by Joy Fielding
“I’m fine,” he whispered back.
“Follow me.” Cindy tiptoed down the stairs leading to the bottom floor, cringing at each creak of the floor beneath her feet, feeling like a teenager sneaking home after curfew. “Can you see okay?” she asked, relying on the half-moon peeking through the windows to guide them, reluctant to turn on any lights.
“I’m fine,” he said again, settling in beside her on the family room sofa.
“Thanks for dinner.” Cindy was glad it was too dark to make out the stains on the old brown corduroy couch, a couch that pulled out into a queen-size bed, Cindy thought, and felt her face flush. “I was hungrier than I realized.”
And suddenly she was moving toward him, taking his face in her hands and drawing his lips toward hers, then kissing him full on the mouth, her tongue seeking his, her arms wrapping around him, crushing him tightly against her, her hands burying themselves in his hair, pulling him closer, as if there were still too much space between them, her legs curling around his hips, as if she could somehow manage to climb out of her own body and escape into his, as if she needed the air in his lungs to breathe.
“Oh God,” she cried, abruptly pulling away and pushing herself toward the far end of the sofa. “What am I doing? What’s the matter with me?”
“It’s all right, Cindy. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right. I was all over you.”
“Cindy,” Neil said, trying to calm her, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What you must think of me.”
Neil stared at her through the semidarkness. “I think you’re the most beautiful, most courageous woman I know,” he said softly.
“Courageous?” Cindy swiped at the tears now falling the length of her cheeks. “Courage implies choice. I didn’t choose any of this.”
“Which makes you all the more courageous in my book.”
Cindy stared wistfully at the man beside her. Where had he come from? Were there really men like this in the world? “Make love to me,” she said. Then more forcefully, “I really need for you to make love to me.”
Neil said nothing. He simply reached for her, strong arms surrounding her like a cape. He kissed her once, then again and again, tender kisses, like the gentle flutter of a butterfly’s wings against her skin, then deeper, his touch sure, unhurried, deliberate, as he began to caress and undress her. She felt the warmth of his fingers, the cool wetness of his tongue, and cried out with joy when he entered her, urgency replacing delicacy as he rocked inside her. Gradually, almost reluctantly, she felt her body building to a climax and tried hard to fight it, to prolong the moment as long as humanly possible, until it was no longer something she could control, and she cried out again, her nails digging into the flesh of his back, her fingers clinging to him as if he were a life preserver in a treacherous ocean. Seconds later, they collapsed against one another, their bodies bathed in a thin coating of sweat.
“Are you all right?” Neil asked after a silence of several seconds.
“Are you kidding?” Cindy asked in return, then laughed out loud.
Neil laughed with her, kissed her forehead, gathered her inside his arms.
“Thank you,” Cindy said.
“Now who’s kidding?”
He kissed her again, drawing her back against the well-stuffed pillows, their bodies folding comfortably together, their breathing steady and rhythmic.
And then there were footsteps shuffling above their heads, and upstairs’ lights being turned on, and familiar voices sliding down the banister. “I told you there’s no one here,” Cindy’s mother was saying as Elvis began barking beside her.
“And I’m telling you I heard something,” Leigh argued. “Hello? Hello?”
“Hello?” Norma Appleton echoed. “Is someone there?”
The dog raced down the steps, bounded into the family room.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Cindy said, fending off Elvis’s eager paws as she scrambled into her clothes.
“Cindy? Cindy, is that you?”
“It’s me, Mom,” Cindy called out, pulling her T-shirt over her head as Elvis jumped against Neil’s thighs. “It’s all right. You don’t have to come down.”
“What are you doing downstairs?” Two sets of footsteps headed for the stairs.
“Please don’t come down,” Cindy urged, pulling her slacks over her hips, knowing such exhortations were futile, that it was only a matter of seconds before her mother and sister peeked their heads into the room. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered to Neil, who was hurriedly tucking his shirt inside his pants. “It’s like when I was fifteen and she caught me making out with Martin Crawley.”
