The Vanishing Year (25 page)

CHAPTER
26

He leads me gently to the bedroom, his soft, manicured hand resting on my elbow, almost caring, if it weren't for the hard metal of the muzzle pressed up against my spine. He urges me onto the bed and I resist with a look, and he sighs.

“You've always been obstinate.” He shakes his head with a small smile the way I imagine mothers react to strong-willed four-year-olds, like my resistance is infantile. Cute. My tongue tastes like sulfur. He jabs the gun farther into my skin, pulling my arm behind me and giving it a solid twist. “Get on the bed, Zoe. I could kill you right now. Who would care anyway? It's not like you have anyone.” He says it off-the-cuff, chillingly calculating.

He shoves me face-first onto the bed and grabs my left wrist; in one smooth motion he handcuffs me to the iron headboard. He pulls on my arm, checking to make sure it will hold.

“So Joanie is Tara.” No point in beating around the bush. My heart thumps in my throat, but my head remains clear, maybe for the first time in weeks. “Then who am I? To you?”

His back is to me, and he's fiddling with something on the dresser. He turns then, holding a filled syringe.

“You're my replacement. Do the math, Zoe. When did Tara die?”

My mind spins on dates and facts that up to this point I'd only been peripherally aware of.
Three years ago.
I swallow hard but say nothing.

He doesn't wait for me to answer. “And when did your Jared get out of prison?”

I have no idea.
I shake my head.

He gives me a pitying look. “Tara was so much smarter than you. It's a shame really, for so many reasons.” Sigh. “I'll give you a hint. It's three years ago.”

My stomach seizes and I feel the sweat on my upper lip. I lick the corners of my mouth, but my tongue is as dry as sandpaper.

“Is that why they're back now?” My voice is a rasp.

“What people? The people you screwed over back when you were living a disgusting life? Selling drugs on playgrounds?” Henry chuckles softly and shakes his head, tapping the bubbles out of the syringe. “No one is ‘back now.' I found Jared and killed him. Two years ago, because the police were incompetent and I realized it was you he wanted. He didn't know Tara existed. Biggest mistake of his life, I'd say.” His mouth twisted once, a sideways kiss. “Mick died of a drug overdose in witness protection. Years ago.”

“Witness protection?” This is why there was no Mick. “Wait, you killed Jared?” I stare at him. This man, this elegant, manicured man, my husband, who likes lamb only on Wednesdays and thinks that cabernet should never be drunk with pasta because they are both too heavy. He is a murderer. It's inconceivable.

“Don't be so shocked, Zoe. He's not the first, he's not the last. No one will miss him either. Just like they won't miss
you.” He flicks the syringe once more with his finger and walks slowly toward the bed. I inch backward. “It actually wasn't even hard. He's not that smart.”

“But . . . but if there is no Jared, and Mick is dead,
you
were doing these things? The vandalism, the break-in?” My voice hitches to a screech.

Technically, I am the reason my sister is dead. Technically, Jared killed her. But only because he thought
she
was
me.
My life, my choices, my mistakes. A simple case of mistaken identity, that's what set this ball in motion. Jared was coming back for me, a revenge plot for bringing down his house of cards. Henry only continued what Jared started, after, of course, he killed him.

“Do you think I got to where I am by chance, Zoe? That my money, my life, my position is all a happy accident? Truthfully, you've tired me out.”

“I don't know what that means.” I hiss it out between my teeth, kicking my foot in his direction.

“Tara used to just sit in the house and read. You? You're out of control, running all over Manhattan, following me to the gym.” I must look shocked at this because he half-laughs. “I know every move you make. Your phone, the apartment. With technology, it's so easy now. GPS. Cameras the size of thumbnails. How do you think I found you at Elisa's? I know all about your dates with that little reporter, even the little sleepover—
that you lied about
. Every keystroke on the computer has been recorded. Everything you've done since you've lived in my home, Zoe.”

“Who's the girl at the gym?” I spit.

He shrugs. “She's nobody.” He means it, too. She is nobody to him.

“Caroline? The phone call? That was you, too?” I try to sit up, but my arm flails, shackled above my head and I can't get purchase on the bed.

