Two days later, I was surprised to hear the intercom buzz with Cecilia’s code. I heard the car pull up outside and, frowning, went to the door before she had a chance to knock. She had sent me a bunch of lists via email yesterday and she wasn’t supposed to be back for at least a week.
“What are you doing back, Cecilia?”
“Where is Rabbit?”
Her brusque tone set me on edge. “She’s lying down with another headache. How did you get here? Why didn’t you call?”
“I flew of course. I was busy tracking down our pilot, who thought he had a few days off, so I could get here quickly. So forgive me for not calling,” she snapped.
My stomach tightened at her tone. “What’s going on, Cecilia?”
Cecilia grabbed my hand silently and dragged me upstairs. She sat down at the computer and started typing rapidly. She pulled on my hand indicating I needed to be closer and I kneeled down beside her, my stomach clenched in fear.
I watched in dismay as a news story came on and they aired a piece of a press conference. On the screen was a tall man, slightly older than myself. He was begging for the return of his wife who had been missing for a week. I half heard through the buzzing in my ears as he talked in a broken voice about coming home and seeing his wife lying on the floor covered in blood. Of being attacked from behind. Waking up in the hospital two days later to be told his wife was gone. Everything around me faded away as he spoke of how much his wife meant to him, how they were about to start a family. How much he missed her. I watched as he spoke, begging for her safe return. Pleading with whoever had her to contact him. He needed his wife back. His voice broke and he turned away from the camera.
I blinked in disbelief. This was the story I had dismissed. The dates hadn’t matched. The couple looked so much older in the blurry picture I had seen. The woman wasn’t Rabbit. She couldn’t be Rabbit.
Then the news anchor came back with an update. It had been two weeks since the story first aired and still no new information had been discovered, leaving Elizabeth James still missing.
A picture went up and I stared at a clearer image of Rabbit. She was dressed in a black formal gown, standing beside her husband, Brian, at a charity function. She looked … different. Her hair was swept up and she was looking down, away from the camera, shyly. Her husband’s arm was wrapped around her waist possessively.
“When did you find this?” I asked; my voice thick with barely-contained emotion.
“It was on TV last night, Joshua. The original press conference happened weeks ago and this was just an update.”
I sat immobilized with numbness.
Rabbit was married.
Rabbit had another life.
Rabbit was someone else. She belonged to someone else.
Internally, I shook my head.
No. She belonged here. With me.
“I looked,” I insisted. “As soon as the power came back, I looked; I searched. I even saw the article that was posted in the paper, but it didn’t look like her. That’s a different picture of her. And the dates were wrong. It didn’t match up!”
“I know, Joshua. That happens sometimes. I read the same article you did, but they had the date listed incorrectly. And although the story made the headlines at first, Joshua, it died off fairly quickly. Brian James is well known in Toronto, but probably not outside of it. He is a wealthy businessman. By the time you looked, it wasn’t front page news anymore. I just happened to catch this last night. I hadn’t paid any attention before. Since they live outside this community and given the chaos that has been going on here, I’m sure it hardly even registered with the local channels given all the trouble caused by the storm.”
Inside my voice was screaming. No, she doesn’t live far away—Rabbit lives here—with me.
“No one else knows,” I whispered, looking at Cecilia desperately. “No one knows she’s here.”
Cecilia gasped. “Joshua! You can’t keep this from her. She’d never forgive you.”
I looked at her and her angry gaze softened as she took in my expression.
“You can’t do that to her, Joshua,” she insisted gently. “If you care about her, if you really care, you have to tell her.”
“Maybe he’s lying.”
Cecilia looked at me. “Maybe he isn’t. He is a respected businessman Joshua. Well-known and esteemed in many prominent social circles. I did some checking last night.”
I looked at the picture that was frozen on the screen. I wouldn’t have recognized her immediately. “She looks … older, so serious. And so thin.”
“Joshua.” Cecilia’s voice was patient. “She is the wife of a wealthy businessman. She is no doubt very conscious of her appearance and how she presents herself. I did some checking on her as well. Elizabeth James doesn’t work. She volunteers her time. She’s on the boards of a few charities. She attends a lot of public dinners and social functions.”
“How long?”