She's Not There (3 page)

“Wait till you see this place. There's an enormous pool and the most gorgeous garden restaurant. Plus a kiddie pool, and of course, the ocean…” Becky waved her hands in its general direction.

“And the rooms are so beautiful,” Peggy added.

“Are we all on the same floor?”

Rain scoffed. “Not even the same wing. You guys are on this side.” She pointed to her right. “The rest of us are all the way over there.” She spun to her left.

“Mommy, I have to pee.”

“I know, sweetie. Can you hold it for a few more minutes?”

“Don't forget to sign Michelle up for the kids' club,” Steve said pointedly.

“What's a kids' club?” Michelle asked.

“Oh, you're gonna have such a good time,” Becky enthused. “Every afternoon you do arts and crafts or search for buried treasure or go hunting for crabs…”

“I don't want to hunt for crabs.”

“Well, then, you can swim or build sand castles or play games with the other kids.”

“I don't want to play with other kids. I want to play with Mommy.”

“Don't worry, sweetheart,” Caroline said. “We'll have lots of time to play.”

“Is Samantha going to the kids' club?” Michelle asked.

“No, sweetheart. She's too little.”

“She's not little. She's big.”

“We'll talk about it later,” Hunter said as the receptionist handed him the keycards to their room.

“Suite 612,” the young woman said, dark eyes sparkling.

“Oh, you have a suite,” Becky said, a hint of envy in her voice. “Can't wait to see it.”

“Thanks for making the rest of us look bad,” Fletcher joked to Hunter as everyone crowded into the waiting elevator.

“There's too many people in here,” Michelle complained loudly.

Caroline couldn't help smiling. She'd been thinking the same thing.

The theme from
Star Wars
escaped from someone's pocket to fill the small space.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Becky said, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling as Steve extricated his cell phone from his jeans. “Again?”

“Hello, Mother,” Steve said, holding the phone to his ear with one hand while lifting his other hand into the air, as if to say,
What can I do?

“She just called an hour ago,” Becky announced to the group.

“Yes, they just got here. Did you want to speak to Caroline? No? Okay. Yeah, I'm sure she'll call you later.” He looked to Caroline for confirmation. Caroline shot him a look that said,
Thanks a lot.
“What? Yes, I know it's dangerous. Believe me, I have no intention of parasailing.”

“Bless her little black heart,” Becky said. “The woman never stops.”

“No. Not interested in horseback riding on the beach either. You never know what those horses have been drinking. No, I'm not making fun of you. I totally understand your concern. Yeah, okay. Talk to you later. Love you, too. Bye.” Steve returned the phone to his pocket. “What can I tell you?” he said with a laugh. “She's just looking out for her little boy.”

“Does Grandma Mary have a black heart?” Michelle asked.

“No, darling,” Caroline said. “Of course not.”

“We'll have to wait for the autopsy to find out for sure,” Hunter said.

“You must be kidding,” Becky scoffed. “She'll outlive us all.”

“Nice talk, you guys,” Steve said. “This is Caroline's and my mother you're talking about. Show a little respect.”

Becky's snort of derision filled the small elevator.

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” he said.

“Sixth floor,” Fletcher announced, to Caroline's great relief. “Everybody out.”

“So, what do you think?” Hunter asked Caroline after everyone had finally cleared out of their two-bedroom suite.

Holding Samantha in her arms, Caroline cut across the brightly furnished living room to the window overlooking the courtyard and stared down at the garden restaurant directly below. Bright red umbrellas shaded tables covered with white linen. Flowering coral and white shrubs grew at appropriate intervals. An enormous amoeba-shaped pool was situated off to one side, surrounded by red-and-white-striped lounge chairs. Everything was literally a stone's throw away. The world at her fingertips, Caroline thought, turning back toward her husband, taking in the room's bright yellow walls, the red velvet sofa and red-and-gold wing chair. “It's beautiful. Everything. You did good.” She walked around the dark wood coffee table into his waiting embrace.

“Were you really surprised or were you just pretending?”

“Are you kidding? I was absolutely shocked.”

“Yeah? Well, I just might have a few more surprises up my sleeve, Mrs. Shipley.” He nibbled the side of her ear.

“Mommy,” Michelle called from the bathroom. “Mommy, I'm finished. Come wipe me.”

Caroline lowered her head to his shoulder.

“Isn't she old enough to do that herself?” Hunter asked as Caroline handed Samantha over to him and walked toward the bathroom.

“So, what do you think?” Caroline asked her daughter, repeating the question Hunter had asked her just minutes ago, as she led Michelle into the child's yellow-and-white bedroom. A twin-size bed, covered with a bright red, white, and gold print quilt, was positioned against one wall. A crib, covered with an identical but smaller quilt had been wedged against the opposite wall, a window between the two.

“I don't like it.”

Why am I not surprised?
Caroline wondered. “What don't you like, sweetie?”

