4

That same morning, just shy of 5 a.m., Mickey sat alone inside his truck, staring out at the Hill. He desperately wanted a cigarette but didn’t want to ruin the smell of lilacs. They sat beside him on the passenger seat, wrapped in cellophane. He had them sent overnight, every year, on the eve of Claire’s –

He sucked air sharply through his nose and held it as his vision blurred. He had never said the word, even in his private moments, and he refused to say it now.

The flowers’ overpowering but pleasant scent filled the truck, taking him back to that one spring when Claire – she must have been all of three at the time – had asked if she could take some lilacs from the tree in the backyard and place them in her bedroom, Claire going on and on about how much she loved the way they smelled. He remembered propping her on his shoulders, and after they filled up one of her plastic beach pails, they headed upstairs and placed the flowers around her room.

No, Daddy put the flowers under the pillows, not on the pillows.

Her exact words but the voice was wrong. It was Claire’s voice he heard, but it was stuck at three. He could recall how her voice sounded at three and the years before and after that, thanks to all the videos he’d taken of her, but he had no idea how her voice might sound now, fourteen years later, at seventeen. Yes, she would be seventeen by now. A young woman. She would have traded her glasses for contact lenses. The little-girl ponytail would be gone, and her ears would be pierced – just one on each ear, he hoped, simple and tasteful. She’d probably be wearing some jewellery, not much, and she would be interested in boys and choosing her clothes with great care, because, even when she was a little girl, she had strong opinions about what she wore. She would be a senior in high school, probably on the honour roll, because she was smart. She would be looking at colleges, a whole new life ahead of her.

If he saw her right now, would he recognize her? Would he be able to see some of the last, lingering traces of the little girl who thought tossing a Nerf football in the backyard was an awesome way to spend a weekend afternoon?

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a computer program that could turn a photo of a kid into what he or she might look like at a certain age. Twice a year, NCMEC emailed him dozens of pictures of what Claire might look like now, at seventeen, and, as good as they were, all these dizzying combinations muddied his head. At night, he would lie in bed and try to settle on the one that spoke to him the most, but all he ever saw was the real Claire, the flesh-and-blood six-and-a-half year old he’d held in his hands and tucked into bed; the little girl with blonde hair and a gap-toothed smile who wore thick glasses and always smelled like a dog because she insisted on having Diesel, the big, burly bullmastiff puppy they’d adopted, sleep with her underneath her bed covers.

And now that version of Claire was fading too. The only time he could get a lock on her was when he drank, and he couldn’t drink any more because of the court order. He couldn’t do a lot of things now.

Mickey checked the digital clock on the console. He’d been sitting here for over half an hour. He needed to get going soon or he was going to be stuck in traffic and risk being late for his appointment in Boston. The court didn’t tolerate lateness of any kind, for any reason. He left the engine running, grabbed the flowers and got out of the truck.

The winter sun was starting to rise behind the tall pines in the woods. As he walked, he thought about the other gaping wound in his life: his mother.

He had been eight the last time he’d seen her. They had been on their way home from the library, his mother picking up her weekly fix of paperback romances with titles like The Taming of Chastity Wellington and Miss Sofia’s Secret, when the snow turned violent, the wind howling so hard Mickey wondered if the car would tip over. Traffic was backed up everywhere because of an accident, and they weren’t the only ones inside St Stephen’s Church waiting for things to calm down.

His mother had been a petite French woman who spoke perfect English, so small and light that Mickey would tightly clasp his hand around hers, afraid that if he didn’t she might blow away. She flipped a page in one of her books, her face serious but relaxed, the way she looked when she prayed. The fingers of her other hand caressed a beautiful silk blue scarf. It was imprinted with ancient pillars, statues and angels, and looked completely out of place against her bulky winter jacket.

‘It’s rude to stare, Mickey,’ she said in a soft voice. Even when she was mad, which was hardly ever, her voice stayed that way.

‘Where’d you get that scarf?’

‘This thing? I’ve had it for a long time.’

