The Couple Next Door

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 hopes 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.

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