Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“She was twelve years old in this photo,” said Patrick. “I remember she hated that uniform. Said that plaid makes a girl look fat, and that was why the school made them wear it. To make the girls look so ugly, they wouldn’t get into trouble with any of the boys.”

“Did she not want to go to Bolton?”

“Oh, she certainly did want to go. But I admit, I wasn’t happy about seeing her leave. I had such a hard time losing my little girl to boarding school. Dina insisted because it was the school that she graduated from, a place where a girl could meet all the right people . That was how Dina put it.” He paused. “God, that probably sounds so superficial, but Dina was completely focused on things like that. On Charlotte making the right friends and marrying the right man.” He paused and added, ironically, “As it turned out, it was Dina who met a husband at Bolton.”

“That must have been hard for you when Dina left.”

Patrick gave a resigned shrug. “I accepted it. What else could I do? And oddly enough, I rather liked Arthur Mallory. Liked the whole Mallory family, in fact-Barbara, their son. Mark. All of them were decent people. But hormones are an irresistible force. I think I lost my wife to Arthur the very first time they laid eyes on each other. All I could do was stand by and watch my marriage fall apart.”

Jane turned to the last page and studied the final image in the album. It was a wedding photo, and standing at the center were the new bride and groom, Dina and Arthur Mallory, both dressed in formal attire. Flanking them were their respective children, Mark standing at his father’s side, Charlotte at her mother’s. While bride and groom were beaming, Charlotte looked dazed, as if she did not know how she’d come to be standing with these people.

“How old is Charlotte in this photo?” Jane asked.

“She would have been thirteen there.”

“She looks a little lost.”

“It happened so fast, I think we were all stunned. We’d met the Mallorys only a year before, when Charlotte and Mark both performed at the Bolton Academy Christmas pageant. A year later, all of us once again attended the Bolton Christmas pageant, but by then Dina had left me for Arthur. And I was just another single father, raising a daughter on my own.”

“Charlotte stayed with you after the divorce?”

“Dina and I discussed it, and we both felt it was best if I had custody so that Charlotte could stay in the house where she’d grown up. Every few months, Charlotte was supposed to spend a weekend with Dina and Arthur, but they traveled so much they were seldom home.”

“And there was no legal battle, no tug-of-war over your daughter?”

“Just because two people get divorced doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other. We did care. And we were now all part of an extended family. Arthur’s ex-wife, Barbara, had some difficulty accepting the divorce, I’m afraid, and she remained bitter to the end. But I saw no point in hanging on to resentments. It’s called being civilized.”

That was what Ingersoll had written in his report, that Patrick Dion and his ex-wife had stayed cordial even after the divorce. Now, hearing it from Patrick himself, she could believe it.

“They even spent their last Christmas here, with me,” he said. “Arthur and Dina and Mark. We had dinner together, in this room. Opened gifts.” He looked around the table, as if seeing their ghosts still seated there. “I remember Charlotte was there, at that end of the table, asking Mark about Harvard and whether he liked it there. Dina gave her a pearl necklace. We had pumpkin pie for dessert. And afterward, I took Mark downstairs to my woodshop, because he loves working with his hands. The Harvard kid who’d rather be building fine furniture.” Patrick blinked and looked at her, as if suddenly remembering she was there. “Now they’re gone. And there’s only Mark and me left.”

“You two seem close.”

“Oh, he’s a fine young man.” Patrick paused and suddenly smiled. “Mark’s already thirty-nine, but at my age, anyone under forty still seems like a young man.”

Jane pulled another book out of the box-not a family album this time, but a Bolton Academy yearbook with the school’s seal embossed in gold on the maroon leather.

“She was a sophomore that year,” said Patrick, looking at the cover. “That was the year before she…” He paused, his face darkening. “I thought about suing the school for negligence. They took my daughter on a field trip without adequate supervision. There they were, in a public place. Faneuil Hall! They should have known some of the kids might wander off, or some stranger might approach them. But the teachers, they didn’t pay attention, and suddenly my girl was gone. I was an ocean away, where I couldn’t do a damn thing to save her.”

“I understand you were in London.”

He nodded. “Meeting with some potential investors, adding to my goddamn fortune. I’d throw this all away, if only I could…” Suddenly he stood up. “I think I could use a stiff drink right now. Can I pour you one?”

“Thank you, but no. I’m driving.”

“Ah. The responsible policewoman. If you’ll excuse me,” he said, and walked out.

Jane opened the Bolton yearbook to the sophomore section and spotted Charlotte in the bottom row of photos. Her blond hair hung loose to her shoulders, and her lips were barely curved in a wistful smile. She was a beautiful girl, but tragedy already seemed stamped into her features, as if she knew that the future held only heartbreak for her. Printed beneath her photo was a list of her interests and activities. DRAMA CLUB. ART. ORCHESTRA. TENNIS TEAM.

Orchestra. She remembered that Charlotte had played the viola. She also remembered that Laura Fang had played the violin. The girls might have grown up in different universes, but they had music in common.

She paged through the book until she found the activities section, where she once again spotted Charlotte, posing with two dozen other music students. The girl was seated in the second row of string players, her instrument propped in her lap. The caption read: CANDACE FORSYTH, MUSICAL DIRECTOR, AND THE BOLTON ACADEMY ORCHESTRA.

She heard Patrick return to the dining room, carrying a drink that tinkled with ice cubes. “Did your daughter know a girl named Laura Fang?” Jane asked him.

“Detective Buckholz asked me that same question, after Charlotte disappeared. I told him I hadn’t heard the name before. I only found out later that Laura Fang was a girl who vanished two years before Charlotte. That’s when I understood why he asked me about her.”

“You can’t think of any link between the girls? Charlotte never mentioned Laura’s name?”

He looked at the photo of the Bolton orchestra. “Your child comes home from school and talks about this girl or that boy. How can any parent possibly remember all the names?”

He was right; it was an impossible thing to expect of a parent.

Jane flipped to the back of the book, to the section of senior students, and scanned the photos of clean-cut boys dressed in their Bolton uniforms of blue blazers and red neckties. There was Mark Mallory, his face a bit thinner, his hair longer and curlier. Already he was a handsome young man, bound for Harvard. Beneath his photo, his interests were listed: LACROSSE, ORCHESTRA, CHESS, FENCING, DRAMA.

Orchestra again. That was, after all, how the Dions and Mallorys had met-through their musical children at the Christmas pageant.

“I’m not quite sure how any of this is going to help you,” said Patrick. “Detective Buckholz asked me all these questions nineteen years ago.”

She looked up at him. “Maybe the answers have changed.”

AS JANE LEFT BROOKLINE and drove west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, the afternoon sun was in her eyes. She made good time to Worcester, but the drive north from that point was slow, on secondary roads where traffic funneled into a single lane because of repaving work. By the time she reached the Bolton Academy, it was nearly five PM. She drove through the front gate, onto a curving drive shaded by ancient oak trees. At the main hall, three girls sat chatting on the stone steps. They did not even bother to look up as Jane parked and climbed out of her car. They appeared to be fifteen or sixteen, all of them slim and pretty, perfectly designed by Mother Nature to fulfill their biological purpose on earth and attract young men.