She's Not There

by Joy Fielding

  I know those eyes, Caroline thought, as the taxi driver handed over his license and registration.

  “We’ve already had one terrible accident here this morning,” the officer continued. “Not ten minutes ago, a teenage girl was hit by a speeding car as she was crossing the street.”

  “Is she all right?” the cabdriver asked.

  Caroline felt a scream building in the back of her throat. Was it possible that girl was Lili?

  “Afraid not.” The officer removed his helmet, revealing a head of thick, black hair. He stared accusingly at Caroline, as if she were the one responsible.

  “Detective Ramos?” Caroline whispered, the scream in her throat gaining traction and filling her mouth like bile.

  “This is your fault,” he told her. “You should never have left her alone.”

  The scream shot from Caroline’s lips into the surrounding air.

  “Mom?” a voice called from somewhere above her head. “Mom? Mother, wake up!”

  Caroline bolted up in bed, her eyes darting around the hotel room, trying to bring it into focus. “What’s happening?”

  “You’re having a nightmare.”

  “What?”

  “You were having a nightmare,” Michelle said, relegating it to the past tense. “God, look at you. You’re soaking wet.”

  Caroline swiped at the pool of sweat between her breasts. She pushed a clump of damp hair away from her forehead.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” Michelle said. “What were you dreaming about?”

  Caroline shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t tell me? Why the hell not?”

  “My mother always said it’s bad luck to tell your dreams before breakfast because the bad ones will come true.”

  “Since when did you start listening to Grandma Mary?” Michelle asked.

  She was right. Caroline had spent a lifetime trying to ignore her mother’s unsolicited advice. “I’ll tell you after breakfast,” she said anyway.

  Except that by the time they’d finished their coffee, Caroline had forgotten all but a few vague details of her nightmare. “It was one of those frustrating dreams where you keep trying to get somewhere but something keeps getting in your way. I probably should have realized it was a dream when I saw the cabdriver.”

  “What are you talking about?” Michelle asked.

  “And Detective Ramos.”

  “Who’s Detective Ramos?”

  “You wouldn’t remember.”

  They spent the morning sitting in the lobby of the hotel on the off chance that Lili would finally turn up, then called for a taxi to take them to the airport when she didn’t. As the cab pulled away from the curb, Caroline took a last look down the snow-lined street.

  “She’s not there, Mother.”

  “I know.”

  “She never had any intention of showing up.”

  “You’re right.” Was she? “Maybe we should have waited longer.”

  “And miss our flight? Besides, you left her a note.”

  Caroline felt a pang of guilt and looked into her lap. She’d thought she was being discreet when she’d left that note for Lili with the reception desk.

  “Stop worrying. I’m sure she’ll contact you again,” Michelle was saying as they settled into their seats on the plane. “She’ll have some sort of sob story, of course, a reason she couldn’t meet you. Then she’ll promise to make it up to you. She’ll offer to come to San Diego. Of course she’ll need money. Yada, yada, yada. It’s like those Internet scams from Nigeria. They’re transparent as hell, but you wouldn’t believe how many people fall for those things.”

  I’d believe it, Caroline thought, but said nothing. She wished Michelle would stop talking. She’d made her point, her point being that her mother was an idiot. Caroline leaned her head back in her seat and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, Michelle took the hint and they spent the duration of the flight in silence.

  —

  Hunter was waiting for them when they pushed through the heavy, opaque glass doors into the arrival area of San Diego International Airport. He was wearing a lightweight navy suit and a blue-and-yellow-striped tie, having come straight from the office. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, grabbing their overnight bags as he led them toward the parking lot.

  “Oh, just feel that glorious warm air,” Michelle said, doffing her heavy jacket.

  “You don’t have to carry my bag,” Caroline told her former husband. “I can manage.”

  “I’ve got it, Caroline. Just answer the question.”

  “We’re not in court. I’m not on the witness stand. And you already know what I was doing.”

  “Some girl phones, tells you she’s Samantha, and you go running? You honestly thought there was a chance this girl was our daughter?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “She didn’t show up, did she? She didn’t even call.”

  “You know she didn’t,” Caroline said. Michelle had obviously phoned her father from the Calgary airport, relayed the depressing details of their trip, and told him what flight they’d be on.

  “How much did that little escapade cost you anyway?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Last-minute tickets don’t come cheap, as we know from past experience. They had to set you back a pretty penny.”

  “A pretty penny? Who says things like that anymore?” Caroline said, annoyed at Hunter’s proprietary attitude. They were no longer husband and wife, a decision he’d made for the two of them a dozen years ago. What right did he have to question her expenses? They reached his cream-colored BMW. “Anyway, I’m sure the pennies aren’t nearly as pretty as the ones you spend on a new car every year.”

  “I lease,” he reminded her. “And I’m still paying alimony, if I’m not mistaken…”

  “Have you ever been?” Caroline interrupted.

