“I said, do you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t. There’s been no word, and her accounts are turned off. You still haven’t heard from her? Where could she have gone?”
“What do you mean, her accounts are turned off?”
“It looks like she committed social media suicide.”
“I thought she’d done that ages ago.”
“Oh. Maybe she did, I don’t keep up with Facebook like I should. Where could she be?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve been searching our bank accounts, and there’s some money missing. The note she left... Ivy, I don’t know if she’s run away or if she’s hurt herself.”
An intake of breath. “Have you called the police?”
“No. They won’t do anything, you know that. Not so soon.”
“Ethan, you need to talk to them.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you think I need to speak with a lawyer first? I assure you, I haven’t done anything wrong. There’s nothing to protect myself from. But the moment I call them, you know how this is going to look.”
To her credit, Ivy didn’t slam down the phone. Her voice got mean and tight. “Swear to me right now, Ethan Montclair, that you have not done something to my best friend.”
“My God, Ivy, of course I didn’t. I love Sutton. I’d never hurt her. I’m scared, okay? And embarrassed. I know how the world thinks. The minute I call them...”
She sighed. “They will look at you. The husband is—”
“Always the first person the police look at. I know. But I’m not worried about that. I haven’t done anything wrong. I swear. I was only thinking, just in case, a sounding board wouldn’t be a horrible idea.”
“The police may see things differently. Didn’t you guys have dinner a few months ago with Joel Robinson?”
“He’s not just a lawyer, Ivy, he’s a well-known criminal defense attorney. Wouldn’t hiring Joel look bad? I was thinking just a regular guy.”
“What, you thought you’d talk to the man who drew up the contracts on your house? Look, you’re a British national, even though you have dual citizenship. You’re a public figure. Your wife is missing. No matter what, when you involve the police, they are going to take apart your lives. If you’re going to talk to anyone, Robinson is the best choice. Trust me.”
“Okay. I’ll call him. I promise. It’s only...”
More noise, the fever pitch growing louder, then a sudden silence. Ivy’s voice echoed. “Sorry, it’s madness here. I’m coming home right now.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to help, Ivy. I don’t need—”
“Stop it. Of course you need help. You two always need help. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Hang tight, okay?”
The relief he felt was palpable. Lately, Ivy was always better at handling Sutton than he was. His eyes closed and he said, “Okay. Travel safely. And, Ivy? Thank you.”
A TWIST OF THE KNIFE
Hanging up with Ivy, Ethan felt partially vindicated. Sutton was hiding something from him. He’d known that from the beginning. She wasn’t the kind of girl to reveal herself on the first date—well, not in a this is my past, warts and all sort of way. She wasn’t one for looking back.
Especially because of Sutton’s awful relationship with her mother, Ethan had always believed there was something about his wife’s past she was keeping private, keeping secret. Truth be told, he found it rather alluring, for the first few years, anyway. He’d asked once or twice what she was holding back, but she’d go ice-cold and would stop speaking to him. When he left it alone, she warmed up. Live in the now, and his ice princess would positively melt, and their lives would be spectacularly peaceful again.
He glanced over his shoulder. He almost expected her to be there, watching him. This was all a test, just to see how far he’d go to invade her privacy again, and Sutton would be livid that he’d been in her things.
Again. Because they’d been through this once before.
He used to—used to—check her internet history, trying to understand the mercurial woman he’d married. It was fascinating, her focus, and terrifying, all at the same time. Two years ago, for two weeks straight, she’d done nothing more than delve deep into something called borderline personality disorder. For a while, he’d thought she was researching for a character, but, curious, he started reading the same websites, and everything he saw startled him. She was researching herself. Looking for ways to handle the disease.
God, it explained so much. The narcissism, the coldness, the inappropriate affect when bad things happened to good people. She seemed so compassionless to him, lacking some sort of inner core that he’d never experienced in another person. Sometimes it turned him on, but other times, it scared him to the bone.
He’d known then he should confront her, get her to a psychiatrist, get her on medication. But the mind of a writer is a curious place. It can see the smallest fragment of reality and spin it into a world heretofore unknown.
So instead of sitting down with his wife and asking what he could do to help, he’d made an epic, life-changing mistake.
He’d taken the kernel of the idea, married it to the research, and built himself a character.
Strike one, buddy.
And of course, that character came alive for him in ways no one could ever imagine, considering the model was only an arm’s length away. The story unfolded in front of him, and he was helpless to stop it. Once the woman in his brain came to life, it was as if he were on a train, barreling toward the station.
If only he’d known he was actually on a steep descent into the depths of the earth.
He’d pitched the idea to Bill, a story about a sociopathic young mother struggling to be normal, and Bill had sold the idea to Ethan’s publisher the next day, for a gigantic wad of cash.
He had asked them to be very careful when they publicly discussed the sale, wanting to be sure no one let slip the subject of the book. Of course, some intern blew it, entranced with the description, and posted the blurb of what the book was about from his proposal in the actual announcement. And Sutton had seen it.
He thought he’d known coldness from her before. Now he was face-to-face with an Antarctic glacier. His own fault, too. That breach started them down the long path, unraveled their relationship quickly and neatly. The things that followed—the affair, the death of the baby, the book cancellation, now Sutton’s disappearance—were all because he’d decided to be an arse and profit on her back.
Oddly, they never discussed what they both knew—he’d been spying on her, and had taken her work for his own. Her work on herself. She mentioned casually she’d changed her passwords, citing a hack of her email, but they both knew she was furious. So angry she couldn’t even confront him. An anger so righteous and pure he deserved to be divorced.
And instead, she’d gotten pregnant.
Why hadn’t he just told her the truth then? Would honesty have stopped the progression of their disastrous world?