The Neighbor

by Lisa Gardner

  “Ree …”

  “I don’t want you here anymore. You have to leave. If you leave, Mommy will come home. Go to work. You have to.”

  “Ree …”

  “Get out, get out. I don’t want to see you anymore. You’re a big meanie.”

  “Clarissa Jane Jones.”

  “Stop it, stop it!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop yelling, I don’t want to hear you yelling.”

  “I’m not yelling.” But his voice was rising.

  His daughter continued as if she’d never heard him. “Angry feet, angry feet. I hear your mean feet on the stairs. Get out, get out, get out. I want Mommy! It’s not fair, it’s not fair. I want my mommy!”

  Then his daughter twisted away from him and ran sobbing up the stairs.

  Jason let her go. He listened as Ree stormed down the hall. He caught the distant boom as she slammed her door shut. Then he was left alone at the kitchen counter, with a half-eaten waffle and a heart full of regrets.

  Day two of his wife’s disappearance and his daughter was falling to pieces.

  He thought, in a spurt of ironic bitterness, that Sandy had better be dead or he’d kill her for this.

  The police returned at exactly 8:45 P.M. Jason was standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the family computer, which was no longer the family computer, when they pounded up the front steps.

  He opened the door. Sergeant Warren led the charge.

  She thrust the search warrant in front of his face, rattling off in rapid legalese where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to seize. As he’d suspected, they would be taking the computer, as well as miscellaneous electronic devices, including but not limited to gaming devices, iPods, BlackBerries, and Palm Pilots.

  “What are gaming devices?” he asked her, as uniformed officers and forensic techs poured into his house. Across the street, klieg lights were firing up as reporters caught the action and geared up for a fresh round of photo ops.

  “Xbox, Gameboys, PlayStation 2, Wii system, etc., etc.”

  “Ree has a Leapster,” he offered. “If you want my advice, the Cars game is better than the Disney Princess cartridge, but, of course, the evidence techs can judge for themselves.”

  D.D. regarded him coolly. “The warrant gives us permission to seize all electronics we deem necessary, sir. So yes, we will judge for ourselves.”

  The “sir” rankled him, but he let it go. “Ree’s asleep,” he found himself saying. “She’s had a very long day. If you could ask the officers to please keep things quiet …”

  He strove for politeness, though maybe his voice hitched a little at the end. He’d had a long day, too, which was about to become a long night.

  “We’re professionals,” the sergeant informed him stiffly. “We’re not gonna ransack your house. We’re going to take it apart piece by piece very politely.”

  D.D. motioned a uniformed officer over. Officer Anzaldi, it appeared, had drawn the short straw and would be serving as Jason’s babysitter for the evening. The officer led him to the family room, where Jason took a seat on the love seat, much as he had done the day before. Except no Ree this time. No tiny warm body snuggled against him, needing him, grounding him, keeping him from screaming from the frustration of it all.

  So Jason closed his eyes, put his hands behind his head, and went to sleep.

  When he opened his eyes, forty-five minutes had passed and Sergeant D.D. Warren was staring down at him in quiet fury.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Resting.”

  “Resting? Just like that? Your wife is missing, so you’re taking a nap?”

  “It’s not like I’m going to find her while I’m being confined to a love seat, is it?”

  D.D. appeared disgusted. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

  He shrugged. “Ask a SWAT guy sometime. What do you do once you’ve been activated but not yet deployed? You sleep. So when the time comes, you’re ready to go.”

  “That’s how you view this? You’re some elite warrior who’s been activated, but not deployed?” She sounded dubious.

  “My family is in crisis, and all I can do is stay with my daughter. Activated, but not deployed.”

  “You could leave her with Grandpa.” The sergeant said the words neutrally, but there was a gleam in her eye. So she’d heard. Of course she’d heard. Apparently, all uniformed officers did these days was blab every detail of his life to Sergeant Warren.

  “No thank you,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like linen suits.”

  But D.D. wasn’t going to be put off that easily. She took a seat directly across from him, resting her elbows on her knees, all casual curiosity. While from the kitchen came the sound of cupboard doors being opened, closed, drawers being pulled out and pushed in. He suspected the computer was already gone. The iPod seized from his nightstand drawer. Maybe they’d taken his clock radio, too. Every thing came with data chips these days, and any data chip could be rigged to store any kind of data. There’d been a major case just last year where a business exec had stored tons of incriminating financial docs on his son’s Xbox.

  Jason had understood the terms of the search warrant just fine. He’d simply liked making the pretty blonde sergeant work for it.

  “You said Sandy and her father were estranged,” D.D. stated now.

  “True.”

  “Why?”

  “That would be Sandy’s story to tell.”

  “Well, she doesn’t currently seem to be available, so perhaps you could help me out.”

  He had to think about it. “I think if you asked the old man, he’d say his daughter was young, headstrong, and reckless when she met me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “And I think, as a seasoned investigator, you might wonder what had happened to make her so reckless and wild.”

