The Whispering Hollows Part 13

"Of course he is," she said. "He can't be alone for long."

She hadn't intended to say that, hadn't even been thinking it. But as soon as it was out of her mouth, she knew it was true.

"He's empty," she said. "He's looking for a certain kind of woman."

"What kind of woman is that precisely?"

"Someone broken," she said. "Someone wanting to be fixed. Someone who will give herself over to him."

"Was Mich.e.l.le Asher broken?" he asked. "She was beautiful, successful, financially independent. She had a loving family, good friends."

"Broken is on the inside," said Eloise. "It doesn't have a lot to do with externals."

"Hmm," said Jones. "Her depression, anxiety disorder."

"She was vulnerable," said Eloise. "Love is an anesthetic. It can help us forget our pain-at first."

"But it wears off," said Jones.

"And then the pain seems worse than before."

The Charger had picked up speed. Alex seemed to be enjoying the winding roads. What was it about young people and speed?

"I had to tell Roger Asher last night that I didn't think I was going to get anything on Dahl. I've been tailing him for a week. I've talked to his ex-girlfriends. I've talked to a few of Mich.e.l.le's friends, been through all her computer files. It's clear that the guy is a user, a player. But there's nothing for me to give to the cops. He has an alibi for the night she died. He was at his new girlfriend's place-the doorman saw him come and go. There's supporting video footage."

"How did Asher take it?"

"He took it hard. I think this was his last effort to bring this kid to justice, as Asher saw it." Eloise could tell by the look on Jones's face that the encounter had been ugly. "I felt bad for the guy. Talk about broken."

The Charger turned onto a rural drive, and Jones pulled over to the side of the road.

"Then what are we doing here?"

"I don't know," said Jones. He rubbed the bridge of his nose hard with his thumb and forefinger. "I just thought I'd give it one more day, bring you out here, see if you got anything. For whatever reason, I'm having a hard time letting it go."

Which was something. Because Jones, unlike some, was not a man to hold on to a lost cause. He wasn't like Ray. Jones Cooper knew when to walk away.

"Why don't we go talk to him?" suggested Eloise. She noticed that a light rain was falling. Jones turned on the wipers. Eloise looked up to see that the trees were glistening in the scant sunlight. It must have been drizzling for a while.

"And say what?" asked Jones. "Hey, buddy? Did you kill Mich.e.l.le Asher? Come on, you can tell us."

"We might learn something we didn't know," she said. "At any rate, you might feel better about moving on from Roger Asher."

He considered it a moment. Then, without a word, he put the car in gear. They turned onto the drive and followed the Charger. Eloise felt a p.r.i.c.kle of unease.

When they got to the clearing at the end of the road, it took Eloise a second to process what she was seeing. There was another vehicle there, too-a beat-up blue Toyota RAV. Standing beside it was a man who looked to be in his late forties, early fifties. He was medium build with a dark, receding hairline. But, at first, it was really only his face that Eloise saw. It was a mask of misery and rage. Then Eloise saw that he held a large semiautomatic weapon in two shaking hands.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," said Jones.

He stopped the car and leaned over her quickly but not urgently to pop open the glove box. He pulled out his old service revolver, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special. He checked the chamber, then got out of the car before Eloise could stop him. "Stay in the car, Eloise."

"Mr. Asher," said Jones, opening the door.

His voice carried without being loud, bouncing off the trees. A crow flew off, cawing into the air. Jones stood behind his open door, his own gun concealed. "What's going on here?"

Eloise got out on her side, also using her door as a s.h.i.+eld (which impressed her as a good idea). Jones shot her an annoyed look of warning, which she ignored. What did he think? That she'd sit in the pa.s.senger seat working on her knitting while he got into a gunfight?

Alex Dahl stood frozen, slack-jawed. His arms were high in the air, and he looked like he might cry.

"I never hurt her," he said. His voice was squeaky, faint. "I swear."

Eloise was surprised at how young Alex looked and sounded. But he was young, just in his twenties. In the pictures, he looked self-possessed to the point of arrogance. There was none of that here. Fear was a good equalizer, took people down to the basics of their personality.

"You're a liar!"

Roger Asher's voice was a wail of misery. Tears streamed down his face. He kept lowering and raising the gun, as if it were too heavy for him. Or maybe he couldn't decide whether to use it or not. The effect was unsettling. Jones jerked just slightly every time he did it. Eloise couldn't take her eyes off of it, the gun. It looked so cold and unforgiving. With a gun in your hand, mistakes were forever.

