Chapter Seventeen

when you’re in a relationship, life becomes easier in ways that seem small at first, and gradually become significant. Take the Monday-morning-in-the-office dance. When a colleague asks about your weekend, and you’re single, it’s a scramble to come up with the right answers. You have to look busy, with friends and meals and interesting activities, like rooftop yoga and wine tastings. It isn’t acceptable to do nothing multiple weekends in a row, unless there’s a hurricane or a blizzard. If you’re ambitious in New York, ambition doesn’t end when the week does.

But with Oliver, weekends took care of themselves. We went out to dinner, to museums, to Broadway and off-Broadway performances. Oliver was lobbying for a position on the board of Lincoln Center—at thirty he was young for it, but that didn’t stop him—and along with his sizable donations came a subscription to the ballet and the opera. His enthusiasm was both broad and intense, and it was easy to go along for the ride.

“Do you have plans on Tuesday night?” Oliver said, opening a bottle of wine while I cooked dinner. When he finished pouring the wine into my glass, he twisted the bottle so the liquid wouldn’t drip down the neck. I’d noticed that if a waiter failed to perform this maneuver, Oliver would frown, and leave a bad tip.

“Other than work, you mean?” I reached for the glass, but he stopped me.

“It needs to breathe,” he said. “There’s a new show opening at the Public. You can take the night off, can’t you?”

“I can’t. You know what my schedule is like.”

He laughed flatly. “You must really love your job.”

I looked up from the shallot, which was turning into a fine dice with the help of the expensive chef’s knife I’d bought after my most recent promotion and raise. “Once upon a time,” I said, “you thought my job was fascinating.”

Oliver wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. “I still think that,” he said. “But am I not allowed to resent it for taking away the woman I adore?”

“Nope,” I said, resuming the chopping. “We’re a package deal. Can you get the water started? The big pot, under the counter. Lots of salt.”

“When was the last time you took a vacation?” Oliver said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s not a great time. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and—”

He held up a hand. “A long weekend, then. Can’t they spare you for a few days?”

“I guess so.” The olive oil in the cast-iron pan was sizzling by now, and I dropped the shallots in. After they turned soft and golden, I’d add diced tomatoes. The meal was simple—pasta, salad—but Oliver was impressed by whatever I cooked. He liked to brag about this to his friends. I cooked, and I worked, and I was from real America, not a born-and-bred New Yorker. In other words, I was nothing like the kind of woman that a man like him tended to date.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything. You can try the wine now, if you like.”

 

The police were cautioning the Bradleys against hope. By now they assumed Stella was likely dead, but with no body and no weapon—and no sign of the boat—the leads were scarce.

At KCN, without new information to fan the flames, the gossip had finally died down. My visitors and lunch invitations slowed to a trickle. People are scared of loss. They’d rather say nothing than risk saying the wrong thing. This wasn’t fun for them anymore.

Occasionally Eliza would call me into her office, close the door, and express concern. Was I taking care of myself? Did I have someone to talk to? I always answered by saying that work was a good distraction. When I finally asked for a day off, Eliza smiled gently. “Good,” she said. “You need a break.”

Oliver and I drove out to Long Island on a Thursday night in early April. It was late when we arrived at the hotel—a small place in East Hampton, gray shingles and white trim and green lawn. A woman appeared at the sound of our knock and showed us to our room.

“Special occasion?” she asked.

“It’s our four-month anniversary,” Oliver said.

After she left and closed the door, I said, “It is?”

But Oliver was already in the bathroom, turning on the faucet in the clawfoot tub. He held his hand under the stream of water, adjusting the knobs. “Let’s take a bath,” he said. He shucked off his shoes, started unbuttoning his shirt.

When the tub was full, soft drifts of jasmine-scented bubbles on the surface, I undressed and slid into the water. It was almost too hot, but the pain released its grip in a few seconds. “I didn’t realize you were keeping track,” I said, settling into the tub’s curved back, closing my eyes against the flickering candles around the edge.

