Only Ever You

by Rebecca Drake

  Bea brushed her hand to move him away from the stove. “She’s not afraid, she’s just stubborn.” She set the water to boil.

  When the mac and cheese was ready, she fixed a bowl and called to the girl again. “C’mon, Avery, dinner’s ready.”

  In response, the child bolted out of the living room and down the hall. Bea frowned as she heard the basement door slam. This child was spoiled, probably the result of living with those awful people. She’d watched the press conference replayed a dozen times; the woman was an ice queen and her husband was an attention-seeking liar. Did anyone buy his crying act? Well, they wouldn’t for long.

  She poured a glass of wine and took a large sip, relaxing a little as the warmth spread through her. The pasta was gummy, disgusting really, but the wine made it palatable. She left Avery’s dish of mac and cheese on the counter and carried her own bowl into the living room, switching through the channels on the TV until she found the local news. There was new footage of the Lassiters pushing through a throng of reporters to get into a police station. They played that clip twice before replaying footage of the search. There was a single crowd shot, but Bea felt reassured when she couldn’t spot herself in the mass of volunteers. She sat down on the couch, mesmerized by the coverage. The reporters seemed to like Jill Lassiter’s face—they zoomed in on it often enough—and much was made of where they lived.

  “Who could have taken Sophia Lassiter from this upscale home in what had been considered a safe neighborhood? Police are not releasing the results of the search eleven days ago, but Channel 11 has learned that police recovered something related to the case and that item has been sent to a crime lab for analysis.” Bea recognized the reporter, a young bleached blonde with glossy red lips and an unwholesome gleam in her heavily mascaraed eyes. She probably looked at this as an opportunity to advance her career.

  “Jill and David Lassiter agreed to polygraph tests, but police aren’t releasing the results.” More footage of the couple with a familiar-looking well-dressed man, dodging reporters outside of the Fox Chapel police station. Jill Lassiter flung up a hand to block a reporter’s mike.

  “Mommy!”

  Bea dropped the bowl of mac and cheese and spun around. Avery stood in the doorway staring at the TV with big eyes. Bea had been so caught up that she hadn’t heard her come back upstairs. “Mommy!” The child ran toward the TV with outstretched hands, and Cosmo, who’d made short work of the spilled mac and cheese, ran toward her, barking. Bea quickly reached for the remote to shut it off. When the picture vanished, Avery cried out as if she’d been stabbed.

  “I want Mommy! Where’s Mommy!” She touched the TV screen, looked behind it and then tried to take the remote out of Bea’s hand, stretching her little arm until it was almost out of its socket, straining and jumping, her fingers waving fruitlessly in the air. “Give me my mommy!” The dog, confused, jumped against the girl’s legs, then Bea’s, yipping in time with the child’s cries. The noise was too much for Bea.

  “Stop it!” she yelled over the din. “Stop it right now!” She had to get away, carrying the remote with her into the kitchen, but the child followed, still sobbing, and the dog followed after the child. Bea’s heart thudded in her chest, and she yanked open an upper cupboard door and shoved the remote deep inside, slamming it shut. The child’s wailing only increased. She followed Bea back to the living room, pulling at her, trying to climb her. Bea detached one hand, then the other, only to have the first return and suction on again.

  She panicked at the thought of someone overhearing and swung the child up, hauling her out of the kitchen and into the hall, fighting to carry her down the stairs. She put her down hard on the basement floor. “Scream all you want now! Nobody will hear you!” Her own voice sounded ragged and harsh and she looked at her trembling arms; they were covered with red marks.

  “Mommy! Mommy! I wanna go home!” The child’s screaming hadn’t abated, though it was ragged, too, and hysterical. Bea hauled the child over to the laundry tub and turned on a faucet. Cupping a handful of icy water, she turned and splashed the child full in the face.

