The Night Before - Wendy Walker Page 0,27
all wrong.
But I can’t bear to let go of the hope that this is a dream and the knowledge that no amount of time will give me the answer. We might still be strangers even after we become lovers.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s head back to town.”
There is a faint whisper in my brain as I get in the car.
What is it you’re hiding?
He never answered.
Still, I let Jonathan Fields close the door.
TWELVE
Rosie. Present Day. Friday, 12 p.m. Branston, CT.
Back at Rosie’s house, Gabe created a new account on findlove. The screen name was here4you2. The photo was the screenshot of Jonathan Fields—the man the bartender identified. The profile was live by noon.
They selected women like Laura. Mid-twenties to early thirties. Never been married. No children. Living within ten miles of Branston. And pretty. They sent emails to over sixty profiles. The subject line read: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
The body of the email contained a plea from one woman to another. I met this guy online and I’m worried something’s not right about him. Did he ever contact you? Gabe left his cell number, and Rosie’s.
“One in a hundred profiles on this site is fake. Avatars—fake pictures and enticing information. It’s almost always women who do it. They use an avatar to contact the guys they’re seeing. Or sometimes their husbands, boyfriends. Then they wait to see if he responds, if he wants to meet. That confirms he’s cheating or lying. You get the idea.”
Rosie nodded, staving off panic. A plan was in place. They would wait for a reply. And while they waited, Gabe would comb through the papers in Laura’s room again, see what he could find that might help them. Rosie would start calling the people she knew from Laura’s life. There were surprisingly few, she realized, and this made her uneasy. Guilty. She had been so consumed with her own life since Mason was born.
She would start with a casual call to Laura’s work colleague named Jill. And Laura’s old roommate, Kathleen—the one she’d never met because she spent weekends in New Jersey. Gabe knew how to find their numbers. She would also get in touch with Asshole in New York City, if she could figure out who he was. She would be careful not to raise concerns in case this was nothing and Laura wanted to return to her life without having to explain why her crazy sister called in a panic looking for her.
She fixed a cup of coffee and placed it on the table next to her phone and Laura’s computer.
* * *
It was half past two when she heard the door.
“We’re home!”
Joe set Mason down and he ran to his mother. Rosie scooped him up and hugged him tight.
“How was the park, lovebug?”
She closed her eyes. Breathed him in. Tried to pull herself back from the urgency of the situation. She knew he could feel it.
He squirmed from her arms and ran to the corner where they kept his toys. That left Joe, standing with her in the kitchen, his eyes shifting from her to Mason and out to the street where Gabe’s car was parked.
“No luck?” Joe asked.
Rosie told him about Jonathan Fields and the bar where Laura’s phone had been. They had his picture and his screen name. And how there might be another woman who went on a date with him, who used a credit card. Maybe they could find her. Maybe she would know more about him.
Joe looked quickly at the clock above the sink.
“It’s almost three.”
“I know.”
“We should call.…”
Footsteps pounded the stairs. Gabe walked in, empty-handed.
“I have her social security number. That’s all I found. It was on a reimbursement form.”
Rosie got up from the table and joined them at the island.
“I think we need to call the police,” Joe said again, filling the brief silence.
But then something new came across Gabe’s face. Something she didn’t recognize. It looked like guilt, or shame maybe. And it didn’t suit him.
“I need to tell you both something. I don’t know that it matters.”
“Jesus, Gabe, what?” Rosie had her phone in her hand. Joe was right. It was time. And now this?
“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just pulling together memories to make sense of things—I hadn’t thought about any of this for years, but it’s been playing in my head since you called this morning.”
“A memory? Of what? When we were kids? What are you talking about?” Joe asked.
Gabe closed his eyes. Hung his head. Jesus—was he trying to