“What kind of a boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?” Oliver said.

Checklists were Oliver’s way. Expensive hotel, bubble bath, candles—and I could bet there’d be champagne and oysters later this weekend. His predictability was a pleasant change after Stella. After a moment, I opened my eyes. Oliver, in his bathrobe, was sitting on a stool and gazing at me. “Aren’t you getting in?” I said.

“I’m savoring this moment.” He smiled.

“You’re sweet, Ollie,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh—God, sorry. I’m sorry. I forgot you don’t like that nickname.”

“I hate it,” he said, teeth bared. He stood up and walked out. From the bedroom came the blaring sound of the TV, much louder than it needed to be.

“I’m sorry,” I called out. “Oliver. I’m really sorry.”

When he came back several minutes later, his face was dark. He stood with his arms crossed, towering above me. “You realize that she was the only one who ever called me that?”

“Who was? Stella?”

“She knew how much I hated it. She relished saying it, just to drive me crazy. And look—now she has you saying it, too.”

“It was a stupid slip. It won’t happen again.”

“You know, Violet, sometimes I look at you”—he gestured at the tub, and I became hyperaware of my naked body—“and all I can see are the ways in which she left her mark.”

“She was my best friend,” I said. “Of course she rubbed off on me.”

“You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?”

“We’re talking about her, Oliver.”

“This was supposed to be a nice weekend. A getaway.”

“It is, it’s—”

“Not when it’s all about Stella,” he said coldly.

A draft came from the open door. In the guttering candlelight, the hollows and shadows of Oliver’s face stretched and retracted like a yo-yo. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Violet. But my whole life, she’s been the center of attention. After she disappeared, I thought this was the silver lining.”

My heart was thudding faster. My face flushed, pricking into sweat. “This?”

“This,” he said, smiling. “Us. Finally getting free from her.”

I felt light-headed. A laugh track from the sitcom on TV, loud and false, echoed off the hard tile walls.

“I’m turning into a prune,” I said. “Pass me that towel?”

I was aware of Oliver’s gaze tracking me as I stood up, the water sucking at my limbs. I wrapped myself tightly in the towel, but he stood in the door to the bedroom, blocking my way.

I shivered. “I need to get some clothes on.”

“You loved her, didn’t you?” he said, gazing at me.

“Are we still talking about this?” I tried to get past him, but he shifted in response.

“Please answer the question,” he said firmly.

I stopped. Looked up, and stared him right in the eye. “Of course I loved her.”

“But you love me more.” It was a statement, not a question. His words hung in the air for a long beat. Oliver took a step closer, and ran his hands down my bare arms. I let the towel drop to the floor.

After we had sex—good sex, charged and sparking—and I went into the bathroom to pee, the candles around the tub had extinguished down to waxy stubs. Only one was still burning, a tiny flame dancing above a pool of clear wax. A romantic prop that had outlived its moment. I licked my fingers and pinched it out with a small hiss.

  

When I woke up the next morning, the bed was empty. Oliver’s note said he had gone downstairs for breakfast.

“You’ll love this place,” Oliver had said, on the drive out from the city. “It’s known for its food.” He thought a love of fancy cuisine had to accompany my love of cooking. He tried so hard, paying attention to every little detail. But I was the last person who could fault him for that.

“There you are,” he said, when I came into the dining room. There was a fire crackling in the fireplace, the smell of wood smoke and coffee in the air. The table was covered with plates of fruit, a basket of bread and pastries, several newspapers. Oliver had already worked his way to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.

“What’s our plan for the day?” I said. The bread was dense with raisins and pecans, the bright yellow butter dotted with flakes of salt. It was, I’d admit, delicious.

“I have a tee time at Maidstone. Do you want to use the spa this afternoon? And we could walk on the beach before lunch.”

“Sounds nice,” I said.

