Though from the force of the handwriting on the page—the pen having gone through the page in places—I’d been in a manic or excited state when I’d uncovered the information. Drinking down a bottle of water I’d bought from the service station when I filled up the tank on the way to Piha, I brushed back the mental whisper that I was losing it, seriously going nuts.
Instead of returning to the Cul-de-Sac, I drove all the way back to my city apartment.
Once inside, I went again to the safe in my study. It held photo albums, the precious originals of all the images of my mother I’d scanned. This, handling them physically, felt far easier, far more real, than going through the scans.
A small part of me hoped that maybe, because they were physical, I’d remember better.
Happy memories of childhood appeared page by page.
The trip to the beach when my mother had worn that yellow halter-neck swimsuit and huge sunglasses, the picture of glamour. I’d never thought about how it must’ve been for her when she first arrived in this country from her traditional and conservative village. Had she always fought against the strictures and been eager to throw off the trappings? Or had my father had to persuade her into her first swimsuit?
I couldn’t quite imagine the latter, but I remembered her saying, “If he’d stayed the asshole I married, we might’ve been happy. Unfortunately, he decided to up the asshole ante.” She’d been drunk then, a dramatic sylph in a red-sequined gown draped on a chaise longue, while I sat in an office chair I’d rolled in from my father’s study.
He’d been away for the month, off on a business trip to Europe.
Looking back, I accepted she shouldn’t have been talking about that kind of thing with her son, but that month had been the happiest of my childhood. I’d been wearing a tuxedo that night—she’d taken me along as her date to some fancy do—but the rest of that month, we’d done things like make the three-hour drive to Rotorua just to go on the luge.
Both of us had hammed it up in a selfie we’d taken before we got into the little one-person carts and careened down the winding track.
“That was so much fun!” she’d said at the bottom, the required helmet on her head and her face clear of makeup. “Let’s do it again.”
We’d done it five times before heading off for ice cream.
I ran my finger down the far-too-expensive photo she’d bought at the booth run by the luge operator. I’d rolled my eyes at the time and told her she was getting ripped off, but that photo of us coming down the hill, my mother behind me, both of us grinning with glee, was one of my favorites.
But that wasn’t what I was looking for, so I forced myself to carry on.
Where the hell was it? I knew I hadn’t imagined it. Then again, maybe everyone who hallucinated thought that way. Should’ve asked Dr. Jitrnicka. Hey, Doc, if I don’t know I’m crazy, does that make me crazy?
There.
My eye fell on the image taken at a company picnic. I wasn’t in the photo because I’d been the one taking it. My father, my mother, three of his employees. Including his secretary. A cliché buxom blonde so dewy with youth she might as well have been plucked fresh from the tree.
Ignoring the people in the shot, I took in the scenery around them: it consisted of cars.
For some reason, we’d stopped in the car park and I’d taken a snap. Judging from the smiles on everyone’s faces, it had been a good day, and everyone had wanted one more memento. Even my mother looked content, her hand on my father’s chest as she hugged him from the side with her other arm.
The secretary, short and curvy, was at the opposite end of the group.
Behind her sat her car.
That was what I’d remembered. A car with a pastel-mauve paint job.
“Can you believe she spent good money recoating her car, and that’s the color she chose?” my mother had said with a laugh. “It’ll age faster than she will.”
It had been a bitchy comment, so perhaps my mother had known my father was screwing his secretary all the way back at the start of their affair. Or it might be that she’d honestly been horrified by the color. I couldn’t blame her. It was pretty hideous. Like a bruise that had begun to fade away.
Its number plate was clearly visible.
Writing it down, I closed the photo albums, then made myself put them back in the safe. With my head so screwy, I didn’t want to lose things that were important to me. After that, I pulled up the private investigator’s report. He’d made no note of the mauve monstrosity being in the vicinity of the Cul-de-Sac that night—not exactly a revelation, as, if that had been the case, I’d have already checked the secretary out.
Then why the fuck had I written that note?
Had I seen something that night that I could no longer remember?
Shoving my hands through my hair, I let out a scream.
48
The scream just made me feel more unhinged, even though my mind felt crystal clear in that moment. Telling myself to get a grip, I grabbed an ice-cold bottle of Coke from the fridge, drank it down to the last drop, then began to hunt for the secretary online.
My brain liked to collect names for possible use in future books, and funnily enough, that part of it was functioning just fine. My father’s secretary’s name was one I’d never forgotten: Aurelie Nissum.
It wasn’t exactly a common name, and it turned out Aurelie liked social media.
Not only that, but she didn’t seem to realize her privacy settings were wide-open. It didn’t even matter that she’d changed last names. Within ten minutes, I knew that she lived in the suburb of Mt. Eden, and had two children with her “gorgeous” husband, Vikram.
“Vikram, huh? I guess you have a type.” It wasn’t an accusation; I had a type, too—mine was just less physical and more psychological. Damaged women who were a little lost. Not only Paige, but all the girls and women who’d come before her, right back to my first girlfriend. Sapna’d had neglectful parents, had looked to me to save her while refusing to admit to any problems in her family life. Yeah, me and Dr. Jitrnicka had a great time talking through my self-destructive life choices.
