Authors: Rebecca Drake
Her own mother had tried to warn her off men early. “Liars and cheaters, most of them. I think it comes with the package. You’ve got to do for yourself in this world, because woe be unto the woman who thinks she can depend on a man.”
She’d thought her mother was just negative because she’d been unlucky in love, but lying there alone in the darkness, it suddenly made sense to Jill. She wondered if David had ever been faithful, if he’d meant it when he said he loved her, if anything he’d ever told her was the truth. Every business trip he’d taken now underwent her mental scrutiny. Her desire to know everything about what had happened forced her out of bed, at one in the morning, to search through the closet, turning out his suit pockets to see if he’d left anything behind. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—a wild-eyed and wild-haired woman wearing nothing but a long T-shirt and panties. She felt foolish and crawled back into bed, except again she couldn’t sleep, but this time her thoughts were consumed by Sophia.
If she were dead, wouldn’t Jill feel that? She’d felt it with Ethan, felt his absence before she’d found him in the crib, but maybe that was because he’d been biologically tied to her. Maybe it didn’t work that way for adoptive mothers, but was mother’s intuition about biology or love? She loved Sophia just as much as she had Ethan, even if that love had started in desperation and despair. She could feel Sophia’s presence, just as surely as she’d felt Ethan’s absence. That bloodstained nightgown didn’t prove anything. She was sure her little girl was alive, but maybe that was because she needed to believe Sophia was out there, somewhere. She needed that now more than ever.
At some point Jill must have drifted off. When she woke up it was still dark and she reached automatically across the vast expanse of bed in search of David before her mind caught up with her body and she remembered. Felt the awful plummeting that had been with her every morning since Sophia’s disappearance. She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock. Just after six. Her body clock kept its time even where she had no life left to schedule.
She showered and got dressed, moving on autopilot, but desperate to hold on to some routine. A voice inside screamed that this was going to be her life from now on, all alone with only her own thoughts for company. She struggled against it, heading downstairs to make breakfast just as if it were any other morning. Except it wasn’t. She was alone and the fridge held only an old heel of bread, some limp celery, and a carton of milk so out of date it had curdled. She winced at the sour smell and tossed it all in the trash before eating handfuls of dry cereal straight from the container.
She would go to the grocery store. This was something to do, something that needed to be done. It was better than sitting at home and brooding. Better than going to the studio. She’d had to lay off Kyle last week—too many sittings had been cancelled and there were no new orders to fill. Tania had stopped coming to the studio of her own accord. Even the bereavement photography had ended; the organization had dropped Jill from its rolls.
She was aware of a new patrolman in the car at the end of the drive as she backed out. He raised the car radio to his mouth as she drove off, and she knew that he was calling to tell someone that she had left the house. Were they tailing her? She checked in the rearview mirror multiple times as she drove to her local store, but she couldn’t tell.
The parking lot at the grocery store was filling up, unusual for so early in the morning, but then she checked the date on her phone and understood. Thanksgiving shopping; the last weekend before the holiday and people were trying to beat the rush. She’d had plans for the holiday once; it seemed like someone else’s life, but that had been her less than a month ago. She pushed her cart slowly down the aisles, feeling strangely detached. As she tried to focus on choosing a head of lettuce she caught a woman staring and whispering to the man next to her. She left the lettuce and moved on to another aisle.
There was a line at the deli and as Jill waited her turn she caught more strange looks and saw people nudging one another and whispering. When they called her number, she raised her hand, but the deli man just stared at her for a long moment, accusation in his eyes.
“A half pound of turkey breast please,” she said, staring right back at him, but her voice sounded high and abnormal. He finally turned to slice the turkey, but said something under his breath to one of the women behind the counter and she looked at Jill, too, with hatred in her eyes.
“Here.” The man dangled the bag of turkey just out of reach and Jill had to lean forward to grab it. He got a nasty smile on his face, and she guessed he thought she’d killed her daughter even if he wouldn’t come out and say it.
