by Cate Holahan
“Do you want your pajamas?” he asked, though he didn’t move toward the closet. Instead, he stared at my body as though it surprised him.
“No. I want you to come to bed.”
He pulled down his boxers, leaving them on the floor as he lay down beside me atop the blanket. His thick palm cupped my side, pulling me close to him. The heat from his body enveloped me. His hand slipped from my waist to my hips and then to my thighs, taking my underwear with them.
He kissed me again, more forcefully this time, leaning his weight into me so that I fell onto my back. Lips traced a line from the center of my neck to between my breasts.
Tom made a possessive kind of love, pulling me into him so there was only space for him to move. I granted him the control, partially because I was too exhausted to wrest it and, mostly, because I feared he would lose interest if I gave any direction. With everything that had happened, he needed to be in charge, at least here.
When he finished, he rolled over onto his side, sweaty and satisfied. I leaned over him and kissed his damp cheek, a thank-you for the intimacy and the trust. “I love you,” I said.
He petted my head. “Yeah. I love you, too.”
Tom hadn’t said those words in a long time. He understood their power. “Love” wasn’t a signature at the end of an e-mail. It meant we belonged to each other.
I hid the tips of my fingers in the curled hairs on his chest, trying to make the moment last. It was already slipping through my grasp. My thoughts had turned to tomorrow. Going into work and seeing Michael was out of the question, but there’d be exit paperwork, things to do to collect unemployment. Would HR e-mail the necessary documents? I’d never been fired before. The next steps eluded me. And there was still the problem of my parents needing a grand—two hundred more than I had—not to mention our own financial straits. How long could we squat in our home before the bank repossessed it? Where would we go? We didn’t have enough savings to put down a month’s rent and a month’s security.
“What are we going to do?” I mumbled the question into Tom’s chest.
He buried his nose into my hair. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I have a plan.”
17
November 26
L’Ange Treize looked like a Brooklyn loft owner had hired a French decorator. The restaurant’s casement windows gave it an industrial vibe, but the sumptuous décor inside screamed Versailles. Sunlight reflected off large golden plates gracing a dozen round tables, each one surrounded by carved, oval-backed chairs. Most of the seats in the restaurant were empty. The few guests picked at half-finished entrees. Thanksgiving was not a popular day for lunch in the city.
Ryan thought of the meal he’d force down later: brown rice and vegetables out of an undoubtedly white takeout box. Chinese food: the Thanksgiving dinner of new immigrants and friendless bachelors. Leslie and Angie would be celebrating at his former in-laws’, waiting for his ex-“dad” to bring the turkey in from the fryer while his former mother-in-law fussed over how much sugar to stick in the cranberry sauce. He needed to find time today to call his kid.
He pushed the thought into his brain’s “later” pile and approached the hostess pulpit. A svelte woman with severe features bowed over an open laptop. Behind her, black velvet curtains framed a massive mural. The painting suggested The Last Supper but was done in an impressionist style with soft colors and hazy lighting. The faces of the disciples had been swapped in favor of famous French artists. Monet was Jesus, destined to rise again. Ryan recognized Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Degas as disciples from their famous self-portraits. Gauguin was close to Jesus, reaching for the bread. He’d been cast as Judas.
An unsmiling young woman looked up from her computer. “Unfortunately, sir, we are not seating now. Lunch has just ended. The kitchen closes at two PM today.” Her focus returned to the screen, a visual dismissal.
For the umpteenth time since starting Ana’s case, Ryan lamented that the badge inside his wallet had the word “private” emblazoned below the seal. His mouth pinched into an apologetic smile and he tilted his head down, compensating for his lack of authority with acted deference. “Apologies for coming in so late on a holiday. Hoping you could help me.”
The ghost of a frown on the woman’s face became a full-fledged apparition. “We’re closing.”
