by Joy Fielding
“Cindy—Jesus!—what the hell are you doing?” Ryan swayed from one foot to the other, as if not sure whether to bolt for the door or wrestle her to the ground.
Cindy made the decision for him, throwing herself at his chest and grabbing hold of his dark blue tie, weaving it between her fingers, and pulling it up and out, like a noose. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Ryan tried wriggling out of her grasp, but Cindy’s grip on his tie was unyielding. His complexion went from soft pink to angry red, as his right hand reached for his throat, and his left tried in vain to ward off the blows of her open palm.
A sudden jolt of pain shot through Cindy’s arm, like an electric shock, as Ryan succeeded in grabbing her wrist and twisting it back. Cindy responded with a sharp kick to his shin.
“Cindy, what the hell …?”
“Where’s Julia? Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Cindy hauled back and slapped Ryan, hard, across the face.
“Shit!” he yelled, his cheek whitening with the imprint of her hand. The slap seemed to knock him into action, for suddenly he was all masculine strength and rage, his arms extending and corralling and subduing. In seconds, he overpowered Cindy’s intemperate flailings, reducing them to an ineffectual montage of arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes.
Cindy cried out as she felt the point of his shoe crack against the back of her knees, then watched helplessly as her body was propelled into the air, before falling—ass over teakettle, as her mother might say—to the floor. Her elbow smacked against the top of the piano stool, and she swore, the word fuck flying from her mouth in a sudden rush of air, as Ryan fell on top of her, pinning her arms to the floor above her head. Roses scattered in all directions as Cindy tried to sit up, to push him away, to roll out from under him, but she couldn’t move. “Shit! Fuck!” she sputtered, sounding increasingly weak, her words having lost their power to shield and protect. After several more minutes of aimless showboating, she gave up, stopped struggling, lay still.
“Okay, now,” Ryan began, his voice that of the conqueror, despite his shortness of breath.
Cindy stared up at the man lying on top of her, gravity pulling on his handsome face, distorting his delicate features, like a silk sweater that’s been left too long on a hanger. Ryan was bruised and sweaty, and his dark hair fell across his forehead like loosely shredded bits of carbon paper. Anger intensified the black of his eyes; confusion softened it. But something else was present in those eyes, Cindy recognized. Mingled with the anger and confusion was an unmistakable glint of excitement. Ryan Sellick was enjoying himself.
“Tell me what the hell is going on,” he said.
In response, Cindy expelled a wad of saliva from her mouth, aiming it directly at Ryan’s face. Unfortunately, the gesture proved more symbolic than successful, with only a tiny fraction of the spittle reaching its intended target, and the rest raining back across her lips.
“Are you crazy?” Ryan was shouting now. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Let go of me.”
Ryan tightened his grip on her wrists. “Not until you promise to calm down.”
“You’re only making things worse for yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The police will be here any minute.”
Ryan suddenly let go of her arms, sank back on his hips. “The police?”
“They know all about your affair with Julia,” Cindy improvised.
Ryan fell away from her then, leaning back against the stubby front leg of the piano, the color draining from his face in uneven bursts, leaving jagged splotches of red on his cheeks, like too much makeup haphazardly applied. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, but his words lacked the moral outrage necessary to sustain them, and they burst upon contact with the air, like soap bubbles.
Cindy scooted along the floor on her rear end until she felt the sofa at her back. She was too tired to stand up, too spent to launch another attack. “Just tell me where Julia is,” she said softly, when what she really wanted to say was, Just tell me Julia’s alive.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“The police think you do.”
“The police are wrong.”
“Just like they’re wrong about the crank calls I’ve been getting?”
“What crank calls?”
“The ones telling me my daughter is a tramp, that she got what she deserved.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The calls coming from this house.”
“What!”
“Are the police wrong about that too, Ryan?”
A shadow fell across Ryan’s face. Like in the movies, Cindy thought, when the screen slowly fades to black. His eyes registered disbelief, acceptance, and alarm almost simultaneously, and he shook his head, muttering, “No, it’s impossible. It can’t be.”
“What can’t be?” Cindy asked, distracted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She turned, saw Faith standing in the doorway. She was wearing the same red tartan pajamas she’d been wearing all day, and the smell of sour milk emanated from her body like an unpleasant perfume.
“What’s going on in here?” Faith asked, her eyes flitting between Cindy and her husband.
Cindy remained on the floor as Ryan struggled to his feet, limped toward his wife.
“What happened to your face?” Faith touched her husband’s cheek. “What’s going on?” she asked again, her voice flat and faraway, as if she were talking in her sleep.
“Faith,” Ryan began, then stopped, smoothed the hair away from his wife’s forehead with a solicitous hand.
“The police are on their way over,” Cindy informed her.
“The police? Why?”
“They think we know something about Julia,” her husband explained.
“But you already talked to them.”
“Apparently some calls were made from this house …”
“What are you talking about?”