The warped intensity of the night before was gone. Instead, it was like Oliver and I were reading from a script, a performance of normalcy. Our words sounded so rote, so trite. I felt detached from the scene, watching from above and wondering, is this really how couples talk? Could two idiosyncratic, complicated people really be reduced to these clichéd exchanges? The man on the golf course, the woman at the spa. But maybe this was just what it was like to be in a relationship. How would I know?

  

I was reading a novel from the free shelf at work—publishers sent everything to us, even though the only authors we ever had on Frontline were politicians hawking their campaign books—when my phone started to buzz. “Do you need to take that?” the pedicurist said, already rising from her stool.

This wasn’t one of those spas with hushed voices and silenced cellphones. They knew the reality of their clientele. How much work had been conducted from this very chair, by New Yorkers pretending to take vacation but really just relocating their career-focused selves a hundred miles east? Negotiations, conference calls, divorce settlements, you name it.

“It’s fine,” I said, gesturing at the frightened-looking woman to sit down. She probably had PTSD from previous clients. “Just a few e-mails. No problem.”

A tornado had ripped across Kansas the night before, and Rebecca was going to anchor from the scene for tonight’s broadcast. The rundown was being scrapped as a result, including a story I had worked on. It was one of those Community Cares segments, a feel-good story about a New Jersey mother with an autistic toddler who had formed a support group for other parents like her. She was genuinely lovely, and shy, and hadn’t wanted the publicity. I had to twist her arm to allow a camera crew into the support group. Now I’d have to call and tell her the segment had been bumped. And by bumped, I mean it would never air, but I wouldn’t say that.

“I have to make a quick call,” I said to the pedicurist. “But you can stay.”

She nodded, and continued applying polish to my toenails, wearing that expression that so many waiters and taxi drivers and housekeepers and executive assistants have managed to perfect—those whose job it is to pretend they have gone temporarily deaf.

After making the phone call and answering several e-mails, my mood improved. I didn’t feel like myself if I wasn’t working. I tried to explain this to Oliver at lunch—a luxurious lunch with wine and oysters, check and check—when he looked at me crossly for responding to e-mails between the appetizer and the entrée. He had taken the day off; why couldn’t I?

See, the things that Oliver liked about me now were the things that would eventually have to disappear, if we stayed together. That’s how it was done, in his world. He wanted to be the kind of man, he thought he was the kind of man, who was progressive and modern and supportive of his ambitious partner. But he also lived in a world of definite rules. After marriage, the women gave up their high-powered jobs. They hired caterers for the dinner parties they were expected to host. Society absorbed them. It was forgotten that they had ever lived anywhere that wasn’t New York. This weekend felt like an audition for that role. The woman painting my toenails had no idea that I’d grown up in the cruddiest town in Florida.

Oliver wanted to go for a drink before dinner, at a place in Sag Harbor that made the best martini on the East End. This wasn’t just his opinion; the New York Times had declared it so. He treated culture like big-game hunting, bagging specific items for his collection. But when we got there, the door was locked and there was a sign in the window: CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS. REOPENING ON MEMORIAL DAY.

“Damn it,” Oliver said. “I wanted you to see this place.”

“Should we head straight to dinner?”

Oliver looked at his watch. “But our reservation isn’t until 7. This is so frustrating.” He frowned, and glanced down the street. Summer was several weeks away, and the town was quiet. He said, “There. I guess we can get a drink there instead.”

The bar was on the next block. It was shabby but comfortable, neon signs in the window and TVs behind the bar tuned to a basketball game. We took a table in the corner, the legs uneven and rickety, the surface sticky with spilled beer.

“Well.” Oliver looked annoyed. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”

“You know, it’s the weirdest thing,” I said. “This place feels familiar.”

Oliver arched an eyebrow. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve never even been to Sag Harbor.”

