“I want to be alone tonight.”
“Where are you? Maybe I could come over and keep you company.”
“No.”
“Tell me where you are. You’re not with her, are you?”
“No.” Although Trish would appreciate the irony of me renting Laurel an apartment in the same complex where, forty-plus years ago, a spectacular break-in led to the national crisis that indirectly cost Jack Riggs his Treasury Department job when his chief benefactor was removed from office, Trish doesn’t know about this apartment.
“I should tell you a police detective visited me tonight.”
A cold gust blows river mist toward the open window. As I think about the counterfeit cash, my pulse quickens. Simpkins was supposed to give me forty-eight hours before calling the police. I hadn’t thought he’d double-cross me like this, giving me barely—what?—forty-eight minutes before unleashing the law on me. DC cops aren’t supposed to be this tenacious pursuing what only amounts to white-collar crime.
“A detective came to Savory Mew. He just left. It was you he wanted to speak with.”
“Why? Why did he come?”
A moment elapses. “You honestly don’t know?”
“Of course I don’t know!”
“I’m so glad to hear this,” Trish says, letting out a huge sigh. “You know nothing about it, do you? Anne Elise is missing from the hospital.”
The news takes my breath away. “Oh my god.” I can’t think of anything else to say, any other way to express my dismay. “Oh my god.” As angry as I feel toward Laurel, I’d never want anything bad to happen to Anne Elise. “Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh.” Trish, too, seems upset by what happened. Until this moment, listening to her shock and anger at Anne Elise’s disappearance, I hadn’t realized just how much she must love the baby. “It’s horrible. She’s been missing for hours. They can’t find her anywhere. You didn’t know?”
“Why do you think I’d know?”
“I hesitate to tell you this, but the police think you’ve run off with her. Or worse. I tried to tell them you’d never do anything like that, that you’re calm and gentle. I think Laurel’s been talking to them.”
“Laurel?” I can’t make sense of this. Why would Laurel say anything against me when she’s the one trying to bamboozle me into thinking Anne Elise is mine so that I’d support the both of them all their lives?
“Think about it. She’s not a stable person. You told me yourself her parents are sketchy. So she thinks you’re going to dump her—”
“How did she get that idea in her head?” I ask, interrupting Trish. Although I intimated to Trish that I was contemplating dumping Laurel—mostly to keep Trish from dumping me—I never suggested such a thing to Laurel.
“James. Hear me out. What matters is what she thinks. As she’s lying in her hospital bed, depressed and infected, what she thinks is, ‘Hey, James is still going home to his wife each night, making love with her, eating fantastic lamb dinners with her. I bet he’s going to dump me.’ That’s what she’s thinking.”
Lamb dinners? How would Laurel know about the lamb dinner Trish cooked last night? Yesterday, when Trish visited Laurel ostensibly to spend time with Anne Elise, what she must’ve really been doing was spreading lies about the affection I still harbor for her. Trish’s got Laurel believing I remain happily though perhaps unconventionally married. Which is ironic, because that’s exactly what I wanted Trish to think, and yet she’s preying on Laurel’s insecurities and inclinations toward jealousy, cranking up her fears or encouraging her to take preemptive actions against me out of spite. As I listen to Trish, my whole body tenses up. I grab the sides of the rocking chair I’m sitting on. Everyone’s tightening the screws on me.
“Do you know what I mean?” Trish asks. “She’s so sure you’re abandoning her that she turns passive aggressive and bad-mouths you to the police. It would be funny except that the police believe her lies. This could wind you up in jail.”
“Jail?” I lower the phone from my ear and moan. Everyone is determined to put the squeeze on me. Simpkins. Tully. Laurel. Trish. In no mood whatsoever to ac-cent-tchu-ate anything but anger, I let out a howl. Darker numbers from the Johnny Mercer songbook play through my mind—“Blues in the Night” and “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”—songs of languor and alcoholically anesthetized heartbreak, a clickety-clack leading to the realization that “a woman’s a two-face, a worrisome thing.” Did Johnny Mercer ever write a song about a revenge killing? Because that’s the kind of song I need to sing—something cold and vicious. Laurel’s been lying to police about me. I’m liable to go to jail. I’m distraught, trying to figure out how I got myself into this position. If I had Trish’s Valiums, I’d give them all to Laurel so she’d overdose and die. One thing’s for certain: I’m never going to love Laurel again.
“Hey? Are you all right?” Trish asks.
“Sure, babe. What could be wrong? I’m a lucky man, having someone like you in my corner to alert me to what’s going on. Thanks.”
Not for the first time, my magnanimous attitude takes Trish aback. I hear it in the hitch in her voice, the extra moment she takes to thank me for the compliment. She’s either crossing her eyes, thinking I’m the stupidest guy alive, or staring wide-eyed at her phone, telling herself she’s the luckiest woman alive to be married to someone as kindhearted and generous as me. But me? I grit my teeth, hang up the phone, and seethe, so angry at Trish and Laurel that I could kill them both.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
LAUREL
An hour or more later, I awake so clearheaded that I’m zapped with the impression I must be dead. No nurses crowd around my bed, no needles prick my arms. Nor do smug monkey doctors tell me to spread my legs or take a peek down there. I’m alone, thankfully alone, but though I’m buried beneath what feels like six feet of blankets, I’m no sack o’ bones waiting for the mortician’s slab. The antibiotics have done their trick. I’m alert and more energetic than I’ve been in days. True to their word, the doctors have disconnected me from my IV: no tubing coils from my wrist, connecting me to an IV bag, a stainless steel IV stand, or anything else that threatens to topple down on me should I move my arm too suddenly.
Feeling like a rooster at the break of the day, I shrug off the blankets. In these early-morning hours, the maternity ward is quiet and dark. Though I may no longer be infected, the episiotomy itself still hasn’t healed. I wince at the pain between my legs. A lesser rooster would be dissuaded by the pain, but I shimmy out of bed, step to the closet, slide into the cranberry peacoat I last wore when checking into the hospital, and grab my purse. The lights in the hallway are dimmed for the evening. No nurses, doctors, or janitors patrol the hallways. It’s up to me to find Zerena.
An exit door leads to a brightly lit stairwell. Hospitals are no place for a healthy person. Yesterday, doctors said my infection had gone away, yet it came back. Now that they’ve cured me again, every minute I remain here increases the chances I’ll catch another infection, and so I scooch down the stairs, neither nimble nor quick, a slow-and-steady tortoise intent on winning the race. Downstairs, I realize I left my phone in my room, but it’s way too late to go back. I hobble across the lobby and pass through the revolving door. Outside, everything is calm, immaculate, the sounds of the city absorbed by the snow that falls in abundance. I pause, catch my breath, brace myself against a NO PARKING sign in the pick-up/drop-off zone. Cold will dull the pain that pierces me between my legs. This is what I tell myself. Snow is falling in thick, juicy flakes. Someday, perhaps in a couple of years, I will build a snowman with Zerena on a night like this. For now though, I need to find her.