The Good Neighbor

by Cathryn Grant

  I threw off the covers, grabbed my sneakers, opened the window, and dropped them onto the ground. I climbed out and picked up my shoes. I ran barefoot around the side of the house and out the side gate.

  I dashed across the street, not looking, because even if a car was in the cul-de-sac and you didn’t see it, they had to drive so slowly to make the curve, so there was never any danger. While my mother would disagree, I was no longer sure she knew what she was talking about. I liked the thrill of running across the street in the dark, not looking, my bare feet stabbed by the gravel in the pavement.

  They were already stoned. Luke was lying on the bench with his hands under his head and his feet propped up on the half wall. He kept saying, “I can see the stars.” Every few seconds he repeated it, as if he marveled that stars existed at all. Riley was laughing and saying, “You can’t see them, the roof’s in the way.” And then he’d laugh. Riley had a box of Red Vines on her lap. She pulled one out in slow motion and sucked on it, making faces like it was the most divine taste she’d ever experienced.

  Jon and Becca looked like they were asleep sitting up.

  Ashling sat across from them. She looked so beautiful with her hair ironed perfectly straight, hanging past her shoulders. It was dyed a coppery red that wasn’t a real human hair color. It shimmered in the slashes of streetlight that cut through the open sides of the gazebo. Every time she moved, her hair glided around like a piece of metal coming to life.

  She had a bottle of coconut water in her hand. She offered me a sip. I’d never tasted coconut water. It was delicious. She didn’t seem to mind that both of our mouths were on the same bottle. When she took a sip after me, she didn’t wipe off my saliva. It made me feel like she thought we were close to each other. It made me wonder what it would be like to have a sister, but I turned that thought off fast before it could start me brooding over the photographs of that other girl.

  Riley handed me a Red Vine. She offered the box to Ashling, but Ashling shook her head.

  I took a bite of the Red Vine and said to Ashling, “You don’t seem like you’re as high as everyone else.” I laughed a little so it didn’t sound like I was criticizing anyone.

  She rubbed her stomach. “Cramps. I thought weed would make them better, but no luck. It made me feel worse, so I stopped.” She took a sip of coconut water. “I really need some Advil or something.”

  “There’s meds in the house,” Luke said.

  No one moved.

  “Why do you have cramps?” I asked.

  “My monthly visitor.” Ashling bent forward, resting her forearms on her legs. She grunted softly. “Such a bitch.”

  I crossed my legs and curled my toes under, trying to think of what to say. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the way Riley started looking at me when I asked why she had cramps, I decided it was better not to ask any more questions.

  Part of me wished I was back home in my bed, safe and wrapped in my blankets. I’d thought they would make me forget about that girl, the girl I’d never met or heard of in my entire life. But they didn’t. I felt dizzy thinking that part of my life was missing, and that she was missing altogether.

  41

  Alan

  Meeting Crystal Green at the airport felt like a nonsolution in resolving the situation we were facing with her, but after talking about it half the night, neither Moira nor I could come up with an alternative. We had to stop Crystal from meeting the other neighbors, from talking further to Taylor, and most importantly, from talking to the police. The fact that she hadn’t done so yet was sheer luck. We could not rely on luck.

  I was impressed with Moira’s wherewithal to find out as much as she had about when Crystal was arriving. It proved how strong she was, deep inside. When self-preservation was at stake, she rose to the occasion. Just as she did that time I dragged her out of the water, no longer drunk thanks to fifty-degree saltwater and the force of waves slamming into her body. She’d clung to me, sure, but she hadn’t tried to drag me under, as so many drowning people do when panic takes control of their thought processes.

  I stood near baggage claim. I’d been there for two hours, arriving just after twelve to be sure I didn’t miss any of the “early afternoon” flights, which was all Moira had been able to pin down. There were seven luggage carousels, yet my concern wasn’t the ability to see every person as they walked into the terminal, it was recognizing Crystal. I remembered her blond hair, though some women change their hair color like they alternate lipstick shades. She was small and had a nice body, but that might have changed dramatically in ten years. The wasting effect of drugs and a poor diet might have turned her into an entirely different person.

  Although I’d checked the profile picture on the Facebook page, it was small and such a close-up shot that nothing was shown but her face and a few strands of hair, which looked blond, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure. On top of that, she wore sunglasses.

  Then I saw her stepping off the escalator. It was the way she moved that came rushing back to me as if I’d just stepped out my front door and glanced at the house next to ours. That fenced yard full of weeds and patches of dirt, forgotten toys that sat out even when it rained, and Crystal walking languidly down the front path, unaware of everything around her.

  She was wearing sunglasses, which wasn’t entirely unwarranted because the ceiling was high and the massive amounts of glass allowed a lot of afternoon light into the building. She walked right past the baggage carousels, heading toward the revolving doors with purpose.

  I caught up to her and touched her shoulder. She jerked away as if I’d stabbed her with a switchblade.

  The shock was evident on her face, not at all obscured by those enormous glasses. She didn’t remove them, but I felt the intensity of her gaze all the same. She recovered quickly.

