by Cate Holahan
The two men eyed him as though he hadn’t been fully crossed off the suspect list. One carried a notepad in his hand. Ryan pointed to it. “You guys have to track down a woman named Lena Mclean. She works at a wine store in Fort Lee, New Jersey, called the Wine Thief. She was also seeing Tom. My guess is that he was dumping the victim for Lena. Eve didn’t take kindly to it, maybe threatened to talk to me about Tom wife’s death, and . . .” Ryan trailed off. He didn’t need to state the obvious.
The detective scrawled as Ryan spoke. “She might be in danger. He’ll want her to either provide him with an alibi or disappear.”
“What about Tom?” The detective addressed his question to Vivienne. “You have enough to book him on his wife’s death?”
“Like I said, the body is in the Atlantic Ocean.” Vivienne coughed. The smell had to be getting to her too. “All we’ve got is a shaky alibi, abuse allegations, and motive. And now the violent death of the woman that Ana’s friend says was seeing Tom and might have known something about him plotting his wife’s death.”
“It’s got to be enough probable cause for an arrest,” Ryan said. “And either way, we don’t have time to gather more. We’ve got to get to him before he kills anyone else.”
42
December 4
A white minivan swerved in front of a brick mansion, ready to collect the women shivering at the curb beside trash bags full of cleaning supplies and take us to our sixth house of the day. I loved and loathed the appearance of the car. For the past four months, it had transported me to and from my old neighborhood, dropping me at one lavish home after another until it dumped me back at the Newark row house where I rented a room. Without the vehicle, I wouldn’t be able to scrub toilets and wipe hair from bathroom drains for ten hours. But I also wouldn’t be able to see my daughter.
The side of the van featured a cartoon decal of the robot maid in The Jetsons. A tagline scrawled across the sliding door read, “Robomaids: Out with the Dirt, in with the Sparkle.” When I first saw the vehicle outside my apartment window, more than three months ago, I’d felt this weird sense of déjà vu. It was the same car that had made the rounds in my old town, heading from house to house with its brigade of women, Swiffers over their shoulders like old-fashioned muskets. I thought it strange, and somehow fitting, that I’d now be one of the nameless servants sweeping through town. Part of me had always felt that way.
The van’s sliding door opened. I filed in along with six other women. We scrunched inside, our thighs touching, butt cheeks raised off the seats to make more room. Nobody wore safety belts. Our gear went on the floor: paper towel rolls, scrub brushes, brooms, buckets, mops. The van’s interior smelled like a hospital, all bleach and musty linens.
I squeezed between a broad woman and a girl with dark-brown hair, bleached at the ends. They smiled at me and then turned away. Both women spoke Spanish, some English. I wasn’t letting on that I was fluent in English, lest it raise questions about my identity and how I’d ended up in debt to coyotes. To my coworkers, I was near mute. I think they believed me pathologically shy, or dumb.
The van traveled east, up the hill toward my old street, a block marked by large homes and landscaped properties, all maintained by immigrants. My familiar road welcomed like a wet doormat. It was Friday. The worst and best day of the week.
Dina’s house was cleaned on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Hers was the one home where I had a chance of being recognized. I feared her calling the cops, negating my death benefit and pushing Eve to retaliate against my child. But it was also at Dina’s that I could watch out the window for a glimpse of my baby.
As the van turned onto my block, my body hardened into cheap armor. I needed to endure this. As long as I stayed “dead,” Eve and Tom had to keep Sophia as healthy and happy as possible. If they abused her, my parents could get custody and control the money.
The driver slowed as she passed the stucco exterior of my French-styled château before pulling into my former neighbors’ massive home. Dina had built nearly to the property line. Sophia’s bedroom window looked straight into her master bathroom, a fact that had always made me pull her curtains closed.
The woman closest to the door slid it open. I grabbed a bucket, mop, and a milk jug filled with a mixture of white vinegar and baking soda. I stepped outside, feet from my former front door.