Our conversation was stilted and stiff, a hangover from our lunchtime bickering. We made our drinks last, the melted ice turning them watery, Oliver checking his watch every few minutes. Whenever the Knicks scored, and the men at the bar erupted in cheers, he startled.

Finally, it was time to leave. Oliver paid the bill and I lingered in the restroom, smoothing my hair and reapplying my lipstick. Dating Oliver initially felt like payback. Stella had taken over my turf—well, I could take over hers, too. And he reminded me of her in certain comforting ways. But sometimes I thought, what am I doing? Oliver thought he had finally found someone who preferred him to Stella. But that’s ultimately where the problem lay. Oliver wasn’t an adequate replacement for Stella; I’d never love him the way I loved her.

I left the restroom and saw Oliver outside, hands shoved in his pockets and jacket collar turned up against the springtime chill. At the door, I glanced back one more time. That’s when I spotted the man clearing the empty glasses from our table. Rolled-up sleeves, tattooed forearms, bar towel tucked in his back pocket.

He saw me at the same moment I saw him. Then, suddenly, I put it together.

“Stella?” he said, stepping closer. “It’s Stella, right?”

“I—uh, I’m not sure—”

“I remember you.” He smiled. “It was, what, three or four years ago? You came into the bar over in East Hampton.”

My mouth opened and closed without making a sound.

“Don’t you remember me? I’m Kyle. We, uh, you know.” He blushed. “I always wondered if I’d run into you again. And here you are. Stella. You don’t forget a name like that.”

“I think you have the wrong person,” I finally said. Outside, Oliver was glancing over his shoulder, looking impatient. “I’m sorry. I have to get going.”

“Wait!” he said. “You’re making me feel crazy. You really don’t remember?”

“I just—sorry. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I could feel Kyle’s eyes following me as I walked away. I had to grip the doorknob hard to keep my hand from shaking.

 

The world is a place of brutal chaos, which is what makes it so easy for a crime to remain unsolved. If the criminal has done an adequate job of erasure, the world will supply infinite explanations to fill the vacuum. What happens to the missing woman? Maybe she has a psychotic break and slips away from her life in the middle of the night. Or she crosses the road at the wrong time and is hit by a car. Or a man kidnaps her and takes her prisoner.

This is why, from the very beginning, I knew my plan would work. Stella, who blazed through life with equal parts dazzle and risk, supplied enough material for dozens of theories. She was part of that sisterhood of glamorous women who met untimely ends, the Diana Spencers and Grace Kellys and Marilyn Monroes of the world. No one would say it out loud, because it reeked of victim-blaming, but I’m certain there were people who looked at Stella Bradley’s story and thought, that girl was always trouble. A sickening thought pattern, but for my plan to work, I had to take advantage of it.

Because when you have a woman like that at the center of the story—beautiful, wild, trouble—then who bothers to look very closely at the peripheries of her life? Suspicion sweeps through the darkness like a lighthouse, illuminating the ex-boyfriend or the town loner, but it doesn’t linger for long. Especially not on those who are quiet and ordinary, whose very faces indicate their forgettability. Who, as Thoreau would put it, will go to the grave with their song still in them.

A person, in other words, like me.

As we drove back to East Hampton, I kept my eyes fixed on the road. Oliver was talking but I wasn’t listening. That night with Kyle—it would be four years ago in November—that night when I used Stella’s name, it had imparted a kind of magical confidence boost. It made me bigger and brighter. More memorable than I’d ever been. It turned out it was easy to become a completely different kind of person. How much had I told him, those years ago? Had I given him a last name? This was a risk I hadn’t foreseen. A chink in the armor.

“Stella used to come out here a lot,” Oliver said. I snapped back to attention. “A friend of hers had a house on Georgica Pond. Did you ever go there?”

He glanced over at me. “I don’t mean to dredge up old memories,” he said. “But this drive always reminds me of her.”

There was a sign on the side of the road, reflective white letters on green paint. We zipped past it. “What did that say?” I asked, certain I hadn’t read it correctly.

