by Nicola Marsh
I call Andre again and it still diverts to voicemail. Damn it. I could call Celeste but what would I say? “Hey, I think you may be my ex-husband’s girlfriend so why didn’t you tell me? Oh, and are you crazy for perpetuating this sham? And do you know what’s happened to Walter?”
In that moment, an awful, insidious thought slithers into my subconscious.
Did Walter try to break up with Julia, and she did something to harm him?
I try to rack my brain for snippets of conversation about her partner who she called Roland. How she’d left him because he was a threat. How Violette missed her dad and how she wished she could take her for a visit. How Roland had been a deadbeat dad.
None of that sounds like Walter. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong and Walter has been seeing Celeste recently, after she broke up with Roland? Maybe Roland was abusive as Celeste intimated and she’s been in hiding with Walter? Heck, for all I know they could be colleagues from work. Celeste is an accountant, Walter has worked in the bank for ages. Maybe they’ve been holed up here away from Roland? That fits Walt to a tee, rescuing a damsel in distress, being a protector.
I know I’m clutching at anything to excuse her lying. But if she is Walter’s friend and was sheltering here, she hasn’t been lying at all. She’d have no idea Walt is my ex-husband so why would she feel compelled to tell me anything? She’s protective of her child and I understand that. If she has been in hiding with Walt, she’d want to protect his identity from Roland too. And if that’s the case, she just hasn’t shared much of her past and we’re all guilty of that.
But my logic doesn’t calm me and increasingly agitated, I call Andre a third time, and he finally picks up.
“Frankie, thank God. I just got off the phone from Saylor and was going to call you.”
“I’ve been trying to get through.”
“Sorry about that. Listen, have you been in touch with Celeste?”
I’m instantly on guard. How could he know anything when I’m still trying to piece it all together myself? “No, why? How’s Luna? Is everything okay?”
“Shit…” Andre makes a weird choking sound that chills my blood.
“Andre, what’s going on?”
“I’m so sorry, Frankie—”
“What have you done?”
“I got an emergency callout to that last job I did, some problem with the graphics for the Times Square billboard, so I—”
“Where’s Luna?” My hands are shaking because deep down, in a place I don’t want to acknowledge, I know what he’s going to say and it’s going to kill me.
“I asked Celeste to mind her.”
The ache in my chest expands, filling me so I can barely breathe. Spots speckle my vision and I sway, light-headed. “You need to go and get her right now and take her home.”
He’s silent and I can’t take much more of this.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Saylor called me a few minutes ago. She was concerned because she saw Celeste bundle the girls into her car and take off, with overnight bags in the trunk.”
A piercing keening fills the air, a hair-raising scream I belatedly realize is coming from me.
“Frankie, I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s fine—”
I hang up on him, the stupid, irresponsible man who left our precious daughter in the care of a lying manipulator.
I can’t breathe and I tear at the neck hole of my T-shirt, gasping for air. I want to bawl. I want to smash something.
As I scream again, two police officers rush into the bedroom with their guns drawn.
Sixty-Two
Celeste
“Where are we going, Celeste?” Luna’s wide-eyed with excitement as she leans forward, the seat belt straining slightly.
“On a grand adventure, sweetie, like that video you and Violette watched the other day,” I reply.
“Wow,” the girls say in unison from the back seat and my heart swells with so much love I fear it may burst. Luna is the perfect sibling for Violette. My beautiful daughter has always wanted a sister and now she has one.
I know it’s not going to be easy but I’ve planned for this scenario, though I expected our departure when it eventuated to be leisurely, not a mad panic. I wanted the girls to become inseparable over time and for Luna to completely trust me before I made my move in a calm, orderly fashion when Frankie and Andre least expected it. I had envisaged the police taking longer to track me down. Even if they’d searched Roland’s house and the beach cottage, they wouldn’t find much connecting me to him beyond Violette’s room; we hadn’t been to his house for six months as things between us deteriorated, he always came to us. But Frankie visiting the cottage and seeing any evidence Roland left around of Vi, probably photos, has expedited my departure and I need to stay focused.
There’d been a moment back at the house when I thought it might all fall apart, when Luna hadn’t wanted to get in the car. But I’d soothed her with talk of Frankie and Andre joining us soon on our adventure and she’d been appeased.
If I have my way, she will never see those two liars again.
It’s been incredibly difficult for me to maintain a friendly façade around Frankie and Andre. But I’ve hidden my loathing well, as they never suspected the only reason I moved next door was to reunite Violette with her sister. I hate Frankie for lying to Luna, pretending Andre is her father, and I detest Andre for usurping Roland as Luna’s rightful dad.
Luna deserves to meet her real father and by this time tomorrow, she will. But first, we need to change cars.
“The city is so exciting,” Vi murmurs, and when I glance in the rearview mirror both girls are craning their necks to look out the window. “Look at all the lights.”
“It’s like a fairyland,” Luna says, a moment before she squeals. “Look at that. A real live clown walking on stilts!”
