The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  “Itzy Fisher?” Delia accused when I sat back down. “You like her?” And then she got up and ran out of the cafeteria.

  Groaning, I flopped my head down on my arms. “I didn’t make that card for Itzy. It was for Delia.”

  “Delia?” Fitz said.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Fitz stared right at me. “What makes you think that?”

  In the thousands of times I have replayed this moment over the years, I realize that what happened next could have gone a different way. That had Fitz been less of a best friend, or more competitive, or even more honest with himself, my life might have turned out very different. But instead, he asked me for a dollar.

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s pissed at you,” he said, as I fished into my lunch money. “And I can fix that.”

  He took a Sharpie from his binder and wrote something across George Washington’s face. Then he creased the bill the long way. He brought up the bottom edge and then the halves, turned it over, and tucked in both sides. A few more maneuvers and then he handed me a dollar folded into the shape of a heart.

  When I found Delia, she was sitting underneath the water fountain near the gym. I handed her Fitz’s heart. I watched her open it, read the message along with her: If all I could ever have is you, I’d be a billionaire.

  “Itzy might get jealous,” Delia said.

  “Itzy and I broke up.”

  She burst out laughing. “That’s the shortest relationship in history.”

  I glanced over at her. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

  “That depends. Did you write this?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Can I keep the dollar?”

  I blinked. “I guess.”

  “Then no,” she said. “I’m not mad.”

  I waited for years to see Delia spend that dollar on something—every time she pulled out money to buy candy or ice cream or a Coke, I’d scan it for Fitz’s words. But as far as I know she never spent it. As far as I know, she has it, still.

  * * *

  When I go into Andrew’s house, it’s quiet. I call for Delia, but there’s no answer. Wandering around, I check the bathroom and the living room and the kitchen, and then I hear noise coming from upstairs. The door to Sophie’s room is closed; when I open it she is on the floor, playing with the Crime Scene Dollhouse. Delia and I got to calling it that when Sophie would leave the rooms with the contents overturned, a Barbie or two spread-eagled on the floor of the kitchen or bathroom. “Daddy,” she says, “did you bring Grandpa home?”

  “I’m working on it,” I tell her, ruffling her hair. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “Out back with Greta.” Sophie holds a Ken doll up to the front door. “Open up. It’s the police,” she says.

  When I look at Sophie, I see Delia. Not just in the physical features—Delia’s dark hair and rosy cheeks are duplicated in our daughter—but their expressions are identical. Like how a smile unfurls across both their faces, a sail caught in a rip of wind. And the habit they have of separating the food on their plates into similar colors. Or the way, when they look at me, I so badly want to be who they see.

  I watch Sophie for another moment, thinking about what I would do if someone took her away from me, how I’d upend the earth to find her. And then I hesitate, and wonder what might make me be the one to run away with her in tow.

  Downstairs, I find Delia deep in thought on the outside deck. Her legs are propped up on Greta, a lightly snoring ottoman. When she sees me she startles. “Did you—”

  “I can’t get him out until the arraignment tomorrow.”

  “He has to spend the night at the police station?”

  I weigh the cost of admitting that, actually, her father will spend the night in the Grafton County Jail, and decide against it. “First thing in the morning, we can go to the courthouse.”

  She glances up at me. “But they’ll let him go, won’t they? They’re looking for someone named Bethany Matthews. That’s not me. That was never me. And I wasn’t kidnapped. Don’t you think I’d remember something like that?”

  Taking a deep breath, I ask, “Do you remember your mother dying?”

  “Eric, I was practically a baby—”

  “Do you remember it?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Your father told you your mother was dead, Delia,” I say bluntly. “And then he brought you to New Hampshire.”

  Her chin comes up. “You’re lying.”

  “No, Dee. He was.”

  Just then Fitz bursts onto the deck. “Why aren’t you answering the phone? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for an hour!”

  “I’ve been a little busy trying to get my father out of police custody.”

  “You found out,” Fitz says, his jaw dropping. “About the kidnapping.”

  “How the hell do you know about it?” I ask.

  Fitz sits down across from Delia. “That’s why I’ve been trying to call you. You remember how we were talking about past lives the other day? Well, I started to think about how people reinvent themselves all the time. And that maybe there was a more logical explanation to the whole lemon tree memory than the fact that you used to be a citrus farmer in eighteenth-century Tuscany. So I jumped online and Googled your name. Come on inside; I’ll show you.”

  We follow Fitz to Delia’s computer, buried under topographical maps of New Hampshire and Vermont and catalogs from K-9 supply companies. Fitz starts to type, and a minute later, a screen is filled with stripes of search results. The first few links are Gazette stories about Delia and Greta, making a missing-person rescue. But Fitz clicks on a different link, and a page from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch fills the screen. “CORDELIA LYNN HOPKINS,” it reads. “Daughter of Margaret Ketcham Hopkins and the late Andrew Hopkins, was born in Maryland Heights on March 16, 1973 . . .”

  “That’s my birthday,” Delia says.

  “ . . . in Clarkton and died March 8, 1977, at the age of four as a result of complications from an automobile accident that also claimed the life of her father. Survivors include her mother; her grandparents, Joe and Aleda Ketcham; and a brother, Lloyd. Funeral services will be conducted at 11 AM on Saturday, at the Malden Baptist Church with Reverend Thomas Monroe officiating. Interment will follow at Memorial Park Cemetery in Malden.”

  “She had the same name, the same birthday. Her father died in the same car crash. And the accident happened the same year that you showed up with your father in Wexton.”

  “Type in Bethany Matthews,” I tell Fitz.

  The screen glows green with a new list of articles, all from the Arizona Republic. “CHILD ABDUCTED DURING CUSTODY VISIT. MOTHER VOWS TO FIND MISSING DAUGHTER. NO NEW LEADS IN SCOTTSDALE KIDNAPPING CASE.” Fitz clicks on one link.

  June 20, 1977—Investigators continue to search for clues in the disappearance of Bethany Matthews, 4, of Scottsdale, who was last seen in the company of her father, Charles Matthews, 33, during a routine custody visit. Police in Albuquerque, acting on a tip, raided a hotel room that had been paid for with Mr. Matthews’s credit card, but turned up no positive results. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother, Elise Matthews, has not given up hope that her daughter will be found and returned safely. “There is nothing in this world,” Mrs. Matthews vowed yesterday at a televised press conference, “that can keep me away from her.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Matthews divorced in March, and shared custody. Matthews was last seen picking up his daughter from the home of his ex-wife at 9 AM on Saturday, where he indicated that he would return before 6 PM on Sunday. When he didn’t bring Bethany back, and Mrs. Matthews was unable to reach him via telephone, she involved the police. An initial search of Mr. Matthews’s apartment suggested that the subject had permanently vacated the premises.

  Volunteers who would like to contribute time or materials to the search effort should report to the Saguaro High School gymnasium. Any tips regarding the whereabouts of Bethany Matthews or Charles Matth