Now You See Her

THIRTY-ONE


WHEN DID YOU REALIZE she wasn’t your daughter?” Vic was asking, holding on tightly to Marcy’s still-shaking hands.

They were sitting side by side in front of the messy desk in Christopher Murphy’s office at the garda station. Murphy had just excused himself to confer with Donnelly and Sweeny in another room.

“Not right away,” Marcy answered. “It was dark in the farmhouse, so when I first saw her I couldn’t be sure. Her hair was the same as Devon’s; she looked to be the same height and build. The shape of her face was similar, although her voice was different, even when she whispered. But she kept calling me Mommy, and so I kept telling myself that it had been a few years since the last time I’d heard her speak, and that she was older now and she’d been experimenting with various accents, that her voice could have changed. The usual rationalizations. I’ve gotten pretty good at them lately.” She sighed, deciding that “rationalizations” was something of an understatement. “Anyway, like I said, it was pretty dark, and at first she kept her head down. Her hair was hiding most of her face. And then Jax said they should just shoot us and get the hell out of there, and Audrey walked over to Shannon and said, cold as ice, ‘We’re not going to shoot you. My mother is.’ And suddenly, there was this spark from the fireplace that lit up her whole face. She was smiling, and I heard Peter say, ‘That girl needs a good set of braces.’ ” Marcy shook her head. “And that just knocked the wind right out of me. I mean, you remember the picture of Devon with her porcelain braces. Her teeth were perfect, and this girl’s teeth were crooked. They weren’t Devon’s teeth!” She released a long, audible breath. “The truth is I probably knew all along.” She reached into the purse on her lap and withdrew the tattered envelope containing Devon’s photographs and the note her daughter had written, handing it over to Vic. “You can read it,” she said as Vic gently unfolded the piece of paper. “I think I knew it was a suicide note all along. I just didn’t want to accept it. I kept telling myself that she could have changed her mind at the last second. Or that she just wanted us to think she was dead.”

Vic read the letter, then quietly returned it to Marcy’s purse. “She obviously loved you very much.”

Marcy nodded. “I loved her, too. But it wasn’t enough to save her.”

“I loved my wife,” Vic said. “It wasn’t enough to save her either.”

“Your wife had cancer. It’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? They were both sick. Sick with something they couldn’t control. You have nothing to feel guilty for, Marcy.”

“Don’t I? I told her I was tired of parenting. What kind of mother does that make me?”

“A pretty normal one.”

Marcy thought again of the times she’d berated Devon for not concentrating on her piano studies, of that awful afternoon when she’d hollered at the proud toddler for scribbling on the walls, the way the child had turned and clutched her stomach, as if she’d been mortally wounded.

Except that Devon’s note hadn’t mentioned any of those things, Marcy realized. Instead she’d written about all the wonderful times they’d shared, the happy memories of watching TV together, of going to the ballet and relaxing at the cottage. She’d talked only of love.

“I loved her so much,” Marcy said, crying softly.

“I know you did. And more important, Devon knew it.”

Marcy swiped at the tears falling down her cheeks with the back of her hand as the door opened and Christopher Murphy reentered the room, followed by John Sweeny and Colleen Donnelly.

“Apparently Mr. Flaherty has supplied us with a full confession,” Murphy said, coming around to his side of the desk and plopping down in his swivel chair.

It took Marcy a few seconds to comprehend that Liam was the Mr. Flaherty in question, a little longer to digest the rest of what Murphy was saying.

“It seems that Liam’s father used to work for the O’Connors’ construction company. He was killed in an accident at work some years back, and according to Liam, his family was denied proper compensation. Liam decided to rectify that by kidnapping the O’Connor baby and holding her for ransom. He met Audrey when Jax brought her ’round to Grogan’s House one night. Audrey was new in town, from London originally, in and out of trouble most of her life. Together, the three of them hatched this plan to seduce Shannon and kidnap Caitlin, all stuff you pretty much had figured out,” Murphy said with an admiring nod in Marcy’s direction. He leaned forward, resting his elbows uneasily on the mounds of paperwork. “Then you showed up, convinced you’d seen your daughter, and started showing Devon’s picture around, and apparently a nosy waitress decided she thought the picture looked like Audrey. Things just sort of mushroomed from there.”

“When did they kidnap the baby?” Marcy asked, trying to assign an order to the day’s events, as if that might help explain them.

“This morning, when Shannon took her for a walk. The ransom demand was made within minutes of her being spirited off. Mr. O’Connor had three hours to come up with the money and was warned not to contact us or Caitlin would die.”

Marcy absorbed this information with a nod of her head, still trying to sort out fanciful fiction from hard, cold fact. Liam had been lying to her from the very beginning; the only truthful thing he’d ever said to her was when he claimed not to recognize Devon’s picture. But she’d preferred to believe his lies, to flatter herself into thinking he might be genuinely interested in her when his attempts at seduction had been nothing but an elaborate ruse, calculated to elicit information, to keep her off balance and in line. The times he’d urged her to call the police, he’d done so not only with the knowledge of how ridiculous she’d sound, but also to keep suspicion off himself. He hadn’t called the O’Connor house last night; he hadn’t spoken to Shannon; Shannon had never agreed to get in touch with Audrey. His calls to the hotel last night and this morning had been nothing but a way of checking up on her. Likewise his phone call when she was at St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral—just a way of ensuring that she was following Audrey’s instructions, that she’d told no one where she was going or what she was up to.

“And now Audrey is dead,” Marcy said out loud.

“I’m afraid so, yes,” Sweeny stated. “Her body washed up on some rocks near Bear Island about an hour ago.”

“I don’t understand—how did you know where to find me?”

“You can thank Mr. Sorvino for that,” Colleen Donnelly said.

