Safe in My Arms

by Sara Shepard

  “You think so?” Ronnie touched her hair. Piper dressed much more expensively than Ronnie, and her haircut was better, as were her makeup and jewelry.

  But their features were similar. Their coloring, their height, their bodies, even. Ronnie felt flattered. But then she noticed the lawyer looking at her curiously, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure it was appropriate. “What?” she asked.

  “Look, I’m no detective.” Cromwell showed her his palms in apology. “I could be way off base. But I suppose it’s worth asking. Is it possible that whoever was also in that hallway . . . I mean, it was dark, the two of you looked the same. Could it have been someone out to hurt you?”

  Ronnie stared at him in horror, and once again, Jerrod’s presence washed over her like a dust storm. It was impossible—or was it?

  But somehow she was able to tell Cromwell no. She didn’t trust this guy. She didn’t trust anyone yet.

  They shook hands, and Ronnie was free to go. She and Lane walked out of the little office with their heads bent. When Lane pointed out his Honda in the parking lot, Ronnie started to cry.

  “I can stay somewhere else,” she offered. “If you need some space.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lane said, his voice heartbreakingly gentle. “We’ll get through this.”

  He held the car door open for her. They drove home in relative silence, Ronnie’s body vibrating with fear. Ronnie asked what they were going to do about her car, which was still at Silver Swans, and Lane said he’d jog over there and pick it up later. But she could sense that maybe Lane wasn’t furious with her. And as their apartment complex crested into view, Lane sighed.

  “The dancing stuff I can get over,” he said. “But that note, Ronnie. I wish you’d told me. We’re in this together.”

  “I know.” When she looked at Lane, his face was haggard with sadness. It was because she’d betrayed him, surely. Her whole body throbbed with regret. She hated seeing him in pain.

  At the front door, Lane opened their little mailbox and pulled out a few bills. “Can you hold these for a sec?”

  Ronnie opened her arms. There was a magazine, circulars, a coupon book for services she’d never use. As she was walking to the recycling bin, a flyer fluttered loose. It was a bulletin announcing missing children, the kind that used to be on milk cartons. The images showed dated pictures of cheerful youngsters and used facial recognition software to age the child ahead the number of years from when he or she had disappeared. A boy named Juan had gone missing when he was six—over ten years ago—and the projected teenage version of him looked nothing like that pudgy-faced little boy. Would Juan’s parents even recognize him if they saw him on the street?

  Ronnie flipped the flyer over. On the other side was a little girl’s projected appearance—a baby-toothed smile, crinkly eyes, fat cheeks. Then she glanced at the picture of the girl when she’d gone missing—more than two years before. She was about two years old, with the cutest dimples, and big eyes . . .

  Wait a minute.

  Ronnie froze, registering the face staring back at her. Instinctively, she slapped her hand over the picture. No. Why was this here? Why had it shown up at her door . . . now?

  Lane had gotten the door unlocked and was stepping over the threshold, murmuring his thanks to Mrs. Lombardo. “Daddy Lane!” Esme cried, rushing forward to greet him. “Did you hear there was a whoo-whoo at school today?” Esme had trouble pronouncing ambulance, so she said whoo-whoo instead.

  Ronnie couldn’t go in yet. She peeled back her fingers to take one more look. The software that projected the girl’s looks two years into the future hadn’t gotten it right—her face was too round, her eyes set too far apart. It wasn’t like anyone would see Esme on the street and know. But there was something right about her lips. And also her . . . essence.

  Ronnie’s gaze flicked to the details below. Taylor, read the top line. Ronnie had never liked the name. Esme wasn’t a Taylor Johnson. Last seen: Cobalt, Pennsylvania. Parents: Michael “Jerrod” Johnson, Father; Vanessa Johnson, Mother.

  Sixteen

  When Lauren first opened her eyes on Friday morning, things felt almost normal. She was in her bed. The same sound machine they’d had since before the baby was born played soothing ocean sounds. She smelled coffee brewing. The sun shone through the blinds.

