Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

Bechman’s receptionist had told Madison she was leaving.” He stopped and shook his head.
    “And?”
    “Then Sally said, ‘Can you imagine a more perfect job? You’d have unlimited access to all those drug samples doctors always have by the drawerful. You could take something anytime you needed to. You’d never, ever have to feel pain. You could just float away into a world of nothingness.’ ”
    He covered his face again. “Maybe if I’d said something, if I’d done something, maybe she wouldn’t have gone.“
    “You don’t know she went on her own volition. Besides, if she was that unhappy, what could you have done?”
    Ted got up, walked over to a small white lacquer desk with drawers down one side, opened the top drawer and took out a card. He handed it to me as he walked me to the door. As I was about to thank him again, he put his arms around me.
    “Yes,” he said. “Come back. Let me know what’s happening. Or if you need anything. Anything at all. Or bring a book. You can curl up on the bed and read. Bring him, too.” He had tears in his eyes when he stepped back. I could still smell the gel he used to keep his hair slicked down as I walked through the lobby and out into the street.
    I looked up at Leon’s apartment, wondering in the end what I’d have to tell this man, and there was Madison, looking down from the comer window. I lifted my hand and waved, but as soon as I did, she let the curtain fall back, and she disappeared.

CHAPTER 12

    I was going to go home, make some notes, check and see if there was any further response from Class-mates.com. There was some research I wanted to do, too, some thinking as well. I wanted to look up Madison’s disorder and see what drugs were used to control it, see if there was anything else available that might help her. I knew I was being silly, or perhaps overly hopeful. What chance was there that I could find something the doctor hadn’t considered?
    Something about this case was different. I’d think of what I wanted to do, or what I should be doing, then half the time I’d head off in another direction and do something else. It was as if someone was holding on to me, pulling at me, telling me, no, not that, this. Is that what had happened to Sally, too? Had she gone out for a breath of fresh air, maybe to get away from Madison’s chattering or Leon’s silence? Had someone or something taken hold of her, pulling her away from what she wanted to do, what she thought she should do?
    It would be easy to suppose that it had been a who that took hold of Sally, literally took hold of her. But what if it wasn’t a who? What if it had been a what instead, like whatever it was that had taken hold of me?
    What if, I kept thinking, but I couldn’t finish the question. I was still standing there, across the street from Madison’s apartment, thinking of it that way now, Madison’s building, Madison’s apartment, the kid pulling on my consciousness, filling it up, thinking of her mother, Sally, escaping to Ted Fowler’s serene apartment so that she could read in peace.
    I crossed the street and kept on going, back to where there’d been a C. Abele that had turned out to be Charles, not Celia. There were so few Abeles in the city, I was thinking as I approached the building. It wouldn’t be too big a stretch to think some of them knew each other, or maybe were related. I crossed the street, found a step to sit on and took out my cell phone, calling information and getting the numbers of the two Abeles I’d found in Brooklyn, one in Queens, six in Manhattan, including the one who lived across the street from where I was sitting. Late Sunday morning, chances are I’d find some of them home.
    Claire Abele never heard of a Celia Abele but she was very nice about my having called. Richard Abele was home, too. “Wrong number,” he said, and hung up on me. I couldn’t blame him either. There were so many calls lately you wanted to hang up on, people who wanted, one way or another, to get some of the money in your bank account into theirs.
    Harrison and J. might have been out to brunch or at the gym. Harrison had an answering machine so I left a message. J. didn’t, so I didn’t. Louise had clearly been sleeping but she didn’t seem at all angry at me for waking her up. Unfortunately, she didn’t know any Celia Abele. I was almost ready to give up when Philip Abele answered his phone.
    “She’s my brother’s ex,” he said. “Only...“ And