She held my gaze for several seconds. The words seemed to have opened a new wound in her, bigger than the one in her knee.
“Okay, then,” she said frostily. She grabbed her shoes and brushed past me on her way to Sydney’s bedroom. “I didn’t mean like it had to be forever.”
“Patty,” I said to her, firmly but not unkindly, “in the morning, I’m happy to give you a lift wherever you need it, but you have to leave.”
And she did. Before I got up.
TWENTY-SIX
I SLEPT TILL HALF PAST SEVEN. Before heading into the en-suite off my bedroom, I went down the hall and looked in Sydney’s bedroom. The door was wide open. The bed was empty, and made. I wasn’t even sure Patty had slept there.
After telling her she’d have to leave in the morning, I’d gone into my own bedroom and closed the door. I’d fallen asleep almost instantly. It was possible, I now realized, that she had left then.
I went down to the kitchen to look for any signs of her, but there were none. The only glass in the sink was the one I had used to take some Tylenol the night before.
“Okay, then,” I said quietly to myself. I went to the front door, found it unlocked. Patty would have had to unlock it to leave, and without a key, had no way to send the bolt home when she stepped outside.
Before hitting the shower, I checked the computer to see whether anyone had tried to get in touch with me about Syd. And of course, every time I sat down to the computer, what I was most hoping to find was a note from Syd herself.
This morning, as was most often the case, there was nothing.
But the phone did ring just before eight.
“Hey,” Susanne said. “I was sitting here, wishing the phone would ring with good news.”
“I wish I had some,” I said. I filled her in on a couple of things. That I’d quit my job until I’d found Syd. That blood belonging to Syd, and some hood who had been found dead in Bridgeport, was on Syd’s car. That someone who’d been involved in the break-in at my house had come by the dealership looking for Syd, and had tried to kill me.
“What?” Susanne said. “And I’m hearing about all this now?”
I thought I had plenty of excuses. Exhausted. Traumatized. Overwhelmed. But I didn’t think any of them would fly.
I said, “I’m sorry. If I’d had good news, I’d have called.”
“This man who tried to kill you, who was looking for Syd,” Susanne said. “Who was he? Are the police looking for him? If they question him, won’t they know why Syd’s missing?”
“They’re working on it,” I said. “They have to find him first. He used a fake license when he took the car for a test drive.”
“Oh,” she said, the air coming out of her balloon.
“Any news on your front?” I asked.
Susanne seemed to be pulling herself together on the other end of the line. All my news, particularly the attempt on my life, had left her shell-shocked. Finally, “Bob’s going all Spanish Inquisition on Evan.”
“Good,” I said.
“He owes more money than he’s saying. He managed to get from one of his friends, he won’t say who, a fake credit card to play some of his gambling on the computer.”
“A fake card?”
“It’s the data from someone else’s card, but on a new card. He used it for a couple of days, until the person whose card it was found out about some fishy charges and canceled it. Then Evan went back to using his. He even snuck Bob’s card out of his wallet a couple of times and used that.”
“Maybe Bob will find out something that links Evan’s problems to Sydney. Maybe he owes someone money and they told him they’d hurt her if he didn’t pay up. I’m just grasping at straws here, Suze.”
“I know,” she said.
“About Bob,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Look,” I said, finding it difficult to come up with the words, “tell him… tell him I’m sorry about how I handled things with Evan.”
“Okay.”
“He has to know we’ve all been going through a lot.”
“Sure,” Susanne said.
“And I think… I think maybe he’s good for you.”
“Pardon?”
“When you fell… there was something… I think he really loves you, Suze.”
Susanne didn’t say anything. I had a feeling she was finding it hard to say anything for a moment.
“And another thing,” I said. “I need to talk to Bob about a car.”
“What car?”
“Laura’s taking mine. I need wheels.”
“You need a car, from Bob?” Susanne said. “He’s going to just love this.”
I REPLACED THE RECEIVER and was about to turn away from the phone when something from the night before came back to me. I dialed Kate Wood. I tried her cell, figuring she might already be on her way to work.
“Hello,” she said. It sounded as though she was driving. A radio broadcasting traffic reports in the background got turned down.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Tim.”
“I know,” she said.
“You drove by last night.”
“Maybe.”
“I need to explain what you saw,” I said.
“I didn’t see anything,” she said.