Chapter 24
Danielle
“Ran away? Why?” I demanded.
“I don’t know! I think it’s because I told her she would be going to a different school. She was so upset, and about our break up as well.”
That word – break-up – hovered awkwardly in the air like an uninvited guest. We never really had a break-up, I realized. It went from ninety miles an hour to nothing – just like that.
Still, I brushed it aside. Maggie was by far the most important thing right now. We could deal with everything else later.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said, frowning and rubbing my chin. “Maggie’s a smart girl, and a really unselfish one. I think she’d know how much running away would hurt you.”
“So what do you think happened?” Asked Roger. “Kidnapping?” I was impressed to hear that his voice was steady and strong, even though he must have been terrified.
“No…” I frowned even more deeply, trying to get my frazzled mind to concentrate. It seemed immensely strange that not five minutes before I had been dozing on my mother’s old armchair and not speaking to Roger at all.
“She’s looking for you, Danielle,” a voice interrupted.
Roger and I whirled. It was Jacob, standing there in his pajamas. We had both completely forgotten about him.
“What?” The two of us asked.
“You told me how much you meant to this girl,” Jacob explained, “and how she valued your relationship.”
He nodded to Roger, and it occurred to me that he and Jacob were meeting for the first time. For a nervous second, I wondered what my brother thought.
“Anyway,” Jacob continued, “I bet she came to see you. To bring you back to New York or something.”
Roger and I stared. “Yes!” He exclaimed at last. “That’s it! That makes perfect sense! She’s come to bring us back together!”
After he finished, he must have realized that saying all of this so jubilantly wasn’t proper, so he retreated into a sheepish smile.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We go to the bus station,” said Roger decisively. “I think that’s the most likely place she’d turn up. Jacob – Jacob, right? – which bus station is most likely to host busses from New York?”
Jacob chuckled. “Around here, man, there’s only one.”
We grabbed our coats and we were gone.
* * *
Gregory was waiting for us outside in a small black sports car I did not recognize. Either way, I was surprised that they could have gotten here so quickly. Seeing my look, Roger said that he had in fact taken his helicopter here, and then rented the car.
“Right,” I said. “The helicopter. Of course.”
I shook my head and we piled into the vehicle.
The sun was rising by the time we reached the station. This made me feel better. I hated to think about Maggie, alone in scared, in the dark somewhere. I was vaguely comforted by the fact that she was so precocious. There was a good head on her shoulders.
But also a naïve one, I thought, remembering how her solution to Roger’s grief had been to upset and distract him. Even though I wasn’t really a religious type, I sent up a quick prayer that we would find her safe and sound.
We barged inside, with Roger in the lead. “I need to speak to your manager!” He declared to the station at large.
Several people jumped. A few scowled. Then, a hardened looking woman with business-like air came marching towards us. She had been talking to one of the bus drivers, who she left standing there awkwardly, scuffing his shoe on the linoleum.
“Can I help you?” She asked, giving us a stern look.
Jacob and I glanced at each other uncertainly, but Roger stated, “My daughter is missing, and we have reason to believe she might be here.”
The woman’s eyebrow went up. I could see she had not been expecting that. Knowing the job she worked in, she had probably been resigned to listening to yet another complaint that the AC was too cold, or the lighting to bright, or some other such crap. As for me, I was enjoying watching Roger take charge. He was generally such a gentle, amiable guy (except in bed of course) and seeing him thundering with authority was a turn on.
Or it would have been if I wasn’t terrified about Maggie.
“What does she look like?” The woman asked immediately.
“About ten years old, blonde hair, wearing…I don’t know, pajamas?”
“She’s very well spoken,” I offered. “Like, when you talk to her, she surprises you by how adult she sounds.”
Roger nodded in agreement.
The woman frowned.
“You better come with me,” she said.
Feeling nervous, we followed her across the station (now busy with morning commuters) to the driver she had been talking to before. He looked embarrassed, and did not meet our eyes when we approached.
“Walter,” she said, “Why don’t you tell these people what you were just telling me?”
The driver fidgeted, looking oddly small considered what a doughnut of a man he was.
“There was a girl on my bus,” he muttered at last.
“What?” Roger demanded. “Who was she? What was her name?”
“I don’t know. What am I, a school teacher?” The driver growled. “All I know is she boarded at Port Authority, and…”
His eyes started shifting around again. He looked like a pudgy toddler too ashamed to admit that she needed to go to the bathroom.
“And?” Roger pressed.
“And, our bus broke down outside of Burlington. I opened the doors to let people stretch their legs, and…Well, I noticed that when we pulled into the station, she was gone. She must have gotten out then and not gotten back in.”
“What?” Roger roared. “You irresponsible man! How could you be so careless, letting an innocent child wander alone!”
Than man bristled. “I’m irresponsible? You’re the one letting a freaking ten year old travel across the country by herself! Christ, people these days…”
Roger opened his mouth to retort. I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but I did know that all this arguing and blaming wasn’t getting us anywhere.
“Enough!” I interrupted. “Where did the bus break down? Tell us, now!”
The man went on to describe and Jacob and I looked at each other, seething with recognition. We had grown up around here, and knew the surrounding roads as well as we knew our own backyard.
I grabbed Roger’s arm. Even through his shirt, I could sense how tense he was.
“Come on,” I said. “I know the place. Let’s go.”
Once outside, we dashed right for Gregory, who swept us in and slammed the door in a flash.
Jacob nudged me and muttered into my ear, “Shouldn’t we call the cops.”
I looked at Roger, who was sitting in the front seat. His neck was stiff and held rigidly forward. His shoulders were upright, but so tense they looked almost brittle, rather than strong.
“Not yet, I don’t think,” I said. “Maggie’s…a unique little girl. I doubt the cops would know how to handle her properly. And the last thing we need is her trying to escape from them.”
Jacob raised his eyes. “You really think she could give the police trouble?”
I thought about how much security there was at The Clifton, and how she had (evidently) slipped out without a trace. I also remembered that she had more or less successfully manipulated her father’s mood by deliberately adjusting her actions.
“Yes,” I said. “She could give them trouble.”