His mother’s lies were as easy to spot as her bruises. She was careful never to wear it around Sean, his father. She put it on after she left the house; took it off and stuffed it in her jacket pocket before she got home. Mickey knew she hid it in a box marked ‘Sewing’ in the basement. Two Saturdays ago, after his father had left for work, Mickey had caught her in the basement, removing the scarf from the box – also the hiding spot for her photo albums.

His mother smiled at him – the smile that made men stop and take notice of her. That told him he was safe. It reassured him everything was going to be all right.

The next day she was gone. Her car, a Buick Century pockmarked with rust, was parked in the driveway when he came home from school. Mickey expected to see her in the kitchen, reading one of her paperback romances by the table near the window and smoking a cigarette, but the house was quiet – too quiet, he thought, and felt the hammers of his heart pound. He opened the basement door and descended the stairs, Mickey remembering how lately his mother had been spending a lot of time down there, lost in her photo albums. When he hit the bottom step, he saw the box marked ‘Sewing’ in the middle of the floor. He removed the top, saw that the photo albums and the blue silk scarf were gone, and right then he knew, with a mean certainty, that his mother had left without him.

Mickey widened his eyes and blinked the memory away.

The Hill’s floodlight was always on and he could see the trails carved by sleds in the snow, and the places where people had gathered at the top. He walked to the monument that had been set up in memory of Claire and the two other missing girls, and placed the lilacs on the ground, next to its base. The fragrance of the flowers was strong even out here in the cold wind, and as he stared at the place where he’d found her sled: he imagined the powerful scent of these flowers riding through the air, blowing through other cities and states, blowing to wherever Claire was. Maybe she would smell the lilacs and it would trigger a memory of the room waiting for her at her home here in Belham, and maybe today she would pick up the phone and call.

Mickey knew the thought was ridiculous, but he didn’t care. That was the thing about hope. It made you believe anything was possible. It made you believe in miracles.

Dr Donna Solares’s Boston office had dark-grey walls that made Mickey think of storm clouds, and a beige couch and matching chair that were as rigid as her glass-top coffee table. With the exception of a pair of framed degrees, both from Harvard, the only other personal item was the oil painting hanging on the wall behind her desk, a wide canvas full of the kind of drips, squiggles and blobs found on a housepainter’s drop cloth. The picture had a title: Memory.

She sat across from him, a copy of last Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine sitting on her lap. Mickey saw Post-it notes sticking out along the edges. He couldn’t make out the handwriting.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’

Mickey shrugged. ‘Not much to tell.’

Her thin, pencilled eyebrows jumped in surprise.

‘When Claire’s anniversary date draws closer,’ Mickey said, ‘I call up some people and have them pull whatever strings they can, see if I can get Claire’s name out there. It helps keep interest in her alive.’

Alive. Her eyes lit up at that word, Mickey knowing what she wanted to say: You believe your daughter could still be alive. These sessions had touched upon that, his inability, as she called it, to let go and grieve. He wasn’t going to go down that road with her, so he said, ‘It’s been eleven years. The papers wanted to run an article, so –’

‘I noticed your ex-wife didn’t give an interview.’

Mickey said nothing.

‘The reason I brought it up is so we can discuss the side story on your father.’ She had a deep voice, husky, the kind he associated with a lifetime of cigarette smoke and hard liquor. Or maybe all the fat under her chins was strangling her vocal cords. Take away her designer suit and pearls, the expensive watch and makeup, and she’d look like any number of the obese soccer moms he’d seen splayed in chairs along the sidelines.

‘I had no idea the reporters were going to talk with him, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Mickey said. Which was one hundred per cent true. And he had to admit he was impressed by the reporters: they had not only managed to track down Sean in his hiding spot in Miami, but they had also somehow convinced him to talk.

‘What was your reaction when you read the article?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t have one.’

