The Shining Girls

Harper ^{1 MAY 1993}

He is surprised to see how close they stay, despite cars and trains and the buzzing fury of O’Hare Airport. They are easy to track down, he’s found. Mostly they’re drawn to the city, which keeps expanding its reaches further and further into the countryside, like mould laying claim to a piece of bread.

The phone book is usually his starting point, but Catherine Galloway-Peck doesn’t appear in the lists of names. So he phones her parents instead.

‘Hello,’ her father’s voice comes through the instrument clear as if he were standing right beside him.

‘I’m looking for Catherine. Can you tell me where to find her?’

‘I’ve told you lot before, she doesn’t live here and we have absolutely nothing, do you hear me, nothing to do with her debts.’ There is a hard click, followed by a sweet monotone hum. He realizes the man is no longer on the other end of the line, so he inserts another quarter into the little slot and goes through the whole process again, jabbing deliberately at the silver keys, the numbers grubby and weathered by other fingers. The handset trills for a long time.

‘Yes?’ Mr Peck’s voice is careful.

‘Do you know where she is? I need to find her.’

‘For Pete’s sake,’ the man says. ‘You need to get the message. Just leave us alone.’ He waits in vain for him to answer; long enough for the fear to manifest. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello.’

‘Oh. I wasn’t sure if you were still there.’ He is uncertain. ‘Is she all right? Has something happened? Oh God. Did she do something?’

‘Why would Catherine do something?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know why she does anything. We paid for her to go to that place. We tried to understand. They said it’s not her fault, but—’

‘Which place?’

‘New Hope Recovery Center.’

Harper gently replaces the instrument.

He doesn’t find her there, but he goes to one of the meetings affiliated with New Hope’s halfway house, where he sits quietly and (as the name suggests) anonymously, listening to sniveling sob stories until he is able to get her new address from a very helpful old-lady ex-junkie called Abigail, who is delighted that Catherine’s ‘uncle’ is reaching out to her.