The Couple Next Door

  Idly, Marco looks down at the cell phone in his hand and, with a jolt, notices the missed-calls symbol. It wasn’t there the last time he looked. The ringer is turned off, of course. Who would be calling him from Bruce’s phone? Bruce is dead. Marco presses REDIAL, his heart hammering behind his ribs. He hears the phone ring. Once, twice.

  And then a voice he recognizes. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

  • • •

  Anne cries herself to sleep. When she wakes, it’s dark outside. She lies in bed, listening carefully for sounds in the house. She hears nothing. She wonders where Marco is. Can she even stand the sight of him? Should she kick him out of the house? She hugs her pillow close to her body and thinks.

  It wouldn’t look good if she kicked him out now. The press would be on them like a pack of animals. They’d look guiltier than ever. If they were innocent, why would they split? The police might arrest them. Does she even care?

  In spite of everything, Anne knows Marco is a good father and loves Cora—he’s in as much pain about the baby as she is. She knows he had nothing to do with Cora’s disappearance, in spite of what the police have said to her and suggested with their sly questions and hypotheticals. She can’t turn him out, at least for the time being, even if thinking about him with another woman makes her sick.

  Anne closes her eyes and tries to remember that night. It’s the first time she’s tried to put herself back in that room, the night Cora went missing. She’s been avoiding it. But now she sees it in her mind’s eye, the last time she saw her baby. Cora was in the crib. The room was dark. Cora was on her back, her chubby arms flung up beside her head, her blond hair curling damply on her forehead in the heat. The ceiling fan swirled lazily overhead. The bedroom window was open to the night, but it was still stifling.

  Anne remembers now. She stood by the crib looking down at her baby daughter’s tiny fists, her bare, bent legs. It was too hot for covers. She resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the baby’s forehead, afraid of waking her. She wanted to gather Cora in her arms, bury her face in the child’s neck and sob, but she stopped herself. She was swamped with feelings—with love, mostly, and tenderness, but also with hopelessness, and despair, and inadequacy—and she was ashamed.

  As she stood by the crib, she tried not to blame herself, but it was hard not to. It felt like her fault that she wasn’t a blissed-out new mother. That she was broken. But her daughter—her daughter was perfect. Her precious little girl. It wasn’t her baby’s fault. None of it was her baby’s fault.

  She wanted to stay in Cora’s room, sit in the comfortable nursing chair, and fall asleep. But instead she’d tiptoed out of the room and returned to the party next door.

  Anne can’t remember anything else about that last visit at midnight. She didn’t shake the baby or drop her. Not then anyway. She didn’t even pick her up. She remembers very clearly that she did not pick her up or touch her when she went over briefly at midnight, because she was afraid of waking her. Because when she’d fed her at eleven, Cora had been fussy. She’d woken up, and been difficult. Anne had fed her, but then she wouldn’t settle. She’d walked with her, sung to her. She might have slapped her. Yes—she slapped her baby. She feels sick with shame, remembering.

  Anne had been tired and frustrated, upset about what was going on with Marco and Cynthia at the party. She was crying. She doesn’t remember dropping Cora or shaking her. But she cannot remember changing the baby’s outfit either. Why can’t she remember? If she can’t remember changing the outfit, what else can she not remember? What did she do after she slapped her?

  When the police had confronted her with the pink onesie, she’d said what she thought must be true: that she’d changed the outfit. She often changed Cora’s outfit at her last feeding, when she changed her diaper. She assumed she’d done the same thing then. She knows she must have. But she can’t actually remember doing it.

  Anne feels a chill deep in her soul. She wonders now if perhaps she did do something to the baby during the last feeding at eleven. She slapped her, but after that she can’t remember. Did she do worse than that? Did she? Did she kill her? Did Marco find her dead at twelve thirty and assume the worst—and cover up for her? Did he call someone to take Cora away? Is that why he wanted to stay longer at the party, to give the other person the time to get her? Anne tries desperately now to remember if the baby had been breathing at midnight. She can’t remember. She can’t be sure. She feels sick with terror and remorse.

