“Nicky,” Lex said after he was gone, waving Nicholas over. The two of them managed to get their arms under Jessica’s and helped her to her feet.
“Everything’s okay, Danny,” Lex said brightly, sounding for all the world like she believed it. “Go on back to bed.”
I returned to my room, closed the door behind me, and blocked the air-conditioning vent with a pile of books so I could try to get warm again.
? ? ?
From my bed I listened as Lex and Nicholas moved Jessica upstairs, and the water somewhere above me began to run. I was finally beginning to drift off, maybe an hour later, when there was a light knock at my door. It was so quiet I thought I had imagined it until the door opened a sliver, and I could see the glint of Mia’s night-light off Lex’s corn silk hair.
“You asleep?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Can I come in?”
I nodded, and she stepped inside, closing the door behind her so that we were in the dark together. She sat on the edge of the bed while I propped myself up on the pillows.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” she said in a low voice.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No, it’s not.” She put a hand on my knee, though I could barely feel the touch through the thick comforter. “I hope she didn’t scare you with all that talk. She doesn’t mean it; it’s just what she says when she’s been drinking. You aren’t my kids, this isn’t my home, this isn’t my life. She’s . . . she’s a very unhappy woman sometimes.”
I thought of my mother—the real one—and I nodded.
“I think she’s been a little overwhelmed by everything,” Lex continued with a commendable flair for understatement. “But she’ll be okay. We’ll make sure of it. You don’t have to worry.”
I tried to remember the fear I used to feel as a little boy when my mother disappeared for days at a time. Tried to let that scabbed over old feeling show on my face when I nodded.
“And Patrick.” Lex shifted, uncomfortable. “He’s not . . . I mean, I want you to know that he’s not . . . a violent person. He would never hurt any of us, so you don’t have to be afraid of him. Okay?”
I frowned, because it never would have occurred to me to be afraid of Patrick, as long as he didn’t find out who I really was. Then all bets were off, violent person or no.
“I get it,” I said. “He was just protecting me.”
“Yes.” She seized my words like a struggling swimmer grabs a life ring. “Yes, exactly. He’s not a bad person.”
“Of course not,” I said, bemused.
“Good.” She smiled and reached out to touch my face. At the last moment, though, she changed her mind. I don’t know if it was something I did or something that changed in her thoughts, but she ended up just tracing the air beside my cheek. Air molecules moving against my skin instead of hers.
She drew back her hand and stood, looking down at me. “Good night, Danny,” she said, and left.
? ? ?
After Lex left, I got out of bed and went to the desk against the window, where I’d left my new laptop. I could tell I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and now was a good time to do something I’d been wanting to do for days.
I opened the browser and did an Internet search for Daniel Tate.
The top result came from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the place I’d first discovered Daniel. The second result was the news article from two days after his disappearance that I’d printed off that same night and read after sneaking back to bed. Nothing to learn there.
The third result was an AP story about my return, complete with a photograph taken at the airport, which thankfully showed little more than the brim of my hat and part of my jawline. “Missing child Daniel Tate, subject of the recent LA Magazine article that revived public interest in his case, has been reunited with his family . . .”
I typed in a new search.
Daniel Tate LA Magazine
Up came the article—“Two Thousand Days Later: The Disappearance of Daniel Tate”—a detailed examination of the case on the sixth anniversary of the last day Danny was seen. It was published just over three weeks ago.
The door to my room cracked open, and I slammed the laptop shut.
“Danny?” Mia poked her head into my room.
“Hey,” I whispered. “You okay?”
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
“Isn’t there a cup in your bathroom?”
“I don’t like that water,” she said. “Magda used to leave me a glass of water from the kitchen, but Lex forgot. Will you come downstairs with me? It’s dark.”
What I wanted to do was retroactively remember to lock my bedroom door, but then I thought about being a little kid creeping alone through the darkness, not sure what dangers were lurking there, and what a difference having a hand to hold would have made to me. Suddenly, I saw the gap-toothed boy in the T-ball uniform standing in front of me instead of Mia, and I smiled at him.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
? ? ?
The next day, and the next and the next, all passed the same way. Breakfast, shower, fine new clothes on my back that felt too nice for a day of just hanging around the house. I’d watch the others go off to school while I stayed behind with Lex hovering over me all day. I kept waiting for my interview with the police to come, bracing for it every morning when I came downstairs for breakfast, but whatever Patrick was saying or doing to put them off was obviously working. That left me with nothing to do but kill time with Lex. We spent hours together watching TV on the couch in the non-fancy living room. She filled me in on her favorite soaps—Harrison was secretly in love with Savannah, Lucinda was cheating on Jack with Mateo, Clark had been the one to sabotage the breaks on Sabine’s car—and I began to understand why she still hadn’t graduated college. I couldn’t totally blame her though. The soaps were weirdly addictive, and I liked watching them with her, the two of us passing back and forth a bowl of popcorn that Lex had added extra melted butter to.
I read the article in LA Magazine about Danny’s disappearance. It was like a bad pulp novel, the story of senseless tragedy fracturing the glamorous, idyllic fa?ade of Hidden Hills. It was heavy on details like what kind of shoes Jessica had worn for the press conference and light on facts, but judging by the hundreds of comments people had left on it, it had struck a chord. No wonder the paps had shown up to the airport.
I had two phone calls with Robert Tate from the minimum security prison upstate where he was due to spend the next eighteen months. He cried for most of the first one. We were actually able to talk during the second, and he swallowed my story as easily as everyone else had. I promised I would visit soon.
I barely saw Jessica. She rarely left her room, and when she did, it was just to get into her rental and drive away. I had no idea where she went, and no one else seemed to either. Weirder, none of them seemed to care.
One morning after everyone else had left, Lex went down to the basement and came back with the family photo albums and a handful of home videos.