by Adam Mitzner
“As I explained to Amoroso this morning, my price quote was provided six months ago. At the time, the market was stronger in the underwear sector. Now there’s a lot of uncertainty. Also, there was an IPO just last month, granted, it wasn’t an underwear company, but it was in the sportswear space, and the market didn’t react well to it. I think that’s also dampening interest at the levels we’re trying to achieve.”
“I only care about one fucking thing, Tyler. So I’m going to ask you about that one thing, and I want a one-fucking-word answer out of you, and then I want you to get the fuck out of my office.”
I know better than to say anything, so I wait for the question. I’m reasonably sure I know what he’s going to ask. It’s the only question that matters on Wall Street.
“You gonna fucking bring in the full ten-million-dollar fee?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
I had been confident that Amoroso would be back with his tail between his legs by the close of business, but at quitting time, I still haven’t heard from him. For the first time all day, my thoughts return to Charlotte. More precisely, why I haven’t heard anything about her disappearance.
Like everyone else in the United States, I’m well aware of the nationwide manhunt for Jennifer Barnett. I assumed Charlotte too would become a fixture on the 24/7 news cycle as soon as she was reported missing. In fact, given that Charlotte’s father is a hotshot lawyer, her disappearance should be twice as newsworthy as Jennifer Barnett’s.
So why hadn’t the news broken?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I always visit Jason’s apartment at night, when there’s no one else around. Even though it’s far more innocent to come in broad daylight, I’m more nervous than ever entering his building. I keep looking over my shoulder to see who might be watching.
He opens his front door with a smile. “I’m so glad you came.”
“I wouldn’t have except that you made very clear that I didn’t have much of a choice. So what’s so important?”
“Come in and have a seat,” he says, still all smiles.
“I really don’t have time for this, Jason.”
“Please, I insist,” he says.
His grin is still fixed, but it now looks frightening. Almost maniacal.
I do as directed and enter his apartment. The moment I’m seated on his ratty futon, I say, “Now I’m in. Tell me.”
“No. You tell me, Clare.”
“Tell you what?”
“Who is he?”
“Who is who?”
“The guy you’ve been fucking behind my back.”
For the briefest of moments I consider coming clean. I could tell Jason about Marco and thereby shift the dirty work of this breakup from me to him. But I quickly banish that thought. Even though his question suggests he already knows, there’s a big difference between suspecting your girlfriend is sleeping with someone else and knowing for certain.
“Oh, for God’s sake. There is no other guy. But this juvenile behavior makes it crystal clear to me that we’re done.”
I’ve gone too far. There’s an anger in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
He reaches into his pocket. For the briefest moment I’m worried it’s to get a weapon of some sort.
He pulls out his phone. A few scrolls later, he pushes the screen into my face.
“Who the fuck is this, then?”
It’s Matthew. More precisely, Matthew and me. And to be even more exact, Matthew kissing me.
Jason doesn’t know about Marco. He thinks I’m cheating on him with Matthew!
His discovery is that much more ironic because Matthew and I almost never engage in any public display of affection. In fact, I remember this kiss in part because it was so rare. We were entering the Four Seasons. It was kismet that we had both arrived at precisely the same time, coming from different directions. Without thinking, he greeted me with a kiss.
“Jason, have you been stalking me?”
“Answer my question, goddamn it, or I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than that. Who is he?”
I sigh to show him that I find this to be beneath his dignity. And mine.
“He’s just a friend. And I’ve had enough of this. I’m out of here.”
I move toward the door. Jason runs around me, blocking my exit with his body.
“Just a friend? A friend who you go to hotels with, you mean.”
“Get out of my way,” I say and push him aside.
When I return home, I’m determined to tell Marco it’s over. If Jason confronts Matthew and Matthew believes him, Matthew could well tell Marco. At the very least, I can contain some of the damage by making sure that Marco isn’t living with me when he finds out I’ve been cheating on him with two other men.
Marco’s watching television in the bedroom when I come home, lying atop the covers. Before I can say a word, however, he kisses me. Not a welcome-home peck, but a prelude-to-sex cue.
“Not now,” I say. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“We can talk later,” he says, and pulls me back into him. This time his tongue goes deep inside my mouth, his hand moves to my breast.
“Hey, slow down there, cowboy,” I say. “Let me catch my breath for a second. Okay?”
He does just the opposite, however, pushing himself on top of me so that I fall back onto the bed. I can feel his erection. I push back hard to get free, but barely move him.
“Get the fuck off me!”
He grabs my right wrist, squeezing it tightly. With my free hand, I strike him hard on the back, but it has no effect. I do it again, and this time his only reaction is to laugh in my face.
“It looks like someone needs to learn her place,” he says.
I’m fighting against him with all my might, but from the smile on his face and his stiffness I know my resistance is meaningless to him. I’m trapped.
All I see above me is as sinister a smile as I can imagine. There’s usually a hint in Marco’s eyes that he’s in control. What frightens me most is that I don’t see that now.
“Now tell me,” he snarls. “Who the fuck is Matthew?”
