You Are Not Alone(3)
Jane frowns as Cassandra scrolls through potential pictures. The only ones they possess of Amanda are recent—within the past few months: Amanda sitting cross-legged on a picnic blanket in Prospect Park; Amanda lifting a margarita in a toast at Jane’s birthday party; Amanda crossing the finish line of a charity walk for breast cancer research.
In most of the photos, she’s surrounded by the same six smiling young women—the group the Moore sisters have methodically been assembling. The women have different occupations and hail from vastly diverse backgrounds, but they have more important, hidden qualities in common.
“We need one of Amanda alone,” Jane says.
“Hang on.” Cassandra pulls up a picture of Amanda holding a calico cat, sitting in a pool of sunlight spilling in through a nearby window.
Jane leans forward and nods. “Good. Crop it a bit and no one will be able to tell where it was taken.”
The sisters fall silent as they stare at the photo. Just a few weeks ago, Amanda was sprawled in the gray chair adjacent to this very couch, which was the spot she usually chose when she came over. She kicked off her shoes and stretched her long legs over the chair’s arm as she talked about the elderly hit-and-run victim she’d helped save with four hours of frantic treatment. His daughter brought in dozens of homemade cookies today and left us the sweetest card! Amanda had said, her words tumbling out with her usual exuberance. It’s times like this when I love my job.
It seems impossible not only that Amanda is gone, but that she chose to end her life in such a spectacularly violent way.
“I never saw this coming,” Cassandra finally says.
“I guess we didn’t know Amanda as well as we thought,” Jane replies.
For the sisters, Amanda’s suicide triggered frantic efforts to answer questions: Where had she gone in the days before she died? Who had she talked to? Had she left any evidence behind—like a note of explanation?
They searched her apartment immediately, using their spare key to gain entrance. They retrieved Amanda’s laptop and asked one of the women in their close-knit group, an operational security consultant, to unlock it. She ran a dictionary attack, cycling through thousands of possible passwords until she cracked Amanda’s. Then the sisters examined Amanda’s communications. Unfortunately, Amanda’s phone was destroyed by the subway, so it couldn’t be scrutinized.
Within two hours her building was put under surveillance. The first visitor to it, Amanda’s mother, who took the train in from Delaware, was invited to tea by one of Amanda’s grieving friends. No helpful information was gleaned, even though Amanda’s mother changed the venue to a bar and stretched the conversation over two hours, during which time she consumed four glasses of Chardonnay.
The memorial service, which will take place on Thursday evening at a private club in Midtown, is a precautionary measure. It was Cassandra’s idea to hold the simple, nonreligious ceremony. Anyone connected to Amanda will likely show up.
The sisters, who now have access to Amanda’s contacts, will invite everyone Amanda corresponded with during the past six months.
Cassandra and Jane also plan to post printed invitations on the main door to Amanda’s apartment building, in the nurses’ break room at City Hospital, and in the locker room of the gym Amanda frequented.
At the memorial service, a guest book will be used to gather names of the mourners.
“We’ll get through this, right?” Jane asks Cassandra. Both sisters are exhausted; faint purple shadows have formed beneath their eyes, and Cassandra has lost a few pounds, making her cheekbones even more pronounced.
“We always do,” Cassandra replies.
“I’ll get us a glass of wine.” As Jane stands up, she gives Cassandra’s shoulder a squeeze.
Cassandra nods her thanks as she fits the photograph of Amanda into the template of the memorial-service notice on her screen. She proofs it a final time, even though she knows every word by heart.
Will it be enough? she wonders as she hits the print key.
If Amanda revealed something she shouldn’t have to someone—anyone—in the days before her death, will that individual feel compelled to come to her service?
The phrasing below Amanda’s smiling photograph was debated by the sisters before this simple message was agreed upon as bait: Please Join Us. All Are Welcome.
CHAPTER THREE
SHAY
NYC Subway System Stats: More than 5 million daily riders. Open around the clock. 472 stations—the most of any subway system. Seventh busiest in the world. More than 665 miles of track. 43 suicides or attempted suicides last year.
—Data Book, page 4
I LET MYSELF INTO the apartment and look around. It seems impossible that I’ve been gone only two hours. The violet tulips are in a cobalt vase. The frying pan soaks in the sink. Sean’s and Jody’s shoes are missing from beneath the bench.
I walk straight into the bathroom and strip off my red T-shirt and khaki shorts. As I stand under a stream of hot water in the shower, all I can think of is her. Her pleasant face and pretty polka-dot dress. And those empty eyes.
I wonder how long it will take for someone to miss her. When her husband arrives home to a dark apartment? When she doesn’t show up for work?
But maybe she wasn’t married. Perhaps she didn’t have colleagues she was close to. It might take a while for her absence to register.