by Sarah Zettel
It was taken outdoors, maybe in the desert. A woman crouched down and wrapped one arm tight around a little girl. The woman pressed her cheek against the girl’s cheek and pointed toward the camera.
Look! Look! Say cheese!
The girl looked like she wanted to say fuck you way more than she wanted to say cheese. She was bone thin and tanned and frizzy haired.
This skinny, possibly crazy lady had left Dana a picture of her mother.
CHAPTER FOUR
“So this is finally for real?” Zoe asked as Beth pulled up a chair at the little marble-topped table in the lobby bar. “Rafael’s on board with Excelsior?”
Beth had taken the time to load her briefcase up with all the files she was going to need for the weekend, and swapped her stockings and heels for ankle socks and white tennis shoes. This meant Zoe had beaten her down to the bar, with time to order the cheese fries, not to mention a white wine for herself and LaCroix for Beth.
Zoe Keyes was an elegant African-American woman who wore her hair natural and favored large hoop earrings and tailored suits. Her analyst skills had sped her up the ladder at Lumination. Beth had been forced to use some sharp elbow moves against three other veeps to snag Zoe for her team.
“Rafi’s being careful,” Beth admitted, taking a swallow of LaCroix. “But I know him. He is on board.”
“Finally!” They clinked glasses.
“So, now we have to keep it up,” Beth said. “Rafael was asking where we are on tomorrow’s BlitzCom meeting.”
“Just checking off the last few boxes.” Zoe did not sound happy.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s something I don’t like. Or maybe I just don’t get it…” She shook her head. Her hoops swung and glittered. “I don’t know, but there’s something.”
Beth nodded. Zoe had serious skills, but she was still learning to trust those nagging little “somethings” that came along with them. That could be difficult for anybody, but as usual, it was harder for women. A man’s hunch might be respected as “gut instinct.” For a woman, the same hunch would be laughed at, usually with a “Oh, your ‘women’s intuition’ tell you that?” thrown in.
“Keep digging.” Beth lifted her glass out of the way so the server could set down the heaping plate of cheese fries. “When you nail it down, text me or call. Even if it’s four in the morning, okay?”
“Okay, but when it is four in the morning, remember you asked for it.”
Beth crossed her heart a split second before her phone buzzed. She flipped it over to see the screen. San Francisco again. Her thumb hovered over the Accept button. But Zoe touched her sleeve, and Beth looked up.
Zoe was nodding toward the bar and the tanned, blond man climbing to his feet.
“What. The. Actual. Hell,” murmured Beth as she got up out of her chair. “Doug!”
Doug came over and shook her hand. He was trying to beam, but it wasn’t working out too well.
“Hi, Beth! I know this is a surprise, but I was on my way…”
“Camping,” she said, cutting him off. “You were on your way camping with Susan and the kids.”
“Yeah, well, I was. But something came up, like I said this morning.”
“Oh yes. Doug, you remember Zoe Keyes?”
Zoe, who had instantly read the awkward/annoyed vibe, shut her folder before she reached out to shake hands. “Good to see you again, Doug. Sorry I can’t stay. Beth, I’m just going to look into this and I’ll message you later tonight.”
“Thank you, Zoe.”
Zoe gathered her things and strode away toward the elevator banks. Beth faced her daughter’s father and tried to smile.
“Um,” said Doug. “Okay if I sit down?”
Beth didn’t move. “I need to get home. Dana’s making dinner.”
Doug looked at the cheese fries.
“Yeah, she’s good like that, isn’t she?” Doug sat anyway. He picked up Zoe’s wineglass and looked at it like he was thinking of gulping down the remainder.
How long have you been sitting here drinking, Doug? The pinprick Beth felt when they spoke on the phone that morning returned. Doug wore his usual neat business suit, but now she could see the white shirt was rumpled. His blond hair, which she suspected he now dyed, was also in disarray, like he’d been repeatedly running his fingers through it. When he looked up at her hopefully with his bright-gray eyes, she saw the heavy bags beneath them.
She tried not to care but couldn’t quite manage it.
Beth sighed, and she sat. “What’s going on, Doug? You’re making me nervous.”
Doug fussed with Zoe’s glass, using two fingers on the base to turn it around.
“I…Christ. I wish there was some way…”
“Just say it, Doug.”
Instead, he ate three cheese fries. Slowly.
When he finally raised his eyes from the plate, Beth got a rush of feeling—strangled sentiment, old frustration, old affection, and the awareness of the endless, complex bond that came with facing the father of her child. “I’m in trouble, Beth.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered, aware that her voice was too cold. She distrusted his boozy desperation like she distrusted her own stale affection. “Is it Susan?”
“No, it’s…it’s money. Our money. Susan’s and mine, I mean.”
Beth waited for shock and surprise to form, but all she felt was the depressing realization that she should have known. She had seen this exact look before, from a hundred other men (and the occasional woman). It always came when they realized their habit of blowing past all the warning signs meant they were now driving off a cliff.
Besides, how long have you known Doug would make a perfect sucker? And don’t think that’s why you picked him out, because that is not true.
At least, she hoped it wasn’t true, because she did not like what that would mean about her.
