The Night Before(39)

She pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. Then she sat, thinking.

What would Laura feel?

A kiss that got inside her, that found the need. She would be hopeful. She would lose herself to it.

And if he walked away, indifferent, making sure she knew that he had deceived her?

What would Rosie do if Joe walked away after a lifetime of friendship? After they’d become lovers? If one night they made love and then he told her he didn’t care? If he told her he didn’t want to be with her?

She tried to imagine it. Joe had been devoted from the first moment she’d held his eyes a second longer than she ever had before. In the hallway of their school. Talking like they always had, in a circle of friends. She’d caught him looking at her and she’d known. It had been so easy. She’d looked back and held his eyes. It had made him blush, and that night he had kissed her for the first time.

But what if that had not been the case? What would she have done? What if there was another scenario?

She would have turned to that boy in her history class who was always flirting with her. She would have flirted back and maybe even gone out with him just to make Joe see that she had options, that she had moved on. That’s what people do, right?

Laura would need something different. If she didn’t turn to violence, she would walk away, filled with pride. She would not let this stranger, this old divorced man from a website think he’d hurt her. But then, when he was gone and she had no way to find him again, the anger would build and she would need a target. Someone else who’d hurt her and hadn’t paid.

The man in New York. Asshole. Laura had left with no resolution. No answer. But unlike Jonathan Fields, she knew where to find this one.

Rosie rushed inside, to her computer this time, at a small desk in the corner of the kitchen.

She knew his first name. Kevin. But nothing more. They’d tried to find him earlier with no luck. The two friends she’d called—Jill from work and the roommate, Kathleen—hadn’t known either.

But now she had a thought. She went into her emails and searched for him. Seven old messages came on the screen. All from Laura. She knew which one she was looking for—it was from May—at the start of things. She was with him at a hotel across the street from his office. She’d told Rosie the name.

And there it was.

Laura: Guess where I am.

Rosie: Work? It’s Tuesday at 3.

Laura: I’m drinking champagne at the West Hotel. Kevin only had an hour.

Rosie: I thought you said he was good in bed. ?

Laura: Haha. He works across the street, so we had the WHOLE hour.

Rosie: Jealous ?





* * *



She hadn’t been jealous. She’d been worried. Laura was on a high. Emailing and texting with details about her adventures with this new man. Kevin. She kept saying that he was different. That he was good to her. That he loved her. But she seemed manic. Anxious. Her words were different, but her mood was the same as with all the others.

Rosie logged into the findlove.com account and clicked on the search they’d used to get those pictures—the ones with Jonathan Fields. Divorced. Thirty-five to forty. Income $150,000+. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but she could see it now. Jonathan Fields was the best looking man on the page. He looked younger than forty. And there was something about him—the smug smile, the way his head tilted. It was arrogance.

He reminded her of all the others. Most of all, the last one Rosie had known. The one from Laura’s junior year. Mitch Adler. He’d tortured Laura all summer, casting her down a long, winding roller coaster that hadn’t stopped until the night of the party. That night in the woods. Rosie had seen it unfolding. He’d come with another girl. A sophomore from the public high school—his school. He’d made sure Laura saw them together. Rosie had been on the other side of the fire with her friends, with the older kids who were in college. She’d glanced over now and again to check on Laura, the way she always had. She’d seen Mitch walking up the path, this new girl right behind him. Laura had pretended not to see. She’d found some friends near a cooler of beer.

When Rosie had looked again, Laura was gone. So was Mitch, but the new girl was by the fire, forlorn. There had been a game playing out and Rosie had known it wouldn’t end well. But she had been so tired of it. Tired of being Laura’s babysitter. She had not looked across the fire again until she’d heard the scream.

Rosie checked the time. It was four a.m. The room was still. Outside, nothing but darkness. The world was asleep, but time was not. She heard the clock tick above the sink, relentlessly. Every second that passed felt like another step deeper into a life where Laura was never found.

She got up. Grabbed her keys, her purse, and headed back to the car.



* * *



The West Hotel was on Ninth Avenue between West Twenty-third and West Twenty-second. Rosie was there by five thirty.

She parked on the next side street, then walked back to the front of the building. She looked up at the windows and imagined Laura looking out from one of them, sipping champagne. Watching for her new love to step outside his office and make his way to her.

Kevin. She didn’t even have a last name. She turned to face the buildings across the street. A cab drove by. Then a delivery truck, the metal ladder pinned to the side clanking as the truck hit a pothole. The sky was orange with the morning sun. Time was slipping away.