The Request

by David Bell

  “Bill, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was out, running an errand. Karen called me and said something was going on with Amanda. You couldn’t find her, and you might need help, so I came over. I saw the open door. I thought someone might have broken in again.”

  “Did you buy a gun?” I spoke in a whisper, knowing Amanda’s opposition to his talk of arming himself. I’d agreed with Amanda’s position in the past, but in the moment, I was glad my father-in-law had arrived ready for action.

  “No,” he said. “Are you kidding? I don’t want Amanda mad at me.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a screwdriver with a worn yellow handle. “I used this. I stuck it in her back. She fell for it. Fortunately.”

  “And if she hadn’t?”

  Bill shrugged. He hadn’t had a plan B.

  Dawn made a low noise from her position at the table. I looked her way, listening, and couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.

  “I’m calling the police,” Bill said.

  “Go ahead,” she said, her words muffled.

  “What brought this on, Dawn? It’s all over. It was over yesterday.”

  She said something else, but the words were too low and again too muffled for me to understand. I asked her to repeat herself, and she lifted her head and said, “My parents.”

  “What about them?” I asked.

  “I did it for them,” she said.

  “I was already giving them money. Why didn’t you just ask me to give them more?”

  She leaned back, tilting her head until she stared at the ceiling. Her eyes were full of tears, but they didn’t spill. Her compressed lips and taut jaw told me she was fighting to keep them back. She lowered her head and said, “It’s not to give to them. It’s to give them something.” She tapped her fingers against the table. Rat-a-tat-tat. “To give them a grandchild, another chance after they lost Maggie. And since Emily isn’t going to get married. And I’m not close either.”

  “What is she saying, Ryan?” Bill asked. “Buy a grandchild?”

  “Not buy,” Dawn said. “They have a grandchild. I gave a baby up for adoption when I was in high school. I got knocked up like an idiot, and they made me give the baby up. They were right, but it also means they didn’t get to see the kid grow up. I got a picture every once in a while, but that’s hardly the same. The kid’s only twelve now, and I can’t really have contact with her until she’s eighteen. But I know the parents. They were willing to let my daughter—their daughter—see my parents if I gave them enough money. That’s why I was putting the squeeze on you. I needed the money for that. And to just try to get the kid away from those awful people. I can’t scrape it all together. I’m a freelance illustrator. I don’t have that kind of money just lying around, so I went to you.”

  “That’s blackmail,” Bill said. “I’m calling now.” And he did, punching in the three numbers that summoned the police.

  “My father has prostate cancer,” Dawn said. “He can hear the clock ticking. They didn’t mention it in the article, but when he talked about medical bills and insurance, his illness was a big part of it. I wanted him to meet his grandchild now. Probably the only one he’ll ever have.”

  Bill hesitated for a moment, the phone in his hand. Then he nodded as though confirming something to himself. “I’m still calling.”

  “I’m sorry, Dawn,” I said. “I am. But I have to go. Bill? Have you got this?”

  “I do. Where are you going?”

  “I’m finding Amanda.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Stay here. Wait for the cops. I’ll let you know when I find her.”

  “Do you know where to look?” Bill asked. “I thought you didn’t know where she was.”

  “I don’t know, Bill.” And the enormity of the task froze me. No, I didn’t know where to look. I could only guess. Friends’ houses. A park. The library. All of them long shots, all of it slow and uncertain. “I’m just guessing. I’m trying anything.”

  “Aren’t you going to your friend’s wedding?” Dawn asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your asshole friend, the one the news is saying really killed my sister. He’s getting married today. I saw it on his fiancée’s Facebook page. Her stuff is public. I guess she wants everyone to know she’s getting married. I thought about just going out there and killing him. I really did. It would have been pretty satisfying. But it wouldn’t help my parents as much as meeting their granddaughter would.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Blake was being questioned by the police last night. I guess he could be out already. But getting married?”

  “Deer Valley Barn. I saw a picture of the stupid bridesmaids drinking champagne this morning.”

  “But Amanda wouldn’t go there. . . .”

  I was thinking out loud, and my voice trailed off. She wouldn’t. But she and I would know a lot of people there. It was the greatest concentration of our friends I would be likely to find.

  And maybe Sam had heard from her. . . .

  “I’ll be in touch, Bill.”

  And I went out the door.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  Deer Valley Barn sat five miles east of Rossingville, nestled in a series of rolling hills and surrounded by farms and grazing cattle and wide-open spaces as far as the eye could see. I headed out there, navigating my way along the narrow two-lane road, dipping and rising past freshly disked fields, the rich, dark earth already planted and ready to yield the summer’s crop of corn and soybeans.

  I thought of Dawn. So desperate to do something for her parents, something to ease their pain. How far we would go for those we love. To protect them. To care for them.

  How far had Amanda gone to try to keep the person she loved?