  “…which gives me some rights…”

  “Please,” Michelle said. “Do you have to argue about this now?”

  “No,” Caroline said. “I’d be more than happy to take a cab.”

  “Get in the car,” her ex-husband directed, throwing the two overnight bags into the trunk and climbing behind the wheel as Michelle crawled into the backseat, leaving the front seat empty for her mother.

  Reluctantly, Caroline took her place beside her former husband, trying not to notice how handsome he looked. As good as ever. Maybe even better. His hair had yet to turn gray or thin out, and his waistline was as trim as it had always been. If anything, the years had sharpened his features, emphasizing the prominence of his cheekbones, which in turn emphasized the fullness of his lips. “How’s the baby?” Caroline asked in an effort to clear her head of such disconcerting thoughts.

  “She’s fine,” Hunter said, paying the attendant and pulling out of the parking lot. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I wasn’t aware we had a subject.”

  “Just tell me what happened. Everything. From the beginning.”

  Caroline wasn’t sure what beginning he was referring to exactly, but the one thing she was sure of was that it was pointless to protest further. Hunter was a good lawyer, maybe even a great one. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to argue. And if he couldn’t win outright, he’d wear you down over time. Might as well get it over with, she decided, starting with Lili’s phone call. She watched his face as he listened, his expression changing from curiosity to disbelief to flat-out anger. When she reached the part about leaving a note for Lili with the reception desk when they checked out of the hotel, he was already halfway out of his seat, his entire body swiveled toward her.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she cautioned.

  Hunter returned his attention to the road. But even in profile his outrage was formidable. “And you didn’t even think to call me about this?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because Samanth
a was my daughter, too.”

  Caroline blanched at Hunter’s use of the past tense. “What are you saying? That you would have come with me?”

  “I might have. You didn’t give me that chance.”

  “Because you wouldn’t have come. You would have said it was a wild-goose chase and I was a fool to even consider it, just like you did when I went to Tacoma and Miami. Be honest, Hunter. There’s no way you would have gone to Calgary. Or that Diana would have let you go,” she added, drawing a measure of satisfaction when she saw him flinch. She’d heard from multiple sources that his much younger wife had him wrapped around her little finger and that he rarely made a move without her okay.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “The point is that we could have talked it through. We should have talked it through.”

  “We don’t talk, Hunter. We never have.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We were married for twelve years. You’re saying we never talked?”

  “You talked. I listened.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “Face it, Hunter. You’re a bully. In court and out.”

  “And you’re a victim. Like always. It’s the same old shit.”

  “Guys, please,” Michelle pleaded from the backseat. “Can we not do this?”

  “You should have phoned me,” Hunter repeated, either unmindful or uncaring of his daughter’s request. “You should have told me what was happening. You should have given me the option. Admit it.”

  “Only if you admit that there’s no way you would have gone with me,” Caroline said, once again standing her ground, something she wished she’d done more often during their dozen years together. Maybe if she had, they wouldn’t be having this stupid argument. Samantha would never have gone missing.

  “Well, I guess we’ll never know,” Hunter said.

  “I know.”

  “Right. Because you know everything.”

  “I know there’s no way Hunter Shipley would have taken a few days off work for something as unimportant as his family.”

  “Okay. That’s enough. You’re way off base.”

  “Really? How many days did you take off work after Samantha disappeared?” Caroline knew she was being unreasonable, but the words escaped her mouth before she could stop them, pushed out by fifteen years of repressed rage.

  “Mom,” Michelle said. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

  “How many days, Hunter? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?”

  “I stayed…”

  “Seven whole days,” Caroline said. “You stayed one whole week.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Really? How fair were you? Leaving me alone in Mexico to deal with everything.”

  “I asked you to come home. I begged you, for God’s sake.”

  “And I begged you to stay.” Please, Hunter, she’d begged. Just give it a little more time. The same way she’d begged when he told her he was ending their marriage.

  “The investigation was going nowhere. The police had pretty much made up their minds that we were behind Samantha’s disappearance. There was nothing more to be accomplished by staying…”

  “You left me,” Caroline said, no longer sure if she was referring to the time he left Mexico or the time he left for good.

  “I hired a private detective…”

  “Whom you fired after three months.”

  “Because he was getting nowhere.”

  “Because he was costing you a pretty penny.”

  “Goddamn you, Caroline,” Hunter muttered.

  “Goddamn you,” she said in return.

  Michelle fell back against her leather seat, the movement creating an audible whoosh. “I need a drink,” she said.

  “Tell me you’re not seriously considering going home,” Caroline demanded of her husband.

  “It’s something we have to consider,” Hunter said. “It’s been almost a week.”

  “It’s been five days.”

  “And the police are no further ahead than they were the night Samantha disappeared.”

  “That’s not true. They have leads…”

  “They have nothing.” Hunter plopped down on the sofa in the living room of their suite, running his hand through his thick brown hair in frustration.

