The Couple Next Door(58)

Richard says coldly, “The kidnappers sent it to us, like they sent you the outfit. With a note—about you. Probably to stop us from going to the cops. But you know what? I’m glad they did. Because now we know what you did. And we can prove it, if we choose to. But all in good time. First we have to get Cora back.” He lowers his voice to a hushed threat. “I’m the one in charge now, Marco. So don’t you dare fuck it up. Don’t tell the police. And don’t tell Anne—I don’t want to get her hopes up again if something goes wrong.”

“All right,” Marco says, his mind spinning. He will do anything to get Cora back. He doesn’t know what to believe, but he wants to believe she’s alive.

He must destroy the phone.

“And I don’t want you talking to Alice—she doesn’t want to speak to you. She’s very upset about what you did.”

“All right.”

“I’m not done with you yet, Marco,” Richard says, and abruptly disconnects the call.

Marco sits on the floor for a long time, flooded with renewed hope—and despair.

? ? ?

Anne gets out of bed. She walks quietly to the bedroom door and unlocks it, pulls the door back. She sticks her head out into the hall. There’s a light on in the office. Has Marco been in there all this time? What is he doing?

Anne walks slowly down the hall and pushes open the office door. Marco is sitting on the floor with the cell phone in his hand. His face is awfully pale. There’s a dreadful bloody mark above his eye where she clipped him with the phone. He looks up at her as she comes in. They stare at each other for a long moment, neither one sure of what to say.

Finally Anne speaks. “Are you okay, Marco?”

Marco touches the bloody bump on his forehead, realizes he has a pounding headache, and nods slightly.

He desperately wants to tell her that Cora might be alive after all. That there’s hope. That her father is in charge now, and he never fails—at anything. Not like her fuckup of a husband. He wants to tell her that everything is going to be all right.

But everything isn’t going to be all right. They may get Cora back—he hopes to God they do—but Anne’s father will make sure that Marco is arrested for kidnapping. He will make sure Marco goes to jail. Marco doesn’t know if Anne’s fragile emotional state can survive such a shocking betrayal.

He thinks cynically for a moment about how disappointed Cynthia will be at the turn of events.

“Marco, say something,” Anne says anxiously.

“I’m okay,” Marco whispers. His mouth is dry. He’s surprised that she’s talking to him. He wonders why the change of heart. A few hours ago, she’d told him to move onto the couch while she figured out what she was going to do. He assumed that meant she was kicking him out. Now she looks almost sorry.

She comes in and sits down beside him on the floor. He suddenly feels anxious that her father might call back on the phone. How would he explain that? Furtively, he turns the phone off.

“Marco, there’s something I have to say,” Anne begins tentatively.

“What is it, baby?” Marco asks. He reaches up and strokes a strand of hair off her face. She doesn’t pull away. The tender gesture, a reminder of happier days, makes her tears come.

She lowers her eyes and says, “You have to be honest with me, Marco.”

He nods but doesn’t say anything. He wonders if she suspects. He wonders what he will say if she confronts him with the truth.

“The night of the kidnapping, when you went to check on Cora the last time—” She turns to face him now, and he tenses, worried about what’s coming next. “Was she alive?”

Marco starts. He didn’t expect this. “Of course she was alive,” he says. “Why do you ask that?” He looks at her troubled face with concern.

“Because I can’t remember,” Anne whispers. “When I saw her at midnight, I can’t remember if she was breathing. Are you sure she was breathing?”

“Yes, I’m sure she was breathing,” Marco says. He can’t tell her he knows she was alive because he felt her little heart beating against him as he held her and carried her out of the house.

“How do you know?” she says, looking intently at him, as if trying to read his mind. “Did you actually check? Or just look at her?”

“I saw her chest moving up and down in the crib,” Marco lies.

“You’re sure? You wouldn’t lie to me?” Anne asks anxiously.

“No, Anne, why are you asking me this? Why do you think she wasn’t breathing? Because of something that stupid detective said?”

She looks down at her lap. “Because I’m not sure, when I saw her at midnight, that she was breathing. I didn’t pick her up. I didn’t want to wake her. I can’t remember noticing if she was actually breathing.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” She pauses, uncertain. Finally she looks up at him and says, “When I was with her at eleven . . . it’s just a blank. I can’t remember it at all.”

The expression on her face frightens him. Marco feels she is about to tell him something terrible, something he has somehow been waiting for, that he’s been expecting all along. He doesn’t want to hear it, but he can’t move.

Anne whispers, “I can’t remember what I did. I do that sometimes—I blank out. I do things, and then I don’t remember doing them.”