  The Barn had come into existence about five years earlier when a local farmer died and no one in his family wanted to hang on to the land, so they sold it to an event planner who realized money was to be made by renting out a renovated barn to young couples who wanted to get married in a rustic setting. The perfect Instagram filter at the right time of day, with cows and gently swaying grasses and trees in the background, made for beautiful wedding photos. Amanda and I might have said our vows in a similar place except that Bill had refused to pay for the wedding—and we’d had no money at the time to do it ourselves—unless we got married in his and Karen’s church.

  I crested the last rise, and the Barn came into sight. As it did, my phone rang. Rountree’s name popped up on the car’s display. I pushed the button to hear her.

  “Have you found Amanda yet, Mr. Francis?” she asked without offering any greeting.

  “Not yet.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m out. Looking. Is that all you called for?”

  “Where do you and your wife grocery shop?” she asked, her voice cool and detached. “I know there’s only one Kroger store close to downtown where you live. And it’s the nicest one. Is that where you shop?”

  A small sign marked the entry to the long driveway, and as I turned in, the lush grass on either side greener than emeralds from the recent rain, I wondered about what I’d find there. I certainly didn’t want to see Blake. If I did, I wasn’t sure what my reaction would be—overwhelming sadness at the loss of our friendship or all-consuming rage at everything he’d put me and everyone else through. I counted on the amount of activity required of a bride and groom before a wedding—the picture taking, the fussing with clothes, the greeting of relatives—to ensure that we didn’t cross paths. All I needed to do was see one friend of ours, one person with insight into Amanda’s whereabouts, and then I’d be gone, zipping back down the driveway and out of the countryside like an alien observer.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I said. “That Kroger store. Why?”

  “One of my colleagues
checked the CCTV footage. It was all right there, and Kroger was more than happy to cooperate with us.”

  “So?”

  “So Amanda wasn’t on there. She didn’t go to the store at that time on Thursday. No sign of her. Do you have another guess as to where she was?”

  It took three tries, but I finally managed to hit the END CALL button with my index finger. And then I saw I was driving too fast and hit the brakes, slowing the car.

  The small parking lot was half full. Blake had told me it would be a small wedding, and from previous experience, I knew the Barn sat only about one hundred people. It advertised itself as an intimate setting, one where your closest friends and family could celebrate with you on your special day. I circled the lot, watching mostly young people step out of cars, the men in suits with no ties, the women in floral dresses and sandals. I looked for a familiar face and saw none. I stopped on the far side of the lot, waiting while two more cars came in and gave up their occupants. A young couple and a middle-aged couple, no one I knew.

  Was I even in the right place? I found it hard to believe I wouldn’t have recognized someone by now, but maybe Blake led a life I didn’t know about. That seemed to be the theme that had taken over my life—did I really know anything about anybody close to me?

  If Amanda hadn’t gone to the store on Thursday, then where had she been?

  At the time Jennifer was killed . . .

  I took one more turn around the lot. When I reached the other side, I craned my neck, peering down the side of the Barn itself to the back, where a catering van stood with its rear doors open, and three guys with long hair and neatly cropped beards carried guitar cases and a snare drum. Behind them, and at a slight distance from the Barn, I saw a familiar figure.

  Amanda.

  She was talking in an animated fashion to a woman in a light blue dress who wore her hair piled on top of her head. Something about the woman’s body and the way she tilted her neck looked familiar, and I would have sworn it was Sam, except Sam would have been wearing a wedding gown and not the simple dress this woman wore.

  I stopped the car, jamming it into park.

  My heart thumped fast enough that the guys in the band would have struggled to keep up if they tried to play along. Why was she here when we had turned down the invitation?

  Amanda and the woman who I then recognized as Sam’s younger sister, Wendy, spoke with more intensity, and the sister threw her arms up in the air as if she’d reached the brink of exasperation. I started walking toward them, moving slowly, even though Amanda was so focused on whatever she was saying that she never would have seen me coming.

  Until the other woman threw up her hands again and made a quick pivot on her heels and disappeared through a door that led into the back of the Barn. When she was gone, Amanda turned away and faced off into the distance, where a handful of dark cows lazed near a small pond, looking like the living embodiment of ease and leisure.

  When I came close enough for Amanda to hear me, I said her name.

  She spun as quickly as Wendy had, her lips parted. She looked slightly surprised to see me but not unhappy. She let out a little breath, an acknowledgment that my sleuthing skills had impressed her.

  I looked behind me at the Barn, expecting Wendy to come back out at any moment, but the door remained closed. The band and the caterers had disappeared inside as well, leaving us the only two people in the vicinity of the back of the building. I checked my watch. Ten minutes until noon. Almost time to start.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m looking for you. And here you are at a wedding we said we wouldn’t go to.”

  “I’m not here for the wedding,” she said. “You should know that.”

