CHAPTER FIVE

Abigail Campano felt like her daughter was still alive. Was that possible? Or was she making a connection that wasn’t there, like an amputee who still feels a missing arm or leg long after it’s gone?

If Emma was dead, it was Abigail’s fault. She had taken a life—not just any life, but that of a man who had tried to save her daughter. Adam Humphrey, a stranger to Abigail and Paul, a boy they had never seen or heard of until yesterday, was dead by her own hands. There had to be a price for that. There had to be some sort of justice. If only Abigail could offer herself up to the altar. She would gladly switch places with Emma right now. The torture, the pain, the terror—even the cold embrace of a shallow grave would be better than this constant state of unknowing.

Or would it? What were Kayla’s parents thinking right now? Abigail couldn’t stand the couple, hated their permissiveness and the mouthy daughter it had produced. Emma was certainly no saint, but she had been different before she met Kayla. She had never failed a class or missed a homework assignment or skipped school. And yet, what would Abigail say to the girl’s parents? “Your daughter would still be alive if you had kept her away from mine?”

Or—daughters.

“Our daughters would be alive if you had listened to me.”

Abigail forced herself to move, to try to get out of bed. Except for going to the bathroom, she had lain here for the last eighteen hours. She felt foolish for having to be sedated—some latter-day Aunt Pittypat who felt the vapors coming on. Everyone was being so careful around her. Abigail had not felt so handled in ages. Even her mother had been gentle on the telephone. Beatrice Bentley had lived in Italy since she’d divorced Abigail’s father ten years ago. She was on a plane somewhere over the North Atlantic right now, her beautiful mother rushing to her side.

Adam Humphrey’s parents would be coming, too. What awaited them was not a bedside, but a graveside. What would it feel like to bury your child? How would you feel as the coffin lowered into the earth, the earth covered your baby in darkness?

Abigail often wondered what it would have been like to have a son. Granted, she was an outsider, but mothers and sons seemed to have such uncomplicated relationships. Boys were easy to read. With one glance, you could tell whether they were angry or sad or happy. They appreciated simple things, like pizza and video games, and when they fought with their friends, it was never for blood, or worse, for sport. You never heard about boys writing slam notes or spreading rumors about each other at school. A boy never came home crying because someone called him fat. Well, maybe he did, but his mother could make everything better by stroking his head, baking some cookies. He would not sulk for weeks over the slightest perceived insult.

In Abigail’s experience, women certainly loved their mothers, but there was always some kind of thing that lived between them. Envy? History? Hate? This thing, whatever it was, made girls gravitate toward their fathers. For his part, Hoyt Bentley had relished spoiling his only child. Beatrice, Abigail’s mother, had resented the lost attention. Beautiful women did not like competition, even if it was from their own daughters. To Abigail’s recollection, she was the only thing her parents ever fought about.

“You’ve spoiled her rotten,” Beatrice would scream at Hoyt, her milk-white complexion seeming to take on the green pallor of envy.

In college, Abigail had met a fellow student named Stewart Bradley who, from all appearances, was just the type of man she was meant to marry. He was of the old money stock that her father approved of, and had enough new money to please her mother in the process. Stewart was smart, easygoing and about as interesting as a jar of pickled beets.

Abigail had been ripe for stealing the day she took her BMW into the dealership for servicing. Paul Campano wore a cheap suit that was too tight in the shoulders. He was loud and unpolished and even days later, just thinking about him would bring on a rush of heat straight between her legs. Three weeks later, she gave up the life of Mrs. Pickled Beets and moved in with Paul Campano, an adopted Jew with Italian parents and a chip on his shoulder the size of Rhode Island.

Beatrice didn’t approve, which sealed the deal. Her mother claimed that Paul’s lack of money and family name were not the problem. She saw that there was something deep in Paul that would never be satisfied. Even on Abigail’s wedding day, Beatrice had told her daughter to be careful, that men were selfish creatures at their core, and there were only a handful of them who managed to overcome that natural inclination. Paul Campano, with his pinky ring and hundred-dollar haircut, was not one of them. Hoyt had for all intents and purposes moved in with his mistress by then, and Abigail had assumed that her mother’s warning was the result of her own miserably isolated life.

“Darling,” Beatrice had confided, “you cannot fight a man’s history.”

Undeniably, Abigail and Paul loved each other passionately. He had worshipped her—a role that Abigail, ever the daddy’s girl, was more comfortable with than she wanted to admit. Every new milestone, whether it was becoming manager of the dealership, buying his own franchise, then adding another and another, he would run to her for praise. Her approval meant so much to him that it was almost comical.

There came a time, though, when she got sick of being worshipped, and she saw she was not so much on a pedestal as locked in a fairy-tale tower. Paul really meant it when he said that he wasn’t good enough for her. His self-deprecating jokes that had seemed so charming in the beginning suddenly weren’t so funny. Behind all the bluster and bravado was a need so deep that Abigail wasn’t sure she would ever find the bottom.

Paul’s adoptive parents were lovely people—Marie and Marty were a rare combination of patience and contentment—but years went by before Marie let it slip that Paul had been twelve when he came to live with them. Abigail had had this image in her mind of a perfect, pink baby being delivered straight into Marie’s arms, but the reality of Paul’s adoption was more Dickensian than anyone wanted to admit. Abigail had questions, though no one would answer them. Paul would not open up and his parents obviously felt it would be a betrayal to talk about their son, even if the person asking was his own wife.

