A/N: Thanks again to my wonderful betas, Jan and Barbara, for asking all the right questions and prodding me in the right directions. As always, any remaining disastrous errors in judgment are my own.

Chapter 11

Late February 2007

The next morning, Lizzy woke up spontaneously, as always, at 6:30, and went for a jog. She was ready for brunch early, really early, and she didn't want to ask herself too hard why. She got to Maisy's Table almost half an hour ahead of schedule. It was packed, with a long line of people waiting to be seated. She went to the front to put her name on the list and found that Will had made a reservation for them. How had he done that? They didn't take reservations. She went back to wait in the foyer for the rest of the party to arrive. To her surprise, Will showed up 20 minutes early.

"Hey, hi," he said, standing next to her.

"Hey, yourself. Great party last night. Hardly any vomiting into the planters or suspicious substances on the sheets, I hope?" God, why had she said that? Gross!

He smiled. "Hardly any. It was a pretty well-behaved crowd."

"Great, great. You never know with my family."

"Or mine, to tell you the truth," he said. He looked like he meant it, too. And from what she remembered hearing when she was at SCOTUS about his drunken, womanizing uncle, the Senator, it probably was true.

"Elizabeth," he said, "I wondered—"

Just then her phone rang. The ringtone was "Sweet Jane," the Cowboy Junkies version.

"I'm really sorry. That's Jane, and I probably should take it, don't you think?"

He nodded. "Yeah, see if they're running late or something."

So she answered the phone, and immediately wished she hadn't.

Jane, always so calm and levelheaded, was in full-on panic mode. "Lizzy, Lizzy, when we went to the hotel to get Mom and Dad and Lydia this morning, Lydia was gone. She had her own room, and when Mom went to wake her up, she wasn't there. It didn't look like she'd slept in the bed. There wasn't a note or anything. We've called and called, but her phone is turned off."

"Oh my God. Do you think she's just gone out and didn't bother to tell anyone?"

"No. She took all of her stuff, and we think she also stole some money out of Dad's wallet before she left. Lizzy, she could be anywhere."

"Shit, shit. Where are you? Are Ed and Maddie and the girls there with you?" Lizzy hunched over her phone so she could hear in the noisy waiting area.

"Yes, thank God, calming Mom down. We're in Mom and Dad's room."

"OK. I'm coming right now. You stay there until I get there, OK? Don't move." They signed off.

"What's wrong?" asked Will, his voice full of concern.

"Lydia's run away," she said succinctly. "Shit. Should have seen this coming. This must be why she was willing to come to the City. Shit." Bad, bad scenarios started running through her head. Shit. She was so stunned she could hardly move. "Will, I'm sorry. I have to go to the hotel."

"Yes, of course. I'll let them know to release our table. Do you want me to get you a cab first?"

"Um, oh...no, I think I can get there all right..." She felt turned around, disoriented. She wasn't sure where the door was, even though she was standing right in front of it.

"I'll get you a cab. Wait here for 15 seconds, and then I'll make sure you get to the hotel," he said firmly before dashing off to find the hostess and quickly returning to Lizzy's side.

In a daze, she let him guide her out the door, and out to the curb, and then into a taxi that stopped for them shortly thereafter.

During the ten-minute ride, she started to pull herself together a little after the initial shock had worn off. "Jesus, Lydia. She is so close to being able to leave home, and she goes and does this? Un-fucking-believable."

The taxi pulled up at the entrance to the Midtown Hilton, and they got out. Will had paid the fare before Lizzy could even remember they had to pay. They stood in the cold, windy drive silently for a moment.

He said, "I can't imagine your family will want a stranger around right now. But do you want me to take you up to their room? Make sure you get there safely?"

"No, no, I'm OK now, and I don't want to put you out. I'm really sorry about brunch. I'm really sorry about everything, Will. You've just been great. Thank you, for everything," she said, fast, starting to choke on her words. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Then she turned and ran into the hotel, her long coat flapping behind her. If she had turned back, she would have seen see him standing there, watching her go through the revolving door, disappearing into the crowd inside.

Oh, God. Why did he have to be there to witness that little mental breakdown? she asked herself as she dialed Jane to ask, yet again, what the room number was.

Great, she thought as she headed for the express elevator. Well, that was the end of whatever secret, unacknowledged fantasies she'd been harboring about him. She had a drunk mother, an indifferent father, no wifely skills, and now, a runaway, probably drug-abusing sister. He'd surely had enough of that particular problem already in his life, a runaway, drug-abusing sister. She wished she hadn't gone to the party and let herself, however unconsciously, get her hopes up even the tiniest bit. How could she have been so stupid? Letting the smallest glimmer of interest or tiniest sign of warmth get her all worked up about him again, especially when she knew, knew, that they were all wrong for each other. Weren't they? Yes, they were. Damn it.