I let the girls’ chatter wash over me, going over the plan in my head. I’ll be at the parking garage soon, where I’ll change cars. From there, I’ll head out to Long Island tonight. I’ll stop at a fast-food drive-thru and get the girls a snack, and with full stomachs and the motion of the car, they’ll sleep for hours.
I can’t risk staying in a motel overnight so I’ll drive straight to the cottage, the one I rented in advance for this very outcome. Then I’ll wait until morning so we can visit Roland.
I assume I have an hour’s head start at least, probably more. I’m certain Andre will be home by now and wondering where Luna is. He’d implied he wouldn’t be at work long, though what kind of father doesn’t specify a time he’ll pick up his child?
My cell has been buzzing with incoming calls I assume are from Andre but I’ve ignored them. I have nothing to say to him.
As for Frankie and what she’s done… no, those liars are a good match and they don’t deserve to parent a darling like Luna.
She’ll be much happier with me.
And her biological sister Violette.
Sixty-Three
Saylor
The situation next door is dire.
Three police cars pull up, sirens blaring and lights flashing, then uniformed officers and plain-clothed detectives go into Andre’s place. They don’t stay long, before he gets into one of the cars with several officers and they drive away. The other officers and detectives force their way into Celeste’s.
That’s when I know this is serious.
Police don’t break down doors unless there’s real danger and from what I saw earlier, it looks like Celeste has kidnapped Luna.
Disbelief makes me tremble and I clutch at the windowsill for support. Why would Celeste have taken Luna? What would propel a perfectly nice woman to do something so despicable as rob another mother of her child?
One of the officers catches me peering out the window and I ease the curtain back. I know they’ll want to question me, but I need some time to pull myself together. I glance across the park but Ruston’s house is in darkness. Not that he’s a man to depend on in a cris
is but with Lloyd not due back home until tomorrow, I need someone to comfort me.
Before I’m tempted to barge across the park in search of Ruston, I force myself to relax. I tidy up the living room, check online pregnancy sites and try to watch some mindless reality TV for an hour or two, but I’m still worried about what’s going on next door. I’m making a cup of chamomile tea when I hear a blood-curdling scream. It sounds like Frankie and my heart breaks for her. It’s the anguished cry of a mother whose child has been taken.
I’m torn between wanting to go next door and comfort her and staying away because I’m the last person she’ll want to see if Andre follows through on his threat to tell her everything.
A few minutes later there’s a pounding on my door. I expect it’s the police but when I open the door, a disheveled, wild-eyed Frankie is staring at me like she’s seen a ghost.
“Andre told me,” she says, and bursts into tears.
I’m stunned and at a complete loss, filled with guilt and regret. What a complete and utter bastard Andre is to tell her the truth about us at a time like this. I wish I could deny it but she’s distraught and the least I can do is apologize.
“I’m so sorry, Frankie. I never meant to hurt you.” I focus on my shoes, unable to look her in the eye. “It was a one-off thing, something stupid I did to make Ruston jealous.” I give a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve always been a tad obsessed with Ruston, him being my first love and all, and I used Andre, but I never expected this.”
My hand splays protectively over my belly. “I know Andre is wealthy, and with him being the father I need the money desperately…”
I still can’t meet her eyes and the enormity of the situation sinks in. If Frankie knows, then I have no leverage against Andre, and he has no reason to give me the fifty grand I need so desperately to pay off the blackmailer. It’s over. The blackmailer will go public with what I did and my folks will lose everything.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I look up to find Frankie’s tears have dried and she’s staring at my belly in absolute horror.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
She’d said, “Andre told me” and I thought he’d followed through on what he’d said on the phone earlier, about telling his wife everything. But now I realize that isn’t what she’s referring to and probably has to do with what I saw earlier when Celeste left with the girls.
Her eyes are bulging as her gaze swings from my face to my belly and back again. “Are you saying Andre is the father of your baby?”
It’s too late to lie.
This is a mess of my own making. And I seem to be digging myself into a deeper hole with every passing day.
While I’m not certain, I bite my bottom lip and nod.
Frankie crumples. There’s no other word for it as her face collapses into a mess of lines, her shoulders slump and her knees buckle. She leans against the doorjamb, gasping for air, and intense remorse stabs me, like someone has plunged a knife between my shoulder blades.
“Do you want to come in—”
“I want nothing from you,” she hisses through gritted teeth, her glare feral. “Just tell me what you saw when Celeste took Luna.”
Sixty-Four
Frankie
Numbness floods my body as I stumble up the steps leading to my house. I barely make it halfway and sit before I fall, my butt landing on a step with a painful thud that jars my spine from my tailbone to the base of my skull. I barely feel it.
My veins have turned to ice, my muscles to liquid and I know I can’t take much more.
Learning my husband has fathered a child with Saylor has taken my already tilted world and flipped it on its axis. I can’t think straight let alone comprehend the enormity of it and what this means for our marriage. But right now, I don’t give a damn. All I care about is Luna.
