The Waiting Room

by Emily Bleeker

  At least Gillian had not been with her and there was still the hope that the outdoor cameras had missed Gillian’s fairly generic car parked around the corner, so they still had a vehicle to use without being recognized. Now they would need it. She might not know where Mark worked, but she did have a phone number.

  She saw the way he’d looked at her. He may have given her a fake name and a fake job, but he couldn’t fake the attraction she’d read in his stare. Why would he give her a phone number unless it was in his best interest to get her to call him?

  So she was going to do what the police were failing at—follow a lead in a direction that didn’t point glowing arrows right back at her. Mark might be a con artist or a sex addict or a pathological liar or one of a million other things he could be seeing a therapist for—but he could also be involved in her daughter’s kidnapping.

  One way or another, she was going to find out.

  CHAPTER 16

  She ran down the steps of the bank, skipping two or three at a time. She immediately located Gillian’s car parked around the corner and ran as fast as she could for the second time that day. The door was thankfully unlocked, and she leaped into the passenger seat, slamming it shut and tossing the itchy visor into the cluttered back seat.

  Gillian didn’t even flinch this time. She must be getting used to the adrenaline rush. Instead she simply put down her phone—some game with geometric shapes adorned with human faces disappearing at the push of a button—glanced over at Veronica, and shrugged.

  “So what did he say? Is he in?”

  Veronica hesitated. She hadn’t considered how to tell Gillian. After all, the woman had always been skeptical of the suited man—and it turned out she was right. Perhaps Veronica had spent too much time in isolation and had forgotten how to read good and bad intentions in other people. But somehow she knew Gillian was good. She knew Lisa genuinely wanted the best for her. She knew her mother loved her despite Veronica’s failures as a daughter and, more currently, as a human being. She knew Detective Perry was an arrogant asshole. But then again, she’d also thought Mark was a kind banker with a teenaged daughter. Maybe Veronica should stop trusting her instincts and start following this trail that led her to Mark and, hopefully, Sophie. She pulled her legs underneath her, twisting them into a pretzel.

  “There is no Mark,” she said, having a harder time saying the words than she’d expected. “He’s fake,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m not positive, but he might be involved.”

  Veronica had been afraid all day, panicked, scared even, but when she really considered what it would mean to have Mark involved in her daughter’s disappearance, she felt a whole new terror overcome her. Who was this man? Was she right that someone had taken pictures in her daughter’s room? Was it Mark? She’d balked when Gillian had called him a stalker, but with the waiting room, grocery store, and bar all lined up next to his lies about his job, it was looking more likely that she was a target rather than a potential love interest.

  She’d always thought the people who took babies were family members trying to stop a custody order or crazy women who wanted to fake a pregnancy. Or at least that had been her hope, because at least the crazy-woman option meant Sophie was being taken care of until the police could find her. But what the hell was a grown man doing taking a child from her home? It just didn’t make sense.

  “That asshole,” Gillian cursed with more venom than Veronica had ever heard from the quiet pleaser. Even when talking about her husband and their divorce, Gillian was measured and halting in reporting his lousy behavior toward her, but not today. Today she was pissed off and she didn’t care who knew it. Veronica loved seeing strength in the docile woman, both because that fury was on Veronica’s side and because if Gillian could learn to be strong, Veronica could as well. “So what are we going to do?” Gillian asked, just as baffled as Veronica. “Maybe you should tell the police?”

  “No,” she snapped. “They think I hurt my baby. They won’t listen to me.”

  “Well, honey.” Gillian paused thoughtfully and gripped the steering wheel. “Do you have any other ideas?”

  Veronica didn’t know if it felt good or terrible to have Gillian treating her like a child. If Gillian was the adult and Veronica the child, then the mother figure should be coming up with ideas. God, it shouldn’t even be her mother by her side—it should be Nick. He’d know what to do. She missed him in the recesses of her too-empty bed. She missed the smell of his terrible instant coffee in the morning. She missed his arms comforting her when she was sad and his mind meeting hers in the spaces between confusion and reality when she was scared.