She threw the bag in her cart, anxious to go. She pushed on, grabbing milk and bread. She thought that they were almost out of Life cereal and Sophia really liked Life the best, and then Jill had to stop moving and clutch the cart because for a split second she’d forgotten, and the pain of Sophia’s absence roared back.
“Mrs. Lassiter?”
A voice behind her made Jill jump, startling the woman who’d pushed a cart up against hers.
She looked familiar, but Jill couldn’t place her. Young, short black hair, and wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. The woman obviously saw her confusion and said, “I’m Liz Meyer, one of Sophia’s preschool teachers.”
“Oh, of course, I’m so sorry.” Jill had lost her mind. How could she have failed to recognize this woman that she’d seen every day? “How are you?” She stretched out her hand to touch Liz’s arm, but the other woman recoiled.
“What are you doing here?” she said, her sweet voice a hiss.
Jill’s hand dropped. “The same thing you are.” She pushed her cart away, but the other woman pursued her.
“You’ve got some nerve showing your face in public. You should be ashamed.”
Other shoppers turned to stare. Jill stared straight ahead, moving faster toward the checkout.
“What did you do to her?” Liz demanded, pushing her cart alongside Jill’s. “I know you killed her just like you killed your son.”
Jill abandoned her cart and any pretense of shopping. She hurried toward the exit, Liz in pursuit. “You can’t run away!” the woman called. “We know what you did!”
Jill held back the tears until she was alone in the car. Her cell phone, switched to silent, vibrated in her pocket. It was David calling; she didn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk to him. At that moment, she wasn’t sure she’d want to talk to him ever again. She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning back against the headrest. Then all at once she sat up. She knew who she did want to talk to.
* * *
Shadyside early Saturday morning was filled with joggers and thirtysomething women wheeling young children to coffee shops in expensive strollers. Jill turned off Walnut onto a parallel street, following the house numbers until she found 113.
She had to circle the block a few times to find parking, and it started to snow, a few tiny flakes, as she made her way back to the redbrick apartment building. She ducked under the faded black awning and scanned the names posted next to the buzzers, and there it was in small letters in the slot for Apt. 8B:
MONROE
.
It hadn’t been hard to find the address—Google was an amazing thing. She was about to buzz when an old woman dragging a laundry cart struggled out the door. Jill held it open for her and slipped inside. There was no doorman and no one else waiting for the elevator. She rode up to the eighth floor and headed down a dimly lit, carpeted hallway. Faint smells slipped under the doors—fried onions, dryer sheets, wet dog. She pressed the small black buzzer at 8B, taking pleasure in holding it down. There was a peephole in the door. Jill turned sideways, so her face was obscured. After a moment she heard a chain being released and the door opened a crack.
“Yes?” Leslie Monroe peeked around the corner of the door, wearing nothing but a terrycloth robe. Her feet were bare, her blonde hair tousled.
“Late night, Leslie?” Jill asked and slammed the door open, pushing past the other woman into the apartment.
“Ow!” Leslie Monroe pressed a hand to her forehead where the door had hit her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Where is she?” Jill poked her head in the first door, but it was just a powder room. She yanked open a door on her left and a pair of snow boots fell out.
“What do you want? You can’t just come barging in here!” Leslie hurried after her, one hand clutching the robe at the neck.
“Sophia!” Jill called. She turned back to Leslie. “I know you took my daughter, where is she?” She stalked past the small kitchen and into an empty bedroom, dropping to her knees to check under the bed and pushing aside clothes in the closet before moving on.
“There’s no one else here,” Leslie protested, but Jill ignored her, ducking into the second bedroom across the hall. Clearly the master—the bed was unmade, covers thrown back as if Leslie Monroe had just gotten out of it. There was no one there, not in the small walk-in closet or the full bathroom.
Jill strode back out to the living room with the other woman right behind her, checking behind the drawn living room curtains and looking out at the small balcony.
“You’re David’s wife,” Leslie Monroe said with sudden recognition. “I saw you on TV.”
Jill turned to confront her, breathing hard. “What did you do with her?”
“Do? I haven’t done anything. I don’t have your daughter.”
“Have you hurt her? Did you kill her?”
