Helpless by Barbara Gowdy

Author:Barbara Gowdy [Gowdy, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781443402491
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2007-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

THE CALL comes in not five minutes after the news conference.

Celia and the deputy chief of police are drinking coffee in the dining room. The powder-fine fingerprint dust, which started out black and white—black for the light surfaces, white for the darker ones (but now, having endlessly risen and resettled, is ash grey everywhere)—has been ineffectively wiped off the table, leaving a silver sheen. Celia rubs X’s in it. She is trying to compose herself. By the end of her statement her voice had disintegrated to a cracked whisper. She didn’t break down, though. She didn’t need the deputy chief to take her arm, although he did.

His name is Martin Morris. He’s a tall man with a long, worn face and heavy-lidded eyes full of some private misery. And yet his voice is deep and reassuring, and listening to him now (he’s saying that several radio stations interrupted regular programming to broadcast live) she thinks maybe it isn’t misery, it’s exhaustion. He has told her he’s an insomniac. She wonders how she looks, how she looked on the TV. On the slim chance that Rachel sees her, she hopes she came across as in charge. How awful to think that instead of comforting Rachel she’s giving her something else to worry about. Whenever there’s a small crisis, a cheque bouncing or the car not starting, Rachel is the levelheaded one. As she, Celia, begins to lose it, Rachel’s face takes on this long-suffering expression no nine-year-old child should have access to.

“I can’t vouch for the networks,” Martin Morris says. He’s still talking about live coverage. “CTV potentially, on their all-news station.”

“So the call could come any time now,” Celia says.

The call to Mika’s cell—that’s the number she gave. Even so, when the phone in the kitchen rings at exactly that moment, and despite the fact that it’s been ringing all day, she gasps.

Big Lynne answers. “Fox residence, Constable Shriver speaking,” she says in her loud, no-nonsense voice. A pause. “That’s right.” And then, “I’m here. Who’s calling?” Another pause. “I can promise that.”

In the silence that follows, Morris scrapes back his chair.

“Can you tell me…” Big Lynne starts.

Morris comes to his feet. Before he reaches the doorway Big Lynne is there. “Pablito,” she says to Celia. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Oh, my God,” Celia says.

“She’s alive,” Big Lynne says.

The room goes black.

When Celia regains consciousness, Morris has left, and Big Lynne is pressing a wet sponge to her forehead.

“Boy,” Big Lynne says, “did you go out like a light.”

“Where is she?”

“We don’t know.”

“I thought the calls were traced.” Celia pushes away the sponge. “I thought it was instantaneous.”

“It is practically, but the call was made from a phone booth. At the Gerrard Square Mall. Pape and Gerrard. It was a woman. She said Rachel is fine and being looked after by people who just want her to be safe and would never hurt her. She said tell the mother ‘Pablito,’ that Rachel told her to say it.”

“Oh, God. Oh, thank God.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.