“Oh.” Oliver smiled. “The name of the road. Around here it’s called Lost at Sea Memorial Pike. Isn’t that poetic?”

My stomach gave a painful lurch. “Can you pull over?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oliver,” I said. “Please.”

The car hadn’t even come to a stop when I opened the door and hurled the contents of my stomach onto the gravel shoulder. The waves kept coming, even when there was nothing left to expel. I spat and coughed the bitter bile from my mouth.

Lost at Sea. I closed my eyes and saw Stella: her eyes vacant and her mouth agape, her hair floating loose in the dark ocean water as her dead weight tugged her deeper.

Guilt wasn’t as simple as you might believe. It wasn’t remorse or regret. It wasn’t a desire to go back in time and do things differently. It was walking around with knowledge that you alone possessed. Knowledge that takes up more space because there’s no one to share it with. In its specificity, in its intricacy, in its persistent details—the sloshing of the waves, the dark smear of blood, the coin-like moon—the truth weighed more than a hundred theories combined.

 

“Did you hear about the shake-up?”

It was rare that Jamie beat me into the office, but Oliver and I had driven back that Monday morning, to extend the weekend. Jamie watched me drop the duffel bag to the floor and kick it under my desk. “How was the Hamptons?” he said.

“Fine. Too cold to swim. What’s the shake-up?”

“They want fresh faces. Out with the old, in with the new!” Jamie spread his arms wide in punctuation. Then he grimaced. “Guess how many times I’ve heard that line.”

“What does this actually mean?”

“It means they fired a bunch of people because they were getting bad ratings. They’re revamping the nine o’clock and ten o’clock hours, and the Sunday morning show, too.”

“Bill of Rights? I kind of like it the way it is.”

“At least we’ll be rid of that terrible name.” Jamie shook his head. “Fire the anchor named Bill and you can’t really call it that, can you? That’s the biggest change. New studio, new anchor, whole new staff. Bill’s EP was fired, too.”

My computer booted up, and I opened my e-mail. I was happy to be back to work. Even being out for one day on Friday felt funny. I could keep track of the action, the e-mails and texts flying back and forth, but I couldn’t be a part of it. Not really. The important stuff happened face-to-face.

Case in point: Eliza and Rebecca, standing in a corner of the newsroom. The expression on Eliza’s face was slightly grim. In theory, Frontline had nothing to worry about during this shake-up. Our ratings had been rock-solid since the Danner special. Rebecca was the critical darling of KCN, and the cash cow to boot. But change was always dicey. What if the new 9 o’clock anchor was a star, and they decided to groom him or her to take Rebecca’s place? The shoddy state of 9 o’clock and 10 o’clock wasn’t of concern to Rebecca or Eliza. In fact, the worse everyone else was, the better we looked. Frontline generated the lead-in that pushed a healthy audience into subsequent hours. As long as we were the best, the executives couldn’t touch us.

Rebecca and Eliza and Ginny: an outsider might think they were on the same team, but their goals were often at odds. If Rebecca and Eliza wanted a moat of mediocrity around the shining example of Frontline, Ginny wanted the opposite. It was her job to make sure that KCN was the best—or at least competently good—in every hour. I always thought of Ginny as the referee between the high-strung personalities in the newsroom. But who would be the referee if it came down to Rebecca versus Ginny?

Later that day, as we emerged from our afternoon rundown meeting, I saw Ginny waiting for Eliza. The printer was conveniently located near Eliza’s office. I lingered over it, pretending to examine some papers while the two of them talked.

“We’re down to a few finalists, and I’d like your opinion,” Ginny said.

“Does it really matter?” Eliza said. “I won’t be working with them.”

“Of course it matters.” Ginny sounded irritated. “And you may very well be. They could wind up filling in when Rebecca’s on vacation.”

“Well, don’t tell her that. She’ll have a fit.”