“No, no, of course not! Look, the police spoke to me—I haven’t seen your daughter.”
“Sophia!” Jill called again.
“Listen, just calm down.” Leslie held out a placating hand. “I swear to you—I haven’t even seen your daughter, much less hurt her.”
Jill pressed a hand against her head. She’d been so sure that Sophia was there, that this woman had taken her. Leslie Monroe backed away from her toward the kitchen.
“I need some coffee—do you want a cup?” she said, bumping into the kitchen counter and edging around it to get into the kitchen without turning her back to Jill, who was suddenly aware of how crazy she must look. Unwashed hair scraped back into a ponytail, faded jeans, an oversize old sweater with one sleeve unraveling.
She dropped into a chair, and Leslie took this as assent and poured Jill a cup of coffee. “Do you take cream or sugar?”
Jill shook her head.
“Here we go.” Leslie carried two mugs out of the kitchen and offered one to Jill.
Was that supposed to be a fair exchange, Jill wondered. Her husband for a cup of coffee? She took the cup, staring hard at the other woman, who flushed and looked away, sitting down in a chair that left some distance between them. She adjusted the tie on her robe again and ran a hand over her thick mane of blonde hair, smoothing it.
She was a voluptuous woman, late thirties, with ample breasts, big eyes, and full, pouty lips. It was easy to see why men found her attractive. “I’m sorry about your daughter,” she said. “I heard about it on the news.”
“The police said you have an alibi for the night of her disappearance,” Jill said, staring her in the eye. She’d thought this would be hard, but anger had displaced any awkwardness.
“I was in Chicago,” the other woman said, adding, “on business,” as if Jill might have thought otherwise.
“How long have you been screwing my husband?” The words poured out of Jill’s mouth before she had time to think about them.
Caught in the middle of taking a sip, Leslie Monroe spluttered and coffee spilled down her chin in a messy trickle. “We’re not, that is, we’re not anymore.” Leslie Monroe was one of those people who blush completely and unattractively, a fiery color starting at her ears and throat and spreading across her entire face.
Jill waited, staring at the other woman, while Leslie Monroe’s blue-green eyes darted away from her, seeking anywhere else to settle. “Did you have sex in my bed?”
The blush deepened. “No. Never. I wouldn’t do that.”
“So seducing another woman’s husband is enough for you?” Jill found it exhilarating to be so direct.
The other woman frowned, and Jill suddenly saw the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and the harsh lines that age had carved on either side of her nose. Someone had forgotten her Botox. “I didn’t seduce anybody; David approached
me
.”
“Did you know he was married?”
“So what if I did?” Leslie Monroe tossed her head a little, her hair falling forward to reveal darker roots. “That’s his problem, not mine.”
You bitch, Jill thought. Her hands gripped the coffee cup and she had to breathe for a minute to maintain her equilibrium. “When did it start?”
The other woman waved her hand in the air as if this was completely unimportant. “I don’t know. Three years ago? Four? It doesn’t matter; it’s over.”
“Where did you meet?”
“My place or hotels.” Her lips curved slightly. “I’ve always enjoyed room service.”
“If it’s over why did you meet him for lunch last month?”
Leslie sighed and glanced at the clock. “A client referral. I’m a lawyer, too, but I’m sure the police told you that.”
“Did you have sex last month?”
She laughed, startling Jill. “In the dining room at The Carlton? Credit me with a little more discretion.”
“Why did the relationship end?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m asking you.”
She sighed again. “It’s over—move on, I’m sure he has.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m sure he’s got some other woman now, so why don’t you go question her.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Leslie Monroe rolled her eyes. She took a sip of coffee before answering. “Look, once a cheater always a cheater. All men stray—fidelity is not part of their nature. I’m sure David has had affairs with other associates at his firm; he isn’t the only one.”
Jill’s mind reeled. Multiple affairs? Could he really have cheated repeatedly without her finding out? What if another woman, angry with David or jealous of his married life, took Sophia? “Who are the other women?”
Leslie shook her head. “I don’t know—he wouldn’t talk to me about something like that, it’s not polite.”