CHAPTER SEVEN

Celeste easily outstrips us, bounding up the path with the lithe grace that only the young possess. “Daddy! Daddy!”

“Celeste!” I call. “Wait! Don’t go inside alone!”

I fear that the cause of whatever has happened to Victor might still be there. “Wait for us! It might not be safe!”

Celeste ignores me and rushes inside, still calling for her father. I feel a rush of grief for her that mixes with my fear. Whatever trouble might exist between them, he is still her father, and the tenderness I see in his eyes last night shows me that he loves her.

Please let him be alive. God, please let him be alive.

I am not a religious woman, and if God does exist, my feelings for Him can best be described as ambivalent. I do ally myself to those forces that strive for good in this world, but I wonder sometimes whether God is truly one of those forces.

I pray anyway. I am near the point of panic, and Evelyn and Celeste are far beyond that point.

“Victor!” Evelyn calls, her voice carrying strongly enough that I see heads poke out of windows from the neighbor’s house fifty yards away. “Victor, if you can hear us, please say something!”

I rush into the house and hear Celeste wailing, “Daddy, please, where are you?”

My heart pounds in my chest, and my stomach turns sickeningly. “Celeste! Please wait for us!”

Evelyn outpaces me finally, rushing up the stairs toward Victor’s studio. A moment later, I hear an ear-splitting scream.

“Oh, God, no,” I whisper.

I force my nausea down and rush up the stairs. What I wouldn’t give to be thirty years younger right now.

The door to the studio stands ajar. I hear Celeste wailing from inside and Evelyn’s voice trying ineffectually to soothe her.

I run into the room and look around.

The room is trashed. Canvases lay scattered on the floor, most of them torn. Some appear to be half-finished works—abstract forms similar to the statues downstairs—but they are all covered in thick, goopy splotches of paint. That same paint covers nearly every surface in the room. Some of it mixes with the water dripping from all three of us to form a washed-out oil slick of fluid on the floor. Paintbrushes and bottles are tossed here and there. There’s a half-empty bottle of whiskey on a small table near the window, the only item in the room that appears untouched.

The window is shattered. Jagged spears of glass extend inward from the frame, seeming to point to the void in the center. It looks as though something—or someone—was thrown through it.

I share a look with Evelyn. She nods and holds Celeste tight. I’m glad she understands what I want. If Victor lies broken on the ground below, then Celeste must not be allowed to see him.

I move carefully to the window. I test my weight on the table, and when I’m satisfied it will support me for a brief glance, I look down.

The height is not particularly great—maybe sixty feet or so—but vertigo grips me almost immediately. I pull back and take two deep breaths, then look outside again.

There’s nothing there. The view straight down leads to a fairly flat portion of rocky ground. I see the glint of the shattered glass below. It sparkles with a disturbing resemblance to the quartz and amethyst in Celeste’s treasure trove.

But there’s no body. No blood. No clothing. Nothing to suggest that anyone fell through the window.

Something must have occurred here, though. There was clearly a struggle. Either someone attacked Victor, or he had a mental break fueled by alcohol and trashed his own studio.

Considering what I’ve seen of him, that’s actually not unlikely. Perhaps this story can have a… maybe happy isn’t the right word, but a less tragic ending.

“He’s vanished!” Celeste weeps. “He’s gone to the vanishing point and disappeared just like mom!”

“No, sweetheart, he’s not vanished,” Evelyn says. She looks at me, and I say, “He’s not fallen through the window.”

Evelyn’s eyes widen hopefully. “No? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. You can look for yourself if you want.”

“Daddy?” Celeste gets to her feet and runs for the window. I catch her just before she can leap through. She struggles through my arms. She’s petite and thin, but she is young and panicked. I nearly lose control of her, but Evelyn wraps her arms around Celeste and pulls her backwards.

“No! Let me go! I have to see!”

“He’s not down there,” I repeat. “I promise you. We can’t let you go because you could fall, but he’s not there.”

I expect that to comfort her somewhat, but she only shrieks again, “He’s vanished! He’s gone to the vanishing point!”

“He’s not in the ocean, or we would have seen him,” I say.

That finally seems to calm her a little. She meets my eyes and says, “You didn’t see him?”