  Then it flashed back: Breaking into Piper’s office. Piper’s body on the ground. Blood everywhere. Everyone staring at one another in horror. And then that awful guard happening upon them. The way it must have looked, the three of them huddled over Piper’s body.

  She grabbed her phone from the nightstand. No one had texted her except a joke from a college friend and, randomly, a text from her sister Gwen: Just thinking about you! Weird; had she gotten wind of the Piper thing? The police had promised that their names wouldn’t be released since they weren’t official suspects—yet, they added ominously—so she hadn’t gotten, say, text messages from her mother in an uproar about why her daughter was involved in the assault of a preschool director.

  There was an update about Piper, though, on the local news. The details were thin—all it said was that the police were “putting together evidence.” But when she clicked on the Silver Swans Facebook group, there was already a dedicated thread called Poor Piper!

  You’d have thought Piper was the Dalai Lama mixed with an Instagram model. People mourned her beauty, the “life and light she radiated”—whatever the fuck that meant—how smart, how resourceful, how giving. Comment after comment offered words and prayers for Piper. A mom named Kelly Mackenzie, who had a kid in the threes, piped in with an essential oil diffuser blend people might want to try if they were super-stressed—she sold them over on her website! More comments were filled with kids’ artwork—sad faces, storm clouds, and, strangely, a picture of a dead bunny with an X over each eye. We should restructure the documentary so that it’s all about HER, Jane Russell wrote. Lauren was pretty sure Jane Russell was the woman with the four-year-old kid named King and whose big-ass Tesla X took up two parking spaces at the breakfast. And then, below that, was another post about where everyone was when it happened. Everyone wanted to chime in on that one. Most of the accounts were the same: a parent (usually a mom) pulled into the parking lot at Silver Swans to see Frank the security guard’s body half out the loft door. He was screaming something on his cell phone. Telling someone inside the hall to stay where they were. I freaked, of course, one mom wrote. I thought: active shooter.

  Apparently, that was what had spread like wildfire: Piper had been shot. It seemed as though Carson perpetuated this rumor—one person saw him running heroically toward the hallway only to be barred from entry by the cops. Later, the cops shut down the parking lot, pushing the parents to exit with their kids as quickly as possible. They wouldn’t answer any questions, another mom posted. They were kind of jerks about it. I mean, this is our school, our life! We have a right to know!

  Only after the parents left did they bring Piper out on a stretcher. Lauren and the others had already gone by then, snuck out a back way to the side street, but a few intrepidly nosy parents had parked around the corner from Silver Swans and peered at the stretcher situation from their cars, texting all their contacts it was indeed Piper. A few nosy parents even followed the ambulance to the hospital and grilled one of the cops supervising the ambulance transfer about what had happened inside the hall. All he said was there’d been an accident, read a post. But now Piper’s in critical condition. Who could have done this?

  I heard it was one person, the theories began. Others said five. Then some quoted the news report that had come out, correctly identifying that it was three. I saw a blond head in one of the squad car windows. She was quite tall. And then another comment: Oh, I think I know who she is. We’ve all seen that mother around, I believe. Andrea? Lauren’s blood curdled.

  And then there was that pretty one, another
anonymous poster wrote next. But like, a trashy pretty. Did they mean Ronnie?

  The speculation about Lauren was disproportionately bland. Don’t know about the third parent. Someone from the infant program? Though maybe it was good to fly under the radar. At least they weren’t saying she was a violent bitch who’d probably done it.

  Because . . . had she?

  The moments she couldn’t remember needled at her. If only she had a few details to hang on to. If only she could retrace her steps from the office to that alcove in that other hallway, as the time frame was a little fuzzy. Once she truly came back to herself, she was trembling. Sweating. Chattering. If only she could be sure who had also been in that hallway besides the three of them—the real person who’d hurt Piper. A presence of . . . someone lingered in her consciousness. A voice. Heavy steps. She worried it might just be her mind making up explanations, though. Scrambling for answers. Turning away to the ugly truth about herself.

