“You’re sure they’re mine?”
“I wasn’t until you just told me yours are missing. But, yeah, they’ve got that same pattern on them and everything.”
“Crocodile-embossed,” she muttered. “The police went to your apartment at one in the morning to ask you about my gloves?” She knew that what he was telling her was important, but she still felt groggy from sleep. She still pictured herself standing in her father’s office, staring at the gaudy wallpaper.
“He showed up at a bar, actually. He said his name was Danes?” She nodded. “I assume he followed me to try to catch me off guard. Nothing like having a cop show up at your table at Temple Bar.”
She knew the place. It had been one of their favorites when they first got together. It was the kind of place that people chose for dates.
“So did it work?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did Danes catch you off guard?”
“No. That’s why I’m here. I told them I’d had conversations with you in a legal capacity and therefore would not be discussing anything with them. But it’s not going to be that hard for them to prove those gloves are yours. And if they’re asking around about those gloves, it’s for a reason. They must have Drew’s blood on them or something.”
“You know what they say: ‘If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.’”
“What is wrong with you, Alice? This isn’t funny.”
“At this point, it’s actually pretty fucking hilarious. Of course they have my gloves. They were already missing by the time I found Drew’s body, but you know what? I’m sure you’re right. They’ve probably got Drew’s blood on them—plenty of his DNA, and my DNA, and every other piece of evidence you could possibly imagine. Because that’s how this is going to play out. Whoever did this to me, did it with absolute perfection. And I have no idea who did it. Or why. Or what any of it has to do with me.”
“You don’t have to go through this alone.” He placed his hand on her wrist, but she pulled away.
“Of course I’m alone. You’ve been a good friend, but you know, this isn’t happening to you. You’re at fucking Temple Bar drinking champagne with a date.”
He looked at the floor and swallowed.
“I’m sorry. I’m tired, and I’m scared, and I’m being a total bitch. Thanks for not digging my hole any deeper with the police.” She walked to the front door and opened it. He pushed it shut.
“I didn’t like being there with someone else.”
“Where?”
“At Temple Bar. She was the one who suggested it. I thought I could be there and not think about you. I was wrong.”
She felt a tear tickling her cheek, and didn’t know whether it was there because of the stress of her current predicament or the memory of what her life had once been—her life with Jeff and the one she’d thought they’d always have together. He stepped toward her and ran his fingers through her hair. Placed a palm against the nape of her neck. It felt so familiar. They’d done this hundreds of times before. This part had never been their problem. He would pull her face toward his. He would kiss her lips, gently at first and then not so gently. He would know exactly where to place his hands on her body. The exact moment to lead her to the bedroom.
And she let it all happen.
For the first time in a miserable week, Alice felt a smile on her face when she woke up. Jeff rustled the curtains trying to pull his clothes on in the dark.
“Love ’em and leave ’em, huh?”
“I’ve got a deposition in an hour. I was trying not to wake you.”
She felt warm beneath the comforter and pushed the covers down to her waistline. She looked up at him, squinting to protect herself from the sunlight penetrating the parted curtains.
“That is so unfair.”
“What? I’m just lying here.”
That was apparently all it took to persuade him to fall back into bed with her. A few seconds later, however, Jeff suddenly sat up in bed to face her.
“I feel like I need to apologize to you for this.”
“What are you talking about?” She tugged at his elbow, trying to nudge him back to horizontal.
“I feel like I took advantage of you when you’re probably in a fragile place.”
“Fragile? Did you really just call me fragile?”
“No, because I have absolutely no desire to have my ass kicked. But I did wake up wondering if last night—after everything that has been happening to you this week—was the best time for, you know, us.”
“I’m a grown-up, Jeff. I make my own decisions. And, in case you couldn’t tell, I was definitely a willing participant in last night’s activities.”
“I guess I’m just surprised that you’re willing to fall back into the same pattern that, at least at one point, made you so unhappy. I remember you telling me how unhappy you were, and that’s not what I want, Alice. It’s why I’ve tried—to the point of misery, even—to find another woman I can care about half as much as you.”
She pulled the covers back up to her shoulders. “Not the best time to talk to me about other women.”
“My point was that nothing ever works with anyone else, and it’s because you and I always fall back into the same patterns.”
“You really think it’s the same this time?”
“Isn’t it always with us? We’ve been doing this for years. And it never seems to be enough for one of us, so we call it quits. But then we see each other as friends, and it can never stay just-friends. And then we’re back to being us again.”
“It’s always been enough for me, Jeff. In light of what I’ve learned about my parents’ marriage in the past year, maybe I just wasn’t trained to dream of the traditional wedding package and the kids in the yard with a picket fence. We’ve always been good friends. And there’s always been love between us, no matter what phase of our continuing cycles we’re in. That’s enough for me. You’re the one who needs something I can’t give you, and I don’t want to keep you from having everything you want: a woman who can be mother to your children and a family you can take care of for life. I have never wanted to stand in the way of that.”