Ryan powered through as though she’d uttered something in a strange language. “I’m an investigator looking into a woman’s disappearance.” He again avoided the four-letter D-word, as his company had yet to formally acknowledge that fact. “I believe a Mrs. Ana Bacon dined here back on August eighteenth, shortly before she went missing. I want to confirm and speak to any staff who would have waited on her that evening.”
The woman’s lips pressed together. She stared, perhaps trying to shoo him away by the force of her expression. When he didn’t move, she began typing into the computer. “Bacon? Spelled like the food?”
“Yes. On August eighteenth.”
Keys clattered before ending in the decisive downbeat of the return key. “I’m afraid that name is not in the system. We keep a record of all reservations. Perhaps she didn’t eat here.”
“The reservation may have been made under her boss’s name. Michael Smith, Derivative Capital.”
Fingers flew over the keys, followed by a series of enter slaps. “Yes. Mr. Smith is a frequent guest.” Her finger stroked the screen, scrolling down. “It looks like he did join us that evening. Party of four. Table eighteen.”
“May I speak with whomever served him?”
The woman’s tongue protruded from her mouth. She tucked it back inside, blocking it with pressed lips. “Uh. I don’t know if I’m supposed to . . .”
Ryan slipped out his wallet. He flashed his PI badge, keeping it in his hand so she couldn’t scrutinize the writing across the metal. “I’d really appreciate the help.”
Her shoulders sunk like a kid realizing there was no way out of a homework assignment. She took a visible breath. “I’m pretty sure that Harry works table eighteen on Tuesdays. I don’t know that he’d remember someone from three months ago, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask.”
Ryan trailed the girl through the near-empty restaurant and into a galley kitchen of blinding white and steel. The cooks were noticeably absent, though several squat men with rubber gloves bent over large basins of dishes. The hostess led him to a college-age kid, standing in the back of the room beside a linen closet. A crisp, white shirt covered his torso, the sleeves rolled up to show skinny elbows. He was in the midst of unfastening a black apron.
“Harry, this man is an investigator. He wants to know about some woman whom you served last summer.”
Ryan limped over to the back of the room. “Do you remember waiting on a Michael Smith and Ana Bacon the night of August eighteenth?”
Harry removed his apron and began folding it. “The guy’s name sounds familiar.” He glanced at the hostess and simpered. “He’s the regular, right? Generous tipper? Always ends up downstairs at the bar . . .”
The girl averted her eyes as she tried to maintain a dour expression.
Ryan ignored their silent exchange. “Mrs. Bacon was the woman who fell off the cruise ship a few months ago. Dark hair, big eyes. Maybe you remember her from TV?”
Harry slipped the now folded garment into the closet before turning back to answer the question. “Oh, yeah. When the story came out, I recognized her.”
“How did she seem the night that you waited on her?”
“Nothing stood out. If she’d been crying or something, I’d probably remember.” He rubbed his hand over his spiky blond hair, as if dusting off the workday. “She and that Smith guy must have been celebrating. He only comes in here to toast deals over dinner. It’s his thing. Then he heads to the private bar below.” The server again tried to catch the hostess’s eye as he smirked.
“Do you remember if he went to the bar that night? And if Ana went with him?”
He whistled. “That�
��s a tall order. You’d have to ask Jake. He bartends there. I’m back and forth between the tables and the kitchen.” Harry shut the closet door. “Jakey was smoking out back a minute ago. Probably still there.”
Harry pointed to a back door that must have led to an alley behind the kitchen, probably where the restaurant kept its dumpsters. The hostess folded her hands in front of her belly button. “I hope we’ve been of help.” Her words made it clear that, whether or not she had been, she wouldn’t be providing any more aid.
Ryan went through the back door and exited into the seasonally appropriate forty-degree weather. After so many days of cold, it felt like spring. He’d even swapped his pea coat for a thin leather jacket. The dirt-speckled snow had finally melted, leaving the asphalt in the alley looking damp but not dirty. The warmth had a downside, though. It had thawed the garbage, releasing the stink of pasta sauce and old fish from the bins behind the restaurant.
