by Joy Fielding
Elvis promptly did as he was told.
“Amazing,” Cindy said.
Immediately, six other dogs rushed the woman, begging for treats. Along with the white poodle, there was a smaller red one, a big German shepherd, a bigger Golden Lab, and two medium-sized black dogs whose breeds Cindy couldn’t identify.
“Where’s Julia?” a young girl asked as Elvis chewed on his treat. The girl was about twelve years old, with thin yellow hair and a mouthful of braces. She stood beside a younger girl with the exact same face, minus the hardware.
Cindy hadn’t expected to hear her daughter’s name. It stabbed at her heart like a sharp stick. Instinctively, her hand reached for Neil’s. She felt his fingers fold over her own. “You know Julia?”
“She’s so pretty,” the younger of the two sisters answered with a laugh.
“Haven’t seen her around in a while,” the woman with the treats said, pushing gray-streaked black hair away from her narrow face. “Did she take off for Hollywood?”
Did she? Cindy wondered. “When was the last time you saw her?” she asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.
“I’m not sure. About two weeks ago, I guess.”
“Was she with anyone?”
The woman looked puzzled by the question.
“She was with her new boyfriend,” the younger of the two sisters offered with a giggle.
“Her new boyfriend?” Cindy felt her throat constricting, as if a stranger’s hands were around her neck, strangling further attempts at conversation. “Do you know his name?” she whispered hoarsely, kneeling down on the grass in front of the younger, yellow-haired girl.
The child shook her head, looked anxiously toward her sister.
“Can you tell me what Julia’s boyfriend looked like? Please, it’s very important.”
The little girl shrugged, backed against her older sister’s side.
“Is there a problem?” someone asked from above her head.
“Julia’s been missing since Thursday,” Cindy said, eyes focused on the two girls.
“Oh, dear.”
“I saw her yesterday,” a man said.
Instantly, Cindy was on her feet, advancing toward him. “You saw her yesterday?”
The man, who was fortyish, heavyset, and balding, took a step back. “She was sitting right over there.” He pointed toward a lone bench at the far end of the park. “She was crying.”
“Crying?”
“That wasn’t Julia,” the man’s wife corrected. “It was the other one. Heather. Is that her name? Such a nice girl.”
“Heather was here yesterday?”
“About four o’clock. Sitting right over there,” the man repeated. “Crying her heart out. You’re sure that wasn’t Julia?” he asked his wife.
Was she?
“It was the other one,” his wife insisted.
What would Heather be doing in the park, crying?
“I wanted to ask her if there was anything we could do to help, but …” The woman shook her head in her husband’s direction, as if her failure to take action was his fault.
“We decided it was none of our business,” her husband replied defensively.
“Have you called the police?” someone asked, the voices beginning to blend together in Cindy’s ears, becoming indistinguishable one from the other.
“The police have been contacted,” Neil answered for her. “But if any of you can think of anything that might be of help.…”
“Can’t think of a thing,” someone said.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
“I’m so sorry,” said someone else.
“Good luck.”
Their voices receded as their footsteps pulled away. Cindy stared at the trampled grass until it grew quiet. When she looked up again, she and Neil were alone in the center of the park.
“Are you all right?” Neil asked.
Cindy shrugged, realized she was still holding tightly onto Neil’s hand. “Sorry,” she said, releasing his fingers from her vise-like grip.
“Any time.”
Cindy’s eyes swept across the dry field. The father and his young son were still struggling with their uncooperative kite; the sunbathers were still stretched out on their blanket by the tennis courts; the jogger in the lime green shorts was still running in hapless circles around the track; the elderly Chinese woman was still doing her exercises. “Where’s Elvis?” Cindy asked, spinning around. “Elvis!” She ran to the edge of the hill, looked down, saw a bunch of other dogs playing at the bottom. No Elvis. “Oh no.” She raced to the other side of the park. “Elvis! Where is he? Elvis! Where are you?”
Neil was right beside her. “Take it easy, Cindy. We’ll find him.”
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I lost Julia’s dog.”
“We’ll find him,” Neil repeated.
She was crying now. “Julia will never forgive me. She’ll never forgive me.”
Neil took her arm, deliberately slowed her pace, led her toward the tennis courts. “Elvis!” he called out, his voice racing ahead of them as they walked around the side of the double row of courts to the front part of the park. They passed a group of young men playing soccer, dodged between two teenage boys tossing a bright orange Frisbee back and forth.
“He’s not here,” Cindy said, eyes scanning the crowded children’s playground by the front row of tennis courts. She approached a group of young mothers pushing their children on the swings. “Excuse me, have you seen a Wheaten terrier, about this big?” She held her hand about two feet off the ground. “He’s apricot-colored,” she continued, even as the women were shaking their heads no. Cindy ran toward the tiny brick building that was the headquarters of the Winston Churchill Tennis Association. “I can’t believe it. First I lose Julia; now I lose her dog.”
“You haven’t lost anyone.” Neil poked his head inside the men’s washroom to the left of the small structure. “We’ll find him,” he said. “Elvis! Elvis!”
“Elvis!” Cindy echoed.
