A dull huff escapes me. “It’s my mother we’re talking about. It’s mandated it go this way.” A part of me wants to get Janey on the phone. I’d hate for her to miss the show. God Almighty, if Jane was going to use her jail-issued superpowers for good, why couldn’t she use them to stop this woman?
My mother turns slightly to glare at me as if she heard. She spins back around, offering her full attention to the waiting crowd. “I’m here to assure you that there has been a changing of the guard. No more of this hurry-up-and-wait strategy that has gotten us absolutely nowhere.” She raises a hand as if she were about to slap every person in this crowd, and knowing my mother this isn’t a far-off possibility. “We are reissuing new posters, updating all our technological resources. I, myself, have hired the best PI firm in the country to assist the police department, to assist you the people, and to assist my family in bringing little Reagan Price home!” She raises her voice as if to rally the masses but is met with a stony silence instead. You can feel the judgment stemming from the peanut gallery, hot as a nuclear wind.
“Welcome to my world, Mother,” I whisper.
James leans in, his breath hot in my ear. “Half the country will hate her by midnight.”
I look up at my handsome husband, with his hair slicked back to perfection, his dimples cutting in without even trying. “And what will they think of you once they discover Hailey Oden is having your child?”
10
James
An hour after the impromptu press conference let out, exactly forty-five minutes after Allison and I convinced the Greers to find a nice hotel here in town, twenty minutes after I convinced my father, the potential serial killer, to hightail it back to his own house, Allison and I circle one another in the living room like two cage fighters waiting to pounce.
After Allison dropped a very pregnant Hailey Oden onto my lap, McCafferty showed up and injected herself between us, demanding an explanation, asking why her expertise and that of her team was being so publicly demeaned. That’s when Ann took over and reamed McCafferty and her so-called team for botching things up, letting this drag out unnecessarily, and vowing to show them all up by bringing Reagan home immediately. Of course, immediately, in this case, is a nebulous term. I’m sure Ann would love the accolades of handling this correctly, and bringing Reagan home, but at this point I don’t give a shit who gets the credit. I can’t breathe without my daughter. This suffocation killed me the moment I realized she was gone. It’s a wonder I’m still standing.
But now Allison and I are alone in the living room, about to rip the lid off what really happened last summer between Hailey and my dick—even if we are both painfully aware. The questions she has are all valid and should be answered truthfully. The only question I have is how the hell is she tracking me so efficiently and how I wish to God we had tracked Reagan that way.
I take a deep breath and dive right in. “I think we need to—”
“You don’t get to go first!” She charges me with that wild, red-faced fury, embedding her nails into my arms like knives through butter. The rage in her eyes eviscerates me all on its own. I can smell the hatred on her, and it suddenly feels impossible that we will ever recover from this. She gives me a firm shove, and I do a little awkward dance as I stumble toward the fireplace. The curtains are drawn, but the lights are on. I’m sure our silhouettes are providing all the dialogue anyone needs. “Where is she? Where are you hiding that little whore?” She staggers forward, her ankle slightly twisting in her shoe.
“I’m not hiding her. I don’t know where she went. She said she didn’t have money or anywhere to stay. And I tried to give her some to get back home, but she wouldn’t take it.”
Her eyes stretch wide, examining me from head to toe in this new disgusting light.
“Of course, she didn’t. You are her new home. Congratulations, James. You’re going to be a father.”
Allison’s barbed words aim straight for my balls. I’m going to be a father—as if I wasn’t one already. I’ll let her have at me, though. I deserve that much, and more.
“Now we’re going to play a little game.” She sets her legs in a defiant stance as if things were about to get physical, a sumo wrestler ready to knock me on my head. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer me.” The ridgeline of her jaw flexes. Allison has taken all of the rage, the hatred, the utter destruction she feels for the monsters who took our child and is funneling it all my way. And I want it. For as much as she detests me, I cannot stand myself that much more.
“Okay.” I raise my hands in surrender. “Anything. I’ll be truthful. I promise.” There’s not an ounce of enthusiasm in me at the idea, but I will comply. I don’t have a single thing to lose. I’ve already lost it all.
“Why did you lie about sleeping with her?” The storm clouds in her eyes linger over mine, and in that moment I can feel her pain so completely it feels as if the universe has collapsed over my chest.
“Because I’m a coward.” There. Now at least there is a shred of truth between us.
“When did it begin and how many times did you fuck her?”
I wince at the expletive. Allison has always had a way to utilize her words far more efficiently than a slap. “Last summer when you went to see your sister.” It comes out low, the words staggered disproportionately. “It lasted three weeks, and I don’t know how many times.”
Her chest rattles with a dull laugh, her eyes still set over me, angry and wild.
“Three weeks.” She snorts at the thought. “That’s quite a honeymoon. Where did you do it?”
“Ally.” I close my eyes and an image of Hailey bouncing over my lap comes to mind and my lids spring open.
“Coward”—she ticks her head as if enticing me with a dare—“where did you do it?”
I push a breath from my lips. “The pool. Her house.” Shit. I lean my head back and my vertebrae snap like candy canes, click, click, click. I wish they would break for good.
“In our bed?”
“No. God no.”
“Our house?”
I keep my eyes trained on the ceiling. “Once.”
“I hate you.” It comes out so soft, so benign. She’s said I love you before with the same enthusiasm.
“Join the club. I hate me, too.” True as God. “I have made so many mistakes”—I fall onto the sofa, my catatonic gaze fixed straight ahead at the fireplace—“screwed up in so many incredible ways. Sometimes I wonder why I’m still here. Why didn’t the misfortune strike me? Why Reagan? If I had died a year ago, Reagan would still be here. My living was a liability. I’m the reason we’re in Concordia. I’m the reason we landed in this very neighborhood.” It’s true. Allison preferred High Ridge, a far ritzier zip code, but I thought we should live well under our means. “I’m the one who gave our daughter away like a door prize to a little girl I couldn’t identify in a lineup.” I bury my head in my hand and sob long wailing sobs, distressing soul-aching, please-God-let-me-die-right-this-fucking-minute, uncontrollable soul-shattering, far from masculine blubbering cries.
It’s not for show. If I had my way, Allison wouldn’t be anywhere near me right now. The truth is, I can’t stand to be in my own skin. I can’t stand who I’ve become—that I’ve let my dick define me, take down my family, and put my daughter’s very life in danger. My greed, my lust, my irreverence toward my wife, our life, the life we created is insurmountable. I have failed as a man, become insufferable as a husband, and detestable as a human being. I didn’t just hit rock bottom. I crashed through the granite and fell into a hellish vortex that generates more and more misery on an exponential level. I am a waste of human skin. My greatest contribution to this earth is that one day I will become a feast for worms. A meal for subterranean creatures—I should have that carved into my tombstone.
“James.” Allison sits on my lap and pulls me toward her by the back of my neck. The cool air of the room licks over my tear-slicked face.