An Anonymous Girl(70)

I take it to my bed and sit cross-legged on top of my comforter. The notes written on the page are a series of numbers that I briefly recall as an attempt to figure out a budget. I can’t believe that merely six weeks ago, I was worrying about how to pay Antonia for Becky’s occupational therapy, and hoping my BeautyBuzz appointments would align so I wouldn’t have to lug my makeup case too far. In hindsight, my life was so quiet; my problems, so ordinary. Then came that impulsive moment when I grabbed Taylor’s phone off her chair and replayed Ben’s message. Those ten seconds changed my life.

I need to be the opposite of impulsive now.

I tear off the top sheet and draw a line straight down the middle of the new page with Dr. Shields’s name atop one column and Thomas’s name atop the other. Then I sit cross-legged on my bed and write down everything I know about both of them.

Dr. Lydia Shields: 37, West Village town house, NYU adjunct professor. Psychiatrist, with an office in Midtown. Researcher, published author. Designer clothes, expensive tastes. Former assistant named Ben Quick. Married to Thomas. I underline that last detail four times.

I add question marks after other possibilities. Influential father? Client folders? Story behind Subject 5?

I stare at the scant cluster of information on the page. Is that truly everything I know about the woman who holds so many of my secrets?

I move on to Thomas. I grab my laptop and try googling him, but although I get several hits for Thomas Shields, they are all the wrong men.

Perhaps Dr. Shields kept her maiden name.

I remember a few things from our encounter at the bar: Rides a motorcycle. Knows all the words to the Beatles song “Come Together.” Drinks draft IPA beer. And then some details from our time in my apartment: Likes dogs. In good shape. Scar on shoulder from surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff.

I think for a moment, then add: Reads The New York Times at Ted’s Diner. Goes to the gym. Wears glasses. Married to Dr. Shields. I underline that last detail four times, too.

I continue: Late thirties? Occupation? Where does he live?

I know even less about Thomas than I do about Dr. Shields.

There are only two other people I’ve heard about who are connected to them. The first, Ben, doesn’t want to talk to me any more than he already has.

The second can’t talk to me.

Subject 5. Who was she?

I peel myself off my bed and begin to pace the ten steps back and forth across my studio, trying to remember everything Thomas said in the Conservatory.

She was young and lonely. Lydia gave her gifts. She wasn’t close to her father. This is where she killed herself.

I hurry back to my bed and reach for my laptop again. The two-paragraph article in the New York Post I find by googling “West Village Conservatory” and “suicide” and “June” reveals that Thomas told the truth about one thing at least: A young woman died in the Conservatory. Her body was found later that same night by a couple out for a stroll in the moonlight. At first they thought she was sleeping.

The article also gives me her full name: Katherine April Voss.

I close my eyes and silently repeat it to myself.

She was only twenty-three, and she went by her middle name. The article holds few other details, aside from listing the lineage of her parents and much older step-siblings.

But it has given me enough to begin tracing the trajectory of her life, and where and how it intersected with Dr. Shields’s.

I rub my forehead as I contemplate my next step. A dull throbbing has formed between my temples, maybe because I haven’t eaten much today, but my stomach is too knotted to tolerate food now.

As desperate as I am for information, I don’t want to reach out to April’s grieving parents yet. But there are other threads I can pursue. Like most twenty-somethings, April established an active social media presence.

Within a minute, I find her Instagram account. It’s open for anyone to follow.

I pause before viewing the images, just as I did when I first began to investigate Dr. Shields online.

I have no idea what I’ll see. I feel as if I’m crossing a threshold from which I won’t be able to return.

I tap on her name. Tiny square photos fill my screen.

I enlarge the most recent one, the last photograph April ever posted, as I make the decision to work backward in time.

It is dated June 2. Six days before she died.

The sight of her smiling face makes me flinch, even though it looks like the kind of picture I might take with Lizzie, two girlfriends clinking margarita glasses and having a good time. It seems so ordinary, given what happened less than a week later. The caption April wrote reads: With @Fab24—BFFs! A dozen people commented, stuff like luv this and sooo pretty.

I stare at April’s features. This is the girl behind the number assigned by Dr. Shields. She had long, straight dark hair and pale skin. She was thin; very thin. Her brown eyes appear too large and round for her narrow face.

I write down Fab24/best friend on a fresh sheet of the notepad under April’s name.

I scroll through the photos one by one, scrutinizing each for clues to record: A background location. The name of a restaurant on a printed napkin. The people who make repeated appearances.

By the time I’ve reviewed the fifteenth picture, I know that April also wore silver hoop earrings and owned a black leather jacket. She loved cookies and dogs, just like I do.

I return to the photo of April and Fab24. I know it’s not my imagination. April looks happy, genuinely happy. And then I spot it—the fringe of a taupe wrap on the chair behind her.