The Couple Next Door

Anne gets out of bed. She walks quietly to the bedroom door and unlocks it, pulls the door back. She sticks her head out into the hall. There’s a light on in the office. Has Marco been in there all this time? What is he doing?

Anne walks slowly down the hall and pushes open the office door. Marco is sitting on the floor with the cell phone in his hand. His face is awfully pale. There’s a dreadful bloody mark above his eye where she clipped him with the phone. He looks up at her as she comes in. They stare at each other for a long moment, neither one sure of what to say.

Finally Anne speaks. “Are you okay, Marco?”

Marco touches the bloody bump on his forehead, realizes he has a pounding headache, and nods slightly.

He desperately wants to tell her that Cora might be alive after all. That there’s hope. That her father is in charge now, and he never fails—at anything. Not like her fuckup of a husband. He wants to tell her that everything is going to be all right.

But everything isn’t going to be all right. They may get Cora back—he hopes to God they do—but Anne’s father will make sure that Marco is arrested for kidnapping. He will make sure Marco goes to jail. Marco doesn’t know if Anne’s fragile emotional state can survive such a shocking betrayal.

He thinks cynically for a moment about how disappointed Cynthia will be at the turn of events.

“Marco, say something,” Anne says anxiously.

“I’m okay,” Marco whispers. His mouth is dry. He’s surprised that she’s talking to him. He wonders why the change of heart. A few hours ago, she’d told him to move onto the couch while she figured out what she was going to do. He assumed that meant she was kicking him out. Now she looks almost sorry.

She comes in and sits down beside him on the floor. He suddenly feels anxious that her father might call back on the phone. How would he explain that? Furtively, he turns the phone off.

“Marco, there’s something I have to say,” Anne begins tentatively.

“What is it, baby?” Marco asks. He reaches up and strokes a strand of hair off her face. She doesn’t pull away. The tender gesture, a reminder of happier days, makes her tears come.

She lowers her eyes and says, “You have to be honest with me, Marco.”

He nods but doesn’t say anything. He wonders if she suspects. He wonders what he will say if she confronts him with the truth.

“The night of the kidnapping, when you went to check on Cora the last time—” She turns to face him now, and he tenses, worried about what’s coming next. “Was she alive?”

Marco starts. He didn’t expect this. “Of course she was alive,” he says. “Why do you ask that?” He looks at her troubled face with concern.

“Because I can’t remember,” Anne whispers. “When I saw her at midnight, I can’t remember if she was breathing. Are you sure she was breathing?”

“Yes, I’m sure she was breathing,” Marco says. He can’t tell her he knows she was alive because he felt her little heart beating against him as he held her and carried her out of the house.

“How do you know?” she says, looking intently at him, as if trying to read his mind. “Did you actually check? Or just look at her?”

“I saw her chest moving up and down in the crib,” Marco lies.

“You’re sure? You wouldn’t lie to me?” Anne asks anxiously.

“No, Anne, why are you asking me this? Why do you think she wasn’t breathing? Because of something that stupid detective said?”

She looks down at her lap. “Because I’m not sure, when I saw her at midnight, that she was breathing. I didn’t pick her up. I didn’t want to wake her. I can’t remember noticing if she was actually breathing.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” She pauses, uncertain. Finally she looks up at him and says, “When I was with her at eleven . . . it’s just a blank. I can’t remember it at all.”

The expression on her face frightens him. Marco feels she is about to tell him something terrible, something he has somehow been waiting for, that he’s been expecting all along. He doesn’t want to hear it, but he can’t move.

Anne whispers, “I can’t remember what I did. I do that sometimes—I blank out. I do things, and then I don’t remember doing them.”

“What do you mean?” Marco says. His voice is strangely cold.

She looks at him, her eyes pleading. “It isn’t that I forgot because of the wine. I’ve never told you, but when I was younger, I was ill. I thought I was past it when I met you.”

“Ill how?” Marco says, startled.

She’s crying now. “It’s like I just check out for a bit. Then, when I come back, I don’t remember anything.”

He looks at her, astonished. “And you never bothered to tell me?”

“I’m sorry! I should have told you. I thought . . .” She doesn’t finish her sentence. “I lied to the police about the onesie. I don’t remember changing her. I just assumed I did it, but I don’t actually remember any of it. My mind is . . . blank.” She is becoming hysterical.

“Shhhh. . . .” Marco says. “Anne, she was fine. I’m positive.”

“Because the police think I hurt her. They think I might have killed her, smothered her with a pillow or strangled her, and that you took her away to protect me!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Marco says, angry now with the police for suggesting such things to her. They all know that he’s the one they’re after—why do they need to push her to the brink of a breakdown?

“Is it?” Anne asks, looking at him wildly. “I hit her. I was angry, and I hit her.”

“What? When? When did you hit her?”

“When I fed her, at eleven o’clock. She was fussy. I . . . I kind of snapped. Sometimes . . . I would lose control . . . and slap her, when she wouldn’t stop crying. When you were at work and she wouldn’t stop crying.”

Marco looks at her, appalled. “No, Anne, I’m sure you didn’t,” he says, hoping what she’s told him isn’t true. This is disturbing, as disturbing as her confession about having some kind of illness that makes her not know what she’s doing.

“But I don’t know, you see?” Anne cries. “I can’t remember! I might have hurt her. Are you covering up for me, Marco? Tell me the truth!”

He takes her face between his hands and holds her still. “Anne, she was fine. She was alive and breathing at twelve thirty. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault.” He takes her into his arms as she breaks down weeping.

He thinks, This is all my fault.

TWENTY-SEVEN

After Anne finally falls into a restless sleep, Marco lies awake in bed beside her for a long time, trying to figure it all out. He wishes he could discuss the entire mess with her. He misses how they used to talk, about everything, all their plans. But he can’t talk to her about anything now. When he does sleep, his dreams are terrifying; he wakes at four in the morning with a start, his heart pounding and sweating all over, the sheets soaked.

This is what he knows: Richard is negotiating with the kidnappers. He and Alice are going to pay whatever it takes to get Cora back. Marco has to hope and pray that Richard will be successful where he was not. Richard has Derek’s cell phone, and he was expecting it to be Marco on the other end. Richard—and Alice—know Marco was colluding with Derek, that he kidnapped his own child for money. Marco’s first thought, that Richard had killed Derek and taken his phone, now seems absurd. How could Richard possibly have known about Derek? Was Richard capable of bashing in another man’s head? Marco doesn’t think so, even though he hates the bastard.