The Good Neighbor

by Cathryn Grant

  I guessed I was running hot right now. Alan was on a conference call. I heard the hum of his voice and the blare of others through the speakerphone. I was appalled that he could concentrate on work. I shouldn’t have been. I should have been grateful. He couldn’t let his company fall to pieces right alongside me. He couldn’t jeopardize our financial security for Brittany’s sake. He had to work, and maybe that responsibility, that love, was what enabled him to do it.

  Taylor’s message asked if I was up for scones and fancy coffees. I replied with a smiling emoji.

  When she arrived with her paper bag and cups, we sat at the bar in the kitchen and sipped the steaming hot lattes.

  “Is there anything new from the police?” she asked.

  I sighed.

  “I know I keep asking you that,” she said. “I’m sorry. It just comes out. I know if there was something new, you’d tell me.”

  “Actually, there is, but I didn’t say anything. When I saw you the other day, with Freya and the others, there was something new. If you want to call it that.”

  She put her hands in her lap and folded them together. She looked down at them, staring at the intertwined fingers. She was quiet for a long time, looking at her hands when she spoke.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Taylor asked.

  “I hate thinking about it. I’m angry. And scared.”

  “What happened?”

  “The police are assuming Brittany ran away.”

  She looked up. “Then why were you talking about Luke? You made it sound as if—”

  “The police think she ran away. I don’t believe that at all. And part of why they think that is because Luke said things about her. Lies.”

  She nodded, unclasped her hands, and picked up her coffee cup. She took a sip and then spent a moment picking apart her scone, putting a piece into her mouth. “I don’t think that means they aren’t going to keep looking for her. So maybe it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters a lot. It matters to me, and to Alan. They’re making it sound like she wasn’t happy.” I started to cry. I’d told myself I wouldn’t, but the tears were always ready, whether I wanted them or not.

  Taylor put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know. I feel like you’re the only one who understands what we’re going through.”

  She took her hand away. She didn’t look at me. She hadn’t made eye contact since I’d told her what the police said, and I wondered if she agreed with them, despite touching me and telling me she was sorry. Maybe they all believed that. They’d known Luke forever, so of course they wouldn’t believe he was a creep. He’d probably told all of them the same things he’d said to Officer Carter. Everyone knew what he was saying except us.

  We drank our coffee without talking. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, although I felt like she was no longer as understanding as I’d thought. A darkness began to spread through my body again. It felt as if no one was working that hard to find Brittany. They refused to put pressure on Luke, and they refused to go door-to-door. They might never find her. She might already be dead. They probably all thought she’d either run away or that she was dead. No one wanted to say that to us. I wanted the thought to leave me alone.

  Taylor slipped off the bar chair. “I need to use your bathroom.”

  I barely nodded. I honestly wanted her to leave. I wanted to go to sleep. When I was awake, I thought sleep would be better; when I was dreaming, I fought to wake myself up. I went to the sink and poured the rest of my coffee down the drain and dropped the rest of my scone and the cup into the trash. I wrapped up the other two scones and her half-eaten one and shoved them back in the bag.

  The house was silent.

  Carrying the bag of scones and Taylor’s coffee, I walked through the living room. As I stepped into the hallway, I saw the bathroom door standing open. The room was dark. I placed the coffee and scones on the shelf across from the bathroom and walked quietly down the hallway. I stopped. Taylor was just inside Brittany’s doorway. She moved toward the photographs hanging on the wall to the right of Brittany’s bed.

  I stepped into the room and grabbed her upper arm. “What are you doing in here?”

  She looked at me, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “I just wanted to—”

  “You don’t belong in here.” I yanked her toward the doorway. She stumbled as I pulled her out of the room.

  “I just—”

  I let go of her arm. “You said you needed to use the bathroom.”

  She raised her hand to her head and tugged on her earring. “Her bedroom is so sweet. It looks like it belongs to a little girl.”

  “It does.”

  “I guess teenagers like to remember being little kids, so she doesn’t mind the furniture?”

  My skin grew hot. I wanted to slap her face. “Are you trying to hurt me, Taylor? I thought you were my friend.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t ever go in there again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You need to leave.” I picked up the coffee and scones off the shelf.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t have… I didn’t think you’d mind. I didn’t think you’d—”

  “You didn’t think.”

  I handed the half-finished latte to her and held out the bag of scones. “You can take the rest of these. I won’t eat them.”

  Clutching the bag and her coffee, she gave me a weak, pleading smile. “I’m really so sorry.”

  I walked into the living room, headed toward the entryway.

  She followed. We stopped near the sliding glass door into the courtyard. “I was thinking…” she said, giving me a hopeful smile, “why don’t we have a barbecue tomorrow? The other neighbors would be—”

  “I don’t feel much like eating.”

  “Please. It will be good for you to get out of the house.”

  “Will you invite Luke?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it. I don’t think he’d come.”

