Down in the kitchen, drops of rain popping against the window, I pour more merlot into a tumbler. A long swig. I needed that.
Focus.
What do I know now that I didn’t know before? Alistair kept his work and home lives separate. Consistent with the profile of many violent offenders, but otherwise not useful. Moving on: He was prepared to relocate to his firm’s New York branch, even bought property, shipped the whole family south . . . but then something went wrong, and he hasn’t landed anywhere.
What happened?
My flesh creeps. It’s cool in here. I shuffle to the fireplace, twist the knob by the grate. A little garden of flame blooms.
I ease myself onto the sofa, into the cushions, the wine tilting in the glass, my robe swirled around me. It could use a wash. I could use a wash.
My fingers slip into my pocket. Again they brush Little’s card. Again they release it.
And again I watch myself, my shadow self, in the television screen. Sunk in the pillows, in my dull robe, I look like a ghost. I feel like a ghost.
No. Focus. Next move. I place the glass on the coffee table, prop my elbows on my knees.
And realize I have no next move. I can’t even prove the existence, present or past, of Jane—my Jane, the real Jane—much less her disappearance. Or death.
Or death.
I think of Ethan, trapped in that house. Nice boy.
My fingers push their way through my hair, as though they’re plowing a field. I feel like a mouse in a maze. It’s experimental psych all over again: those tiny creatures, with their pinprick eyes and balloon-string tails, scurrying into first one dead end, then another. “Come on,” we’d urge them from overhead as we laughed, placed bets.
I’m not laughing now. I wonder once more if I should talk to Little.
But instead I talk to Ed.
“So you’re going a little stir-crazy, are you, slugger?”
I sigh, drag my feet across the study carpet. I’ve tugged the blinds down so that that woman can’t watch me; the room is striped with dim light, like a cage.
“I feel completely useless. I feel as though I’m at a movie and the film is over and the lights are up and everyone’s filed out of the theater and I’m still sitting there, trying to work out what happened.”
He snickers.
“What? What’s funny?”
“It’s just that it’s very you to liken this to a movie.”
“Is it?”
“It is.”
“Well, my points of reference are somewhat limited these days.”
“Okay, okay.”
I’ve said nothing about last night. Even as I think of it, I wince. But the rest unspools like a celluloid reel: the message from the impostor, the earring in David’s apartment, the box cutter, the phone call with Alex.
“It feels like something out of a film,” I repeat. “And I’d think you’d be more alarmed.”
“About what?”
“For one thing, about the fact that my tenant has a dead woman’s jewelry in his bedroom.”
“You don’t know that it’s hers.”
“I do. I’m sure of it.”
“You can’t be. You’re not even sure that she’s . . .”
“What?”
“You know.”
“What?”
Now he sighs. “Alive.”
“I don’t think she’s alive.”
“I mean that you’re not even sure that she exists, or ever—”
“Yes, I am. I am sure. I am not delusional.”
Silence. I listen to him breathe.
“You don’t think you’re being paranoid?”
And before he’s finished, I’m on top of him: “It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening.”
Silence. This time he doesn’t follow up.
When I speak again, my voice jangles. “It’s very frustrating to be questioned like this. It’s very, very frustrating to be stuck here.” I gulp. “In this house, and in this . . .” I want to say loop, but by the time I’ve found the word, he’s talking.
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
“I imagine, then. Look, Anna,” he continues before I can jump in. “You’ve been going at warp speed for two straight days. All weekend. Now you’re saying David might have something to do with . . . whatever.” He coughs. “You’re winding yourself up. Maybe tonight you can just watch a movie or read or something. Go to bed early.” Cough. “Are you taking your meds properly?”
No. “Yes.”
“And you’re keeping off the booze?”
Of course not. “Of course.”
A pause. I can’t tell if he believes me.
“Got anything to say to Livvy?”
I exhale in relief. “I do.” I listen to the rain drumming its fingers against the glass. And a moment later I hear her voice, soft and breathy.
“Mommy?”
I beam. “Hi, pumpkin.”
“Hi.”
“You doing well?”
“Yes.”
“I miss you.”
“Mm.”
“What’s that?”
“I said ‘mm.’”
“Does that mean ‘I miss you too, Mommy’?”
“Yes. What’s happening there?”
“Where?”
“In New York City.” That’s how she’s always referred to it. So formal.
“You mean at home?” My heart swells: home.
“Yes, at home.”
“Just something with the new neighbors. Our new neighbors.”
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing really, pumpkin. Just a misunderstanding.”
Then I hear Ed again. “Look, Anna—sorry to interrupt, kiddo: If you’re worried about David, you ought to get in touch with the police. Not because he’s, you know . . . necessarily involved in whatever’s going on, but—he’s got a record, and you shouldn’t be afraid of your own tenant.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Okay?”
I nod again.
“You’ve got that cop’s number?”
“Little. I’ve got it.”
I peek through the blinds. There’s a flicker of movement across the park. The Russells’ front door has swung open, a bright flap of white in the gray drizzle.
“Okay,” says Ed, but I’m not listening anymore.
When the door closes, the woman has appeared on the stoop. She’s in a knee-length red coat, like the flame of a torch, and above her head bobs a translucent half-moon umbrella. I reach for my camera on the desk, lift it to my eye.
“What was that?” I ask Ed.
“I said I want you to take care of yourself.”
I’m peering through the viewfinder. Streaks of rainwater like varicose veins slide down the umbrella. I lower the lens, zoom in on her face: the tip-tilt nose, the milky skin. Dark clouds brew under her eyes. She hasn’t been sleeping.
By the time I say goodbye to Ed, she’s slowly descending the front steps in her high boots. She stops, withdraws her phone from her pocket, studies it; then she tucks it away and turns east, toward me. Her face is blurry behind the bowl of the umbrella.
I’ve got to speak to her.