He stands over me, with a faint icy smile. “You're just so out of control all the time, Zoe. You don't listen to me. You don't need me, not the way Tara needed me. Tara was sweet, compliant. She needed me. You are defiant. Unlovable. You're just so fucking unlovable.” His voice is low and the words pierce my heart. He could be right. “You're indifferent to me, Zoe. I can't have that. It was different before, with your blissful ignorance. But you had to push, seek her out. Find Caroline. Then your sister. You ruined everything, not me. You're never content.” His hand grips my knee and I open my eyes. He slides the needle into my thigh and depresses the plunger.

I gasp. “What are you doing, Henry?”

“You didn't just owe me a wife, Zoe. You owed me Tara. Do you see now?” His face is inches away from mine and I can see all the pores in his skin. His breathing comes in quick rasps. He fades from view and the room wavers and spins.

•  •  •

When I wake up, the room is dark. The clock on the dresser blinks two a.m. I sit up and my arm shoots through with pain. It is numb and buzzing cold. In the dark, I hear the rustle of sheets next to me.
Henry.

“I can't feel my arm,” I mumble groggily and Henry flicks on the light. I realize I've been dressed in a white silk nightgown and robe that isn't mine. It looks like a bridal negligee. I can't lift my arms, my legs. I need to get out of here. Henry, clad in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, holds a small key. Deftly, he lifts my arm, pinning it against the wall, while he unlocks the handcuffs and switches them. In the brief second the handcuffs are off, I make a clumsy attempt to flail, softly fobbing him in the cheek. He slaps me. Hard. My face beats a steady hot pain, and my eyes water.

“Do it again, Zoe, and I'll kill you right now,” he spits at me. Then his expression sags, my sleepiness softening the edges of his face.

I try to focus my eyes on Henry, who is splitting and coming back together, again and again. It reminds me of watching Evelyn's old television when she worked nights: scrambled soft-core porn channels, a flash of skin here or there, maybe a blinking Technicolor breast. I close my eyes, yellow spots and flashes of color.

When I open my eyes again, Henry is standing in front of me, naked, erect, cupping his penis. His hands move and slide up my thighs. I turn my face away and he pulls me back by my chin. I realize that I'm naked under the negligee and I kick my feet. I struggle to sit up.

“No,” I mumble. The drugs are wearing off, I think. The “No” sounds clearer to me but I can't tell.

“Settle, my love.” Sometime in the last few minutes, he's lit candles, turned off the lights. He lies on top of me, kissing my neck, and I push against his chest. “Goddamn it, Zoe. Just for once, be compliant.” He stands up, hastily, embarrassed, slapping at his thigh, at his flaccid failure. “This has never happened before.” He's both apologetic and accusing; his eyes shine with hatred and he hovers over me until I think he might hit me, his fist clenched, knuckles white. I set my jaw, prepare for the punch, and close my eyes.

He turns away and dons his pajama bottoms. When he turns back, he's holding a syringe. A quick pinch in my other thigh and my vision swims.

•  •  •

He brings me trays of food, and I become fixated on the clock each time I'm awake. 6:27 a.m. 4:13 p.m. 5:42 a.m. I try to track the days, but I keep losing count and have to start over. I give up trying to remember and with my free hand, press my thumbnail into the skin along my hip bone until it comes away tinged pink with blood. One half-moon for each day. Or what I think is a day, sometimes it's hard to remember if it was a.m. or p.m. when I woke last, and therefore has it been a
day or twelve hours? I can pass my index finger over the healing lines, feel the scabs, and count. Sometimes, when I bolt awake, panicked and gasping, I feel for these small incisions.
Six, I've been here six days.
Then
eight.
Then
ten.

I think he dresses me in Tara's clothes, black cocktail dresses and silk pantsuits. Where would an agoraphobic wear pantsuits?

He walks me to the bathroom, two, maybe three times a day, handcuffed with the steel tip of the gun in my back and then plank-walks me back to bed. Then, he props me up, feeds me crackers and juice. Talks to me, tells me about his day. His words float around, echoing as though he's in an airplane hangar. If I say
what
too many times, he gets angry. I wonder what he wants with me? Will I just be here forever? His replacement
Tara
, chained to the bed like an animal?