  I slid my hands into the back pockets of my jeans and tipped my head up, looking at the ceiling, thinking about that guy, wondering why he thought he knew anything at all about Brittany. I lowered my chin. “Maybe seeing him would be useful.”

  She looked unhappy with what I’d said. “I don’t want to put him on the spot.”

  I opened the door and ushered her out.

  “See you tomorrow? No need to bring anything.”

  “I’ll do my part. I’ll bring a green salad.”

  She backed away from the door and I pulled it closed. I didn’t want to go to a barbecue, but Alan would. Maybe if they saw us, people would have to face up again to what had happened. Maybe they’d do something. Maybe they’d stop protecting that creep.

  28

  Taylor

  Nicole didn’t answer when I rang her bell, so I invited her to the barbecue via text message. I didn’t mention Luke. She didn’t respond, which gave me a sense of relief. I had enough to think about.

  Crystal would not leave me alone. I received new messages from her every few hours. As our neighbors arrived carrying bottles of wine and salads, my phone continued to buzz. She wanted to know when Moira and Alan had moved in next door and more about the circumstances of how Brittany went missing. She wanted information about me, and she wanted to know what the police were up to. She wanted to know the results of every single sighting posted on the page, not caring if they were clearly absurd.

  While I felt guilty answering her questions, as if I was continuing to betray Moira and Alan with every tap of my finger, I didn’t know how to ignore her. If I didn’t respond and she posted a public message, it would cause trouble. I couldn’t formulate in my mind what kind of trouble I imagined, but I knew it would hurt Moira. It would get the police off on the wrong track, digging into Crystal’s life instead of looking for Brittany. They might think she was so certain Brittany was her child that she was the one who had
abducted her. They might turn to all the speculations that had passed through my mind, wondering whether Crystal herself was a complete fabrication.

  The pressure of knowing she was sending more messages while I was trying to socialize with my neighbors had created a sharp pain in my left ear. I went into the house. I grabbed an ibuprofen from the bathroom cabinet. I swallowed the capsule with a sip of wine, which was not a good thing to do, but I wanted to be quick. I wanted that pain gone.

  I sat in the armchair in the corner of our bedroom, sipping my wine. Before I returned to our guests, I needed to rest, to let the painkiller ease the ache that was making it hard to think, hard to smile and carry on a conversation. I closed my eyes. Moira had been so upset with me for going into Brittany’s room, so I’d been a little surprised when they actually showed up at our front door carrying a large glass bowl filled with greens, plum tomatoes, and slivers of white mushrooms.

  There was a small part of me feeling guilty, another part wondering what the big deal was about. I would have thought she’d be happy I was interested, that I cared about Brittany’s life. Maybe she sensed I had an ulterior motive. If I could have gotten closer to those framed vacation photographs on Brittany’s wall, I might have seen her bare shoulders, confirmed there was no birthmark, and assured myself once and for all that Crystal, or whoever she—or he—was, could be eliminated from my thoughts. I could delete the messages and report her to the police.

  I took another sip of wine. I really needed to see those photographs.

  The pain began to ease its way out of my head. I was startled that it was dissipating so quickly. I opened my eyes and stood. It would feel so much better to trust Moira and Alan. Looking at those pictures would be a good thing; it would make me more supportive of Moira, less distracted with questions that undermined what she was going through.

  If she caught me, that would be the end of things. But I had to know.

  I wandered into the guest bedroom, where the women had left their purses.

  On the floor by the bed was Moira’s dark green leather bag. I’d seen it enough times, sitting in her entryway, on the kitchen table, the living room floor. It seemed to follow her from room to room as if keeping an eye on what she was doing. Normally, the phone stuck out of the side pocket, always ready to receive a call from the police. The pocket was empty now, the phone in her hand as she accepted our neighbors’ sympathy with tear-filled eyes, sipping from a wineglass in her opposite hand.

  The main part of the bag was unzipped, and her keys, attached to a plastic holder with a photograph of her and Brittany, sat on top of the other contents.

  I swallowed the rest of my wine while my mind stayed locked on those keys. Before I could think about much more than the insistent press of messages from Crystal thrumming through my bones, I took the keys. I stuffed the plastic case with the photo into my front pocket and arranged my top to spill over the bulge. I placed my glass on a shelf in the hallway and walked quickly out of the house.

  Before I started up the Cushings’ walkway, I glanced across the street. The gazebo in Nicole’s front yard was empty. While it usually was in the early evening, I needed to be careful. Of course, if I was seen and Nicole asked, it was easy enough to say I’d run next door to grab something for Moira. That would work unless the two of them talked to each other. At this point, it was unlikely.

  There were only two keys and a car fob on the ring. I inserted the largest key into the lock and turned. The door opened. I took a deep breath. This was my last chance to stop, to ask Moira about the birthmark, but if she said Brittany had one, I wasn’t sure what I would do next. I wasn’t sure what she would do, and the possibilities made me anxious.

  I stepped into the courtyard and closed the door.