Marcy looked to Vic for an explanation.

“Check your purse,” he said.

Marcy opened her purse and began rummaging around inside it. She withdrew her wallet, her passport, the envelope with Devon’s pictures and suicide note, a tube of lipstick and a pair of sunglasses, some errant breath mints scattered along the bottom of the bag, and … something else, she realized, her fingers surrounding a small metal object and holding it up to the light. “What is this? Is this a widget?” she asked accusingly.

“A what?” Murphy asked. The three gardai exchanged puzzled looks.

Vic laughed. “Not exactly.”

“It’s a tracking device,” Sweeny explained, taking it from Marcy’s hand and turning it over in his own.

“We planted it in your purse at Mr. Sorvino’s rather insistent suggestion,” Murphy said.

“I believe he threatened to sue us for the indignity he suffered at the airport if we didn’t comply,” Donnelly added.

“Clearly an empty threat,” Vic demurred.

“Clearly. Still, he was so convinced you were in danger.…”

“And he was threatening to camp out in our lobby.…”

“And go to the American embassy …”

“Despite the fact you’re Canadian,” Murphy said, interjecting.

“So we decided to humor him.”

“We were with you from the moment you left your hotel room this morning,” Sweeny stated.

“Even let this one tag along,” Donnelly said, nodding toward Vic. “Still not quite sure how that happened. Never realized you were such a softie,” she said to Murphy.

Murphy acknowledged her remark with an embarrassed clearing of his throat. “Let’s just say it was the least I could do for a man whose three sons are all police officers.”

The sound of a baby’s wails shot through the halls, like a steel ball from a cannon. It was followed by a timid knocking on the door. A young woman with short, dark hair poked her head inside the room. “Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor are waiting in the next room,” Marcy heard her whisper. “They’d like to see Mrs. Taggart, if that’s all right.”

Seconds later, the O’Connors were ushered into the room. Marcy rose to greet them.

“Mrs. Taggart, we can’t thank you enough,” Mr. O’Connor said, striding toward her and furiously pumping her hand.

Mrs. O’Connor was standing beside him, her normally attractive face pale and blotchy from crying, her arms wrapped protectively around her screaming infant. “I don’t seem to know how to comfort her,” she whispered tearfully. “Shannon says you have quite the way with her. Perhaps you’ll share the secrets of your success,” she added shyly.

Marcy smiled, acknowledging the sometimes painful truth—that there were no such secrets. “Sometimes you just get lucky,” she said.


IT WAS DARK by the time Marcy and Vic returned to the Hayfield Manor. The intermittent rain had finally stopped; the wind had ceased blowing. According to the taxi driver who drove them back to the hotel, tomorrow was expected to be a beautiful day, full of warmth and sunshine. Already it felt more temperate than it had all day, although Marcy was doubtful she’d ever feel truly warm again. She was looking forward to a hot meal, followed by a hot bath, then climbing into bed. Tomorrow she’d see what she could do about changing her flight.

“You’re sure I can’t convince you to come to Italy with me?” Vic asked as they lingered in each other’s arms beside the hotel’s front entrance.

“I’d really love to,” Marcy said, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to invite him up to her room, to lose herself in the comforting passion of his embrace. Except she’d been lost for far too long already. “I just don’t think it’s a very good idea right now. I need time to get my head on straight. Maybe I’ve been having a delayed nervous breakdown. Maybe I’m as crazy as Peter thinks I am. I don’t know. I do know that I haven’t been normal, that I haven’t been behaving rationally, for almost two years. Since Devon died,” she said, forcing the words from her mouth. “I need to go back home, find a good therapist, make things right with my son, get my house in order. Then maybe in a while, if you’re still available …”

“I’m available,” Vic said quickly.

Marcy smiled. “You didn’t tell me your three sons are policemen.”

“They aren’t.” He gave her a sly grin. “I made it up.”

“You lied to the gardai? Why?”

“I had to say something to persuade them to let me go with them, didn’t I?”

“You lied?” She marveled at him.

He shrugged. Then he kissed her, a soft, gentle kiss she felt lingering on her lips long after they said good-bye. Marcy stood watching from the doorway as Vic climbed back into the waiting taxi and disappeared into the night.

“Marcy?” a voice called from somewhere behind her.

Marcy turned to see a tall, thin woman with blond hair and well-defined biceps pushing herself off the sofa beside the mahogany staircase and walking steadily toward her. Was it possible? Or was she still seeing things that weren’t there? “Judith? What are you doing here?”

“Did you think I was just going to wait around for you to regain your sanity and come home?” her sister asked in return. “I’ve been sitting here all afternoon. Where the hell have you been? Who was that man?” she said in the same breath.

“A friend.”

“You don’t have any friends.”

Marcy smiled, drawing her sister into her arms and holding her tight. “I have you.”

Judith threw her long, powerful arms around Marcy’s neck. “Yes, you do.” They remained in that posture for some time, each reluctant to relinquish her hold on the other.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” Marcy asked.

“I love you, too.” Judith pulled slowly out of their embrace, looked nervously around. “What about …? Did you find …? Is Devon …?”

“Devon is dead,” Marcy said, her voice steady. She took a deep breath, released it slowly. “She killed herself. Just like our mother.”

Tears filled Judith’s eyes, eyes that Marcy realized were the same exact shade of brown as Devon’s. Why had she never noticed that before? “It wasn’t your fault,” Judith said.

“I know.”

“There was nothing you could have done—for either of them.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Marcy told her. “I’m just so glad you’re here now.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure I am,” Judith said with a nervous chuckle. “Do you have any idea how many damn bridges this city has?”

Marcy laughed. “I think I have a rough idea.”

“I really do love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Judith asked.

Marcy smiled. “I will be,” she said.