  “Then what are you here for? Because it sure as hell looks like they’re going ahead and having a wedding today.”

  “I listened to your messages,” Amanda said. “I know the police are looking for me.”

  “So you came here . . . why? Because you thought the cops wouldn’t show up at a wedding? I don’t understand. You should have called me back. You should have come home. Your parents are worried. I’m worried. I’m scared too.”

  “Why are you scared?” she asked.

  “Because of what the police found,” I said. “In Jennifer’s Facebook account.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down. Her shoulders slumped. She looked away, off into the distance, and I saw her in profile. Young looking. Beautiful.

  Scared.

  “What happened, Amanda?” I asked. “Is what the cops are saying true? You didn’t go to the store on Thursday. Where were you?”

  Her eyes looked deadly serious as she nodded her head.

  “It’s true,” she said. “But I want you to understand why I did what I did.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  Amanda turned to face me when she started explaining.

  The ground felt unsteady beneath my feet. My knees shook, reminding me of the kind of fear I had felt as a child when I was expected to go off the high diving board or deliver a speech in class.

  Except the stakes here were much, much higher. As I stared at Amanda’s face, I saw Henry there. Our son. Sitting with his grandparents, unable to comprehend what we were doing.

  Would he ever comprehend it? Would he ever know his mother?

  “You know some of it,” she said. “When I saw those messages from Jennifer on your computer, I felt like crap. Jealous, of course. You know the kind of condition I was in then. I was going to stop working. I was getting bigger and bigger.” She pointed to her now-flat stomach. “I felt tired, hormonal. You worked all the time, and I felt like the world had left me behind. I was wondering if I’d ever get back to work again. Would I ever be anything but a mom, sitting at home, changing diapers and cleaning up snot?”

  “You know that would never be true.”

  “But I felt it. The feelings were as real as anything to me. And I thought you might not find me as appealing anymore. So I wanted to know what was going on with this woman. I wanted to know if you were talking to her all the time. And what kinds of things you might be saying to her. Or doing with her.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  “You didn’t tell me about it,” she said. She swallowed, controlling herself. “Why didn’t you tell me? You must have been hiding it. And if you were hiding it, then there must have been a reason.” She shrugged, a slight movement of her shoulders. “So I got in touch with Steve. From work. I knew he liked me as more than a friend, so it felt good to talk to him online. And in the course of our conversations, I told him about my problems . . . our problems . . . and he came up with the solution of phishing so I could spy on Jennifer’s account. Then I would know if you and she were doing something.”

  “Why didn’t you just track my account?”

  “I thought of that. Of course. That was the first thing that came to mind. But you have a lot of devices and accounts. You have things at work I don’t even know about. And if you were doing something behind my back, wouldn’t you be on the lookout for stuff like that? I figure you’re too smart to fall for a phishing scam. But she wouldn’t be so careful. She had nothing to lose by disrupting our lives. So it would make more sense to watch her. And Steve knew how to do it. He knew how to create a message that would get her password, and once you have that done, you can see everything she does. He made it all look very easy. Frighteningly easy, to be honest.”

  “That’s quite an invasion of privacy.”

  “Like going into her house to steal her love letters? How is that any different, except one is in the virtual world and one is in the real? Or can we even tell the difference anymore?”

  I offered no argument, because she was right. We’d both done the same thing, for stupid and vain reasons. We’d both
failed. And where did we go from there?

  “The police know, Amanda. That’s why I was calling you and looking for you. They suspect about the phishing. Did you send those friend requests from her account after she was dead? Why the hell would you do that?”

  “I didn’t know she was dead when I sent the first one. I sent it because you’d lied to me that night. You lied about where you were going. And I suspected. She’d written to you again, and then you lied and said you were going to a basketball game. Supposedly. I guess I just sent the request to prove my point, to shake you up if you were there. With her. And I was right. You were with her. I wanted to scare you back to your senses.”

  “But I wasn’t with her for that reason. You know that now. I was there because of Blake. And why did you send the other one? Once you knew she was dead?”

  “Because you weren’t talking to me. I knew you were keeping something from me but I wasn’t sure what. I wanted to see if the bizarreness of the request would get you to tell me something. Anything.”

  “Those requests scared the daylights out of me. I thought someone was watching me, tracking me.”

  “I wanted to shake you up, not terrify you.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked. “Of all places. When the police are looking for you . . . and you left the house saying you were going to your parents’ to get Henry.”

  I struggled to say the next words, to force them out of my mouth.

  “The police, Amanda. They want to know where you were the day Jennifer was killed. During the time of her death . . . you called your mom and had her come over. And you went somewhere. You said you sent that friend request because you thought I went to see her. But when I did that for Blake and went to her house, I didn’t know she was dead. I truly didn’t.”

  She stared at me. She cocked her head to one side. Her lips parted in an almost expectant fashion.