Magic hour: a novel Read online

  Inside the hospital, the girl lay in a narrow bed. There were several electrodes attached to her head and another pair that monitored the beating of her heart. A single leather restraint coiled around her left wrist and anchored her to the bed rail, although in her unconscious state she certainly posed no threat to herself or others. It was the first time the restraints had been used in ten years; nurses had spent forever in the storage room, trying to find them.

  Ellie stood back from the bed, her arms crossed. Peanut was beside her. For once, her friend wasn’t talking. They both felt badly about leaving Earl to handle the crowd outside and Cal to handle the phones, but they had to delegate. Ellie needed to talk to the doctor, and Peanut . . . well, Peanut did not intend to miss one iota of this drama. She’d left the station for only thirty minutes since the girl’s appearance—and that was to drop off dinner at home. Her daughter, Tara, was babysitting for Cal.

  Now, Dr. Max Cerrasin was examining the child. Every now and then he murmured something under his breath; other than that, no one spoke.

  Ellie had never seen him so serious. In the six years he’d lived in Rain Valley, Max had gathered quite a reputation—and it wasn’t only for his doctoring skills. Ellie still remembered when he’d moved to town. He’d taken over Doc Fischer’s practice and settled into a piece of lakefront property on the edge of town. The single women had been all aflutter; every woman between twenty and sixty—Ellie included—had been drawn to him. They’d arrived at his front door in a steady, chattering stream, always bringing a casserole.

  Then they’d waited impatiently for him to choose one of them.

  And waited.

  Over the years, he’d dated—plenty, in fact—and he’d made friends with almost all of the available women in town, but no one could really lay claim to him. Although he was an outrageous flirt, his attention was spread out evenly.

  Even Ellie had failed to coax love from him. Their affair had been like all the others—white-hot and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief. Lately he’d been seen going out less and less, becoming that strangest of animals in a small town: a loner. It made no sense at all to Ellie. All those good looks gone to waste.

  “Well,” he said at last, shoving a hand through his steel gray hair.

  Ellie eased away from the wall and went to him. When she looked up into Max’s blue eyes, she saw how tired he was. No wonder. She’d heard they’d found him on some rock face only a few hours ago. He’d come straight from the mountains, not even bothering to change into work clothes or put on his white coat. He wore an old, faded pair of Levi’s and a black tee shirt. His curly gray hair was slightly damp and messy, but—as always—it was his eyes that demanded attention. They were an electric blue, and when he looked at you, there seemed to be no one else in the room. Even now, looking tired and confused, he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen.

  “What can you tell me, Max?”

  “She’s seriously malnourished and dehydrated. The hydration we can take care of pretty quickly, but the malnourishment is serious.” He lifted the child’s unbound wrist; his fingers easily encircled it. Next to his tanned skin, her dirty flesh looked splotchy and gray.

  Ellie flipped open her notepad. “Native American?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that under all this filth, she’s Caucasian.” He let go of the girl’s wrist and moved down the bed. He gently lifted her right leg at the knee. “You see those scars on her ankle?”

  Ellie leaned closer. Beneath the grime she saw it: a thick, discolored band of scar tissue. “Ligature marks.”

  “Almost certainly.”

  Peanut made a gasping sound. “The poor thing was tied?”

  “For a long time, I’d say. The scarring is not new tissue, although the cuts around it are fairly recent. Her X rays show a broken left forearm that healed badly, too.”

  “So, we’re not looking at some ordinary kid who wandered off from her family in the park and got lost.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Any evidence of sexual trauma?”

  “No. None.”

  “Thank God,” Ellie whispered.

  He shook his head, sighing quietly. “I saw a lot of bad shit in the inner city, El, but I never saw anything like this.”

  “What can you do for her?”

  “This isn’t my area of expertise.”

  “Come on, Max . . .”

