Forgotten Girls, The (6 page)

Adrianna Westin’s back stiffened
as she sat in her living room listening to the voice on the other end of the
line. The police had come and gone and, for once, she was sincere when she told
them she had no idea where Ridley had gone. She could see the unit parked out
front and knew from experience it would remain there, waiting. But it would be
in vain. This time he was not coming home. She was sure of it. Some things a mother
just knew.

The deep, gruff voice of her
lawyer droned on, ignorant to the fact she had stopped listening a while ago.
She could hear him speaking into her ear, but her mind was elsewhere. She was
thinking about Ridley, wondering if she would ever see him again.

Such a poor, frail soul her son
had turned out to be. So shameful really. Ever since he was a little boy he had
exhibited most of the traits she detested. Weakness, for one. Emotion too,
which was kind of the same thing. Even joy. Especially joy, as it was such an
unpredictable and unmanageable way of reacting to one’s environment. She had
tried mightily to rein him in, to teach him right from wrong, to mold him into
a man. It had not worked, though. It simply had not worked.

She reflected on this as she
peered out from behind her drapes at the police car parked out front and
absentmindedly held the phone to one ear. If Harold had proven a better
husband, and father, then maybe Ridley would have known how to act. But Harold
hadn’t spent much time at home, almost from the start. His work and golf were
his passions; his wife and child two footnotes in an otherwise austere,
privileged, well-lived life. She didn’t mind that. On the contrary, she didn’t
mind at all. She was free to do as she pleased and that was how she liked it.
But Ridley, poor Ridley. The dear boy missed his father so.

She had meant well all those years
ago. She really had. She had asked Margaret to stay after bridge for a drink only
because she knew Margaret had a soft spot for Ridley and might coax him out of
his shell. She didn’t like Margaret much herself, but she recruited her for her
son. That was the kind of mother she was.

But Margaret was as much a fool as
Ridley in her own way—genuinely believing that a young boy would be interested,
after the fact. So silly. So juvenile. So self-aggrandizing. All these years
later, she still couldn’t get over Margaret’s demand to see Ridley again, and
her threats to tell others of their tryst if he didn’t comply. But that was how
Margaret was. Always about Margaret.

Even so, she was not about to let
that happen. Margaret simply went too far. One shot and all was over, clean and
simple. Well, not so simple, it turned out. Poor Ridley. He took the fall, as a
good boy would. Hauled off like an animal, locked away for years. He never said
a word to anyone, including her, even though she wrote and even visited, once.

It had been so good to have him
home these past months. He had become so much of what she had hoped he would
be. Prison seemed to have toughened him up. Finally.

They were just getting a fresh
start, she and her boy. A team. A pair. And now this.

She had heard of Joslyn Freed,
considering her husband’s stature, but they traveled in different circles in
town. Some nerve she had coming into her home and accusing her son of dealing
drugs. She looked and acted just like the rest of the new batch of women who now
populated town, lavishly staking their place with an outlandish sense of
entitlement. She had dared to come into their home and confront Ridley right
there in the living room. Was she out of her mind? She had droned on about her
“pursuit of the truth,” as she had called it.

As though truth had anything to do
with it.

Adrianna could have told her it
would not end well. Actually, maybe she did.

Bella and Mack rolled the regulation
blue Ford sedan slowly past a mammoth gold sign emblazoned with the name
Glen Oaks
. Two massive gold-painted
gates stood at the base of the entrance. Once inside, they were afforded a bird’s-eye
view of a four-block development carved out of the woods around it. In the
center of the circular enclave sat a large pool of water, out of which a massive
fountain cheerfully sprayed water into the air.

The houses in this new
construction development were all built as Georgian-style colonials, each one
red brick, black shuttered, with black front doors. Each had a straight stone
path leading directly alongside the attached two-car garages. Each had a row of
hedges delineating the neighboring plots. It seemed as though the builder had
tried to create an impression of old-world money and wealth, to make the homes
look organic to the land. With very few trees, though, only a few scrawny saplings
planted as an afterthought, it hadn’t worked. The development looked forced.