  The little girl yelped, a different cry, and stopped in shock, her mouth open, eyes rolling back in her head. Bea paused, her own hands shaking and dripping. For a moment the only noise was both of them breathing hard and the water rushing into the sink behind them. Then the little girl started to cry again, but quietly, and she dropped to the floor, folding like a paper doll.

  “You’ve hurt her again.” Frank stood there surveying them, hands on his hips.

  Bea turned off the water, splashing some on her face first. Her heart still beat obscenely fast and she clutched the sides of the metal tub and gulped the air like an asthmatic. “Mind your own business.”

  “You’re supposed to be a healer,” he said. “Remember? Do no harm.”

  “Don’t lecture me on medical ethics, Frank!”

  “Who’s Frank?” The child’s voice surprised Bea. She turned to see Avery looking from her to the empty basement. “Who are you talking to?”

  Frank had gone. In the sudden silence Bea could hear a distant buzzing sound, short and sharp. It stopped, then started up again. The doorbell.

  Panicked, Bea fumbled on the shelf where she stored the needles, hurriedly pulling one free of the pack and filling the syringe before turning to the child, but she was gone.

  “Avery?” Bea hissed. She ran out of the utility area, heading for the basement stairs. Avery scrambled up them, one hand reaching toward the door. “Get back here!” Bea lunged for her, catching her by the ankle just as the child turned the doorknob. The child cried out, but Bea dragged her down, wrapping a hand over her mouth before sinking the needle into the child’s arm. She twisted in Bea’s grasp for a moment, eyes wild, before falling limp. Bea hauled her dead weight into the basement room and bolted the door. The doorbell buzzed again. She rushed up from the basement, only to stop short at the top of the stairs.

  Pressed up close to the kitchen door, hands cupped to his face as he peered through the glass, stood a police officer.

  chapter twenty-six

  DAY FOURTEEN

  Bea quickly stepped out of the basement, closing the door behind her. She marched to the kitchen door, watching the patrolman startle as he saw her. She cracked open the door. “What is it? What do you want?”

  He was young and lanky with dark hair cropped too short for his round face. “Police, ma’am. Are you okay?” His words came out as puffs in the frigid air.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “We had a report of screaming coming from this residence, ma’am. Do you live here alone?” She saw his gaze linger for a moment on her lazy eye, but then he looked past her at the kitchen, glancing one way, then the other.

  “No, my husband lives here, too.”

  “Is he home?”

  “My husband?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “No, he isn’t here right now.”

  “Is there anyone else in the house with you?”

  Bea shook her head. “No. Well, except my dog.” She forced a smile, trying to look friendly. “What is this about, officer?”

  “One of your neighbors reported screaming.”

  “From this house?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well I don’t know what they thought they heard, but no one’s been screaming here, officer. We’re too old for that much excitement.” She chuckled.

  He flushed, a rusty red color flooding his spottily shaved cheeks, and shifted his feet, hitching up his uniform belt. “Why didn’t you answer the front door?”

  “I didn’t hear it. I was in the basement doing laundry.”

  He peered at her and Bea met his gaze and held it, holding the smile. He broke first, looking to his left before turning back to her. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Positive. I don’t know what the neighbors thought they heard. Maybe they heard me yelling at my dog?”

  He hesitated
. “You mind if I come in to take a look?”

  Her hand tightened on the doorknob. “Of course not,” she said. “Come on in.”

  He stepped past her into the kitchen, looking around. She circled her hand around the hypodermic in her pocket. The cop saw the macaroni and cheese and before he could comment on the second bowl she said, “We keep it in stock for our grandchild, but my husband and I have gotten a taste for it.” She saw him glance at the wine bottle, but he didn’t comment.

  He stepped into the living room, looking around. “Where is your husband?”

  “It’s poker night. He’s out with friends.” Frank had never played poker in his life.

  The officer nodded, then walked down the hall, poking his head inside her bedroom door, his face impassive. He turned the knob on the second door and she tensed, hand tightening on the needle. “Which neighbor called the police?” she asked, trying to pull his attention toward her even as he pushed open the door. She realized with relief that the heavy drapes across the room’s rear windows cast the room in shadows, obscuring the furnishings.

