I stay up late. The phone doesn’t ring. I wonder where Alice is, how far they have traveled. As the SUV drove up the street, I noticed that it had an out-of-state license plate. I couldn’t make out the state name, only the colors and design. Online, I pull up pictures of the plates for all fifty states. I conclude the car was from Nevada.
By midnight, still no call. I bring the phone with me to the bedroom and lay it down beside my pillow. I check repeatedly to make sure the volume is turned up. I try to sleep but can’t. Eventually, I pull my laptop out, power it up, and begin searching the Internet. I type in “The Pact,” but all I find are references to a film and its sequel. I’ve done this search before, with similar results. Further down, there’s a popular novel with the same title. I search “marriage cult” but find nothing. I search a whole bunch of different words combined with Nevada, nothing. I search Vivian Crandall and find her on LinkedIn, but her profile is set to private. If I log in to view it, she’ll know I was there. There are a few references to Vivian on other websites, evidence of an okay career that hasn’t gotten her too much attention—nothing that even hints of her membership in The Pact. I search for JoAnne and it’s even stranger. There’s a yearbook photo from junior year at UCLA on Classmates.com, but that’s it. How does that happen? How can a person be nearly invisible online? I search the address for the house in Hillsborough from the last party, as well as the address in Woodside from the upcoming party. According to Zillow, both houses are worth millions. No shit.
Next, I read about Orla, going back to several pages Alice bookmarked after our first meeting with Vivian. There are hundreds of articles related to her work, a few dozen pictures. Apparently, she was a very respected barrister. There are articles from The Guardian, opinion pieces for and against her during her run for political office. Then nothing. I pull up Google Maps and zoom in on Rathlin, the Irish island Vivian mentioned. The map is grainy, low-resolution, Google’s way of telling us that the island has no real significance. I scan the shoreline, looking for homes or villages; fog and clouds cover most of it. Wikipedia says the island receives more than three hundred days of rain annually.
I keep checking my email to see if Alice has tried to contact me. Nothing. How long do I wait to hear from her? And then what do I do? Calling the number Declan gave me “strictly for emergencies” seems like a bad idea. I keep remembering what Alice said: “I want to follow this through. It’s my choice.”
I leave text messages on Alice’s phone, but my messaging app indicates that they remain unread. I imagine her phone in the plastic bag in a small box, in a large warehouse filled with hundreds of other small boxes, all of the boxes filled with phones, all of the phones ringing and pinging until the batteries die.
At a quarter to six the next morning, my phone bleats, and I wake up in a panic. But it’s a wrong number.
I get up and shower. While I’m dressing, the phone rings again. It’s an unknown number. Hands shaking, I hit Answer.
“Alice?” I say.
A recorded voice intones, “You are receiving a phone call from an inmate at a correctional facility in the state of Nevada. To accept the charges please say ‘I accept’ at the tone.”
Inmate? The tone sounds. “I accept.”
There is a beep, then another recording. “The following telephone conversation may be monitored. All calls are limited to three minutes.”
Another beep. The call connects.
“Jake?”
“Alice? God, I’m so glad to hear your voice! Are you okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Where are you?”
“Nevada.”
“Yes, but where exactly?”
“Middle of nowhere. We drove 80, and then we took an exit in the desert, and we just kept driving on this dirt road until we arrived at this place. I tried to pay attention to the mile markers, but I lost track. It’s way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere—no civilization except a gas station several miles from here. It’s all concrete and barbed wire. Two huge fences. Declan said it’s a prison The Pact bought from the state.”
“Shit. Who are these people?”
“Really,” she says, “I’m okay. Don’t worry.”
If she were in a panic, I’d hear it in her voice, I’m certain of it. But there is no panic. She sounds tired, impossibly distant. Not her usual supremely confident self, maybe, but not frightened either. Or if she is frightened, she’s doing a superb job of hiding it.
“Don’t freak out, Jake, but they’ve got me in a jail cell. It’s a huge place, but there aren’t that many people here, at least not that I’ve seen. There are forty cells in my section—I counted on my way in—but I think I’m the only one here. It’s so quiet. The bed is tiny, but the mattress is decent. I must’ve slept for ten hours. This morning, I woke up when someone slid a metal tray through my door—chorizo and an omelet. Delicious. Really good coffee too, and cream.”
There’s a sharp beep and the recording about the call being monitored repeats itself.
“Have you met any other—” I search for the right word, and am startled by the word that comes to me. “Any other prisoners?”
“Sort of. They picked up someone else in Reno. He was in bad shape. I’m glad we were more accommodating; the headgear looked miserable. He sweated profusely the whole way here, but he couldn’t say anything because they had him gagged.”
“Ugh, that sounds sadistic!”
“But on the other hand, he did agree to come, right? They didn’t drag him out of the house or anything. I watched him walk to the car.”
Another recording warns that we have only one more minute.
“When can you leave?” I ask desperately.
“Hopefully soon. I have a meeting with my attorney in an hour. They assign everyone a public defender. It’s crazy. I’m telling you, if you set aside the great food and the lack of people, this feels like a real prison. I’m even wearing prison garb. All red, with the word prisoner in big letters on the front and back. Nice material, though, really soft.”
I try to picture Alice in prison gear. The image won’t gel.
“Jake—can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.” I want this call to last forever. I want to hold her in my arms again.
“Can you email Eric at work? I forgot I told him I’d stay late tomorrow night to take care of some paperwork. Just make something up. His email address is on my iPad.”
“Done. Can you call me later?”
“I’ll try.”
Another beep.
“I love you.”
“I—” Alice begins, but the line goes dead.
39