Lost (11 page)

“She’s a very beautiful girl.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Like her mother.”

The phone rang. Cindy raced to the kitchen, tripping on the large sisal rug in the front hall, banging her hip against the side of the kitchen door. “Damn it,” she swore, lifting the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Well, damn it yourself,” her mother replied. “What’s the matter, darling? Forgot to put on your makeup?”

Cindy raised a hand to her bare cheek, realized she had
indeed forgotten to put on any makeup. Still Neil had said she was beautiful, she thought gratefully, shaking her head as he approached, signaling the caller wasn’t Julia. “I’m fine, Mom. Just a little busy at the moment. Can I call you back?”

“You don’t have to bother. I’m just checking in. Everything all right? Your sister said you sounded pissy, and I’m afraid I have to agree with her.”

Cindy closed her eyes, ran her free hand through her hair. “Everything’s fine, Mom. I’ll call you later. Okay?”

“Fine, darling. Take care.”

“My mother,” Cindy said, hanging up the phone and immediately checking her voice-mail to make sure no one else had called. “My sister told her I sounded pissy when she called earlier.”

“I’m sure she meant pithy,” Neil offered.

Cindy laughed. “Thanks for coming over. I really appreciate it.”

“I just wish there was something more I could do.”

Something clicked in Cindy’s mind. “You can take me to see Sean Banack,” she announced suddenly.

“Who?”

“I’ll explain on the way.” Cindy grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a note for Julia, leaving it in the middle of the kitchen table, in case her daughter should return while she was gone. On the way out the door, she called Julia’s cell phone again and left another message. There’d been something in Sean’s voice when she’d talked to him earlier, Cindy thought, replaying their conversation in her mind, word for word. Something more than cigarettes and alcohol. Something more than fatigue and impatience and hurt feelings.

Anger, she realized.

He’d sounded pissy.

“I
S
S
EAN HERE?”

“He isn’t,” the young man said, standing in the doorway, blocking Cindy’s entrance to the small, second-floor apartment that was situated over an old variety store on the south side of Dupont Street near Christie. The man was tall and black, with an athletic build and a shiny, bald head. A silver loop dangled from his left ear. A set of earphones wrapped around his neck, like a noose. He was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and black sweatpants, and his left hand clutched a large, plastic bottle of Evian.

“You must be Paul,” Cindy said, pulling the name of Sean’s roommate from the recesses of her subconscious. She extended her hand, gently pushing her way inside the stuffy, nonairconditioned apartment, Neil following right behind.

The young man smiled warily. “And you are?”

“This is Neil Macfarlane, and I’m Cindy Carver. Julia’s mother.”

The expression on the young man’s face altered ever so slightly. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Carver, Mr. Macfarlane. Excuse the mess.” He looked sheepishly toward the cluttered L of the living-dining room behind him.

Cindy’s eyes followed his. Books and papers covered the light hardwood floor and brown corduroy sofa in the middle of the room. A deeply scratched wooden door balancing on four short stacks of red bricks served as a coffee table. Several old copies of the
Toronto Star
lay stretched across the small dining room table, like a linen tablecloth.
HUSBAND PHONED WIFE AFTER BEHEADING HER
screamed an inside headline.
MAN STALKED VICTIM FOR THREE DAYS BEFORE FATAL ATTACK
announced another.

“Sean’s doing research on aberrant behavior,” Paul explained, following her eyes. “For a script he’s writing.”

Cindy nodded, remembering Julia had once boasted that Sean was writing a script especially for her. As far as Cindy knew, Sean had yet to find a producer for any of his efforts. He supported himself by bartending at Fluid, a popular downtown club. “Has Julia been around lately?” she asked, straining to sound casual.

“Haven’t seen her since …” There was an uncomfortable pause. “You should probably talk to Sean.”

“Do you have any idea when he’s coming back?”

“No. I wasn’t here when he went out.”

“Do you mind if we wait?” Cindy immediately plopped herself down on the sofa, moving a well-thumbed copy of a paperback book to the cushion beside her. The book was called
Mortal Prey
.

Paul hesitated. “The thing is … I have to be somewhere by noon, and I was just gonna hop in the shower.…”

“Oh, you go right ahead,” Cindy instructed. “We’ll be fine.”

“Sean could be a while.”

“If he’s not back by the time you’re ready to leave, we’ll go.”

“All right. I guess it’s all right,” the young man muttered under his breath, perhaps sensing Cindy’s determination, and not wanting to make a scene. “I won’t be long.”

“Take your time.”

As soon as Cindy heard the shower running, she was on her feet.

“What are you doing?” Neil asked. “Where are you going?”

The second question was by far the easier of the two to answer. “To Sean’s room,” she said, trying to decide which of the two rooms at the back of the apartment was his, opening the first door she came to, grateful when she saw a row of high school football trophies bearing Sean’s name lined up in front of the open window.

Posters from popular movies covered the walls:
Spider-Man; Invasion of the Body Snatchers; From Hell; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
. Cindy winced at the image of a horrifying, leather-faced figure brandishing a chainsaw in front of him like a giant phallus, a helpless young woman secured to the wall behind him. She remembered that movie, hated herself now for enjoying it. What was the matter with her that she liked such things?

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Neil said, his voice a strained whisper as he followed her inside the tiny bedroom.

