Snowblind(40)

When the car rolled to a halt and he bent to peer in at Harley Talbot, he knew from the officer's expression that he'd been wrong to hope.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" he asked.

Harley arched an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same."

"You could. How did you know to look for me here?"

"Finch told me you used to come out here all the time back in the day."

Keenan knew what he meant. Back in the months-hell, the first couple of years-after the storm that had killed Gavin Wexler and Charlie Newell and so many others, he had visited Farmer's Bridge often, tossing sticks into the water and not bothering to run across to see them float out the other side. The rushing water had brought him peace as he pondered the knowledge that all things were a river, every moment carried away from us, forever beyond reach. It had helped.

"Finch," Keenan said. "I wouldn't have figured him for the observant type."

Only the older cops, like Finch and Lieutenant Duquette, would have remembered Keenan's visits to the bridge. But none of them had troubled himself to come out looking for him. Harley Talbot wasn't just a good cop. He was a good man.

"I guess you know they've basically called off the search," Harley said, pain in his eyes.

"I heard."

"I tried calling you."

Keenan gestured toward the end of the bridge. "I left my phone. Radio, too."

"Needed some downtime," Harley said, smiling sheepishly. "And here I am screwing that up for you."
     
 

     

"No, it's okay."

A line appeared on Harley's forehead. In the light from his dashboard, the massive cop looked grimly unhappy.

"Storm's coming in day after tomorrow," Harley said. "They'll have a skeleton crew out searching tomorrow and then they're done. Tomorrow the word will go out that we believe he may have drowned in the river, let the public know we've chalked it up as a drowning."

"Of course," Keenan said bitterly.

"Look, Detective, I figured you'd have heard already but I wanted to tell you face-to-face that I'm with you on this."

"What do you mean, ‘with' me?"

Harley smiled. "I know you don't think this kid went into the water, so, officially or not, you're gonna keep looking."

Keenan glanced out at the water for a moment, watched slabs of ice floating along the river in the moonlight.

"Yeah, I'm gonna keep looking," he said. "Maybe that's because I've seen too many dead kids and I just can't take another one. I get the impression that's what Marco Torres thinks."

"Torres is a punk."

Keenan smiled. "Doesn't make him wrong. This whole thing could just be wishful thinking on my part. The kid's probably in the river."

"Probably," Harley agreed.

Keenan shot him a hard look, eyes narrowed. "Is that what you think?"

Engine idling, dashboard lights turning his skin indigo blue, Harley frowned.

"I think every hour that passes it's more likely that the Stroud boy is dead. But I saw the accident scene and I have a hard time thinking the kid just stumbled into the water. My gut says no."

Keenan nodded. "Exactly. If this kid's still alive, then someone saw him. Someone knows where he is."

"Like I said, I'm with you."

"Thanks for that," Keenan said. "Really."

"But you're not going to find him tonight," Harley added. "Get in. I'll run you to your car."

Keenan hesitated, the broken stick in his hand taking on a strange new weight. He turned back to the railing, glanced at the icy water, and tossed the stick down into the churning current. He pulled open the cruiser's passenger door and climbed in. As Harley drove him the rest of the length of the bridge, he felt a pang of regret that he had not raced across the bridge to see whether it came out the other side.

Maybe it's better not to know, he thought, gazing out the car window at the gauzy halo around the moon. At least then there's still hope.





FIFTEEN





Miri's flight left Seattle at quarter to seven on Tuesday morning. She was used to rising early, but the buzz of her alarm at four A.M. had left her with bleary eyes and a persistent grumble until halfway through the flight, when she managed to drift off for a couple of hours of additional sleep. There had been seats available on later flights, but they had been more expensive and, with the monster blizzard all the weather reports showed moving toward New England, she wanted to get safely on the ground as soon as possible.