The home to which they had come to
visit was a different story. The almost 10,000 square feet of ivory limestone
façade sat grandly atop a man-made hill at the end of one of the blocks. Its black
shutters and matching black door anchored it, as rows of rhododendrons, azaleas,
and evergreens lined the circular driveway, wrapping around a thirty-foot blue
spruce standing regally in the landscaped center island. A black Range Rover and
black Audi A8 sat in the driveway in front of a paneled three-car garage. The
Jordan home was the granddaddy of the neighborhood it seemed.

Bella and Mack casually exited
their car and approached the front door. Just as they were reaching the front
steps the door swung open and a woman stood there, staring at Mack with an
expression of shock and awe.

Her jaw and mouth literally hung
open as she kept her eyes fixed on Mack, who dragged himself slowly, almost
deliberately so, behind Bella. Bella saw the effect he had on this woman, whom
she assumed was Jenna Jordan, and was taken aback at how she made no effort to
hide it. Mack sauntered past Bella toward the woman, held out his hand, and
grinned.

“Hello there,” he said with a
smile. “My name is Detective Menendez. Please call me Mack.”

The woman didn’t even answer—she
simply stared.

“Is everything OK, ma’am?” Bella
inquired, annoyed.

“Oh, yes, I am sorry…yes, please
come in….oh my god, I just, I don’t usually see people…. I just lost my head
for a second…please come in…” She opened the door wider and stepped aside,
allowing them to enter.

They stood in a huge, glistening, all-white
foyer. White marble Carrara floors shined beneath their feet, stark white walls
wrapped around the room, and a white feathered chandelier hung down from the
twelve-foot ceiling. A white settee with gold trim sat under a gold-framed
mirror and a circular staircase whose steps were covered in ivory sisal led up
to an open-air second-floor landing. To the right hung an 18”x18” photo of the
woman, a man, and two young girls on a beach, wearing all white and smiling. A
toy poodle ran up and began yapping loudly at Mack. The dog was white too.

“Be quiet!” the woman admonished.

“Seems quite ferocious,” Mack
laughed.

“His bark is louder than his bite.
I am Jenna. Jordan. But you must know that already.” She smiled demurely. She
directed her words and her eyes at Mack and Mack alone.

“This is my partner, Detective de
Franco,” he answered slowly. She shot a quick glance in Bella’s direction,
reluctantly acknowledged her, and pivoted her eyes back to Mack with laser
precision.

“Welcome,” she said in a high-pitched
voice that dripped with ceremonial phoniness. She almost seemed happy, Bella
noted. Any grief she may have been reeling from was certainly not on display.

Jenna was about 5’4”, with dark brown
shoulder-length hair that looked to have been flattened with an iron into
perfect, straight submission. She had brown eyes, tanned skin, and flawless
white manufactured teeth—a mouthful of caps it looked like. Wonder what she
looked like before, Bella laughed to herself. Jenna wore workout clothes with
the name “Lululemon” displayed prominently on the jacket and leggings. She wore
ankle-high white socks. Her outfit displayed her petite frame and her washboard
abs and her behind, which was quite large.

“We apologize for the intrusion,”
Mack said deferentially, “especially as we are still kind of wet from the rain.
We don’t want to drip.”

“Pleeease, no intrusion at all,”
she interrupted Mack in an exaggerated way, not seeming to mind at all. On the
contrary, she seemed to love having Mack in her home.

“Lucy!” she bellowed. A woman who
apparently was the housekeeper came running. “Please take our guests’ jackets,
won’t you?”

The short Hispanic woman held out
her arms without looking them in the eye.

As Jenna led them through the
dining room they stole a quick, puzzled glance at one another, but Jenna
pivoted around and asked Mack if he was hungry.

“No ma’am, thank you,” he said
graciously. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Ohhhh…thank you!” she crooned in
a high-pitched squeal.