Gorgeous Vikram proved to be Dr. Vikram Reddy, Ophthalmologist.
No doubt his parents found a way to work the fact their son was a doctor into all possible conversations. “Oh, you like that biryani recipe? It’s our Vikram’s favorite, isn’t it, ji? I used to make it and send it to him every week while he was at medical school. Even now that he’s a successful doctor with his own family, he still loves my cooking.”
It took zero skill to track down Dr. Reddy’s practice, but I knew I’d have to wait till after his workday to follow him to the family residence. Wait, what day was it? Saturday. I checked his practice’s website again—no clinic hours listed for the weekend, but I remembered seeing his name pop up in another link when I first did the search. There it was: Dr. Reddy was speaking at a local medical conference today. His sessions wouldn’t wrap up till 6 p.m.
Easy enough to wait outside the venue, see if I could pinpoint him.
Noting that as one option, I switched back to Aurelie’s photo gallery. She was a prolific poster, and many of her photos featured her children—several times in their school uniforms. I smiled, recognizing the green tartan pattern of an exclusive private school. Even better, she’d posted a picture of them today—out of uniform—with the following caption: Looking fancy! My babies get to go on a special field trip today to Hamilton Gardens to see a show!
Seriously, Pari and Mia needed to give Aurelie Reddy a lesson in online safety. The woman put everything out there. But thanks to Aurelie’s lax security, including the fact she’d linked to the show the kids were going to see—a matinee session—I knew I had a good chance of spotting her when she picked them up.
I glanced at my watch to see it was already four.
The city of Hamilton was less than a couple of hours
away—maybe longer if you were driving a slow school bus and wrangling a whole group of children. I thought of Pari’s excursion to Rangitoto and figured it was possible the kids might not be back yet. I might as well see if I could catch Aurelie there before I tried stalking her husband.
Shoving back from the desk, I got up. Once I’d locked my study, I took another Coke from the fridge. The icy cold of it against my palm felt great, and I needed the sugar hit too much to worry about the fact I hadn’t actually eaten anything since breakfast.
I finished off the drink while staring out at the balcony from which Paige had jumped. I’d never asked to look at the crime-scene photos, but still my mind insisted on seeing her, her limbs splayed like a broken doll’s, the scarlet of her blood splattering the crumpled metal roof of the car on which she’d landed.
I’d been at a crime novel festival in Perth, Australia—over a seven-hour flight away—the day she jumped. By the time the police contacted me, she was already gone; they’d told me to find a friend with whom I could grieve. But I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of facing anyone, because then I’d have to accept that Paige was dead. Instead, I’d opened my laptop and written for ten hours straight, not sleeping, not eating. Just drinking and typing.
The end result had been a short novel I’d never looked at again.
Today, I pulled it up on my phone:
She was a Picasso in death, all elongated limbs and paleness.
Great first line to make myself a suspect, had I not had such an airtight alibi. But as I read on, past the typos I’d never bothered to correct, I knew this was good. Very good. Full of a deep-seated rage that boiled off the page. This was the kind of story that won awards and started conversations. It was also pathological in the way it explored the deepest fears in my brain through the first-person narration.
Did I kill her?
Did she feel my invisible hand against her spine the instant before she flew?
My damaged muse. My lovely creation.
Christ, what the hell had I been thinking? Had I been trying to turn myself into a suspect from more than five thousand kilometers away? My hand hovered over the delete button, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t erase some of the best work I might ever do. Even if it exposed me down to the bone.
Closing the file, I slid my phone back into my pocket.
It was time to find Aurelie Reddy.
49
The school bus hadn’t yet arrived when I found a parking spot behind a couple of other cars. I knew, because parked across the road was a Mercedes painted a bilious shade of pastel mauve.
I almost laughed.
The woman who sat inside had a sleek and groomed blonde bob, and was focused on her phone. She jumped when I rapped my knuckles on her window. I was expecting that wary caution women display when startled by strange men, but her pupils flared with recognition. Throat moving, she swallowed before lowering her window.
She wore a V-neck merino sweater in frosted pink, a heart-shaped pendant of pink sapphire sitting on her breastbone. “What do you want?” Bitten-out words, her head swiveling this way and that to take in the other waiting parents. “That was my past life. I’m happy now. Please leave me alone.” Desperation edged out what had started off as righteous anger.
“I just want to talk.”
Her breath came short and sharp, the black of her pupils almost swallowing the blue of her irises. “I’ll meet you later. I promise.”
I could’ve let it go, but I knew I’d never have a better advantage than at this instant, when she was so panicked. “Or I could sit in your passenger seat for ten minutes and be gone before anyone gets nosy and comes asking. Just pretend I’m a relative of your husband’s.”
Skin paling at the reference to her husband, she shot another desperate look up and down the street. “Okay, fine.” The locks disengaged.
