The Missing by Tim Gautreaux Read Free Book Online Page B

found the girl, though as he reached out to her, for an instant enjoying the touch of rescue before it actually happened, she disappeared into darkness, all light instantly knocked out of his head by a soundless blow from behind.
    For a long time he lay stunned, listening to a scuffling, and then, as from a great distance in the dark, a fleshy pale image like a blurred cameo drifted toward him, out of focus, sliding away from resolution, but finally he willed his brain to fix the vision and it was the bright face of a strangely wise-looking baby girl with soft cheeks and long lashes, and he felt himself running through the dark faster and faster, breathing through his mouth and moaning out loud until he woke up coughing on vomit, a doctor rolling him onto his side and his face plunging into boiled hospital sheets, a nurse coming toward him with a porcelain pan while a bright window beyond her absorbed the dissolving jewel of the child’s face.

The Missing

Chapter Four
    FOUR DAYS AFTER he’d entered the hospital, he woke with a spinning head and saw his wife, Linda, sitting in a white enamel chair stitching a large canvas of needlepoint. He watched her a moment before he spoke to make sure she was real and not one of the dreams that had been haunting him. He blinked. It was stolid Linda, red hair, milk white complexion, her fingers working needlepoint chair bottoms she sold to a furniture store uptown.
    When he spoke her name, she lifted her head and said, “Do you remember what happened?”
    It was like her to check to see if something, in this case his memory, might be broken. He wondered if she’d throw him away if he couldn’t think anymore. But after a moment, he decided he could, and told her, “I’m all right. I remember.”
    She leaned in close and studied his eyes, kissing his forehead as she would a feverish child. “I’ll call for the doc to look at you in a minute.” She helped him sit up, and his head began to clear. He then told her about that day in the store, carefully working in all the details, placing them for her like delicate items on a shelf.
    “Well,” she said, brushing his hair back. “That’s pretty much the way Mr. Krine told it to me when he came by to fire you.”
    He looked down at his arms, as though he still expected to be wearing his floorwalker’s suit. “What for?”
    Her eyebrows arched, and she looked at him as if he’d just asked what the sun was. “Why, for losing that little girl.”
    He thought about this. For Mr. Krine there was no substitute for performance. If something went wrong, it was the employee’s fault. Always. “How did they get away with her?”
    “They left you out cold in the dressing room, came downstairs with the child dressed as a sleeping boy and walked right through the doors before the staff got the order from Mr. Krine himself to lock them.” She leaned around and inspected the back of his head. “Nobody found you for half an hour. When they saw all the stuff in the dressing room, they figured out what happened. The parents were really upset, Lucky. They said they should’ve got more help from the store. They’ve been by here every day with a policeman wanting to ask you questions. Mr. Krine’s afraid they’ll try to sue.”
    “What else could I have done?” But even as he said this, he knew the answer. He’d ignored Mr. Krine’s rule: If a child was missing in-store for more than fifteen minutes, the floorwalker on duty was responsible for making sure all the doors were locked.
    His wife walked back to her chair. “Whatever needed to be done, you didn’t do it.”
    “I tried my best.” He turned his face to the wall, wondering if this was true.
    “That’s what the mezzanine attendant and the candy girl said.” She glanced up at him, then returned to her needlework. “You sure have a lot of lady friends.”
    “Linda, three-quarters of the staff’s ladies.”
    She drew her work close. “The city cops said you should’ve