He got home and the message light on his answering machine was blinking. Someone had called.
But that wasn't possible. When he was away from one of his residences—which was most of the time—he had all the calls automatically routed to a single answering service in Nebraska. When he got to one of his residences and wanted to start receiving local calls on his own phone, he would call in and punch in the code to release calls to that particular phone number.
Only his parents, his lawyer, and Madeleine had the codes that would allow them to override his answering service and reach the answering machine in this residence. And his parents and his lawyer had no idea he was here. They would assume he was still at Madeleine's family house on the Hudson River.
Which meant that the message on his machine had to be from Madeleine. Except that Madeleine didn't exist. Which meant that it had to be from the person behind Madeleine. The person who made her. The User, who could wander free from her body and follow him wherever he went, who would know where he was, who would know he was away when the phone call was made so her intention was to leave a message on the tape, and not talk to him directly.
He could hear Lizzy's voice telling him that the User wasn't done with him yet. She hadn't got what she wanted. If she needed him before, she still needed him. Only now it wouldn't be love that she used to motivate him.
He didn't want to hear the message. But he reached out and touched the PLAY button.
"Quentin Fears? This is Ray Cryer. We're worried that we haven't seen Madeleine since you ran out on her yesterday. We have the local police looking for her, but it occurs to us she might be out looking for you and you may find her first. If you do, we'd appreciate a call. Her mother and sister and I are worried sick. Just worried sick. I know you were very angry yesterday, but I hope you'll still help us find our little girl. The local police here might call you to ask you some questions. I hope you'll cooperate with them. You have our number." There was an emotional catch in his voice at the end.
Ray Cryer? Madeleine's mother and sister? These were people Madeleine had never spoken of. Quentin had certainly never met them. Nor did he have their number. But he had no doubt that they would be completely convincing to the police. That was what the User did best—completely convincing people.
The implications were clear. Quentin had better do what they—no, what the User—wanted, or the police would be looking far and wide for a woman they would never find because she didn't exist. And when they didn't find her, it would start looking very bad for Quentin. Her parents say that Quentin had a fight with her. He snuck away with his suitcases, and ever since then they haven't seen their daughter. Why did he sneak off? Where is Madeleine? Your Honor, you don't have to find a body to know that there was foul play.
No. A murder trial was out of the question. There had to be some evidence. The mere disappearance of a person wasn't enough. But that didn't mean that the police wouldn't be convinced that there was a murder. That they wouldn't be dogging Quentin's heels for months and years looking for Madeleine. And the publicity. No, it wouldn't even take publicity. It would just take visits from police investigators to all of his partners and all of the political people he knew in every city where he did business—Madeleine had met them all, and if the User forgot any of them she could just drop in on Quentin's own mind and take the list out of his memory. He had no secrets from the User. The cloud of suspicion would grow around him. His parents. They would question his parents.
"You have our number." No doubt the police would hear Ray Cryer say that. Even if he erased this tape, there was probably also a recording on the other end, and then they would wonder why he had erased his copy. And since he didn't have the number, what choice did he have? He had to go back to New York, back to the house on the Hudson. Where the police would ask him about that night he spent in the house. If he said he slept in the house with Madeleine and had breakfast with her family, they'd go in and find a cold, dark, waterless house with only his footprints in the dust and only one side of the bed slept in. If he said the house was empty and dark, the police would doubtless find it sparkling clean and well lived-in, with Ray Cryer expressing his bafflement that Quentin would tell such an obvious lie.
He couldn't win. There was no escape from her. He might as well give up and head back there first thing in the morning. Or get in his car right now and drive all night and...
No way. That's what the User wanted. For all he knew, she was putting these thoughts in his head right now to try to bring him back. Well, Lizzy had told him he was strong. He had some power to resist her. And the User wasn't all-powerful, Lizzy had said that, too. It strained her there in the library at breakfast to keep six dead people under control, maintain the illusion of Madeleine, and show various servants bringing in imaginary food, all at once. During the police investigation the User wouldn't have half so much to do. She wouldn't have to produce the deep illusion of Madeleine at all. As for this Ray Cryer, he might be a real person and not a mental construct at all. Making the house look clean and lived-in would be a cinch. But could she create the illusion of detailed chemical evidence? Bloodstains? Anything that would convince a court that a crime had been committed? Maybe—but wouldn't she have to know exactly what the lab technicians would need to look for? Could she make her illusions show up on a photograph? Or would she have to follow the photograph constantly to make sure everyone saw the right things when they looked at it? If she knew enough and had power enough to do all that, then there was no point in his even trying to resist her.
But she wasn't infinitely powerful. Her limits could be reached. And he was not going to roll over and play dead.
It was eleven at night. He called his parents in California.
"She left me," he said. Almost his first words.
"No," said Mom.
"Aw, Quen, I'm so sorry," said Dad. "I never would've thought. She was so—you two were so perfect together."
