Джозеф Файндер - Vanished

They sat facing each other at an angle in the two easy chairs, which she had slipcovered herself with remnant fabric from a shop in Laurel. Her Apple MacBook laptop was open on the narrow desk. She glanced at it. She could see the screen from where she sat and wondered whether he could, too.

His name was Special Agent Corelli, and he had a slight stammer that sounded like a residue from childhood. He was not slick or arrogant, as she was afraid an FBI agent might be, and she liked that, too.

From his black nylon briefcase he took out a note pad.

“Ms. Ogonowski, how well do you know Roger Heller?” he said.

So it was about Roger after all. “Marjorie, please.”

“Marjorie,” he said with an abashed smile.

“Did something happen to him?”

“I’m afraid I can’t talk about an active investigation. I’m sorry.”

An active investigation! “Well, Mr. Heller is my boss – I mean, I just know him that way, of course.” She found herself looking at the business card, turning it over, evading his eyes.

“Of course.”

“He’s my direct supervisor, and it’s been superbusy lately–”

“He’s been out of town a lot, hasn’t he? Out of the office?”

“He travels a lot for business, yes.”

“And for other reasons.”

She hesitated. She drummed her fingers on the end table next to her chair, then reflexively, compulsively, began realigning the objects on the table, lining up the tiny Apple remote alongside the TV and cable and DVD remotes, making them all nice and parallel and evenly spaced. “I’m sorry, what’s the question?”

“You recently tried to reach him when he was out of town. Not on company business.”

How could the FBI possibly know about this? She’d promised never to tell anyone. Could that Security Compliance consultant, John Murray, have found out and told him? “I don’t remember.”

“I think you do,” the FBI man said quietly.

Something in him had suddenly switched off. No longer was he the trustworthy and sincere-seeming federal agent. Now there was a coldness in the man that frightened her even more than the question.

Caesar started whistling again.

“I’m sorry about the bird,” she said. “I need to change the cage liner, so he’s getting a little cranky.”

“Not a problem,” the FBI man said.

She slid her hand across the end table again, shifting, then straightening the remotes back into parallel lines.

“Would you mind if I called the Bureau,” she said abruptly. “Is that all right? Just to – I don’t know…”

He lifted his chin, turned up his hands, smiled. “Go right ahead. We always encourage that. The number’s right there on the card.”

She stood up, went over to the wall phone in the hall outside the kitchen, within view of the FBI man. “My cousin’s husband works there,” she said. “I’m going to call him, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t mind at all. Whatever puts your mind at ease.”

Taped to the wall was a long list of phone numbers that included her cousin Beverly and Beverly’s husband, Stuart. She found Stuart’s office number and dialed it.

The number on Agent Corelli’s card had a different exchange, she noticed, though she wasn’t sure that meant anything. Maybe main FBI had a different area code from the Washington Field Office. Then something else about the card attracted her notice, too.

“Did they redo the business cards recently?” she asked, looking at Corelli’s card closely. “The seal on my cousin Stuart’s business card–”

A hand shot out and depressed the plunger on the wall phone, breaking the connection. She hadn’t even heard him approach.

She tried to scream, but a hand was clapped over her mouth. “I need you to tell me everything,” the man said softly, so quietly that she could barely hear his words over Caesar’s shrill whistle.

I was waiting for Lauren to emerge from her bathroom.

In the meantime, Gabe and I talked a bit in his room. I handed his graphic novel back, and he wanted to know what I thought. I told him I thought it was incredible. That I was honored and humbled to be The Cowl.

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“The hero. The Cowl. With the fortress of solitude in Adams Morgan.”

“That’s not you,” he said.

“I thought he looked a little like me. No?”

“Huh? No way.”

I sneaked a glance at his face. He looked awkward and extremely defensive. Deeply embarrassed. I had brought out in the open something he didn’t want to admit to out loud. “No,” I said. “Of course not. I mean, I wish, right?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, dude.”

“Gabe, who’s Candi Dupont?”

He was too young, or maybe too honest, to have learned how to cover. His eyes flashed with fear. “Just a name,” he said.

“Candi Dupont is Dr. Cash’s girlfriend. Dr. Cash is your dad, Gabe.”

“Oh, man. This is fiction. Don’t you understand how fiction works, dude? You take little bits and pieces from your real life, and you weave it into this–”

“Gabe. You read your dad’s e-mails, didn’t you?”

“Screw you!” he shouted hoarsely. He shoved me away with one hand and turned away.

“Gabe.” I put both of my hands on his shoulders and rotated him to face me. “Your dad used the same password on all of his accounts, didn’t he? His Gmail and his iTunes and what ever. And you accessed his e-mail.”

He was crying by then. His face had gone scarlet, his acne like droplets of blood sprinkled over his nose and cheeks.

“That’s how you found out about Candi Dupont, isn’t that right? That’s how you knew your dad had a… a relationship.”

“He was cheating on Mom!” he gasped.

“Gabe, it’s okay. I’m not going to yell at you. I really don’t care about that. I just need that password. If there’s any chance of saving your father.”

He looked at me. “Why?”

“Because you’re right: Candi Dupont is just a name. It’s the name that your father called his girlfriend, I’m guessing. A name she used. An alias of some sort. But it’s not her real name. Which is why we haven’t been able to locate her. But if we can find out what her real name is, we might be able to find your dad. Because maybe she knows. Gabe, I know how horrible this is for you–”

“I don’t know her real name! How would I know that? All I know is that he was sending all these gross, like totally explicit, sexual e-mails to this woman named Candi Dupont, and she was writing back, and she was even more explicit, and he was lying to Mom the whole time, and it just made me want to puke.”

“Of course it did,” I said gently. “Of course. But if you give me his password, we can find out her e-mail address. And that might be enough to find her.”

His head was on his chest, his right elbow shielding his eyes from my gaze, and tears were spilling onto his T-shirt.

“Gabe,” I said. “Come on.”

WHEN LAUREN came downstairs, I asked her to go with me to Roger’s library so we could talk privately. We sat in the antique French club chairs, which were positioned so that each of us had to shift uncomfortably in order to look at each other.

“How’s Roger?” I said.

Her immediate reaction – a microexpression, I think they’re called – was shock. A split second later she had regained her poise. “You’re asking me ? How could I possibly know–?”

“Lauren,” I said. “You called him. A few hours ago. On the same disposable cell phone number that my father called him on.”

She blinked quickly. “Nick…”

“You’ve been lying to me since the beginning of this whole mess. You’ve known all along where he was.”