“What do you mean, don’t come down?” Leigh was asking, her voice edging closer. “What are you doing down here in the dark?” Her hand reached into the room, flipped on the switch for the overhead light, her eyes taking a second to adjust to the sudden brightness, another second to adjust to the fact that Cindy wasn’t alone. “Oh.”
“What’s going on down here?” Norma Appleton asked.
“I think maybe we should go back upstairs,” Leigh ventured, trying to back out of the room.
But her mother was already blocking her exit. “Don’t be silly. What’s …? Oh.” She stared at Neil Macfarlane. “I’m sorry, Cindy. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“You remember Neil,” Cindy ventured meekly.
“Yes, of course,” her mother said. “How are you, Neil?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mrs. Appleton.”
“Hi,” Leigh offered weakly.
“Nice to see you again,” Neil said.
Nobody moved.
“I guess I should probably go,” Neil said finally.
“Please don’t leave on our account,” Norma Appleton said.
“It’s late. I really should get going.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.” Cindy followed him up the stairs. She, in turn, was trailed by her mother, her sister, and the dog.
Cindy closed the front door behind her as she walked Neil to his car. “I don’t suppose I’ll hear from you again,” she said, smiling as he leaned over to kiss her good night.
“Was Martin Crawley so easily deterred?”
Cindy smiled, waited until his car disappeared down the street before turning back to the house. The front door opened just as she was reaching for it, her mother and sister waiting on the other side, Elvis between them.
“Sort of like old times,” her mother said with a smile.
“I’ll make us some tea,” said Leigh.
TWENTY-TWO
HAVE you seen a copy of this morning’s Sun?” Meg asked Cindy, at barely seven o’clock Monday morning.
It had been eleven days since Julia went missing.
Cindy lowered the phone in her hand and stared at Elvis, who was waiting for her by the front door. “No. I haven’t been out yet. I was just about to take the dog for a walk when you called.”
“Maybe you should let someone else take him,” Meg suggested.
“Why? What are you getting at? What’s in the Sun that you don’t think I should see?”
“I just think you should be prepared.”
“For what? Has another girl disappeared?” There’d been nothing in the other papers about any more disappearances.
“There’s a picture of Julia on the front page,” Meg said.
“Again?”
“It’s a different picture. She’s … well, it’s pretty suggestive. And there are more pictures inside. I don’t know where they got them.…”
Cindy dropped the receiver, ran for the door.
“Cindy?” she heard Meg’s voice call after her. “Cindy, are you there?”
Elvis barked in angry protest as Cindy slammed the door behind her and ran down the street. What was Meg talking about? What picture? She’d only given the police that one head shot of Julia. Where could they have gotten more? “What pictures, damn it?” she asked out loud, hurling her
self at the newspaper box on the corner, recoiling in horror at the full-page photograph of her daughter that stared back at her with almost deliberate provocation.
Julia was staring directly into the camera lens, her eyes challenging the viewer. She was wearing only the bottom half of a black string bikini, her hands cupped coyly over high, bare breasts. JULIA’S LOST JEWELS, the caption beside the picture read.
Cindy stumbled back on her heels as if she’d been struck. It was one of the photographs she’d found in Sean’s apartment, photographs Tom had stuffed inside the pocket of his beige linen pants. How had the paper gotten its hands on it? And what of the other pictures inside? Were they part of the same collection?
She reached into her pocket for some change, realized she’d forgotten to bring any, and slammed her fist on the top of the red metal box in frustration. She cast a wary glance over each shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then kicked at the side of the box, and jiggled its handle, trying to force it open. The damn thing refused to budge. “Shit!” she yelled, spinning around in helpless circles.
