Not Her Daughter: A Novel

by Rea Frey

  “It means that I don’t think she’s out there, Richard.”

  “What? But Frank is on it. They can even project where she will go next.”

  “And have they? Have they brought us anything but dead leads?”

  Her cell buzzed and then Richard’s. She wiped her hands and took it from her pocket, while Richard grabbed his from the counter. It was a text from Frank.

  Can you both come to the station, please? Thx.

  Richard held up his phone and all the color drained from his face. “This isn’t good. Oh my God, this isn’t good. I feel sick. I feel sick!”

  “Richard, it’s fine. Calm down. Just give me a minute.” Amy called Carla, and she was there in minutes. She kissed Robbie, made sure he had his snack, and tapped Richard on the shoulder; he was busy drilling his head against the refrigerator.

  “We don’t even know what this is. It could be—I don’t know—more paperwork or something.”

  He looked at her, a purple splotch blooming on his forehead. “Paperwork? But you just said you didn’t think she’s out there and then Frank just asked us to come in!”

  “I know what I said, but I think it’s just paperwork. Or something equally banal.”

  “Banal? Since when do you use words like banal?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Give me the keys. I’m driving.”

  They piled into the van, and she switched on the radio because she couldn’t stand to listen to any more of Richard’s moans, gasps, cries, or crazy conversations. She drove on autopilot, taking two lefts and a right before pulling in to the almost empty lot.

  Inside, they were ushered straight to Frank’s office, Barry and Stan joking about something around the coffeemaker. Amy nodded in their direction, but they avoided eye contact and stared intently into their coffee cups.

  “Did you see that?” Richard hissed. “Something has happened. I know it has. I can feel it. Hold my hand.”

  She looked down at his hand. It had been so long since they’d held hands … years, maybe. But if she refused, which she wanted to do, he would throw a tantrum in the police station, and she wanted to get out of here with as little fuss as possible. His wormy fingers barely fit into the tight spaces of her fluffy knuckles. Frank was sitting behind his desk, arms behind his head, reclined. She wondered, for a brief moment, what would happen if he tipped over. He motioned for them both to sit and then closed the door behind them.

  “Thanks for getting here so fast, folks.”

  “Just tell us. Tell us, or I’m going to explode right here all over your desk.”

  Frank had grown accustomed to Richard’s strange outbursts and odd requests. He didn’t blink. “Well, it appears we have a new lead. Someone has come forward to produce a motive for murder.”

  Richard grabbed the sides of his face and started pulling his skin so hard it looked like it was going to tear off and drain into his lap. “She’s dead? I knew it! I knew she was dead! My baby!”

  “No, no, Richard. She is not dead. Emma has not been found. I want to make that perfectly clear. She has not been found.”

  Amy readjusted in the chair, not quite understanding. “Wait, I’m sorry. What are you saying? Murder? Why would you say that, then? Who has a motive? Is there a new lead?”

  Frank wouldn’t look directly at her. “Do you know an Evelyn Lee Ross?”

  Richard looked at her to confirm or deny. He was terrible with names. “Of course,” Amy said. “She’s our next-door neighbor. To the left. Well, to the right if you’re in our house, but yes. Why? Is she a … suspect?” The thought of Evelyn Lee Ross with her homemade pies, lululemon pants, and namaste everything hurting so much as a gnat seemed impossible.

  “No, but she’s come forward about the night Emma went missing.”

  “Did she see who took her?” Richard leaned toward Frank, his hands white on the arms of the chair.

  “She saw Emma.” Frank flipped a pencil over and over in his hands. “With you, Amy. She saw you both outside.”

  Amy flinched. “So what? We were outside. I’ve told you all that about a million times. What does that have to do with anything?” She knew exactly what it had to do with.

  “She gave her statement a few days after Emma went missing, and told us she saw you both outside, but she left it at that. But then she came down here yesterday, since all of these leads have turned up cold, and she asked again about the night in question. Wanted to amend her statement. Said she saw it all through her fence.”