  Caroline walked to the window, stared down at the restaurant below, spotting her mother and Michelle having lunch under one of the multiple red umbrellas. Her mother had insisted on coming to Rosarito as soon as Steve had called her with the awful news. She’d burst into their suite and immediately wrapped Caroline in a tight, almost suffocating embrace. Caroline had instantly reciprocated, gratefully clinging to her mother, her entire body going limp. “Mommy,” she heard herself sob into the silk shoulder of her dress.

  “How could you let this happen?” her mother said.

  “We have to look at this realistically,” Hunter was saying now.

  Caroline wanted to walk over to where he was sitting, slap him hard across the side of his head, and shout, “How’s this for realism?” Instead, she stopped pacing and waited for him to continue.

  “It’s been five days,” he reiterated. “The police have searched the hotel and grounds at least a dozen times and found nothing. The guests have all been investigated and cleared…”

  “There’s that man who had a collection of pornography on his computer…”

  “The pictures were all of grown men. And his alibi checked out: he and his friends were at a nightclub down the beach when Samantha disappeared. They have a roomful of witnesses.”

  “Samantha didn’t just disappear,” Caroline said, tired of the euphemism that implied her daughter had somehow magically vanished into thin air. “She was abducted. Someone took her.” She burst into a flood of angry tears. How many tears could one body hold? How many could she spill before she drowned in them?

  Hunter was immediately at her side, his arms moving helplessly around her, as if seeking a safe place to land.

  “Don’t,” Caroline said before he could touch her.

  He backed off and returned to the couch, although he remained standing.

  “Go on,” she said, trying, and failing, to keep the edge out of her voice. “We were being realistic.” She knew she was hurting him, pushing him further away every day. But he deserved to be pushed, to be hurt. This was his fault. Samantha was gone because of him.

  And now he was talking about going as well. Leave the scene of the crime, return to San Diego, resume their normal life. Except they’d come here with two children, and they’d be leaving with one. Their lives would never be normal again.

  “There’s nothing more we can do here,” he argued. “We’ve searched everywhere. We’ve told the police everything we know. We’ve gone over everything that happened that night a thousand times. We’ve answered all their questions. It’s obvious they don’t believe us. It’s obvious they’re starting to think we had something to do with it.”

  “What is it they think we did? Do they think we kidnapped our own child?”

  The look in Hunter’s eyes told Caroline it was worse than that.

  “They can’t seriously believe we murdered our daughter.”

  “I think that’s exactly what they believe. Which is one of the reasons I want to get the hell out of Mexico.”

  “But if they believe that, what makes you think they’ll let us leave?”

  “Because they need proof to hold us and they don’t have any.”

  “They don’t have any because we didn’t do anything,” Caroline said, growing dizzy from going around in so many circles. Was Hunter right? Could the police really believe they’d murdered Samantha? Instead of searching for their little girl, were the police busy gathering evidence to implicate her and Hunter? If so, maybe he was right—nothing more would be accomplished here. They were jeopardizing not only their freedom but their lives. Maybe they should get the hell out of Mexico before it was too late. “What
about that waiter from room service who nobody has seen since that night?”

  “The police claim they’re looking for him.”

  “You don’t think they are?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t think they’re looking very hard.”

  “Why not, for God’s sake?”

  “Because they’ve already decided we’re guilty,” he said again. “This happens all the time, Caroline, and not just in Mexico. I see it every day. The police think they know who’s responsible, so they get tunnel vision. They ignore other suspects and discount any evidence that doesn’t support their position.”

  “What about the housekeeper?” Caroline persisted. “She had a master keycard. She could easily have gotten inside. Or the babysitter who was with the kids every night. You saw how she loved Samantha. Maybe she couldn’t have children of her own. Maybe…”

  “The housekeeper was at home with her family. The babysitter was on another assignment.”

  “They could have had accomplices…”

  “Yes, they could have,” Hunter agreed, sinking back down on the sofa. “But the police aren’t looking for accomplices. They’re looking at us. They’re saying we’re the ones who canceled the babysitter…”

  “Which we didn’t.”

  “…that you were the one who phoned the front desk and told them not to put any more calls through to the room…”

  “Because my mother had phoned and I didn’t want anyone else to call and disturb the girls.”

  “It doesn’t matter why. It just matters that it looks suspicious.”

  “How is that suspicious? Oh, God. It’s hopeless. We’ll never find her. We’ll never get her back.”

  “It’s not hopeless,” Hunter said, his posture saying otherwise. “I’ve already talked to the senior partners at my firm. They think we should hire a private investigator, which I’ll do as soon as we get home…”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t go anywhere until I find my baby.”

  The phone rang. Hunter picked it up. “Yes,” he said instead of “hello.” Then, extending his hand toward her: “It’s Peggy.”

  Caroline took the phone from his outstretched hand.

  “How are you?” Peggy asked.