“The police have a tap on my phone,” Cindy said, her voice cold, her sympathy spent. “Apparently it’s not unusual in cases like this for the victim’s family to receive crank calls,” she continued, bracing herself for Faith’s heated denials.
Instead she heard, “You think Julia’s the victim here?”
“What?” asked Cindy, rising quickly to her feet.
“What?” echoed Ryan, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Trust me,” Faith continued, tugging at the bottom of her pajama top, pulling it up and away from her leaking breasts. “Julia’s no sweet, innocent little victim.”
“Faith,” Ryan began warily. “I don’t think you should say anything else.”
“Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to be the good little girl, the quiet little mouse, the perfect little wifey who stays home and cooks and cleans and looks after your demon seed, all the while smiling and looking happy, never saying a word about the fact that her husband is busy screwing everything that moves.”
“Faith, please.…”
“What? You think I don’t know? You think I don’t know about Brooke, about Ellen, about Marcy?” She paused briefly. “About Julia?”
“What about Julia?” Cindy asked quietly, almost reluctant to interrupt, to interfere with the violent flow of words.
Faith abruptly shifted her focus from Ryan to Cindy. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, knowing how special you think your precious Julia is, but your little girl was just one of the crowd. Wasn’t she, Ryan? Pick a number—the line forms to the right.”
“Faith,” her husband warned. “Enough.”
“Enough? Are you kidding? What’s ever been enough for you?”
“Look. You’re upset. You’re exhausted. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying you’re a lying, cheating piece of shit who sleeps with his clients’ wives, his partner’s daughter, and his neighbor’s pride and joy.
Except there’s not a whole lot to be proud of, is there, Cindy? Trust me on this: Julia’s no innocent little victim. She wasn’t lured into the backseat of a stranger’s car by a piece of candy. She was sleeping with a married man, and in my book, she deserves whatever happened to her.”
“Faith,” Cindy urged, trying desperately to maintain control, “if you know where Julia is …”
“Have you checked the Yellow Pages under ‘Whores’?”
Ryan’s hand suddenly sliced through the air, came down hard across his wife’s cheek. “Shut up, Faith! Just shut up!”
Faith staggered back, grabbed the side of her face. “I will not shut up,” she screamed. “I am not a silent partner in this relationship, and I will not be quiet any longer.”
“If you have any idea, any idea at all, what happened to Julia …” Cindy pleaded.
Faith squinted at Cindy as if she were staring directly into the sun. “You think I had something to do with your daughter’s disappearance?”
“Did you?”
Faith emitted a low, guttural sound, halfway between a scoff and a snarl, then sank to the living room sofa. Above their heads, a baby began to cry. “Well, what do you know? Another quarter heard from. What took you so long?” she hollered at the ceiling.
“Did you have anything to do with Julia’s disappearance?” Cindy pressed, aware that Ryan was staring at his wife with equal intensity.
Faith caught the question in her husband’s eyes and made another sound, this one more moan than defiance. “You think I actually did something to your golden girl?” she asked, ignoring Cindy, directing the question at Ryan. “Tell me, when was I supposed to have done this? In between breast-feeding and changing diapers? Between putting your son down to sleep and trying to get some sleep myself? How about between blow-jobs?”
“Faith, for God’s sake.…”
“I didn’t touch your precious Julia,” Faith told Cindy. “I have absolutely no idea where she is or what happened to her.” She lowered her head into her hands, spoke through slightly parted fingers. “Yes, I made those calls. Don’t ask me why. You’ve always been so nice to me. My friend. My only friend.” She lifted her legs off the floor and curled into a fetal position on the couch, her arms wrapping around her head, as if seeking to protect herself from further blows. “Oh God, would somebody please get that damn baby to stop screaming.”
“How long were you involved with my daughter?” Cindy asked Ryan, her voice low, her eyes locked on his wife.
“Cindy.…”
“Please don’t insult me by continuing to deny it.” She turned slowly in his direction.
Ryan nodded. “Two months. Maybe a bit more.”
“Why did you lie?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Tell me, Cindy. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to tell the truth.”
“And what good would that have done? What good does knowing about my relationship with Julia do anyone? Is it going to help find her?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“Honestly, Cindy. If I thought for one minute that telling the police about my affair with Julia would have helped find her, I would have done it. I was just trying to protect her.”
“Protect her? The only person you’ve been trying to protect in this whole mess is yourself.”
“I don’t know where Julia is,” Ryan said again. “Yes, I lied about my involvement with her, and yes, I’m a no-good piece of shit who cheats on his wife. But do you have any idea what it’s like being married to someone who’s constantly depressed, who acts as if she’s the only woman in the world who ever gave birth, who looks at her own son as if he’s some infectious disease? So yes, I tend to respond favorably when a beautiful woman looks at me with adoration instead of contempt. But that only means I’m human. It doesn’t mean I had anything to do with Julia’s disappearance. Please, Cindy, you have to believe me. I would never hurt Julia.”
“Do you love my daughter?” Cindy asked, hearing the police car pull into the driveway, the sound of car doors slamming.