  “Saw what all through her fence?”

  Richard looked at her, confused. “What’s he talking about, Amy?”

  “The fight with your daughter. The fight you only partially told us about.” Frank pushed back in his chair again, arms crossed, smug. She hated him now, hated that she’d ever fantasized about him and her after all of this.

  “No, I didn’t partially tell you anything. I told you we had a fight and then I went back inside. And fell asleep.” It sounded so ridiculous that even she would question herself if she were the police. “The polygraph proved that.”

  “No, the polygraph was inconclusive at best, because it seems you left out some important details.”

  “What details?” Richard’s head volleyed back and forth between them.

  “Amy, this is your chance to tell me exactly what happened that night.”

  She lifted her hands and dropped them. “What else can I tell you? We argued. We always argued. She was in the woods. I told her to come out. She did. I told her to come inside and she wouldn’t. And then she told me—” She looked at Richard, embarrassed. “She told me she didn’t love me.”

  “Oh, Amy, you know she didn’t mean that. She—”

  “And then I told her I didn’t love her either.”

  “Did you hit your child, Amy?”

  “I’m sorry … you said what?” Richard was shaking his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “You told her you didn’t love her?”

  “Yes, I did. I know it was a terrible thing to say. But we’re terrible together. Everyone knows it. But that doesn’t mean I would ever hurt her.”

  “So you didn’t hit her?” Frank asked.

  “Of course she didn’t,” Richard said. “You didn’t, right? That’s ridiculous.”

  Richard was so clueless. “I slapped her. I did. I lost my temper.” She sniffed. “I don’t think I’m the first parent in history to ever slap a child.”

  “And then you went inside and locked your child out of the house and your husband fell asleep with Robbie, correct?”

  “But the door wasn’t locked,” Richard said. “I unlocked it.”

  She darted her eyes at Frank. He knew. “Yes, I relocked the door. I was angry. But I did fall asleep. I have no idea what happened during those three hours.”

  “You locked the door?” Richard asked. “Are you serious?”

  “Why aren’t you asking him what he was doing during those three hours?” Amy offered.

  “You were asleep, weren’t you, Amy?” Richard was clinging to the truth she’d created; it was his only lifeline.

  “Of course I was asleep! I locked the bedroom door. How would I have gotten out? Did I climb through a window?”

  “Can you support that, Richard? Was the bedroom door locked?”

  “I didn’t—I never…” He looked at Amy. “I never checked. I was too … I’m sorry. I never checked. I thought you were with Emma. I never thought to—”

  “And why did you think Emma was with Amy? Did you see your wife with her after she went back inside? After the fight?”

  “I … no. No, I don’t think so. Wait.” He dropped his head in his hands, her forgetful, stressed husband who could literally sentence her right now if he wasn’t accurate with his memory.

  “This is ludicrous! I did not hurt my daughter! What, was I supposed to murder her while Richard sang Robbie to sleep? And do what with her body, exactly? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the most physically fit person in the w
orld. There are no bodies buried anywhere in our backyard. Dig it up. Dig it all up.”

  The hypnotherapy sessions came barreling in, and for a brief, transient moment, she wavered. They’d listened to the tapes; they knew. In those sessions, she could transport back to a former self. She was in another place, in another time, living another life. It all felt so real, but she was still conscious, straddling the line between this life and that. A few words, the tick of a clock, and she was under an indescribable trance. Had she somehow reverted to one of those states and then dropped Emma off a cliff? Drowned her in the bathtub and then buried her where no one could ever find her? Could she have done that without being aware of it? “This is all so preposterous, I don’t even know what to say. I mean,” she fiddled with the strap of her purse, “where would I have even supposedly taken her?”

  “That’s what we’re asking you, Amy. Look.” Frank leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk, a bargaining play. “This has all been stressful. On everyone. Parenthood is hard. Marriage is hard. We know there have been difficulties, and that’s okay. That’s perfectly okay. No one is here to judge you. But this is your one and only chance to come clean before things get messy.”