“Doug.” Beth folded her hands on the table to keep from curling them into fists. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Do you have any idea how much you sound like our fifteen-year-old when you do that? “I took advantage of an investment opportunity and…”
“What opportunity?”
“Oh, here we go. She puts on her ‘I’m the professional here’ voice.” But Doug saw her face harden, and she watched him abruptly remember he actually wanted something out of her. “I’m sorry, Beth. I’m just really on edge. Can we…just strike that from the record?” He tried for a smile and failed. Instead, he ate two more fries.
Something’s seriously wrong here. Beth felt a thousand instincts rise to the surface as goose bumps. This was something beyond Doug and his protests of innocence. This feeling was old, like the scar on her arm that her long-sleeved blouses hid, or the sudden stabs of pain in her skull that still defied ibuprofen and talk therapy.
Calm, Beth. He’s triggering a flashback. That’s all.
“Okay,” said Beth. “Let me guess how this ‘opportunity’ went. It was from somebody you knew, maybe not well, but you knew his name. He’d heard about you from mutual friends who were already investors. It was all very hot and cutting-edge. They just needed a little extra funding for regulatory paperwork, or to finalize development—something like that. Then, a few months later, they needed just a little more, and then a little more. By then you’d put in so much that a little more didn’t seem to matter, because the whole project was going to turn around any day now.”
“No, it was nothing like that.” But the lie was plain on his face. She’d always been able to read Doug like a book. Once, that fact had given her a measure of security.
“Then what was it like?”
“Jesus, Beth, I thought you’d want to help! Whatever problems you and I have, you love Susan and the kids.”
How long has it been since you let me anywhere near your wife and kids?
“I know you wouldn’t want them to get hurt because I made a mistake.”
What I want is to get home to my daugh
ter. I want this feeling to get off my back. I want…
Beth realized she was losing control of her expression. She glanced quickly away, trying to remember how to breathe and be calm.
That was when she saw him—an old, lean white man with blue eyes. He wore a Cubs cap and a leather jacket, despite the heat outside. He stood directly across the lobby, and he was watching her.
No.
“I just need you to do something for me. It wouldn’t take more than an hour of your time, Beth—”
You can’t be here.
“This wouldn’t even be a problem if we hadn’t taken such a hit when—”
You’re in Iowa.
Beth was on her feet.
“Beth, what…?” Doug grabbed her sleeve. She blinked, turned her head for just a second, and pulled free.
He was gone.
“Beth, are you even listening?”
The answer was no. She was racing across the lobby, forgetting to be subtle, forgetting to be anything. But the elevators had arrived, and a river of bodies spilled out—people on phones, pulling wheeled bags, walking and talking in tight knots. Delivery people going one way, suits another.
Beth stopped midstride. It was pointless. He was gone.
It wasn’t him. You’re just jumpy.
But her breath wouldn’t calm. She closed her eyes, but the face seemed to have seared itself on her vision.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Doug was still sitting at the table, just as she had left him.
“Jesus, Beth. What is your problem? Are you having one of your freak-outs again?”
“Yes.” Beth grabbed her briefcase and purse. “I am freaking out. That is exactly what I’m doing.”
“What about…Oh shit. Beth, come on—what’s the matter?”
She stopped for a split second, just long enough to process the fact that Doug was genuinely concerned.
“Contact my admin. Make an appointment,” she said. “We’ll talk.”
She did not wait for his response, which would probably be shocked and offended. She needed all her concentration to walk calmly but quickly out of the bar and across the bright, beige marble lobby.
A yellow cab waited at the curb outside. The building concierge held the door, and Beth gave the driver her address and collapsed into the back. The driver started up the meter and cranked the wheel to wedge them into traffic as soon as he heard the door thunk shut.
Beth yanked out her phone, brought up a number, and waited while it rang.
“Good evening, Miss Fraser,” said a tired, gravelly voice. “How are you?”
“Mr. Kinseki, where are the Bowens?” she demanded.
James Kinseki, private detective, fully bonded, licensed, and insured, sighed. He was a big man with gray buzz-cut hair and bulging arms that stretched the sleeves on his polo shirt. Beth had met him face-to-face exactly once. That was nine years ago, when she’d finally been able to afford someone more reliable than a greasy skip tracer.
“As far as I know, Todd and Jeannie Bowen are currently occupying room one sixteen of the YourRest Extended-Stay Hotel in Perrysborough, Iowa. Kitchenettes, weekly rates, free Wi-Fi.” Kinseki’s reply was calm, almost bored. Why wouldn’t it be? This wasn’t the first time she’d called him in a blind, baseless panic. “I had one of my guys out there just yesterday, and several of the clerks and maids have been willing to keep us updated, as I’ve told you in my reports.”
There. Your guy is telling you. It was your imagination. You didn’t see him.
But her body did not believe that. Kinseki, who had some decent instincts of his own, read her silence. “I can have my guy do a check-in if you want.”
Say no. She took a deep breath. At the same time, her phone gave a low double beep.
“Wait. I’ve got another call coming in.”
She checked the number. It was Doug. Beth hit Decline.
“Are you still there?” Beth asked.
