Tina mulled over the name.
“New girl. Short hair. A whiz with numbers. Not yet jaded. Love her. Why?”
“I found her crying in the kitchenette before the meeting and we got to talking.”
Tina returned a curious stare.
“About what?”
“Nothing really.” Tina looked skeptical. Guilt won out. “Okay, we were talking about you. I told her we were friends and that we could go to lunch and that I’d give her pointers how to get on your good side.”
Tina looked aghast.
“Why on earth would you do that?”
Natalie shrugged.
“She’s young and pretty and I got to thinking maybe she’d help me.”
Tina eyed Natalie warily.
“Help you do what?”
“Set a trap for Michael. She could come on to him at the gym, because clearly that’s his stomping ground, and tell me how he reacts.”
“How do you know they go to the same gym?”
“Steve Z might be an ass, but he knows how to treat us. Everyone, spouses included, uses the gym membership. It’s such a bargain. And I’ve seen Audrey’s figure. That can’t be a hundred percent effortless. Anyway, even if she’s into some high-end boutique fitness studio, she still has access to the corporate gym, and Michael goes there all the time now, as you and I well know.”
Tina took her seat again, appearing unsettled.
“Why not just hire a private eye like a normal person?”
“This is way less money,” said Natalie, offering a devious smile. Certainly she hadn’t expected Tina to jump on board with her plan, but she thought she’d be a little more enthusiastic.
“What are you worried about? It’ll be fine. Worst she can do is say no.”
“You’re talking about bringing other people into your problems,” Tina said. “I’m thinking the worst she can do is say yes.”
CHAPTER 8
MICHAEL
With a heavy thud in his step, Michael made his way back to his hotel room on the thirty-fifth floor. Drained and depleted, he moved as if in a daze, but still took notice of the place where he’d first spotted Teddy on the floor. Michael retrieved the room key from his back pocket, fumbling to switch a bottle of whiskey he’d just purchased from his right hand to his left. In the same pocket was a bottle of aspirin he bought for his future headache. The whiskey was also for his pain.
He stumbled into his room, where the emptiness quickly enveloped him. He’d never heard such silence before. An aroma of forgotten pizza vanquished the vanilla smell, but Michael wasn’t sure which scent was worse.
He set the whiskey on the dresser beside the pizza before dashing into the bathroom, thinking he’d puke, but no such luck. Instead, he splashed cold water on his face, not that it refreshed him. He spent a few moments silently staring at the specter in the mirror. It was a surreal sight for sure, twisted and warped, as though he were looking at a Dalí painting of himself. He was different now, a man without a wife and children. He felt unrecognizable.
He imagined what they’d be doing right now if she hadn’t run away. At this hour, the kids would probably have been off the wall with sugar-induced giddiness, jumping on the bed as though it were a trampoline, while he and Nat tried their best to quiet them down, worried about neighbors and the noise.
Tomorrow they’d had plans to visit the Museum of Natural History. Michael had concocted a whole story in his mind about how that trip would go: Bryce, excited as could be at seeing a giant mammoth for the first time; Addie, who loved all things about space, would have sat awestruck next to him in the planetarium.
Despite wanting a distraction from the oppressive silence, Michael kept the TV off. He had to think, figure out what to do. He considered eating a slice of cold pizza, but his stomach felt like it was the size of a walnut. Instead, he poured two fingers of whiskey into a plastic cup from the bathroom.
He changed out of his clothes and put on sweatpants and a loose-fitting T-shirt. He wasn’t in a rush. He knew Natalie wouldn’t answer the phone, but he tried her anyway. Sure enough, his call went straight to voicemail, not even a ring. He pushed aside the raw emotions, the gutting fear and hurt, so he could speak clearly and from the heart. For sure the Jameson helped his cause.
“Hey babe,” Michael said. His voice came out in a scratchy whisper. He downed a gulp of the brown liquid and let the burn linger before swallowing. “I’m not sure you’re getting these messages. Maybe you’re having them forwarded somehow, I don’t know.”
Here he paused, his breathing hitched and shaky. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Nat, where you’ve gone, why you’ve run, but I need you to call me. I need to hear your voice, okay? I have to hear the kids’ voices, too, so I know that they’re all right. I know you’re not sleeping—that you haven’t been yourself—but it’s okay. Everything is okay, or it can be. We can work this out, but only if you call me.”
Michael felt his throat close up as though he were suffering an allergic reaction. His eyes itched, too, but there was no rubbing away the redness or the sting.
“I’m lost right now,” he said into the phone to no one. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know anything.”
Now, really Michael, I think you know something.
The devil again, perched upon his shoulder. He knew. The past was something Michael carried with him, even when he forgot it was there. His mind flashed on an image sourced from memory, one of blood and gruesome cuts to a body, of eyes open wide but seeing nothing. It wasn’t over. It would never be over.
With a flick of his foot, Michael kicked off his shoes, flopped onto the bed, keeping the phone pressed to his ear. Somehow he landed without spilling his drink.
“Babe, just come back,” he said. “Come back with the kids and we’ll work this out. We’ll work it all out, but please … please don’t leave me like this.”
He ended the call, letting the phone fall from his grasp. It landed on the carpeted floor with barely a thud. He stayed on the bed, eyes glued to the ceiling. Through the thick windows high above Times Square he could hear the sounds of the night, the honks and revving engines, the murmur of a thousand voices rising. People and life all around him, and yet he had never felt so utterly alone and adrift.
Where would she go? he asked himself. Who would she stay with?
One possibility came to him. She’d go home, back to her parents’ place. Natalie could have had the town car that picked her up at the hotel drive her all the way to Massachusetts—Andover, specifically—or maybe to Amtrak, or the bus station. Her father could have collected her there. She’s with them now, he imagined. Talking to them. Telling them everything.