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The Girl in Times Square. Paullina Simons
Читать онлайн.Название The Girl in Times Square
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007383979
Автор произведения Paullina Simons
Жанр Зарубежные детективы
Издательство HarperCollins
“Paul, I might know how many times a day Amy brushes her teeth but I don’t know where she’s gone to.”
“I understand. No one is blaming you, Lil. Why so defensive?”
“Because everybody seems to think I have answers that I just don’t have. You don’t know how often that detective asks me where she is.”
“Where do you think she is?”
“I don’t know!”
“Do you think something happened to her?”
“No! Like what?”
And with Rachel:
“God, Lil, what do you think happened to Amy?”
“I don’t know. What about you?”
“I have no idea. But then, I didn’t live with her.”
Lily formulated her doubts. “Rach, the detective told me you told him that Amy was definitely seeing somebody.”
“That’s what she told me. Don’t you know? I thought you’d confirm for sure. Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“She didn’t tell me, Rachel.”
“Why would she keep something like that from you? I thought you were close.”
“We were close. We are close.”
“By the way … is the detective married?”
“I don’t know. Why would I know that? And what do you care? How is TO-nee?”
“Tony is great,” Rachel said cryptically. “Never better.”
“So what are you asking about the detective for then?”
“No reason.”
Lily fell back on Amy’s bed. Did she have the answers? Should she have the answers? That was even worse. Should she and just doesn’t because Lily Quinn doesn’t have the answers to anything? Not to why she hasn’t graduated in six years, not to what she wants to do with her life, not to what’s wrong with her mother, not to just what it is that Joshua can’t love about her, not to where Amy is. Not to 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1.
MISSING: Amy McFadden
DESCRIPTION:
Sex: Female
Race: Caucasian
Age: 24
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 140 lbs.
Build: Medium
Complexion: Fair
Hair: Red, long, curly
Eyes: Brown
Clothing/Jewelry: Unknown.
Last seen: May, 1999, in the vicinity of Avenue C and 9th Street in Manhattan, New York, within the confines of the 9th Precinct.
Lily and Rachel and Paul walked around the neighborhood and tacked the 8½ by 11 posters with Amy’s photo on the lamp posts of every block from 12th Street down to 4th and on three avenues, A, B, and C. Lily couldn’t help but be reminded of thumbtacking her lottery ticket to her wall, and every time she thought of it she felt stabbed a little in the chest, and walked on to the next lamp post without raising her head, careful not to look at her friends, nor at the homeless on the stoops who gazed at them from underneath their rags. Paul tied shiny yellow ribbons above the posters. Amy missing. 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1. Amy missing. 49, 45, 39, 24, 18, 1.
Allison showed up for their new conjugal bliss of a honeymoon three days straight. She went to the beach with him gladly the first day, reluctantly the second day, and on the third morning with hostility, complaining about the wetness of the water, and the sandiness of the sand, and the sunniness of the sun, and the steepness of the hill, complaining about his shoes, which as far as he could see weren’t bothering her. Complaining about the omelet he had yet to make (“I’m sick of your omelets.”) and the coffee (“You never make enough.”).
The fourth morning she didn’t get out of bed, telling him in a mumbled voice that she had had a late night and needed to sleep. The fifth morning, she said she wasn’t feeling well. Her legs hurt from all the walking. She was developing corns and calluses on her feet. She was getting a chill from the cold (??? 79ºF!) water so early in the morning. Her bathing suit was dirty and needed to be washed. The towels weren’t dry and she wasn’t going without the towels.
“Allie, want to go to the beach?”
“No. How many beaches can we go to? I’ve seen them.”
“You’ve seen a volcanic beach?”
She paused. “Sand and water, right?”
“No, volcanic pebbles.”
“You want me to walk barefoot on rocks? Don’t you remember how I cut my foot?”
“Allie, let’s go, for an hour.”
“I’m not going. I have to put the towels in the dryer, they’ll smell if I don’t. Why don’t you go?”
“I don’t want to go by myself.”
“Well, I’m not going.”
George went by himself.
How about Hamoa Beach with gray sand and 4000-foot-high cliffs hanging over the ocean?
“Gray sand? I’m supposed to be tempted by that?”
George went by himself.
Big Beach, Wailea Beach, Black Sand Beach?
“Big Beach, just bigger than ours? And black sand? That’s attractive. Now white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico, that’s attractive, that’s nice. It doesn’t get hot, and it’s so fine, it’s like flour. Why didn’t we get a condo in Florida?”
“Because you said there were too many storms and it was too hot and humid.”
“I never said that, never. It would have been a beautiful life.”
George went by himself.
Lahaina, the Road to Hana, the rainforest?
“You want me to go see trees, George? Walk along the road and into the trees? Poland had forests. And roads. Is it going to rain in the rainforest? I don’t think so.”
George went by himself. Allison came with him to Lahaina once because there was shopping in Lahaina.
“Maui, the god of sun, the cursed god of sun. He cursed this place with perpetual long days of sunshine,” said Allison.
George tried a different tactic.
“What about if we go to the mainland, Allie? Let’s fly to San Francisco, and we’ll drive down south to Las Vegas. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Something hot, yes. Do you have any idea what the temperature is in Las Vegas in July? It’s a hundred and twenty degrees. And what are we going to do, rent a car? We can’t afford such an expense. You’re retired now, George.”
He suggested