Things were chaotic in the hotel room, of course. Her mother alternated among completely freaking out, denying that they should be worried because surely Lydia would walk back through the door any second, and getting out her video camera to try to document everything. Finally Ed took the camera and stealthily removed the battery before giving it back to her. She didn't seem to notice that the camera wasn't working.

Charlie was taking and making phone calls, one after the other. Tom sat sulking in a high-backed chair in the corner by the window, watching the traffic go by 36 floors down. Sadie and Hannah were watching cartoons on TV. Lizzy tried to get Jane, Maddie, and Ed to tell her what had happened.

In the end, there wasn't much more to say than what Jane had already told her. Charlie's calls had included a call to the police, who said there was nothing they could do until she'd been gone for 24 hours.

Lizzy felt completely helpless. And of course they all were, in fact, helpless. What could they do? Start trolling the city parks? There were probably thousands of runaway kids in the City, and hundreds of places where Lydia might have gone. They'd never find her. Collectively, they all decided that everyone would check out of their hotel rooms. Maddie and Ed and the girls would stay the night at Jane's place, and Lillian and Tom would stay with Jane at Charlie's. For how long, nobody was sure. But Sadie and Hannah had to be back at school on Monday, Maddie had appointments with clients, and Tom had to be back on campus to teach class by Tuesday. Maybe Lydia would contact them and let them know that she was OK, at least.

But nothing happened. Lydia didn't call. Lizzy checked her email compulsively, just in case. They sat around in Charlie's apartment staring at each other for hours. They filed a missing persons report the next day, but the police didn't offer too much hope for a teenage runaway. Later that day, Maddie, Ed and the girls drove back to Boston. Lizzy went back home in the afternoon to get ready for work the next day. Tom went back to Artemis on Monday. Lillian stayed for a few more days with Jane and Charlie. And then, just nothing. Nothing. Lydia was gone.

The next week, Lizzy threw herself into her work because there wasn't anything else she could do. Plus, it took her mind off of things she didn't want to dwell on: Lydia, Will...What had he been about to ask her at Maisy's Table? Anyway, that ship had sailed.

And she had some help forgetting because of an emergency at work. The firm was defending The New York Times in a libel case, and she'd been working on it behind the scenes. But a new, junior partner assigned to the case had just had a serious car accident, and was in the hospital with complex fractures in both legs. He would be unable to do his share of the oral argument. As a mark of Lizzy's rising stature in the firm, she'd been asked by one of the senior partners to take his place. She would only be in the spotlight for a short time, but she really, really couldn't screw it up when it went to court the next week. This was the highest-profile case she'd had a chance to work on yet, and she knew it was kind of a test from the senior partner. So she gave it her all.

Then, two and a half weeks after Lydia had disappeared, at 2:30 on a Thursday morning after she'd only just gotten to sleep, her phone rang on the nightstand. It startled her and sent her sitting bolt upright. It was Lillian. "Lovey, they've found Lydia."

Lizzy grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down the facts as they spilled out of Lillian's mouth, in case she forgot them in her half-awake daze. She was in a hospital cross town from Lizzy. Someone had found her on the street somewhere, nobody had said where exactly, passed out, foaming at the mouth, half-dead from an overdose. Miraculously, her phone had not been stolen along with her bag and wallet, and the police had been able to use it to contact Lillian and Tom.

"We're coming as soon as we can, Lovey, but we need you and Jane to go down to the hospital and straighten some things out."

"OK, OK. I'll call Jane as soon as we hang up. Mom, you need to call Maddie and Ed, right now. Maddie will know what we need to do, or she'll know people who know."

"Lovey, it's the middle of the night. I'll call them in the morning."

"No, Mom, now. Do it now."

Within half an hour of the call, she was at the hospital, haggard and in her exercise clothes, sweaty from running through the whole damn hospital and getting lost for a while. Jane and Charlie weren't far behind. Lydia was in intensive care, having just been admitted there from the emergency room. After a while, the doctors let the three of them into Lydia's room, where she was lying still, eyes closed, horribly pale even though her white makeup had mostly been rubbed off. She'd been revived in the ER, but was now sleeping. She was stable. She would recover.

Lizzy and Jane clung to each other, and Charlie hugged them both. They all stood and looked at Lydia for a while. There wasn't anything they could do now. Lillian and Tom wouldn't be there for a few hours. So they sat, waiting for something to happen. They were pulled into "Hospital Time," that liminal state in which the simplest thing takes a couple of hours and the minutes pass agonizingly slowly, while at the same time you blink and discover that the whole day is gone.

Lizzy checked her phone and saw that it was already 7 o'clock. How had four hours gone by so quickly? Then she remembered.

