t with him,” John stated softly.

  Judy shook her head. Her hair didn’t move. “No one has seen her since yesterday afternoon. Tanya said she called Liana’s cell phone a bunch of times and left a slew of messages, but that Liana never called her back.”

  “Have you tried her cell?” John asked, although he already knew the answer. Of course they’d tried their daughter’s cell.

  “The last time we tried it was in the car on the way over here,” Howard confirmed. “She’s not picking up.”

  “It’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.” Judy bit her quivering lowering lip. Her eyes filled with tears. The tears teetered precariously on her lower lids.

  “Has she ever done anything like this before?”

  “Never,” Judy said adamantly.

  “We’re not saying she’s perfect,” Howard amended. “She’s stubborn and headstrong, and she has a mouth on her when she gets mad, but all in all, she’s a good kid.”

  “Can you think of any reason she might have had to run away?”

  “Run away?” her mother asked. “From what?”

  “Were there any problems at home?”

  “What kind of problems?”

  John hated when people answered his questions with more of their own. “Was she upset about something? Or angry? Maybe you’d imposed a curfew …,” he continued before they could ask for specifics.

  “She didn’t have a curfew. She wasn’t angry or upset. There were no problems.”

  “Has she been anxious, maybe a little depressed?”

  “Anxious? Depressed?” Judy repeated.

  “Well, you said she’d had a fight with her boyfriend …”

  “They were always fighting,” Howard said dismissively. “To them, it’s foreplay.”

  “What are you getting at?” Judy asked John, a wrinkle of worry furrowing her otherwise unlined brow. “You think she might have done something to hurt herself?”

  “Kids this age are very vulnerable,” John said, thinking of Amber. “If she was upset about anything …”

  “She wasn’t,” Howard said.

  “Would she tell you if she was?”

  “She’d tell me,” Judy said. Then less assuredly: “I think she’d tell me.”

  “Is there any chance she might be pregnant?” John asked quietly, hoping the softness of his voice would offset any potential explosion from the other side of the desk. It had been his experience that parents, no matter how open-minded they considered themselves to be, were uncomfortable imagining their children’s sex lives.

  Howard Martin covered his lips with his hand, cursed under his breath. Even still, the words were clear: “Son of a bitch.”

  “She was on the pill,” Judy volunteered after a pause of several seconds.

  “What?” her husband asked.

  “She’s eighteen,” Judy said. Then forcefully: “Liana wasn’t anxious. She wasn’t depressed. And she wasn’t pregnant. She certainly wouldn’t have done anything to hurt herself.”

  “And she wouldn’t just take off without telling us.”

  “Have you checked her computer?” John asked.

  “Her computer?”

  “You know how much time these kids spend on the Internet. Maybe she met some guy in a chat room.” For the second time that afternoon, John found himself thinking about Kerri Franklin. Hadn’t she met her Dr. Crosbie in exactly that way? At least, that was the local scuttlebutt. Amber had come home from school one day, breathless with the news that her English teacher’s husband had left her for Delilah Franklin’s mother, and you’ll never believe how they met!

  “I didn’t think to check her computer,” Howard said. “I don’t even know her password. Do you?” he asked his wife.

  She shook her head. “Maybe the boys know.”

  Immediately Howard pulled his cell phone out of the pocket of his tan-colored windbreaker. He punched in a series of numbers and waited. “Noah, do you know your sister’s password?” he asked without preamble. “Yes, of course, for the computer,” he said impatiently. “She won’t kill you,” Howard assured him. “But I might if you don’t tell me what it is right now…. Okay. Thanks. I take it she hasn’t called?” He snapped the tiny phone shut, then returned it to his pocket. “Her password is Jell-O, and there’s been no word.”

  “I’ll need her e-mail address.”

  Again Howard looked to his wife to supply it. She did so with a hollow voice that seemed to be coming from another room altogether.

  “I’ll have one of our guys look into it first thing in the morning.”

  “Is there anything we can do tonight?”

  “Well, it’ll be getting dark soon, but I’ll have a police cruiser take a look around.” John noted a flash of disappointment streak through Judy’s eyes. “And I’ll snoop around a little myself,” he added quickly, trying not to picture the sunset he’d been looking forward to. He understood that most people, especially people in a small town like Torrance, liked to feel they were dealing with the person in charge. In charge of what? he wondered, scratching at his upper lip. When was the last time he’d felt in charge of anything? “Does she have any favorite haunts? Places she likes to go?”

  “Merchant Mall,” Judy said. “But it’ll be closed now.”

  “And Chester’s,” Howard added, naming the ham-burger-joint-cum-pool-hall that was a popular hangout for many of the area’s teens.

  “I’ll check it out.” John had never liked Chester’s. It was managed by Cal Hamilton, a former bouncer from South Beach, whose wife was always covered with bruises. “Are any of her things missing?”

  “Her clothes are all in her closet,” Judy said. “Her CDs, her makeup, everything is where it always is. Except for her school stuff and her purse, which she would have had with her. You don’t think something awful’s happened to her, do you?” she continued in the same breath, unable any longer to prevent the question that had been circling their heads, like a menacing crow, from swooping into their laps.

  How do you answer a question like that? John asked himself. “I don’t know,” he said, opting for honesty. “I hope not, and certainly there’s no evidence to suggest anything bad has happened.” Except, of course, that she’s been missing for more than twenty-four hours, he thought, but didn’t say. Their ashen faces told him they were thinking the same thing.

  Still, the reality was that most missing teens turned out to be runaways. They surfaced eventually, not terribly apologetic, some even indignant, and always rather surprised by all the fuss their disappearance had caused. But this didn’t seem to be the case here. From everything the Martins had just told him, there was no reason to believe Liana had run away. She was a popular, well-adjusted teenager with lots of friends and few worries. Of course, the parents were often the last to know if there were any real problems, and so he’d have a few officers start interviewing Liana
’s friends privately, and he’d personally stop in at Chester’s before heading home. Pauline wouldn’t be pleased. But then, with any luck, she’d be asleep by the time he crept into bed. “Do you have a recent picture of your daughter?” he asked.

  Judy reached into her red leather purse. “I have this one. She never liked it. She says it makes her nose look too big, but it’s always been one of my favorites because she looks so happy.” She removed the small, color photograph from its red leather frame and handed it across the desk.

  John smiled at the image of the pretty girl with the long, reddish blond hair. Both mother and daughter were right, he thought. The picture did make Liana’s nose look bigger than it was, but her smile was wide and genuine. She did indeed look happy. He hoped she was somewhere smiling right now. He didn’t think so, he realized glumly, pocketing the picture. “I’ll take this over to Chester’s, maybe stop at a few other places, show the picture around, see if anybody’s seen her. If she’s not back by morning, we’ll make up some flyers, post them around town.”

  “Should we alert the media?” Howard asked.

  “That won’t be necessary at this time.” John almost smiled. There was no real media in Torrance, other than a biweekly newsletter that consisted mainly of local produce prices, advertisements, and obituaries. Most people in the area received either the Sun-Sentinel out of Fort Lauderdale or the Miami Herald. If Liana still hadn’t turned up by the weekend, he’d alert both those papers, as well as the sheriff’s departments in each city. If necessary, he’d contact the FBI.

  “Do you think she might have been kidnapped?” Judy asked, again reading his mind.

  “Well, it’s been over twenty-four hours and you haven’t received any ransom notes,” John told her. “I think you would have by now.”

  “What if it’s not money they’re after,” Judy continued, speaking more to herself than to the sheriff. “What if some lunatic took my daughter, what if he—”