Read Online Vanishing Girls by Katia Lief - Free Book Online

wondering if antidepressants would help him. He was leaning against the wall with his eye closed. His breathing was so shallow I couldn’t see it.
    Finally a woman approached with her hand outstretched. Billy opened his eyes and stepped forward.
    “I’m Sasha Mendelssohn. Sorry it took so long.” She was small, with short red hair and freckled skin, and wore a white coat with a name tag that didn’t say MD, so she wasn’t a doctor. “I don’t know if anyone at the desk explained, but I’m Abby’s care coordinator. That means if you have any questions or concerns, or want to speak with the doctor, you ask me, and I, well, coordinate.”
    “Detective Staples, Brooklyn Eight-four.” Billy shook her hand. “This is Karin Schaeffer; she’s consulting on the case; we were both there last night and we’re following up. Can we see her?”
    “We understand that you’ll want to question her,” Sasha said, “and eventually we’ll be able to bring her out of the coma, but right now that’s just impossible. She’s in very delicate condition.”
    “Any idea how long it’ll be?”
    “I wish we knew. Her gaze settled on Billy’s eye patch. “How did you lose the eye?”
    “How do you know I lost it?” His tone was hard, but she’d asked a pitiless question.
    “The patch.”
    “Maybe I was born blind in that eye. Maybe I have an infection.”
    “No one wears an eye patch for an infection or blindness, at least not in my experience.”
    “I don’t like to talk about it.”
    “I’m sorry I brought it up—truly. Not my business.”
    “How long before we can talk to Abby?”
    “Honestly, it could be days, it could be weeks.”
    “She may be the only witness. We understand she’s a child, and that she’s injured, but it’s important.”
    “Let me explain,” Sasha said, looking alternately between us. “The idea behind putting her in a medically induced coma is to protect her from potential brain damage. The coma helps to prevent swelling that would reduce blood flow to the brain, which could result in a secondary injury worse than the initial injury. It’s preventative. But that’s not all. She has a broken leg, which is in a cast, and she also has four broken ribs and a broken collarbone, which we tape; for those to heal, the main thing is keeping still. The coma keeps her body at rest and her brain quiet. For her sake, it’s the best recourse at the moment.”
    “All right.” Billy’s attempt at acquiescence didn’t match his agitated tone. “But can’t you be more specific than a few days or a few weeks?”
    “Billy,” I said to him. “They have to do what’s best for Abby now.”
    Sasha hesitated, and then offered, “I can let you see her for a minute.”
    “That would be great,” I said.
    “Just a moment.” She quietly opened Abby’s door and peeked in, then beckoned us to follow.
    Last night, framed in the menacing context of the dual crime scenes, it had taken a moment to realize Abby was a child; here, it was the first thing you saw. She was small and narrow in the big white hospital bed, not taking up much space, a little girl encased in a web of casts, bandages, and tubes. Her broken leg, the left one, lay above the covers. It was set in a cast from hip to foot, with just her multicolored toenails sticking out. Her hands lay still at her sides, with her blue fingernails again evoking a strange feeling in me. I couldn’t see her ribs under the hospital gown, but her bruised and battered left collarbone was visible beneath strips of translucent medical tape. She had either been hit by the car on her left side, or had fallen, hard, to the left. Her head appeared to have been shaved; the soft, wheat-colored hair was gone. A white gauze turban hid her head injuries, but you could see that the bruising on her face below the turban was worse on the left side. Tubes protruding from a nostril and her mouth were attached to a pair of larger tubes connected over her chest and