more thing,’ said the guy in the liquor store before I left. ‘At the end of the call, when I was handing over her change, she said something in a foreign language.’
‘What language?’
‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure. Italian, maybe.’
That was weird. I didn’t think Eden was Italian-American. Who would she be speaking to in Italian?
As I stepped on to the street, my phone rang. It was Mona.
‘Adam? Where are you?’ She sounded a little out of breath, like she was walking fast. ‘Are you still in Williamsburg?’
‘I’m just around the corner from your house.’
‘Okay, cool. I’m five minutes away so I’ll meet you out front.’
‘Great.’ I began to walk in the direction of the house.
I was about to hang up when Mona said, ‘Did you already try knocking? Because Jack should be in.’
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Huh. Maybe he’s in the basement or he’s gone out. Anyway, see you in a minute.’
She ended the call.
I reached the house before Mona, and thought about ringing the bell again, but decided I might as well wait. She wouldn’t be long. And, sure enough, here she came hurrying along the street. She had her sunglasses up on her head and was dressed smartly.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘How are you? I had a meeting with a client. I thought I was never going to get out of there.’
Having overheard what she and Jack had said about me, I found it hard to smile. But then she turned to me and laughed, the skin around her eyes crinkling, and I remembered why I’d liked her so much when we met on the cruise. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on her and Jack. After all, Ruth and I had let a stranger into their home. They barely knew me and, until now, there had been no proof at all that Eden existed. In their shoes, I might have been just as suspicious and sceptical.
‘I take it you haven’t heard from Ruth?’ she said.
‘No.’
She reached out and touched my upper arm, making a concerned sound, and her eyes searched my face as if she were trying to appraise me, to figure me out.
‘Let’s go in,’ she said.
She fished in her bag for her keys and opened the door, going inside ahead of me.
‘Jack,’ she called. ‘Hi. Adam’s with me. Just in case you’re naked!’ She winked at me.
There was no response so she called his name again, this time with a question mark. But the house was utterly silent.
We went into the living room.
‘Let me check the basement,’ she said. ‘He won’t be able to hear me if he’s down there.’ She went out through the back door into the garden, then down the steps that led to the office. She came back almost immediately.
‘Nope, he’s not down there. I guess he has gone out,’ she said. She checked the time. It was quarter to nine. ‘He can’t be asleep already.’
She gestured for me to sit down but I didn’t want to. I was too on edge. I’d already experienced two disappearances from this house. Mona looked more worried than she was letting on too. ‘I’m just going to check upstairs,’ she said.
I waited. My entire body thrummed with tension. I was standing on the exact spot where I last remembered seeing Ruth and Eden, when we had hugged. I felt a deep sense of foreboding.
And maybe it’s my memory playing tricks on me, but looking back I remember expecting Mona’s scream, so that as it echoed from above me, down the stairs, filling the house, I wasn’t surprised.
Chapter 21
A small crowd had gathered outside the house, and the street pulsed with flashing lights from the police cars parked two abreast, blocking the road. I watched as Mona was escorted from the house by Krugman, who whispered in the ear of a uniformed policewoman before gently handing Mona over to her. He was grim-faced as he turned away and met my eye. As Krugman came towards me, the policewoman helped Mona into the back of one of the cop cars and reversed out of the street.
‘I’m going to need you to come in and make a statement,’ Krugman said.
‘Yes. Of course. Did Mona tell you I’ve got photos of Eden?’
‘Hmmm. She did.’
The look he gave me told me that he blamed me for this, at least partly. And he was right to, wasn’t he? Jack was dead. I had seen his body myself after Mona’s scream sent me racing up the stairs. Jack had been in