“We stopped by to speak to you
about Joslyn Freed. We assume you have heard the news?” Mack asked. Bella’s lip
curled at his too-delicate tone. What was up with the guy?

They were standing in the huge
dining room now, at the tip of a table set for eighteen. A fireplace stood in
the middle of one wall and eighteen Louis XIV chairs flanked a wooden inlaid
dining table. A blue Persian rug, stretching from one end of the room to the
other, covered the floor. In the middle of the table stood a stone statue of a
lion with a mouse in its mouth.

Bella tried not to stare at
Jenna’s choice of table decoration, but it was all she could see while Mack, despite
himself, appeared overwhelmed with the grandeur.

“Quite a home,” he said to Jenna.
“Love your taste.”

“You’re too kind,” Jenna replied
flirtatiously. “And yes, of course I have heard the news. I am beside myself.” She
wrapped her arms around herself tightly.

Bullshit, Bella thought.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Mack asked gently, smiling down at her.

“Yes, yes, of course, come into
the living room, but can I at least get you something to drink?”

She batted her eyes at him,
oblivious to Bella’s presence. Bella noticed an elaborate lunch was laid out on
one end of the table as though she were expecting guests.

Mack saw it too. “You are expecting
guests?” he said, pointing to the food.

“No, no, not at all—it’s just brunch.”

She waved her hand in the air as
she said this and walked away, motioning for them to follow. Not knowing what
that meant, they obeyed and allowed themselves to be led into an even larger
room. Two separate seating areas filled the space. Each had two couches and
three-side upholstered side chairs, with a large glass and gold leaf coffee
table in the center. The furniture in the room was fluffy and perfectly color
coordinated down to the last stitch. No originality at all, Bella thought. It
looked like she bought the entire room out of a catalogue; an expensive one,
but a catalogue nonetheless.

The windows in the colossal room had
floor to ceiling draperies, and a grand piano held court in the corner.
Bookshelves covered the walls, but were devoid of books. Only photographs of
the Jordan family, picture after picture, lined the shelves—the same four
people over and over, smiling, wearing white.

“Who plays piano?” Mack asked, as
he sat down on one of the sofas.

“No one,” answered Jenna,
giggling. “I needed something to fill that corner and the piano seemed to work.
I wasn’t going to go get another couch!”

She laughed again and twirled her
hair. Mack went along with her. “Very good choice,” he said with an easy smile.
“And chess?” he asked, pointing to a table on the far side of the room.

She looked over her shoulder at
the chess table and waved her hands as if to say,
who cares?
“Doug used
to play. It was a gift from his grandmother,” she said.

“Would your husband happen to be
home?” Bella asked, now that she mentioned good old Doug. Jenna had just sat down
next to Mack on the sofa and clearly didn’t want to move.

“He is actually,” Jenna answered a
bit warily. “Although normally not, as it’s Thursday,” she said, pronouncing
THURSDAY with a happy lilt in her voice. “But today with the rain…” She shook
her head and looked out the window, hugging her chest. “And of course, last
night…”

The lilt was gone. A hushed
silence filled the air between the three of them.

“Can you ask your husband to come
join us, please? Doug is his name, you said?” Bella asked as sweetly as she
could.

“Yes. Douglas, but he goes by Doug,”
Jenna replied. With a skeptical look at Bella, she rose to go find him.

Alone with Mack for a moment,
Bella widened her eyes but one second later Jenna and her barking dog were back
in the room.

“Fangsy, be quiet! I’ve asked
Flora to bring us drinks,” she notified Mack. “Doug will be right down,” she added,
as an afterthought. Fangsy ran over to Bella and jumped up on the couch beside
her.

“Good puppy,” Bella soothed as she
petted him. The dog quieted down. Jenna just rolled her eyes.

