by Minka Kent
“Goodbye, Erica.” I shut the door, ensuring it doesn’t slam. I wouldn’t want her driving off with the satisfaction of knowing that her words had any sort of effect on me, even though they kind of do.
But not for long.
Walking it off, I send Andrew a text, telling him it’s fine that he has to work late, and I offer to bring his dinner to the office. If we can’t go out on our date tonight, I’ll bring the date to him.
My phone rings a minute later. “You’re fucking incredible, Mer. I’d love that.”
“I’ll bring your favorite,” I say. “The filet mignon from Centro, medium rare, oven-roasted asparagus, and a house salad, balsamic vinaigrette on the side.”
“You know me well,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Can’t wait to see you.”
“I’ll be there in an hour. And be sure to save room for dessert.” I bite my thumbnail, hoping he can read between the lines without seeing the devilish light in my eyes.
“You’re making me so fucking hard right now.” His voice is a low, grainy whisper into the receiver, and a jolt of anticipation ricochets through my body.
Erica has no idea what she’s talking about. I may be his plaything, but he’s mine, too. Mix love into that equation, and we’re unstoppable.
“Be there soon . . .” I hang up, trotting upstairs to slip on a little something special under my jeans and sweater.
CHAPTER 8
GREER
Day Three
It’s odd to think that forty-eight hours ago, my sister was driving these very streets, going about her daily business like any other ordinary Monday. And now here I am, shuffling through the snow-dusted streets, going door-to-door in an attempt to get at least one of her neighbors to answer.
No one appears to be home.
Or if they are home, they don’t want to talk to some strange lady dressed in all black who clearly isn’t from around here.
Not that I blame them.
Ronan’s tip line caller last night turned out to be a dud—or at least that’s what he claimed when I asked him on the ride home. Just some woman saying she saw a girl fitting Mer’s description riding in the back of a rusted conversion van heading eastbound on I-70. Not much he can do with that besides make a case note and hope he can connect it with something more substantial later.
I’ll admit, he seemed just as disappointed as I was last night, and I was tired, so I didn’t push or prod. I let him drop me off at Andrew and Meredith’s, and he promised to be in touch.
Approaching what appears to be a giant log cabin with stone accents, a red tin roof, and an abundance of evergreens, I remove my right glove and climb the front steps. I only have to knock twice before a woman answers.
With milky skin, platinum-blonde hair cut short, clear blue eyes, and a pointed nose, she positions her lithe body like some sort of barricade between me and the inside of her house.
“Are you Allison Ross?” I ask, neglecting to tell her I found her name on the Glacier County Assessor’s website on my walk over here, though I swear Meredith had spoken of her a time or two in passing.
Her brows furrow, and she readjusts her posture. “Who are you? Are you with the press? I’m not giving interviews about Meredith Price.”
“I’m her sister.”
Allison’s tense expression eases, and she licks her rosy lips before glancing over my shoulder. Her eyes are jittery, her movements quick and nimble.
“Come in,” she says, waving for me to follow her.
I step inside, removing my snowy boots on a plush wool rug in a dark entryway. Her home is neatly decorated, giving off a vacation-house vibe, and smells like fresh coffee, but its sheer size prevents it from feeling cozy.
“I’m just trying to find someone who maybe knew—knows—my sister,” I say. “Someone from around here. Someone she might have talked to on a regular basis?”
It’s only now that I see the bags under Allison’s eyes, the veins of red clouding the whites around her irises. She looks as though she’s been crying. Or not sleeping. Perhaps both.
“Meredith and I were close,” she says, voice juddering as she focuses on a landscape portrait on the wall behind me. “We spent a lot of time together.”
Allison trembles, her hands running the length of her arms as if that could possibly subdue the shivering taking over her tiny body.
“No one’s come to ask me about her, you know?” she says, eyes darting to mine. “I was her closest friend, and not one person has asked me if I know anything.”
“Do you know anything?” I lift a brow, my stare concentrated on hers.
“No,” she says. “I don’t. But don’t you think that says something right there? People are talking like she may have left on her own, but the Meredith I know wouldn’t have done that.”
“So you think someone took her?” I ask.
Allison’s shoulders rise and her mouth opens, but she doesn’t speak right away. “That’s what I’m inclined to think, yes. Or . . .”
“Or what?” I don’t have time for hesitation and uncertainty.
“A few months back, I ran out to the store late one night to get some milk,” she says, speaking carefully. “I passed this truck on Hanswell Boulevard, and I could have sworn Meredith was in it.”
My heart races.
“But the woman in the truck, she was smiling and laughing. I only saw the side of her, and she was wearing a bright red stocking cap with a furry white pom-pom on top—I’ve never seen her with a hat like that.” Allison places her hand up to her face. “And I only saw her for a split second because the light turned green and they were gone, pulled down a side street. I thought maybe I imagined it.”
“Did you ever ask her about it?”
Allison shakes her head quickly. “I didn’t want to ask because I wasn’t completely sure, and if I was wrong, I would’ve offended her.”
“I understand.” I bite my lip, wishing Allison Ross would have had enough gumption and brains to frame a simple question in a strategic way.
