She searched his eyes, begging for leniency, looking for the humanity in there, but what she found was the opposite, an unmistakable clarity, a sober intensity. Suddenly Charlie didn’t seem drunk at all. What he seemed like was a cold, calculating monster.
He reached for his belt buckle, and everything seemed to be happening faster than reality, as if a sped-up film, skipping frames—the frame where she says Get the fuck away from me, the frame where she kicks Charlie in the crotch, the frame where she bursts through the door, runs to Bucky, collapses into his protective embrace. All those frames are missing. None of that will happen.
In the minutes and hours and days and months and years and decade to come, Ariel would revisit this moment again and again, ask herself what she should’ve done differently. Not come to this party in the first place? Not slunk off to the poolhouse to wallow in self-loathing self-pity? Should she have punched Charlie in the nose, clawed at his eyes? Taken his cock in her mouth to bite down on it? Should she have screamed at the top of her lungs, again and again until her throat was hoarse and the sound unbearable and the cavalry came rushing?
But then what?
Then this is who Ariel would have become, for tonight and tomorrow, for the rest of her life: the woman whom Charlie Wolfe assaulted during his summer party.
No: allegedly assaulted.
*
Kayla Jefferson is on the phone again.
“I finally got the full report on John Wright, born John Reitwovski. A few interesting details jump out. First, he did Army ROTC, and served his commitment in Afghanistan.”
“Interesting indeed,” Griffiths agrees.
“Not as interesting as his next move, which is why it took so long to get his details. He resigned his army commission when he was accepted by us.”
“Us?”
“John Wright,” Kayla says, “was CI-goddamn-A.”
CHAPTER 36
DAY 2. 9:03 P.M.
“Thank you for giving us this time.” Detective Moniz extends a plastic bag. “Sandwiches.” He looks at Ariel. “For you too.”
Two nights in a row, these cops have bought her dinner. That’s nice. But that doesn’t mean she can trust them.
“Thank you,” she says. John unpacks the bag onto the table, while Ariel collects plates, napkins, utensils: methodical but mindless domesticity, automatic muscle memory.
“Did they feed you?” Moniz asks. “Your kidnappers?”
“Yes, plain bread with ham.” John has a bite of sandwich, then another.
“For every meal? Breakfast also?”
John stops chewing, stares at the cop with unmasked hostility. “I can barely stay upright, and you’re asking me about my kidnapping’s meal plan? Is that really why you’re here?”
“Please, Senhor Wright, calm down. We are trying to look for clues. You might be surprised where we find them.”
Moniz opens his notepad. Santos is, as always, listening and observing, not asking and writing.
“Including, yes, meals. Including everything. But I understand that you are tired, and scared, and injured. So we will do this quickly, then we will leave you. Okay?”
John nods. He looks ashamed of his outburst.
“Excellent,” Moniz says. “If you do not mind, from the beginning, please.”
John nods, puts down his sandwich, wipes his face, his hands. “Yesterday—was it really just yesterday?—I woke up very early. Too early.”
“What time is that, please?” Moniz has started writing.
“About five-thirty. Lying in bed, I realized I wouldn’t fall back to sleep, so I took a shower, got dressed, left to take a walk, maybe grab a coffee, buy some pastéis de nata for my wife.” He turns to Ariel. “She loves them, and there’s a famous bakery nearby. I left a note for her on the pillow.”
“I didn’t get it,” Ariel says. “It must’ve fallen off the bed. A chambermaid found it later, when she made up the room. But that wasn’t until the afternoon, by which point I was losing my mind. I had no idea where you were, anything …”
“I’m so sorry.”
Moniz turns to Ariel. “Do you normally remain asleep while your husband rises?”
“No.”
“But you did yesterday?”
“I’d taken a sleeping pill the night before, to adjust to the time change. It knocked me out.”
“What is the name of this pill?”
“I don’t know …” She glances at John.
“Ambien,” John says.
“You are sure? There is no other pill you could have given to your wife? Perhaps by mistake?”
John recoils at the implicit accusation. “No. The only pills in the canister are Ambien.”
“And then, you left the hotel at”—Moniz glances down—“a few minutes before seven.”
“Yes. There was a car in front of the hotel, and as soon as I stepped outside, the back door opened. A man climbed out, said to me, Mr. Wright, there’s an emergency, something very sensitive that can’t be discussed on the telephone. I assumed it had to do with my client, because of course that’s why I was—why I am—here. This guy looked around, as if searching for eavesdroppers, then asked if I’d mind getting into the car for a minute, so he could explain.”
“Did you know this man? Recognize him?”
“No, I’d never seen him before.”
“And what did he sound like? Was he speaking English?”
“Yes. With a Portuguese accent.”
“And you entered this car?”
“I did. But as I was bending over, I felt a sharp pain in my rear, and I thought what the hell, and I may have said hey or something, and I felt myself falling forward, and I was dizzy, then that was it: I was out. When I came to, I was alone in a room with no windows, one door, nothing except a bed and a pillow. I tried the door handle, but it was locked. I banged, and a few seconds later I heard a man on the other side say, Sit on the bed. I didn’t move immediately, and he said, We are watching from a camera. I looked around and saw it mounted on the ceiling. So I sat, and the door opened. Two men were in a hallway: one right at the door, the other ten feet behind. The second man was holding a gun, pointing it at me.”
“What did these men look like?”
“Both wore black pants, long-sleeved black shirts, balaclavas that covered everything except the eyes, and sunglasses. I couldn’t see anything else.”
“That is a pity. What size are these men?”
“Both about six feet.”
“The two are the same exact build?”
“More or less.”
“Interesting.”
“One of them said, You’ve been kidnapped. We don’t want to hurt you. We’ve asked for ransom within forty-eight hours.”
“This is exactly what they said?”
“I’m paraphrasing.”
Ariel steals a glance at Santos, who’s looking around the room, taking in the details, or pretending to. Ariel had assumed that Santos would be a natural ally, despite plenty of evidence that not all women believed in female solidarity, or agreed on what it might mean. Ariel was reminded of this every Election Day. And she’s reminded right now by the cold hard stare of this Portuguese detective, who’s clearly not giving anyone blanket credibility, regardless of shared biology.
“So I ate my sandwiches,” John continues, “and drank my water, and once in a while I went to the bathroom. I also slept, but I don’t know for how long, or when. There was no way for me to keep track of time.”