“Yes, Ms. Fraser. I’m still here. Do you want me to call my guy?”
Say no. You didn’t see it. You’ve got other problems. Doug, for instance. This is your subconscious trying to avoid what’s going on with Doug.
But out loud she said, “Yes. Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“Okay. I’ll call you back as soon as I hear anything. In the meantime, if they do attempt to contact you, do not engage, okay? Get yourself a lawyer and a restraining order. As a professional, I’m telling you, if what you’ve said is the truth, that’s your best—”
Beth hung up.
The shakes started right after that. All Beth could do was clutch the grab handle and wait for them to stop.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dana lay on her bed, with Dessa streaming from the sound system. She stared at the faded Polaroid of her mother, and…the woman.
Dana had always wanted family. She’d been jealous of the kids whose holidays overflowed with aunts and cousins, the ones who had a whole world of people to love and look out for them. She didn’t even get to meet her father until after they had moved to Chicago, and that had…mixed results. Dana remembered Douglas Hoyt coming over to visit every so often. She remembered they went to the zoo and to see Frozen. He took her to American Girl Place for Christmas and her birthday instead of just sending gift cards.
Around the time she turned seven, Dana had asked her mom if she and Dad were divorced. That was when Mom told her they’d never been married and that he was married to somebody else now and had two other kids.
Dana had been stunned. She had a brother and a sister. Nobody told her that. Dad showed her pictures of his house and his wife and their two dogs, but he never once said he had kids.
Dana immediately asked (pestered) Mom about them. What are their names? How old are they? Where do they go to school? Can I message them?
But most of all, When can I meet them?
Patty and Marcus, I think, she’d answered. And, Younger than you.
And: I don’t know.
And: They might be too young to have their own emails.
And: That’s up to your father, Dana.
Without an email address, Dana reasoned she’d have to get creative. She wrote her unknown siblings letters, like they were pen pals. Neither one answered back, so she wrote again and again.
They still didn’t answer. Mom caught her crying about it.
That was when Mom had called her father. Dana stayed in her room and hugged her favorite stuffed animal, Cornie Bow. Through the wall, she heard Mom talking in that firm, calm way that made you wish she’d just yell and get it over with.
After a while, Mom came in and told Dana that her father had invited her to spend the weekend at his house.
Dana convinced herself it would all be great. She’d be on her best behavior. She’d make cookies. Her brother and sister (Marcus and Patty!) would be amazing. They’d all become best friends. She’d have a whole big family, not just Mom and the few sharp-edged stories that were all she’d ever given Dana of her grandparents.
When her father picked her up, he looked exactly like the dads in the commercials—his hair was brushed back, and he wore a red polo shirt and khaki pants. She showed him the plate of cookies she’d baked. Four kinds, she’d said proudly, because she didn’t know what Patty and Marcus liked.
While he drove around the curve of Lakeshore Drive and toward the highway, she peppered him with questions. What did they look like? What were their favorite shows? Their favorite YouTubers? Did Patty play Pokémon or Mario?
He didn’t answer, and the more he didn’t answer, the more Dana babbled to fill the silence with guesses and possibilities. She was practically vibrating with excitement and sugar overload. She was going to meet her brother and her sister.
Her father didn’t say anything until they merged into the traffic on the Skyway.
“They don’t know about you, kid.”
Dana remembered her jaw hanging open. She remembered she watched his mouth moving, but she didn�
�t really hear anything for a while. Too much of her brain was occupied by trying to understand what he meant.
They don’t know about you.
“It’s a pretty big thing, you know, finding out you’ve got a sister you never, well…you’re just kind of a surprise. I mean, I never thought you’d actually live close enough to visit or anything…”
“Oh. That’s okay,” she said. “We’ll tell them together. When I get there.”
“Yeah, of course. Only, not right away, okay? I mean, it’s not like nobody knows about you. Susan, my wife, she knows, but my kids…I want to ease them into it, okay?”
My kids, he said. But he meant my real kids.
“So, anyway, I told Patty and Marcus you’re the daughter of an old friend and you’re just staying with us for the weekend, okay? I will tell them you’re…well, you’re related. I promise I will. But there’s a lot going on right now. You know how that is, right? I just want to make this as easy as possible for everybody. You get it, right?”
She got it. He was her dad, but she wasn’t his real kid. She wasn’t somebody you talked about. Like Mom’s parents. They were bad people. You didn’t talk about the bad people in the family.
Why do you think I’m bad? What did I do?
“So, let’s just…let’s make a deal and not talk about how you’re…you know, that I’m your dad, okay? Just for this first weekend, okay?”
Mom doesn’t talk about you either.
Dana looked at her plate, the mound of cookies invisible under their layers of Saran wrap. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, “no bakes,” and molasses crinkles. She’d made them all for her brother and her sister. So they’d think she was cool. So they’d be glad she was part of their family, even with her weird eyes.
“Look, Dana, I know this is…well…this is all really complicated, okay? I didn’t…I just…I need your help here, okay?”
Dana stared at the cookies. They were going to his house for the whole weekend. And he was telling her she was supposed to keep a secret that whole time.
She was supposed to be a secret.