“Is this your dog?” someone called from inside the main room.
Cindy poked her head into the open door of the tennis association’s headquarters. The single room was long and casually furnished, with a large desk to one side, a soft drink machine at the back, and several rows of blue chairs positioned around a small TV that was tuned to the U.S. Open. Two young men in tennis whites were lounging across a dark blue couch propped against one wall, a large pizza box open between them. Elvis was sitting on the floor in front of them, his eyes glued to what remained of the pizza.
“Elvis!” Cindy cried, falling to her knees and hugging the dog to her chest, feeling his wet tongue on the underside of her chin. “You scared me half to death.”
“Your dog sure loves pizza,” one of the boys said as Elvis barked his desire for more.
“I’m very sorry he bothered you.” Cindy quickly attached Elvis’s leash to his collar and pulled at the stubborn dog. “Come on, you.”
“Elvis has left the building,” she heard one of the young men say as they stepped outside.
The sun smacked Cindy full in the face, so she didn’t see the two young sisters in her path until she was almost on top of them. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. How many times had she said that in the last several days?
“Does Julia have a baby?” the younger of the two girls asked.
“What?”
“Come on,” the older girl urged, pulling on her sister’s arm.
“Wait,” Cindy said. “Please. What makes you think Julia has a baby?”
“ ’Cause I saw her with one.”
“Come on, Anne-Marie. We have to go home.”
“You saw Julia with a baby?” Cindy pressed.
“She was pushing it in a carriage. I asked her if it was her baby, and she laughed.”
Cindy took a long, deep breath, tried to digest this latest piece of information. What did it mean? Did it mean anything at all? “Damn it,” she mutt
ered, as once again Ryan’s face imposed itself on her consciousness. “That miserable son of a bitch.”
Anne-Marie gasped. “You said a bad word.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …” Cindy began, but the two girls were already fleeing the park.
“What is it?” Neil asked.
Cindy stared blankly at the horizon. Somewhere above her head, the old children’s rhyme kept circling: First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes Julia with a baby carriage.
“CINDY, HI,” Faith Sellick said, pulling open her front door, seemingly oblivious to the streak of green bile staining the front of her white shirt.
“Can I speak to Ryan for a minute?”
“He’s not home.”
“Where is he?”
“Golfing. Somewhere up north.”
“Could you have him call me as soon as he gets back?”
“Sure. Is something wrong?”
“I just need to talk to him.”
“He might be pretty late.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
From upstairs, a baby’s cry pierced the air. Faith’s eyes closed as her shoulders slumped. “We had such a nice day yesterday,” she said wistfully.
“Do you need some help?” Cindy asked, glancing down the front steps to where Neil stood waiting.
“No. You go. I’ll be fine.”
But when Cindy reached her own front door, she saw that Faith was still standing in her doorway, not moving, eyes tightly closed.
“MAYBE IT’S BETTER to wait until Tuesday, let the police talk to Ryan,” Neil advised later that night.
They were sitting at Cindy’s kitchen table, finishing off the last of a bottle of red Zinfandel. It was almost midnight. Heather and Duncan were out; her mother was upstairs asleep; her sister had gone home.
Ryan still hadn’t phoned.
“Bastard,” Cindy said. “Where is he?” She checked her watch. “Do you think I’m overreacting?” Tom would have said she was overreacting.
“No.”
“I mean, the kid could be mistaken. It might not have been Julia she saw with the baby. And the baby doesn’t have to be Ryan’s. Even if it was, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Ryan is Julia’s mystery boyfriend. Do you think I’m jumping to conclusions?” Tom would have said she was jumping to conclusions.
“I think you have good instincts. You should trust them.”
Cindy smiled across the table at a tired-looking Neil Macfarlane. I think I could love this man, she thought. Out loud she said, “It’s late. You should probably go.”
• • •
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK the next morning, Cindy was knocking on Ryan Sellick’s front door.
“Hold your horses,” Ryan called groggily from inside.
Cindy heard him shuffling toward the door, braced herself for the encounter to follow. “Easy does it. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” she could almost hear her mother advise.
She’d been up most of the night preparing what she was going to say, rehearsing exactly how she was going to say it. She’d even spent twenty minutes doing deep-breathing exercises to help her relax, and she was determined to stay calm. But the minute she saw Ryan standing in the doorway, black shirt unbuttoned, light khaki pants hanging low on his hips, a line of short, black hairs twisting down from his belly button and disappearing under his waistband, feet bare, long hair falling into sleepy eyes, the scratch beneath his right eye still prominent, it took all her resolve to keep from hurling herself at his throat. You lying, motherfucking, son of a bitch, she wanted to shout. “I need to talk to you,” she said instead.
Ryan wiped some sleep from the corner of his right eye. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is this about Faith?” He glanced warily over his shoulder toward the stairs.
“No.”
He looked confused.
“It’s about Julia.”
“Julia?”
“She’s been missing since Thursday.”
“Missing?”
“Have you seen her?”
“Not since I saw her arguing with Duncan in the driveway. Was that Thursday?”
“You haven’t seen her since then?”
