Imani didn’t want to see it. She sat in her office, laptop balanced atop her thighs, staring at the cursor hovering above a link promising to take her to Nate’s dead body. Once she clicked, there’d be no going back. No unseeing the exploded brains of a man with whom she’d shared food and drink while chatting about politics, parenting, and myriad other subjects. No forgetting that every individual—even those in possession of unique intelligence, beauty, or strength—was just another animal, an assemblage of muscle, sinew, and fats laced together by an electrical system. A machine that could be instantaneously reduced to parts.
Still, there was a reason why people had open-casket funerals. Without seeing a body, it was easy to treat any death like a dream, to convince the part of oneself responsible for action that none was needed. The dead disappeared from view and could be assumed to be off doing whatever they did when alive and out of sight. There was no need to mourn. No need to fight.
Imani was losing her sense of urgency to find Melissa. It had been nearly a week since she’d spoken to the lawyer who’d suggested that her friend was guilty, days since Imani had reached out to Melissa’s suspected boyfriend or learned that Nate had paid for Layla’s school—a fact that Philip had apparently followed up on and insisted was nothing more than Nate doing a solid for a struggling actress. At Philip’s request, Imani hadn’t brought up Nate with Tonya herself. Their renter’s acting career was a sore spot, according to her husband. In the interest of everyone living peaceably, Philip thought Imani should forget about it.
But she couldn’t forget Melissa. When Imani closed her eyes, she could see Melissa stifling laughter and expressing sympathy, holding her hand or tearily cradling Jay, tipsily pulling her into the center of a living room to dance during a cocktail party or whispering to her on a playground bench about school gossip. She saw a montage of a friendship, regardless of whether Melissa had shared her secrets. She saw a life shared.
So she needed to see how Nate had died. She needed to see what Melissa had faced before running away—or being taken.
Imani clicked the link. A notice appeared asking if she was certain that she wished to leave the New York Post’s site and the page featuring a flowery article about Nate’s career, peppered with praise from film critics and high-powered producers. Imani selected yes and held her breath.
Her screen flashed white. Rather than a web page, a red message appeared in the center of the screen. “This site contains malware,” it warned. “Attackers on your…”
Imani closed the site and opened a web search page. Something like Nate’s crime scene photos would go viral. Screenshots were bound to be on someone’s page.
True-crime blogs delivered. Imani clicked on the first one and leaned into her screen.
The hunt for the images had made her forget the graphic nature of what she was searching for. As a result, she wasn’t prepared for the blood or the body. She gagged as she took in the horrific mess replacing Nate’s face. It had been blown off at close range, apparently. Bullets that entered from afar made neat holes—or so she’d gleaned from horror movies.
Without an intact visage, it was almost possible for Imani to convince herself that the body hadn’t actually belonged to Melissa’s husband. Almost. The room was obviously Nate’s den. Imani had hung out there often, especially when the kids had been young. She and Melissa had made a habit of eating together Thursdays or Fridays, sometimes at Philip’s restaurant, more often at a cheap pizza joint, and then tucking all the kids to bed—pulling out a trundle in Ava’s room for Vivienne and blowing up an air mattress in the playroom for Jay—before sneaking several flights downstairs for adult conversation and cocktails. Nate would join them after returning from his latest networking dinner. Philip would appear as soon as his shift ended, usually with a nice bottle of scotch or wine to thank the Walkers for their frequent hosting.
Imani examined the photo for clues pointing to Melissa’s culpability. Scattered books that her friend might have tossed in an uncharacteristic rage. Furniture overturned during a desperate escape from a drunken husband waving a gun in the midst of an unexpected breakdown. A hastily scrawled, faux suicide note in Melissa’s loopy handwriting.
Besides the body, all Imani saw was a desk with an open drawer, a bottle of Bushmills, and a heavy scotch glass. Nate, no doubt, had the same quarantine wind-down routine as Philip. Grab a whiskey. Sip while reading or watching television. If still unable to sleep, repeat.
Imani zoomed in. The desk appeared to have a condensation ring. Nate’s own glass could have formed the mark before being moved. But it also could have been left by another vessel, the glass of whoever he’d been drinking with. Melissa was not a whiskey fan. “Motor oil by any other name is still motor oil,” she’d joked once, bastardizing Shakespeare. “It goes down the same.”
Imani saved the photo to her desktop. She then leaned back into her Eames lounger and closed her eyes, trying to insert her friend into the image on her computer. She pictured Melissa and Nate in some drama-worthy lovers’ quarrel, perhaps over Melissa’s online love affair. She imagined Melissa holding the gun—a gift from a director who’d thought Melissa the rightful owner of the weapon that her character had shot over and over in a blind rage. She imagined Melissa firing at Nate, playing out one of her unhinged roles. And then…
Imani could see Melissa calling the cops. She could picture Melissa phoning her with news of a terrible accident and asking that Ava be allowed to stay over. If Imani forced the rational woman whom she knew into a state of absolute state of panic, she could even envision a scenario where Melissa absconded with her daughter. But there was no way that she could fit Melissa into a narrative that had her leaving her kid inside to stumble upon her dad’s dead body.
She opened her eyes, switching her view from the laptop to her phone. Her last Instagram message to MickyKline_Drinks still sat at the top of the list. Unanswered. She typed out another message.
“I’m not trying to get you in trouble,” she wrote. “I truly believe my friend is in danger and the police aren’t looking for her properly because they’re busy concentrating on your relationship with her. You not responding makes it appear that either you and Melissa planned something together or you have her.”
Imani sent the message and then stared at its appearance in the one-on-one conversation that she was having with herself. He’d never answer back, she thought. Her stomach twisted as she had an even worse realization: knowing the police were on his tail might push him to do something drastic.
Her vision began to blur. Reaching out had been stupid and ill thought out, the act of a desperate friend rather than a methodical detective or even an experienced therapist. She hadn’t given enough consideration to how an obsessed kidnapper might respond to knowledge that the police were on his tail. Philip was right. She shouldn’t be playing detective. She might have made things so much worse.
A sharp ding caused the tears to freeze. There, on her screen, was a message from MickyKline_Drinks. Imani frantically opened it.
“I had nothing to do with Melissa Walker’s disappearance. Her husband was a bad guy. We can meet. I’ll tell you what I told her.”
All of her earlier caution vanished. Imani started typing. “Just tell me when and where.”