“Beef, come!” Jill shouted, hurrying toward the house. Maybe she was being paranoid and maybe she wasn’t, but she had to get inside.
Jill tore open the door and scooted into the house, dropping the clothes and hiding behind the door, but she couldn’t leave Beef out.
“Beef, come!” she called, with fear in her voice, and Beef came running to her, his tail between his legs as he bolted inside the house.
Jill slammed the door closed behind him, locked it, and twisted the deadbolt, then hurried to the burglar alarm pad and pressed STAY, listening to the beep of its exit delay, staying close to the wall, trying to hide from the windows, dripping water onto the hardwood floor, spooked.
And wishing she knew what was on the other side of that fence.
Chapter Thirty-three
“Megan, hurry.” Jill didn’t want to miss the train to New York and hurried to the car under a clear, morning sky. Megan inched along, texting with her head down, her knapsack and swim bag hanging in the crook of her arm and banging against her legs. Jill unlocked the car, put her purse inside, and climbed in, starting the engine. “Megan, today.”
“Chill, Mom.” Megan opened the passenger door and tossed her bags onto the floor, then climbed into her seat, phone in hand. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“No, actually, we don’t.” Jill could have launched into a lecture, but Megan had already returned to texting, absorbed. “What’s going on, if I may ask?”
“Just Courtney,” Megan answered, head down, and Jill steered down their street, waving to Janet Baker, who was leaving for work.
“Oh. I thought it was Guitar Hero.”
“No.” Megan looked over, frowning. “Mom, is Sam coming home? I heard you guys fighting, last night. Then he left.”
Jill almost braked in surprise. Megan didn’t need that kind of stress, especially now. “He slept at his lab, and he’ll be back tonight,” Jill answered, though she wondered if that was true. She hadn’t heard a word from Sam, nor had she sent him one.
“He doesn’t like Abby, does he?”
“He will when he gets to know her.”
“No, he won’t. I get it. She’s changed.” Megan checked her phone, which chimed to signal an incoming text. “I like the old Abby better than the new one, too. But I know the old one’s in there, somewhere, if that makes any sense.”
“It does.” Jill cruised down the street, joining the line of traffic heading to work, all the drivers sipping travel mugs of fresh coffee and making their first phone calls of the day, like a parade of distraction.
“I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
“Me, neither, and it won’t.”
“Do you think she’s, like, a runaway?”
“Honestly, no. It’s all right.” Jill patted her leg. “Tell me about you. What’s up today?”
“I have a French test.”
“Oh, Jeez.” Jill was a little out of touch. Normally they went over her French vocab together. “You ready?”
“Did Abby run away because of Sam?”
“No, not at all, and she didn’t run away. Like we said, she could be with a date, and we’re doing all we can to find her. Victoria went to the police, and they’re handling it. Don’t worry about Abby.”
Megan fell silent, looking down at the phone. “She was embarrassed that she barfed on the bed. Maybe if I was nicer about it—”
“No, that’s not it,” Jill interrupted, to nip that thought in the bud. “It was nothing you did, and she didn’t run away. I don’t know where she is, but she’ll turn up. Honey, please try and put her out of your mind.”
“But if she’s like a missing person, like on TV, we have to hurry.” Megan’s forehead wrinkled. “They say you only have forty-eight hours, Mom.”
“Don’t worry,” Jill said, with more confidence than she felt, and Megan’s phone chimed again, but she ignored it, her gaze searching.
“I went to the stair, I listened. What if she hurt herself?”
Jill sighed inwardly. “Okay, she tried to do that once, a long time ago, but there’s no reason to think she will again.”
“You think she could. You told Sam you’re worried.”
Jill tensed, busted by her own daughter. She wasn’t sure what to say. “Just because I worry doesn’t mean you should worry. You know I worry too much.”
“But remember Josh’s sister?”