"Shit, shit! Jane, I have to be in court in two hours. I have to go. I have to get home and get changed and get to court. I can't—I'm so sorry."

Jane lifted her head from Charlie's shoulder, and said, "Don't worry, we'll take care of her, Lizzy. She's safe now."

"I'm sorry, Janey. Thank you for being here with us, Charlie..." and she was off.

And two hours later, she was in court. It wasn't one of her more charismatic performances, but she was OK because she had prepared so well in the days before. But she had to turn off her phone, so she didn't know what was going on with Lydia. Even after her part of the arguments was done, she had to stay in the courtroom. During breaks, she snuck out to call and text Jane for updates. Finally, finally, the judge called it a day late in the afternoon. Then she had to head to the office for a re-hash of the day's events with her colleagues and preparation for the next day's arguments. She couldn't leave, but man, did she want to. This was horrible. This was awful. This was not to be borne.

Meanwhile, things at the hospital were happening fast. Lydia had woken up, but she wasn't saying a word about where she'd been, or with whom, or what had happened. Tom and Lillian had arrived. Maddie had flown in, leaving Ed and the girls at home. Jane and Charlie were there. Together, they were all talking through what would happen to Lydia next.

When she found a moment to sneak off and call Jane, she said, "Janey, I want to be there and help figure things out, but I just can't come right now. Oh, God, this is so awful, but I have to stay here."

"OK. Don't worry, Lizzy. We can manage without you."

And, in a way, that was really what Lizzy was afraid of. They were managing just fine without her. All the important things were happening, all the people she loved were making decisions about her sister's life. But she wasn't there to support them, or to help make any necessary legal decisions, or anything. She was in her office, where she always was, and life was going on just fine without her. This had to stop. This was the last time.

When she called Jane early that evening, some crucial decisions had been reached. When Lydia was discharged the next day, she was going to go straight into rehab. Somehow they had found a bed in a famous drug treatment center, Tranquility, in Connecticut. Lydia didn't want to go, but she was too out of it to put up much of a fight in the end. Lizzy heard all about it in bits and pieces from Jane and Maddie every hour as she worked late into the night at the office. She didn't have time to think about it right then, but something about this seemed off.

The next day Lillian, Tom, and Maddie took Lydia to Tranquility, after which everyone except Lydia went back home. Lizzy spent the day in court again, and then in the evening she went straight over to Jane's place to get all the details. Well, actually it was Charlie's place, since by now Jane had more or less moved in with him.

They told her all about the day before, and they just couldn't say enough about how Maddie had managed to get things arranged so quickly. She'd made and received a few phone calls, and, bam, they had gotten a bed for Lydia at Tranquility. She had also gotten the names of residential programs near Artemis and counselors in Artemis for after Lydia got out in six weeks, and a lot of other information and contacts.

"She was just amazing," said Charlie. "What a gem."

Something wasn't right here. Lizzy's Lawyer Spidey Senses were tingling all of a sudden. "Yeah, she is amazing. Um, did she tell you anything more about how this bed happened to materialize yesterday? I'm just saying, isn't that a little bit of a coincidence? That place is usually jam-packed with Real Housewives and former child stars."

"No, no," said Jane, "she didn't really say. I think she just called on, you know, her professional network, maybe?" Jane was so smart and sweet, but she wasn't very good at questioning authority.

"Huh. Huh. That's very interesting. You're sure she didn't say anything else about this?"

Jane and Charlie both shook their heads, like bobblehead dolls in unison. Well, Lizzy was sure there was something fishy going on here. This "open bed" thing was suspicious.

"Um, did anybody say anything about who is going to pay for six weeks at Tranquility? Mom and Dad have decent health insurance from the college, but I'm pretty sure that their lifetime maximum on inpatient substance abuse coverage will be met after about 15 minutes in that place. If the insurance company doesn't just refuse coverage altogether."

But they didn't have any answers.

In the taxi on her way home, heading Downtown from Charlie's place on the Upper West Side, she Googled "Tranquility" and "cost," and when she saw how much this was going to cost, she started muttering all the worst swear words she could think of. She had to call Maddie, right now.

"Hi Maddie, I'm sorry to call you so late. I hope I didn't wake you..."

"No, the girls are asleep, and Ed and I were just watching the news before we went to bed." Maddie sounded tired.

"Oh, good. So, thank you for helping us through all of this stuff with Lydia. You've just been incredible." Lizzy was itching to get to the point.

"Oh, I didn't do much. And anyway, of course I'm happy to do what I can. It's family, Lizzy."

"No, really, it was unbelievable that you were able to get a bed for Lydia on such short notice."

"Well, just good luck, I guess." Maddie was starting to sound a little uncomfortable, and Lizzy couldn't tell if she was simply embarrassed at being thanked profusely, or if there was something else going on. So she decided to go for the jugular. She also knew that Maddie could not lie. She was a congenital truth-teller.

