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“I’m sure the police are looking into it.”
“No, they’re not—that’s the whole point. As far as I can tell, the only person the police are sniffing around is me.”
“Then why don’t you look into a camera and tell the world you’re innocent?” When I don’t respond, she adds, “If you’re nervous, if you need some media coaching, I can help you get some. It’s not that hard.”
“I’m not nervous. I just think what I have to say would mean so much more coming from someone who’s not me.”
“What do you have to say?”
“I have...information about my wife. Information that coming from me would sound...suspicious. Coming from you, however, it would be news.”
Amanda straightens in importance at the last word, just like I knew she would. Amanda longs to be seen as a real journalist. She spends a lot of time online, promoting the newsworthiness of her show on social media, defending it from people who dismiss it as fluff. Calling her a journalist is like handing her a Pulitzer. It validates her.
“How about this?” I swing my ankle over a knee, sinking deeper into the couch. “You put that recorder of yours onto the table, and I’ll talk into it and tell you what I know. When we’re done, if you like what I have to say and want me to say it all over again into a camera, we can talk about that, too.”
By now, Amanda is like a dog with a bone. I’ve given her one with just enough meat that there’s no way she will let it loose. But she’s always been a bit of a drama queen, and she takes her time pretending to decide. Arms crossed, eyes narrowed, glossed lip working between her teeth. I settle in and indulge her theater. After a few seconds, she places the recorder on the table.
Showtime.
I walk her through what I know. That Sabine was there, in the Super1 lot, before she disappeared. That she left without her car and her burner phone, but with her iPhone, which the police have not been able to locate. That I was the one to sound the alarm, a few short hours after she was expected home. That I’ve barely slept since.
“So what, then? Do you think someone took her?”
I shrug. “It’s possible, I guess. But there was no sign of struggle near her car, no blood on the ground or tire marks. If she got into someone’s car, I’m guessing it was someone she knew. Then again, I think it’s much more possible she...” I wince, looking down at the sisal carpet.
Amanda scoots forward on the couch, leaning in. “You think it’s more possible she what?”
I heave a full-body sigh. “I feel like I’m betraying Sabine by even bringing this up, but I also think if she were here, she’d understand. The thing is—and you’re the first person I’ve ever told this to, so please forgive me if I stumble over my words—but a little over two years ago, Sabine was going through a rough patch. Her mother has Alzheimer’s, and she’d stopped recognizing Sabine. Not every time, but that first time was pretty devastating. On top of that, we heard the baby Sabine was carrying, the one we’d spent a lot of money trying to conceive, didn’t have a heartbeat. All that goes to say, things were really, really shitty.”
Amanda makes a sound of sympathy, but she waits for me to continue.
“After she lost that baby, it’s like she... I don’t know, went to a place I couldn’t follow. She stopped eating. She stayed in bed for days at a time. She was self-medicating, with alcohol and leftover painkillers and whatever else she could get her hands on before I flushed it all down the toilet. Then one day, she was fine. She got up, got dressed and went back to work like nothing had happened. She sold three houses that week and listed two more. I remember thinking that’s how good a broker my wife is, that she can end three comatose weeks with deals totaling more than a million dollars.”
“How did she do it?” Amanda asks.
“I have no idea. It could have been a fluke, deals that she had been working on before the miscarriage that suddenly came through, I don’t know. But the point is, I finally relaxed. I thought things were better, thatshewas better, and I stopped hovering so much.” I pause, counting in my head to three. “I shouldn’t have stopped hovering.”
Amanda’s forehead crumples between perfectly sculpted brows. “I don’t understand. What does all of this have to do with what happened to Sabine? With wherever she is?”
“Maybe nothing, maybe everything.” I fill my lungs with breath, blow it slowly out. The vapid Amanda holds hers. “What I’m trying to say is, Sabine has done this before.”
Amanda’s eyes go wide. “You’re not suggesting...”
I nod. “Two years ago in November, the day after Thanksgiving, Sabine got on a bus and disappeared.”
BETH
Early Monday morning, Martina shows up at my door fresh from the shower. “Good morning! You look pretty. Let’s carpool.”
Her face is bare, rosy cheeks and scrubbed skin, a fringe of dark lashes that doesn’t need mascara. Two French braids snake around each ear and leave twin wet marks on her God Works Here T-shirt. The total effect is easy, youthful, adorable.
I smile and reach for my keys. “Good idea. I’ll drive.”
“But I’ve already got mine.” She holds her car keys up, jingles them in the air beside her face.
“I’m a real backseat driver,” I say, nudging her out of the way so I can step into the hall. “You don’t want me in your passenger’s seat, I promise. I’ll only make you crazy, and besides, I like to drive.”
What I really like is to stay in control. No way I’m strapping myself into somebody else’s car and letting them steer me Lord knows where, not with every penny I own strapped to my middle. I’m not about to relinquish my cash or my shiny new command on life that easily. At least behind the wheel of my own car, I am the one in charge.