Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

I want to stay home. I want to feel safe.

It’s a good vow, don’t you think ?

Unfortunately, I’m no good at clean, healthy living. I have to hurt. I have to be punished.

If not by myself, then at least by someone else.

When I first saw the picture on the computer screen, that single black-and-white image of unspeakable violence being committed against such a small, vulnerable young boy, I should’ve packed up Ree and left. That would’ve been the smart, sensible thing to do.

No wasting time with denial. So Jason was kind, considerate, and, the best I could tell, a remarkable father It wasn’t like respectable family men couldn’t have dirty little secrets, right? Of all people, I should know that.

Was it the cycle of violence? In my calculating attempt to run away from my family, to pick the one man I thought was the antithesis of everything my father had been, had I run right into the arms of another monster? Maybe darkness speaks to darkness. I didn’t marry my husband because I thought he would save me; I married him to stay with the devil I knew.

I know the moment I saw that photo, I felt a stirring deep inside the ugly part of myself A bitter sense of recognition. All of a sudden, my perfect husband was no better than me, and heaven help me, I liked that. I really, really liked that.

I told myself I needed more information. I told myself my husband deserved the benefit of the doubt. One explicit photo in the trash bin did not a predator make. Maybe he’d received it by accident and immediately deleted it. Maybe it popped up on some website and he was getting rid of it. There could be a rational explanation. Right ?

Truth is, Jason came home that night, and I could still look him in the eye. Truth is, he asked me how my night was, and I told him “Just fine.”

I am an expert on lying. I excel at pretend normal.

And some terrible, angry part of me was happy to once again be in charge.

I took Ree to school. I started teaching sixth grade social studies. I considered my options.

Four weeks later, I made my move. I’d been doing some research on the student population, and my dear friend, Mrs. Lizbet, was helpful as always.

I found Ethan Hastings in the computer lab. He looked up when I entered the room. Immediately, he flushed bright red, and I knew this was going to be even easier than I’d thought.

“Ethan,” I said, the pretty, respectable Mrs. Jones. “Ethan, I have a project for you. I want you to teach me everything you know about the Internet.”

D.D. was pissed off. She exited the Jones residence, slid into her car, and started punching buttons on her cell phone. It was nearly eleven P.M., well after the hour for polite conversation, but then again, she was dialing a state detective and he was used to such things.

“What?” Massachusetts State Detective Bobby Dodge answered the phone. He sounded sleepy and annoyed, which fit her mood nicely.

“Did I wake you, honey?”

“Yes.” He hung up on her.

D.D. hit Redial; she and Bobby went way back, had even been lovers once upon a time. She liked calling him at odd hours of the night. He liked hanging up on her. The system worked for them.

“D.D.,” he groaned this time, “I’ve been on call for the past four nights. Gimme a break.”

“Married life is making you soft,” she informed him.

“I believe the politically correct phrase is ‘balanced lifestyle.’”

“Please, in a cop’s world, balanced lifestyle is a beer in each hand.”

He finally laughed. She could hear the rustle of sheets, him stretching out. She found herself straining her ears, listening for the low murmur of his wife’s voice. It made her flush, feel like a voyeur, and she was grateful she wasn’t on video conference.

She had a weakness for Bobby Dodge not even she could explain. She’d given him up, but couldn’t let him go. Just went to show you that smart, ambitious women were their own worst enemies.

“All right, D.D., obviously you have something on your mind.”

“When you were a sniper with the state’s STOP team, did you sleep?”

“You mean more than I do now?”

“Nah, I mean, when you deployed, did you take a nap?”

“D.D., what the hell are you talking about?”

“You been watching the news? Missing woman in Southie?”

“Slept through the morning press conference, but Annabelle told me you had great hair.”

D.D. felt mollified by that, which was just plain stupid. “Yeah, well, I’m at the house tonight, seizing the computer, yada, yada, yada, and get this, in the middle of the forensics foreplay, the husband took a nap on the love seat.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Just closed his eyes, put his head back, and went to sleep. You tell me, when was the last time you saw a family member of a missing person take a nap in the middle of the investigation?”

“I’d consider that odd.”

“Exactly. So I call him on it, and get this: He gives me some SWAT team song and dance that when you’ve been activated, but not deployed, the sensible thing is to sleep, so you’re ready for action.”

There was silence. Then, “What’s this guy do for a living again?”

“He’s a journalist. Works freelance for Boston Daily .”

“Huh.”

“Huh what? I didn’t call you for grunting, I called you for expertise.”

She could practically see him rolling his eyes in bed. “Well, here’s the thing: For most tactical unit situations in policing, you are activated and deployed pretty much simultaneously. But I know what he means-couple of guys on my team were former military special forces. Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, that kind of thing. And yeah, I’ve watched those guys fall asleep in the middle of cow fields, school gymnasiums, and flatbed trucks. There does seem to be some kind of rule for military types-if you’re not doing, you’d better be sleeping, so you can do later.”

“Shit,” D.D. said, and chewed her bottom lip.

“You think he’s former military?”

“I think he could play poker with the devil himself. Son of a bitch.”

A yawn now. “Want me to take a run at him?” Bobby offered.

“Hey, I don’t need no state suit nosing into my investigation,” D.D. bristled.

“Easy, blondie. You called me.”

“Here’s the kicker,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “The wife is AWOL, and of course we suspect him, so we seized his trash. We found a pregnancy test. Marked positive.”

“Really?”

“Really. So I decide to ambush him with it tonight. See how he responds. Because he’s never mentioned this, and you’d think a husband would tell you if his missing wife was pregnant.”

“Speaking of which…”

She paused. Blinked. Felt her stomach drop away. “Holey moley,” she said at last. “I mean, when, how, where?”

He laughed. “How and where probably aren’t necessary, but Annabelle’s due August first. She’s nervous, but doing well.”

“Well, crap. I mean, congratulations. To both of you. That’s… awesome.” And it was. And she did mean it. Or would mean it. Goddamn, she needed to get laid.

“So okay,” she cleared her throat, did her best to sound brisk. This is Sergeant D.D. Warren, all business all the time. “Regarding my person of interest. Tonight, I ambush him with the news-”

“You told him his wife was pregnant.”

“Exactly.”

“But how do you know that the test strip belonged to the wife?”

“I don’t. But she’s the only adult female in the house, and they don’t entertain, I mean never , so it’s a safe assumption. The lab geeks are gonna run DNA on the test strip to be definitive, but I gotta wait three months for those reports, and let’s be honest, Sandra Jones doesn’t have three months.”