Missing Pieces by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online Page A

than the last time I’d seen her, and the lines under her clouded hazel eyes had deepened, forming large dark semicircles. Her brown hair was brushed back into a ponytail that spoke more of convenience than style, and the flesh around her fingernails had been picked raw, the nails themselves bitten to the quick. Donna jumped up, lunged toward me. “Did you see the baby ducks?” she asked, her voice giddy, incipient hysteria bracketing her words.
    “I saw them.”
    “It’s a good omen, don’t you think?”
    “I hope so,” I told her. “Are you all right?”
    She cast an unsteady glance around the room, dropped her voice to a whisper. “I feel a little sick to my stomach.”
    “Take deep breaths,” I told her, then did the same.
    The uniformed officer approached, extended his hand. He was of medium height with reddish-blond hair and a barrel chest. “Mrs. Sinclair, I’m Officer Gatlin. Thank you for coming.”
    I nodded. “What happens now?”
    “I’ll tell them you’re here.”
    “And then what? Do I stay here or do I go inside with Mrs. Lokash?” I motioned toward the back room with my chin.
    “Nobody’s allowed back there,” Officer Gatlin said.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It’s not like you see on television,” Officer Gatlin explained gently. “We never allow anyone to actually see the body. A few of the more modern facilities in the country have special viewing rooms, complete with soft lighting, where you can view the body through a glass window. But this is an old building, and a small one. We don’t have the space or the facilities.”
    “Then how … ?” I broke off, bit down on my lower lip.
    “They’ll bring out a photograph for you to look at.”
    “A photograph?”
    “They won’t let me see my baby,” Donna said.
    “We don’t know yet that it’s Amy,” I told her.
    “They won’t let me even look at her picture,” Donna continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. She covered her mouth with her trembling hand, barely stifling a sharp cry.
    “What do you mean?”
    “We never let an immediate family member see thephotograph,” Officer Gatlin said. “It’s too traumatic. That’s why we ask them to bring a clergyman or a family friend, someone who knew the girl …”
    “But I didn’t know her,” I said, the realization suddenly hitting me that I was the one expected to identify the body. “I mean, I only met her on a couple of occasions. I’m not sure I could …”
    “I didn’t know they wouldn’t let me see her,” Donna cried, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “I don’t know what to do. Oh God, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who else to call. I’m so sorry I dragged you into this, Kate. Please forgive me. I didn’t know they wouldn’t let me see her.”
    “I’ll look at the picture,” I said quickly, recalling the hours that Donna had spent in my office, poring over the family albums with me, pointing out Amy as a fair-haired infant, Amy as a pudgy little girl, Amy in a strapless prom dress, her light brown hair hanging in ringlets around her dimpled cheeks, Amy on her seventeenth birthday, brown eyes sparkling, just weeks before she disappeared. I grabbed Donna’s hand, squeezed it tightly. “I should be able to recognize her.”
    Officer Gatlin nodded, walked toward the glass plate that separated the waiting room from the receptionist’s office.
Push button for assistance,
a small sign read beside an imposing black button. He pushed the button, told the receptionist that I was ready to proceed.
    “Why don’t we sit down,” I suggested to Donna, pulling out one of four chairs hovering around a round Formica table in the center of the room. She fell into it, and I lowered myself into the seat next to hers, concentrating on the details of the small room—a wine-colored mat that lay on the linoleum floor just inside the entrance, vertical blinds on the window, a water fountain in one corner of the room, two vending machines,