“Yeah, that’s right.” She pauses. “So what did you do?”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “You know all about me, so why don’t you tell me.”
“Well, that part I don’t know. Nell tried to find out, but she didn’t succeed.”
“Nell tried to find out?”
“Yes.”
“How’d she do that?” The panic she thought she’d seen in his face is replaced by something else. Anger.
“I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. She knows how to hack into things. She looked you up. Got into your May Mothers profile.” As soon as the words come out, Francie questions saying them. Maybe it’s not wise to rat out Nell like that, but she’s feeling flustered by the self-righteous tone of his voice, by the way he’s looking at her. She straightens her back, prepared to demand an explanation of why he left the bar that night, where he went, what he’s hiding. But before she can, he’s walking toward her.
“You’ve all been looking into me? Digging around, have you?”
“Yes, but—”
But before she can get the rest of the words out, he’s above her, reaching out, his hand gripped around her wrist, lifting her roughly from the couch.
The baby wails in his arms, and he shushes more loudly, feeling the anger rising inside him. Autumn’s heat rash is making her extra fussy; the doctor said it’s the result of too much time in the sling in this heat—it’s been in the nineties the last three days—but it’s the only way she’ll nap, and he needs her to nap so he can have a break.
He goes into the kitchen, dropping the entire loaf cake into the garbage can, seeing the expression on Francie’s face, how scared she looked when he led her to the door, shoving her into the hallway. He balances the baby on his shoulder and turns the faucet on, the steam rising as he rinses the plate. He miscalculated, thinking he could trust these women. That he could join their group, try to fit in with them, to think—
He slowly inhales, trying to compose himself. He needs sleep. He was awake most of last night, thinking about Winnie, about the message she left him yesterday morning, before the news broke, telling him they’d found Hector’s body. He hasn’t been able to get in touch with her—she’s not answering his calls—and he’s unsure what to do. He turns off the water and reaches for a towel in the cabinet under the sink. As he does, he thinks he hears steps outside his apartment. He walks into the living room, listening. Someone is at the door, twisting a key into the lock.
“Sweetheart, hi.” Dorothy drops her bag on the floor near the front door. “My god, it’s hot out today. They said it’s a record high—” She stops when she notices the expression on his face and then walks closer to him, hugging him, Autumn between them. “You okay?”
He nods, calmed by her familiar scent, her arms around his back. “I completely forgot you were coming.”
She pulls back and takes his face in her hands, studying his eyes. “Is today still good?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m just tired.”
“How’s Lucille’s trip going?” Dorothy asks, removing her sandals and setting them beside the door before coming to take Autumn from his arms.
“It got extended.” He walks into the kitchen, placing the coffee mugs in the sink. “She won’t be back until tomorrow now. But it sounds like it’s going well.” He’s glad Dorothy can’t see his face. She’d know he’s lying.
Lou had called last night from LA, saying her last meeting was postponed a day. He knows that’s not the truth, that she’s staying behind to have one more night with him. Cormac. The fucking boss. The jerk with the CrossFit membership and a personal driver. It’s been a year since he found their e-mails, scrolling through her phone while she showered, searching for the dentist’s number.
The pet names. The meeting places.
Lou swore it was only a fling, that she’d already ended things. That she was ready to do what he’d been after her about: start trying for a baby.
“Is my granddaughter ready for Grandma Day?”
Dorothy took Autumn on her first Grandma Day when she was just twenty-three days old. Lou had returned to work already. She’d been in the process of closing a major deal when her water broke two weeks before the C-section she’d scheduled, and she wasn’t happy about taking off before the account had wrapped up. She said she was going to the office for only a few hours that first day, but she didn’t come home until 9:30 p.m., and she’s been back to working sixty hours a week ever since. Or she said she was at work.
“You think you should cut back?” he asked Lou a few weeks ago, his voice tinged with fury, letting her know he wasn’t going to keep playing along with the charade. “You know, on all of this work?”
She bristled and walked out of the room. “And how am I supposed to do that?” she called from their bedroom. “If we didn’t have my income . . .”
“You sure you’re okay?” his mother asks him now, walking into the living room, Autumn in her arms. She is dressed in a crisp cotton dress with yellow daisies.
“I’m fine, Mom. Really.”
“Okay.” She straps Autumn into the stroller.
“Did you buy her that dress?”
“I can’t help myself.” Dorothy walks close to touch his cheek. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Sleep, I hope.”
“Yeah, probably.” He kisses her forehead. “Thanks, Mom.”
He closes the door and waits a few moments before walking into the bedroom, where he opens the drawer of the bedside table and pulls out the envelope. He peeks inside, making sure the papers are still there, and then slips on his sneakers at the window, confirming his mother is out of sight before leaving.
He knows exactly where he’s headed and he walks fast, before he can second-guess himself. Fuck Nell, he thinks. Fuck Francie, following him this morning, “hiding” behind that car, watching him drink his coffee at The Spot. Fuck all of them. When he arrives at Winnie’s building ten minutes later, he sees that the number of journalists waiting outside has dwindled, many of them no doubt headed upstate to report on the progress of the search.
He keeps his distance, standing across the street, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, noticing that dozens of new Sophie giraffes have been added since yesterday, reading the latest messages to Midas—Praying for Baby Midas. BRING MIDAS HOME—tacked to the silver linden tree in front of Winnie’s building. He glances up at Winnie’s windows, picturing what’s happening behind the thick silk curtains. He imagines Mark Hoyt in the kitchen, crouching on bended knees next to the island, inspecting a small spot that will turn out to be marinara sauce splashed onto the tile floor ten days earlier; the forensic experts running latex fingers across the windowpane in Midas’s room, roaming slowly through Winnie’s bedroom, checking, once again, the door to the terrace. He looks at the door, remembering the first time he entered that bedroom.
He turns away from the building and takes the folded envelope from his pocket. It appeared in his mailbox two days earlier. He still doesn’t know who sent it, or why, and he’d planned to ignore the papers inside, sure that whoever was behind this had only bad intentions.
He crosses the street and approaches Elliott Falk, who is leaning against the shaded hood of a maroon Subaru, smoking a cigarette.
“You want a story?”
Falk exhales a stream of smoke. “Probably. What’s it about?”
“The night Midas was taken. The woman in the photograph that Patricia Faith released. The drunk one, at the Jolly Llama.”
Falk’s eyes glimmer. “What about her?”
“Her name is Nell Mackey.”
“Nell Mackey?”
“Yeah. And you need to look into her.”
“Look into her? How come?”
He hands the envelope to Falk. “She’s not who she says she is.”