"Wow, what a coincidence. So, do you know somebody who works there or something?"

"Ah, no, I don't, but I know somebody who knows somebody. You know."

"That's great. Who's that? A classmate from Harvard Med School or something?"

"No, someone I know in New York."

"A colleague?"

"No, not exactly."

"What is this person's name, Maddie?"

"I really can't say."

"What is going on Maddie? How did you get her a bed? Why there? Who is paying for it? I don't see how Mom and Dad could manage it without selling the house, and even that might not be enough. I looked it up. It's about $100,000 for six weeks. They don't accept any kind of insurance. Are you and Ed paying for it? Please tell me you aren't. How will Sadie and Hannah go to college if you spend your savings on this? Please don't do this. Stupid Lydia..." She was really getting worked up now.

The taxi pulled up at her place and she handed the driver a twenty and hoped it was enough. It must have been since he drove away after she got out of the car, focused on her phone.

"No, no, Lizzy. We're not. It's not that. Please don't worry. I just...I promised I wouldn't say."

"What do you mean? Promised who?" she squawked, standing there on the street, afraid to move in case she missed what Maddie had to say. Had somebody done something terrible to Lydia, leaving her for dead on the street, and was now feeling guilty and trying to buy their silence by getting her treatment? That was ridiculous, melodrama, stupider than those legal shows on television that got everything about the justice system wrong.

"Will Darcy."

"Will Darcy?" The phone slipped out of her hand and hit the pavement, skittering along the sidewalk. She picked it up from its resting place halfway under a black plastic garbage bag, wiped some of the filth off of it, and said, "I'm sorry, I think I might have misheard you. Did you say, Will Darcy?"

"Yes." And then the whole story came out, as Lizzy unlocked the door, went upstairs to her apartment, and sat on her yucky old sofa in the living room in the dark while she listened. When Maddie and Will had been talking at the engagement party, they'd exchanged cards, out of professional courtesy, or maybe simply out of habit. And right after he'd left Lizzy at the hotel, he had called Maddie, to ask if he could be of help somehow in looking for Lydia, or in putting the family in touch with the right authorities. He knew how to do this because he had looked for Georgie so many times, Lizzy realized. He had asked Maddie to send him a photo of Lydia, and he had circulated it at homeless shelters, at-risk youth centers, methadone clinics, needle exchanges, food pantries, any place that Lydia might go if she was living on the street. He hadn't found, her, though. In the end it was the police who had discovered her crashed out in an alley in the Bowery.

Maddie had called and told him when they'd found Lydia, and he had called in all his chips to get the bed at Tranquility right away, and probably paid a lot extra to get it so soon, too.

"Oh, no, he's paying for it...?" Shit. How was she going to repay him? By working for three more years at DeWitt?

And he'd gotten all the information about continuing treatment for Lydia back in Artemis after she was released from Tranquility, too. God, he was too good. What was she going to do?

"Yes, and that's the main reason he didn't want the family to know. He said he'd been through something similar with his sister, and he didn't want us to have financial worries over it in addition to all the rest of it. What a nice young man you've got there."

"What? He's not my young man. Who the hell does he think he is, just giving us a hundred K?"

"Lizzy, he did more than that. He really got his hands dirty helping to look for her. He's a keeper, I'd say."

"God! How many times do I have to say it? OK, I will admit, and if you tell anyone else I'll absolutely deny it, that we were seeing each other for a while. But we broke up ages ago, and barring some kind of personality transplant procedure on both of us, there is no way we're getting back together."

"How can you be so sure?" Maddie asked, switching easily into counseling mode. Lizzy didn't answer. "Do you like him? Let's start with that."

"Yes, but we just want different things. He wants me to be someone I'm not, or maybe it's more accurate to say that he wants someone I'm not. I don't see a way to fix that."

Lizzy slumped back on the sofa and watched the light of the neon sign across the street flashing on the dark ceiling.

"OK, well, either he is the most generous, magnanimous man in the world, or there may be some, you know, feelings-type things going on here. I know you like to steer clear of all that, Lizzy, but one of these days you're going to have to stop hiding yourself in your work and start dealing with feelings. That's an important part of life, too, maybe even more important."

"Yes, actually, I am fully aware of that. All too aware, since this whole thing with Lydia. And...also since Will. I love working, but I need more out of life than that, I think."

"Hmm. That's a big step for you to say that. So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Still thinking. Still thinking. I'll get back to you about that."

"OK. Well, about Will, please don't tell him I told you about the money, if you can possibly help it."

"I'll do my best. Thanks, Maddie, for everything. Love to Ed," and they hung up.

Lizzy lay awake in bed most of the night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of her downstairs neighbor's Battlestar Galactica marathon. What the hell was she going to do?