  “To come clean about what?”

  “Did you kill your daughter?”

  Amy shook with rage. Her fists opened and closed as fast as her heart could pump blood. She made her voice as small, still, and certain as possible. “No, Frank. I did not kill my daughter.”

  He looked at Richard and stood. “Richard, I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep Amy here for a little more questioning. Just to get this all straightened out. Okay, buddy?” He clapped him on the shoulder and Richard pitched forward in his chair.

  “What? What’s he talking about?” Richard looked at her again, but this time, uncertainty stared back. And then it all made sense: This was what Frank was after. Not for her to confess—there would be time for that. What he wanted was to plant the seed of doubt into her husband’s fragile, fraying mind, so that Richard would spill all her dirty little parenting secrets.

  “It’s fine, Richard.” Amy sat up straighter and glared at Frank. “I have nothing to hide. Ask me anything.”

  Frank ushered Richard into the lobby, his hand glued to Richard’s back. Two could play at this game. Let the real kidnapper get away while they spun their wheels and tried to nab the horrible mother. Because a monstrosity like this had to have someone to blame, right? That’s what the public wanted, so the police would give it to them. With or without the truth, Amy was now, once again, the prime suspect.

  * * *

  An hour later, Amy sat in another smaller, hotter office. There were no windows. A large recording device rested in front of her. She’d seen shows like this, how they asked you the same questions a million different ways to coerce you into a false confession. They’d hounded her in the beginning—her and Richard—and now, because of Evelyn Lee Ross, she was sitting here again, a liar, an awful mother, and, in their eyes, a child killer.

  They made her wait with her little Styrofoam cup of water and pack of chips she’d snagged from the vending machine. She opened them and stabbed the roof of her mouth with the first triangle of baked corn. She winced, dug out the sharp edge, and checked for blood.

  Frank entered after a thousand years, a woman behind him. “Sorry about the wait, Amy. It’s been an unusually busy night. This is Detective Richards. She’s going to be sitting in on this, if you don’t mind.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Well, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

  Amy nodded as though this were the answer she was waiting for—what was allowed and what wasn’t—before folding her hands on the table, just as Frank had done in his office.

  “Where would you like to start? When Emma was born? Before? I can tell you as much as you want to know. About how I didn’t want kids. About my shitty marriage. About how good I am with my son, but for some reason, Emma and I are like oil and water. I can tell you about all the times I’ve spanked her in a fit of rage and then regretted it. How I made deals with myself that I would never do it again, and then she’d piss me off, and I’d pop her on the leg or hand, or yes, even her face. I can also—”

  “Amy, Amy, slow down. We haven’t even started yet. We’re just going to have a casual conversation.”

  “Oh, really? Then why is that here?” She pointed to the recording device—ancient, dusty, too big for the room. “Is that for casual conversations only?”

  Frank and Detective Richards looked at each other. She sat across from Amy, her shoulder pressing into Frank’s. Amy wondered if they were sleeping together due to all the tragic cases and late nights.

  “Look, Amy. We know this is hard. No parent-child relationship is easy. And yes, we know you’re not the first person to ever hit a child. But you did hit your child. Moments before she went missing. She was left outside, alone, and then there are three hours that are unaccounted for that neither your husband nor you have alibis for. Now, what would you surmise from that?”

  “That we were guilty of being pretty shitty parents but not murderers. God. I’ve been far too busy fucking her up mentally to even worry about really hurting her physically yet.” The joke fell flat, and Frank looked away, his head shaking back and forth.

  “Why aren’t Barry and Stan on the case anymore? Why have all the searches stopped? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” She could hear the tick of the clock, an old, wide orb with giant red hands.

  “Because those leads are false. They’ve led us back here. This new testimony from Evelyn gives us good reason to believe your daughter is dead, Amy.”

  “And why is that?”

  “We think you know why.”

