The Couple Next Door

Alice sat in Starbucks, staring at her veined hands clutching her purse, as the high-priced private detective with the Rolex reviewed his findings. She looked at the photos—and quickly looked away. He went over the timelines—places and dates. She paid him in cash. She felt ill.

Then she went home and decided to bide her time. She would wait for Richard to tell her he was leaving her. She didn’t know what he was going to do for money, and she didn’t care. She only knew that if he asked her for any, she would say no. She’d asked the private detective to keep an eye on her bank accounts, to see if Richard was siphoning money off her. She’d decided to keep the detective on retainer. But they wouldn’t meet at the same Starbucks again; she’d find someplace more private. The whole experience had left her feeling dirty.

Then Cora had been taken that very night—the same day she’d met with the private investigator—and Richard’s sordid affair had been thrust aside by the horror of the kidnapping. Alice had feared at first that perhaps her daughter had harmed her baby, and that she and Marco might have hidden the body to keep from being discovered. Anne had that illness, after all, and she was struggling with motherhood. She was under a lot of stress, and Alice knew that stress was a trigger for someone like Anne. Then—it had been such a relief—the onesie and the note from the kidnappers had arrived.

What a roller coaster it’s been. Believing they would get Cora back that day, then losing her again. Through it all, the grief and fear for her baby granddaughter and the concern about her daughter’s fragile emotional state.

And then . . . tonight.

It wasn’t until tonight that she figured it all out. She’d been shocked to hear Marco admit that he’d taken Cora himself. More shocked still to hear Marco accuse her husband of setting him up. But then, as she sat there with her arms around her shattered daughter, it all started to make an awful sense.

Richard’s grand plan. The kidnapping. Setting Marco up to take the fall. Where was the five million? She was pretty sure Richard had it hidden somewhere. And then there’s the second two million, which has been sitting ready in the back of the closet in the front hall, in another gym bag, waiting for the next attempt. She’d never seen the note, or the cell phone. Richard told her he’d destroyed them.

Richard was going to relieve her of seven million dollars under the guise of getting her only grandchild back from kidnappers. The son of a bitch.

So he could leave her for that appalling Cynthia.

Bad enough that he was unfaithful, that he was leaving her for a woman as young as her daughter. Bad enough that he was trying to take her money. But how dare he hurt her daughter this way?

And where is her granddaughter?

She reaches for her own cell phone and calls Detective Rasbach. She has things to tell him now.

She would also like to see a photograph of this man Derek Honig.

? ? ?

Anne spends a restless night in her old room, in her old bed. She lies awake all night, listening and thinking. On top of the aching loss of her child, she feels betrayed by everyone. Betrayed by Marco for his part in the kidnapping. Betrayed by her father for his part, even more despicable if Marco is right about him. And she’s sure Marco is right, because her father denied knowing Derek Honig. If her father weren’t involved in Cora’s disappearance, he would have no reason to deny knowing Honig. She’d had her answer. So when he’d asked her, she’d pretended that she didn’t recognize Derek, that she’d never seen him before.

She wonders how much her mother knows—or suspects.

Anne almost ruined everything last night, at the beginning. But then she got hold of herself, remembered what she had to do. She feels bad for Marco—but not that bad, given what he’s done—for the way she didn’t speak up last night, but she wants her child back. She is certain she has seen the dead man before, several times, at this very house, years ago. He and her father used to talk out back near the trees, late at night after she’d gone to bed. She would watch them from her window. She never saw Derek Honig with her father sitting around the pool having drinks, or with anyone else present, not even her mother. He would always arrive late, after dark, and then they’d go out back to talk, near the trees. She knew instinctively as a child not to ask her father about it, that what they were doing was secret. What sorts of things have they done together over the years, if they’ve kidnapped her child? What is her father capable of?

She gets up and looks out the bedroom window that faces the grounds behind the house and the woods leading into the ravine. It’s been a hot night, but now there’s a slight breeze coming in through the screen. It’s very early—she can just see the outlines of the world outside the window.

She hears a noise from downstairs—a door closing softly. It sounds like the back door in the kitchen. Who would be going out at this early hour? Maybe her mother can’t sleep either. Anne thinks about going downstairs to join her, to confront her, and see if her mother can tell her anything.

From the window she sees her father slipping away from the house and across the back lawn. He strides purposefully, as if he knows exactly where he’s going. He is carrying a large gym bag.

She watches him from behind the curtain, the way she used to as a child, afraid he might turn around and catch her spying. But he doesn’t turn around. He heads for the opening in the trees where the path starts. She knows that path well.

? ? ?

At home, Marco can’t sleep either. He rattles around alone in the house, torturing himself with his thoughts. Anne has left him for good; Cynthia’s video has destroyed him in Anne’s eyes. She betrayed him last night, not admitting she’d seen her father with Derek Honig, but he doesn’t blame her. She did what she had to do, and he understands why. Because she did what she had to do, maybe Cora will be returned to them.

Returned to Anne, not to Marco. It occurs to Marco that he may never be able to see Cora again. Anne will divorce him, of course. She will get the best lawyers, and she will get full custody. And if Marco tries to enforce his visiting rights, Richard will threaten to go to the police about his role in the kidnapping. He has forfeited any right to his child.

He is alone. He has lost the two people who matter most to him in the world, his wife and his child. Nothing else matters anymore. It hardly seems important now that he is financially ruined or that he is being blackmailed.

All he can do now is pace the house and wait for Cora to be found.

He wonders, will anyone even let him know? His exclusion from their tight family circle is complete. Maybe he will have to learn about Cora’s return from the dead in the newspapers.

? ? ?

Anne hesitates for just a moment. There is only one reason she can think of for her father to be heading into the ravine at this hour with no one to see him, carrying a large gym bag. He is going to get Cora. Someone is going to meet with him in the ravine.

She’s not sure what to do. Should she follow him? Or should she stay put and trust him to bring her baby back? But Anne is through trusting her father. She needs to know the truth.

Anne hurriedly throws on the clothes she’d worn the day before and makes her way quickly downstairs to the kitchen and out the back door. The cool, dewy air hits her and makes goose bumps come up on her arms. She starts off across the wet grass, following in her father’s footsteps. She has no plan; she is operating on instinct.

She runs lightly down the wooden stairs that lead into the forested ravine, one hand on the rail, almost flying in the near dark. She once knew the way well, but it’s been years since she took this path. Still, memory serves her.