“Get off me and I’ll tell you,” I bark back.
He hesitates for a moment, apparently considering the proposal. Then he rolls away from me and jumps to a standing position, but the sick smile on his face tells me that this is not over. He’s going to turn violent the moment he hears my confession—or my denial, if I go that route. Which means I need to figure out a way to get out of here.
I pick myself up off the bed, and move over to the end side opposite Marco so at least the mattress separates us. Unfortunately, he’s closer to the door, which means I’ll have to get past him to reach freedom.
“I’m off you,” he says, feigning calm. “So tell me. Who is he?”
I’m looking around the room for a weapon. Or my phone, even, to call for help.
“I’m waiting, Clare. And running out of patience. I’m going to ask you one more time. Who the fuck is Matthew?”
Jason must have known about Marco too. Maybe all along. And now he’s exacting his revenge by sending the photo of Matthew and me to Marco.
“He’s . . . just a guy I know.”
“You’re nothing but a fucking slut, Clare. You know that, right?”
“I’m leaving.”
I declare this as if there’s nothing Marco can do to stop me. Then he says the one thing that does.
“I don’t think Matthew Harrison is going to be too happy to see you because the moment you walk out of here, I’m calling his wife. What do you think she’s going to say when I tell her that you’ve been fucking her husband?”
I try to show that the threat doesn’t frighten me, but it’s a losing effort. As I make my way the twenty feet to the door, it feels as if I’m passing through a gauntlet. With each step I’m expecting Marco to knock me back onto the bed.
But he doesn’t. When I reach him, he steps aside as if he’s actually being graci
ous.
I walk by him as fast as I can and then through the bedroom door and out of the apartment. It’s not until I’m in the apartment stairwell that I break into an all-out sprint.
As soon as I’m far enough away from the apartment that I don’t fear Marco jumping me, I text Matthew.
MARCO KNOWS ABOUT YOU AND YOUR WIFE!!!
MEET ME AT THE BENCH.
Matthew knows the bench. We had sex on it in Central Park one night when there wasn’t enough time for a hotel. Officially, it’s called the Waldo Hutchins Bench, a fifteen-foot white granite sculpture capable of seating at least ten near Seventy-Second Street on the east side of the park. After using it to quench our sexual desire, I Googled it to find out what its inscription meant, which is how I learned that it actually had a name and that Waldo Hutchins was a member of the original board of commissioners for Central Park.
Alteri vivas oportet si vis tibi vivere, it says. “One must live for another if he wishes to live for himself.”
I never told Matthew about the inscription, but I found it more than symbolic. I suppose I didn’t share it with him for fear he wouldn’t find it as meaningful.
Matthew is one of those guys whose cell phone is glued to his eyes. Granted, he might not carry the burner with him at all times, especially when he’s with the missus, but he also must not keep it very far away. I get a response within five minutes.
I’ll be there.
I see Matthew as he approaches. He’s wearing jeans and, even though the weather is warm, a leather jacket. It’s different from the one he wore at the museum that night we first met. This one is brown whereas that one was black, but it looks no less expensive. I’m struck by the thought that I don’t think I’ve ever seen Matthew in anything but a suit and tie since then. Oh, and when he’s stark naked, of course.
He looks over both his shoulders before sitting down beside me on the bench. Then he checks behind him once more before kissing me hello on the cheek.
“Thank you for coming. I’m so sorry.”
He’s clearly in no mood to comfort me. I suppose that’s fair, but then again, it’s not like he didn’t know this was a possibility.
“So what does Painter Boy think he knows?”
“I’m not sure. Your name. First and last. And he said he’ll tell your wife about us, so I assume that means he knows you’re married.”
“What did you say?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for your concern.”
“I’m sorry, Clare. I am concerned. I’m just trying to process the state of play here.”
“Well, I didn’t say anything. I got the hell out of there.”
“How the hell did he find this out?”
Clearly Jason told him. Admitting that, however, opens up an entirely different can of worms.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
He slumps back. I’ve never seen Matthew in any situation in which he wasn’t in total control. But now he looks . . . scared.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, trying to provide some comfort. “I really think Marco was just trying to scare me. I don’t think he’s going to tell your wife.”
“Easy for you to say. It won’t cost you your marriage and . . . I don’t know how many millions of dollars in alimony in a divorce.”
“I know this is terrible for you, but I also know that I love you. And if the end result of all this is that we’re together, isn’t that all that matters?”
I can tell at once that this is not all that matters to Matthew. In fact, his expression makes me wonder if it matters at all.
“I can’t think about happily-ever-after now,” he says. “I need to fix this immediate problem.”
“How do you propose to do that? Short of killing Marco, I mean.”
From the look in his eyes, it’s clear to me that Matthew’s already come to the same conclusion but does not consider the possibility as outlandish as I do.
“Ask him to meet you here,” he says.
“Matthew . . . no. That’s crazy talk.”
“It isn’t. You know it isn’t.”
“The hell I do. There’s no way I’m going to be a party to anything like that. I love you, Matthew. I truly, truly do. But not enough to help you kill someone.”