Dr Solares’s gaze was fastened on him, watching, scanning him like an X-ray, probably searching for signs of what the court called his ‘anger management issues’. The judge had sentenced him to a lengthy (and ridiculously expensive) anger-management course, followed by forty-eight mandatory sessions with this woman, to discover why he had attacked Richard Byrne, the man everyone knew was responsible for Claire’s abduction.

Fortunately, this therapy bullshit ended today – as long as he kept his cool.

‘This is the first time your father –’

‘Sean,’ Mickey corrected her. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, that man is not my father.’

‘This is the first time he’s spoken publicly about his granddaughter.’

‘Claire’s not his granddaughter.’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Sean never met her. Sean hasn’t been a part of my life in a long, long time.’

‘Since your mother left.’

‘That, and the fact that the guy is a shitbag. It’s good to keep your distance from a person like that.’

‘The reporter asked your father if he’d talked to you since Claire’s abduction.’

Mickey slowly drew the air through his nose. Sean Flynn had absolutely nothing to do with what had happened to Claire – and the woman knew that – but here she was, yet again, poking around the subject. She pinched one of the Post-it tabs between her sausage fingers and opened the magazine.

‘Your father said, “Mickey and I haven’t talked much since the day he got married. That’s his choice. Some men need hate to get them through the day.” ’ She looked up, waiting for a response.

Mickey didn’t give her one.

‘Any thoughts?’ she asked.

‘Not really.’

‘I believe he gave this interview because he’s trying to reach out to you.’

‘To do what?’

‘Make amends.’

Mickey couldn’t help but smirk. ‘Sean reaching out?’ he said, leaning forward to pick up his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup from her glass table. ‘All due respect, I think you’re the one who’s reaching here.’

‘The reason I’m pressing you on this is because I want to make sure you’re looking at him the way he stands now and not through some leftover filter from childhood.’

‘Filter from childhood,’ Mickey said evenly.

‘We tend to confound parents with their roles and not view them as people. I’ve noticed that you tend to view people in either/or categories – good or bad, smart or dumb. I can certainly appreciate your feelings regarding your father – and I’m certainly not trying to placate you by suggesting I have any idea what it was like growing up with a paternal figure who was unpredictably violent.’

‘Don’t forget murderer. Sean killed people for a living, remember?’

‘For the Irish mafia, yes, you told me. Be that as it may, there’s clearly another side to him – the one that raised you after your mother left, took you to sporting events and the like. The side your mother initially fell in love with and, for many years, loved. If he was willing to share his feelings in print, maybe he would be willing to open up and share the truth about your mother.’

‘You mean like how and when he killed her and where he buried her?’

Now it was her turn to be silent.

As she wrote something on her pad, Mickey thought about the pewter keychain in his front pocket: on the front of the circular disc was an etching of St Anthony holding the baby Jesus, on the back an image of a church in Paris, Sacré-Cœur en Montmartre. The keychain had been sent in an envelope to the home of his friend Jim Kelly a month after she left. Mickey still had the letter, had read it so many times he could recite the words: The next time I write, I’ll have an address where you can write to me. Soon you’ll be here with me in Paris. Have faith, Mickey. Remember to have faith no matter how bad it gets. Remember how much I love you – and, most importantly, remember to keep this quiet. I don’t have to remind you what your father would do to me if he found out where I was hiding.

The second letter never came, but four months later, in July, Sean had come home from a three-day ‘business trip’, called Mickey out into the backyard and launched into a spiel about how his mother wasn’t ever coming home. His old man had made the mistake of leaving his suitcase open, and when Mickey walked past Sean’s bedroom and saw it, he did a little investigating and found an envelope holding a passport and plane tickets to Paris. Only the passport and the tickets were under the name ‘Thom Peterson’.

‘Your father is alive, Mickey,’ she said. Then she paused, he guessed, for dramatic effect. ‘It’s my opinion that he will try to approach you in an attempt at reconciliation. How you choose to deal with this if it should happen is, of course, entirely up to you. My suggestion is to approach it with an open mind. Which brings us to Father Byrne.’

Mickey felt the heat climb into his neck.