“Or maybe you were so convinced that I wanted all of that stuff that you pushed me away.” She saw his eyes move to the clock on the nightstand. “I hate that I have to leave right now.”
“We’ll talk after your deposition. And only if you think we need to talk. Really, Jeff, I woke up just now feeling happy, despite all that’s been heaped on me the past few days. You didn’t take advantage of me. And I don’t think there’s a problem here.”
“I’ll call you when I free up. I want to see you tonight, okay?”
“Of course.”
“And, just so you know? Right now? Looking at you and having been with you this week while all this hell has been breaking loose? I don’t know why I ever thought there was something else out there for me to find.”
Chapter Forty-Three
The next time she opened her eyes, she felt groggy. She reached for the clock. It was almost noon. She didn’t know if it was the sleeping pill, the sex, or an intense disaffection for her current reality that kept her in bed, but she decided in that moment that if she could stay wrapped in those blankets, with her head on that pillow, for the remainder of her life, that would be her preference.
The sound of her apartment buzzer pulled her from the fantasy of an eternal bed rest.
“Hello?”
“Let me in. Hurry.”
She buzzed the security entrance and cracked open the apartment door, feeling a pang of guilt for being disappointed that it was Lily and not Jeff. She was scooping coffee grounds into a filter when she heard Lily’s footsteps coming hard and fast up the hallway stairs. She sprang into the apartment and bolted the door behind her.
“I’m getting a late start, but I’ll have coffee to offer in a sec. Don’t freak out, but last night—”
“Shit, Alice, I am so sorry. We’ve got to do something.
”
She knew immediately, from one look at Lily’s panicked expression. With that one look, she realized how stupid she had been to allow a moment with Jeff to escalate into an escape from reality. Jeff had come to her apartment in the middle of the night for a reason, and it had nothing to do with lost memories at Temple Bar or the ease with which the two of them could lose themselves in each other. It’s not going to be that hard for them to prove those gloves are yours.
“The police questioned you, didn’t they?”
Lily nodded. She looked like she might cry. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. They came to my office. And I freaked. I just answered. I didn’t see how it could possibly matter. But then I realized: why the fuck would they be asking me about your gloves unless it mattered? And I tried calling you, but your phone’s off.” The words were spilling out of her. “And now they’re here.”
“What do you mean, they’re here?”
“You weren’t answering your phone, so I got down here as fast as I could to try to tell you. But there’s a bunch of police cars downstairs, Alice. I saw them watching me when I was at the door. They were getting out of their cars when I walked in. I think—Fuck, Alice, I think they’re here to arrest you.”
Alice would subsequently try to remember her immediate reaction, but memory is a funny thing. It’s as if those first forty-five seconds were forever lost. She knew she was muttering, “Oh my God,” more than could ever be helpful. She vaguely recalled looking down to see what she was wearing and wondering how quickly she could change into real clothes.
But whatever mess was unfolding in her mind was instantly clarified when Lily grabbed her by the shoulders. “Alice, you need to get out of here.”
She processed what Lily was telling her. Those gloves must have been the piece of rock-solid evidence they’d been waiting for, the thing that sealed those suspicions they’d formed about her on the first day. They were here to take her away. She heard Lily’s words again, this time louder. “Get out of here. They don’t know for sure you’re home. Go out the freight entrance.”
“I can’t. I mean, I should call my lawyer. It’s going to make me look guilty.”
“They’re not here yet. Just leave before they get here. There’s no law that says you have to be home. I’ll tell them a neighbor buzzed me in, and you weren’t actually here. Just go. Come on, get moving.”
Alice remembered what Cronin had said to her about clients who could make another life for themselves elsewhere. A passport, some money, and a private jet, he’d said. She had access to all of that. Her father could help her. If it really came to that. If it was necessary. But she wouldn’t have the option once they took her into custody.
She was moving faster than she could think. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a warm sweater. She grabbed her passport from her jewelry box. Pulled her gym bag, already stocked with basic necessities, from the front closet. Stuffed her laptop in her purse. She started to reach for her bright blue coat when she stopped herself, opting instead for the nondescript black trench she’d stopped wearing a couple of years ago.
“Are they in the building?” she asked, tugging on the coat.
“I don’t think so.” Lily cracked open the apartment door. “Okay, it’s safe. You need to hurry.”
She grabbed Lily and kissed her hard on the cheek before making her way to the freight elevator. As she slipped out of the delivery entrance at the back of the building on Ninth Street, she was aware of the sound of sirens in the distance. At least, she hoped they were in the distance.
And she wondered whether she would ever get her life back.
Part III
Memories
Chapter Forty-Four
Joann Stevenson hit the play button once again on her cell phone. She had heard this message so many times, her memory could pull up each syllable before it was spoken. She could hear the inflection of each word in her own mind. The pop of the p in the word person, followed by a slight giggle at the end of the sentence. She could almost picture a tiny bubble of spit form at the corner of her daughter’s lip before she licked it away during the pause.