Two men in chef’s aprons stood in a cloud of smoke beside another man in black suit pants and a matching button-down. Ryan wanted a cigarette, not to puff but to bum as a way to slip into the group. Smoking excused loitering and idle conversation.
One of the chefs, a large man with that scraggly beard popular with the hipster set, eyed Ryan’s jaunty approach. He announced his purpose before sidling up to the big guy. “I’m looking for a Jake. Harry said I could find him out here.”
Paul Bunyan in an apron glared at him. Ryan itched to pull the badge from his wallet. He forced himself not to. Just because it had impressed the hostess didn’t mean that these guys wouldn’t balk at talking to a guy with dime-store identification. “I’m investigating a woman’s disappearance.”
“Oh?” The bearded man slapped the black-shirted boy on the back. “You got the wrong guy,” he laughed. “Jakey don’t mess with the ladies. A dude disappears . . .”
The bartender chuckled. “Once they’re with me, they don’t disappear.”
Ryan remained near the door. He didn’t want to interview this guy in front of all his joking buddies. Jake walked over like a movie star, head held high, casual body language. His defined arms bulged from a tight black shirt that would have looked Jersey Shore, if not for the guy’s slender torso and pop star facial hair. Ryan got the feeling that bartending was what this guy did in between casting auditions. Without wannabe Broadway stars, New York’s restaurants wouldn’t have employees.
The bartender stopped a few feet from Ryan. “You’re here about that woman on the cruise ship, right?” Jake slipped a thin black pipe between his lips and inhaled, waiting for an answer. Ryan watched the e-cig glow. He didn’t know if those things were any less dangerous than cigarettes for smokers, but he appreciated the lack of secondhand carcinogens.
“Expecting me?”
“Kind of.” Jake inhaled again. “I thought when I saw her on the news that someone might want to know about that night.”
Ryan pretended to know what he was talking about. “In the bar.”
“Yeah, it was kind of crazy.” The guy rubbed his tight beard with the fingers not wrapped around his inhaler. His forearm tattoo flexed into view, a black-and-white image of a guitar, melting in Dali-esque fashion. Above it was French script: L’amour et la folie. “Love and madness.”
“What exactly happened?”
Jake took another drag on the dog whistle. “Well, nothing that I think I had to report to the police, because, you know, two consenting adults . . . or kind of.” His free hand went to the back of his neck. The e-cig dangled from the side of a guilty smile. “Michael comes to the private bar downstairs every other week or so with a pro. The fancy kind. You know, girls with an escort service who are dressed nice, look like catalog models, so you can’t tell right off, but they’re too young to be all over some geezer.”
“Okay.” Ryan’s mind raced to figure out where Jake was going with his story. “So Ana was all over him and you thought she was a hooker?”
“No. I mean, she wasn’t on him at all. But I thought, given his history, maybe she was new or something and didn’t get that they’d be doing their thing down there. So when she started screaming—”
“Screaming?”
Jake removed the e-cig and rotated it between his fingers like a nervous baton twirler. “Shortly after I uncorked the bottle and made myself scarce in the back room, I heard her shouting for him to get off of her.”
Statistics flooded Ryan’s head. One in every four women was the victim of sexual assault. More than 80 percent of the time, the assailant was someone the victim knew. Sexual assault survivors thought about suicide four times as often as the average person.
“Did you see what happened? You didn’t go in?”
Jake rubbed a palm over his face. “Well, I didn’t mean to be standing in the storeroom holding my dick while some woman was fighting off date rape or whatever. I just thought at first that she was role-playing. I mean, with Smith, they’re always hookers. I didn’t realize until I saw the news reports that he’d gone after a married woman.”
Jake took a drag off his e-cig. “I think she escaped the worst of it. I heard him yelling about his balls, as though she’d taken the shine off his jewels.” He pointed with the device. “You know, you should probably ask for the video of that night.”
