Gone Girl(27)

‘I thought you didn’t do journalism anymore.’

‘He who can’t do … .’ I smiled.

I unlocked my office, stepped into the close-smelling, dust-moted air. I’d taken the summer off; it had been weeks since I’d been here. On my desk sat another envelope, marked second clue.

‘Your key always on your key chain?’ Gilpin asked.

‘Yup.’

‘So Amy could have borrowed that to get in?’

I tore down the side of the envelope.

‘And we have a spare at home.’ Amy made doubles ofeverything – I tended to misplace keys, credit cards, cell phones, but I didn’t want to tell Gilpin this, get another baby-of-the-family jab. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, just wanted to make sure she wouldn’t have had to go through, I don’t know, a janitor or someone.’

‘No Freddy Krueger types here, that I’ve noticed.’

‘Never saw those movies,’ Gilpin replied.

Inside the envelope were two folded slips of paper. One was marked with a heart; the other was labeled clue.

Two notes. Different. My stomach clenched. God knew what Amy was going to say. I opened the note with the heart. I wished I hadn’t let Gilpin come, and then I caught the first words.

My Darling Husband,

I figured this was the perfect place – these hallowed halls of learning! – to tell you I think you are a brilliant man. I don’t tell you enough, but I am amazed by your mind: the weird statistics and anecdotes, the strange facts, the disturbing ability to quote from any movie, the quick wit, the beautiful way you have of wording things. After years together, I think a couple can forget how wonderful they find each other. I remember when we first met, how dazzled I was by you, and so I want to take a moment to tell you I still am and it’s one of my favorite things about you: You are BRILLIANT.

My mouth watered. Gilpin was reading over my shoulder, and he actually sighed. ‘Sweet lady,’ he said. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Um, hah, these yours?’

He used the eraser end of a pencil to pick up a pair of women’s underwear (technically, they were panties – stringy, lacy, red – but I know women get creeped out by that word – just Google hate the word panties). They’d been hanging off a knob on the AC unit.

‘Oh, jeez. That’s embarrassing.’

Gilpin waited for an explanation.

‘Uh, one time Amy and I, well, you read her note. We kinda, you know, you sometimes gotta spice things up a little.’

Gilpin grinned. ‘Oh I get it, randy professor and naughty student. I get it. You two really were doing it right.’ I reached for the underwear, but Gilpin was already producing an evidence bag from his pocket and sliding them in. ‘Just a precaution,’ he said inexplicably.

‘Oh, please don’t,’ I said. ‘Amy would die—’ I caught myself.

‘Don’t worry, Nick, it’s all protocol, my friend. You wouldn’t believe the hoops we gotta jump through. Just in case, just in case. Ridiculous. What’s the clue say?’

I let him read over my shoulder again, his jarringly fresh smell distracting me.

‘So what’s that one mean?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea,’ I lied.

I finally rid myself of Gilpin, then drove aimlessly down the highway so I could make a call on my disposable. No pickup. I didn’t leave a message. I sped for a while longer, as if I could get anywhere, and then drove the 45 minutes back toward town to meet the Elliotts at the Days Inn. I walked into a lobby packed with members of the Midwest Payroll Vendors Association – wheelie bags parked everywhere, their owners slurping complimentary drinks in small plastic cups and networking, forced guttural laughs and pockets fished for business cards. I rode up the elevator with four men, all balding and khaki’d and golf-shirted, lanyards bouncing off round married bellies.

Marybeth opened the door while talking on her cell phone; she pointed toward the TV and whispered to me, ‘We have a cold-cut tray if you want, sweetheart,’ then went into the bathroom and closed the door, her murmurs continuing.

She emerged a few minutes later, just in time for the local five o’clock news from St. Louis, which led with Amy’s disappearance. ‘Perfect photo,’ Marybeth murmured at the screen, where Amy peered back at us. ‘People will see it and really know what Amy looks like.’

I’d thought the portrait – a head shot from Amy’s brief fling with acting – beautiful but unsettling. Amy’s pictures gave a sense of her actually watching you, like an old-time haunted-house portrait, the eyes moving from left to right.

‘We should get them some candid photos too,’ I said. ‘Some everyday ones.’

The Elliotts nodded in tandem but said nothing, watching. When the spot was done, Rand broke the silence: ‘I feel sick.’

‘I know,’ Marybeth said.

‘How are you holding up, Nick?’ Rand asked, hunched over, hands on both knees, as if he were preparing to get up from the sofa but couldn’t quite do it.

‘I’m a goddamn mess, to tell the truth. I feel so useless.’

‘You know, I gotta ask, what about your employees, Nick?’ Rand finally stood. He went to the minibar, poured himself a ginger ale, then turned to me and Marybeth. ‘Anyone? Something? Anything?’ I shook my head; Marybeth asked for a club soda.