  “I don’t know,” he said, barely glancing at the room before moving back toward the kitchen. It had to be the old man she’d seen the other day. The cop reached his hand toward the door to the basement and she said, “Careful—my dog’s down there. He’s not friendly.” As if on cue, Cosmo barked from behind the door and the man moved his hands to hitch up the heavy belt again. His radio squawked and he picked it up. “Negative on the domestic. Homeowner’s unaware of any screaming and I don’t see a problem. Heading out.”

  She walked him to the front door. “I appreciate the police checking up, but some of the neighbors, well, some of the old ones don’t have enough to do—I wouldn’t trust what they say.”

  He smiled a little. “And what do you do, Mrs.—”

  “I was a nurse,” she said. “I’m retired.”

  She stood at the door and waited, watching him walk down the front steps that wound down the hill to the gravel driveway, where a patrol car sat with the bar of lights on top spinning. She waited until he’d gotten in the car, raising her hand in good-bye, smile fixed on her face. Just like any other neighbor, any solid citizen. Police weren’t viewed with suspicion by the people in this tax bracket. She waited, shivering, until the car disappeared down the wooded driveway, and then the smile dropped and she fled inside the house and bolted the door, sliding the old chain in place for good measure. She walked down the hall to the second bedroom, flicking on the lights. The photos she’d taped to the wall stared back at her, single shots, group shots, and the formal portraits that she’d stolen from the studio. What would the officer have made of those if he’d seen them?

  “Busy, busy little Bea,” Frank hissed, hovering in the doorway. “Don’t you need to check on the child?”

  “Shut up!” She pushed past him, but he followed her down the hallway.

  “What if you’ve killed her this time? What then?”

  “Leave me alone! I don’t want you here!” She screwed her eyes shut, hands clenched in fists, and when she’d opened them he’d gone.

  The child was lying motionless on the floor where Bea had left her, limbs akimbo, face pale and beaded with sweat. “Avery, c’mon, it’s okay now, you can wake up.” Bea knelt beside her, grabbing one tiny wrist to check for a pulse. She couldn’t find it and for a horrible moment she thought Frank was right and she’d killed her. What then? What would she do? Sweat broke out on her own face. Her hands felt slippery on the child’s waxy skin. She circled the wrist again, pressing, uncomfortably aware of her own pulse jumping harder than it should be. Nothing, nothing. She dropped the little hand and moved to the child’s throat and there she caught it, a faint but steady thumping. “C’mon, little girl. Wake up now.” She hauled the child up and over to the bed and then sank down next to her, waiting for her own heart rate to return to normal.

  chapter twenty-seven

  DAY TWENTY-TWO

  Humming. Sophia humming a little song. Jill followed the sound through an empty playground, across a dry field. She saw her daughter stepping out of the woods, just like that day in the park, only this time Sophia was barefoot and in her nightgown. As Jill ran to her, Sophia turned and disappeared back into a sea of green. Jill followed, calling her name. And then it was a hallway and she was walking toward a door at the end of it, and she could hear humming coming from behind the door. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest as she turned the knob.

  Jill woke before she opened the door, her face wet with tears. She reached a hand toward David, but he wasn’t there. She sat up, still feeling tired, reminded of the utter exhaustion that she’d felt when Sophia was a newborn and Jill’s days had been an endless cycle of feeding and changing diapers and only being able to sleep during those precious few hours that her baby slept.

  “David?” It came out as a croak. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and thought of Sophia poking her head around their bedroom door. The need to hold her daughter was so great it made Jill’s bones ache.

  She staggered to the door and pushed it open, hearing faint voices coming from downstairs. What was it? Were the police back again?

  When she came downstairs, tying her robe around her, she realized it was only the TV. David sat in the family room with his back to her, glued to the set. The local news station was playing clips from their Today show appearance again. And Andrew had thought doing a national news show was a good idea.