"I don't know where she is. She didn't tell me where she was going."
"How could she do that?" said Mom. "You just don't do that. Decent people don't..."
"Does her family know where she might have gone?"
Here it came—the beginning of his counter-story. Since he had never met or heard of this Ray Cryer, he wasn't going to go along with the User's story that they knew each other. "I never met her family. She took me to the house on the Hudson, but there was nobody there." That was dangerous, he knew, since they were telling the police that he had met her parents. But if they gave him a lie detector test about meeting Madeleine's parents at the house, he could pass it. "And then today, this afternoon, she left."
"But that's so odd," said Mom. "She was taking you there to meet them."
"Did you fight?" asked Dad.
"I had questions. She had no answers. She knew I wasn't happy but no, we didn't fight."
"Oh, son, it'll work out, I know it will," said Mom. "When she realizes you love her no matter what—"
"I do love her, Mom."
"Well there you are. She'll come back, Quen. How could she not? The way you two looked at each other, it was so sweet, you're so much in love with each other, for pity's sake!"
"Dad, Mom, it's not just that she's gone. I'm worried."
"What about?" asked Dad.
"What if something happened to her? She just walked out. I don't know where she went. I didn't see her on the road as I walked to the next town. I didn't see her footprints in the snow."
Silence on the other end of the line.
"Quen, I know this is out of line, but I have to ask. You didn't hit her or anything, did you?"
Mom was furious. "How dare you even suggest such a thing about Quentin!"
"Calm down, Mom, it's all right. If she doesn't turn up soon, the police are going to ask exactly the same question, and they ought to. Dad, I never raised a hand to her or hurt her in any way. The last time I saw her she was fine."
"Why do the police even have to be involved in this?" s
aid Mom. "Wives leave husbands all the time."
"I never met her parents, but now all of a sudden I have a phone call from a man claiming to be her father and he probably is. But he's lying and saying that I met him, which I didn't, and he has the police looking for her and they're going to question me."
"This is so strange," said Mom. "You should be calling to tell us you're going to have a baby, Quentin, not that the police are going to question you."
"You never met her parents," said Dad, "and now suddenly her father is phoning you and they've got the police looking for her. Quentin, is there a chance that Madeleine was setting you up for blackmail all along? You pay up and suddenly there she is, and what was all this missing persons investigation about?"
"I don't know. So far nobody's asked me for money. It's all really confusing and I'm not sure what's really going on. But in case you're contacted and questioned, I wanted you to hear about this first from me."
"That was very wise of you, son."
"What should we tell them?" asked Mom.
"The absolute, complete truth, Mom. I didn't do anything wrong and there's nothing to hide."
"Quentin, I'm so sorry that this is happening," said Dad. "If it's any consolation, we thought she was as wonderful as you did."
"Yeah, well, we're all suckers for the perfect woman, aren't we, Dad? The difference is, the one you married is real."
"Oh, Quen," said Mom.
"Listen, there's a chance that this will hit the papers and if it does, they'll make it look like I'm guilty of something horrible because that's what sells papers. You know, Software Millionaire's Wife Missing, Husband Can't Explain Disappearance. If it's a con, and I think it is, you can be sure there'll be some evidence that supposedly contradicts things I've told you. No matter what other people are saying, though, you can be sure of this: I did no harm to Madeleine, and if I could have her back right now, as my wife, flesh and blood, right here beside me, I'd be the happiest man alive." And then, because this was true, and because he was tired, and because he had never had a chance to mourn for the wife he lost, he wept, his parents listening to him on the phone, believing him, comforting him.
And why not believe him? Everything he had said was true. And he had told them all that they could possibly believe.
Afterward, physically and emotionally drained, he fell asleep in front of the TV in the living room before Letterman got to the top ten list.
Next day he phoned his Virginia lawyer and asked him how to go about reporting a missing person. He explained that his wife had left him in New York State, but he had come home to Herndon assuming that she would find her own way back to one of their residences, only she wasn't answering the phone anywhere and until he located her he had to assume that something might have happened to her and he wanted the police to be on the lookout just in case—wasn't that the right thing to do? And his lawyer assured him, definitely, that was the right thing to do.
So he did it, but they didn't seem to think there was any urgency. "She'll turn up, Mr. Fears. Just give her time to cool down."
"I'm sure you're right," he answered. "But please just put out the word, won't you? Call the police up there and ask them to be on the lookout?" They assured him they'd see to it. He knew that the New York police would assume he was launching his own search because of the phone message from Ray Cryer, but if he didn't start searching it would look even worse.
That afternoon he boarded a flight to San Francisco and by evening he was in his lawyer's office.
"Only for you do I cancel dinner at my favorite restaurant in San Rafael and drive down into the city."
"You should have told me," said Quentin. "I would have come up and joined you there."
