“Why for now?”
“A court may order me destroyed.”
You explain about the legal proceedings, careful to frame them not as something Lisa requested to spare her family pain, but rather as the machinations of a big corporation eager to control and monetize Tim’s breakthrough.
“So that’s why I’m here,” you conclude. “If I can understand what prompted you to file that child protection report, I may be able to use it to stop myself getting wiped.”
Boyd fiddles nervously with his necklace. “I guess the question is, are you Abbie? If you’re not, I can’t tell you. But if you are, confidentiality isn’t an issue.”
“The lawyers would say I’m not,” you admit. “But then, the lawyers would say I don’t have a soul.”
“Yes.” He’s clearly torn. “It’s a tricky one.”
“I feel like I’m Abbie, though,” you lie. “I have Abbie’s thoughts, Abbie’s consciousness, Abbie’s memories. What is identity, if not that?”
He hesitates. “Why don’t you tell me what you need to know? And then I’ll tell you whether I can share it.”
* * *
—
Within ten minutes, you’ve got him talking. Boyd would never have felt comfortable speaking to the police—he’s way too alternative for that—but you’re a different matter.
“I’d been her counselor for a long time,” he explains. “It was a condition of her prenup that she have one. But gradually, we stopped talking about her so-called addiction and focused more on her other issues.”
“Why so-called?”
“Abbie was only ever a recreational abuser. Of course, there are plenty of people who do graduate from recreational use to full-blown addiction. So you can believe either that Tim did her a favor by nipping it in the bud…or that he massively overreacted in the first place.”
Interesting. “And what were these other issues you discussed?”
“Danny,” he answers quietly. “We talked about Danny a lot. Abbie was…Well, I’d say she was traumatized by what had happened to him. The outside world saw the beautiful, positive woman who just got on with it. The amazing mother who took everything in her stride. In this room, I saw a woman struggling to come to terms with heartbreak.”
“You helped her with that.”
“I tried.” Boyd looks troubled. “That is, I listened. She was so used to not being listened to that at first it was hard for her. But little by little she opened up. I doubt anyone else had seen that side of her. Certainly not her husband.”
Piers Boyd had been a little bit in love with Abbie, you realize. Did she use her beauty and her vulnerability to manipulate him? Or are you being too cynical about that?
“And what was the specific issue that made you file a child protection report?” you ask. “Was it to do with drugs? Drinking?”
Boyd shakes his head. “Nothing like that. She was planning to abduct Danny.”
You sit back, reeling. “Abduct him? How?”
“He’d been put in a special-ed school, one chosen by Tim. He’d showed Abbie all these studies proving it was the most effective placement, bullied her into going along with it…It was only after Danny started there that she realized just how bad it was.”
“I know. I saw it myself, this morning.”
Boyd nods. “Horrible, right? Abbie had been through something similar herself, back in the rehab unit Tim put her in. But while she’d accepted it for herself, she couldn’t bear the thought of Danny suffering like that.”
“But…” You stop. In the last few hours all your assumptions about Abbie have been turned upside down. Not a bad mother, but a devoted one. Not a party animal, but a parent caught in an impossible position.
“The thing is, I was torn,” Boyd adds. “I could see why she hated that place. But it didn’t seem to me she’d properly thought through the alternative. They were just going to take off and start a new life somewhere, she claimed, like it was easy. But when I pressed her, she didn’t know where or how, or what the arrangements for Danny’s education would be. He’s a vulnerable child. I couldn’t ignore what she was telling me—I could lose my license to practice. I thought if I flagged an issue, at least the police would get an educational psychologist to take a look at Meadowbank and assess whether it really was the right place for Danny.”
“But they didn’t.”
He shakes his head. “The report still hadn’t been acted on by the time she disappeared.”
“So what happened?”
He spreads his hands. “I’m as much in the dark as anyone. Maybe her plans changed. They were pretty vague, after all.”
You wonder if that’s true. The website had walked her through how to set up a new identity, how to live off-grid—
Tell no one what you plan to do, it had instructed. Not even those you trust the most.
“I think she knew exactly where she was going to take Danny,” you say slowly. “She just didn’t want to tell you. It was safer that way.”
Piers Boyd looks hurt, then nods as he sees the sense in what you’re saying. “But if that’s the case, why is Danny still at Meadowbank? And where’s Abbie? What went wrong?”
You shake your head. “That’s what I still don’t understand. But I intend to find out.”
62
Charles Carter comes to his door wearing an old gray cardigan. You weren’t surprised to find him home: He’d said he worked from there. Mergers and acquisitions, mostly.
“Come on in,” he says. He seems genuinely pleased to see you.
You follow him through the house to an office overlooking the beach. There are three computer screens on his desk, arranged like mirrors on a dressing table. One displays a stock-trading screen. A second is for Skype. The largest, the one in the middle, displays what looks like a contract he’s drafting. But it’s the picture on the wall behind the screens your eye is drawn to. It shows the view of the ocean from the boardwalk below, painted in a vibrant, almost street-art style, the waves reduced to abstract, clashing triangles of energy. In one corner you can just make out his boat, the Maggie.
Like the mural in Tim’s office, you think. You go over and look for the looping, flamboyant signature. Abbie Cullen-Scott.
“It’s good to see you again,” Charles Carter says. “There aren’t many people around at this time of year. I won’t deny it does get somewhat lonely out here.”