  He looked down at the girl. Ellie saw something in his eyes—a sadness; or maybe fear. You could never tell with Max. “I could run some tests—brain waves, blood samples, that kind of thing. If she were conscious, I could observe her, but—”

  “The old day care center is empty,” Peanut said. “You could watch her through the window.”

  “Right. Put her there, Max. She might try to escape, so keep the door locked. By morning I’m sure we’ll know more. Mel and Earl are canvassing the town. They’ll find out who she is. Or when she wakes up, she’ll tell us.”

  Max turned to her. “We’re in the deep end here, Ellie, and you know it. Maybe you should call in the big boys.”

  Ellie looked at him. “It’s my pool, Max. I can handle one lost girl.”

  THREE

  JULIA STOOD IN FRONT OF THE FULL-LENGTH MIRROR IN HER BEDROOM, studying herself with a critical eye. She wore a charcoal gray pantsuit and a pale pink silk blouse. Her blond hair was coiled back in a French twist; the way she always wore it when seeing patients. Not that she had a lot of patients left. The tragedy in Silverwood had cost her at least seventy percent of them. Thankfully there had been those who still trusted her, and she would never let them down.

  She grabbed her briefcase and went down to her garage, where her steel blue Toyota Prius Hybrid waited. The garage door opened, revealing the empty street outside.

  On this warm, brown October morning there were no reporters out there waiting for her, clustered together and yet apart, smoking cigarettes and talking.

  She was no longer part of the story.

  Finally, after a year of nightmares, she had her life back. It took her more than an hour to reach the small, beautiful Beverly Hills office building that she’d leased for more than seven years.

  She parked in her spot and went inside, closing the door quietly behind her. On the second floor, she paused outside her office, looking at the sterling silver plaque on the door.

  DR. JULIA CATES

  She pressed the intercom button.

  “Dr. Cates’s office,” came the scratchy-voiced reply through the speaker. “May I help you?”

  “Hey, Gwen, it’s me.”

  “Oh!”

  There was a buzzing sound, then the door eased open with a click.

  Julia took a deep breath and opened it. The office smelled of the fresh flowers that were delivered every Monday morning. Though there were fewer patients now, she’d never cut back on the flower order. It would have been a sign of defeat.

  “Hello, Doctor,” said Gwen Connelly, her receptionist. “Congratulations on yesterday.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “Is Melissa here yet?”

  “You have no appointments this week,” Gwen said gently. The compassion in her brown eyes was unnerving. “They all cancelled.”

  “All of them? Even Marcus?”

  “Did you see the L.A. Times today?”

  “No. Why?”

  Gwen pulled a newspaper out of the trash can and dropped it on the desk. The headline was DEAD WRONG. Beneath it was a photograph of Julia. “The Zunigas gave an interview after the hearing. They blamed you for all of it.”

  Julia reached out for the wall to steady herself.

  “I’m sure they’re just trying to get out from under the lawsuit. They said . . . you should have committed their daughter.”

  “Oh.” The word slipped out on a breath.

  Gwen stood up and came around the desk. She was a small, compact woman who had run this office as she’d run her home, with discipline and caring. Moving forward, she ope
ned her arms. “You helped a lot of people. No one can take that from you.”

  Julia sidestepped quickly. If she were touched right now, she’d fall apart. She might never put all the pieces back together.

  Gwen stopped. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Thank you. I . . . guess I’ll take a vacation.” She tried to smile. It felt heavy and wooden on her face. “I haven’t gone anywhere in years.”

  “It’d be good for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll cancel the flowers and call the building manager,” Gwen said. “Let him know you’ll be gone for . . . a while.”

  I’ll cancel the flowers.

  Funny how that, of all of it, broke the skin. Julia held on to her composure by the thinnest strand as she moved Gwen toward the door and said good-bye.

  Then, alone in the office, she sank to her knees on the expensive carpeting and bowed her head.

  She wasn’t sure how long she knelt there in the darkness, listening to the strains of her own breathing and the beat of her heart.

