“It was a legal tactic—”

   “I meant, to me,” you interrupt. “When I asked you about it before, you said someone else must have been using her photograph.”

A long silence. “Yes. I’m sorry. The fact is, I couldn’t bear for Abbie to be anything less than perfect. So I kept quiet about that aspect of her.”

“That she was sexual, you mean?”

“That she was flawed.” Tim looks haggard. “Abbie had so few faults that, when I came across one, it was always a shock. It’s hypocritical, I know—I’m hardly a saint. I’m sorry.”

“If I’m going to find her, you have to be straight with me.”

“Yes. I get that, I really do. And from now on, I will be.”

* * *

—

Eventually he announces he’s off to bed. You tell him you’ll stay up for a while, to keep thinking.

But the truth is, you just want to be alone. Was what Tim told the police really just a tactical lie? Is it possible he’s playing some kind of psychological chess game, even now? And if so, why?

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it was Tim who pushed Abbie into flirting with strangers on dating sites…For Abbie, might that have been the final nail in the coffin of her fairy-tale marriage? Combined with the realization that she and Tim were never going to agree about Danny, could that have been what tipped her into deciding to leave? But if so, something went wrong; something that prevented her from taking Danny as she’d planned.

What would she do in that situation? Would she just give up?

Maybe she’d do something you haven’t even hypothesized yet. Something that explains all these dangling loose ends—

And that’s when you have it. Another flash of intuition.

You go and get the burner phone, the one you installed Messenger on. Opening the app, you find your exchange with Friend. The last message reads:

   When you’ve figured it out, we’ll talk.

You type in two words, then press SEND.

And the response comes back within seconds.

At last.

65

   You’re Abbie, you wrote.

It’s so obvious, really.

You type:

What do you want?

Again the response is immediate.

I want you to find me.

You type:

Why? Where are you?

This time the pause is longer. As if she’s deleted a couple of different responses before finally pressing SEND.

Sorry. Not safe. You have to work it out. Then you have to come.

   You type:

Why? What do you want from me?

Again the response is just two words. Two words that make perfect sense.

Bring Danny.

66

   You send a dozen more messages—What happened? Are you still in the US? Are you with someone? Are you OK?—but there’s no reply.

Eventually you give up and put the phone down. So Abbie’s definitely not dead. You’d been sure of it anyway, but it’s good to have this confirmation. And while you still can’t be sure why she failed to take Danny, it seems like it was a mishap of some kind.

A mishap she’s relying on you to put right.

You realize something else, too. If Abbie expects you to bring Danny to her, she’s still in America. She must know you’d never get through a border.

For a moment you consider how strange it is that she trusts you. But then, she’d assume you share the same maternal instincts—that at some level, her feelings are your feelings.

And of course she’s desperate. Just as, for a different reason, you are, too.

TWENTY-TWO

   We didn’t see so much of Abbie after Danny was born. She’d come into the office sometimes, pushing a high-end Stokke stroller and greeting old friends. The women cuddled the baby with a mixture of delight and envy. The men did the same, but more briefly, and principally because Abbie might be a mother now but she was still really hot. Generally, though, these visits occurred because she was en route to Tim’s office to collect him for some function or other, so there was never much time to chat. Occasionally someone would ask about her art, and she’d say it was difficult with a little one, so she was effectively on a career break.

Still, she seemed happy enough. And Tim—whom none of us would have considered a natural father—seemed happy, too. When Danny started walking, Tim even brought him to work on family days, proudly going from meeting to meeting with Danny’s little hand in his. There were pictures of Danny and Abbie on his office wall. His assistant, Morag, said he even remembered their birthdays.

Which was why, when the Jaki thing happened, many of us were surprised. Jaki was a curvy blonde with a nose piercing and short bleached hair. She wore tight dresses that emphasized her figure, and it was rumored she had a social media account on some obscure platform that showed a great deal more. Her weekends were spent clubbing and partying, and she never missed Coachella or Joshua Tree or any of the other big festivals; they were as fixed in her calendar as Thanksgiving or Christmas were in ours. And she was fun. Right from the start, if there was a birthday or a promotion to celebrate, Jaki was there at the center of things, ordering rounds of drinks, announcing shots, planning where we were going next, and talking nineteen to the dozen. She was very easy to talk to, or rather to listen to, because she leapt from subject to subject in a torrent of thoughts, opinions, reactions.

   Tim seemed to like chatting to Jaki. We thought maybe that was because he didn’t really enjoy socializing, and being around her meant he’d never be stuck for small talk. But gradually we noticed it wasn’t just at the big social events. They hung out in the bagel room together. They chatted in the parking lot. And then there was the night of the Crunchies, the annual awards show run by the website TechCrunch at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. A resurgent Scott Robotics was up for several accolades, including Best Technology Achievement, while Tim was nominated for Founder of the Year. The firm booked out three large circular tables, eight to a table. Tim, Mike, and Elijah wore tuxedos. The women wore cocktail dresses—even Jenny, whom no one had ever seen in any kind of dress before. The invitees were a mixed bunch. The men were Tim’s favorites, or those who had contributed most and worked the hardest (three categories that, it had to be said, were almost indistinguishable), while the women had possibly been selected with more of an eye as to how stunning they would look in those dresses.