WHEN I GET home, it’s late afternoon, and Wilson is near to bursting his bladder, but he makes it into the yard, where he pees with visible relief. On his way back inside, he gives me only a passing lick, as if withholding affection because I took too long to get home. Then he sticks his snout into his food dish and starts gobbling up the kibble I have given him.
I need to know what Marisa knows about my family, what else she may have done. If her phone weren’t screen locked, I could just turn it back on and call “Mom” and demand answers. But even if I could, that feels like rewarding Marisa for bad behavior and would be about as safe as sticking my hand into a bag of snakes. She would just continue to hiss and scratch and laugh, taunting me over the phone. I need a tactical advantage.
Knowing the location of your opponent is a first step. School has been out for nearly an hour, so she should be home. I go online to Archer’s website, tap through to the faculty directory, and look up Marisa. The directory lists her street address as Habersham Road, in the heart of Buckhead. Very bougie. There’s a phone number, not her cell. I pick up my landline and dial the number. Two rings in, a man answers, formally polite. “Devereaux residence.”
“Yes, I’d like to leave a message for Marisa Devereaux, please,” I say.
The man—secretary, butler, whatever—sounds as if he spent his undergraduate years practicing elocution at Oxford. “May I ask what this is regarding?”
“I’m a colleague of hers at Archer,” I say. “We needed to talk about some lesson plans. If she’s at home …”
Oxford doesn’t take the bait. “Miss Devereaux is not available at the moment.”
“Oh,” I say. “Shoot. I … the thing is, I’m heading to an out-of-town conference tonight and really needed to talk with her before I left. Do you know when she will be back?”
There is the briefest hesitation. “No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t,” he says, sounding genuinely regretful. “May I take your name and number?”
I hang up. It’s possible old Oxford wasn’t being truthful and Marisa was standing right there next to him, listening in on the conversation. But something tells me he wasn’t lying.
I text Coleman and ask if Marisa was at school today. He responds almost immediately. No she didn’t come in today. Teri was going to talk to her first thing this AM but she never showed. He follows this with: You doing okay?
I text back Yeah, thanks and put my phone down. If Marisa isn’t at her house and wasn’t at school, then she’s MIA.
I sit on my couch, doing nothing for a few moments other than looking around my living room.
Wilson finishes his kibble and looks up at me, cocking his head.
I pick up my phone and scroll through my work email until I find one from Coleman back in January where he sent me a copy of Marisa’s résumé. I open the attached file and find Marisa’s last workplace: the Hastings School. Marisa said she had worked there until last summer. Their website, which is sleeker than ours, shows nine English faculty. The department chair, Niki Simpson, does not have a cell phone listed, although she has an office number. I am about to call her when I go back to the list of English faculty. Of the nine, three are men. One looks to be in his sixties, and the other started at Hastings last August. The third, Todd Jorgenson, has been teaching at Hastings for five years. His photo reveals the smiling good looks of a sitcom star.
A plan dimly takes shape in my head. Before I lose my nerve, I call the main number for the school, hoping they haven’t already left for the day, but a receptionist promptly picks up. “The Hastings School; this is Holly.”
“Oh, great, I was afraid you’d be closed,” I say. “I’m trying to get in touch with Todd Jorgenson?”
“Certainly,” says Holly. “I can put you through to his voice mail.”
“Actually, Holly, I’m in kind of a bind,” I say, standing up from the couch and walking around my den. “Todd’s a college buddy and we have plans for spring break, but the airline’s canceled the flight.”
“Oh no,” Holly says.
“Yeah, it’s lousy, but we can reschedule. The thing is, I need to know right now what to tell them about the tickets, and I lost Todd’s cell. Is there any way you can tell me how to reach Todd directly?”
Holly hesitates and I glance at Wilson, who is still looking at me with a cocked head. Don’t judge, I want to tell him.
“Well,” Holly says, “I’m not allowed to give out personal cell phone numbers.”
“Totally understand,” I say, nodding as if Holly can see me, although I’m disappointed. Still, I knew this wouldn’t be that easy. “I get it.” Then I lower my voice slightly. “Todd told me about … you know, last year.” I pause, but Holly says nothing. “With his coworker,” I say, taking the leap. “Sounded awful. I wouldn’t want anybody giving out my phone number either.”
Another pause. I’m about to hang up when Holly says, her voice lowered to match mine, “It was pretty awful. She treated him terribly. I always thought she was so nice.”
Me too, I think. I feel both elated and nauseous. “You can’t tell about people sometimes,” I manage to say. “If you give me his voice mail, that should be fine, thanks. I’m sure he’ll call me right back.”
“All right,” Holly says, clearly relieved not to be put in a tight spot. “Good luck with your plane tickets! I’ll transfer you now.”
As soon as she transfers the call to Todd Jorgenson’s voice mail, I hang up. Even if Todd would be willing to talk to me, I don’t need his story right
