Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel (16 page)

I SHOULD HAVE SEEN
this coming. It all started that day in San Francisco, when I was too upset to go meet the
Chronicle
reporter with Paul after the morning show. When he
told
me not to go meet the reporter with him. Then he proceeded to tour the East Coast without me.

This is all Paul’s fault.

Through the fish-eye, I see him talking to reporters, his carry-on bag lying at his feet. It’s only three of them, but there are hulking cameras and boom mikes. They got here early this morning, with no press junket scheduled, which means that the media is now camping outside my front door. I didn’t respond to their knocks. It’s obvious what they want to talk to me about, and I most definitely have no comment.

There were tweets after each interview, in each city, of the “Where’s the mother?” variety. Paul assured me that he was managing our public perception. He was talking back to every negative comment, maintaining our image. As it turns out, he was only maintaining his own image. Because every time he responded to a tweet or a comment, it reinforced the idea that he was in this alone, that I was nowhere on record, and what kind of mother would be so uninvolved in the search for her daughter?

A guilty one, that’s what kind of mother.

Strickland doesn’t have a Twitter account, but he obviously leaked to someone. An anonymous blogger found out that I was late to work the day Marley disappeared and that I lied to the police about it. Now the blogosphere is alive with speculation about what else I might be hiding. The link to the San Francisco interview has popped up on a ton of different sites, and complete strangers are parsing my every word. One website written by a body language “expert” analyzed my microexpressions and gestures, and reached some pretty dire conclusions. His post about me had hundreds of comments; the others on his site were averaging ten. What are the odds he’ll keep posting about me?

I suppose I should be grateful that the reporters didn’t arrive in time to see Michael leaving. But it’s hard to muster gratitude right now. Things have moved from the virtual world to the real one, where they can actually hurt me. And hurt Marley, too, if certain information gets out.

Paul’s still schmoozing the reporters outside. The windows are closed so I can’t hear him. You don’t have to be a body language expert to see it’s energizing him. He’s actually enjoying this, and I’m fuming.

As he turns to come inside, I hurry away. There’s no way those people are going to catch even a glimpse of me.

Once the door is shut behind him, I motion him into the living room. In a heated whisper, afraid of the sensitivity of the boom mikes, I say, “They have no right to stake out our house.” He affects this instantly weary expression, like I’m exhausting him, and it galls me. He’s got energy to talk to reporters but not to me?

“We need them,” he says. “They’re part of our nationwide search party. They’re doing what the police can’t.” He sets his suitcase down. “Well, it’s good to see you, too.” His smile is wry. I can’t smile back.

“On Twitter,” I stage-whisper, “they have it out for me. Now it’s the reporters. And you know Strickland is gunning for me.” I stride around the room in agitation.

I want to tell Paul what I found out, about Marley’s needing a therapist again; then maybe the police can lean on Michael to break confidentiality. But leading Strickland to Michael would be a huge risk.

“Strickland isn’t gunning for you,” Paul says in that too-patient voice of his.

“How do you know? And lower your voice.”

He complies, barely suppressing an eye roll. “He’s a total professional.”

I snort.

“You shouldn’t have lied to him. If you stopped at Starbucks, you should have told him that from the beginning.”

“Yes, I stopped at Starbucks. I’m guilty of drinking a latte. But there are people online saying I killed Marley! We should sue them.”

“We can’t sue them.”

“Stop being so calm!” I’m fighting not to scream. “Why are they allowed to say these things? They have no proof. They have their ideas about how a mother in my situation is supposed to act. What do any of them know?”

“It’s not all bad,” he says. “We’re getting hits like you wouldn’t believe.” He slumps on the couch. This really is the most tired he’s looked since all this began. He’s been running on adrenaline, thinking he could bring Marley home by controlling every variable. Perhaps he’s finally recognizing his limits.

I’m the one with the adrenaline now. “We have to stop them.”

“If it gets more people looking for Marley—”

“You don’t care. Because it’s not you they’re accusing. I’m the one with the scarlet letter.”

“Believe me, Rachel, I’d prefer if this wasn’t the way interest was being generated. I’m trying to look on the bright side.” He runs a hand through his hair, eyelids drooping.