  Finally, she awkwardly got to her feet and looked around, wondering what she would do next. This practice was the very heart of her. In her pursuit of professional excellence, she’d put everything else on the back burner—friends, family, hobbies. She hadn’t even had a date in almost a year. Not since Philip, in fact. She went to her phone and stood there, staring down at the speed dial list.

  Dr. Philip Westover was still number seven. She felt an ache of need, a bone-deep desire to hear his voice, hear him say It’ll be okay, Julia, in that lilting brogue of his. For five years he’d been her best friend and her lover. Now he was another woman’s husband.

  That was the thing about love—it was unreliable.

  With a sigh, she pushed the number two button.

  Her therapist, Dr. Harold Collins, answered on the second ring. She’d been seeing him once a month since her residency, when it had been required of all psychiatric students. In truth, he’d been more of a friend than a doctor.

  “Hey, Harry,” she said, leaning tiredly against the wall. “Did you see this morning’s paper?”

  He sighed heavily. “Julia. I’ve been worried about you.”

  “I’m worried about myself.”

  “You need to start giving interviews, tell your side of the story. It’s ridiculous to shoulder the whole blame for this thing. We all think—”

  “What’s the point? They’ll believe what they want to, anyway. You know that.”

  “Sometimes fighting is the point, Julia.”

  “I’ve never been good at that, Harry.” She stared out the window at the bright blue-skied day and wondered what she would do now. They talked for a while longer, but in truth, Julia wasn’t listening. Treating patients was all she had; all she was good at. She should have built herself a life instead of just a career. If she had, she wouldn’t be alone now. And talking about her emptiness wouldn’t help. She’d been wrong to reach out. “I better go, Harry. Thanks for everything.”

  “Julia—”

  She hung up the phone and walked around her office. When she felt tears gathering, she stripped out of her suit and put on her workout clothes, then headed to the treadmill she kept in the next room.

  She knew she’d been on it too much lately, that she’d lost so much weight she was down to nothing, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Staring into the murky darkness of her beloved office, she stepped on the black pad and set the incline button for hills. When she was running, she almost forgot her pain. It wasn’t until much later, when she’d turned the machine off and driven back to her too quiet home, that she thought about what it meant to run and run and have nowhere to go.

  IN THESE LATE EVENING HOURS THE HALLS OF THE COUNTY HOSPITAL were quiet. It was Max’s least favorite time; he preferred the hustle and bustle of daily emergencies. There were too many thoughts that waited for him in the shadowy quiet.

  He made a few last notes on the girl’s chart, then looked down at her.

  She lay perfectly still, breathing in the deep, even way of sedated sleep. On her left wrist, the brown leather restraint looked obscenely heavy and ugly.

  He reached down for her free hand, picked it up and held it. Her fingers, clean now but still stained by blood and lined with scars, were thin and tiny against his palm. “Who are you, little one?”

  Behind him the door opened and closed. He knew without looking that it was Trudi Hightower, the charge nurse of the swing shift. He could smell her perfume—gardenias.

  “How is she?” Trudi asked, coming up close to him. She was a tall, good-looking woman with kind eyes and a loud voice. She claimed that the voice had come from raising three boys on her own.

  “Not good.”

  She made a tsking sound. “The poor thing.”

  “Are we ready to move her?”

  “The old day care center is all set up.” She reached down and unhooked the restraint. When she lifted the heavy strap, Max touched her wrist.

  “Leave it here,” he said.

  “But—”

  “I think she’s been bound enough in her life.”

  He bent down and scooped the sleeping child up in his arms.

  In silence, they walked down the brightly lit hallways to the old day care center.

  There, he tucked the girl into the hospital bed they’d moved into the room. At the last second he had to stop himself from whispering, Sleep tight, kiddo.

  “I’ll stay with her awhile,” he said instead.

  Trudi touched his forearm gently. “I’m off in forty minutes,” she said. “You want to come over to the house?”

  He nodded. God knew he could use a distraction. Tonight, if he went home alone, the memories would be there, waiting to keep him company.