“I want my own room.”

“Come on. It'll be fun sharing a room with your sister.”

“I want to sleep in your room.”

The phone rang.
Thank God,
Caroline thought, grateful for the interruption. Even talking to her mother would be better than this.

“That was Rain,” Hunter said, popping his head into the room seconds later. “She made reservations in the garden restaurant for eight o'clock tonight.”

“Assuming we can get a sitter.”

“Already taken care of.”

Caroline looked from the smiling toddler in her husband's arms to the pouting youngster at her side, then back at Hunter. “My hero,” she said.

I
think my real name is Samantha. I think I'm your daughter.

The words slammed against the side of Caroline's head, like a hammer. She felt her brain wobble, warm syrupy fluid leaking into the space behind her eyes, the pressure building until it could no longer be contained and it spilled down her cheeks in the form of tears. “This isn't funny,” she whispered into the phone, her whole body starting to shake. “You shouldn't do this.”

“I'm really sorry,” said the girl on the other end of the line. “I know how this must sound.”

Caroline tightened her grip on the phone, as if by doing so she could keep from falling over. “You have no idea how this sounds.”

“I guess it seems pretty crazy.”

“It's far from pretty and far worse than crazy,” said Caroline, amazed at the sound of her own voice, that she was able to form coherent sentences. “It's mean. And it's cruel.”

“I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention.”

“What
is
your intention?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure. I just thought…”

“You didn't think.” Caroline was angry now. How dare this girl, this stranger, this
Lili,
lay claim to her daughter's name, to her identity?

“I saw the pictures. I wasn't sure what to do.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I told you.”

“You're a reporter, aren't you?”

“No. I swear.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“Because I think…”

“You think you're my daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Because you look like some sketches on the Internet,” Caroline said, her voice flatlining, as if her vocal cords had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

“Partly.”

“Partly?” Caroline repeated.

“It's more than that.”

“What more?”

“Just…a whole bunch of things.”

“What things?”

A slight pause. “Well, for starters, we're the same age.”

A scoff of derision. “Lots of girls are seventeen. What's your birthday?”

“Supposedly August twelfth.”

“Samantha was born in October.”

“I know, but…”

“But what?”

“Can't birth certificates be faked?”

“You think someone faked your birth certificate?”

“Maybe. I mean, it's possible.”

“Possible, but unlikely. What else have you got?”

Another pause, longer this time. “We moved around a lot, when I was little.”

“So?”

“From one city to another, one country to another,” the girl continued, despite Caroline's growing impatience. “We were always packing up and leaving. We never stayed in one place very long.”

“Who's ‘we'?”

“My parents and my brothers.”

“So you have parents.”

“My father died last year.”

“But your mother is still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Were you adopted?”

“She says I wasn't.”

“You don't believe her?”

“No.”

“Why not? Have you stumbled across some documents hidden in the attic? Has anyone else in the family ever hinted that you may have been adopted?”

“No.”

“Then why do you think you were?” Caroline asked in an effort to avoid asking herself more pertinent questions, namely, Why was she still on the line? Why was she still talking to this girl, this
Lili,
who was delusional at best, deranged at worst. Why didn't she just hang up?

“I don't look anything like either my brothers or my parents.”

“Lots of kids don't look like their parents or siblings.”

“It's not just that.”

“What else is it?”

“I was homeschooled, kept away from other kids.”

“Lots of kids are homeschooled these days. It doesn't suggest anything sinister. And it makes sense in your case, if you moved as often as you claim.”

“It's just that I'm so different from the rest of them. Not just how I look, but what I'm like, what I'm good at, how I feel about…I don't know…
everything
. It's like they're on one planet and I'm on another. I've just never felt I belonged.”

Caroline almost laughed. She leaned against the kitchen counter, rubbed the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “You
do
realize you're describing almost every teenager in America.”

“I guess.”

“What does your mother have to say?”

“About what?”

“About
what
?” Caroline repeated, incredulously. “About everything you've just told me.” There was a moment's silence. It hovered, like an axe, above Caroline's head. “She doesn't know, does she?”

A long silence.

Of course the girl hadn't confronted her mother with her suspicions. Or her plans to call Caroline. The whole idea was so ill-conceived, so far-fetched, so ludicrous.

And yet, so appealing, so comforting, so wonderful.

Her daughter. Alive. On the phone. After all these years.

Was it possible? Could it be possible?

No, it couldn't. Even asking the question made her as delusional as the girl on the other end of the line.

“Look,” Caroline said forcefully, “I have to go. I'm already late for work.”

“No. Please don't hang up.”

“Look,
Lili,
” she said, trying to keep her emotions in check, her voice as gentle as possible. “I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. I'm going to assume you're just a very sensitive, lonely young lady who misses her father very much and is having trouble processing his death. Your imagination is in overdrive. But let's look at this realistically. Just because you look more like a few sketches on the Internet than you do your family doesn't mean…”

“We never had computers in the house,” the girl interrupted.