  “He beat her?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Call her bad names?” D.D. arched a brow.

  “I think it’s more like the mom beat the living shit out of her, and he never raised a hand to stop her. The mom died, so Sandy doesn’t have to hate her anymore. The old man, on the other hand …”

  “She’s never forgiven him?”

  He shrugged. “Again, you’d have to ask her.”

  “Why do you have jams in your windows, Jason?”

  He looked at her. “Because the world is filled with monsters, and we don’t want them getting our daughter.”

  “Seems extreme.”

  “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

  She smiled a little. It added crinkles to the corners of her eyes, revealing her age, but also making her seem suddenly softer. More approachable. She was a skilled interrogator, he realized. And he was tired, making it seem like a better and better idea to tell her everything. Lay all his problems at the feet of smart, beautiful Sergeant Warren. Let her sort out the mess.

  “When was the last time Sandy talked to her father?” D.D. asked.

  “Day she left town with me.”

  “She never called him? Not once since moving to Boston?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not your wedding, not the birth of your daughter.”

  “Nope.”

  D.D. narrowed her eyes. “So why is he here now?”

  “Claims he saw word of Sandy’s disappearance on the news and skedaddled for the airport.”

  “I see. His estranged daughter has gone missing, so now he pays a visit?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  D.D. cocked her head to the side. “You’re lying to me, Jason. And you know how I know?”

  He refused to answer.

  “You look down and to the left. When people are trying to remember something, they look up and to the left. When they’re avoiding the truth, however, they look down and to the left. Interesting bit of trivia they teach us in detective school.”
>
  “And it took you how many weeks to graduate?”

  Her lips curved in that little half-smile again. “The way Officer Hawkes understood it,” the sergeant continued, “Maxwell Black has some opinions regarding his granddaughter. Including that you’re not her real father.”

  Jason didn’t answer. He wanted to. He wanted to scream that of course Ree was his daughter, would always be his daughter, could never be anything but his daughter, but the good sergeant had not asked a question, and the first rule of interrogation was never answer questions you didn’t have to.

  “When was Ree born?” D.D. pressed.

  “On the date listed on her birth certificate,” he said crisply. “Which I’m sure you’ve already read.”

  She smiled at him again. “June twentieth, two thousand and four, I believe.”

  He said nothing.

  “And the day you first met Sandy?”

  “Spring two thousand and three.” He made sure he looked her in the eye and absolutely, positively didn’t look down.

  D.D. arched that skeptical brow again. “Sandy would’ve been only seventeen.”

  “Never said the old man didn’t have reason to hate me.”

  “So why does Maxwell believe you’re not Ree’s father?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “Humor me. Obviously you know him better than I do.”

  “Can’t say that I know him at all. Sandy and I didn’t exactly have a meet-the-parents courtship.”

  “You never met Sandy’s father before today?”

  “Only in passing.”

  She studied him. “What about your family?”

  “Don’t have any.”

  “You’re the product of immaculate conception?”

  “Miracles happen every day.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “All right, Sandy’s father, then. Grandpa Black. You took his daughter from him,” she stated. “Moved to a godforsaken Yankee state and then never notified him when his granddaughter was born.”

  Jason shrugged.

  “I think Judge Black has good reason to be angry with both you and Sandy. Maybe that’s why he returned now. His daughter’s gone, and his son-in-law is the prime suspect. One family’s tragedy is another man’s opportunity.”

  “I will not grant him access to Ree.”

  “Got a restraining order?”

  “I will not grant him access to Ree.”

  “What if he demands a paternity test?”

  “Can’t. You read the birth certificate.”

  “You’re listed as the father, ergo he has no probable cause. The Howard K. Stern defense.”

  Another shrug.

  D.D. smiled at him. “As I recall, the other guy won that argument.”

  “Ask me who put the jams in the windows.”

  “What?”

  “Ask me who put the jams in the windows. You keep circling around to it. You keep digging at it like it tells you something about me.”

  “All right. Who put the jams in your windows?”

  “Sandy did. Day after we moved in. She was nine months pregnant, we had an entire house to set up, and first thing she did was secure all the windows.”

  D.D. thought about it. “All these years later, she’s still locking Daddy out?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  D.D. finally rose from the chair. “Well, it didn’t work, because Daddy’s back and he has more clout than you think.”

  “How so?”

  “Turns out he went to law school with one of our district court judges.” She flashed her paper. “Who do you think signed our warrant?”

  Jason managed not to say a word, but it probably didn’t matter, as the color draining from his face gave him away.

  “Still don’t know where your wife is?” D.D. asked from the doorway.

  He shook his head.

  “Too bad. Really would be best for everyone if we found her. Particularly considering her condition and all.”

  “Her condition?”

  D.D. arched a brow yet again. This time, there was no mistaking the flash of triumph in her eyes. “It’s another thing they teach you in detective school. How to seize a person’s trash and how to read a pregnancy test strip.”