Hi, Mom. It’s the daughter-type person. There was the giggle and the lip lick. I know you’ve got the late shift tonight, but I just wanted you to know I’m home and ordered a pizza with the money you left me, just like in your note. Me and Sebastian miss you. See you tomorrow.
The message was nearly a month old, but it was the only recording she had of Becca’s voice. Oh, she had a few old videos from when she was a kid. Reciting the preamble of the constitution for national civics day in the first grade. Getting tangled up on the words “domestic tranquility”: establish justice, insure domestic chance hillary. That truly painful solo from her otherwise adorable turn as the lion in Wizard of Oz. But the only sound she had of a more mature, teenage Becca was this twelve-second cell phone message.
Listening to her daughter’s voice made her feel less alone. When news had gotten out about Becca’s disappearance, she had been surrounded by well-wishers. She had felt cared for. Maybe even loved. But now Mark was gone. She didn’t blame him. It had been too early in a relationship to expect the man not to be rattled by the polygraph the police had asked for, not to mention her depression, anger, and utterly unpredictable fits of inconsolable tears.
The casseroles that had turned up on her porch with notes of kindness had tapered off. So had the phone calls from worried friends offering to search for Becca. Or to keep her company. Or anything else that she might find helpful. Now her boss was beginning to ask when she thought she might make it back to work.
She had never felt so alone. And so even though she had already memorized every word of this message, and the sound of each individual syllable, she hit play once again.
Morhart noticed that the gutters needed cleaning. It had stopped raining two hours earlier, but water was still dripping over the aluminum edge. Spikes of green had begun to sprout from the accumulated leaves.
He had stayed in Dover for a reason. After college, he could have moved down to the city. The economy was on fire back then. He could have gotten a job in the computer industry, or maybe even in finance. But he wanted to live in Dover. And even in good times, Dover didn’t have cutting-edge jobs. There were teachers, doctors, lawyers, the service industry, and government. He went with the police department.
He had no regrets, but sometimes he wondered whether Dover was still the place he had resolved never to leave. In the Dover of his memories, two or three of the neighborhood men would have quietly taken turns attending to the clogged gutters of a distracted single mother struggling to work full-time and raise a daughter. The idea that these gutters would be growing trees while Becca Stevenson was missing? Well, that wasn’t the way Morhart thought of the people in this community.
He was about to knock on the screen door when he caught a glimpse of her through the living room window. Joann Stevenson’s face was somehow young and old at the same time. Ageless, he supposed. Her forehead was unlined, but her cheeks were beginning to sag, and creases had formed around her mouth like parentheses. Her face was broad, her eyes wide-set. She was an attractive woman, but not what someone might call pretty. There was a stillness to her expression—to her entire body—that made him think she had lived a longer, fuller life than other women her age. There was a depth to her that resonated in her very energy.
He rapped his knuckles on the screen and felt guilty when she jumped, the cell phone in her hand tumbling to the coffee table. She looked terrified when she answered the door, the way she did each time he’d come here since their first meeting. She didn’t need to explain the expression on her face. She was a woman wondering if this was the day: Was this the cold, damp afternoon when a police officer would knock on her door and tell her that her daughter’s body had been located?
He raised his eyebrows just enough to signal that today was not the day.
She handled the update as he knew she would. He had not seen her shed another tear s
ince she’d learned about Becca’s secret relationship with her biological father. He knew she wanted to cry. He could almost feel the emotion running through her body. He believed it was the reason why she sat with her knees pushed together and her elbows tucked into her waist, as if she could literally trap her feelings inside to maintain composure in front of a man who was still in every meaningful sense a stranger.
She nodded periodically, her lips pressed tightly, as he told her the news. The police in the city had made progress, but all of it was on their side of the investigation. He believed they might be announcing a murder suspect. They might even make an arrest. But so far they had been unable to determine why Becca’s fingerprints had been in that gallery.
“If they arrest someone for killing that man, could that help us find Becca?”
“That’s what I’m hoping, Joann.” According to his agreement with the NYPD, he could not disclose the details of the investigation, but he found himself wanting to tell Joann everything. “We’ve got to keep our fingers crossed that the arrest will put pressure on that person to open up to us about Becca. I’m really hoping that’s how it plays out.”
She nodded again.
“No one else seems to care she’s gone anymore.” There was no melodrama to her voice. It was almost as if she were talking to herself. Or maybe to little Sebastian, nuzzling his tiny dog face against the sofa cushions. “Everyone’s moving on.”
He found himself placing a hand in the middle of her back, then the other hand reaching for her knee. Just the outer edge. Nothing inappropriate, he would tell himself later.
“I’m not, Joann. I’m not going anywhere.”
He expected her to break down, but she only nodded, her lips pressed together once again.
Thirty-three miles away, in the Thirteenth Precinct of the NYPD, Detective John Shannon waved his partner, Willie Danes, over to his desk and pointed at the computer screen. “I was taking another look at Alice Humphrey’s Facebook page.”
Long Gone Page 23