Ryan looked away, said nothing.
Of all times not to lie, Cindy thought. “You really are a jerk,” she told him, listening as heavy footsteps bounded up the outside steps, and impatient hands pounded on the front door.
IT WAS ALMOST nine o’clock that night when the police finally phoned Cindy to say they’d concluded their questioning of the Sellicks, first at their home, then at the police station, and ultimately decided to release them.
“What do you mean, you released them?”
“We have nothing to hold them on,” Detective Gill explained.
“What do you mean, you have nothing?” How many times did she start sentences these days with the phrase, What do you mean? “Ryan Sellick admitted he lied about his affair with Julia. His wife admitted calling my house.”
“Yes, and we questioned them for more than four hours. That’s all they admitted.”
“Four hours? My daughter’s been missing for two weeks!”
“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill interrupted gently. “Of course we will continue to investigate all angles here, but Ryan Sellick’s alibi checks out, and it’s highly unlikely that Faith Sellick could have been involved in Julia’s disappearance. Think of it logically. It means she would have had to follow Julia to her audition, wait for her, ambush her.…”
“She wouldn’t have had to ambush her,” Cindy protested, knowing she was grasping at straws. “All she’d have to do was pretend to be in the area shopping, and then casually offer Julia a lift.…”
“And the baby?”
“Maybe she left him at home. Maybe he was in the backseat. Maybe she used him to lure Julia into the car.” Like offering a child a piece of candy, Cindy thought, recalling Faith’s own words. There was a second’s silence. Cindy could almost feel Detective Gill shrug. “Are you going to get a search warrant?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“What do you mean, it won’t be necessary? Why not?”
“The Sellicks have already given us their permission to search their cars and premises.”
“They have? What does that mean?”
“It means we’re unlikely to find anything.”
“And that’s what you think?” Why was she asking him that? It was obviously what he thought.
“I think we have to wait and see if forensics can come up with any real evidence linking the Sellicks to your daughter.”
“And if they can’t? Can’t you arrest them anyway?”
“We need evidence to arrest people, Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill reminded her patiently. “We could charge Mrs. Sellick with making those crank calls, but I’m not sure there’s any point to that, given her delicate emotional state.”
Cindy took a deep breath, swallowed the scream that was building in her throat. Elvis, lying on the kitchen floor, rolled to his feet and ambled over to where she was sitting, then laid his chin in her lap. Cindy found herself smiling in spite of her distress, and patted the top of his head appreciatively. “What about Sean Banack?”
“His alibis have pretty much checked out.”
“Pretty much?”
“It seems unlikely he was involved in Julia’s disappearance.”
“What about Michael Kinsolving? Duncan Rossi? Any of Julia’s friends?”
“So far, nothing.”
“So you’re no farther ahead than you were two weeks ago. In fact, if anything, you’re farther behind.” Hadn’t she read somewhere that the longer a case dragged on, the colder its trail became? “What exactly are you people doing to find my daughter, Detective?”
“Our job, Mrs. Carver,” the detective said simply. “And you’re not making things any easier for us by barging into people’s homes and interfering with our investigation.”
“I didn’t barge into the Sellicks’ house. I was asked to come over.”
“You know what I mean.”
“So I’m just
supposed to sit back and do nothing?”
“That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“You have no choice here, Mrs. Carver.”
Cindy clenched her fists in her lap, swallowed another scream. Elvis immediately poked his wet nose into the palm of her hand, demanding to be stroked. Cindy absently obliged, replaying Detective Gill’s words in her mind—You have no choice here—and wondering how many major events in her life had been decided without her approval. There was no such thing as choice, she was thinking. It was an illusion, a comforting yet basically specious concept that human beings had developed in order to fool themselves into believing they had some control over their lives.
Control—another illusion.
“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill was saying. “Did you understand what I just said?”
“I understand, Detective Gill. I’m not an idiot.”
“Then please stop acting like one,” he said, a sudden sharpness cutting through his soft Jamaican lilt. “You could end up sabotaging this whole investigation,” he continued, softening. “Or worse. You could get hurt. And what good would that do anyone?”
“You’re right.” Cindy looked around the kitchen, thinking that if she didn’t get off this phone, get out of this house, she would go insane. “I’m sorry, Detective. It won’t happen again.”
“We’ll keep in touch.”
“Thank you.” Cindy hung up the phone and jumped to her feet, Elvis leaping to attention beside her. “We have to get out of here,” Cindy told the dog, who promptly dragged his leash to the front door, understanding her intent, if not her words.
Seconds later, the two were running down the street toward Avenue Road.
THEY RAN DOWN the steep slope between Edmund and Cottingham. Even after nine o’clock at night, Avenue Road was still busy. Three lanes of traffic moved steadily in each direction, and pedestrians ambled along both sides of the street—joggers, people walking their dogs, couples out for an evening stroll. Such a nice night after all. Still warm. Summer hanging on, more stubborn than usual.