We passed columns worthy of the Lincoln Memorial and stood in Dina’s covered archway waiting for her to invite us inside. Memories of a different time flashed before me. A Christmas party. Tom in a velvet blazer. Mistletoe dangling above marble floors. A kiss. Laughter. Manhattans on silver trays passing above my pregnant belly. I’d never fit in here.
The lead woman rang the doorbell a second time. I dropped my gaze to my canvas sneakers, purchased from a convenience store along with blond hair dye and the oversized reading glasses that hid my sometimes faux-blue eyes. Dina had countless boxes of disposable colored contacts beneath the sink in her master bath. I’d taken a twelve pack the day I’d heard her going on about an insurance investigator. I’d needed a better disguise than glasses and dyed hair, especially once I’d agreed to meet with him in person. Had he recognized me, I would have surely been charged with attempted fraud and lost my insurance for Sophia’s safety.
I focused my eyes on the floor as the mistress of the mansion opened the door for us. I recognized her sky-high Jimmy Choo boots. Stilettos ruined floors, yet Dina still stomped around her house in heels.
I shuffled into the foyer behind the other women. We all removed our shoes and set them at the edge of the gray-veined marble floor. Dina said something about starting upstairs and then clacked into the living room.
I headed to the first bathroom, cleaning supplies in hand. Dina’s master bathroom reminded me of an overdecorated vanilla birthday cake, all cream and curved lines. A vanity ran alongside one whole wall of the room. The mirror above it had to be at least twelve feet long. Toiletries were scattered atop the counter: retinol, bronzer, blush, antiaging eye serum, and a box of Dina’s signature eye color.
I caught the reflection of my daughter’s bedroom in the mirror. Sophia was sitting on her floor, having a tea party with a circle of stuffed animals. The backside of her curtains framed her play, as though I were watching a silent film in a movie theater. I touched her reflection in the glass. Her image was only about the size of my thumb. I wanted to wave to her, to open the window and try to talk, but I couldn’t. If Eve saw, she might flee with Sophia to somewhere I’d never find them.
Tears streaked the cheeks of the unfamiliar blonde in the mirror. The woman weeping in front of me was gaunt with goofy glasses perched on jutting cheekbones, a nerdy heroin addict. My bangs, which had once defined my look, had completely grown out, elongating my face. The blond hair made my skin tone somehow darker. I looked more ethnic as a towhead, and younger.
I told my reflection that my kid was okay. But I couldn’t convince myself. Even if Tom and Eve were trying to be model parents, Sophia would not feel loved—not by those two. As good a liar as Tom was, he’d never been able to fake emotion with her. She’d always seen through him. It was why she’d tried so hard to make his feelings genuine. If I couldn’t get her away from them, all that rejection would rub her emotions raw until she had scar tissue, until she was as numb and unfeeling as her father.
I wiped my face and tried to concentrate on my work: filling the bucket with water, pouring capfuls of cleaning solution inside. I would rescue my daughter. The insurance investigator was looking into my claims that Tom and Eve had caused my death. My parents had told him that Tom had abused me—a lie, but not a big one considering he’d thrown me off a moving cruise ship. The PI would have to see that Tom couldn’t be Sophia’s custodian and recommend that my parents get custody. Once he did, everything would be fine. Sophia would be able to keep her identity and her money. My parents would send for me. We’d be happy.
If the insurance investigator didn’t come through, I�
�d have to, somehow, kidnap my kid. Life would be hard for Sophia without documents, but still better than any existence with a sociopath.
A phone rang in the bedroom, a piercing buzz that could be heard all over the house. Dina had left her cell on her dresser. Heels clopped upstairs. My old neighbor always sounded like a trotting pony.
I tried to disappear into the background, appear to be little more than a freestanding human mop. In the neighboring room, the phone stopped ringing. Through the bathroom’s open door, I could see that Dina had put the Bluetooth device in her ear and was sitting on her bed with the television remote in her hand.
“Yeah. I know. I’m putting it on now. ABC?” She sounded excited. Nervous. Had she heard more about Tom? Dina loved gossip. She’d apparently figured out that my husband had been cheating when I’d had no clue.
