Now You See Her Page 0,56
had anything better to do. It was after nine, it was dark, everything hurt, she had a black eye and a sore cheek, and the odds of her finding Devon if she went out again tonight were almost nil. Plus she was exhausted. She lay down on the bed, Vic’s arms immediately encircling her, his body fitting neatly around hers, as if it belonged there.
“We can go out again, if you’d like. Make the rounds of all the pubs,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Maybe we’ll see her.”
Marcy shook her head, feeling Vic’s breath warm against the back of her neck. “We won’t see her.”
“We might.”
“No. She knows I’m here. She doesn’t want me to find her.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I don’t know much, that’s for sure.”
“Tell me what kind of trouble she was in,” Vic said.
“What?”
“You told me in Dublin that Devon was in some sort of trouble.”
“Yes,” Marcy said. Had she told him that?
“With the police?”
“She’d gotten mixed up with some guy who was into cocaine, which of course was the last thing Devon needed. It just made her more depressed.”
“What happened?”
“They went to a party one night. It got kind of loud. A neighbor called the police. They found drugs. Devon was charged along with everyone else. Our lawyer scheduled a meeting with the Crown attorney. He thought that because of Devon’s condition, we might be able to persuade him to drop the charges if she’d agree to get help.”
“And?”
“The weekend before that meeting was supposed to take place, Devon went up to our cottage.” Marcy’s voice caught in her throat. “She never came back.”
“You’ll find her, Marcy. You’ll bring her home.”
There was a long silence. “What if it’s not her?” Marcy asked, the question she hadn’t permitted herself even to contemplate until now. “What if Peter and Judith and the police are right? I only saw her for half a second through a window that was covered with beer ads. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she wasn’t the girl I saw standing on the bridge. Maybe I’m as crazy as everyone thinks I am.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“You married your realtor,” Marcy reminded him.
Vic laughed. “I guess sometimes we just want so badly to stop hurting, we do crazy things.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d like to be here when you find out.”
Marcy flipped over onto her back, her eyes seeking his. “You really are the nicest man,” she said as she reached for him again.
SHE AWOKE TO the sound of bells ringing.
Except they weren’t bells, she realized, sitting up and looking toward her purse on the floor next to the bed. The ringing was coming from inside her bag. It was her phone.
Careful not to disturb the man still sleeping beside her, Marcy grabbed her purse, taking it with her into the bathroom and closing the door behind her, perching on the side of the tub, feeling the enamel cold against her bare skin. “Hello?” she whispered.
“I think I might have found her,” Liam said without further preamble.
“What?” Was she dreaming? “How?”
“Well, I’ve been asking around, as you know, and it looks like it’s finally paid off. I just got a call from an acquaintance of mine. He says that a girl matching your daughter’s description recently rented a small house just down the way from his ex-wife. He saw her yesterday when he went to visit his kids.”
“There are a lot of girls matching my daughter’s description,” Marcy told him.
“This one’s named Audrey.”
Marcy gasped, quickly covering her mouth with her hand and trying to contain her budding excitement. “Where is she?”
“A tiny village very close to here, called Youghal.”
“Yawl?” Marcy repeated, pronouncing it as he had.
“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” he said.
SIXTEEN
MARCY WAS HALFWAY DOWN the main staircase of the Doyle Cork Inn when Vic’s voice stopped her. She froze, looking back to see him standing at the top of the stairs, her pink cotton bathrobe draped carelessly across his shoulders and tied haphazardly around his waist, his legs and feet bare. He’d been sleeping so soundly, she hadn’t wanted to disturb him. Or at least that’s what she’d told herself as she was rushing to get dressed.
“Marcy, what’s happening?”
“I have to go.” Why hadn’t she woken him up? she wondered now. Why hadn’t she told him where she was going? Surely she owed him that much.
“Where? It’s not even seven thirty.” He looked around, as if despite his serious state of undress, he