  “Good. Just who I came to see,” she said.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Sure. Have you told the police you kidnapped my little girl?”

  I looked around. No one appeared to be paying attention to us, but still, her voice was not muted, and a phrase might be picked up by someone passing by. With all the security at airports, it was possible there might be undercover Homeland Security or FBI agents lurking anywhere, ready to approach us at any moment.

  She started walking and I hurried to match her pace. “Where are you going?”

  “To my Uber.”

  “Why don’t I give you a ride? We can talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m here to find out what’s being done to find my daughter, and to make sure she comes home with me instead of going along with whatever bullshit story you’ve manipulated her with all these years.”

  “Can we sit down?” I gestured toward a bench in front of a cluster of potted plants that rose up toward the steel beams.

  She flopped down on the bench. “You have three minutes. Then my ride will be here.”

  I sat beside her. “I want you to know I’m in a position to help you.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “We’d like to offer you twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  She laughed. “For what?” She pulled off her glasses. The skin around her eyes was red, but otherwise they were clear and sharp. She looked sober, although the hand holding the stem of her sunglasses trembled. “Wait. You want to pay me for my daughter? You want to buy her? You are a sick, sick man. Both of you, because I’m sure she agreed to that insulting offer.” She laughed, a short mocking sound. “It was probably her idea.”

  “I could do more if—”

  “More? I don’t want more! I want Brittany. Maybe you think the world turns on money, but I do not.”

  “It would help—”

  “I don’t need your fucking help. Or your wife’s.” She stood. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed her wrist.

  She yanked it away and put her glasses on.

  “I shouldn’t have said that. I can see how m
uch you love her. That really was insulting. It has nothing to do with money. You really care about her, and you—”

  “She’s my child.”

  I stood and looked down at her upturned face blanched white in the harsh sunlight. “Let’s work together. The most important thing is to find Brittany. I know you agree.”

  “Of course I agree.”

  “Then come home with me. You can see our house and Brittany’s room, look at her things. You can see that we’ve given her a quality life.”

  “A life without her mother is not a quality life.”

  “Okay. Poor choice of words. But come with me. We’ll have dinner and talk about Brittany. We can update you on the investigation so far, and we can talk about what we can do to assist the police. Once she’s found, we can let Brittany choose where she wants to live.”

  “She’ll choose me.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.” I felt ill saying the words, and I didn’t believe them, not for a single moment, but I had to say what she needed to hear. I had to get her out of the airport, away from curious ears, and into our house, where we could deal with her.

  Thinking about plan B, if offering her money failed, sickened me more than saying those words, but Moira and I agreed that Brittany was all that mattered. Crystal was a junkie. She was unfit and she’d forfeited her right to raise a child. If Child Protective Services had done their job, Brittany would have been removed from that home a decade ago. All we did was fill in where society lapsed. She was our daughter now in every sense of the word. We’d loved her, cared for her, and raised her into a beautiful and intelligent young girl.

  Of course we’d made some mistakes, maybe more than we recognized, but we’d done our best, and we’d done far more than Crystal was capable of. I had no doubt that if we hadn’t intervened, there was every chance Brittany would have died young, either from illness or street violence.

  I swallowed the bile in my throat and took Crystal’s elbow. “I’m sure you’re hungry after that flight. Airline food is barely adequate. We’ll have a nice dinner; we’ll talk, have a cocktail…”

  Her body vibrated with desire when I said that. So her clear eyes were lying. Her spastic fingers told the truth. She was still an addict. She needed alcohol to tide her over until she could get her next fix. With a rush of relief I straightened my shoulders. “Please. Finding her is all that matters.”

  She nodded.

  “Will you cancel your Uber ride?”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped a few times.

  After I paid for the parking, we went out to the lot and I put her bag in the trunk. I opened the passenger door and she slid into the seat. When I joined her, she ran her shaking fingers over the edge of the leather seat. “Nice car.”

  There was nothing appropriate to say in response.

  I turned on the radio. There was nothing to say at all. I preferred to drive in silence. I thought she might talk over the jazz I tuned to, but she didn’t. She rested her head against the back of the seat and crossed her legs, adjusting her dress around her thighs.

  The drive home seemed to take forever, and at the same time felt as if it unfolded in a single breath. Honestly, I was scared. I knew I could fix this hopeless situation, as I had others, but I was very concerned about how it would unfold.

  42

  Moira

  Crystal came into our house through the garage, on the attack from the start. She accused us, me mostly, of stealing her baby and keeping her like a prisoner. She suggested Brittany hadn’t been abducted out of our house at all, that we’d done something to her, hidden her away where no one would ever find her.

  As she talked, it was clear she was craving her drug. Her eyes were glazed, and the rush of words tripped over each other, sometimes falling into a confused mess.

  “Or maybe what happened is that Brittany is onto you,” she said. “If my smart baby girl learned anything from me, her real mother, she decided she’d had enough.”

  “How was your flight?” I asked, trying to calm her.