"Hey, Roger," said Jones easily. "Let's think this through."

"I have thought it through," said Asher. "I have thought of nothing else."

"I never hurt her," said Alex. "I never did."

Jones shot Alex a look, lifted a palm. "Just keep your mouth shut, son."

Roger raised the gun again.

"You're a user and a manipulator," Asher said to Dahl. "You think I don't know your type. Men like you have been sniffing around my daughter all her life. You only want one thing. You used her up."

"Hey," said Alex. There was a flash of something mean across his face. "At least I wasn't pimping her out to modeling agencies from the time she was twelve years old. Talk about using her up."

"What?" said Asher, lifting the gun higher, moving closer. "What did you say to me?"

"Shut up, Alex," said Jones. He moved from behind the door and started moving toward Asher. Eloise wanted to stop him, but she was afraid to make a sound. The air vibrated with bad possibilities.

"Roger, listen to me," Jones went on. "If you hurt Alex, you're going to jail. You still have a family who needs you. Your wife, your other daughter. Where's the justice in creating more heartache for them?"

Eloise could feel the pain, the conflict coming off of Asher in waves. But all of Eloise's tension had drained. She was in the right place, doing the right thing. Whatever the outcome, she and Jones had done what they were supposed to do.

"Just put the gun down, Asher," said Jones easily. "Let's talk this through."

"He's not going to get away with what he did to my girl," Asher said. "I've followed the rules, gone through all the right channels. Now, it's time to deliver justice for Mich.e.l.le. I'm her father. I have to be the one to stand for her."

Mich.e.l.le Asher lay at Eloise's feet. Eloise knelt beside the dead girl, put a hand to her forehead. Asher, Dahl, and Jones, the tense triangle they formed, faded away.

And then Eloise was walking with Mich.e.l.le. The girl looked peaceful, almost happy. She had her headphones as she walked the running path that edged along the FDR Drive. The river was a gray swath, the air cold in the quickly setting sun.

"Hey, Daddy," she said.

It took Eloise a second to realize that she was talking into the mouthpiece on her headphone cord.

"Not much," she said. "Just heading off to meet Alex for dinner."

She wasn't meeting Alex. He'd told her that he didn't want to see her anymore, that she was getting too crazy for him. She'd been turned down for a job she wanted that afternoon. She was in a dark place.

Mich.e.l.le walked slowly, a slight wobble to her gait. A jogger raced past her, someone fit and strong moving with impossible ease. There was something wrong with Mich.e.l.le. Didn't he hear it in her voice, Eloise wondered? It was thick and slurry. Had she been drinking? No, Eloise realized. She'd taken pills-a lot of them.

"I don't know," Mich.e.l.le said. She gave a girlish giggle that sounded fake and tinny to Eloise. "But I think so. He could be the one, Daddy."

Eloise could hear Roger Asher say something, his voice faint and far away. Mich.e.l.le's face went dark, angry.

"Yeah," she said, forcing lightness. "Okay. Call me back."

The call was over then, and Mich.e.l.le kept walking and walking. The city was a wall of glinting lights, the traffic on the highway a steady roar. The East River ran moody and churning, keeping a thousand secrets. She was just a small figure, one tiny beating heart in a chaotic world.

Eloise watched as Mich.e.l.le came to stand on the end of an empty pier, and seemed to slouch there, then sink to her knees and wobble over the churning water. It was big and cold, with a notoriously strong current.

Don't do it, Mich.e.l.le, said Eloise even though she knew she was far too late. Please.

When Mich.e.l.le slipped into the water, she didn't even make a sound. Eloise stood there helpless as the girl drifted away, eyes closed and face pale and peaceful. She just walked off the edge, let the darkness that waits take her. She never even put up a fight.

Eloise tried not to be angry, not to cry out. But ever since she lost Alfie and Emily, suicides enraged her. So many people would do anything for just a little more time with the people they loved. But suicides just threw it away.

Eloise knew that it was so much more complicated than that. There are no trades in this life, and depression is a dark, dark doorway some people have no choice but to walk through. But it always hurt Eloise to hear about a life discarded. Though Eloise almost never got visits from those folks. In fact, this visit was about helping Roger Asher and even Alex Dahl. It was not about Mich.e.l.le, Eloise realized as she watched the white point fade to nothing. Then she was back with Jones.