  Does she dare ask Marco? Does she want to know?

  TWENTY-SIX

  At the sound of his father-in-law’s voice, Marco sinks to the floor. In his confusion and disbelief, he can’t speak.

  “Marco?” Richard asks.

  “Yes.” His voice sounds dead, even to his own ears.

  “I know what you did.”

  “What I did,” Marco repeats in a monotone. He is still trying to put it all together. Why does Anne’s father have Derek Honig’s cell phone? Did the police find it at the murder scene and give it to him? Is this a trap?

  “Kidnapping your own child for ransom. Stealing from your wife’s parents. As if we haven’t given you enough already.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marco says desperately, trying to buy time, to work his way through this bizarre situation. He fights the panicked urge to hang up. He must deny, deny, deny. There’s no proof of anything. But then he remembers there’s Cynthia’s video. And now there’s this phone call. What exactly are the implications of this phone call? If the police found Derek’s phone, if they’re listening in, now that Marco has picked up on the other end, they have all the proof they need that Marco was in collusion with Derek.

  But maybe the police don’t know anything about the phone. The implications of that are chilling. Marco feels himself go cold.

  “Oh, come on, Marco,” Richard says. “Man up for once in your life.”

  “How did you get that phone?” Marco asks. If the police didn’t find the phone and give it to Richard, to trap Marco, then Richard must have gotten it from Derek. Did Richard kill Derek? “Do you have Cora, you son of a bitch?” Marco hisses desperately.

  “No. Not yet. But I’m going to get her.” His father-in-law adds bitterly, “No thanks to you.”

  “What? She’s alive?” Marco blurts in disbelief.

  “I think so.”

  Marco gasps. Cora, alive! Nothing else matters. All that matters is that they get their baby back. “How do you know? Are you sure?” he whispers.

  “As sure as I can be, without holding her in my arms.”

  “How do you know?” Marco asks again, desperately.

  “The kidnappers got in touch with us. They knew from the newspapers that we’d paid the first ransom. They want more. We’ll pay whatever they ask. We love Cora, you know that.”

  “You haven’t told Anne,” Marco says, still trying to get his mind around this latest development.

  “Obviously not. We know it’s hard on her, but it’s probably for the best, until we’re sure about what’s going to happen.”

  “I see,” Marco says.

  “The fact is, Marco, we have to protect our girls from you,” Richard says, his voice like ice. “We have to protect Cora. And we have to protect Anne. You’re dangerous, Marco, with your plans and schemes.”

  “I’m not dangerous, you bastard,” Marco says viciously. “How did you get that phone?”

  Richard says coldly, “The kidnappers sent it to us, like they sent you the outfit. With a note—about you. Probably to stop us from going to the cops. But you know what? I’m glad they did. Because now we know what you did. And we can prove it, if we choose to. But all in good time. First we have to get Cora back.” He lowers his voice to a hushed threat. “I’m the one in charge now, Marco. So don’t you dare fuck it up. Don’t tell the police. And don’t tell Anne—I don’t want to get her hop
es up again if something goes wrong.”

  “All right,” Marco says, his mind spinning. He will do anything to get Cora back. He doesn’t know what to believe, but he wants to believe she’s alive.

  He must destroy the phone.

  “And I don’t want you talking to Alice—she doesn’t want to speak to you. She’s very upset about what you did.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m not done with you yet, Marco,” Richard says, and abruptly disconnects the call.

  Marco sits on the floor for a long time, flooded with renewed hope—and despair.

  • • •

  Anne gets out of bed. She walks quietly to the bedroom door and unlocks it, pulls the door back. She sticks her head out into the hall. There’s a light on in the office. Has Marco been in there all this time? What is he doing?

  Anne walks slowly down the hall and pushes open the office door. Marco is sitting on the floor with the cell phone in his hand. His face is awfully pale. There’s a dreadful bloody mark above his eye where she clipped him with the phone. He looks up at her as she comes in. They stare at each other for a long moment, neither one sure of what to say.

