He trails off, and I wonder if he’s doing the same thing I’m doing, assessing my parents’ possible involvement. Then he shakes his head. “Whatever’s going on, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
I thought he might be my ally, but we can’t break the damn barrier, we can’t escape, and he can’t even stand to work with me to find answers. Angry fear floods me and I snap, “Because this is all my fault? Just like everything else? I’m the reason you’re a failure?”
And for once he’s silent. I stalk over to the wall and lie down facing it, overwhelmed by fatigue. I can hear Beckett moving, but I’m not going to look.
I’m no longer hungry or thirsty, but my mind is spinning. I think there’s no way I’ll fall asleep, but my eyes won’t stay open. Somewhere in the distance water is dripping.
I struggle to stay awake, but I’m drowning.
And there are monsters in the dark.
CHAPTER
16
ZOE
MY MOM AND dad finally leave me alone in the house. And I’ve never been so grateful to have the kind of parents who think more about their work than their daughters. I can imagine their own relief at dropping the pretense of being worried and caring, almost smiling as they drive back to the professional lives that define them, even at the risk of appearing callous.
Even with Ava missing.
Alone, I take a few minutes to explore this strange house full of familiar objects. The old house was bigger, suburban, but even then my parents chose modern, uncomfortable furniture and abstract art that was different from anything our neighbors had. I see the canvas covered with black, gray, and red slashes that hung above our fireplace instead of a family portrait. This townhouse doesn’t have a fireplace, but that hostile picture still has a place of pride, centered above a black leather chaise lounge that looks like a refugee from a therapist’s office.
Fitting.
Next to an end table where I used to set my drink without a coaster, there’s an unfamiliar floor lamp, stainless steel, with a menacing arc, looming over a matched set of club chairs, so tight and sleek it’s impossible to imagine sitting on one. In another corner, placed almost like an afterthought, is an abstract sculpture with angular metal spikes shooting out like an explosion, but without any symmetric beauty.
Everywhere I look, my eyes find something unwelcoming and discordant. No cozy chairs for snuggling up and reading to a child. No personal photos of family time or charming mementos from trips abroad.
That’s the thing that makes this feel like my childhood home. The overwhelming sense that I’m not welcome.
I have to find Ava and get the hell out of here.
In the kitchen, I find a paring knife and tear into the packaging of my newly purchased cell phone, tossing the instructions aside in my haste to plug it in. But I can’t wait for it to charge up or power on. This house is creeping me out.
I call Andrew again from the landline, and again it goes straight to voice mail. The little flutter of anxiety I felt this morning is pounding against my rib cage now, the steady beat of panic.
He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love you.
I run upstairs to my bedroom, dump out all the detritus from my shoulder bag, and pack it lightly with the pair of socks and my wallet. I race back downstairs to check the phone. The battery’s at seventy percent, and that’s good enough. Hello, internet.
I’ll start by finding out where Ava lives now. The last time I saw her, she was in Delaware, but I know she moved. During one of our awkward phone check-ins, my mother let that slip. Something “closer to Glenn’s work.” Translation? The greater DC area.
I type in her full name, then cross-check with Glenn’s, and bingo. There’s an address right here in Arlington. Closer to our parents than I would have guessed. Close enough for me to drop by. And there’s a home number, so hopefully I can make sure the house is empty when I get there.
I am sick of all this drama. The sooner I prove Ava’s alive and well and behind her own “disappearance,” the sooner I can go home.
Of course, I’ll need transportation. After the agony of waiting for an app to install, I find a freelance driver just ten minutes away. While I wait for him to arrive, I call Ava’s home number, but thankfully no one picks up. Either Glenn is not at home or he doesn’t answer calls from numbers he doesn’t know. Either way, I’m going to risk it.
The ride is uneventful, the driver hip and chatty. He doesn’t mind my monosyllabic responses. I’m buzzing with anticipation, the same kind of pre-adrenaline rush I used to get when I snuck out at night. We leave the tidy townhomes that line the streets where my parents live and enter a straight-up suburb. Large homes, but different from the sprawling ones in Texas. These are definitely East Coast homes, Colonials and Victorians and Georgians. And I know that even the deceptively small ones command a high price. This is a neighborhood for politicians and power brokers, bankers and best-selling authors.
I get out on the sidewalk and the car speeds away. Now I am free to stare. Looking at Ava and Glenn’s home, I feel like she’s cheated my expectations again. Ava bought this house after I disappeared, a new house for a new marriage. It should have been a fairy-tale mansion for a modern-day Snow Queen, something imposing and imaginative, entirely unique.
This is just a generically pretty, Victorian-style home with gabled windows and curlicues around the porch. Not old. Not special. It could belong to anyone. In fact, it’s got the same sort of look as all the other houses on the street. Same builder using a master plan, changing it just enough to make each house slightly different from its neighbors.
Like most modern neighborhoods built for a certain income bracket, there’s no sign of life during business hours. Adults are at work, children are at school or day care, it’s very quiet. I’m the only thing that doesn’t belong.
Time to quit stalling. I square my shoulders. Obviously, I can’t just march up the front steps and beat down the door, but I can see if anyone’s home. And if it’s Glenn? That thought doesn’t stop me. I’m not finished trying to persuade him of my innocence, and if that doesn’t work, I’m not finished fighting with him either.
I walk with faux confidence up the front walk, up the three little steps, and rap briskly on the door, my heart booming. Nothing. I press the doorbell, a few seconds longer than usual. I can hear the distant chime, but no other sound. The house is empty.
My first feeling is rising triumph. If the police thought Ava was kidnapped, they’d be monitoring the house or staking it out or something. They must really believe she’s doing this herself. A publicity stunt. Typical Ava Hallett.
Then I get the neck-crawling sensation that someone is watching me, but not from inside the house. I step away from the door and shrug, conscious that I may have an audience, but when I turn around, the streets and yards are still deserted. Each house has windows shaded by white curtains, giving them blank, unassuming gazes.
I don’t waste any more time at the front. I need to shake this feeling. Out here in the open, I’m a mouse in a grassy field with a hawk circling overhead. Walking briskly, like someone with a job to do, I skirt around the corner and down the side of the house, grateful for the size of the yard and the privacy afforded by the lush evergreens planted between Ava’s property and her neighbor’s. In Texas, our yards are divided by pine fences mandated by our HOAs. The trees are prettier, and with a pang I imagine Emma playing like Ava and I used to, using a fallen pine branch as a make-believe broom or filling the lower branches of the trees with our dolls.