  “You need to get in front of the story,” he’d insisted. “You’ve made the national news anyway—an attractive couple with a missing child? The media laps it up.” Jill hadn’t wanted to do it, but Andrew had agreed to the interview before telling them, and to cancel had seemed worse. Not anymore. Worse was how stiff she looked on camera. She’d been front and center during the interview, flanked by David and Andrew, but something about being better groomed than at the press conference had made it worse; she’d looked even more emotionally detached.

  She stared transfixed, hating it but unable to stop watching. “What are they saying?”

  David looked up at her. “Nothing important.” He reached for the remote, but she got to it first.

  “Don’t, I want to hear.” She turned up the volume. They’d cut from the Today show clip to a solemn-faced blonde announcer. “—every parent’s worst nightmare, but the question on everyone’s mind this morning is: Are Jill and David Lassiter telling the truth about their daughter’s disappearance? Our reporter, Sean Dunlop, brings us the story.”

  Another cut to a young man with dark eyes and sleek hair who’d adopted the same serious mien. “Folks in Pittsburgh this morning are asking what happened to little Sophia Lassiter, only three years old”—one of the photos of Sophia flashed on the screen—“who vanished from her wealthy suburban home in the early hours of a peaceful November morning. As we enter day twenty-two with no sign of Sophia, attention is increasingly focused on her parents, Jill and David Lassiter, and people are starting to ask if they know more than they’ve been saying.”

  They went to a taped clip then, the reporter interviewing a woman who Jill recognized, another preschool parent, someone she’d seen every day, at every drop-off and pick-up, but had never met by name. “You hate to think it, but the parents are usually involved in cases like these,” the woman said. “Her mother is a cold woman—you can tell on the TV, the camera doesn’t lie.”

  Jill swore. “I knew it was a bad idea! I’ve seen that woman daily, smiled at her, chatted with her, and now all of a sudden she thinks I’m cold? Just because I can’t cry on command?”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to listen to this.” David reached for the remote, but Jill held it out of range.

  “No, I want to hear it.” The camera cut to another person, a man this time.

  “You can’t help but be suspicious of them,” the guy said with a knowing smirk. “I mean, c’mon? What is the likelihood of someone breaking into your house and taking your
child? Especially in that neighborhood.”

  They went back to the reporter and as the camera panned wide, Jill realized with a start that they’d taped the segment right in front of the house. The reporter said, “Police have yet to name Jill and David Lassiter as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, Sophia, but say that everyone is a person of interest.”

  “God, turn it off.” David stood to wrest the remote from her hand and this time Jill didn’t fight him. He sighed as she blinked back tears. “C’mon, you can’t listen to that crap.”

  “But it’s true. I do look cold. I think I look guilty. Why can’t I cry when it would actually do some good?”

  “It doesn’t matter, none of it matters.” David pulled her into an embrace and she clung to him for a minute, gulping. She could feel the tension in his arms, see the same tension in his eyes. He said it didn’t matter, but he didn’t mean it. He knew better.

  The phone rang, startlingly loud. Jill pulled away to answer it, swiping at her eyes and clearing her throat. “Hello?”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Tania said. For a second, her mind still on the news, Jill thought she was talking about the Today show, but without waiting for an answer Tania bulleted on, “I’ve just spent three fucking hours at a police station and Leo is still there.”

  “It’s routine—they have to talk to people we know.” Jill felt as if she were channeling Detective Ottilo.

  “They said you gave them my name. My name and Leo’s. That you said we had something to do with Sophia’s disappearance.”

  “I didn’t say that, I swear.” Jill saw David looking at her, eyebrows raised.

  “Then what did you say?” Tania demanded. “My landlady saw me leaving in the back of a police car, Jill. Do you really think I did something to your kid?”

  “No.” And as soon as she said it the dark kernel of suspicion Jill had felt evaporated, like a shallow pool of murky water exposed to the sun. Of course it wasn’t her friend and business partner, of course not. “I don’t think you did anything.”