"I didn't want you there," said Wayne Read. "I wanted me and my wife there. Being married to me wouldn't be easy for any woman, and it's particularly hard for my wife. So this is costing me, Quentin."
"Madeleine left me."
"Oh." Wayne looked nonplussed for a moment. Then he put his head down on his desk. "I'm trying really really hard, Quentin."
"Go ahead and say it. You told me so."
"Quentin, I'm not happy to be right. I wanted you to be right."
"Yeah, well, she's gone. And I need your help."
"I assume she's got a lawyer. Do you know who yet? Because I'm not a divorce lawyer and—"
"Wayne, you're not getting it. She's gone. Not just leaving-me gone, I mean gone. I've filed a missing persons report in Virginia. I got a phone message from a man claiming to be her father, and he says they've also got the police looking for her up there."
Wayne's demeanor changed. A little bit more serious. A little bit suspicious, too, though he was trying to conceal it. Well, Quentin didn't blame him.
Quentin gave him the whole story he had told his parents.
"Well, somebody's bound to have seen her leave the house. She'll turn up somewhere."
"I doubt it."
"Why?" Again the suspicion.
"Because I never met this Ray Cryer but he left me a phone message implying that we knew each other. He had the code that let him switch off my answering service and leave a taped message on my machine in Herndon—and only Madeleine had those codes. Well, besides you and my parents."
"So she's not missing."
"Let's just say that this guy who calls himself Ray Cryer knows more about her disappearance than I do."
"Then let's find her," said Wayne. "Between the investigators we can hire and the police, we'll find her."
"No we won't. Nobody will ever find her."
Wayne thought for a while, tapping his pencil. "Quentin, are you telling me the truth?"
"Everything I've told you is true."
"That's not exactly what I asked." Then, as Quentin was about to speak, Wayne raised his hand to stop him. "Wait a minute, Quentin. Don't get mad at me, but I have to tell you. If you have committed some crime, and you wish me to be involved with your defense in any way, don't confess that crime to me. If you confess a crime to me, then my advice to you will be to turn yourself in and make a full confession, and I will not represent you in your defense. Do you understand me?"
"Relax, Wayne," said Quentin. "I didn't kill her. As far as I know she's as alive as she ever was."
Wayne relaxed a little.
"And I do want to begin a search. But not some little penny-ante search. It's going to have to cover every city where I have residences, which is a long list, as you well know. But she might have gone to any of those places and I have to at least go through the motions of a serious search. Don't I?"
"Go through the motions?"
"I told you. We won't find her."
Wayne shook his head. "I really hate paradoxes, Quentin. Do you know where she is or don't you?"
"I know she's nowhere."
"If she's buried in the basement of that house, Quentin, the police are going to find her."
"She's not buried anywhere because she's not dead. She's also not alive. She never existed."
"That must have been an interesting wedding, Quentin."
"The real search is for her true identity, Wayne. I want to be able to prove that the Madeleine Cryer I married has no birth certificate in any of the fifty states. That she never went to school anywhere, that she never had a job. The other investigations are because I have to look like a worried husband searching for his vanished wife. But my attorney has to know that what I'm really searching for is the identity of the person who deceived me. Or someone who might know the truth about her."
Wayne leaned back in his chair. "Now, that's interesting. I wonder where the investigator should start."
"There's almost nowhere he can start, Wayne. Like you said, I was a fool. The whole time we were engaged, back in Virginia, she claimed she was staying with friends, moving from house to house. We talked on her cellular phone. I never had a phone number for any of those friends. Never met one. Never heard a single name. She said she was in a job somewhere in the bureauc
racy, but I don't know what it was, and frankly I don't believe she ever had such a job, though of course I'll pay to have the federal personnel files searched to see if she worked for them."
"What about this Ray Cryer?"
"Whoever he is, I doubt he'll be real helpful to us—if he talks to our people at all."
"But we can investigate him and his background," said Wayne. "Either he really is her father or he's faking, and either way, checking up on him will help us."
"And the house, Wayne. The deeds. And I mean going back generations. She knows that house. That wasn't a fake. She knows it in the dark. She's connected to it somehow."
"We'll do it, Quentin. In the meantime, you won't mind if I strike her name off your insurance policies and out of your will?"
"Write it up and I'll sign everything."
"The police are going to be so suspicious of you."
"Of course they are. You are, and I pay you handsomely and listen to your wise and intensely personal advice. Think how much less likely they are to think I'm telling the whole story."
"Though of course you are telling the whole story." The irony in Wayne's voice was palpable.
"I've told you the whole story I'm going to tell the police and the whole story I told my parents and the story I'm going to tell everybody else forever, and every bit of it is true."
"But there are some bits you sort of left out?"
"Maybe."
"Are you going to tell me?"
"I want to. If I dare."
"Attorney-client privilege protects everything you tell me. I've already given you my don't-confess-a-crime-to-me warning. Please remember that I mean it."
Treasure Box Page 13