She didn’t comment on my leg when I entered, her focus no doubt on getting me the hell away from her as soon as possible. “Please.” Her voice trembled, her perfect makeup threatening to crack. “I finally have a good life. Don’t screw that up.”
“All I want to know is what you were doing in the Cul-de-Sac the night my mother disappeared.”
All remaining blood drained from her face. “Oh God, oh God.” The blue shimmered. “I should’ve never gone. I was so young and so stupid.” Scrabbling at the little box of tissues she kept in the cup holder, she dabbed at her eyes. “I can’t cry. The children.”
“Just answer the question and I’m gone.”
She was breathing so fast I worried she’d hyperventilate herself into a faint, but she took a couple of deep gulps of air and got to it. “I was planning to knock on your front door and confront your mother, tell her that Ishaan and I were in love and that she wasn’t being fair to him by holding him to the marriage.”
Her laughter was jerky and brittle. “He played me, and he played me good. I really believed we were star-crossed lovers being kept apart by a vindictive wife who was using his son against him.”
“But you never came to the door.”
“I knew about the corporate dinner-party they were attending, and about how the gates closed at a certain time—I timed it so I’d arrive before they shut. That part went according to plan.” Her chest rose and fell in quick bumps. “Afterward, I sat in my car, psyching myself up. Then they came home.”
She squeezed the steering wheel. “Your mother got out in the drive and slammed the door to stalk into the house through the rain. God, she was stunning—and blazingly confident. I knew she’d laugh in my face … and I also realized right then that Ishaan would never settle for an ordinary woman like me when he had a wife with so much fire.”
“Nice story.”
“It’s the truth!” Sweat shining on her brow, eyes darting to the rearview mirror as a bus turned into the street. “Please don’t drag me into this. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Why are you so scared?”
“My husband and his family are ultraconservative,” she blurted out. “It was a big deal for him to marry someone outside of his culture. He thinks I was a virgin when we got together. Please, please, don’t ruin this for me.”
“I’m not interested in your marriage, only what happened that night.”
“I sat in my car, and cried, okay? That’s what I did. I realized how stupid I’d been, believing a man like Ishaan would want me for anything but a little fun.” Her fingers trembled as she flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. “God, my face. I have to calm down.”
“So you’re telling me you turned around and left? Sure.”
“I didn’t leave. I was frozen.” She powdered away the perspiration with a hand that shook. “Then the storm ramped up and I got scared about driving in that kind of weather.” A pause. “I saw something. I never told anyone.”
My pulse kicked. “What?”
“The rain was awful—you remember, don’t you?—and I’d parked a ways down the Cul-de-Sac so no one would notice me—I’d borrowed a dark compact from a friend for that night.”
Nice bit of premeditation there, but she was so obviously panicked that I didn’t think she was capable of lies.
“I couldn’t see clearly, you have to believe me.”
I nodded; the rain had been ferocious that night, coming down in silver sheets of glass. “Go on.”
“I saw your front door open—”
“It’s not visible from the street.”
“What?” Lines furrowed her forehead. “It was, I swear. There was a great big gap in the trees.”
My memories rolled backward, all the way to the diseased tree my father had hired an arborist to remove a month prior to my mother’s disappearance. “Yeah, you’re right. Go on.”
She looked so grateful it almost made me feel bad. “The door was open, backlighting your mother’s silhouette as she stumbled out. Her gait was off, and she wasn�
�t moving like she should.”
My gut clenched.
“Then the lights of a Jaguar parked on the street flashed, as if the alarm was being deactivated. I’d seen that car on the street, had been all but certain it was hers.” When red stained her cheeks, I knew she’d considered damaging the vehicle.
But she didn’t confess to that. “I thought she was drunk and got all hopeful again, thinking she wasn’t as great as she looked on the surface. I was planning to call the cops and dob her in for driving under the influence.”
Shallow, sucked-in breaths. “Then someone else was there beside her. I couldn’t see them properly. They were just a shadow in the rain and in the dark, but I’m sure they went to the driver’s seat and your mother went to the passenger seat.”
“Was it my father?”
“I don’t know. I never saw him leave the house, but I was watching her, and by the time I looked back, the front door was closed. Or at least I couldn’t see any light—someone could’ve just switched everything off.”
“Was the person who got in the car with her tall or short? Big? Small?”
A long pause. “Not big or tall enough for me to take note. Honestly, all I saw was a vague person-shaped shadow … but I made a mistake and accidentally touched my phone. The screen lit up my face … I was sure whoever it was saw me.”
The bus turned into the school gates.
“Do you remember anything else about that person?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stressed ever since she was found, thinking the police would track me down, and telling myself they wouldn’t. How did you find out I was there that night?”
“Your car was caught by the security cameras of a neighbor’s house,” I lied. “The police noted it down at the time, but didn’t pursue anything because they thought my mother had run off.” The lie wasn’t one that made much—or any—logical sense, but she was too distraught to see the holes in my logic.
Quiet in Her Bones Page 26
