I almost drop my coffee. Instead, I cover my mouth with my hand and whisper, “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.”
Madison takes a sip from her cup, then stares down into it as if searching for something.
“It was my fault. I let go of her hand while we were shopping at the mall. Just for a second, to check a text from my husband, but when I looked up, she was gone.”
She lifts her head and meets my eyes. Her own are haunted.
“That’s the worst thing. That it was my own fault. That and not knowing if she’s still alive. The FBI said if a missing child isn’t found within twenty-four hours, they most likely never will be. They gave up on the search after six months because there were no leads. It’s as if Olivia disappeared into thin air. And every day since, I wonder what happened to my baby. Who took her. What they might have done to her.”
Madison’s eyes glaze over as if she’s gazing at something far away. Her voice drops.
“Olivia would be ten years old now. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent searching child pornography sites on the dark web, looking for her. The only thing keeping me from killing myself is the hope that one day, I’ll see a girl in one of those awful videos with one blue eye and one brown, and I’ll get to hold her again.”
I think I might throw up. My hands shake so badly, the coffee in the cup sloshes around, almost spilling over the rim.
Madison turns her haunted gaze to me. Her sophisticated veneer has dropped. She seems to have aged ten years in a few minutes, leaving her looking like exactly what she is:
A woman living in hell.
Tears welling in her eyes, she says hoarsely, “Do you think she could forgive me?”
I want to burst out sobbing. But I rest my shaking hand on her forearm and say, “There’s nothing to forgive. The person who took her is evil. It wasn’t your fault.”
She smiles sadly. “That’s what my therapist says. But I don’t believe it. Neither did my husband. He left me for someone else. Someone much younger. I just heard they’re having twins.”
A voice calls out, “If everyone would like to sit down, we can get started.”
Stunned and sick to my stomach, I glance over at the group. Jan is waving to two people just coming through the door. When I turn back to Madison, she’s already pulling away.
I grip her arm and say desperately, “Has it helped you, this group?”
She looks at me for a brief moment before saying softly, “What do you think?”
Then she turns and walks away. She takes a seat at the circle and looks down at her coffee.
No one greets her. She doesn’t acknowledge anyone else, either. It’s as if she’s in her own little bubble of pain, cut off from everything else.
I picture myself six years from now telling a stranger at this very coffee table about what happened to my husband and having her ask me if the group has helped, and know without a shadow of a doubt that my answer would be the same as Madison’s.
A big fat fucking no.
I set my cup down on the table and walk out without looking back.
Across the street from the senior center is a bar called Cole’s. Its yellow neon sign glows like a beacon. Ignoring the rain and not bothering with the crosswalk, I run straight across the boulevard and plow through Cole’s heavy wooden front door.
The moment I step inside, I spot Aidan Leighrite sitting in a booth in the corner.
8
He notices me right away. He was about to take a drink, but freezes with his glass of beer halfway to his mouth.
It’s too late to pretend I didn’t see him. So I send him a curt nod and walk over to the bar. I slide onto a stool and look in the opposite direction, examining the décor.
A lighted mirror behind the bar displays shelves of liquor. Red leather booths line one end of the room and the opposite wall. At the other end of the room, a pool table is brightly lit from above with a lamp bearing the Budweiser logo. The rest of the place is dark and smells like stale beer, french fries, and tobacco.
It could be any bar anywhere on the planet.
I find the ordinariness of it oddly comforting.
“What’ll you have?”
The bartender, a bespectacled hipster wearing suspenders with jeans and a knitted black beanie on his head, looks all of eighteen years old. It makes me feel ancient, and I hate him for it.
“Johnnie Walker Blue,” I tell him. “Three fingers. Neat.”
“Nice,” he says, nodding. As if I give a shit about his opinion.
Calm down, Kayla. He’s just doing his job. I send him a weak smile to make up for my unkind thoughts. He gives me a look like he’s worried I might be hitting on him, and quickly spins away, reaching for a bottle.