Nessa wondered what kind of grandparent her own mother would have been. While her in--laws drove her crazy, at least they weren’t like Joyce.
Thinking about her mother, Nessa was again struck by the similarities between John and Joyce—-how far he was willing to go to punish her for punishing him. When he felt wronged, he would hold on to his indignation like a precious treasure, clasped tightly to his chest, glaring out at Nessa with wounded eyes, daring her to ask him what was wrong. Just like her mother.
If she did ask, her mother would say, “Nothing. I’m fine.”
So would John, just like that. And then he’d lift his chin, with that hurt but brave posture like her mother’s.
The difference? When John did these things, Nessa would push back by pretending she didn’t notice that anything was wrong. She’d get louder and jollier, acting as if they’d never been so happy, just to goad him. And he’d get chillier and icier and more long--suffering, and she’d want to clock him in the face. And finally she’d lose her shit and scream at him, and he’d finally spill what his fucking problem was and they’d end up laughing, and then they’d tumble into the sheets and have make--up sex—-when he could get it up. The medication had put a damper on that, but the fact was she hadn’t minded that much.
With her mother, the silences were more dangerous. Scarier. Because as a kid, when Mom pulled the love away, you knew you were lost. You knew you didn’t exist anymore. She had made you disappear with her anger and disappointment.
But enough navel--gazing. She had work to do. Nessa sat at the table with her laptop and opened her email. She had several Google alert notices. DeadJohnDonati had been a busy boy.
She’d tried to talk Isabeau out of looking at the alerts anymore, but to no avail. Today, on Nessa’s blog, DeadJohnDonati had posted this:
Nessa trivia question: What was her secondary hobby as a teenager? Was it A) played in a band or B) charged $5 per blow job, $10 per lay, at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Highland Avenue?
Isabeau read over her shoulder before Nessa could close the browser.
“Now it’s just getting ridiculous,” Isabeau said. “I wonder if all this is having the opposite effect of what John intends. Oh, Nessa Donati, she’s from outer space! She’s got three heads! She was a hooker!”
If only it was ridiculous.
Nessa had to find him and stop him before everything came out. Now that her boy was gone, Nessa had work to do. She was going to find John. And she was going to stop him.
Chapter Seventeen
SHE WAITED AN hour before driving to the police station. She wanted to make sure Linda and Tony wouldn’t come back before she left.
At the station, she talked to the desk sergeant. “Can I speak to Detective Treloar?”
“He’s not in.”
She hated to ask for Dirksen, but she didn’t have any other choice. She sat in the waiting area, fidgeting, for fifteen minutes before Dirksen appeared.
She stood. Her voice shook. “Can we go somewhere private to talk?”
“Sure,” he said, and led her down the hall to an interview room. He pulled out a chair for her on one side of the table, then sat on the other side.
“I think my husband is alive,” Nessa said.
He wasn’t expecting that; it was clear from his surprised expression. “What are you talking about?”
“I have reason to believe that John staged his disappearance.”
It sounded even crazier when she said it out loud, and the contemptuous twist of the detective’s mouth reflected this.
“Really,” Dirksen said. “And why do you believe that?”
She swallowed. “I also think he’s the one who put the ad on FantasyIslandXXX.com. I assume you know about that.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he actually looked sympathetic, although maybe she just hoped he did.
Nessa explained most of the things that had been going on, unable to think of certain nouns, using too many words, sounding like a flustered hausfrau. It was humiliating and frustrating.
She handed the detective her file folder of screenshots: the comments, the website (without the naked photos, of course), the social media accounts—-everything she and Isabeau had found online. She hoped this would speak for her.
As the stack of paper clunked onto the desktop and rattled the ice in the detective’s fountain Coke, his mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me with this?”
“This isn’t all of it,” Nessa said.
He riffled through it, not really looking, and pushed it aside, probably to set in a pile along with all the books everyone says they’ve read but never quite get through, like Joyce’s Ulysses.
“Do you have a department that investigates cybercrime?”
He laughed. “No.”
“Can you contact the FBI, get their help? They probably have more resources to do this sort of thing than you guys do, right?”
“We’ll consider that.”
Nessa stared at him. “No, you won’t. I can see it in your face. You’re not going to do anything.”
“We have our hands full with real crimes, Mrs. Donati.”
“Like attempted rape?” she said. “Like that?”