A woman walking a small white dog rounded the corner at Lynwood. “Excuse me,” Cindy called to her. “I don’t suppose you have some spare change for the paper? I could pay you back later.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, as if she’d just been approached by a foul-smelling panhandler, and she promptly picked up her dog and crossed to the other side of the street.
“Great,” Cindy muttered, racing back down Balmoral toward her house, hearing Elvis barking all the way down the street. “Okay, okay,” she said, opening her door and trying to keep the dog from knocking her down as she rifled through her purse for some change. “Okay, you can come,” she told the dog, grabbing his leash, heading back out the door.
“What’s all the commotion?” her mother called from the top of the stairs.
“I’m just getting the paper,” Cindy said. “Go back to sleep.”
She hurried down the steps and along Balmoral to Avenue Road. But Elvis refused to be rushed, stopping repeatedly to sniff at the grass and lift his leg. “Come on. Come on. We haven’t got all day.”
Cindy stopped abruptly, the absurdity of what she’d just said hitting her square in the forehead, as if she’d just walked into a brick wall. We haven’t got all day? All day was exactly what she had. And the day after that. And the day after that. How many days? she wondered, importuning the cloudless sky. How many more awful, blank days waiting to be filled? How many more endless days spent in aimless, if frantic, pursuit of her daughter? How many more useless meetings with police, well-meaning conversations with friends, sadistic phone calls from strangers? How many more such days could she tolerate? How many more could she survive?
As many as it takes, Cindy understood, continuing toward the corner. What choice did she have? “No choice, no control,” she told the dog as he lifted his rump into the air and dropped several steaming turds into the middle of the sidewalk. “That’s just great,” she said, realizing she’d forgotten to bring a plastic bag. She looked helplessly up and down the street, wondering what to do. What could she do? She wasn’t about to pick it up with her hands. “I’ll come back later,” she apologized to the empty street, stepping around the unsightly pile, pulling Elvis after her before he could do more damage.
She reached the newspaper box at the same time as an immaculately dressed, middle-aged man, who nodded hello as he dropped the appropriate coinage into the slot and pulled out a paper, his fingers unconsciously folding across her daughter’s partially exposed breasts. Cindy felt a scream rising in her throat, and turned away. “Have a nice day,” the man said in parting.
Cindy’s eyes trailed after him. Did he know anything about her daughter’s disappearance? He obviously lived in the area, had probably seen Julia around. He was neatly dressed to the point of fastidiousness, nattily bland, unnecessarily polite. Middle-aged. Repressed. Probably lived alone, or with his mother. Exactly the type you always read about, the quiet ones, the ones with smiles on their lips and mayhem in their hearts.
Men like him were everywhere, Cindy thought as she dropped her money in the slot and reached inside the box for the paper. She couldn’t look at a man anymore without wondering whether he knew something about Julia, whether he’d seen her, or talked to her, or plotted her harm. Every stranger was a possible fiend; every friend a possible foe. How well do we really know anybody?
How well do we know ourselves?
Cindy’s thoughts drifted to Neil, to the events of last Saturday night. Again she felt his arms around her, his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, on her breasts, between her legs. She felt him moving inside her, and even now, it felt wonderful. To lose herself so completely in the moment, to forget for a brief spasm of time what else she might have lost. Followed by the dog’s paws on her bare thighs, the priceless looks on the faces of her mother and sister, the reassuring smile in Neil’s eyes as he kissed her good night. The Lord giveth, she found herself thinking, as she stared at the picture of her daughter in the morning paper, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
And the Lord taketh away.
More pictures, page 3.
Cindy flipped the page over, gasped when she saw two more familiar photos—one of Julia wearing a push-up bra and matching thong, the other of Julia in profile, her elbow pressing against the curve of her naked breast, the bare cheeks of her round bottom playing peekaboo with the camera.
