Her husband had received only a tiny fraction of the vitriol that had come Caroline’s way. As handsome as Hunter was, there was a blandness about his good looks that made him less of a target. While Caroline’s natural shyness had the unfortunate tendency to come across as aloof, Hunter’s more outgoing personality had made him seem both accessible and open. He was portrayed as a father “barely holding himself together” while “clinging tight to his older daughter, Michelle, a cherub-cheeked child of five,” his wife standing “ramrod straight beside them, separate and apart.”
No mention of the fact that it had been at Hunter’s insistence that they went out that night, even after the babysitter they’d hired failed to show. No mention of the fact that he’d left Mexico to return to his law practice in San Diego barely a week after Samantha’s disappearance. No mention of the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back,” the final betrayal that had doomed their marriage once and for all.
Except that had been her fault, too.
“Everything, my fault,” Caroline said to her reflection, withdrawing her hair dryer from the drawer underneath the sink and pointing it at her head like a gun. She flicked the “on” switch, shooting a blast of hot air directly into her ear.
The ringing started almost immediately. It took a second for Caroline to realize it was the phone. One long ring, followed by two shorter ones, indicating another long-distance call. “Go away,” she shouted toward her bedroom. Then, “Oh, hell.” She turned off the hair dryer and marched into the bedroom, grabbing the phone from the nightstand beside her king-size bed, careful not to so much as glance at the morning newspaper lying atop the crumpled sheets. “Hello.”
Silence, followed by a busy signal.
“Great.” She returned the phone to its charger, her eyes pulled inexorably toward the newspaper’s front page. There, next to the yearly rehashing of every awful fact and sordid innuendo that had been printed over the last fifteen years, the rewording of every salacious detail—“Adultery!” “Suicide!” “True Confessions!”—was a large photograph of two-year-old Samantha, smiling up at her from beside an artist’s sketch of what her daughter might look like today. Similar sketches had been plastered all over the Internet for the past two weeks. Caroline sank to the bed, her legs too weak to sustain her. The phone rang again and she lunged for it, picking it up before it could complete its first ring. “Please. Just leave me alone,” she said.
“I take it you’ve seen the morning paper,” the familiar voice said. The voice belonged to Peggy Banack, director of the Marigold Hospice, a twelve-bed facility for the terminally ill in the heart of San Diego. Peggy had been Caroline’s best friend for the last thirty years and her only friend for the last fifteen.
“Hard to miss.” Again Caroline struggled not to look at the front page.
“Asshole writes the same thing every year. Are you all right?”
Caroline shrugged. “I guess. Where are you?”
“At work.”
Of course, Caroline thought. Where else would Peggy be at eight o’clock on a Monday morning?
“Listen, I hate to bother you with this,” Peggy said, “especially now…”
“What is it?”
“I was just wondering…Has Michelle left yet?”
“Michelle’s at her father’s. She’s been staying there a lot since the baby…” Caroline took a deep breath to keep from gagging. “Was she supposed to work this morning?”
“She’s probably on her way.”
Caroline nodded, punching in the numbers for Michelle’s cell as soon as she said goodbye to Peggy. Surely even someone as headstrong and self-destructive as her daughter wouldn’t be foolish enough to skip out on her court-mandated community service.
“Hi, it’s Micki,” her daughter’s voice announced in tones so breathy that Caroline barely recognized her. “Leave a message.”
Not even a “please,” Caroline thought, bristling at the nickname “Micki” and wondering if that was the reason her daughter had taken to using it. “Michelle,” she said pointedly, “Peggy just called. Apparently you’re late for your shift. Where are you?” She hung up the phone, took a deep breath, then called Hunter’s landline, determined not to be negative. Maybe her daughter’s alarm clock had failed to go off. Maybe her bus was running late. Maybe she was, right this minute, walking through the doors of the hospice.
Or maybe she’s sleeping off another late night of partying, intruded the uninvited voice of reality. Maybe she’d had another few too many before getting behind the wheel of her car, ignoring both her recent arrest for driving under the influence and the suspension of her license. Maybe the police had pulled her over, effectively scuttling the deal her father had worked out with the assistant district attorney, a deal that allowed her to avoid jail time in exchange for several hundred hours of community service. “Damn it, Michelle. Can you really be that irresponsible?” Caroline realized only as she spoke that someone was already on the other end of the line.
“Caroline?” her ex-husband asked.
“Hunter,” Caroline said in return, his name teetering uncomfortably on her tongue. “How are you?”
“Okay. You?”
“Hanging in.”
“Have you seen the morning paper?”
“Yes.”