“I think it’s odd,” she continues. “Andrew knew how much time Meredith and I spent together . . . You’d think he’d have sent the police here to ask me questions.”
“What are you trying to say?” I ask a question to which I already know the answer.
Her eyes squeeze, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know . . . I guess I just find it interesting.”
“Are you thinking Andrew’s trying to hide something?”
She glances up at me, fidgeting with her hair for a second. “I mean, I’ve known the two of them as a couple for more than two years—ever since we moved to this street—and you’d have thought they were still newlyweds. He was always fawning over her, and she was always gushing about how incredible he was.” She stares across the foyer into the living room, focusing on a scenic view of the mountains. “To be honest, I was always kind of jealous of what they had. In a good way, you know? I was happy for her.” Allison exhales. “But there was this one time. She came over just before yoga, and I noticed this bruise around her wrist, like someone had put their hand around it and squeezed really hard.”
I can’t breathe.
If that smug bastard put his hands on my sister, I’ll fucking kill him.
“I never asked her about it,” she says, her voice dropping. “She was wearing a watch that day, and she never wore watches to yoga, so it was odd. She was clearly trying to hide it.”
“Would you be comfortable going on record with this information?” I ask.
Her clear eyes widen, as if I’ve just asked her to scale Everest in a snowstorm. “I don’t know. What if I was imagining things?”
Sighing, I ask, “What if you weren’t?”
“I just don’t want to implicate the wrong person in any of this, that’s all.”
“Just talk to them. They can decide what to do with this information,” I say, retrieving one of Ronan’s cards from my bag. I hand it to her, and she hesitates before
accepting it. “Please, Allison.”
I don’t want to believe my sister may have run off with some random guy without telling a soul, but the fact of the matter is, we don’t know the truth. And the truth couldn’t care less about what we want to believe.
Silence consumes her for a moment, but she finally agrees.
“I’ve written my number on the back of the card as well,” I say. “Call me if you ever want to talk . . . or if you remember anything else.”
“Of course.” She slips the card into her jeans pocket as I show myself out.
Trekking to the next house, I can’t stop thinking about my little sister with a bruise around her wrist.
CHAPTER 9
MEREDITH
Twenty-Nine Months Ago
The bells jingle on the door of Steam Coffee and Tea in Chelsea. Harris is working the register, and his expression hardens when he notices me. I place my pointed finger in front of my lips, a silent plea for him not to say anything, and he nods toward the back office, where my sister is hunched over her laptop next to a mountain of paperwork.
“Knock, knock,” I say, rapping on the door.
She turns to face me, squinting until my familiarity registers. I haven’t seen her in months, but I know I don’t look that different.
“Oh, my God.” She rises, still in shock. “Mer. What are you doing here?”
“Andrew’s in town for work. I tagged along. Thought I’d surprise you.”
Greer’s never been a physically affectionate type of person, so her face says it all. She’s surprised. And she’s thrilled to see me.
“Let’s go do stuff,” I say. “I have the whole day to myself, and we’re leaving tomorrow.”
My sister glances at the computer, biting her lip. She’s going to put me first, that much I know, but I can almost see her mentally calculating how late she’ll be staying up tonight to finish her inventory or accounting or whatever the hell she’s doing.
She’s always so rational and business minded, which is why she and Harris make the perfect business partnership. He’s artsy and creative and forward thinking, and he can make a mean cup of coffee, and she’s good at ensuring the bottom line is in check, filing quarterly taxes, interviewing staff, and keeping the paychecks from bouncing.
“I’m stealing her,” I say to Harris when I head back to the front. Greer is a few steps behind me, tugging a light jacket over her shoulders.
He pushes his tortoiseshell frames up his nose and stares. He knows he doesn’t have a say. Our bond is impenetrable, even by the guy whose name is tattooed on my sister’s heart.
“Have fun,” he says in a way that doesn’t sugarcoat his true feelings. I’m sure he resents the fact that we’re frolicking off to pal around the city and have fun while he’s stuck behind a register, but it’s not like we do this all the time. Besides, the two of them work way too damn much. My sister can take a break. It’s not going to kill either of them.
And by now, he should be used to playing second fiddle whenever I’m around. Everything . . . the business . . . Harris . . . takes a back seat when I’m home.
Greer doesn’t say goodbye. She doesn’t need to. The two of them have been together for something like a decade—almost marrying once. They’re well past formalities, niceties, and taking anything personally.
“So I thought we’d get brunch at La Dolce,” I start, looping my arm through hers as we hit the pavement outside the shop. “For old times’ sake.”
Greer tries to diminish her excitement, but her steps grow faster.
“It wouldn’t kill you to smile a little more.” I nudge her side. “You’re always so serious, so . . . controlled.”
“Your point?”
“I don’t have a point. Just making an observation.” Releasing my arm from hers, I step toward the curb and hail an oncoming cab.
“We can take the subway,” she says, pointing down the block, where a sign indicates there’s a station below the busy sidewalk.
“Cab will be quicker. Less walking, too. These heels are killing me.”