  ELLIE STARED AT THE COMPUTER SCREEN UNTIL THE LETTERS BLURRED into little black blobs on a field of throbbing white. A headache opened its parachute at the back of her skull and floated down her spine. If she read one more report of a missing or abducted child, she was going to scream.

  There were thousands of them.

  Thousands.

  Lost girls who had no voice to cry for help, no way to reach out. The few who were lucky enough to be alive somewhere were counting on professionals to find and save them.

  Ellie closed her eyes. There had to be more she could do, but what? She’d already done everything she could think of. She and the town’s other two officers had canvassed the streets. They’d notified the county sheriff’s office that an unidentified child had been found. They’d also contacted the Family Crisis Network and Rural Resources, as well as every state and national agency. No one knew who the kid was, and it was becoming increasingly clear that this was Rain Valley’s case. Her case. Other law enforcement and social agencies might be called upon to help, but the child had shown up in this town, and that made identifying the girl her job. The county sheriff had backed away so fast he’d practically left skid marks. His Sorry, she’s on city property told Ellie plenty. No one would take responsibility for this girl until a positive ID was made.

  She pushed away from the desk and got to her feet. Arching her back, she kneaded her aching neck.

  She stepped over her sleeping dogs and went to the porch, looking out across her backyard. It was almost dawn. Here, on the edge of the rain forest, the world was both utterly still and deeply alive. As always, there was moisture everywhere; wet air blew in from the ocean and left millions of dew beads on the leaves. Come dawn, those drops would fall soundlessly to the ground. Invisible rain, her dad had called it, and Ellie always listened for it, if only to remember him.

  “I wish you were here, Dad,” she said, slipping her feet into the fleece-lined clogs by the back door. “You and Uncle Joe always knew how to run with the big dogs.”

  She crossed the porch and went down the back steps, then through the pink and violet morning toward the river. Mist coiled around her feet, rose up from the dark grass in vapors.

  She
was at the very edge of her property, standing by her dad’s favorite Fall River fishing hole, when she realized why she was here.

  His house was on the other side of the river and across a marshy field. From this distance it looked no bigger than a toolshed, but she knew better.

  As a kid she’d hiked through this field every day and played in that yard.

  For a minute she almost started for it. She had the idea to toss stones at his window again and call out to him. He would listen to her fears and understand them. He always had.

  But those days were more than two decades old. Lisa certainly didn’t want to be wakened at dawn by the sound of stones hitting her bedroom window, and though Cal would answer and sit outside with her (she was his boss; not just his friend), he wouldn’t really be listening. He had his own life now, his own wife and children, and even though everyone knew that Lisa wasn’t good enough for him, he loved his family.

  Ellie knew she was on her own. She turned and went back to her house. With a tired sigh she sat back down at her desk and pulled up the missing children reports. The answer had to be in here. It had to be.

  It was her last thought before falling asleep.

  She was wakened by a car horn. She came awake with a start, realizing all at once that she’d fallen asleep at her computer.

  “Shit.”

  She stumbled to her feet and went to the front door.

  Peanut stood in the yard, waving good-bye to her husband as he drove away.

  Ellie looked down at her watch. It was 7:55 in the morning. “What in the hell are you doing here?” she said in a voice that sounded like she smoked a pack a day.

  “I heard you tell Max you’d meet him at eight at the hospital. You’re going to be late.”

  “I didn’t invite you to join us.”

  “I figured it was an oversight. Now hustle your ass.”

  Ellie fished the car keys out of her pocket and tossed them to Peanut, then went back into the house. There was no time to shower and no reason to change her clothes since she was still in her uniform. So she brushed her teeth, took off last night’s makeup, and put on some new layers. In the kitchen, she took out a package of pork chops—of course there were two of them; no wonder she had to spend so much time exercising. Life came in twin packs. It wasn’t exactly a help to the single woman. She put the package on a paper towel in the refrigerator to thaw.