  “I’m going to call Mark and see if I can get him to meet with me. I’ll call him out on the bank thing, and hopefully that will open the door to asking about Sophie.” She said it with a resolve she wasn’t sure she possessed. “Let’s get driving. They might call the police.”

  “The police?” Gillian’s eyes went wide, and she put the car into drive. “Why does that bank want to call the police on you? You didn’t tell them about the baby, did you? What in the world did you do in there?”

  “There’s too much to explain.” She buckled her seat belt and tapped on the dashboard. “Just head east on Forty-Two. You’ll be turning left just past the hospital.”

  “Oh yes, my Christopher is resting out there in the Millburn Cemetery too.” During a less-than-legal U-turn, understanding flooded Gillian’s features, and her shoulders relaxed under her tattered shirt, the dimples in her elbows less defined. “You’re going to see your Nick, aren’t you?”

  Veronica nodded and pulled out her phone, ready to make one of the most important calls of her life. She might not be able to lean on Nick for help or guidance, but today she needed to be close to him if she could. Well, at least until she had a better idea of how she was going to find their little girl.

  “I think this is a great idea.” Gillian kept her eyes on the road, but there was a sad understanding in her voice. “Do you know what you’re going to say to Mark?”

  “Not really.” She laid the phone on her leg and held the business card in her other hand. It was a strange sensation to feel like nobody could help you and to have absolutely no idea how to help yourself. It was a lot like when the depression started after Nick died and Sophie was still in the hospital after the car accident. Back then she didn’t want to admit it to herself. Sophie was just fragile, so the nurses needed to do everything. And when she came home, it seemed safer for her mother’s experienced hands to be the ones caring for the recovering infant. Her mother would give her suggestions like therapy and medication, but none of them seemed to be a viable solution to the crippling sadness and haunting ideations that injected themselves into Veronica’s mind.

  In those early times, she spent days on end in bed, emerging to do nothing but pump and watch the most recent videos of Sophie, living a life outside her arms and influence. She used to think that her biggest regrets in life would be listed among mistakes she had made or incorrect roads she had taken, but now she knew the truth. Her greatest regrets were found in the spaces between her choices, in the void of inaction that had slowly devoured her life.

  Sooner rather than later, she might second-guess running away from the police or bringing Gillian into this fiasco. And this whole plan to track down Mark DeVenuto was a road that likely would lead to disaster and eventual remorse. But she told herself, at least she was doing something. And those actions, as misguided or dangerous as they might be, seemed far better than the heavy weight of regret over not doing it.

  Veronica lifted the phone, dialed the number with ten taps at the screen, and hit send without letting herself dwell on all the crashes and burns that could be waiting at the other end of the chain of events she was about to set in motion. Instead, she let the movement of her fingers against the screen and the phone pressing against her face fill her with satisfaction and hoped that maybe this time doing something would make a difference.

 
CHAPTER 17

  The phone rang three times, and a masculine voice came on the other end in the middle of the fourth ring.

  “Hello?” It was him. She knew right away. She’d only spoken to him twice, but for some reason his voice was embedded in her mind. The wild resolve that had urged her into dialing his number now clawed at the inside of her throat.

  “Hi,” she said in a slightly flirtatious voice, hoping that the nerves she could hear there sounded like a woman who wanted to get to know someone better rather than a suspicious mother. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we had a drink last night. You gave me your card.”

  The silence continued for a few moments longer, and just when Veronica took a breath, considering another angle, Mark started to talk.

  “Of course I remember you,” he said, sounding sincerely pleased she’d called. “Veronica, right? Hey, do I get to buy you dinner this time?”

  Veronica bit back her rebuttal. Instead, she took a deep breath and pressed forward.

