The Couple Next Door(39)

“No!” Marco says. The two men glare at each other. Richard looks away first.

“What choice do we have?” Anne asks, her voice shrill.

“I still don’t like it,” Richard says.

“We will do exactly what the note says,” Anne’s mother says firmly, giving her husband a sharp glance.

Anne’s father looks at her and says, “I’m sorry, Anne. You’re right. We don’t have a choice. Your mother and I had better get started on the money.”

? ? ?

Marco watches his father-and mother-in-law get into their Mercedes and drive off. He’s barely eaten since this all started. His jeans hang loose on his body.

It was an awful moment when Richard was being difficult about raising the money. But he’d just been grandstanding. He had to make sure everybody knew what a great guy he was. Had to make sure everybody appreciated how important he was.

“I knew they would come through for us,” Anne says, suddenly beside Marco.

How did she always manage to say exactly the wrong thing? At least when it came to her parents. How could she not see her father for what he was? Couldn’t she see how manipulative he was? But Marco is silent.

“It’s going to be okay,” Anne says, taking Marco’s hand in hers. “We’re going to get her back. And then everyone will see that we were the victims here.” She squeezes his hand. “And then we should make the damn police apologize.”

“Your father will never let us forget that they bailed us out.”

“He won’t see it that way! He’ll see it as saving Cora, I’m sure of it! They won’t hold it over us.”

His wife can be so na?ve. Marco gives her hand a squeeze back. “Why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest? I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep, but I’ll try. Where are you going?”

“I’m going to pop into the office and check on a few things. I haven’t been there since . . . since Cora was taken.”

“Okay.”

Marco puts his arms around Anne and gives her a hug. “I can’t wait to see her again, Anne,” he whispers.

She nods against his shoulder. He lets her go.

Marco watches her walk up the stairs. Then he grabs his car keys from the bowl on the table in the front hall and heads out.

? ? ?

Anne intends to lie down. She’s too keyed up, though—almost daring to hope she might get her baby back soon, yet still terrified that it might all go horribly wrong. As her father said, they have no proof that Cora is even still alive.

But she refuses to believe that Cora is dead.

She carries the green onesie with her, holding it to her face and breathing in the scent of her baby. She misses her so much it physically hurts. Her breasts ache. In the upstairs hall, she stops, leans against the wall, and slides down to the floor outside the baby’s room. If she closes her eyes and presses the onesie to her face, she can pretend that Cora is still here, in the house, just across the hall. For a few moments, she lets herself pretend. But then she opens her eyes.

Whoever sent them the onesie has demanded five million dollars. Whoever it is knows that their little girl is worth five million dollars to them and obviously has a pretty good idea that Anne and Marco can get the money.

Perhaps it is someone they know, if only slightly. She gets to her feet slowly, pauses on her way into their bedroom. Perhaps it is even someone they know fairly well, someone who knows they have access to money.

When this is all over, she thinks, after they get Cora back, she will devote her life to her child—and to finding the person who took her. Maybe she will never stop looking at people they know, wondering if that person is the one who took their baby—or knows who did.

She suddenly realizes she probably shouldn’t be handling the onesie like this. If it all goes wrong and they don’t get Cora back, they will have to turn the onesie—and the note—over to the police, as evidence and to convince them of their innocence. Surely the police will no longer suspect them now. But any evidence that the outfit might have offered up has probably been ruined by the way she has been touching it and breathing on it and even wiping her tears with it. She puts it down on her dresser in the bedroom and lays it flat. She looks at it, forlorn, on the dresser. She leaves it there, with the note pinned to it containing their instructions. They cannot afford to make a mistake.

It’s the first time she’s been alone in the house, she realizes, since midnight on the night Cora was taken. If only she could go back in time. The last few days have been a blur, of fear and grief and horror and despair—and betrayal. She told the police that she trusted Marco, but she lied. She doesn’t trust him with Cynthia. She thinks that he might have other secrets from her. After all, she has secrets from him.

She wanders from her dresser over to Marco’s and pulls open the top drawer. Aimlessly, she rummages through his socks and underwear. When she has finished with the top drawer, she opens the second. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she’ll know when she finds it.





SEVENTEEN


Marco gets into the Audi and drives. But not to the office. Instead he takes the nearest exit and drives out of the city. He weaves in and around traffic; the Audi is responsive to his touch. After about twenty minutes, he turns off onto a smaller highway. Soon he reaches a familiar dirt road that leads to a fairly secluded lake.