Long Gone

happy, despite all that’s been heaped on me the past few days. You didn’t take advantage of me. And I don’t think there’s a problem here.”

“I’ll call you when I free up. I want to see you tonight, okay?”

“Of course.”

“And, just so you know? Right now? Looking at you and having been with you this week while all this hell has been breaking loose? I don’t know why I ever thought there was something else out there for me to find.”

Chapter Forty-Three

T he next time she opened her eyes, she felt groggy. She reached for the clock. It was almost noon. She didn’t know if it was the sleeping pill, the sex, or an intense disaffection for her current reality that kept her in bed, but she decided in that moment that if she could stay wrapped in those blankets, with her head on that pillow, for the remainder of her life, that would be her preference.

The sound of her apartment buzzer pulled her from the fantasy of an eternal bed rest.

“Hello?”

“Let me in. Hurry.”

She buzzed the security entrance and cracked open the apartment door, feeling a pang of guilt for being disappointed that it was Lily and not Jeff. She was scooping coffee grounds into a filter when she heard Lily’s footsteps coming hard and fast up the hallway stairs. She sprang into the apartment and bolted the door behind her.

“I’m getting a late start, but I’ll have coffee to offer in a sec. Don’t freak out, but last night-”

“Shit, Alice, I am so sorry. We’ve got to do something.”

She knew immediately, from one look at Lily’s panicked expression. With that one look, she realized how stupid she had been to allow a moment with Jeff to escalate into an escape from reality. Jeff had come to her apartment in the middle of the night for a reason, and it had nothing to do with lost memories at Temple Bar or the ease with which the two of them could lose themselves in each other. It’s not going to be that hard for them to prove those gloves are yours.

“The police questioned you, didn’t they?”

Lily nodded. She looked like she might cry. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. They came to my office. And I freaked. I just answered. I didn’t see how it could possibly matter. But then I realized: why the fuck would they be asking me about your gloves unless it mattered? And I tried calling you, but your phone’s off.” The words were spilling out of her. “And now they’re here.”

“What do you mean, they’re here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone, so I got down here as fast as I could to try to tell you. But there’s a bunch of police cars downstairs, Alice. I saw them watching me when I was at the door. They were getting out of their cars when I walked in. I think-Fuck, Alice, I think they’re here to arrest you.”

Alice would subsequently try to remember her immediate reaction, but memory is a funny thing. It’s as if those first forty-five seconds were forever lost. She knew she was muttering, “Oh my God,” more than could ever be helpful. She vaguely recalled looking down to see what she was wearing and wondering how quickly she could change into real clothes.

But whatever mess was unfolding in her mind was instantly clarified when Lily grabbed her by the shoulders. “Alice, you need to get out of here.”

She processed what Lily was telling her. Those gloves must have been the piece of rock-solid evidence they’d been waiting for, the thing that sealed those suspicions they’d formed about her on the first day. They were here to take her away. She heard Lily’s words again, this time louder. “Get out of here. They don’t know for sure you’re home. Go out the freight entrance.”

“I can’t. I mean, I should call my lawyer. It’s going to make me look guilty.”

“They’re not here yet. Just leave before they get here. There’s no law that says you have to be home. I’ll tell them a neighbor buzzed me in, and you weren’t actually here. Just go. Come on, get moving.”

Alice remembered what Cronin had said to her about clients who could make another life for themselves elsewhere. A passport, some money, and a private jet, he’d said. She had access to all of that. Her father could help her. If it really came to that. If it was necessary. But she wouldn’t have the option once they took her into custody.

She was moving faster than she could think. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a warm sweater. She grabbed her passport from her jewelry box. Pulled her gym bag, already stocked with basic necessities, from the front closet. Stuffed her laptop in her purse. She started to reach for her bright blue coat when she stopped herself, opting instead for the nondescript black trench she’d stopped wearing a couple of years ago.

“Are they in the building?” she asked, tugging on the coat.

“I don’t think so.” Lily cracked open the apartment door. “Okay, it’s safe. You need to hurry.”

She grabbed Lily and kissed her hard on the cheek before making her way to the freight elevator. As she slipped out of the delivery entrance at the back of the building on Ninth Street, she was aware of the sound of sirens in the distance. At least, she hoped they were in the distance.

And she wondered whether she would ever get her life back.

Part III

Memories

Chapter Forty-Four

J oann Stevenson hit the play button once again on her cell phone. She had heard this message so many times, her memory could pull up each syllable before it was spoken. She could hear the inflection of each word in her own mind. The pop of the p in the word person, followed by a slight giggle at the end of the sentence. She could almost picture a tiny bubble of spit form at the corner of her daughter’s lip before she licked it away during the pause.

Hi, Mom. It’s the daughter-type person. There was the giggle and the lip lick. I know you’ve got the late shift tonight, but I just wanted you to know I’m home and ordered a pizza with the money you left me, just like in your note. Me and Sebastian miss you. See you tomorrow.

The message was nearly a month old, but it was the only recording she had of Becca’s voice. Oh, she had a few old videos from when she was a kid. Reciting the preamble of the constitution for national civics day in the first grade. Getting tangled up on the words “domestic tranquility”: establish justice, insure domestic chance hillary. That truly painful solo from her otherwise adorable turn as the lion in Wizard of Oz. But the only sound she had of a more mature, teenage Becca was this twelve-second cell phone message.

Listening to her daughter’s voice made her feel less alone. When news had gotten out about Becca’s disappearance, she had been surrounded by well-wishers. She had felt cared for. Maybe even loved. But now Mark was gone. She didn’t blame him. It had been too early in a relationship to expect the man not to be rattled by the polygraph the police had asked for, not to mention her depression, anger, and utterly unpredictable fits of inconsolable tears.

The casseroles that had turned up on her porch with notes of kindness had tapered off. So had the phone calls from worried friends offering to search for Becca. Or to keep her company. Or anything else that she might find helpful. Now her boss was beginning to ask when she thought she might make it back to work.

She had never felt so alone. And so even though she had already memorized every word of this message, and the sound of each individual syllable, she hit play once again.

Morhart noticed that the gutters needed cleaning. It had stopped raining two hours earlier, but water was still dripping over the aluminum edge. Spikes of green had begun to sprout from the accumulated leaves.