I get up off the bench, but Matthew grabs my wrist and pulls me back down onto the hard marble seat.
“That hurt,” I say, more to register my displeasure with him than because it actually caused me pain.
“Listen to me, Clare. I’m not going to sit back and just let him ruin my life. If it comes down to him or me, it’s going to be me. Every fucking time. And I expect you to support that, or you’ll end up just like him.”
I stand again. This time he doesn’t reach for me, but he joins me on the path. At six foot two, he towers over me. For the first time in my life, I’m afraid of him.
“Are you threatening me?” I ask.
“No. I’m warning you. And you’d best take my warning to heart, because I mean it.”
I leave the park in a daze. How could it be that three men—each of whom had told me that they loved me within the last week—had threatened my life in the last hour?
That thought is the last one I remember in my life.
DAY SEVEN
MONDAY
Ella Broden
28.
After telling Dylan that I want to torture and then kill my college boyfriend, I slide back into his arms. On my television, Reese Witherspoon is hiking somewhere, for reasons that I don’t fully understand.
“Do you have any idea where she’s going or why?” I ask.
Dylan laughs, and I thoroughly enjoy the sound.
“No. No, I don’t. But she looks like she could really use a shower.”
The phone rings.
Somehow, I already know what awaits me on the other end of the line. It’s as if I’d previously dreamed the conversation and now it’s coming true.
From the look in Dylan’s eye, he knows too.
“Hello,” I say.
“Ella, it’s Gabriel. We found a body matching Charlotte’s general description . . .”
I don’t hear another word he says.
Less than five minutes after Gabriel’s call, I’m in the back of a taxi that’s hurtling through the streets of downtown Manhattan. At this hour, there isn’t any traffic and the trip takes less than ten minutes. I must not have realized we’d arrived, however, because the cabbie says, “This is it, right? One Police Plaza?”
I’m in that same fog when I enter the building. I show my ID to the cop manning the downstairs security checkpoint.
“Ms. Broden? I asked who you were going to see?”
I look up. The cop asking the question is Steven Lassiter, a guy who’s held this job for as long as I’ve been a lawyer. I didn’t even recognize him at first.
“Um . . . Gabriel . . . Gabriel Velasquez.”
Lassiter calls upstairs and then leads me to the elevator bank. He even presses the button for the eighth floor.
Gabriel is standing at the elevator when the doors open. Lassiter must have suggested I could use some assistance. I step off the elevator and into Gabriel’s arms.
“Come with me,” Gabriel whispers into my ear.
I know that means that I should let go and follow him to his office. But I can’t move. I actually grip him tighter. He shifts my position to his side and then we begin to move together, a slow, four-legged beast.
Once we enter his office, Gabriel lowers me into his guest chair and closes the door. Rather than take his usual seat behind the desk, he drops down to his knees beside me. My head slumps.
“Ella, do you want me to call your father?”
I want to answer him verbally, and try to say something, but words don’t come out. I mutely shake my head to indicate that I don’t want my father to know yet.
“Are you sure it’s her?” I finally manage.
This is my last sliver of hope. That the corpse the police had found wa
s someone else’s sister, daughter, wife, or mother. That it isn’t Charlotte.
“It’s her,” Gabriel says. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t know how I got from Gabriel’s office to the morgue in the east thirties, about two miles away. I’m sure we traveled by squad car, probably with the sirens blasting, but there’s a hole in my memory from the moment Gabriel took my hand to lead me out of his office to a second ago, when we entered the morgue.
The room is large, the size of a banquet hall, with too-harsh fluorescent lighting and a smell that’s an affront to the senses. Some type of cleaning solution. Despite that, everything looks dirty. The walls are dingy and the concrete floor is stained an offensive rust color, which I assume is the remnants of blood. There are a number of empty gurneys, and the walls are lined floor to ceiling with compartments, silver handles sticking out. Bodies lie inside.
Beside Gabriel stands a man in his twenties, in a white lab coat. He’s too young and wears too vacant an expression to be a medical examiner. I presume he’s a tech of some kind. The guy in charge of making sure none of the corpses escape.
I have borne witness to my fair share of dead bodies. Gruesome ones too. Gunshot wounds, stabbings, drownings. I’ve seen a decapitation and an old lady who had been rotting in her home for almost three weeks before she was found. Even so, I know that my prior exposure to death will not prepare me for the horror of seeing Charlotte’s lifeless body.
“Remember what I told you,” Gabriel says. “Because your sister was in the East River for several days, there’s going to be extensive bloating and skin discoloration. The suitcase she was in didn’t keep out much water, and so she looks kind of . . . blue.”
“Suitcase?” I say.
He gives me a patient look, but overly so. Like when you’re explaining something to a three-year-old for the second time.
“Yes. As I told you back at the station, Charlotte’s killer put her in a large Tumi suitcase. We consider the suitcase to be a major lead, and for that reason we’re not going to release that detail to the press. I also asked that you keep it a secret too. It’s a way for us to root through the tips we get. It’ll also give the killer a sense that we don’t have him in our sights.”