Will I die here?

Will anyone miss me?

Does anyone care?

A shot to the leg. I barely feel it.

•  •  •

I've started getting sick. Throwing up, hot green bile on the bed, which makes Henry furiously angry.

“What will you do with me?” I ask him, weakly, a long string of spit trailing from my mouth. I'm lying on my side, my face sweating. Whatever he's injecting me with, it's too much. My body has started to reject it. It's making me nauseated and weak. I will die here, in this isolated house in clothes that are not mine.

He's toweling up my filth and he smiles, a clever, Henry-­ish smile. “Yates called me, said she's been trying to call you. I said you'd left me. You were staying at a hotel in the city and I didn't know which one. She said she had news on Mick, so I'm guessing she's discovered his death. A shockingly good detective for a woman. He was living under a different name.
WITSEC, you know?” He says all this conversationally, as he works at a stubborn sticky spot on the bare mattress. “After you left town, he turned state's witness, brought down the whole organization. He did a very small amount of prison time, then went into witness protection. I figured it out easily enough, but then again, I'm fairly well connected. The feds, they don't talk much to the police.”

My head feels heavy and I let it sink down to my arm, my face wet with tears, sweat. Maybe spit. I am starting to stink.

“But what will you do with me?” I ask again, dumbly, not knowing if he'd even answered the question or not.

“We have three months until hunting season. See, you'll come back to me then. Realize your mistake, how much you've missed me. You're all alone in the world, Zoe, you have no one. You only have me. You leave your hotel, come back here. To beg for my forgiveness. You try to find me in the woods behind the house, as a surprise.” His voice has lowered to a whisper, his finger caressing my cheek. “I'll think I've hit a deer. It's tragic, really.”

“Henry, people will look for me. Officer Yates, Lydia, Cash. Someone will wonder. You can't get away with this.”

“Tara never thought I was stupid, Zoe. But you, you question me at every turn. Honestly, it's so infuriating.” He says this conversationally. “I asked Yates to pass it along to Cash and Lydia. We had a rather heated conversation about your past. Your secrets. I told her everything, your drug pushing. Evelyn. You are not the person everyone thinks you are.” He purrs in my ear. “You just want to be left alone. You're afraid. You've run away again.” He walks over to the dresser, picks up a wad of cash, waves it in my face. “You've even taken some of my money.”

I had shared different pieces of my story with different people, but no one knew the whole thing. Cash knew the most, he wouldn't be deterred. But,
but,
he would go to
Yates first. After her talk with Henry, she'd assume I'd stolen ­Henry's money and skipped town.

Henry lies on the bed, curled into me, his breath hot and wet on my neck and I want to kick him away but I can't make my legs cooperate.
Three months. He's going to keep me here for three months.

I'll die first.

•  •  •

I wake up covered in urine. I smell it before I feel it. Henry is ripping the sheets from underneath me and I tumble against my cuffed wrist, shearing the skin until the blood runs down my arm, which enrages him even more. He is angry, yelling words I can't understand. The sheets come away piss yellow and red. He rips off my underpants and nightgown, feels along my hip, those crusty ridges. He asks me,
What the fuck is this?
I answer him,
It's my clock.
I don't think it through; it just comes out and not even coherent. I can't even be sure of what I say, it sounds garbled. All he hears is
clock.

He marches to the dresser. Rips the clock cord out of the wall and slams the door behind him. With my free hand, I feel along my naked hip.
Twelve days. I've been here twelve days.

•  •  •

I think he leaves the house during the day. I force myself awake, hear the door slam, the car slide down the driveway. I scream for as long as I can. I imagine Trisha from the market down the road in a little pink warm-up suit, shiny and metallic looking, a bright purple sweatband, new sneakers, trekking past the house, on a power walk trying
for the last time
to lose the baby weight. I scream for Trisha. I scream until my voice gives out and I am weak, hoarse. I scream all day. Or at least what I think is all day. I scream until Henry comes home.