  “Not today,” she said with a hitch in her voice, trying to decide how to dive in. Maybe she should go with his initial offer to help her, even if she now found it totally suspect. “I’m in trouble. Remember that alarm I told you about last night? Well, my daughter . . . um . . . I know this is random, but I need your help.”

  She let the terror she’d been holding back bleed into her voice. She hoped to get him to buy into the fact that she wasn’t suspicious and then corner him with her questions once they were face-to-face. As Gillian turned off the two-lane highway onto the gravel path that led to the cemetery, Veronica held the phone closer to her ear, bouncing along with the car.

  “Oh my God, are you and Sophie okay?” There was an urgency in his voice that she liked. It gave her some control, and it let her know that he would show up if she asked him to.

  “Uh, no, very not okay.” He remembered her daughter’s name a little too easily for Veronica’s liking, and it reminded her of the potential dangers in this path of investigation. “But I don’t want to explain over the phone. You said you had connections in security, and I need help. Is it too crazy to ask you to meet me?”

  He was quiet for a moment as Gillian put the car in park down one of the grassy paths along the perimeter of the cemetery. She mimed to Veronica, first asking if she was okay and then pointing at her door and the gravestones over Veronica’s shoulder, asking if she’d be all right alone.

  “Go!” she mouthed and waved her off. The cemetery grass was a sickly greenish yellow, not well irrigated and becoming baked in the June sun. It was a place she’d come to when the ground was nearly frozen and her breath condensed in the fall air. It was close enough to her new home that she used to escape there on some of those early mornings and nights when she’d had to run as fast as she could away from her house to escape Sophie’s screams.

  Oftentimes she’d pace the rows, reading names, talking aloud, but she tried to stay away from the small headstones that inevitably sat above the graves of children. It felt like she was tempting fate when she read those out loud, like she was defiling something sacred.

  It was the worst place on the planet because it reminded her of her loss, but it also was a place of refuge where she could sob her eyes out and no one would see her, and if they did, they wouldn’t be surprised. It felt like a freedom, having permission to mourn openly.

  “Yeah, I have a few connections. I can try to help. God, I hope you’re okay,” Mark finally responded. It sounded like he was walking, and then the sound of a car door slamming. “Can I come to you?”

  “Yes. Where are you right now?” she asked, and then added with a little flash of self-satisfaction, “Work?”

  “Yeah, work,” he said, almost halfheartedly, like he wasn’t interested in trying to fool her. “I’m in my car now, though. Where can I meet you?”

  She considered her options carefully. Normally she’d say they should meet in a public place with lots of witnesses, but since she was more likely to be ID’d by police than he was, she had to go with a more secluded spot. It was risky, but she was owning risky right now.

  “I’m at the Millburn Cemetery off Forty-Two, five rows up on the left side. Please come fast. I hate to sound dramatic, but it is life or death.”

  His car growled to life in the background, and she knew he meant it when he said he’d come.

  “God, I think you should call the police,” he said, obviously concerned.

  Veronica cocked her head to one side and listened closely to the tension in his voice. He wasn’t bluffing. He really wanted her to call for help, which made her wonder if he was even involved. For some reason it was depressing to consider the idea that he had nothing to do with the abduction. She might never find Sophie.

  “No, no police. If you call them, I won’t be here. I just want you,” she said, hoping it would make him feel important and needed but also acknowledging a twinge of honesty in her words. She could hear his car rev in the background.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Too bad he wasn’t the real Mark DeVenuto. Then she might be feeling relief right now and her muscles would relax enough that she could take a deep breath. But no matter how nice he seemed on the phone, Mark DeVenuto was a liar and couldn’t be trusted.