  “What? You mean …”

  “That’s right, Jason. Sandy’s pregnant.”

  | CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO |

  Fucking strangers isn’t an easy proposition for a woman. Men have it easier They pull out, wipe off, move along. For women, the entire process is different By nature, we are receptacles, meant to take a man inside of us, to receive him, to accept him, to keep him. It’s harder to wipe off It’s more difficult to move along.

  I think this often on my spa nights, generally when I’m checking out of the hotel, making my way home, trying to transition from wanton floozy to respectable mom.

  Have I given too much of myself away? Is that why I feel so transparent, as if a gust of wind will blow me away? I shower I lather, scrub rinse, repeat. I try to wipe the fingerprints of too many men from my body, just as I try to purge the imprint of their lust-filled faces from my mind.

  I’m not bad at it. Honestly, the two kids from the first night … couldn’t even pick them out of a lineup. And the episode after that and the episode after that. I can forget them easily enough. But I can’t forgive them, and that doesn’t even make sense.

  I’ve started a new tradition on spa nights. After I return to my hotel room, I curl up in a ball and sob hysterically. I don’t know who I’m crying for. Myself and the dreams of the future I once had? For my husband, and the hopes he probably had for us? For my child, who looks up at me so sweetly, without any idea what Mommy really does when she goes away?

  Maybe I’m crying for my childhood, for the moments of tenderness and security I never had, so that some depraved part of me must continuously punish myself, as if picking up where my mother left off

  One day, standing in front of the hotel mirror, looking at the huge bruises slowly darkening my ribs, it occurs to me that I don’t want to do this anymore. That somehow I have fallen in love with my husband. That by virtue of never touching me, he has in fact become the most special man in my life.

  I want to stay home. I want to feel safe.

  It’s a good vow, don’t you think?

  Unfortunately, I’m no good at clean, healthy living. I have to hurt. I have to be punished.

  If not by myself, then at least by someone else.

  When I first saw the picture on the computer screen, that single black-and-white image of unspeakable violence being committed against such a small, vulnerable young boy, I should’ve packed up Ree and left. That would’ve been the smart, sensible thing to do.

  No wasting time with denial. So Jason was kind, considerate, and, the best I could tell, a remarkable father It wasn’t like respectable family men couldn’t have dirty little secrets, right? Of all people, I should know that.

  Was it the cycle of violence? In my calculating attempt to run away from my family, to pick the one man I thought was the antithesis of everything my father had been, had I run right into the arms of another monster? Maybe darkness speaks to darkness. I didn’t marry my husband because I thought he would save me; I married him to stay with the devil I knew.

  I know the moment I saw that photo, I felt a stirring deep inside the ugly part of myself A bitter sense of recognition. All of a sudden, my perfect husband was no better than me, and heaven help me, I liked that. I really, really liked that.

  I told myself I needed more information. I told myself my husband deserved the benefit of the doubt. One explicit photo in the trash bin did not a predator make. Maybe he’d received it by accident and immediately deleted it. Maybe it popped up on some website and he was getting rid of it. There could be a rational explanation. Right?

  Truth is, Jason came home that night, and I could still look him in the eye. Truth is, he asked me how my night was, and I told him “Just fine.”

  I am
an expert on lying. I excel at pretend normal.

  And some terrible, angry part of me was happy to once again be in charge.

  I took Ree to school. I started teaching sixth grade social studies. I considered my options.

  Four weeks later, I made my move. I’d been doing some research on the student population, and my dear friend, Mrs. Lizbet, was helpful as always.

  I found Ethan Hastings in the computer lab. He looked up when I entered the room. Immediately, he flushed bright red, and I knew this was going to be even easier than I’d thought.

  “Ethan,” I said, the pretty, respectable Mrs. Jones. “Ethan, I have a project for you. I want you to teach me everything you know about the Internet.”

  D.D. was pissed off. She exited the Jones residence, slid into her car, and started punching buttons on her cell phone. It was nearly eleven P.M., well after the hour for polite conversation, but then again, she was dialing a state detective and he was used to such things.

  “What?” Massachusetts State Detective Bobby Dodge answered the phone. He sounded sleepy and annoyed, which fit her mood nicely.

  “Did I wake you, honey?”

  “Yes.” He hung up on her.

  D.D. hit Redial; she and Bobby went way back, had even been lovers once upon a time. She liked calling him at odd hours of the night. He liked hanging up on her. The system worked for them.

  “D.D.,” he groaned this time, “I’ve been on call for the past four nights. Gimme a break.”

  “Married life is making you soft,” she informed him.

  “I believe the politically correct phrase is ‘balanced lifestyle.’”

  “Please, in a cop’s world, balanced lifestyle is a beer in each hand.”

  He finally laughed. She could hear the rustle of sheets, him stretching out. She found herself straining her ears, listening for the low murmur of his wife’s voice. It made her flush, feel like a voyeur, and she was grateful she wasn’t on video conference.

  She had a weakness for Bobby Dodge not even she could explain. She’d given him up, but couldn’t let him go. Just went to show you that smart, ambitious women were their own worst enemies.