It was against the law to tape people without their knowledge, but establishments did it all the time. As long as the restaurant posted a sign in some prominent yet easily forgotten place, the police were happy for the security cameras to keep running. One never knew when footage could come in handy. “You guys film the bar? The whole thing or just the entrance?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’m supposed to flash the bottle labels at the corner of the room so they’re caught on camera. Gretchen, the manager, would know more. I’m sure she still has a record. She keeps things for like six months in case the members dispute bar tabs or don’t remember using the club.”
Ryan asked Jake a few more follow-up questions, chief among which was if he would tell his story to the real cops when the time came. The bartender promised he would as he handed over a card with a headshot and e-mail.
Just as Ryan pocketed it, he heard the door open behind him. A woman marched out into the alley. The click of her heels shouted her anger.
“Speak of the devil,” Jake muttered. He slunk back as his boss stormed over. She flashed a fake, hospitality smile that belied the venom in her voice. “Is there a problem?”
“Not yet.” Ryan faced her. “I need to see a tape of the private bar for the night of August eighteenth.”
The woman frowned at her employees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ryan tilted his head to the side. Did she really plan to play this game with him? “I think you do. And I don’t think a restaurant wants to impede any investigation into a missing person.”
The manager’s hands hit her hips. She leaned on her back leg and gave him a disdainful look. “Who are you, again?”
“I’m investigating Ana Bacon’s disappearance.”
“Oh. We’re always happy to help the police.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “May I see your badge?”
The satisfied smile in her eyes told Ryan that she knew he wasn’t a real cop. Had his leather jacket and khakis given him away? Many detectives went around in monkey suits all day. Ruined it for every other plainclothes cop.
Ryan pulled out his wallet and flipped back the panel to show the metal. The manager held open her palm. He reluctantly held the badge close enough for her to scan the letters.
“You’re a private investigator?” Her tone went up at the end, but her expression was triumphant. She wasn’t asking.
“I’m with Mrs. Bacon’s insurance company.”
She looked down her snub nose at him. “Any footage of our guests is taken with their permission for the express purpose of verifying use and consumption of private bar amenities, not for sharing with outside companies.”
“A woman is missing.”
She feigned concern. “Certainly, if anything we have is pertinent to your investigation, you can come back with a warrant and we’ll be happy to assist you. Until then . . .” Her lips pursed, conveying the same message as a raised middle finger. She stared him down for a moment and then called each member of the staff by name, as though shouting for dogs to get back in the house.
“Don’t get rid of anything,” Ryan warned. “I’ll be back with my friends at the NYPD. You don’t want to face an obstruction charge.”
She nodded, as though patronizing a child. “Well, as I said, till then.” She followed her employees back into the restaurant. Ryan heard the door lock.
He exchanged his damn-near-useless badge for the phone in his jacket pocket and hit number two on speed dial. Vivienne Wu answered on the third ring. “Monahan! How’s my favorite PI?”
“You don’t know any other PIs, Wu.”
“Touché. How about this one? How’s my favorite ex-partner?”
“Good. But I need your help—and your badge.”
18
August 22
The insurance agent didn’t have a clue. Mr. William Murray stifled a smile as his eyes climbed the spiral staircase to the left of our foyer and then traveled up the taupe wall to the double height ceiling and the hand-carved, wooden chandelier lording over the entrance. I’d designed the whole house to have an understated elegance, like a beautiful, wealthy woman relaxing at home in worn designer jeans and a silk tank. Not intimidating. Still rich.
My deliberate choices were not lost on our visitor. Dollar signs seemed to sparkle in his brown irises as I led him through the kitchen, past Sophia watching Sesame Street on the family room television, and up the back stairs to the office. I’d terminated the daycare that morning with a voicemail. No need racking up more debts that we couldn’t afford.
William had a young face and dimpled chin beneath a prematurely balding scalp. He looked earnest. Honest. A fat bumblebee unknowingly caught in a glistening spider web. I was the reluctant black widow.