  Finally Anne speaks. “Are you okay, Marco?”

  Marco touches the bloody bump on his forehead, realizes he has a pounding headache, and nods slightly.

  He desperately wants to tell her that Cora might be alive after all. That there’s hope. That her father is in charge now, and he never fails—at anything. Not like her fuckup of a husband. He wants to tell her that everything is going to be all right.

  But everything isn’t going to be all right. They may get Cora back—he hopes to God they do—but Anne’s father will make sure that Marco is arrested for kidnapping. He will make sure Marco goes to jail. Marco doesn’t know if Anne’s fragile emotional state can survive such a shocking betrayal.

  He thinks cynically for a moment about how disappointed Cynthia will be at the turn of events.

  “Marco, say something,” Anne says anxiously.

  “I’m okay,” Marco whispers. His mouth is dry. He’s surprised that she’s talking to him. He wonders why the change of heart. A few hours ago, she’d told him to move onto the couch while she figured out what she was going to do. He assumed that meant she was kicking him out. Now she looks almost sorry.

  She comes in and sits down beside him on the floor. He suddenly feels anxious that her father might call back on the phone. How would he explain that? Furtively, he turns the phone off.

  “Marco, there’s something I have to say,” Anne begins tentatively.

  “What is it, baby?” Marco asks. He reaches up and strokes a strand of hair off her face. She doesn’t pull away. The tender gesture, a reminder of happier days, makes her tears come.

  She lowers her eyes and says, “You have to be honest with me, Marco.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything. He wonders if she suspects. He wonders what he will say if she confronts him with the truth.

  “The night of the kidnapping, when you went to check on Cora the last time—” She turns to face him now, and he tenses, worried about what’s coming next. “Was she alive?”

  Marco starts. He didn’t expect this. “Of course she was alive,” he says. “Why do you ask that?” He looks at her troubled face with concern.

  “Because I can’t remember,” Anne whispers. “When I saw her at midnight, I can’t remember if she was breathing. Are you sure she was breathing?”

  “Yes, I’m sure she was breathing,” Marco says. He can’t tell her he knows she was alive because he felt her little heart beating against him as he held her and carried her out of the house.

  “How do you know?” she says, looking intently at him, as if trying to read his mind. “Did you actually check? Or just look at her?”

  “I saw her chest moving up and down in the crib,” Marco lies.

  “You’re sure? You wouldn’t lie to me?” Anne asks anxiously.

  “No, Anne, why are you asking me this? Why do you think she wasn’t breathing? Because of something that stupid detective said?”

  She looks down at her lap. “Because I’m not sure, when I saw her at midnight, that she was breathing. I didn’t pick her up. I didn’t want to wake her. I can’t remember noticing if she was actually breathing.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No.” She pauses, uncertain. Finally she looks up at him and says, “When I was with her at eleven . . . it’s just a blank. I can’t remember it at all.”

  The expression on her face frightens him. Marco feels she is about to tell him something terrible, something he has somehow been waiting for, that he’s been expecting all along. He doesn’t want to hear it, but he can’t move.

  Anne whispers, “I can’t remember what I did. I do that sometimes—I blank out. I do things, and then I don’t remember doing them.”

  “What do you mean?” Marco says. His voice is strangely cold.

  She looks at him, her eyes pleading. “It isn’t that I forgot because of the wine. I’ve never told you, but when I was younger, I was ill. I thought I was past it when I met you.”

  “Ill how?” Marco says, startled.

  She’s crying now. “It’s like I just check out for a bit. Then, when I come back, I don’t remember anything.”

  He looks at her, astonished. “And you never bothered to tell me?”

  “I’m sorry! I should have told you. I thought . . .” She doesn’t finish her sentence. “I lied to the police about the onesie. I don’t remember changing her. I just assumed I did it, but I don’t actually remember any of it. My mind is . . . blank.” She is becoming hysterical.

