Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Something in that tells me that the day care thinks the situation is serious. You call the cops and you call the mom? That probably means they’ve already checked under all the rocks in the playground. I’m not sure but I’m imagining: losing kids is probably crappy for business.

“What’d the cops say?”

“They’re on their way.”

I nod. “So you’ve done what you can,” I say.

“Yes, that’s right,” she says, “but I don’t want to just sit here. Pick up tips. I feel there’s something I should do.”

“Take me there,” I say before I can think about it and shut myself up.

“What?” she says.

“To the day care. That way you won’t have to be alone.”

“But I don’t know you,” she says. Her nails are painted. One of them is chipped. There’s something touching in that.

“Does it matter?”

She meets my eyes with that gray-gold look again and I can see the answer to the question. Does it matter that I don’t know her or her daughter? In this case, no. It does not. So we head out.

While we drive, Arden fills me in: she doesn’t have a car. She tells me the whole story, but I only retain a small percentage of the details. Something about her mother and a trip to the coast and a bunch of other things I’m certain at first hearing won’t concern me. The upshot is, Arden doesn’t have a car and I do, so I end up driving the rental to places I would have never found on my own. I just follow Arden’s voice. Left here. Right there. Seventeen miles down this highway. I hesitate at that. Why is she taking me so far afield? She sees my hesitation and understands.

“Yuh. It’s weirdly far out, I know. In North County. But day care is cheaper out here and my ex got me a deal.”’

“Ashley’s dad?”

“Yeah.”

We don’t say what we’re maybe both thinking: cheaper isn’t always better. And some things arrive with a cost.

When we get to the final turn, I am taken aback. A huge sign swings ranch-style over a wide driveway: “Valley de Oro Day Care.”

“This is Valley de Oro?” I ask from between lips that are suddenly parched.

Arden looks at me quickly. “I thought you weren’t from around here.”

“I’m not.”

“Then how do you know about the Valley? No one who’s not from here knows about it.”

“Long story. Let’s go in and talk to them, okay?”

Arden nods and gets in motion. She doesn’t need to be asked twice.

Inside, the little-kid smells nearly kicks me off my feet. I did not prepare myself for it. The smell of innocence. Of senseless joy. My heart quivers under it. I am briefly undone.

The day care is in a former house, but now the place is dedicated to very young children. I stand just inside the front door. In every direction, I see tiny furniture and brightly colored bits of learning and fun. It looks like a fairy tale. The place is more quiet than I would have expected. Subdued. You can taste the sense of hush. Something has gone terribly wrong.

We are met at the door by a young woman. She is in her late twenties, the kind of open-faced girl who gravitates to working with kids. I suspect that on a different day she would be beautiful. Tall and slender like a flower, with hair the color of the far edge of sunset. But now her face is gray, her brow furrowed, eyes rimmed in red. She has been crying. She looks like hell.

“Ohmigawd, Arden,” she wails as soon as she sees my companion. “Ohmigawd. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

Arden’s lips are stretched so tightly across her teeth, I imagine I can hear them squeak. She cuts the apologies off in mid-wail.

“Please. Don’t. Just … the police?”

“They just left.” Her breathing is returning to normal, but one gets the sense that tears are not far. On this day.

“And …” Arden prompts.

An empty look. A voice so low, we have to strain to hear. “They took our statements. Searched the premises …” She lets her voice trail off, and we understand: they searched and did not find. And now here we are.

“What happened, Jenn?” Arden’s voice is low and deadly.

“I’m not … that is, we’re not … well, we’re not really sure. She’s just” —tears advertised by the red-rimmed eyes start again— “gone. I told the police that all we can think is, we had a repairman in for the air-conditioning at nap time.” The girl looks even more stricken. Her voice drops to just above a whisper. I have to strain to hear. “Afterwards, we looked. We looked, Arden. We really did. And Ashley was gone. When we couldn’t find her, we called the police. And then we called you.”

Arden’s face fell at this. Her expression is mostly not there. What is the correct order, I wonder? The parent, the police. Who do you call? And you can see all of this on Arden: a part of her wants to blame, to lash out. To her credit, she doesn’t do it. She just wants her child back. I get that. I get that a lot.

“Where are the other kids?” I ask. The girl looks at me for the first time. “No other kids missing?”

“This is my friend,” Arden says, answering Jenn’s unasked question. “She drove me here.”

Jenn looks me over but not that carefully. She’s got other things on her mind.

“Stephen and Loret have the kids in the big playroom. They’re doing a quiet time. It just seemed best to keep everyone in one place while we looked for Ashley. And, yes”—she manages to look even more stricken—“just Ashley. I’m so sorry, Arden. I don’t know what to say.”

“She didn’t just wander off ?” Me again.

Jenn shakes her head. “We’d hoped so, even though it’s not like Ashley to do something like that. But we’ve looked everywhere.”

Clearly not everywhere, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud.

“That’s true,”