Five Days in Summer

She just hated when it happened at work. It didn’t say much for Snow’s antennae that he had picked up on signals that were nowhere in the universe. She considered telling Chief Kaminer about the incident but quickly decided against it. She was the only female detective at the Mashpee PD and thought she’d better focus on doing a good job before registering any complaints.
    It was getting late in the afternoon and she forced her mind into her work. There was a message on her desk that John Geary had called her twice; she returned the call, but there was no answer. The judge was still out fishing and Kaminer was gone for the day. Amy had beeped Sal Ragnatelli seven times and he hadn’t called her back. But what really made the investigation feel stalled was the forensics report on Emily Parker’s car. Just hair and fibers that belonged to the family. No unusual prints on the back hatch. And last night’s pounding rain had pretty well disinfected the scene.
    Whoever took Emily had been careful. And Snow had waited too long.
    She spent the rest of the day calling every psychiatric clinic and hospital on the Cape and off, all the way up to Boston, asking for information about a Robert R. Robertson. Mostly she left messages with receptionists. It was incredible how many psychiatrists and case workers were out to lunch at four in the afternoon. And when she did get through, she learned nothing.
    Finally, Amy called in for a progress report on the team watching Bobby Robertson, but it turned out to be a day at the beach, literally. One of them had manned a towel on the sand outside the house, while the other one sat in a car at the bottom of Squaws Lane. Bobby hadn’t moved, not even once.
    It was almost nine o’clock when Amy got home to her place on Plum Hollow Drive. It was a pretty country house on two acres that she’d bought with her ex-husband, Peter, when they were first married, and she’d won it in hard battle in the divorce. The bottom line was that she had earned more than he had as a contractor, and paid more toward the house over the two years of their marriage. He was unable to buy her out or get a loan. She bought him out at market and would grow old paying off the mortgage and, most likely, digging up the countless vodka bottles he’d buried in the yard. But she loved it here; it was quiet and peaceful and she mostly enjoyed living alone.
    She got out of her car and pinched back a few of the red roses that clustered up the cedar trellis by the kitchen door. As soon as she turned her key and stepped into her butter yellow kitchen, she could feel the hard coating of her day begin to melt off.
    She picked the mail up off the floor and set it withher purse on the table in the middle of the room. After pouring herself a tall ice water, she opened the fridge to see what there was to eat. Not much. She’d have to heat up one of those cardboardy frozen dinners again, if there were any left in the freezer. There was one: chicken and rice with a side of soggy peas and a tub of chocolate pudding. She peeled off the top and stuck it in the microwave for three minutes. When she turned around, she noticed her answering-machine light blinking on the counter next to the phone. There were two messages.
    “Amy, it’s Al. Sorry about that before.”
    Fine. Sorry. What’s new?
    “Detective Cardoza, this is John Geary. I don’t know if you tried calling me back, I don’t have one of these machines but I’m glad you do. I need to talk to you first thing in the morning. I’ll meet you at the station.”

DAY THREE

Chapter 13
    A dream of his mother woke David at just past five in the morning. It was pitch-black and dead quiet outside the windows. But in the room where he slept with Sam and Maxi a nightlight glowed so he could see, and he could hear them breathing. Maxi was lying on her side with her back pressed against the bars of her crib. Sammie was on top of his covers with his legs in a V and his hands in fists just like Maxi did when she slept on her back. David pulled his blanket up to his chin and thought about his dream. Bits of it were already fading but he could still see the sharpest parts. His mother never came home, and no one ever mentioned it, and Maxi was grown up and she looked just like Emily but she was a stranger, and she reminded him to do his homework but it was already done. Sammie was throwing a basketball against the front door of Grandma’s garage and a voice that sounded like that