“Why is your picture on the magazine?” Michelle asked, her finger stabbing at a tiny photo of her sister in the cover’s upper right corner. “Is that Samantha?”
Caroline struggled to keep from screaming. She’d always been so diligent about keeping such headlines away from Michelle, making sure the child never caught so much as a glimpse of the newspaper and magazine coverage of either the event or its aftermath.
Not that Michelle had ever asked many questions; she’d accepted Samantha’s disappearance the way a child accepts most things over which she has no control. In the beginning, she’d occasionally wondered aloud where Samantha was and when she was coming home, but after a few months even those questions had stopped. In the past year, she hadn’t mentioned her sister at all.
And mercifully, the once-constant barrage of stories had also started to abate. But the five-year anniversary of the toddler’s disappearance had marked a major milestone, resulting in renewed coverage. Five years since I’ve seen my baby, Caroline thought now, fighting back tears. How could that be?
“Mommy, why is your picture in the magazine?”
What could she say? What could she do? The damage was done. She’d been fighting a battle she couldn’t possibly win. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t protect Michelle forever from unexpected sightings such as this. It was June, the end of another school year. She’d na?vely thought they were safe until next November. When was she going to realize they were never safe?
“Where’s my picture?” the child asked plaintively, her eyes scanning the magazine cover.
“Michelle Shipley?” a voice called out.
Caroline glanced up at the waiting dental hygienist. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life. “Off you go, sweetheart.”
“Why isn’t my picture in the magazine?”
“Because you’re lucky,” Caroline said. “It’s a stupid magazine, and you don’t want your picture in it.”
“Michelle Shipley,” the hygienist said again.
“Here she is.” Caroline edged Michelle off her lap. “Go on.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I have to wait out here.”
“I want you to come.”
“You’re a big girl, remember?”
“Your mother will come talk to the dentist after I’m done,” the hygienist said.
As soon as Michelle was gone, Caroline jumped up from her seat and fled the room, the magazine crushed in her fist. She ran into the bathroom at the end of the hall and locked herself in the nearest stall, her hands shaking as her fingers fumbled for the story inside. And then there it was: FIVE YEARS LATER. WHERE IS SAMANTHA SHIPLEY?
The article began with a two-page photo spread of the Grand Laguna Resort, complete with pictures of the restaurant and pool area, a big X indicating the room from which Samantha had been taken. Three pages of photographs, rumors, and innuendos followed, most of the so-called sources unnamed. There were several pictures of Hunter and Caroline, together and separately, as well as a group photo of them with Peggy and Fletcher, Steve and Becky, Rain and Jerrod. There was even a picture of Michelle holding tight to her grandmother’s hand as they were leaving the resort to return to San Diego. Caroline wondered how the magazine had gotten hold of these pictures, and who was behind the quote: She seemed like the perfect mother, but then, you really never know other people, do you? She suspected it was Rain—it sounded like the sort of backhanded compliment Rain would volunteer. She thought of phoning her and demanding an explanation, but she hadn’t spoken to the woman in years. Once she and Hunter had divorced, friends like Jerrod and Rain had quickly disappeared from her life.
Caroline gobbled up the article voraciously and then read it twice more. She’d spent five years avoiding such stories, but now that one was actually in her hands, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. It contained the usual recap of events: it was their tenth anniversary, the babysitter had mysteriously canceled, they’d left their two children alone while they went to celebrate with friends in the garden restaurant downstairs, Samantha had been snatched from her crib sometime between nine-thirty and ten o’clock that night, a number of suspects had been questioned and released, including one hotel worker who was currently in jail for molesting his niece. The mother seemed distant, a hotel employee was quoted as saying. She was always late picking up her other daughter from our afternoon kids program. “One time,” Caroline said out loud. “I was late one time.” An unnamed police officer was also quoted: We’ve always felt the family knows more than they’re letting on. “Like what, asshole?” Caroline yelled. “What more could we possibly know?”
The door to the bathroom opened. A pair of women’s ivory pumps appeared in front of Caroline’s stall. “Is everything all right in here?” a voice asked. “I thought I heard shouting.”
Caroline’s heart was pounding so rapidly she could barely speak. “Everything’s fine,” she managed to spit out. “I just caught my fingers in the door.”