The television shouted to life. A male anchor spoke with a grave voice:
A young woman, shot dead earlier today in her Long Island City, Queens, home. Police are calling the death of Eve Dreher, a twenty-four-year-old financial recruitment specialist, suspicious.
“That’s her,” Dina shouted. “That’s the woman I was telling you about.”
I squinted to see the image on the television without stepping into the neighboring bedroom. A static photo of Eve, probably from a work ID, dominated the screen. I’d have recognized her anywhere. The monster who’d held a gun to my child’s head.
My breath caught in my chest. Tom had killed Eve. That couldn’t have been his plan. Something had to have changed. Maybe the cops were after him. Maybe she’d betrayed him. If he was on the run, what would he do with Sophia?
I darted from the bathroom, past Dina who was shouting something after me about the mop, past my coworkers downstairs. Out the door. Dampness from the snow-flecked lawn seeped into my socks as I made a mad dash across the side yard.
I stood beneath my daughter’s closed bedroom window and shouted for her. If she would just come outside, I could take her away. I had saved what little of my earnings hadn’t gone to the coyotes or rent. We could get a bus ticket to the middle of the country somewhere. We could hide.
“Sophia.” The cold air carried my voice from her window. “Sophia.”
The image of her from moments before came back to me. She was sitting on the floor. From her vantage point, all she could see was Dina’s roof.
I flew around the house to the front door. I had no choice. I had to confront my husband.
I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I went to the side door and began pounding on the glass. Tom opened the door with a smile, as though he was expecting someone else. “Did you forget—”
His mouth hung open upon seeing me. It closed with a scowl. “I was wondering when you would turn up.”
“The police know you killed Eve,” I lied. “It’s over. Let me have Sophia.”
He grabbed my forearm and yanked me inside the mudroom. The door slammed behind me. I pulled away from him and scanned for weapons.
“I think we’re overdue for a civil conversation.” His voice was steady, but his eyes—those blue-gray irises that I’d once fallen in love with—they were as stony as ever. How had I ever gazed into those eyes and not seen the lack of soul behind them?
I followed Tom into my former dream kitchen, stripped bare of my personal touches. The whiteness reminded me of a hospital. He walked over to the sink and leaned against the counter. I stood on the other side of the island, as far as possible from my husband and as close as I could get to the open dining room. Just beyond the concrete table was the foyer and the stairs leading to Sophia’s bedroom.
“I assume you’ve come with some sort of proposal . . .”
I hadn’t had time to work out a bargaining plan, but I knew the key was to offer him money. “Give me Sophia, Tom, and I’ll stay dead. You can still claim to be her custodian. You’ll have the cash, I’ll have our daughter. We’ll both win.”
He chuckled at my words.
“It’s the only way you’ll get the money,” I said. “There’s no policy if I come forward.”
He continued snickering. “I don’t have to do anything. You fell overboard while I was on the pool deck.” He sighed with overacted drama. “Such a stupid way to die, really, but Darwinism does have a way of taking care of problems.”
The insult didn’t sting. He’d always seen me as the idiot wife. And clearly, I had been. I’d been married to a sociopath for years without knowing it. “The cops will figure out the truth,” I said. “They must already be on your trail, since you killed Eve.”
He stuck out his bottom lip in a mock pout. “Shame but . . .” He sighed. “Eve was problematic. Not like Lena. She really loves me, and she feels so guilty that you found out about our affair and jumped. She would never say I wasn’t at the pool with her.” He smiled. “Guilt and love. The way to a woman’s heart. Right, babe?”
Had that been what kept me tied to Tom all those years? I winced away the thought. He was a master manipulator. I couldn’t let him control this conversation. “The cops know about you and Eve. They’re going to be coming for you. Leave Sophia with me.”
“What do they know? That I was sleeping with an obsessed young woman.” Tom looked at his fingernails, as though admiring their cleanliness, or examining them for blood. “I’ll concede that. After all, it’s why she blew her head off. She had a history of being unstable. Jealous.” He shook his head, as though scolding her ghost. “She wanted me all to herself. So selfish. Not like my wife. You’ve been so good to stay hidden. Always putting other people first. Thinking of Sophia’s future. Her safety.”
