But Yvonne has stopped listening. “The truth is, I don’t know what I believe anymore. Or where Donny is right now. I just know I’d rather he was upstairs.”
“Of course,” Alice says, nodding. “In heaven.”
“I meant in his bedroom!”
I say goodbye and drag Alice down the front steps, feeling our way, because the porch lightbulb is out and the streetlights on Washington Street are dead.
“Girl! Wait,” Yvonne yells, ducking inside. The door swings wide and a yellow glow pulses in her place. We trudge back up the stairs and linger unspeaking for what feels like forever. Finally, the creak-drag of the walker grows loud.
Yvonne hands me a piece of paper. The front of her coat dress is smudged with black charcoal. “Keep this. To remember he was human.”
She slams the door and a lock scrapes on the other side. I stare at the sketch of Donny’s work in progress for a moment before slipping it carefully into my bag. The opening credits of a cop show blast and a blue light glows in the front window. We turn to leave. Across the street opposite and a house down from Alice’s sedan is the black SUV, lights off. A shadowy figure sits in the driver’s seat, head down over the wheel, waiting to exact her agreed-upon request, my half of the bargain. The exclusive post-Mama Jessup interview-interview.
Alice stops. “Hey.” She points. “Is that…?”
I turn to Alice. “I need you to go home now, Alice.”
“What does Paula want?”
To frame the conflict. To do her job.
“To help me.”
ELEVEN
Later
The cabin of Paula’s pristine SUV is hermetically sealed to highway noise. If I start to speak, Paula gently hushes me, telling me I ought to let my conversation with Yvonne marinate, an expression that strikes me as vaguely gross. I sink into my seat, smelling like Yvonne’s Tiger Balm and counting exits, Donny’s unfinished sketch screaming to me from my messenger bag. I’ve already decided I will not be sharing Yvonne’s gift with Paula, not before I confirm what I think I know. At the eighth exit the WFYT News studio rises like a spaceship made of steel and tinted glass. A parking attendant in a booth bundled against the cold waves us in, and then we’re on the move, me rushing to keep up with Paula in her heels that click fast over the cold, contracted pavement. In the lobby, a guard in an office walled with grainy security monitors watches Jeopardy! on the flat-screen in the waiting area. He greets “Miss Paula” with a gold-toothed smile. While Paula asks him about his hospitalized mother, I slip my phone from my pocket to check for texts from Alice telling me our gig is up; from Mom, checking in on me; and, in truth, from Liv. There are none.
I walk over to the elevator and jab the button.
“We’re taking the stairs,” Paula says, blowing past me and leaning backward against a heavy door.
“How long will it take?” I say, following her through the door.
“An hour tops,” she says.
“Then the interview will be on the ten o’clock news, or the eleven?” I ask as we mount the stairs, calculating the time I have to prep Mom for the inconceivable act of allowing Paula to interview me.
She yells back, “Eight Eastern Standard!” There’s something peculiar about calling it Eastern Standard, but I can barely keep up, never mind ask another question. She’s attacking the stairs now, elbows tight at her sides, up three flights, her pace unforgiving. It feels a bit like punishment for the day in the woods when I outran her. Tonight, she’s in the lead. As she hits the third landing ahead of me, I call out, “Paula!”
She turns. “Yes?”
“What do you mean, Eastern Standard?” I pant.
“This isn’t going to be on tonight’s news, Julia. We’re recording tonight, but it’s going to be on Friday night. The eve of the anniversary.”
“Naturally,” I mumble, bleeding sarcasm.
She steps back down to my landing, speaking as she walks. “We all had to spin into action after you called me. But your interview fits the Dateline NBC format perfectly: telling true-crime stories via interviews with the people involved. New York was willing to wait to wrap production until the last possible minute.”
“Dateline? But”—I falter—“you work for WFYT.”
“I do. I’m being billed as a Dateline guest correspondent. Your interview is part of a larger segment on the Shiverton Abduction being produced in New York as we speak. I’m sure I mentioned it.”
I grip the railing. “I’m sure you did not!” My voice echoes in the stairwell.
“The news is the news, Julia. You agreed to an interview. If I didn’t mention which news show it would be aired on, I don’t see how it makes a difference,” Paula says.
“Dateline is a national show. That’s shown everywhere,” I say, feeling like someone stepped on my chest.
“Indeed. You seem nervous about that. If your mother truly gave consent, I don’t see what the problem is,” she says. “Or is that untrue?”