“Abby won’t hurt herself, not again.” Jill cringed. A classmate of Megan’s had a sister in ninth grade who’d committed suicide, and it had generated a candlelight vigil, an assembly, and a memorial garden, the public-school protocol for grief-management.
“But she could do it. She’s drinking too much, and her Dad just died.”
“Stop, enough, she’ll be fine, and the police will find her,” Jill said firmly. She had to get this out of Megan’s mind, but she knew that wasn’t possible.
“If the police will do it, then why are you going to New York?”
“I can do my part, too.” Jill honked the horn. The car in front was going too slowly. “A friend of William’s lives there, and he might know where she is. Now, tell me about this French test. Is it vocab?”
Megan’s phone chimed again, another text coming in, but she ignored it. “Mom, I heard what Sam said last night, that he’d sacrifice for me but not for Abby. Did he say that?”
“Basically, yes.” Jill hit the gas, hiding her dismay.
“I love him.” Megan checked the phone as another text came in, then she thumbed in a response. “You guys are going to make up, right?”
“I hope so.” Jill looked over, and a frown crossed Megan’s downturned face. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Megan pressed her lips over her braces, typing away. “When William was the dad, Abby was the first choice. But now that Sam’s the dad, I’m the first choice. I kinda like being the first choice.”
Jill hid her dismay, wondering if she’d ever be able to navigate the waters of her own family. She could swim in a pool, but they were an ocean, where the currents crossed and collided with each other, flowing too deep to be seen from the surface.
Megan halted her texting and looked over. “Is that a bad thing to say? That I like being first?”
“No, not if it’s true,” Jill answered, eyeing the red light.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jill looked through the smudgy glass window of the cab, and a warm day in Manhattan whizzed past. Cars, vans, and bicycle messengers clogged the streets, and filling the sidewalks were Asian tourists, a pierced gaggle of hipsters, and a brace of bright young men, puffing away on acrid cigars, their ties flying. Mostly everyone talked into a cell phone or a Bluetooth, all of them hurrying, smoking, and eating on the fly, their lives lived in fast-forward. A cacophony of honking, shouted epithets, random laughter, and the throbbing bass from a passing radio wafted through the window, though Jill had silenced the news video that played in the cab, hoping to be alone with her thoughts.
I went to the stair, I listened.
Jill checked her BlackBerry for the umpteenth time, for a call from Abby. There were no red asterisks by the phone icon, indicating a missed call, and she put her phone back into her purse. She hadn’t heard from Sam, either, though she’d thought about calling him, but didn’t. On the train, she’d ended up in the quiet car by accident, but it gave her time to think. She didn’t know what she would say to him, nor what she wanted to hear. She was old enough to know that soft words wouldn’t smooth over the situation, and a very real disagreement divided them.
That’s no way to run a marriage.
Jill shooed Sam’s voice from her head, eyeing the sky, where a pale sun hung like an afterthought, nature herself taking a backseat in the city. The cab turned onto the West Side Highway, the six-lane highway that ran along the Hudson, and a helicopter flew over the river, pitched forward like a top-heavy bug. On the New Jersey side, the old-school painted LACKAWANNA sign contrasted with the stylish neon W HOTE
L sign, glowing red even in daylight. Air thick with garbage and gas odors blew inside the cab, and the humidity made Jill uncomfortable in her navy linen blazer, khaki pants, and a white shirt, with her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She was dressed to talk her way past the doorman, a mom on a mission. More accurately, an ex-stepmom on a mission.
What if she hurt herself?
Her gut tensed as the cab left the highway, made a few more turns through a fashionable warren of West Village streets, and pulled finally onto West 11th. They bumped over the cobblestones on the street, which was lined with ritzy apartment buildings, many modern, and all glass. Tall, skinny trees, boxed in by wrought-iron fences, threw scant shadows on sidewalks that had been hosed clean, still drying in spots.
“This is it,” the cabbie said, and Jill grabbed her purse, slid the money from her wallet, and handed it to him through the plastic window.