Her eyes land at my feet, specifically the red uppers of my shoes. We used to make fun of women who pined after shoes like these. Now I’ve become one of them. Manolos. Louboutins. Valentinos in every color and heel size. I own them all and for reasons that perplex even myself.
I’m slightly ashamed.
A cab stops, and I motion for her to hurry up when I see a scowling man carrying a briefcase run-walking in our direction, wielding the audacity to try to steal our ride. I miss many things about the city, the least of which are assholes like that.
The ride to La Dolce is quiet, which means my sister is lost in thought.
“What are you going to get?” I ask, a lame attempt to make conversation and bring her into the present moment.
“Not sure.”
“You always got the eggs Benedict,” I say. “And I always got the French toast. I’m thinking we should probably play it safe and not buck tradition.”
I’m teasing, trying my hardest to create a light and casual ambiance between us, but she doesn’t respond.
“Why are you so quiet?” I ask. “What are you thinking about?”
Greer exhales, shaking her head as she stares out her window. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. You were all about this until you saw my shoes. Is it the shoes?” My voice rises, and the cabdriver checks the rearview mirror. “Greer.”
“It’s more than the shoes.”
“Is it the cab?” I ask.
The driver looks up again.
“I just feel like every time I see you, you’re a little less you and a little more someone I hardly recognize,” she blurts, her words coming out terse and fast. “Just trying to wrap my head around it is all.”
I laugh at the absurdity of my sister’s statement. “I’m still me. Always will be.”
The cab pulls to a rough stop, and the driver turns off the meter. I swipe Andrew’s American Express card to pay for the ride, and Greer climbs out. A moment later, I join her on the curb outside the restaurant.
“It’s just that you’re doing what Mom used to do,” she says, arms crossed.
My eyes widen. “Please tell me you didn’t just compare me to her.”
“You know I have a point.”
Our gazes lock, as if we’ve reached an impasse, and I don’t know what to say to my sister. Our mother had a penchant for morphing into all these different people, sometimes overnight, sometimes over the span of a few weeks or months. She didn’t have any kind of personality disorder; she’d just treat her life like an old pair of shoes, changing them out with each turn of the season or each new boyfriend who waltzed into her life.
One year, she went from a free-spirited, gypsy-blouse-and-braid-wearing hippie to an uptight, organic-food-obsessed PTA mom in under eight hours. Most of the time we’d see the changes coming and we could anticipate them, but not that time. I’ll never forget her shipping me off to school one morning in her hemp robe with tangled braids spilling down her shoulders, and when she greeted me at the door that afternoon, she was in a pencil skirt with a sheared, sleek bob, getting ready to unload half a dozen brown paper bags from Whole Foods.
Greer says Mom was working as a housekeeper at a private high-rise filled with well-to-do tenants when she met my father. She’d overheard a couple of women talking at the park about how their friend’s cousin’s sister went from housekeeper to wife of a multimillionaire business mogul. My mother had never met any millionaires, at least none that she knew personally. Cleaning toilets was her way into their world. She was a mouse, and housekeeping was the crack in the wall through which she slipped.
My father’s name was Yossi Natan, and he was a real estate developer out of Israel, only in the city for two years. Greer doesn’t know how the affair started—just that he was married, with several children back home in Kfar Saba, and my conception was a huge complication. But before he left, he established a trust fund in
my name to be accessed on my twenty-sixth birthday and ensured my mother received a modest monthly stipend in exchange for her silence.
I’ve only ever seen his photo online, and I can never read the captions because they’re in Hebrew.
There isn’t much I know about Yossi besides the fact that we share the same sandy-colored hair and caramel complexions and our features are an exotic blend of European and Middle Eastern. I have his straight nose, full mouth, and hooded eyes, but other than that, I have nothing else . . . not even his last name.
Or any hope of meeting him in this lifetime, which is still a bitter pill to swallow no matter how many years go by. It’s like I’m missing this huge part of me, and there’s absolutely no chance I’ll ever get it back.
Greer says when I was five, I had an “imaginary dad,” which I suppose was like an imaginary friend only more of a father figure? She says she’d hear me through the walls at night, talking to him. And after school, I’d claim he was walking beside us as we navigated the busy Queens sidewalks that led to our apartment.
I have no recollection of any of that, but it makes my heart hurt when I think of five-year-old me, so desperate to know the love of a father.
“I promise, Greer, it’s not like that,” I say. “I’m not her. Far from it. You have nothing to worry about. I’m me. I just have a better wardrobe these days.”
I try to get a smile from her, but I still sense her concern.
“There’s nothing wrong with having nice shoes,” I say. “They’re just shoes for fuck’s sake!”
Our eyes lock, and she chews her lower lip. She’s always been anxious about things beyond her control, but I don’t blame her. She had it rough. Not only did she have to raise me, but she was stuck raising my mother most of the time as well. Greer was always the one making sure our rent was paid on time. Greer was the one who took over grocery shopping when my mother left us with empty cupboards far too many times. Greer was the one who signed me up for school each year and made sure my birthdays were never forgotten.