“I don't understand. What's that got to do with anything?” Caroline asked, although she did find it strange. Who didn't have a computer in their home these days, especially if they were homeschooling their kids? “I'm sure your parents had their reasons…”

“They said they weren't going to be one of those families who let technology rule their lives, that kids spend too much time on Facebook and looking at pornography…”

“Well, there you go. Wait,” Caroline said, pouncing on a perceived inconsistency as deftly as an early bird spearing a worm. “You told me before that you saw the sketches on the Internet. If you don't have a computer…”

“I was at the library,” Lili explained easily. “This boy kept staring at me. He said I looked just like this girl who disappeared fifteen years ago. He's the one who showed me the pictures.”

“They're artist's renderings, not photographs. They're just projections, based on things like bone structure and shape of the eyes. No one knows how accurate they actually are. Look. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're not my daughter.”

“How can you be sure?”

Caroline said nothing.
Hang up,
she told herself.
Hang up now.

“What if I take a DNA test?” the girl asked.

“What?”

“What if I take a DNA test?” she asked again.

“A DNA test,” Caroline repeated when she could think of nothing else to say.

“That way we'd know for certain one way or the other, wouldn't we?”

Caroline nodded, although she said nothing. In her fantasies, Samantha simply showed up on her doorstep and fell into her waiting arms. There was an instant, instinctive connection. None of her imaginings had ever involved anything as clinical as DNA testing.

“So how would I go about getting tested?”

“I have no idea.” Caroline was reeling, her brain trapped inside a thick fog, unable to connect words or form cohesive thoughts. “I guess you'd have to contact the proper authorities,” she was finally able to spit out.

“Who are they?”

“I'm not sure. Probably the San Diego Police Department would be a good place to start.”

“I don't live in San Diego.”

Caroline remembered the distinctive long-distance ring that had stopped her as she was heading for the front door. She should never have gone back, never have picked up the phone. “Where
do
you live?”

A sigh of hesitation. “I'd rather not say.”

Another sigh, this one Caroline's. Of course the girl would rather not say. “Goodbye, Lili.”

“I live in Calgary.”

“Calgary?”

“Calgary, Alberta.”

“You're Canadian?”

“No. I told you. We moved around a lot. We've been here for about two years. Before that, we lived in Seattle and before that, Madison, Wisconsin. I spent most of my childhood in Europe. We came here just before my father got sick.”

“And you'd be willing to come to San Diego?”

“I would, but I can't. I don't have any money…”

“Uh-huh,” Caroline said. The fog in her brain was starting to dissipate. “Now I understand. You want me to send you money…”
I'm such a fool,
she thought.

“No. No. I don't want your money.”

“What
do
you want? Do you want me to send you a plane ticket? I can do that,” Caroline pressed, feeling a sudden surge of control. She was calling the girl's bluff, what she should have done in the first place. “I'll just need to know your last name so I can make the reservation.”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because it's not important. What difference does it make? I already told you I can't come there.”

“I tell you what. I'll even get a ticket for your mom. She can come with you.”

“No. My mom can't know about this.”

“I thought you thought
I
was your mother.”

“I did. I
do
. Oh, God, I don't know what to think anymore.” A pause filled with the threat of tears. “Look. Even if she's not my real mother, she's the one who raised me. I don't want to hurt her, and I just can't just take off without telling her. She'd go crazy with worry.”

Caroline closed her eyes, remembering the panic of that awful night fifteen years ago when she peered into Samantha's crib and found it empty. Fresh horror pricked her skin like hundreds of tiny needles, poisoning her bloodstream and racing toward her heart. She felt dizzy, faint, as if she might throw up. “So, it would appear we're at an impasse,” she said when she could find her voice.

“Maybe you could come here.”

“What?”

“Come to Calgary. We could go to a hospital or a clinic, find someone to do the test. That way we'd know for sure.”

“I know
now,
” Caroline said. Did she? If she was so damn sure this girl wasn't her daughter, why was she still on the line? “All right. Listen. You've given me a lot to digest. Let me think it over and get back to you.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I can't give you my phone number. You can't call me.”

Caroline's anger resurfaced. What was the matter with her? She'd been dealing with this kind of crap for fifteen years, some of it well-meaning and sincere, most of it mean-spirited or downright hateful. This was either a clever scam or a sick joke. A ploy for money or a plea for attention. Most likely just another bloodsucking journalist seeking to exploit her vulnerability, her gullibility, to put a fresh twist on an old tale, gather whatever new information might be available, perhaps even extract a confession. She'd probably read all about this phone call in tomorrow's papers. “Look, Lili, or whatever the hell your name really is…”

“Come to Calgary.”

“No.”

“Please. I've already checked and there's a flight that leaves San Diego for Calgary first thing tomorrow morning. You'd be here by noon. I could meet you at your hotel.”