  Amy reddened. “I want a lawyer. Right now.” She scraped back her chair, leaving her chip crumbs and Styrofoam cup on the table.

  “Amy, we’re not finished.”

  “Am I under arrest? Do you have any evidence to support these ridiculous claims? No, you don’t. I know my rights.” She took a few steps toward the door and turned. “How about instead of wasting your time with this absolute nonsense again, you go out and actually find my daughter? I’ll be at home if you need anything else.”

  She slammed the door. She had to call Ronnie. He was the only lawyer who would touch this. And she had to get to Richard, had to get him back on her side. Now, along with everything else, it was about damage control.

  before

  On her last trip to Barb’s office, she came with questions. Questions about who she’d been in former lives and how that affected who she was today. She felt doomed. Every life she’d led had ended in turmoil. They’d all had their pocks and bumps, as if life were nothing but a suffering hole. She told Barb as much, all but demanding a refund.

  “Well, I’m sorry you think of it like that, Amy. But everyone has a silver lining.”

  Amy rolled her eyes—they were past all pretenses of manners at this point—and squeezed her handbag beside her. “I want you to hypnotize me. I want you to hypnotize me to stop being so angry. I don’t want to be angry anymore. I can’t be.”

  Barb leaned back in her chair and assessed Amy. “While that’s a noble thing to want, as you know, until you deal with the past, you can’t get rid of your anger today.”

  Her blood began to rumble and warm. She could feel herself getting hotter, madder, and more frustrated. “You’re not hearing me right. I have to get rid of this anger, or I’m going to be the worst mother on earth. The worst person on earth.”

  “Oh, tsk, tsk. No one is the worst mother on earth, I can assure you. You’re probably Supermom compared to most.”

  Amy stared at this portly woman who’d probably given birth a million years ago and couldn’t remember what it was like to handle even one day with a young child. “Do you have children?”

  Barb extended a hand and batted away an invisible truth. “Me? No, no. Wasn’t in the cards for me.”

  Amy laughed. “So you
’re telling me that I’m a good parent, but you’re not a parent? How can you … I don’t even understand that. How can you give me advice if you have no idea what it’s like to be me?”

  “Oh, dear. Well, it’s not about having a child or not having a child. It’s just about relationships. People. Like me and you.”

  Amy’s jaw stiffened. Her fists fastened. She worked to steady her breath, to not feel betrayed by this woman who knew who she was, what she’d done, and where she’d been. “And tell me. What do you think of me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As a person? What’s your professional assessment of who I am as a human being?”

  “Well, that’s not really in my job description to assess who you are. It doesn’t matter who I think you are.”

  “Indulge me.” Amy folded her arms on her belly and waited.

  Barb straightened, and the fake smile drained from her lips. “Okay, if you really want to know, Amy, I think you suffer from never having had a father. Your mother was very capable, so you grew up around capable females, but you resented her because she wasn’t a victim, like you. She got on with her life, but you didn’t. You ate your feelings and placed blame on everyone and everything around you. You let your life become circumstantial. You are a person who is built on circumstances. At any minute, you could look at your life and see all that you have to be thankful for—a loving husband, two healthy kids, a steady income—but instead you throw it all away because you’re harboring some warped vision of the way your life was supposed to be instead of the way it is.”

  Amy inhaled. She opened her mouth then snapped it shut. How could Barb have gotten all of that from these visits? How could she look at her and just know who she was to the very core? Amy felt insulted and yet truly seen for the first time in her life. This woman saw her for who she was, not who she wanted to be. She could spout off some nasty remark and leave her office for good, or she could stay and face the truth of herself, of who she was no longer willing to be.

  “Amy? I asked how that makes you feel? Hearing all of that?”

  Amy stared at the clock on the wall, at the desk that was always messy, at the silver filing cabinets that housed hundreds of secret lives and tapes. She finally found Barb’s eyes behind her glasses: milky gray irises that reminded her of how Emma’s would shrink and droop someday. She wanted to stand and run, but instead, she stayed and sat.