“Probably not,” Cindy admitted, looking from the unmade bed to the water-stained desk on the opposite wall. An empty picture frame sat to one side of a bright blue iMac in the middle of the desk; a neat stack of blank paper was piled on the other.

“What is it you’re looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Cindy took a step back, her ankle brushing up against the wastepaper basket on the floor. Her attention was immediately captured by the torn and crumpled remains of an eight-by-ten glossy. She bent down and scooped the battered picture of her daughter into her shaking hands. “It’s Julia’s most recent head shot. She just had it taken a few weeks ago.” Cindy tried vainly
to iron out the creases of the black-and-white photograph, piece together the smile on her daughter’s face. Obviously Sean had torn it from its frame in a fit of fury. Was it possible he’d attacked her daughter in a similar rage?

“Maybe you should just leave it,” Neil advised, removing the picture from her trembling hands.

“What else is in here?” Cindy asked, ignoring Neil’s warning, turning the wastepaper basket upside down, and watching as scrap pieces of paper, used tissues, pencil shavings, and a browning apple core tumbled toward the floor. “Garbage, garbage, garbage,” she muttered, her fingers loosening their grip on the white plastic container, allowing it to slip from her hand. She began pulling open the desk drawers, poking around inside them. There was nothing of consequence in the first drawer, and she was just about to close the second when her fingers located something at the very back. An envelope, she realized, pulling it out, and opening it, a small gasp escaping her lips.

“What is it?”

Cindy’s mouth opened, but no words emerged, as her fingers flipped through a succession of small color photographs, all of Julia, all in various stages of undress: Julia in a see-through lavender bra and thong set; Julia wearing only the bottom half of a black string bikini, her hands playfully covering obviously bare breasts; Julia in profile, the curve of one naked breast visible beneath the crook of her elbow, the top of her bare bottom rounding out of the frame; Julia wrapped provocatively in a bedsheet; Julia wearing high heels and a man’s unbuttoned shirt and crooked tie.

“Why would she do this?” Cindy wondered out loud, showing the pictures to Neil before tucking them into
the pocket of her khaki cotton pants. What was the matter with Julia? Had she no common sense whatsoever?

Cindy rifled through a few more items, and was about to close the drawer when her eyes fell across a sheet of densely typed paper.

The Dead Girl
, she read.

By Sean Banack
.

Cindy pulled the piece of paper from the drawer and carried it over to the bed, where she sank down, her lips moving silently across the page as she read.

“Oh, dear God,” Cindy cried, rocking back and forth.

Neil extricated the paper from Cindy’s hands. “What is it?”

“No, please no.”

It was then she heard the noise from somewhere beside them. “What’s going on in here?” Paul asked from the doorway. “Mrs. Carver? What are you doing in here?”

Cindy scrambled to her feet, lunged at the startled young man, naked except for the white towel wrapped around his waist. “Where’s my daughter? What have you done with her?”

Paul took a step back, clutching the towel at his hips. “I don’t know. Honestly, I have no idea where she is.”

“You’re lying.”

“I really think you should leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I speak to Sean.”

“I already told you I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Is he with Julia?”

“No way. Julia ripped his guts out, man. Look, I’m gonna have to call the police if you don’t clear out of here right now.”

Neil looked up from the pages he was reading and yanked the phone from the small table beside Sean’s bed, thrust it toward Paul. “Call them,” he said.

A
DARK
green Jaguar was parked in Cindy’s driveway when she got home.

“Oh no,” Cindy said, panicking as Neil pulled his black Nissan alongside it. “It’s my ex-husband. Why is he here?”

“Maybe he brought Julia home,” Neil offered hopefully.

Cindy bolted from the car and was halfway up the steps when her front door opened. Tom stood in the doorway to her house, one well-toned arm crossed over the other, a look of bemused impatience creasing his tanned face. He was dressed head to toe in beige linen, a color that complemented the recent blond streaks in his still shockingly full head of hair. His feet were bare inside brown tasseled loafers. As smugly handsome at forty-five as he’d been at twenty-five, Cindy thought, disappointed that middle-age hadn’t damaged him in any obvious way, that he hadn’t grown fat or bald, that his wrinkles actually added to his appeal. Elvis was sitting at his feet, as if he were used to having Tom there, Cindy groused silently, when behind him, something moved. A young woman, Cindy realized, relief pulsing through her veins. “Julia!” she cried out.

A shape emerged from the inside shadows, took its
place in the doorway, snaked a proprietary hand through Tom Carver’s arm. “Hello, Cindy,” the Cookie said, pushing the dog away with her feet. She was wearing a tight cream-colored jersey over tight cream-colored pants, which at first glance, made her seem nude. A most disconcerting thought, Cindy decided, thinking of the pictures of Julia in her pocket, and watching the Cookie lean her head on Tom’s shoulder, as if to say, “He’s mine now.”

I get the point, Cindy said to herself. You don’t have to work so hard. Aloud she said, “Is Julia inside?”

Tom shook his head.

“We don’t know where Julia is,” the Cookie informed her. Then, noticing Neil standing in the driveway, “Who’s this?”

Cindy spun around as Neil came up behind her. “This is Neil Macfarlane. My accountant,” she added, stumbling over the lie. “Neil, this is my ex-husband, Tom Carver, and the … Fiona, his current wife.” She stressed the word current, as if the condition were temporary.