had blistered and scarred permanently in places because Helene occasionally forgot to apply the medicine prescribed by the emergency room doctor.
And then, in September, Helene talked about leaving the state.
"What?" I said. "I never heard this."
Lionel shrugged. "Looking back, it was probably just another of her stupid ideas. She had a friend who'd moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, got a job at a T-shirt shop, told Helene how it was sunny all the time, drinks were flowing, no more snow, no more cold. Just sit on the beach and occasionally sell T-shirts. For a week or so, it was all Helene talked about. Most times, I'd have brushed it off. She was always talking about living somewhere else, just like she was sure she'd hit for the lottery someday. But this time, I dunno, I panicked. All I could think was: She'll take Amanda. She'll leave her alone on beaches and in unlocked apartments and she won't have me or Beatrice around to pick up the slack. I just...I lost it. I called Broussard. I met the people who wanted to take care of Amanda."
"And their names were?" Ryerson's pen hovered over the pad.
Lionel ignored him. "They were great. Perfect. Beautiful home. Loved kids. Had already raised one perfectly, and now she'd moved out, they felt empty. They're great with her," he said quietly.
"So you've seen her," I said.
He nodded. "She's happy. She really does smile now." Something caught in his throat, and he swallowed against it. "She doesn't know I see her. Broussard's first rule was that her whole past life had to be wiped out. She's four. She'll forget, given time. Actually," he said slowly, "She's five now. Isn't she?"
The realization that Amanda had celebrated a birthday he hadn't witnessed slid softly across his face. He shook his head quickly. "Anyway, I've snuck up there, watched her with her new parents, and she looks great. She looks..." He cleared his throat, looked away from us. "She looks loved."
"What happened the night she disappeared?" Ryerson said.
"I came in from the back of the house. I took her out. I told her it was a game. She liked games. Maybe because Helene's idea was a trip down to the bar, play with the Pac-Man machine, honey." He sucked ice from his glass and crushed it between his teeth. "Broussard was parked on the street. I waited in the doorway to the porch, told Amanda to be real, real quiet. The only neighbor who could have seen us was Mrs. Driscoll, across the street. She was sitting on her stoop, had a direct line on the house. She left the stoop for a second, went back in the house for another cup of tea or something, and Broussard gave me an all-clear signal. I carried Amanda to Broussard's car, and we drove away."
"And no one saw a thing," I said.
"None of the neighbors. We found out later, though, that Chris Mullen did. He was parked on the street, staking out the house. He was waiting for Helene to come back so he could find out where she'd hid the money she stole. He recognized Broussard. Cheese Olamon used it to blackmail Broussard into retrieving the missing money. He was also supposed to steal some drugs from evidence lockup, give them to Mullen that night at the quarry."
"Back to the night Amanda disappeared," I said.
He took a second cube of ice from the glass with his thick fingers, chewed it. "I told Amanda my friend was going to take her to see some nice people. Told her I'd see her in a few hours. She just nodded. She was used to being dropped off with strangers. I got out a few blocks away and walked home. It was ten-thirty. It took my sister almost twelve hours to notice her daughter was gone. That tell you anything?"
For a while we were so quiet, I could hear the thump of darts hitting cork near the back of the bar.
"When the time was right," Lionel said, "I figured I'd tell Beatrice, and she'd understand. Not right away. A few years down the road, maybe. I don't know. I hadn't thought that through. Beatrice hates Helene, and she loves Amanda, but something like this...See, she believes in the law, all the rules. She'd never have gone along with something like this. But I hoped, maybe, once enough time had passed..." He looked up at the ceiling, gave a small shake of his head. "When she