“You can’t let her upset you,” she said to Michelle.
Michelle smiled. “Sure. Easy for you to say.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, Mom.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night, Samantha,” Michelle told her sister. “Believe it or not, I really am glad you’re back.”
“See you tomorrow,” Samantha said.
Caroline watched from the window as they climbed into Hunter’s cream-colored BMW and drove away. “You hungry?” she asked Samantha when the two of them were alone.
“Starving.”
“Too soon for another pizza?”
“It’s never too soon for pizza.”
They spent most of the night just staring at each other, as if they understood it was both too early and too late for words, that fifteen years of words had been lost and could never be recovered. After dinner they went upstairs and watched TV on Caroline’s bed, listening to Greg Fisher on the eleven o’clock news as he announced there’d been a new development in the case of missing child Samantha Shipley and promising a press conference at noon the next day. “We should probably try to get some sleep,” Caroline said, kissing Samantha’s forehead. “It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.”
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Samantha asked.
Silently, Caroline pulled back the covers and Samantha crawled beneath them. Then Caroline lay down beside her, watching her daughter sleep until morning.
The press conference began at exactly twelve o’clock noon and was televised live around the globe.
It took place outside the main precinct of the San Diego Police Department. Caroline and Hunter sat in folding chairs on an improvised dais, Samantha between them. They faced at least a hundred reporters and photographers representing news outlets from across the country and beyond. Cameras zoomed in on their every gesture; tape recorders strained to capture each whispered aside. Conservatively dressed agents from the FBI stood behind them; uniformed officers surrounded them and kept overly enthusiastic camera operators from venturing too close. The chief of police approached the microphone that had been set up in the middle of the stage, waiting for the noise from the standing-room-only crowd to die down so that he could speak.
Caroline reached for Samantha’s hand. “Are you okay?”
“I think I might be sick.”
“I know how you feel.”
“Really? You look so calm.”
“I know,” Caroline said. “I can’t help it.”
Samantha smiled, and several photographers immediately stepped forward to capture the moment, their cameras clicking furiously, like keys on an old-fashioned typewriter.
“Please take a step back,” an officer warned.
“Take deep breaths,” Caroline advised, inhaling and then exhaling, as if trying to lead by example.
“You’re doing great,” Hunter told them.
Caroline glanced toward her lap, her eyes surreptitiously scanning the crowd. She saw her mother and brother sitting in the first of more than a dozen rows of chairs, each row containing eight to ten seats, each seat occupied. Beside Mary sat Hunter’s wife, Diana, with their two children, and behind them, Peggy and Fletcher.
One person was conspicuous in her absence.
“Where’s Michelle?” Caroline had asked when Hunter and his new family arrived at the house earlier that morning.
“She was already gone when we woke up,” Hunter said, seemingly unconcerned. “Left a note saying she was going to the gym. Said she’d head back here when she was done.”
“Well, she didn’t.”
She still hadn’t shown up by the time they were ready to leave for the police station. Caroline had left increasingly urgent messages on her voice mail. Michelle hadn’t responded to any of them.
A dozen thoughts collided in Caroline’s brain: Michelle had been far more upset than she’d let on; she’d slipped out of Hunter’s house in the middle of the night, gotten drunk, borrowed a friend’s car, been in an accident, gotten pulled over by the police, was sitting in a jail cell at this very minute, or worse, was lying in a ditch, unconscious and broken. Or maybe some lunatic had followed her, determined to add his own sick addendum to the news of Samantha’s safe return…
“I don’t see her,” she whispered to Hunter now.
“Relax,” he said, although a slight twitch above his right eye betrayed his own concern. “She probably just decided not to come.”
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Goodbye, Mom.
“Goodbye,” not “good night.”
Where could she have gone? Caroline was torn between anger and worry. Not that she blamed Michelle for wanting no part of this media circus. She didn’t want to be here either.