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Of course, the frustrating thing was that a lack of vision didn’t mean she was safe. It just meant that, for whatever reason, Laura wasn’t having a vision.
But Amy was smiling, and she was clean and well-dressed and looked healthy, and that was a good start. It just wasn’t a vision that Laura was going to trust entirely, not until she had more evidence to support it.
“Would you like to come inside?” Christopher asked, his face hovering behind a kind of pleased look at Amy’s happiness and something else, something Laura found it hard to put her finger on. Almost like he was put out.
“Sure,” Laura said. “Amy, why don’t you show me your new room?”
“Yeah!” Amy cheered, disengaging from her legs and immediately dashing back inside with the kind of enthusiasm only a six-year-old could muster.
Behind her, Christopher stepped back uncertainly, hesitating. Laura zeroed in on that immediately. He didn’t look happy about her request. But a moment later he stepped fully aside, gesturing her in. “It’s upstairs, first door on the left,” he said – a necessary instruction, given that Amy had already shot away out of sight.
Laura’s mind was in full FBI mode, searching every corner as she moved through the house and up an impressively wide staircase towards the upper floor. She was looking for small signs that might give something away: a smudge of blood in a corner that hadn’t been properly cleaned up, anything that was broken or looked newly repaired since that could be a sign of violence. Everything seemed so neat and proper. Wasn’t that in itself a red flag? He’d known she was coming over.
Laura stepped into Amy’s room – and into a little girl’s dream. The walls were painted a light pink, and all the furniture looked brand new. She didn’t recognize any of it from the Governor’s house. She supposed the whole place was still locked down, almost everything saved as evidence. The bed was heaped high with plush toys, and there was a dollhouse resting on a side table with so many dolls accompanying it they couldn’t all fit inside.
It was impressive, for sure. And as Amy rushed through showing Laura all of her new toys, along with their names and a description of their life stories, Laura tried to analyze whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Amy had never wanted for anything at her father’s home, after all. She’d had anything money could buy. Anything but stable and loving parents.
“Can I get you something?” Christopher asked from the doorway. Laura turned around to see him standing there, shuffling his feet, his hands in his pockets like he couldn’t figure out what to do with them. “A cup of coffee?”
“Thanks,” Laura said. “That would be great.”
“Actually, maybe we could drink it downstairs?” Christopher suggested, raising an eyebrow slightly.
That thing she hadn’t been able to put her finger on: Laura saw it now. He was nervous. Unsure of himself.
A new parent, thrown into a situation headfirst. She could see how that might build the nerves. Still, it was something to keep an eye on.
“Of course,” Laura said, though she wished she could stay with Amy. She’d like to take the girl aside, talk to her alone. Make sure that nothing was going on. But she wasn’t going to come out and say that in front of Christopher. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity to send Amy some kind of signal about behaving herself and staying quiet.
The three of them moved back downstairs, into an airy kitchen complete with a breakfast bar. Amy scrambled up onto one of the stools beside Laura as Christopher poured the coffee, with a juice for the girl.
“So, how long have you lived in this neighborhood?” Laura asked, for the sake of making conversation as well as to dig up a little more information on his background.
“Oh, a few years,” Christopher said, glancing at her in apparent surprise at the question. “I just got back to the US – let’s see… yes, a little under three years ago.”
“Back?” Laura asked, her interest piqued. “Where were you before then?”
“Around,” Christopher shrugged, with a self-effacing smile. “I’d been with Doctors Without Borders for about ten years. Since not long after I finished my residency. I moved around West Africa a bit during the Ebola crisis and stayed on a little after that to provide healthcare for HIV and AIDs patients. I came
back when my mom got sick.”
“Amy’s grandmother?” Laura said. Obviously, his mother would be Amy’s grandmother. But this was the first she was hearing about any sick relative. And she didn’t want to react to the fact that he seemed to have dedicated a decade of his life to serving others, rather than making money as a doctor at home. It almost seemed too good to be true. Like he was leaving her a trail of breadcrumbs to why she should go away and stop worrying about Amy.
And she was never going to do that.
“Yeah,” Christopher sighed, setting down the mug of coffee in front of Laura. “She only hung on a few months, but it was worth it to be with her at the end. Anyway, coming back here reminded me about what I was missing, and I ended up taking a job at a hospital around here and staying.”
“What were you missing?” Laura asked. It didn’t escape that this felt a little like interrogating a suspect. Only in a much more comfortable setting.
“Family,” Christopher said, looking at Amy and smiling a sad kind of smile. “And good coffee.” He let his face brighten with the joke, raising his mug in the air and taking a sip.
Laura wasn’t going to let him fool her with that kind of routine. Anyone could be charming and pleasant and yet turn out to be a psycho. Even selfless doctors who gave ten years of their lives to looking after the most unfortunate and needy in another country. And then came home to look after a dying parent. And then volunteered to take in a small child after a relative was no longer able to look after her.
Though even she had to admit, he was looking pretty good on paper.
“Can I go play outside?” Amy asked, interrupting the conversation and making the adults both turn in her direction.