“Am I boring you, Paul? Do you need a nap?” The truth is, he probably does need a nap. He’s been going, going, going for days. He did a three-city tour, with multiple journalists from TV, print, and
online. I shouldn’t be angry at him. He couldn’t have foreseen this. But I did, and he never gave me a real chance to object. “What were those reporters outside asking you? Was it about me?”

He can’t deny it. I watch him parse his words. “Among other things. But I defended you. Without sounding defensive, of course.”

“Of course.”

He’s staring over at his suitcase. I’m supposed to get the hint that he wants to stop talking so he can unpack and unwind. It’s what we do: He telegraphs his intention, I acquiesce. Well, not this time.

“What if I get arrested?” I demand.

“You won’t get arrested.”

“How do you know?”

He’s quiet a long moment. He never expects to have to answer to me. I’m supposed to back down. “I talked to Officer Strickland. He doesn’t have any proof that Marley didn’t leave of her own accord. Everything suggests that she got on a cross-country bus.” His eyebrows knit. There’s more.

“What else did Strickland say?”

He doesn’t want to meet my eyes. If this was Kyle, he’d start the next sentence with “Honestly.”

“What did he say?” I repeat.

“There’s no record that she actually got on a bus. We have a guy who drove her near the bus station and says he saw her go inside, but we don’t know for sure that anyone sold her a ticket.”

“Because the ticket seller would get in trouble. Because he’s covering his own ass.”

He sighs. I know he likes to shower after a long flight, and to unpack. He wants to hang every unworn bit of clothing back up and put the rest in the hamper. I know his habits so well. That’s the most intimate thing about us anymore.

“So now Strickland doesn’t believe that she was on a bus, is that what you’re telling me?” I persist. Because this is important. Because I could be a suspect in my own daughter’s disappearance.

“He’s just doing his job, exploring all avenues.”

My eyes widen. “He’s releasing information to anonymous bloggers! He thinks I—I don’t even know what. That I kidnapped Marley and am hiding her somewhere? That I killed her? What? You tell me.”

“He hasn’t said any of that to me.”

“He suspects me of something. And now he’s telling you that Marley might not have gotten on a bus. What about Kyle? Didn’t Kyle seem honest to you?” It occurs to me that Kyle might not be the strongest witness. He did lie to Marley, and she lied right back. “Marley called herself Vicky. That’s proof.”

“To you and me, it’s proof. Listen, I believe Kyle. But there have been a ton of Marley sightings. Some of them are bound to be false. People like their five minutes of fame.”

“Pretending you saw a runaway counts as fame now?”

He yawns, and that does it. I might be a prime suspect in Marley’s disappearance, and even that can’t hold his interest? I glare at him. “I knew this would happen.”

“You knew what would happen?”

“You told me the risks of a full-fledged media campaign, that it could lead to scrutiny, but you didn’t give me a chance to say no. Not really. You told me in front of Strickland. You backed me into a corner. On purpose.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because you want to do what you want to do, no matter how it hurts the rest of us.”

Now he’s angry. He stands up to face off with me. “That’s not fair. I’ve been busting my ass, flying around the country, tweeting—
tweeting,
like I’m a fourteen-year-old myself—so I can find Marley. This isn’t about me.”

“Sure it is. It’s about you being the one who finds her.”

“You’re under a lot of stress,” he says carefully. “But trust me, you’re not in danger.”

The unspoken words: Marley is. The subtext: Stop being so
self-involved; be like me. I think of Michael’s diagnosis of Paul as a narcissist: someone who needs everyone’s eyes on him so he can feel important while not caring about anyone else’s feelings. He’s sure living up to it right now.

“All those people who think I’m guilty,” I say, “they also think you’re a saint. That’s no accident, is it?”

“I need a shower.” He moves toward his suitcase, but I block his path.

“The suspicion’s pinned on me. And maybe that’s how you wanted it, because you’re the one with something to hide.”

He looks flabbergasted. Genuinely speechless. But he could be a great actor, what do I know?

I’m not going to rescind. He needs to respond. Finally, he says, “I can’t believe that after everything, you’d doubt my intentions.”