  From down the hall came the sound of a baby’s coo, which made Lauren’s nipples tingle. Crazy that after the day she’d had, her breasts still produced milk as usual. She hurried out of bed and slid her feet into slippers. In the living room, Graham sat on the couch, laptop perched on his knees; Matthew fiddled with a stacking ring on the carpet. Lauren felt a tug in her chest, which only intensified when Graham didn’t glance her way. He’d already made coffee—a mug sat on the table next to him. Normally, he brought her a cup in bed.

  Oh, how angry he must be. Yesterday, upon leaving the police station, she’d found Graham’s car idling in the parking lot. “B-But your shoot,” she stammered when she hurried to his window. “It’s your episode.”

  “Just get in the car, please,” Graham said stonily, staring straight ahead.

  On the drive from the station, Graham didn’t say a word, gnawing on his bottom lip like he wanted to chew it off. “It’s all a misunderstanding,” she’d pleaded. “You can go back to work. I’ll be all right.”

  “That ship has sailed,” Graham had said emptily.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lauren said. “Please go back to work. I hate that you had to leave. Is Gracie upset?”

  “Lauren, leave it.”

  “We just wanted to talk to Piper.” Should she have been offering up that information? “About . . . volunteering. It wasn’t a big deal. I certainly didn’t plan on appearing at a crime scene.”

  Something about her voice must have tipped him off, because when they halted at a stoplight, he gave her a strange, devastated look. “What?” she asked.

  “Is that really what happened?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  The light changed; Graham rolled through it slowly. Lauren’s cheeks burned. She knew what he wanted to ask her, really: Is this like that night in the kitchen?

  She hovered in the doorway now, full of shame and confusion. But then Matthew looked up. “Ma!” he exclaimed, his smile a gummy triangle.

  “Hey, baby.” Lauren rushed forward and slid to her knees so she could be next to him. “My baby,” she whispered, pulling him onto her lap, holding him close. She never meant to hurt anyone.

  Daringly, she touched Graham’s bare knee as he tapped on the laptop. “Good morning to you, too.”

  Graham moved his knee away. Lauren felt a sting. “Graham,” she said softly. He didn’t look at her. “Graham?”

  One of the plastic ring toys clattered against the other, and Matthew let out a bleat. “Graham,” she said again, feeling defensive. “Okay, I’m going to assume that you not talking to me means you think I’ve done something. Even though I told you I didn’t.”

  Graham shut the laptop with a snap. There were puffy circles beneath his eyes. His lips were cracked and dry. “You went behind my back. You wrote to Piper about the thing you said you wouldn’t—in no uncertain terms, either.” He shook his head. “Why would you tell her about your . . . issues?”

  It took a moment for Lauren to find her words. She’d forgotten all about her email to Piper. “H-How do you know about that?”

  “The police called.”

  Lauren blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her that the police would get Piper’s emails so quickly. “. . . When?”

  “This morning. Why would you tell a total stranger about a personal thing we’re going through?”

  “Because . . .” Lauren peered again at her sweet baby on her lap. The bruise was still visible on his thigh, a fainter purple now. She and the others hadn’t said anything about not talking about the notes to people they trusted. “Look, I got this strange note in Matthew’s backpack after the first day. Saying we should enroll him somewhere else.”

  “What?” Graham was on his feet now. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I-I thought you’d blame me. I figured it was my fault—that someone saw me freak out in public and took it the wrong way. So I got it in my head to write to Piper. Explain myself. Explain that I was getting help, that sort of thing. Except . . .”

  She stopped. She couldn’t say the part about Piper forwarding an email that said she thought Lauren was a crazy bitch. It was just the sort of thing to set her off, and Graham knew it. Then again, wouldn’t the police have that email of Piper’s as well?

  “Where is this note?” Graham asked. “Do you still have it?”

  Lauren bit down hard on her lip. “I threw it away. I didn’t want you to see it.”