“Thanks, keep the change.” Jill got out and took stock of the building. It was shorter and smaller than the modern ones, classy in an old Knickerbocker way, with art-deco fluting over the entrance. She walked to the door, pushed through, and scanned the lobby, which was long and narrow, with a black and white tile floor. Brass sconces flanked a black security desk, and the doorman looked to be in his sixties. He was tall and lean, with frizzy gray hair, wire-rimmed bifocals, and a navy blazer that looked unfortunately like Jill’s own.
“Nice jacket,” she said, walking over.
“It looks better on you,” the doorman said with a polite grin. His black nametag read MICHAEL, and a New York Post lay on his desk, open to the sports page. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a man who lives here. Neil Straub.”
“Mr. Straub? He’s not in.”
Jill was ready for that. “When did you see him last?”
“Sorry, but we don’t give out that information.”
“I know, but this is an emergency. I’m Jill Farrow, and your name’s Michael?”
“Mike Moran, yes.”
“Mike, please help me, if you can. Neil is a good friend of my ex-husband, who just passed away last Tuesday, leaving two daughters. One of them is missing, and I’m trying to find her.”
“That’s too bad.” Mike frowned, with genuine sympathy.
“Her sister Victoria came here yesterday, looking for her and asking about Neil Straub. Do you remember her?”
“No, I wasn’t here. It was my day off.”
“I see.” Jill reached in her purse and withdrew two photos she’d printed. The top one was a recent one of Abby, from William’s computer. “This is my stepdaughter, Abby Skyler. Have you seen her? She could have come to visit Neil.”
“Hmm.” Mike took the photo, eyeing it. “I haven’t seen her. Mind you, I see a lot of people in this job, but I tend to remember.”
“So you don’t remember seeing her?”
“No.”
“Who covers the desk on your day off?”
“There’s three of us, and we rotate. I’m day shift, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we split the night shifts, plus we got the weekends.”
“So when would the night-shift doorman come on?”
“Leon comes in at five.”
“Do you have his phone, so I can call him?”
“No can do, sorry.”
“How about his address, and I’ll look up his phone number?”
“No, sorry.” Mike buckled his lower lip. “I’d like to help, but I can’t give that information out. If you stop back at five o’clock, you can ask him then.”
Jill thought a minute. It made sense that the day-shift doorman hadn’t seen Abby. She’d gone missing on Saturday night, and maybe that was when she’d come up. “Okay, maybe I will. Do you think Neil, Mr. Straub, will be back by then?”
“I doubt it. He travels a lot.”
“What does he do? Something financial, right?”
Mike hesitated. “Yeah, but you didn’t hear it from me. I shouldn’t have said what I did. Keep it to yourself, okay? I need this job.”
“Sure.”
“Mr. Straub is a nice guy, and rules are rules. The board takes them very serious.”
“The board?”
“The co-op board. They run the place.” Mike handed her back the photos, but the bottom one fluttered to the desk. It was the one of Neil and William in sunglasses, on the golf course in Pebble Beach. Mike picked it up. “Oh, there’s Mr. Straub. Musta been younger then.”
“Yes, by a few years, I think.”
“Looks that way.” Mike chuckled, handing her back the photo. “But he’s gotta lose that shirt. I mean, pink?”
Jill didn’t get it. In the picture, Neil was wearing a navy blue polo shirt, and William had on a pale pink one. “What do you mean? Neil’s not wearing pink.”
“Sure he is.” Mike pointed to William. “I’m not colorblind, and this is pink.”
“Yes, the shirt is pink, but that’s not Neil.”
“Yes, it is.” Mike tapped William’s face with a bitten-off fingernail. “This here is Mr. Straub.”
Jill didn’t understand. Mike was pointing at William’s face. “That’s not Neil Straub. The other guy is.”
“I know Mr. Straub when I see him, and the guy in pink is Mr. Straub.”