The affairs started around that time, or maybe they had been going on all along and she’d just then started to notice. It was so much easier to keep your head in the sand, to maintain the status quo while the world crumbled around you. Why was Abigail surprised by his infidelities? She had taken a different route, but the path she was on already showed the familiar footsteps of her own mother.

At first, Abigail had welcomed the expensive gifts Paul brought back from business trips and conferences. Then she had grown to understand that they were payoffs, get-out-of-guilt free cards that he fanned like a croupier. As the years went by, Abigail’s smile was not so bright, her bed not so welcoming, when he returned from California or Germany with diamond bracelets and gold watches.

So, Paul had started bringing back gifts for Emma. Their daughter had responded as expected to the lavish gifts. Young girls are built to crave attention, and Emma had stepped into the role of daddy’s girl as easily as her mother before her. Paul would give her an iPod or a computer or a car, and she would blissfully throw her arms around his neck while Abigail admonished him about spoiling her.

Abigail’s transformation from her self to her mother was that simple. As with any change, there was revelation. She hated seeing Emma so easily swayed by Paul’s gifts and unconditional love. He saw her as perfect and she returned the favor in spades. Everything was made so easy for his girl. Paul bought Emma out of every bad mood, every sad day. When she lost her English textbook the second day of school, he bought her a new one, no questions asked. When she misplaced her homework or forgot an assignment, he made excuses for her. Whether it was checking the closet for monsters or getting her sold-out concert tickets or making sure she had the latest style of jeans, Paul was there for her. Why would Abigail begrudge this? Shouldn’t a woman be thrilled that her only child was so loved?

No. Sometimes she wanted to grab Emma by the shoulders and shake her, to tell her not to be so reliant on her father, that she needed to learn how to fend for herself. Abigail didn’t want her daughter to grow up thinking that the only way to get anything was through a man. Emma was smart and funny and beautiful and she could have everything she wanted so long as she worked for it. Unfortunately, Paul jumping every time Emma snapped her fingers was too alluring. He had built a world for her where everything was perfect and nothing could go wrong.

Until now.

There was a knock on the door. Abigail realized she was still lying in bed, that she had only imagined that she’d managed to sit up. She moved her arms and legs to see if she could feel them.

“Abby?” Paul looked exhausted. He hadn’t shaved. His lips were chapped. His eyes were sunken in his head. She had slapped him last night—her hand stinging against his cheek. Until yesterday, Abigail had never raised her hand to another human being in her life. Now, in the course of twenty-four hours, she had killed a teenage boy and slapped her own husband.

Paul had told her that if they hadn’t taken away Emma’s car, she might be safe now. Maybe men were not so easy, after all.

He said, “No news yet.”

She knew this just from looking at him.

“Your mom’s flight is gonna be in around three. Okay?”

She swallowed, her throat dry. She had cried so much that she didn’t have any tears left. The words came out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying. “Where’s my father?”

Paul seemed disappointed that she asked for someone else. “He went out to get some coffee.”

She didn’t believe him. Her father didn’t go out to get coffee. He had people who did those kinds of things for him.

“Babe,” Paul said, but there was nothing else. She could feel the need in him, but Abigail was numb. Still, he came into the room, sat by her on the bed. “We’ll get through this.”

“What if we don’t?” she asked, her voice sounding dead in her own ears. “What if we can’t get through this, Paul?”

Tears came into his eyes. He had always been an easy crier. Emma had worked him so easily with the car. When they’d told her they were taking it away from her, she had screamed, thrown a tantrum. “I hate you!” she had yelled, first at Abigail, then at Paul. “I hate your guts!” He had stood there with his mouth open long after his little angel had flounced out of the room.

Now, Abigail asked the question that had been on her mind all night. “Paul, tell me. Did you do something … did you make somebody …” Abigail tried to get her thoughts together. Everything was rushing in on her. “Paul, did you piss somebody off? Is that why she was taken?”

He looked as if she had spat on him. “Of course not,” he whispered, his voice raspy. “Do you think I would keep that from you? Do you think I’d be sitting on my hands like this if I knew who had taken our baby?”

She felt awful, but deep down she also felt some kind of vindication that she had hurt him so easily.

“That woman I was with … I shouldn’t have done it, Abby. I don’t know why I did. She didn’t mean anything, babe. I just … needed.”

He didn’t say what he needed. They both knew the answer to that: he needed everything.

She asked, “Tell me the truth. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s talking to some people.”

“We’ve got half the police department in the house and the rest of them a phone call away. Who’s he talking to?”

“Private security. They’ve handled things for him before.”

“Does he know who did this? Is there someone who’s trying to get back at him for something?”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t know, babe. Your dad doesn’t exactly confide in me. I think he’s right not to leave this to the GBI.”

“That one cop seemed like he knew what he was doing.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t trust that freak cocksucker as far as I could throw him.”

His words were so sharp that she didn’t know how to respond.

“I should’ve never said that to you about the car,” he whispered. “It had nothing to do with the car. She just … She didn’t listen. You were right. I should’ve been tougher on her. I should have been her father instead of her friend.”

How long had she waited for him to see this? And now, it meant nothing. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I want her back so bad, Abby. I want another chance to do everything right.” His shoulders shook as he cried. “You and Emma are my world. I’ve built my whole life around both of you. I don’t think I could live with myself if something … if something happened.”

Abigail sat up, cupping her hands around his face. He leaned into her and she kissed his neck, his cheek, his lips. When he gently pushed her back onto the bed, she didn’t protest. There was no passion, no desire except for release. This was simply the only way they had left to console each other.