I think of what Michael said, about intentions not matching actions. I don’t doubt what Paul feels; I’m questioning what he’s done. Michael might have been alluding to things Marley had told him. He could have been telling me I was onto something and that I need to keep going, keep searching. I need to, for example, find out the password to Paul’s computer.

Paul walks around me to get to his suitcase and mutters, “Can you tell me why I should believe you?” His back is to me. “I don’t know why you lied to your supervisor about a flat tire so you could sit in your car and drink coffee. Then you lied to the police about it, too. Did you lie about anything else?”

“You know I would never do anything to hurt Marley!”

“Right back at you.” His suitcase in hand, he circles me and heads for the stairs. Over his shoulder, he says, “I guess we have to believe each other. What’s the alternative?”

One alternative is that I confess everything, right now. He puts Candace on speaker phone and we figure out the best way to proceed. Whether I tell Strickland, whether we come clean on our website, whether we leak it. There must be other possibilities but what do I
know? I’m not a PR specialist or a private investigator. I’m just Marley’s mother.

Another alternative? I find a way into Paul’s computer.

He’s on his way up the stairs. He’ll shower, and then he’ll probably lie down for a while. There are fresh sheets on the bed and no traces of Michael’s having been here.

I’m not going to confess. If it was only a friendship with Michael—even a friendship that the public will misconstrue as an affair—that would be one thing. But there’s more to it than that, and not only because he was Marley’s therapist and was so recently in my bed. There’s also what’s hidden in plain sight, and Paul won’t forgive that.

I shouldn’t have let Michael stay over. I shouldn’t have lied to Strickland, but what choice did I have? If I’d told him that I was off talking to Dr. Michael in Starbucks, he’d really have something to investigate.

I wish I had someone I could talk to, someone to trust. It can’t be Paul right now. And Michael betrayed me. More important, he betrayed Marley. She needed help and he didn’t give it or see that she got it somewhere else. A part of me still can’t believe that he let her down that way. In voice mail after voice mail, he’s tried to explain it away: Marley didn’t seem that upset when she came to him; he believed she’d use the tools she learned from him to handle things; he thought she’d talk to me in her own time; he was thrown, unprepared, didn’t properly evaluate the situation; he was plain wrong.

Even though it’s only Paul and me, the house feels too full. Claustrophobic. I poke my head out the back door to make sure there are no reporters out there. All clear. I step out and look at the fields in twilight. I breathe deeply, and the cold air is like nettles in my lungs, but it’s better than being inside.

When I feel this lost, Michael is the one I want to call. But I can’t. I won’t. He’d construe it as forgiveness, and right now, his actions seem unforgivable.

Until now, I’ve never doubted how much he cared for Marley.
The first time they met, they formed this immediate bond. He made a few jokes and spoke to her in a soft, tender voice, and she was his. She was hooked. And I was so relieved. After that trip to the ER where we learned that the trouble breathing and chest pains were actually a severe panic attack, even Paul admitted that Marley needed a psychiatrist.

I was present for that first session (Paul begged off at the last minute, claiming there was an emergency meeting at work), but thereafter, it was just Marley and Dr. Michael. He would come out and get Marley from the waiting room and we’d say hello and then he’d lead her back; she always leapt to her feet, eager to follow him. Once a month, I’d meet with Dr. Michael for the last fifteen minutes of the session while Marley stayed in the waiting room. She was always anxious when I was the one following him back, and snippy after I returned. She didn’t seem to like the two of us spending time alone.

Dr. Michael wanted to know if there was a family history of panic attacks. I said no. But, I told him, I’m a pretty anxious person myself.

That’s what we started talking about, in our monthly fifteen minutes: my problems. He was a calm and reassuring presence. I never felt anything untoward coming from him, never sensed an attraction. He was interested in me and my psyche, that was obvious, but that was his profession. I assumed he was helping me as a way to help Marley.

He told me she was a “bright, perceptive girl” and that she felt things deeply. Treatment was going well, he reported; Marley was learning to manage her emotions. She was getting stronger. He always spoke of their work in generalities, but it was apparent to both Paul and me that Marley
was
making progress. There were no more panic attacks, and she seemed happier. She told me once that she felt “more in control.”