The Boy from the Woods(65)

“Taking a personal day,” Bernard said.

Wilde saw no reason to reply.

“Why do you need her passport?”

“Any chance Naomi is with her mother?”

Something skittered across his face. “Why do you ask that?”

“We called her.”

“You called Pia?”

No reason to clarify that the call was made by Hester’s office. “Last time we called, your ex-wife straight-up told us that Naomi wasn’t with her. This time she wouldn’t reply. We also have a report your ex is overseas.”

“Which is why you asked me about her passport.” Pine led Wilde to a home office in the back of the house. Standard stuff—desk, computer, printer, file cabinet. Wilde spotted an electric bill and something from the cable company on the right. The checkbook was out. The screensaver was a generic ocean shot, probably one of the computer default screens. The paperweight was a Lucite-block award with Bernard’s name on it, some kind of “salesman of the month” type thing. There was a classic photograph of a golf foursome at a pro-am outing, Bernard beaming on the far right as he held his driver.

There were no photographs of his daughter.

Bernard Pine rummaged through the drawer, ducking his head for a better look. “Here.”

He pulled out the passport. Wilde held out his hand. Bernard hesitated and handed Naomi’s passport over. There was only one foreign stamp—Heathrow Airport in London three years ago.

“Naomi is not with my ex,” Pine said.

There was no doubt in his tone.

“Can I show you something?”

Wilde nodded.

“I don’t want you to think I’m weird or anything.” Bernard Pine turned around to the file cabinet. He fumbled for a key, unlocked it, opened the bottom drawer. He reached into the back and pulled out a magazine in protective wrap. The magazine was called SportsGlobe. The publication date was from two decades ago. On the cover was a swimsuit model.

There was a yellow Post-it marking a page. Pine carefully turned to it.

“Pia,” he said, with a longing that made even Wilde pull up. “Gorgeous, right?”

Wilde looked down at the model in the floss bikini.

“This was taken a year after we met. Pia mostly modeled lingerie and bikinis. She tried out for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. You remember how big that used to be?”

Wilde said nothing.

“So Pia goes on an audition or whatever they call it and you know what Sports Illustrated tells her?”

He stopped and waited for Wilde to answer. To keep things moving, Wilde said, “No.”

“They say she’s too curvy. That’s the word they used. Curvy. They thought her…”—he cupped his hands in front of his chest—“had to be fake. Can you believe that? They said they were so great, they had to be implants.” He gestured toward the photograph. “But those are real. Amazing, right?”

Wilde said nothing.

“I sound like a pig, don’t I?”

Wilde chose the lie that would keep him talking. “Not really.”

“Pia and I met at a club in the East Village. I couldn’t believe my luck. I mean, every guy wanted her. But we just hit it off. She was so beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at her. We fell pretty hard. I was working at Smith Barney back then. Making pretty sweet dollars. Pia was modeling just enough. I’m not saying it was perfect. Beautiful women, women who look like this, they always have a little crazy. It comes with the package, I guess. But back then I found that so exciting, you know, and she was just so superhot. We were in love, we had money, we had the city, we had no responsibilities…”

Bernard closed the magazine with care, as though it were a fragile religious text, and slipped it back into the protective plastic. He turned back to the file cabinet, placed it in the back, locked the drawer.

“We were together about a year when Pia told me that she couldn’t have children. This will sound weird, I guess, but we never talked about it before. I don’t know, I guess she worried about my reaction. But—and this might surprise you—I was thrilled. We were having a blast. I didn’t want a baby messing it up, and, man this will sound awful, I loved her bod so much. I had friends with hot wives. Not hot like Pia. But hot. And after childbirth, well, you know what I’m saying?”

Wilde said, “Uh-huh.”

“I’m just being honest.”

Wilde said, “Uh-huh” again.

“So we got married. Big mistake. Pia and me, we were good before we made it official. But then you start hanging around other married couples and they’re all having babies. Pia, well, what I thought was her being eccentric and maybe a little moody? Now that’s more like depression or bipolar or something like that. She started staying in bed all day. She didn’t take any more jobs. She even put on a few pounds.”

Wilde wanted to feign a gasp and say “how awful,” but he stayed silent.

“So now, of course, Pia wants a baby. I don’t know if it’s the best thing, but I love her. I want her happy. And we wouldn’t be the first people to think a baby could save our marriage, right? So we start talking about surrogates and all that, but in the end, I find this adoption agency in Maine. You pay a little more, but they make things smoother. The agency told us we would have a healthy baby in six months. Pia, well, it worked. She heard that news, she started taking care of herself again. We were back, except, you know, she became obsessed with the arrival. Suddenly she didn’t want to live in the city anymore. The city was dirty, she said. It’s no place to raise a child. So she found this place”—Bernard spread his hands—“in the real estate section of the Times. You know. Like unusual homes. So we bought it and moved out here two days before Naomi came home to us. It was all going to be great.”