Jill put it together, hiding her astonishment. “You mean Neil Straub is William Skyler?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mike handed the photo back. “All I know is, the man in the pink shirt is Neil Straub. I know the man, I talk to him all the time. He’s lived here, like, three years, in 4-D.”
“Thanks.” Jill put the photo in her purse, struggling to get her bearings. So William had another identity, a double life as Neil Straub. She wouldn’t have guessed as much in a million years. William was a con artist, but this had to be his sickest scam ever, because he’d deceived his own children. Abby couldn’t have known or she would have told Jill. Jill’s next thought was that William’s double life could be connected to Abby’s disappearance.
“Excuse me, hold on.” Mike’s attention shifted to the elevator as it pinged, and its doors opened, revealing an attractive woman, well-dressed in a white pantsuit, carrying a purse, a cell phone, and a large cardboard box.
“Mike, honey,” the woman called. “Can you give me a hand, please?”
“Sure thing, Belle,” Mike called back, coming around the desk and taking the box.
“Wait, Mike, please.” Jill followed him. “Who’s the other guy in the photo, wearing the navy shirt?”
“I have no idea,” Mike answered, over his shoulder. “Belle, where do you want the box?”
“On the desk, temporarily.” The woman eyed the lobby, annoyed. “My client isn’t here yet? Sheesh! I hate it when people are late.”
Jill couldn’t let it go. “Mike, please, just one last question.”
Mike walked back and set the box on the desk, then turned to Jill with a frown. “What?”
“Is there anyone who runs the building, like a super I could speak with?”
“Only residents speak with the super,” Mike answered, his tone newly official, but the woman lifted a perfectly-penciled eyebrow.
“Why, dear? Are you interested in a unit? It’s wonderful building, and I used to live here myself. I can show you an apartment that’s very special. In this market, it’s a steal.” The woman thrust out a manicured hand. “I’m Belle Kahan, with Prudential.”
Jill had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. “You know, I am looking for an apartment in this building.”
Mike turned, pursing his lips tight. But he said nothing.
Chapter Thirty-five
Jill walked into a large, empty apartment, with two tall windows that overlooked the Hudson River. She scanned the view, her thoughts in tumult. It boggled her mind to think that William had lived in this very building, as Neil Straub. She had a zillion questions, but the only one that mattered was Abby.
“Quite a view, eh?” Belle asked, gestu
ring at the windows. “It doesn’t get better than this.”
“It’s great.” Jill managed a smile. “What can you tell me about the building?”
“It’s a co-op, very exclusive, very fiscally responsible. It’s well-run, and smaller than others on the street, only forty units. Are you working with a Realtor?”
“Not yet.”
“I’d be happy to work with you. I know this building and the entire West Village, like the back of my hand. I live on Horatio now.”
“I like this building.” Jill remembered the doorman saying that William’s apartment was 4-D. “Have you sold other apartments in it?”
“Tons. What do you do?”
“I’m a doctor,” Jill answered, and Belle’s eyes lit up.
“Wow! Who doesn’t want a doctor in the house? You’ll pass the board with flying colors.”
Jill was wondering how William had passed a co-op board, with a false identity. “I’ve never applied to a co-op building before. What information do you have to show them?”
“Everything and then some. Tax returns and bank statements, and you need to get two recommendations and references, besides a letter from your landlord saying you’re paid up. Are you currently renting in the city?”
“No.” Jill still didn’t get it. If William had to show that much information to the board, he’d have a whole separate identity set up with a bank. “How careful is the board? Not just anybody can get in here, can they?”
“No, but you’ll do fine. This board isn’t as power-crazy as the ones on the Upper East. It’s much more laid back, downtown.” Belle flashed a lipsticked smile. “You’re engaged, I see. Nice ring. Are you scouting for both of you?”
“Yes.” Jill managed a smile.
“Good for you. This building has a really nice group of residents. Very chummy, because it’s so small. They have parties on the roof deck every Fourth of July, to watch the fireworks.”