I caught the threat in his tone. “I have no reason to hide if Sophia is in danger. Let me take her. You don’t want her.”
“Of course I do. She’s my daughter.”
I took a step back toward the dining room. “You don’t love her.”
“Well, it’s true I can’t love like you can. I can’t sacrifice. If there wasn’t money to take care of her, I . . .” He exhaled, mimicking a small explosion. I continued to step backward. “But as long as there are ample funds to go around, I want her well taken care of. I’m not my father.”
“You’re not a father at all,” I shouted. “You’re barely human.”
I turned and ran up the main staircase to Sophia’s room. Footsteps didn’t follow me. Tom wouldn’t let us get away that easy. Did he plan to climb up the back staircase and surprise us? I couldn’t think of his intentions. My adrenaline had one purpose, to get my daughter.
I burst through her door and scooped her into my arms. She gripped my neck and nestled into me, understanding that now was not the time for explanations or tears. She absorbed my silence, my fear. I prayed not my pain.
I hurried down the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other on my daughter’s back. Though my heart hammered in my chest and the blood pounded in my head, I could hear Tom coming down the back stairs. Whatever he’d gone up for, it hadn’t been for Sophia.
“Stop right there, Ana.” His voice sliced through the air. I froze at the bottom step, a deer in front of a Mack truck. Tom stood in the dining room, both hands extended in front of his face. A gun was wedged between his fists. The barrel pointed at my chest—at my child, wrapped around my torso like a shield.
I kept my eyes on the gun as I shifted Sophia to my side, out of the direct line of fire. The gun wasn’t the same one that Eve had used. This weapon barely looked real. It was old, more like a prop out of an eighties western than anything I’d seen on recent television. A walnut barrel peaked above Tom’s knuckles.
“Come downstairs, dear,” Tom said. “We’re going for a family drive.”
I could imagine where my husband would take us: a wooded area, perhaps one of the hunting grounds in nearby Rockland County where the sound of gunfire wouldn’t raise suspicions. He wouldn’t need to spend much time hiding my body. I was already dead. No one would be looking for me.
“If you shoot that, the neighbors will co
me running.”
He shrugged. “And I’ll have to tell them all about defending my daughter from a strange intruder. Of course, I’d rather not explain that—or do this in front of Sophia.”
A strange clarity erased all my other emotions. Tom was going to succeed this time. He would kill me. The best I could hope for was to make sure Sophia didn’t see.
I crouched to set her on the step. “I love you.” Emotion choked in my throat yet, somehow, I controlled my sobs. “No matter what happens, know that your mommy loves you so, so much.”
Sophia’s eyelashes fluttered against my cheek. I inhaled her strawberry shampoo and the unnamable scent that I would forever recognize as my little girl. She cried on my shoulder. Her arms still clung to my neck. When I began peeling her hands apart, she clawed at my skin. “Mommy,” she howled. “Mommy, no.”
“I need you to go back to your room.”
Sophia shook her head. I patted her back and stood. “Please, baby, back to your room.” She continued shaking her head as she took a retreating step up the stairs. Her lips pressed together, opened and closed, silently calling my name.
Tom’s voice rang out in the rafters. “Sophia, stay right there.” His tone threatened. She’d be hearing that tone for the rest of her childhood.
I turned toward Tom and his gun. “I’m coming. You don’t need our daughter.”
My voice caught on the word “our.” Tom didn’t deserve any claim to the little girl on the steps. But I needed him to remember that she was part of his legacy. Even he wouldn’t want to damage his own flesh and blood.
Tom shifted the gun from my chest to Sophia’s little form. “Oh, but I do need her. You behave so much better when the kid’s around.” He gestured toward the floor with the gun. “Both of you, down the steps. Now!”
The screamed command sent Sophia flying down the stairs. She stood at the bottom, shaking, confused. I hurried to her side. Tom gestured with the gun toward the kitchen. “You first, babe.”