  Inside, I went directly to Brittany’s bedroom. I slipped into the room as if someone were watching, feeling I needed to be stealthy even though I was alone in the house and unlikely to be discovered. Everyone was next door, going out of their way to keep Alan and Moira engaged in conversation, feeling welcomed and cared for.

  The wall in the corner held six five-by-seven framed images arranged in a column. The pictures included family shots as well as Brittany and her friends. I turned my attention to the pictures in front of leaning palm trees and hopelessly blue stretches of water. The ocean was so blue it was certainly not the California coast. I tried to think whether Moira had ever mentioned where they’d lived before moving in next door. If she had, the information had eased its way out of my mind. I stepped closer, looking to see if the camera had caught the top of Brittany’s left shoulder. Most of them were several years old. Brittany looked to be about ten or eleven.

  The last photograph was of Brittany and two friends. They were kneeling on the beach, leaning over an elaborately sculpted sandcastle. The camera angle caught her left shoulder. I moved closer, trying to get a better look in the dim light of the bedroom. There was something barely visible, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I placed my fingers on the sides of the frame to lift it off the hook.

  “Why are you in my house? I told you to stay out of Brittany’s room!”

  I turned, my fingers snagging on the corner of the frame, knocking it at an angle. “I was looking at her photographs.”

  Moira walked into the room and stopped a few inches from me. The heat of her anger was like the strong odor of sweat coming off her body. That elaborate bed blocked me into the corner where the photographs hung, making it impossible to move away from her.

  “You didn’t steal my keys and sneak into my house to look at a few photos.”

  “I did.”

  “Stop. Just stop lying and making excuses and tell me what you’re doing, or I’m going to start thinking you aren’t who you pretend to be. And if that’s the case, I’m going to start thinking you and Duncan know something about where Brittany is.”

  I sucked in air, choking as my body reacted to the influx of oxygen. “No. Absolutely not. We—”

  “Then tell me what you’re doing. And trust me, I’ll know if you’re lying. Maybe you’re too concerned about my daughter. Maybe you know more than you’re saying.”

  While I wasn’t sure how she’d know, it was possible my body was already giving me away. She was reading my discomfort with the same instinctive, physical clarity that I smelled the heat of her rage. “Crystal, the woman claiming to be Brittany’s mother—”

  “Claiming. She’s deranged, whoever she is.”

  “She said her daughter has a birthmark.”

  Moira smirked. “So what?”

  “I just wanted to see if—”

  “So you don’t believe me. Instead, you believe this lunatic who came crawling out of the cesspool of the internet.”

  The intensity of her presence made me anxious. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if I feared she would hurt me. I didn’t think I’d been afraid a moment earlier. Now I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what she wanted, and it made me uncomfortable. Scared. I wanted her to move. I wanted her to calm down. Even though I’d betrayed her trust, she was overreacting. If Crystal was unbalanced or lying, why would Moira be so upset?

  “She’s very insistent,” I said.

  “Most deranged people are insistent, if you want to call it that.”

  We stood there for several minutes. Finally, I reached out to adjust the picture I’d knocked out of whack. It fell forward and hit the side of my arm, tearing the skin. It tumbled to the floor and the frame cracked. Moira and I reached for it at the same time, our heads bumping, which set loose the pain in my left ear. I picked up the photograph and looked at it.

  There was a mark on Brittany’s left shoulder. It looked exactly like a rabbit. I was surprised at how accurately Crystal had described it. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I handed the picture to Moira. Finally, I inhaled. When I spoke, my voice wavered. “Sorry it broke.” I held her gaze.

  She clutched the frame to her chest.

  “Crystal told me her daughter has a birthma
rk. Shaped like a rabbit. And Brittany has…”

  Moira stared at me, her eyes vacant.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I said. “I’m here for you. Don’t you know that by now?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, which quickly evaporated, and her face took on a new expression like nothing I’d seen before. It might have been anger, but there was something else as well. A touch of desperation or madness.

  Fear swelled inside me. She was smaller than I was, but that stare, the pinprick of her pupils, suggested she could overpower me on the strength of whatever burned inside her.

  Without changing her expression, her voice came out in a whisper that sounded as if it belonged to someone else. “Crystal was Brittany’s mother. But you…”

  29

  Brittany: Before

  I don’t remember when I first started dreaming about someone looking into my bedroom window. Sometimes I wondered if that dream had formed in my subconscious mind every single night of my life. Of course it hadn’t. It’s just that once you start having the same dream over and over, it feels like it’s gone on forever. You can’t remember when it first appeared or how many times you’ve had it since, so it seems like you have it every night. The memory of that dream and its constant presence at the back of my mind was sliding around inside my head like raw egg spilled on the counter that moves to a new spot when you try to wipe it up.

  It wasn’t the only dream that made repeated visits.

  I also had a dream about getting lost. I was walking on a street I didn’t recognize, although one house looked like a house I’d lived in. I walked up and down that street, but I could never find my way to that one familiar house, so I always felt lost. Not only lost, but terribly confused over how a single house could look like home among houses I’d never seen before.