  “Shhhh. . . .” Marco says. “Anne, she was fine. I’m positive.”

  “Because the police think I hurt her. They think I might have killed her, smothered her with a pillow or strangled her, and that you took her away to protect me!”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Marco says, angry now with the police for suggesting such things to her. They all know that he’s the one they’re after—why do they need to push her to the brink of a breakdown?

  “Is it?” Anne asks, looking at him wildly. “I hit her. I was angry, and I hit her.”

  “What? When? When did you hit her?”

  “When I fed her, at eleven o’clock. She was fussy. I . . . I kind of snapped. Sometimes . . . I would lose control . . . and slap her, when she wouldn’t stop crying. When you were at work and she wouldn’t stop crying.”

  Marco looks at her, appalled. “No, Anne, I’m sure you didn’t,” he says, hoping what she’s told him isn’t true. This is disturbing, as disturbing as her confession about having some kind of illness that makes her not know what she’s doing.

  “But I don’t know, you see?” Anne cries. “I can’t remember! I might have hurt her. Are you covering up for me, Marco? Tell me the truth!”

  He takes her face between his hands and holds her still. “Anne, she was fine. She was alive and breathing at twelve thirty. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault.” He takes her into his arms as she breaks down weeping.

  He thinks, This is all my fault.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  After Anne finally falls into a restless sleep, Marco lies awake in bed beside her for a long time, trying to figure it all out. He wishes he could discuss the entire mess with her. He misses how they used to talk, about everything, all their plans. But he can’t talk to her about anything now. When he does sleep, his dreams are terrifying; he wakes at four in the morning with a start, his heart pounding and sweating all over, the sheets soaked.

  This is what he knows: Richard is negotiating with the kidnappers. He and Alice are going to pay whatever it takes to get Cora back. Marco has to hope and pray that Richard will be successful where he was not. Richard has Derek’s cell phone, and he was expecting it to be Marco on the other end. Richard?
??and Alice—know Marco was colluding with Derek, that he kidnapped his own child for money. Marco’s first thought, that Richard had killed Derek and taken his phone, now seems absurd. How could Richard possibly have known about Derek? Was Richard capable of bashing in another man’s head? Marco doesn’t think so, even though he hates the bastard.

  If it’s true that the kidnappers sent Richard the phone, that’s good. That means the police don’t know about it—not yet anyway. But Richard threatened him. What had he said, exactly? Marco can’t remember. He must talk to Richard and persuade him not to tell the police—or Anne—about Marco’s role in the kidnapping. How will he manage that? He’ll have to convince them that Anne couldn’t withstand the shock, that exposing Marco as being involved in Cora’s disappearance would utterly destroy her.

  Anne’s parents would hold it against him forever, but at least maybe he and Anne and Cora could be a family again. If they got their baby back, Anne would be happy. He could start over, work his ass off to provide for them. Maybe Richard doesn’t actually want to expose him. It would embarrass them socially, hurt his reputation in the business community. Maybe all Richard wants is to have dirty secrets to hold over Marco for the rest of his life. That would be just like Richard. Marco starts to breathe a little easier.

  He has to get rid of the phone. What if Anne hits REDIAL and gets her father? Then he remembers she doesn’t know the pattern to open it. Still, he must get rid of it. It ties him to Cora’s disappearance. He can’t have the police getting their hands on it.

  There’s still the problem of Cynthia and her video. He has no idea what to do about that. She’ll keep quiet in the short term, as long as he can convince her he’ll be able to get her the money she wants.

  Jesus, what a mess.

  Marco gets up in the dark and moves quietly around the carpeted bedroom, careful not to wake his wife. He dresses quickly, pulling on the same jeans and T-shirt he wore the day before. He then goes down the hall to the office and removes the phone from the desk drawer where he put it last night. He turns it on and checks it one final time. Nothing. There’s no need to keep the phone. If he needs to talk to Richard, he’ll do it directly. The phone is the only physical evidence, besides Cynthia’s video, that there is against him.