Moments later Doug entered the room
behind Flora, who carried a silver tray with bottles of Poland Spring water, Pellegrino,
and club soda. Jenna grabbed a bottle of Pellegrino off the tray without
looking at Flora and sat quietly, sipping out of a straw, subdued and far away.
Gone was the gracious hostess. Now she sat sulking.

Doug hardly made eye contact with
anyone. He wore dark blue jeans, a gray cable-knit sweater, and brown suede
J.P. Tod’s. At six feet tall, with cropped dark brown hair and green eyes, he
was not only well put together but had cachet and swag. He was extremely tan,
as though he had just returned from an island vacation, and was curt to Bella
and Mack when they introduced themselves. When Bella began to ask questions
about Joslyn and the events of the night before, Jenna spoke up first.

“I saw Jos in the restroom at
about, oh, I don’t know, toward the end of the night. She was drunk. She
slurred her words and lost balance. It was actually kind of embarrassing,” Jenna
whispered in a conspiratorial kind of way, as though she knew she was talking
behind her back but just couldn’t help herself.

She claimed she told Jos to wait
in the bathroom while she went to look for Doug so he could drive her home but,
by the time she returned, Jos was gone.

“How long did it take for you to get
back to the bathroom?” asked Bella.

Jenna smiled, which Bella found
inappropriate. And disturbing.

“I really couldn’t say. I was a
little tipsy myself,” she giggled.

“Would you say five minutes?
Longer?” Bella prodded, wondering what was so funny.

“Maybe ten-fifteen minutes,” Jenna
replied, shaking her head as though she was entirely unsure. “Simply guessing.”

“So long?” Bella sounded
surprised.

“I couldn’t find Doug anywhere,”
Jenna explained. “He was in the corner talking to Pete and Miles. It was pretty
crowded. By the time I got back she was gone.”

Bella made a note to talk to Pete
and Miles.

“Where did you think she had
gone?” Bella inquired curiously.

Jenna twirled her hair and
responded, “I wouldn’t know, really. She was just gone.” She snapped her
fingers and shook her head. “Sooooo unbelievable, really…just so sad.”

Doug raised his head for a brief
look at his wife then looked away.

“Did you try to find her?” Bella
was trying to elicit a satisfying answer, but that was proving extremely
difficult.

“I didn’t see her anywhere,” she
replied.

“OK,” said Bella. “Did you look
for her?”

“Kind of. I mean, I didn’t search
the grounds,” she answered defensively.

The room was silent. Doug stared
down at the floor.

Bella didn’t like this woman at all.
Jenna looked back and forth at the three of them and, sounding far off, not as
though she really cared, added:

“It was late, she was gone. I
don’t know. I was tired. I just wanted to go home.”

“Had Jamie asked you to take Joslyn
home?”

Bella looked away from Jenna when
she asked this and directed the question to Doug.

“Yes, he did,” Doug replied, looking
a little guilty. “But Jenna couldn’t find her. We assumed she had gotten a ride
with someone else.”

“It sounds like your wife didn’t
look too hard.” Bella sounded a bit sarcastic and she knew it. She was
irritated and it showed.

“I thought she did, I mean she
did, she just couldn’t find her,” Doug said nervously.

“I did look for her. I did. I
swear. I mean, I didn’t look in every nook and cranny. I didn’t walk down to
the marina, for god’s sakes. Why would I think she would ever go down there?”

“Were you worried about her?”
Bella wasn’t feeling the love.

Jenna leaned forward and took her
Pellegrino off the coffee table and sipped it, slowly. Steadily and quietly she
returned it to its position, exactly where it had been, and looked Bella
directly in the eye. Her lips were curved in a smile but her eyes were deadly
serious.

“I was not her keeper.”

“You were one of her close
friends. Isn’t that kind of the same thing?”

The look of disapproval on Bella’s
face was clear enough that even Jenna couldn’t ignore it. In one quick pivot
Jenna turned her back to the room and peered out the window at something awry
on the lawn. She remarked that Mario better make sure all the rain didn’t drown
her hydrangeas and confronted Doug about the garden then and there.