How did the Sun get these pictures? Was it possible Sean had duplicates, that he’d sold the negatives to the tabloid? She stuffed more coins into the box, pulling out the last remaining copies of the paper, and running with them along the street, feeling one of her sandals suddenly connect with something squishy. “Oh, shit!” she yelled, sliding to a stop, knowing exactly what she’d stepped in. “Serves me right,” she shouted. “Serves me goddamn right.” She ripped off her sandal, the bottom of which was covered in dog poop, and hurled it into the middle of the road.
“Where’s your sandal?” her mother asked as Cindy limped into the kitchen several minutes later on only one shoe.
Cindy waved the question aside as she spread the papers across the kitchen table, then walked to the phone, asked information for the number of the Toronto Sun.
“Oh, my,” her mother whispered, staring at the pictures. Then again, “Oh, my.”
“I need to speak to Frank Landau,” Cindy said, checking the name under the article that accompanied the racy pictures of her daughter.
“This is Frank Landau,” a man answered seconds later.
“Where did you get those pictures of my daughter?”
“Excuse me?”
“The pictures of Julia Carver. Where did you get them?”
“Mrs. Carver?”
“I will sue your goddamn paper. I will sue you personally.…”
“Mrs. Carver, wait. Wait. Calm down. Please.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Tell me how you got those pictures.”
There was a long pause. By the time the reporter answered, Cindy knew what he was going to say. “I got them from your ex-husband,” he told her evenly. “Tom Carver hand-delivered them to me in person yesterday afternoon.”
• • •
“WHERE IS HE?” Cindy demanded as she pushed through the door to Tom’s office at just after one o’clock that afternoon.
Irena Ruskin jumped to her feet behind her appropriately cluttered desk. “He’s not here. Wait,” she called, scrambling after Cindy into Tom’s inner office. “Mrs. Carver! Cindy!”
Cindy spun around, absorbing the faithful secretary in a single glance. Her hair was still the same unsubtle shade of blond, although a few inches longer than Cindy last remembered it, possibly to hide the scars of her most recent plastic surgery, Cindy thought unkindly, wondering whether the woman chose her wardrobe to coordinate with the dark blue of the two chairs in front of the massive oak desk. “Where is he?”
“He’s in a meeting.”
&
nbsp; “He’s been in that meeting since nine o’clock this morning.”
“I gave him all your messages.”
“I need to speak to him, Irena. It’s pretty urgent or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Cindy.…”
“Could you get him for me? Please?”
“Was that Cindy Carver I just saw walk by?” a man’s voice asked from the doorway.
Cindy took a deep breath, forced herself to smile as she extended her hand to one of her ex-husband’s law partners. “Hello, Alan. How are you?”
“I’m well. How are you holding up?”
“Today isn’t a great day.” Cindy marveled at her use of understatement. She might even have laughed had Alan Reynolds not looked quite so earnest. “I’m sure you saw the pictures in the Sun.”
Alan Reynolds nodded. “You’re waiting for Tom, I take it.”
“Apparently he’s stuck in one of those all-day meetings.” Cindy glanced at Irena, who nodded uncomfortably.
“Really? Well, they must be taking a break. I just saw him talking to Mitchell Pritchard. Let me see if I can get him for you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Can I get you anything in the meantime? A cup of coffee? Some water, perhaps?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
“Has there been any news about Julia?” Irena asked when he was gone.
“You didn’t see the spread in the Sun?”
“I saw it.”
“Quite impressive, don’t you think?”
Irena shuffled from one foot to the other, looked as if she were seriously considering jumping out the twenty-fifth-floor window. “If there’s anything I can do for you during this difficult time.…”
You’re the first person I’ll call, Cindy thought. Aloud she said, “Thank you.” She turned toward the floor-to-ceiling window with its magnificent view of the waterfront, saw her own pathetic image reflected back. She was wearing her standard uniform of blue jeans and faded T-shirt, and her hair was greasy from constantly tugging at it. Take your hands away from your hair, she could hear Tom scold. “How many partners are there in the firm now?” she asked Irena, in an effort to silence him.