  She pursed her lips, and for half a second, I thought she was going to spit at me. She laughed. “I actually thought you would pretend you didn’t know me, or drag me out of the house; instead you want to act like we’re long-lost friends?”

  “I was being polite,” I said.

  “You think we’re girlfriends, dying to catch up on how the kids and hubbies are doing? Except you didn’t have a kid. Remember? And you took mine. But now you’ve lost her. Some mother.”

  I moved her suitcase out of the hallway into the corner of the laundry room just inside the garage. I led the way to the living room, walking past the doors I’d closed before she arrived. Only the bathroom door stood open.

  In the living room, she looked around, gazing out at the backyard. “Nice house.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I see Brittany’s room?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Why don’t we talk? Have a seat.” Alan had slipped away to the computer room. We’d agreed we shouldn’t gang up on her, that I would try to calm her as much as possible. He’d texted me when he pulled into our garage, telling me we had to go to plan B. I hated calling it that, as if it were simply an alternate route on a road trip, but there was no other way to describe it.

  I asked Crystal if she wanted anything to drink.

  “Do you have vodka? A vodka and juice would be nice.” She smiled, shaping her lips in a contorted way to prove she had no intention of being a proper guest. I suppose it was absurd for me to act as if she were.

  “Let’s save the alcohol for later,” I said. “Iced tea? Coke?”

  “I’ll have a Coke. Thanks.”

  When I reached the opening into the dining room, I glanced back. She was vigorously scratching herself, carving red gouges into the backs of her arms and along her shins. I wondered if I should have agreed to the vodka. Maybe she needed something to counter the withdrawal she was clearly fighting.

  I returned with two glasses of soda, placing hers on a coaster in front of her.

  She picked it up and drank half the contents in a single series of gulps. “So you kidnapped my little girl. And now you not only got karma on your ass, you got caught.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  She laughed.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Where’d the husband go?”

  “He’s working.”

  “Didn’t think I was important enough to hang around? His bribe didn’t work, so he’s checked out?”

  “He has to work. He runs his own company. It’s very demanding.”

  She smirked. “I’m sure.”

  “It sounds like you’re not here for money, so what are you looking for?”

  “You and him had a chat about me already?” She glared at me. “What I’m looking for is my little girl. But if you’re worried about going to jail, you might want to make my life a little easier to deal with by giving me a cash gift. Having your child stolen right out of your house sets you back in terms of being able to focus on keeping a job.”

  Tears flooded my eyes. That wasn’t good. I needed to be strong, stoic. I wiped at my bottom lashes and the tears dissipated.

  “You have no right to cry,” she said. “It’s not your actual child who’s missing.”

  “Please don’t say things like that, Crystal. You were a mess. Brittany came to us for comfort, and we just—”

  “So you just took her? She’s not a piece of fruit that fell on the ground and you can just pick it up because maybe no one will notice you’re stealing.”

  My Coke sat on the table beside me, sweating onto a coaster. I wasn’t thirsty. To be honest, I wanted some vodka. There was a long night ahead of us.

  “I could really go for a vodka.” Her hands shook as she set the empty glass on the table, too jittery to make sure it landed on that small disk that was only slightly larger
than the bottom of the glass.

  “Why don’t we wait until Alan joins us?”

  “I’m kind of thirsty now.”

  I stood. “Is there any kind of juice you prefer?”

  “Whatever you have.” She grinned.

  When I returned, she was gone. I found her in the hallway, looking at photographs of Brittany.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted Alan. I need you. Now.

  “Here’s your drink. Why don’t we go back to the living room? We can talk about how we’re going to move forward.”

  Alan came into the room, and I left him listening to Crystal go on about what horrible people we were while I made an easy stir-fry dinner of chicken with bamboo shoots over brown rice. During dinner, she switched gears and rattled on about what a good mother she was. She talked about her back problems, her money problems, and her men problems. She told stories of when she was “raising” Brittany that were outright lies, although she seemed to believe them.

  It was important to keep Crystal in a state of limbo throughout the evening. When he left with her again, Alan would need to back the car out of the garage at a normal time of day, just in case someone, especially that guy across the street, was watching. Not to mention Taylor and Duncan’s new security camera that she’d pointed out to me, talking about her lack of comfort since Brittany was snatched. That had been really hurtful, hearing her worry about her own safety when my baby girl had disappeared, but I’d said nothing. I’d noticed it was possible that part of our driveway was within the camera’s range.

  After we ate, while Crystal continued to sip vodka with orange juice, I moved close to her on the couch, testing how she would react to me touching her. I put my arm around her, which I thought she would fling off, but she did not. Possibly because by the time I did this she wasn’t even aware of my proximity. She’d already consumed five strong cocktails. She complained she wasn’t feeling well. She was sweaty and then cold. She demanded we do a better job adjusting the temperature, constantly asking us to open then close the sliding glass door. She felt nauseous. She had stomach cramps and blamed my light, delicious meal. Her back was killing her. It was hard to get up and use the bathroom, although the vodka was helping ease some of her discomfort.