Read Online A Seahorse in the Thames by Susan Meissner - Free Book Online Page B

the golf course when my call comes through, has the same reaction as my mother to Rebecca’s disappearance, although his is delayed. At first he is genuinely concerned, but then the more he hears—that Rebecca made her bed before leaving, that she packed a suitcase, that she took Julian’s picture, that she left a note about the fish—the more he begins to temper his concern.
    “So you’ve called the authorities, then?” he says.
    “Yes,” I answer and I tell him what I was told.
    “Alexa, I don’t know what else we can do except wait for her to come home herself.”
    “That just doesn’t seem like enough, Dad!”
    “Well, what else can we do? We can’t walk the streets of San Diego putting up fliers on telephone poles. She is a grown woman.”
    I’m getting really tired of hearing that.
    “Well, what about a private investigator?” I venture.
    Dad thinks for moment. “Well, maybe,” he replies. “But I think it’s a little soon to take such a drastic measure.”
    “I don’t think it’s drastic to want to find her.” I am driving with one hand, holding my cell phone with my “bad” arm and getting increasingly agitated.
    “You know that’s not what I mean.”
    “Well, what do you mean?”
    He pauses and I hear the breeze whistling around the mouthpiece of his cell phone. “Let me ask around and see if I can find someone to look into this.”
    “How long will that take?”
    “I haven’t the foggiest, Alexa. I’ve never had to hire one before.”
    He’s getting ticked. He doesn’t want the responsibility of having all the answers.
    “What should I do until then?”
    “I guess that’s up to you. If you really think you can make headway by combing the streets of San Diego, then I’m not going to tell you not to.”
    I say nothing in return. I don’t know what to say. Truth is, he’s right. Combing the streets probably won’t tell us where Rebecca has gone.
    “Call me tomorrow, okay? Maybe you, your mother, and I can get together and decide what, if anything, we can do.”
    This is actually a fairly gracious offer on his part. Mom makes no attempt to hide her contempt for my father’s new life when family matters bring us together. My parents’ marriage, which faltered when Julian died and which they somehow resurrected the year Priscilla and I were conceived, disintegrated when Rebecca nearly died. Within two years of her accident my parents were divorced and Dad quickly remarried. Seven years later, Dad’s second wife gave birth to a son who lived.
    “I’ll call you in the morning.” I say.
    “Don’t think the worst, Alexa. She could be just in need of a little break from the routine. You know?”
    “Yeah. Maybe.”
    “Okay, then, for now?”
    “I guess.”
    I wait for a second to see if he will ask about my surgery, how it went, but then I remember I didn’t tell him I was having it. I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I just want him to think I can get along just fine with his minimal intrusions in my life, that I am like Priscilla in at least this one way; that I don’t need more than the little he is willing to give. I don’t know exactly if this is why Priscilla and my dad had a falling out all those years ago, but I do know Priscilla has no desire to patch things up. And the fact that he apparently has no desire either just fuels her resolve to leave things as they are.
    “Okay. Talk to you later,” my father says.
    I toss the phone on the seat next to me and take my exit off the Interstate.
    Somehow I know when I get to my apartment that there will be no sign of Rebecca having been there. The note is right where I left it. The secret place where the key is hidden is undisturbed. I go inside and head straight for the landline, fully intending to call Priscilla and unload on her. But I don’t do it. She has always been the rational, calm, intuitive one. I hate appearing so terribly desperate and needy in front of my mirror image. I decide to eat something