‘Father Byrne,’ she began.

‘He’s not a priest any more. The Vatican finally stripped that from him. That was in the article right there on your lap.’

‘Yes, I know. The article also said he’s dying of pancreatic cancer.’

Dying. The word pressed against his chest like concrete blocks. It hurt to breathe.

‘I’m worried his impending death might cause you to confront him again,’ she said.

Mickey stared at the painting behind her desk and thought about how it didn’t matter that Byrne owned a winter jacket that was an exact match to the one described by the witness, the boy on the Hill, Danny Halloran. It didn’t matter that the next morning, Saturday, when the storm broke around nine, the bloodhounds had followed Claire’s scent through the trails to the boyhood home of Richard Byrne, an old weather-beaten Victorian house where his mother still lived. It didn’t matter that Byrne was a now-defrocked priest who had abducted three young girls, including Claire. What mattered was evidence.

Evidence, Mickey had learned, was the Holy Grail. No evidence, no case. The Belham detectives and Boston’s top crime-scene investigators had gone in with all their collective forensic expertise and power. They examined every inch of Byrne’s mother’s house, the tool shed in the backyard and the battered Ford van he drove; yet they had failed to come away with the two most important elements: DNA and fibre evidence. That meant Richard Byrne could hold a press conference and play the victim, right down to asking the public to pray for the safe return of Claire Flynn. He could, if he wanted to, stand at the top of the Hill and watch little girls sledding. Byrne was a free man and free men could do anything they wanted.

Building a case takes time, Mr Flynn. You need to be patient, Mr Flynn. We’re doing everything we can, Mr Flynn. Your daughter’s case is our top priority.

The police were good men, he supposed, but they didn’t understand what it was like, losing a child, even though a lot of them had kids of their own. Claire was his daughter, and to ask him to be patient while the motherfucker who took his daughter went about his daily life … Mickey had reached his limit, couldn’t stand the idea of dragging that knowledge with him to bed, waking up chained to it again the next morning. Something had to be done. Something was done.

‘Mickey?’ she asked. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yeah.’ He swallowed, then cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, I did.’

She studied him for a moment. Assessing. Prying.

‘I’m sure the cops are talking to him,’ he offered.

‘As of today, you and I are officially finished with these sessions. You still, however, have another seven weeks left on your probation. If you make contact with him in any way, if you violate any of the other conditions of your probation, a judge will have no choice but to send you to jail. Are you still attending AA meetings?’

‘When I can.’

‘But not every day.’

‘Hard to do when you own your own business and pay for things like therapy.’

‘You need to work the programme as part of your recovery. That means attending –’

‘I’ve been sober for almost two years,’ Mickey said.

‘And you need to stay that way well after your probation ends. You’ll need a support system in place to help you deal with your alcoholism.’

Mickey felt the anger seeping past his face. He wasn’t an alcoholic, hated it when she used that word – and she used it a lot. Got off on bringing it up every chance she had.

‘You’ll also need a structure in place for when Father Byrne – excuse me, when Mr Byrne dies.’

The anger had gone to work behind his eyes, pressing against the soft, vulnerable tissue like hot coils of wire – the signal that he was about to lose his shit. He gritted his teeth, telling himself to keep his mouth shut, stared at a spot on the carpet and started the visualization exercise he’d learned in his anger-management course. Instead of picturing an ocean or a woodsy New England postcard, or imagining himself placing his anger on a raft and watching it go down the river, or some other such bullshit, all he could picture was the $125 stuffed in his front pocket – the amount of her hourly fee. He had to pay for it out of pocket because his insurance didn’t cover these visits, and, as he rubbed his face, the skin hot and damp, he imagined her lying against the floor and him sitting on top of her and stuffing crumpled $1 bills into her fat mouth one hundred and twenty-five times.

‘Is there something you’d like to share?’ she asked.

‘Just practising one of those, you know, visualization exercises.’

She brightened. ‘Does it work?’

‘Yes,’ Mickey replied. ‘It works amazingly well.’