"He didn't kill her, Mr. Asher," said Eloise. She hadn't said a word before, and Asher turned to her surprised, as if he hadn't even seen her. "You know that he didn't."

"Who are you?" Asher said, noticing her for the first time. But something about his energy relaxed. She occasionally had that effect on some people-even though it was often the opposite case. Some people found her presence calming.

"This is Eloise Montgomery," said Jones easily. "We-work together sometimes."

"The psychic?" Asher said. He looked at her with suspicion, but also with a kind of desperate curiosity.

"I lost a child once, too, Roger," she said.

Maybe it was something in her tone or on her face. Whatever it was, he lowered the gun and looked at her.

"The pain. It's nearly unbearable," Eloise said. She put her hand to her heart. "It can't live in your body; you just want to lash out."

He drew in a deep breath and released it. Eloise knew that sometimes it was such a relief just to be understood.

When he stayed silent, she went on. "You want the people who hurt your child to hurt as well. You want someone to pay."

"Yes," he said. He lifted the gun again, and Alex closed his eyes. Jones was moving closer, so slowly.

"But Mich.e.l.le was a very unhappy girl, Roger," said Eloise. She kept using his name because it was important to do that. It kept people engaged, especially distraught people. "I know you tried to help her. All the best doctors-therapy, drugs, even that facility in Connecticut after her agency fired her."

She didn't know how she knew that. But she did. She also knew that Alex was right. Roger Asher had taken his daughter to her first modeling agency when she was twelve years old. He pushed her to keep doing it, even when she wanted to stop. It had been lucrative for them, and he used some of that money to help pay for her education. But it wasn't time for that. And it wasn't any of Eloise's business.

"I never understood why she was so sad," he said. "We loved her. We gave her everything."

"I know," she said. It was true in a sense, without being the whole truth.

"She called me that night," he said. "She sounded so good, so up. You know? But I had to go; I had to pick up her sister from a party. I'm not one who can talk and drive. I tried to call her back. But she didn't answer. I never talked to her again."

"I'm sorry," she said. "We all think we'll have a chance to say good-bye, to say all the things we never got a chance to say."

Eloise could feel her own sorrow rise up, even so many years later. It could still feel so fresh, so raw. She could still hear the sound of Emily's voice, feel her body in her arms. She could still remember the day that her older daughter was born-with perfect clarity. That love never, ever dies.

Jones had put his weapon in his waistband and was moving slowly toward Roger. Alex had stayed frozen all this time, arms up. He was a mannequin, still with shock and fear.

"That necklace she wore?" Asher said. His face was crumbling with despair. "Did you know that no one else was wearing the other half? I found the other side in her bedside table, still in the box. Why did she do that?"

Eloise hated the thought of that. That no one had the other half of Mich.e.l.le's broken heart.

"She wanted very desperately to be loved."

"We loved her," he said, his voice coming up high. "We loved her so much. Why wasn't it enough?"

He was really asking, as if she might have an answer he could digest. But Eloise didn't. Some questions didn't have answers. She'd learned this long ago, and it never rested any easier with her.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm sorry."

Asher seemed to remember Alex, turned back toward him to find him gone and Jones Cooper standing before him with his palm out.

"Let me have that gun, Roger," said Jones.

Asher looked at Jones a long moment. Eloise forced herself to breathe. Then Asher sunk to his knees as if all his strength had left him. He handed the gun to Jones, who immediately popped the magazine and snapped the last bullet from its chamber. Asher slumped all the way to the ground in a child's pose, weeping. The sound carried, long and mournful, up into the sky, then disappeared like birds and clouds and everything. Eloise found herself crying, too. For Mich.e.l.le, for Emily and Alfie, for The Three Sisters-all the ones who left too soon, for all the wrong reasons.

Don't judge, said the voice that wasn't a voice. We all have our season, and our reason.

It was easy to be impa.s.sive when you had all the answers. Serenity was so much harder for those still flailing about on Earth.

Jones looked down at Asher wearing his usual blank expression-it might be disdain, it might be compa.s.sion. Jones was a hard man to read. Eloise wondered if he would move to comfort the other man. But he didn't, turned his gaze back toward Eloise.

"I think I'll go have a little talk with Alex Dahl," said Jones.

"Where is he?" asked Eloise.

Jones nodded over toward the small one-story house, then headed over in that direction. Eloise went to Asher and helped him to his feet. She led him over to his car.

"Who can I call for you?" she asked.

"No one," he said.