The idea is ludicrous. She steps around two boys on a scooter and a young mom buying a pig-tailed toddler a paper cup of rainbow sherbet from an ice cream cart. She would have remembered that; her mind is playing tricks. She’s worn down with sleep deprivation and worry. Last night she paced the living room for hours, combing her brain, trying to fill in the blank spots from that night.
If only the press would report something to help her. There’s been no mention of Bodhi Mogaro, not even a hint that the police have zeroed in on a suspect. Instead, all the newscasters and pundits want to talk about are the mistakes the police are making. This morning, Elliott Falk wrote in the New York Post that Officer James Cabrera, who Nell recognized as the guy who told them to leave Winnie’s house, has been put on paid leave, blamed for leaving the door unlocked, for allowing people to enter Winnie’s home before evidence could be collected. Sources are reporting that he will probably be fired.
Good, Francie e-mailed. They should fire him. Someone needs to be held responsible for screwing up this investigation.
Patricia Faith is having a field day, calling for Commissioner Ghosh’s immediate resignation, laying the blame for everything squarely at the feet of Mayor Shepherd, for choosing his incompetent friend to lead the police department, for caring more about appearing on billboards for fashion labels than about protecting innocent children. “Am I crazy?” Patricia Faith asked. “Or is it almost like this mayor doesn’t want to see this case solved?”
Nell stops at the corner and waits for the light, the heat like a woolen blanket shrouding her body, people brushing her arms as they hurry by. A white plane of sunlight reflects off a wall of windows on the bank across the street. She closes her eyes.
A memory comes back to her. She’s standing at the bar, a cold drink in her hand. More, more, more. Someone is singing those words to her. She feels a chin on her neck, lips on her ear.
She squeezes her eyes tighter, feeling hands on her waist. Someone is holding her arms.
I want more, more, more.
She opens her eyes and begins to run.
The man sitting at the end of the bar is in his early thirties. He wears a black T-shirt and camo shorts, and both arms are covered in sleeves of black-and-gray tattoos. He’s sipping a pint of beer and glancing at the soccer match on one of the large television screens hanging above the rows of liquor bottles, a pen dangling above a copy of the New York Times crossword puzzle. The only other person there is the bartender, who leans over a sink, washing glasses. He shakes the soap from his wrists as Nell approaches. “What can I get you?”
“A club soda.”
She swallows half of it before sliding off the stool and making her way through the bar, the air dense with bleach and beer, to the patio out back. She moves a chair to the spot she occupied that night and tries to re-create the scene in her mind. Colette and Francie are across from her. Winnie is to her right. Token—at least for a little while—is somewhere in the mix. She closes her eyes and sees Winnie, sipping iced tea, stealing peeks at the phone in her lap.
When Nell opens her eyes, the man at the bar is watching her. She closes her eyes again, this time seeing herself. She feels the heat and the pounding music. The crowd grows around them. She takes Winnie’s phone from Francie.
She deletes the app.
Why? Why did she do that? Hadn’t she learned her lesson? One impulsive decision can destroy an entire life. If anyone should know that, it’s her.
She stands and paces the empty patio.
Think, think, think.
She goes inside, past the jukebox, past the bocce ball court, now dark and deserted. Up to the waitress station, where she ordered the fries. She took them to the table, eventually going with Gemma, or whoever it was, for another drink.
Nell’s eyes flash open. The cigarette. She scans the room, spotting the door along the far wall, near the bathrooms. She sets her drink on the bar. The door to the smoking patio is unlocked, and she steps into a small gravel area filled with wobbly bar tables and stools, surrounded by a fence strung with Christmas lights. Quiet please. Respect our neighbors. She can smell the smoke in her hair, her tongue heavy with nicotine and tar. She’s talking to someone, asking for a fag, forgetting not to use the British term, hearing him laugh. That was why she felt so sick the next day, the cigarette. It had been more than a year since she’d smoked, since she and Sebastian decided to try for a baby.
She paces, picturing a man, fuzzy at the edges, extending the pack of cigarettes, the click click of the lighter before it caught. He had dark eyes, and she’d told him why she was there. “I’m part of a mommy group,” she said, drawing out the last two words, as if she were admitting to something too outrageous to be true. “Me. In a mommy group. Can you believe that?” She feels a hand on her arm, laughter in her hair as the heat builds around her.
“Another club soda?” the bartender asks when she goes back inside.
“Yes,” Nell says. “And splash some vodka in this one.”
He slides the drink toward her, and the fizz rises from the first sip, tickling her tongue.
“Oh shit.” The bartender is looking up at the closest television, set to the local news. He reaches for the remote. “Not this again.”
The woman on the screen is wearing a sleeveless black blouse and a bright yellow skirt, her forehead pinched in concern. Nell examines the woman’s surroundings, and then she stands and walks to the window. Across the street, she sees it—the bumblebee yellow of the woman’s clothes, the light of the camera, a news van parked nearby.
The bartender increases the volume, and the woman’s voice jumps from the speakers near the ceiling. “The baby has been missing for four days, and with no news of a suspect, the case is looking grim. Sources tell us that this morning the nanny, Alma Romero, originally from Honduras, was brought in for additional questioning. The police are also asking anyone who may have any helpful information to call the number listed here on the screen.” The woman turns and gestures toward the entrance to the bar. “As you know, Jonah, at the time of the baby’s abduction, his mother, the former actress Gwendolyn Ross, was out at a bar with members of her mommy group. This bar, the Jolly Llama, is located—”
The screen goes black. The bartender has thrown the remote next to the sink, knocking over a drying beer mug. “Here we go again. Every time we’re on the news, we get another round of teenagers coming in, passing me fake IDs, wanting to see the ‘famous’ Baby Midas bar someone wrote about on Facebook.” He plunges his arms back into the suds. “Those assholes don’t tip.”
Through the window, Nell watches the reporter crossing the street with her cameraman. She digs for the ten-dollar bill in her bag, leaves it on the bar, and is hurrying through the side door to the smoking area as the reporter enters, introducing herself to the bartender. “I’m Kelly Marie Stenson with CBS local news and I’m wondering if I can ask—”