I stayed with Allan Desmond for four hours, until his daughter Jane, who flew down from Boston, arrived at the hospital. She was a year or two older than Vivian, and looked so much like her that I felt a wrench of surprise when she came into the waiting room.
They both insisted I be with them when Jane spoke—or tried to speak—to Vivian. “You heard what the police said,” Allan Desmond said. “You’re a journalist, Carley. Make your own decision.”
I stood with him at the foot of the bed as Jane bent over Vivian and kissed her forehead. “Hey, Viv, what do you think you’re doing? We’ve been worried about you.”
An IV was dripping fluid into Vivian’s arm. Her heartbeat and blood pressure were being recorded on a monitor over her bed. She was chalk white, and her dark hair provided a stark contrast to her complexion and the hospital bedding. When she opened them, even though they were cloudy, I noticed again her soft brown eyes.
“Jane?” The timbre of her voice was different.
“I’m here, Viv.”
Vivian looked around then focused on her father. A puzzled expression came over her face. “Why is Daddy crying?”
She sounds so young, I thought.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Vivian said as her eyes began to close.
“Viv, do you know what happened to you?” Jane Desmond was running her finger along her sister’s face, trying to keep her awake.
“Happened to me?” Vivian was clearly trying to focus. Again, a look of confusion came over her face. “Nothing happened to me. I just got home from school.”
When I left a few minutes later, Jane Desmond and her father walked with me to the elevator. “Do the police have the nerve to think she’s faking this?” Jane asked indignantly.
“If they do, they’re wrong. She’s not faking it,” I said grimly.
* * *
It was nine o’clock when I finally opened the door of my apartment. Casey had left messages on my answering machine at four, six, and eight o’clock. They were all the same. “Call me no matter what time you get in, Carley. It’s very important.”
He was home. “I just got in,” I said by way of apology. “Why didn’t you call me on my cell phone?”
“I did. A couple of times.”
I had obeyed the sign in the hospital to turn it off and then had forgotten to turn it on again and check for messages.
“I gave Vince your message about talking to Nick’s in-laws. I must have made a convincing case—either that or hearing about Vivian Powers has shaken them up. They want to talk to you, anytime, at your convenience. I assume you’ve heard about Vivian Powers, Carley.”
I told him about being at the hospital. “Casey, I could have learned so much more from her,” I said. I didn’t realize that I was close to tears until I heard them in my voice. “I think she wanted to talk to me, but she was afraid to trust me. Then she decided she did trust me. She left that message. How long was she hiding in her neighbor’s house? Or did somebody see her go there?”
I was talking so fast that I was tripping over my own words. “Why didn’t she use her neighbor’s phone to ask for help? Did she ever make it to the car, or did somebody drive her away in it? Casey, I think she was scared. Wherever she was, she kept trying to call Nick Spencer on his cell phone. Did she believe those reports that he was seen in Switzerland? The other day when I spoke with her, I swear she believed he was dead. She couldn’t have been in that car for five days. Why didn’t I help her? At the time, I knew something was terribly wrong.”
Casey interrupted me. “Hold it, hold it,” he said. “You’re rambling. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
It actually took him twenty-three minutes. When I opened the door, he put his arms around me, and for the moment at least, even the terrible burden of having somehow failed Vivian Powers was lifted from my shoulders.
I think that was the moment when I stopped trying to fight being in love with Casey and trusted that maybe he was falling in love with me, too. After all, the greatest proof of love is to be there for someone when she needs you most, isn’t it?