Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

“Listen, Hayley.” Nick lowered his voice and leaned his body closer to the table. “I am not now and never have been a ‘perv.’ I'm looking for my niece because she's been missing for five months-five months when anything could have happened to her. She's all the family I have, Hayley. I need to find her. You may be the only person who can help us to do that.”

“I'm sorry. You're right. It was just something stupid someone said.” Hayley turned to Emme. “Everyone knows I'm meeting with you. If anything happens to me, they have your name and your phone number. I posted it on the message board.”

“That was very smart of you, Hayley,” Emme assured her. “Good thinking on your part. Nick and I are only interested in finding out what happened to Belle, but you were right to take some precautions, just in case.”

The girl seemed to relax slightly.

“Are you hungry?” Emme asked.

“The food's pretty good here,” Hayley said, hopefully. “I usually get the peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip pancakes, but the raspberry ones are good, too.”

“I'm sold. Raspberry for me.” Emme looked across the table at Nick. “You need a menu?”

“Are you kidding? They have peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip pancakes and you have to ask?”

He gestured for the waitress and gave her their order. When she'd turned away from the table, he said, “So you told your donor siblings that you were getting together with Emme.”

“Not really everyone.” She appeared to Emme to be debating with herself. “Well, really just Ava.”

“Ava's one of your sisters?”

Hayley nodded. “She's the oldest. I always go to her when I have a problem or anything. You know.”

“Because every girl wants to have a big sister. I do understand,” Emme said, because she did, although her wanting had stopped long ago. “Hayley, how old are you?”

“I'm sixteen. I know, I look younger, but I was sixteen on my last birthday.”

“How old is Ava?” Nick asked.

“She's old. Like, twenty-four. Everyone says we look the most alike.”

“And that makes you happy.” Emme could tell that it did.

Hayley nodded again.

“Where does Ava live? What's her last name?”

“She lives in Boston. She's in graduate school. And we don't do last names. Just first names.”

“Why no last names?” Nick asked.

“Because they don't matter,” Hayley said simply. “We all have different last names, so we decided none of us would use them.”

“Because you're bonding as siblings, and you want to stress what you have in common, not what's different,” Emme noted. “I get it.”

Their beverages were served, coffee for Emme and Nick, soda for Hayley.

“How many are you, all together?” Emme asked.

“There are ten on the message board. We know there are others, but for whatever reasons, they're not into it.”

“Maybe you could tell me about the ones who are,” suggested Emme.

“There's Ali-she's eighteen. She lives in Pittsburgh. She's going to college at Bryn Mawr next year, so I'm going to apply there, too, when I'm a senior. We thought it would be fun to go to the same school and see each other more often.”

Emme took a small notebook from her bag. “I have to write this down. I'll never remember everyone.”

“I thought you just wanted to know about Belle.” Hayley frowned.

“I do want to know about Belle. But I need to know the people she cared about, if I'm going to be able to understand where she might have gone.”

“Hayley, you don't think she would have gone to stay with one of the other kids, do you?” Nick asked as if the thought had just occurred to him.

Hayley shook her head. “Uh-uh. Someone would have said.”

“So we have you, Belle, Ava and Ali-who are the others?” Emme tapped her pencil on the tabletop.

“There's Henry-he's twenty-two and he lives in Connecticut. He just graduated from college. Lori is his sister-they're from the same donor and the same mother so they're, like, full siblings. She's twenty and goes to Yale. Jessie-she's nineteen-she used to live in Florida but last year her dad moved them to France. She used to be on the board a lot, but now, not so much.” She thought that over for a moment before amending, “Not ever anymore. Wayne and Will, they live in North Carolina. They're seventeen and they're twins. No one's met them except for Belle.”

“When did Belle meet them?” Nick asked.

“She drove down to meet them one time last year. She said they're both really sweet guys but their mom doesn't want any part of the donor-sib thing, so they don't get to come to any of the get-togethers.”

“Why would Belle drive all the way down there just to meet them?” Emme wondered aloud.

“Because they never got to meet anyone and they were both feeling left out, I guess.” Hayley shrugged. “Belle didn't make a big deal out of it, she just went. The rest of us probably wouldn't have even known if the guys hadn't posted a picture of the three of them on the board. That was Belle, though. She'd do something nice but never talk about it.”

“So that makes nine, if I counted correctly,” Nick said.

“There's Justin, he's twenty-one and lives in Virginia. He's in college so we don't hear from him very often.”

“Where does he go to school?” Emme looked up from her notes.

“I don't know. He transferred someplace but didn't say where. He's pretty much dropped out.”

She rested an elbow on the table and planted her chin in the palm of one hand and looked wistful. “That happens sometimes. People drop out, they drop in, they drop out again, depending on what's going on in their lives. They get busy.”

She smiled ruefully and added, “Sometimes they get grounded. That's sort of what we thought about Belle, that something was going on and she didn't have time for us for a while. We-me and Ava and Ali-figured she'd be back when it suited her.”

“So it's really not unusual to not hear from someone on the list for a while.” Nick said. “But you wouldn't have thought it odd that someone dropped out for several months?”

“No.” Hayley shook her head. “Sometimes you just get overwhelmed with work. Plus, Belle said she was getting really busy with sorority rush coming up. We all thought she'd be back at the end of the school year.”

“Have you met, face-to-face, with everyone on the board?”

“No. Just Ali, Ava, Henry, Lori, and Belle. We've gotten together a few times. Well, Ava only once, ′cause she's in grad school and is real busy.”

“How about last January?” Nick asked.

Hayley turned to Emme. “That's the day you said she had on her calendar? The day she disappeared?”

“Yes. Did you get together that day?”

“We met in Philadelphia, me, Ali-she was in the area to visit Bryn Mawr-Belle, Henry, and Lori. I told my parents I had to go to the Philadelphia Art Museum for a school project, and that's where we all met. We went through the museum together and then we had lunch there. It was so much fun.” Hayley rested her elbow on the scarred tabletop, her fingers absently tracing a heart that someone had carved long ago, the inscription AS & MR still visible. Emme noticed the entire top of the table was one mass of carvings, as if people had been leaving their mark for generations.

“Did anything unusual happen?” Nick asked.

Emme kicked him under the table. My job .

He sat back against the seat. I got the message. She's all yours .

“I can't think of anything,” Hayley told him.

Emme sat back to permit the waitress to serve their pancakes. The aroma reminded her that she hadn't eaten since six thirty that morning. By the way Nick was eyeing his plate, she suspected that he'd had an early breakfast as well.