The police questioned me at the cottage, and I told them everything I know: how Walt’s love of routine makes his disappearance out of character, how our divorce was amicable and we chat occasionally, how confused I am by seeing Violette’s photo as she’s the child of my new neighbor Celeste. Stating facts, answering the police officers’ questions, calmed me, but I couldn’t wait to get back to Hambridge Heights to see for myself what the hell is going on. The police mentioned they’d put out a BOLO on Celeste, but I can’t wait for them to be on the lookout. I need action.
Andre is at the station giving a statement and Saylor doesn’t tell me much more than what she’d told Andre. It had taken every ounce of self-control to listen to her faux concern when all I wanted to do was slap her for turning my world upside down even more.
My eyes are burning but I know that crying isn’t going to help right now. I’m not sure what will at this point. That numbness is invading every cell of my body, making rational thought impossible.
I barely see Ruston until he’s climbed the first two steps in front of me, his brows drawn together in a worried frown. “Frankie, are you okay?”
“No.” The simple act of speaking hurts my throat, tight with regret and recriminations. “Celeste has kidnapped Luna.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, sinking onto the step next to me. “Are you sure?” My glare is scathing and he says, “Sorry, that’s a dumb thing to ask. I’m just shocked. You two are pretty close, and your girls are too. Are you sure they’re not off on a play date or something?”
“No, she’s taken her.” I can’t fathom it and the ache in my chest expands like a balloon. “It’s complicated but it looks like a kidnapping, and the police are already involved.”
“Do you need me to take you to the police station?”
I look at this man who I don’t know that well, and I’m so grateful I want to blubber all over him. It was bad enough driving back from New Haven, trying not to break the speed limit to get home and see for myself my baby is gone, but now I’ve also learned about Andre fathering Saylor’s baby, I’m in no fit state to drive. And I can’t depend on my husband; Andre has already gone with the police. Not that I want to be anywhere near my lying, cheating husband after what I just learned. But my devastation over another betrayal must be pushed aside because all I can focus on now is getting Luna back safely.
“Actually, that would be great.”
As I stand and take a step, my legs wobble, and he braces my elbow.
“I’m really sorry you’re going through this, Frankie.”
His sympathy surprises me again and I allow him to lead me down the steps. I studiously avoid glancing left or right. I can’t cope with getting the merest glimpse of Celeste’s or Saylor’s places right now.
“I can’t believe she’d do this,” he says, shaking his head. “She seemed so normal when we spoke at the dinner party.”
I nod, hating how she duped me. “Since I heard she’s kidnapped Luna, I’ve gone over every conversation with Celeste in my head to try and remember if I missed something… a sign…” The guilt in my gut solidifies, that I unwittingly let a monster into our lives and have put Luna in jeopardy because of it. “I know this is a long shot, but did she say anything to you that might help me locate Luna?”
His face screws up, like he’s trying to remember. “We made small talk mostly. About her job, about mine. How she likes the neighborhood. She asked if I had a girlfriend, I asked about her partner.”
I latch onto that. “What did she say?”
“Not much. How Violette liked spending time with her dad at the beach. How they had a favorite spot, how they liked collecting shells, visiting the lighthouse, general stuff.”
My heart sinks. Celeste was talking about the beach house, but there’s no way she’d take the girls there. She knows it’s one of the first places the cops would look.
But there’s no lighthouse anywhere near Walter’s cottage in New Haven. In fact, the only lighthouse I can think of is the one at Montauk on Long Island.
Something niggles at the edge of my conscience, something Walter had said about a favorite spot…
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“I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more than that,” he says, his expression downcast. “Let me take you to the station—”
“I’m not going to the police station.” I break into a run, heading to my car.
“Where are you going?” he yells after me.
“Home.”
Sixty-Five
Celeste
As expected, the girls are angels and fall asleep as I soon as I hit the highway. I love driving at night: the lack of traffic, the lights, the chill in the air. I lower the window slightly and inhale, filling my lungs with the crispness of freedom.
Have I ever felt this free?
I’ve always been controlled by other people. Told what to do and who to be, even when I was a child. Because my mom had me in her teens and my dad married her out of necessity, once I hit puberty they feared I’d end up making the same mistake so they were watchful and suspicious all the time. They rarely let me out of the house except to go to school and I always felt like a prisoner.
The fire that killed them and devoured our home was unfortunate but necessary.
I’d been sixteen at the time and put into a foster home; I thought things would be better, but I was placed with an equally controlling monster I could never call mother. I’d run away, been found, and placed in another two homes before I turned eighteen and escaped. I should’ve felt free then, but my lack of finances imprisoned me into a life I didn’t like in another way. I drifted from job to job, menial stuff mostly, at the mercy of cruel bosses who looked down on me because of my lack of a college education. When I finally saved enough money to put myself through community college, doing an accountancy course was the smartest thing I ever did.
I met Roland at twenty-five, at a deli counter of all places. He’d been ordering olives, salami and Parmesan, I’d been buying a takeout pasta salad for one. He commented that was one of his favorites, we shared a smile, and from that moment I knew he was the one. Reveling in my freedom to make my own choices, I chose him, and for the first time in my life I’d been truly happy. I loved him so much I gave him my virginity, my heart, my devotion.