Ryan shook his head. He was wide awake now.
“She didn’t say anything to you about maybe going away for the long weekend?”
The same stubborn shake of his head. “Nothing.”
“Has she confided in you lately about being depressed or upset?”
“Why would she confide in me?”
“I don’t know,” Cindy answered simply. “Maybe because the two of you were sleeping together?” The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them. Trust your instincts, she heard Neil say, remembering he had also suggested waiting until Tuesday, letting the police question Ryan. Why hadn’t she listened? she thought now, watching the summer tan drain from Ryan’s complexion. Why was she always barreling off half-cocked?
Ryan raised the fingers of his left hand to his lips, his eyes shooting toward his upstairs bedroom. “Look, maybe we should take this outside. I don’t want to wake Faith. She was up half the night with the baby.” They stepped onto the front landing. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Where were you yesterday?”
“Where was I?” he repeated, as if trying to make sense of the question.
“Where were you?” Cindy repeated.
“I was golfing up at Rocky Crest. Why? What …?”
“Was Julia with you?”
“Of course not.”
“Where did you get that scratch under your eye?”
“What?”
“Did Julia do that to you?”
“No. Of course not. I walked into a branch in the backyard.” Ryan pressed down on the scratch, as if trying to make it disappear. “Look, I think you better tell me what’s going on.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Why would you think I’m involved with Julia?”
“Julia recently broke up with her boyfriend. He says she was seeing someone else.”
“What would make you think that someone is me?”
“You were seen together. In the park. With the baby.”
Ryan’s face was a road map of confusing wrinkles. “I don’t know … wait … okay. Yes, I did run into Julia in the park. A few weeks ago, I think it was. I was there with Kyle. Julia was walking the dog. We talked for a few minutes. Is that what this is about?”
Cindy quickly digested this new information. Could she be mistaken? Had Ryan and Julia simply bumped into each other in the park? Was that all there was to it? “I found the phone number for Granger, McAllister among Julia’s things,” she said with renewed determination.
“So?”
“So … what would Julia be doing with the number for Granger, McAllister?”
“I have no idea.”
Hadn’t Tom once told her that innocent people rarely embellish, that only the guilty feel compelled to provide answers or excuses? Was she wrong about Ryan being the new mystery man in Julia’s life? Was he as innocent as he appeared to be?
The door swung open, as if by itself, and a ghostly apparition suddenly materialized in the front hall. “That’s probably my fault,” Faith said, her voice seeming to emanate from somewhere outside her body. “I’m so sorry, Cindy. I forgot to tell Ryan you wanted him to call.”
Ryan rushed toward his wife, who was looking pale and glassy-eyed in her long white cotton nightgown. He snaked his arm protectively around her waist. “What do you mean? What’s your fault?”
“About a month ago,” Faith recited without emotion, “I locked myself out of the house. I didn’t know what to do—the baby was inside—and then I saw Julia coming down the street, so I asked her to please call Ryan at work. But then I remembered we keep a spare set of keys under the mat, so there was no need to call him after all. I’m so sorry.”
Cindy shook her head, feeling both foolish and dejected.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. If anything, I’m the one who should be apologizing to both of you.”
“Is something wrong?” Faith asked.
“Julia’s missing,” her husband told her.
“Missing?”
“Since Thursday morning,” Cindy said. “I was hoping Ryan might know something. Anything.”
“I wish I could help you,” Ryan said.
“We haven’t seen her,” Faith added.
“Okay, well, if you think of anything, anything at all.…”
“We’ll call you,” the Sellicks said together.
Cindy walked down the outside steps, hearing their front door close behind her.
FIFTEEN
THE police arrived at just after ten o’clock Tuesday morning.
Cindy had been up since three, when she’d jumped out of bed in a sweat, certain she’d forgotten to take the pills that were keeping her alive. She’d let out a long chain of expletives and climbed back under the covers. But, of course, sleep was now impossible. Too many thoughts, too much fear. Too many possibilities, too much anger.
How could she have confronted Ryan that way? What was the matter with her?
At five, she’d given up on sleep and turned on the TV, hoping for something suitably mind-numbing to lull her back into unconsciousness. Something like Blind Date, she’d hoped, thoughts drifting to Neil.
She doubted she’d hear from him again. Despite his promises to call later, she recognized there was only so much unsolicited drama a man could take. There was a point when intrigue degenerated into irritant. Cindy suspected she’d already passed that point.
At seven she was walking Elvis around the block. At seven-thirty, Tom called to say he’d just driven back from Muskoka, had she heard from their daughter?
She told him Julia was still missing and he should get his ass over to her house as soon as possible. He told her he didn’t appreciate the profanity. She told him to fuck off.
An hour and a half later, resplendent in a dark blue suit, a lighter blue shirt, and a blue-and-gold-striped tie, Tom arrived with the Cookie, who was wearing black pants and a pink silk shirt. She took one look at Cindy in her baggy jeans and old mauve T-shirt and shook her head, as if she couldn’t quite believe her husband had once actually shared a bed with this woman, let alone produced a child as beautiful and fashion-savvy as Julia.