  And there it was on his face: the doubt. “Graham, no, I really got one. Ronnie and Andrea did, too. That’s why we were in the hallway, we just wanted to talk to her.” His hand fluttered to his mouth. “Honestly! Nothing else happened! None of us hurt her! We were in the wrong place at the wrong time!”

  Graham sank to a kitchen chair and stared blankly at the top of the table. “So you were in cahoots with those other two.”

  “Cahoots?” Lauren cried. “They’re nice people.”

  “How do you know they were telling the truth about getting notes?” Graham asked. “Maybe they were riling you up. People lie all the time. People like to stir up shit.”

  “Not them,” Lauren said. Then she remembered something. Something she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. “Hold on.”

  She ran from the room and located Matthew’s backpack, which was sitting on the floor near the front door. She hurried back into the kitchen with it, her hands shaking. “I can’t believe I forgot. Yesterday, when we were talking outside the offices, Ronnie said she saw Piper go to Matthew’s bag. With another note.” She unzipped the bag and rooted around at the bottom. Her heart lifted when her fingers clamped on a folded-up slip of paper. “Here!” she cried, drawing it out and thrusting it at Graham.

  He started to open it. Lauren rushed to be next to him so she could read the words, too. The typed message was in the same font as the note that had come before it, but it didn’t make sense.

  Dear Mrs. Smith—Can you call my office to make a one-on-one appointment? I like doing it with all my new parents. Thanks, Piper Jovan

  Unceremoniously, Graham folded the paper. “But,” Lauren whimpered, “the other note was nothing like this one. I swear!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It said, You are not wanted!”

  “Maybe you read it wrong. Maybe it said, You are wanted. Maybe it was one of those stupid-ass affirmations that are so trendy right now.”

  Lauren’s vision was starting to tunnel. She placed her hand on the back of her neck, trying to cool her blazing skin. No. Could she have read it wrong? But how did that explain Ronnie’s note, Andrea’s drawing? But maybe those had been misconstrued, too?

  A knot welled in Lauren’s throat. “You really think I’d hurt someone?” she asked in a small voice. “You think I did this to Piper?”

  “I . . .” Graham put his head in his h
ands. Oh my God, Lauren thought. But then he said, “I wonder if you should go into treatment.”

  “. . . Treatment?”

  “A . . . facility. Gracie knows a few. Just . . . you know. To get your memories back on track. To figure out what’s going on.”

  Lauren shot to her feet. “You want me to go into a psych ward? Gracie wants me to go into a psych ward?” So he’d spoken to Gracie about it, then. She pictured them conspiring together in soft murmurs, Gracie saying it was for the best, Graham agreeing, and then Gracie giving him a long, consoling hug, and then . . .

  Graham squeezed his eyes shut. “Lauren, no. Not like that. It’s more like a spa, but I think it would be good—you could have some time away, work out what you’re going through, get better.”

  “Who would take care of Matthew?” Lauren gasped, looking down at the baby, so cute in his jungle-print onesie.

  “Clarissa could, for a little while. And me. I could take a few weeks off work. We’re coming up to a hiatus anyway. Just until this blows over.”

  She pressed her fingertips against the sides of her face just to feel something. So that was it, then. She was crazy; she was replaceable. Something else Graham said hit her: Just until this blows over. He was ashamed of her.

  On that awful night in the kitchen, after the police had gone, Lauren had turned to her husband, drained, scared, and humiliated. Her whole sense of reality felt impugned. She also felt very unworthy of her good fortune.

  “I understand,” she said flatly to her husband, “if you want to leave me.”

  “Come on,” Graham said. “Stop.”

  “No. Really.” Tears blurred her vision. “If I can do that—if I could hurt him . . .” She broke off and glanced over at Matthew. There was a boulder in her throat. She’d never hated herself so much.

  “It’ll be okay,” Graham assured her. “We’ll work through this together. But you have to promise to do the work, too. Will you promise?”