By the time she had landed and waited in line to pick up her rental car, it was a few minutes after five P.M.-the time change obliterating any hope of seeing daylight today. She had arrived at the airport in Seattle in the dark that morning, and night had already returned by the time she drove away from Logan Airport, in Boston, that afternoon. A glimpse out the window at the sky assured her that she wouldn't have seen much sun even if she'd arrived hours earlier. The thick of the storm might not be scheduled to arrive until after midnight, but the roiling clouds hung pregnant above and occasional flurries blew around the rented Ford, as if the storm was waiting just above the clouds, so full that the small flakes kept slipping through prematurely.

She drove north, discovering each mile as if she had never traveled these roads before. There were new buildings visible from the highway and a new overpass on Route 93, but as she wended her way toward her childhood home she found herself igniting old memories that had lain dormant for years. Miri did not feel any desire to come back to live in New England, but still she realized that she had missed it, that she had a bittersweet love for the place that she had denied for a very long time. The feeling had a surreal quality that she had never before experienced.

She reached the exit for downtown Coventry just before six o'clock. In a parking lot that had once held a Toyota dealership, three snowplows and a sander idled in the darkness, drivers sitting in shadows in the cabs, smoking cigarettes and talking through their open windows. Miri imagined them as early settlers, circling the wagons to prepare for an attack. The real snow wouldn't start for five or six hours, but the forecast had apparently forced the city to get its act together for once. They were ready.

Hipster music played on the car radio-she'd tuned it to her old favorite, The River, which was headquartered right here in Coventry. Gusts of wind buffeted the little Ford as she drove along Washington Street, looking at the warm lights burning in the windows of The Tap and Keon's and the other restaurants and storefronts that were part of the fabric of her memories of home.

Home, she thought. Where are you going, Miri?

The answer was not home. She knew she had to see her mother at some point, and she found that she wanted to see Jake. Needed to, urged on by a fondness in her heart. It had been so long since she had allowed herself to miss him, and now that she had let those feelings in, the strength of them surprised her.

Yet she found herself driving not to her mother's apartment or to Jake's house but pulling into a curbside parking space across the street from The Vault. Killing the engine-the sudden silence making her aware of the music she had barely been listening to on the radio-she sat for several seconds and just looked at the windows. Her mother had taken her to dinner at The Vault at least twice a month during high school, usually dragging Jake or another of her friends along. With strangers now living in her childhood home and the corridors of Coventry High no longer her territory, this felt like the closest she could find to a real homecoming.

Miri locked up the car, crossed the street, and pulled open the door of The Vault. From the bone-deep chill of winter, she stepped into the warmth of the restaurant's foyer and inhaled the delicious aromas that wafted from the kitchen. A blaze roared in the large fireplace and she felt the heat reach her core instantly. A twinge of regret touched her heart, not that she wanted to live here again but that the past was past, never to be lived again. She'd been so happy to put Coventry behind her forever, but now that she'd returned she realized that there had been much to love about this place.

"Can I help you?" a pretty brunette hostess asked. She was young, with skin like caramel, and Miri wondered if she went to Coventry High or had recently graduated. For a moment she was tempted to ask about the teachers she remembered fondly, but resisted the urge.

"Table for one," Miri said. Once she would have been embarrassed to eat in a restaurant by herself. As an adult, she had come to enjoy her own company.

Ensconced in a small, intimate booth by the front windows, she took off her knit cap and shook out her curly hair. She glanced around in search of Ella, the always friendly and energetic owner, or her husband, TJ, whose rich, sexy singing voice was half the reason The Vault had maintained such a cherished place in Miri's memory. Neither of them seemed to be around but she found it didn't disappoint her very much. She was not sure how long she would be back in Coventry, but certainly long enough to pay The Vault another visit.
     
 

     

A frown creased her forehead as she wondered again how long she would be here.

Never mind how long, she thought. The big question is: why? What the hell am I doing here?

The phone call from her father seemed so unreal to her now. So much like a dream. Miri knew it had not been either dream or imagination. Her presence here-her plane flight and rental car and the lack of any tangible plan as to what she would do upon her arrival-was evidence enough of that. But what was she supposed to do now that she was here?