  CHAPTER 18

  Turned around backward in Gillian’s front seat, Veronica watched Mark’s white Lexus pull into the gravel parking lot of the cemetery, a cloud of dust following behind him. She’d been rethinking this plan since she’d hung up the phone a painstaking fourteen minutes earlier. He’d sounded genuine on the phone, but if he was the culprit, a man who was crazy enough to stalk her and take her child, then faking a few words on the phone would be easy for him. And the police—what better way to get Veronica to keep the police out of it than to offer to make the call himself?

  And that was just one of her worries. What if Mark had a gun? What if he brought someone with him? What if she was too late? She’d tried to get up the courage to visit Nick’s headstone but got too overwhelmed with anxiety about her impending confrontation to leave the car. She texted Gillian and asked her to return. Her face red and tear streaked, she showed up a few minutes later, equally as nervous about Veronica meeting the mysterious man.

  “Now remember, don’t get in his vehicle, whatever he says, and keep your phone in your hand.” She took Veronica’s phone and dialed a number. Gillian’s phone buzzed on the console between them, and Veronica’s name popped up. “I’ll listen from here, and if there is any sign of distress, I’m calling 911.” She hit the green “Talk” button on her phone and handed the iPhone back to Veronica, the connection left open.

  “How are you so good at this stuff?” Veronica asked, her voice echoing out of Gillian’s receiver.

  “I watch a lot of TV,” she said with a shrug, and then put a warm, moist hand on Veronica’s forearm. “Good luck.”

  Veronica nodded, too nervous to talk, and headed toward Mark’s running car. He was clearly visible in the driver’s side, looking down as though he was texting. She squinted to see if by some outrageous stroke of luck he had a car seat strapped in the back seat, but from what she could tell, it was empty.

  When her feet hit the gravel, he still had not noticed her approach, which made her nervous. She needed to see his reaction to her, read his expressions.

  Veronica hesitated a few feet away, tears of anxiety rising in her eyes, but he continued to stare at his lap. Using a light touch, she tapped her fingernails on the hood of his car, the heat from the metal biting at her skin. Mark’s head snapped up, and before she had time to prepare herself any further, he was standing in front of her, in a fancy suit once again. She pressed her hands against her thighs to hide how badly they were shaking.

  “Hey there,” he said simply, leaning against the car slightly like they were meeting up for a first date. He was handsome, that was for sure. She couldn’t blame herself for falling for his facade. His dark hair swooped naturally to one side like
he ran his fingers through it a thousand times a day, and his deep-blue eyes had a softness at the edges that seemed like empathy. But now that she knew he’d been lying to her about who knew how many things, these qualities seemed less like an indicator of the kind of person he was and more like a disguise. Seeing him in front of her was disarming. She’d expected to have the feelings of anger, betrayal, and suspicion follow her into the face-to-face meeting, but instead she was confused.

  “Hi.” The greeting stuck in her throat and came out garbled. She blinked back more tears, knowing that if she didn’t push through, they’d come out along with sobs very soon.

  “Oh, you’re in bad shape, aren’t you?” He took a step toward her with his hand out but stopped short of touching her. “What’s going on? Can I help?”

  The shaking from Veronica’s hands spread up her arms and into her shoulders and torso. She blew out a breath and bounced her leg up and down, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. Where to start?

  “My daughter . . . is missing.” She barely got the words out, but once they hung in the air between them, she watched his reaction. She may have been imagining things, but he seemed to stumble backward, like he’d been shoved by unseen hands.

  “Missing? Your daughter?”

  “Yeah, my little girl, Sophie. I woke up this morning, and she was gone. Gone. The police—”

  “You called the police?” he interrupted, regaining the ground he’d lost during her last revelation and putting himself so close she could feel his breath against her cheek.

  “Yeah, Mark, that’s what you tend to do when your baby goes missing.” He was nearly six inches taller than she was, and she had to look up at a sharp angle to meet his eyes, but with her head tipped back, she stared him down, the vulnerability leaving her voice and a hardness firming it up instead.

  “No, I get that, I mean . . .” He stuttered through a response, and she absolutely knew in that moment that he was hiding something.