“No.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. He hasn’t fallen, and he hasn’t vanished. I’m going to go look for him. I want you to stay with Evelyn.”

“No, I want to help. I want to look for my Daddy.”

“It’s not safe right now. We don’t know where he is. Stay with Evelyn. She’ll take care of you while I—”

“Please.”

“No, Celeste.”

“ Please!”

“All right,” Evelyn says before I can reply. She meets my eyes and says, “You can help me, Celeste. Do you want to help me look for him?”

She nods, and Evelyn helps her to her feet. I can accept that compromise.

It's not until we reach the first floor that I think to suspect Evelyn. The thought stops me dead in my tracks. In my last place of employment, the housekeeper was the murderer. Evelyn was the one who discovered Victor missing, and she did so when Celeste and I were out of the house.

And I’ve just placed Celeste into her care.

I curse and turn to Eveleyn to suggest that I take Celeste while she searches alone, but the two of them are already moving toward the front door. Well, I can at least follow the two of them. Besides, the neighbors will no doubt have heard the commotion. If not, then I have my phone, and I can call for help the minute Evelyn tries anything.

I hope that Evelyn is innocent. It would be so devastating if Celeste had to learn that her housekeeper murdered her father.

We step outside, and as I suspect, there is a small crowd of people standing outside, staring at us with a mix of uncertainty and fear. “Is everything okay?” a woman of around forty asks.

I recognize her as the one who looks out her back window as the three of us run up the stairs. Celeste lifts her eyes to the woman and sobs, “Have you seen my Daddy?”

The woman pales and looks up at me. “Victor’s gone missing,” I explain. “His studio is ransacked, and he’s not in the house.”

The woman blinks. “Um… have you checked the basement? Sometimes he goes in there when he’s… in a mood.”

I feel a rush of hope at that. We’ve only checked the studio. I assumed he would be there, but I don’t even think about the rest of the house.

Celeste pulls away from Evelyn and rushes inside. Evelyn looks at me and says, “I’ll check around here with the neighbors. Maybe someone’s seen him.”

“I’ll check inside.”

I rush back into the house, relieved that Evelyn is no longer with Celeste. I hate to think this way, but she was the last person to see him. I follow Celeste’s voice as she calls her father’s name. A quick glance at the living room and dining room shows he’s not there. I rush to the basement and see Celeste on her knees in the middle of the room, weeping and staring out at the horizon.

“He’s gone,” she whimpers. “He’s gone to the vanishing point.”

I look pensively out at the balcony. The door to the path is ajar. I don’t want Celeste to run, but I don’t like my chances of moving her when she’s hysterical like this.

“Stay here,” I tell her. “I’ll check the closet.”

I walk into the small room where I find the painting of Annie earlier that morning. She’s still there, beautiful and haughty and alive, but Victor is not there. Nothing appears disturbed either.

I return to Celeste and kneel beside her. “He’s not down here, Celeste.”

“He’s vanished.”

“He has not vanished,” I say firmly. I hate that I lie to her, but I must break through her hysterics. “Come upstairs with me and look for him. He could be in his bedroom, or in the schoolroom or the theater.”

“He’s not,” she weeps. “He’s vanished.”

I press my lips together. I can’t leave her here.

I wrap my arm around her and lift her up. To my profound relief, she doesn’t resist but allows me to help her up the stairs.

Victor isn’t in the theater or the schoolroom. We check his bedroom and find it unkempt but not ransacked. Most importantly, we also find it empty.

We check our own rooms, and finally, we check the laundry room and garage. Nothing. There’s no sign of him.

“His car’s still here,” Celeste sobs. “He’s vanished. He’s gone to the vanishing point.”

I want to snap her out of this, but I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make this better. Not right now. I help her downstairs instead. She allows me to lead her, but there’s no strength in her body. She’s lost all hope.

A part of me feels an intense anger toward Victor for this. It’s unfair because it’s almost certainly not his fault, but I feel it anyway. I was just getting through to Celeste, and now he’s gone and ruined all of the progress I’ve made.

And I’ll never know how he knew Annie. I was right on the cusp of an answer to the greatest mystery of my life, and now that answer has vanished.

And despite my words of encouragement to Celeste, so has Victor.