“Don’t coddle her, Eliza. She knows the reality. I’d like her to meet the candidates, too.”

  

The next morning, Ginny brought the first person to the newsroom. This woman was in her late thirties, had ditched law school for journalism school, was currently a reporter for a network affiliate in Washington. She was pretty, although she wasn’t doing herself any favors with her chunky heels and polyester skirt-suit. I watched Rebecca give her a quick up-and-down glance and mouth “No way” at Eliza. What made that woman so appealing to Ginny was also what made her problematic to Rebecca. The raw potential: she was intelligent and authentic, just waiting for a professional to cut and polish her skills. But there was only room for one smart and attractive brunette in prime time.

Ginny returned an hour later. The next candidate was a man. I glimpsed him from behind before he went into Rebecca’s office. He was tall, with a deep voice and an evident comfort; he had taken off his suit jacket, draped it over one arm. From Rebecca’s office came his booming laugh.

That laugh. That’s what did it for me.

When he and Ginny left Rebecca’s office, I stood up from my desk. He caught my eye, and his smile dropped away. Confusion replaced it, and then delight. “Just a second,” he said, touching Ginny on the arm and walking toward me.

“Corey Molina,” I said.

He smiled. “Violet Trapp.”

When I was in high school, Corey had seemed like such a grown-up. But he had been just a kid back then, an overcaffeinated stick figure in a baggy suit. Now, when he hugged me, I felt his broad back muscles straining beneath his shirt. His face was tanned, his hair salted with strands of silver. He’d gotten better with age.

“This is so weird,” he said.

I laughed. “Tell me about it.”

“Not often you see someone from our neck of the woods in Manhattan, huh?”

“I’m sorry to break up this little reunion,” Ginny interjected with a brittle smile. “But I have to get Mr. Molina to our next meeting.”

Corey’s gaze flicked between Ginny and me, sizing up the dynamic. “Of course. Just had to say hello to an old friend.” Before he followed Ginny to the elevator, he murmured, “I’ll send you an e-mail, okay?”

“You know him?” Rebecca said, after they walked away.

“His wife was my history teacher in high school. He worked for the CBS affiliate in Tallahassee. Small world.”

“Ex-wife,” Rebecca said.

“What?”

“No wedding ring.”

“I didn’t even notice.”

She shrugged. “I meet a guy who looks like that, that’s where my eye goes.”

I laughed. “And how does Mr. Rebecca Carter feel about this tendency?”

“You’re funny, kid. Number one, you don’t get to talk until you’ve been married a hundred years like me. Number two, it’s an old habit. Waitressing, I learned to check.”

“The single guys tipped better?”

“Nope. The married guys who wanted to pretend to be single for the night. Eliza!” Rebecca shouted across the newsroom. “So what did you think?”

“He looks the part,” Eliza said. “I don’t know. Six out of ten.”

“Tough crowd,” Rebecca said. “Violet here can vouch for him.”

“Really?” Eliza cocked an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“Let’s do this over lunch,” Rebecca said. “My date canceled and there’s a table at Michael’s with my name on it. You’re coming with us, Violet. We want the gossip.”

  

When I got back from lunch, there was an e-mail from Corey waiting in my in-box.

Dinner on Friday? the subject line said. In the body of the e-mail: I’m new here, so you name the time and place, city slicker.

  

As the week crept by, my initial reaction to seeing Kyle—tremors, vomiting—seemed overblown. Each passing day was a step toward freedom. By Tuesday he would have said something, surely. By Wednesday I was almost starting to relax. And then, on Thursday morning, Anne called.

“Someone saw her,” she said, before I could even say hello. “Some bartender on Long Island. Walter is driving out right now, to talk to him.”

“Wow,” I managed to say.

“I’m running to catch a flight home.” She sounded breathless. Behind her was the babble of an airport announcement in another language. Italian, or maybe Spanish. “You and Oliver should plan to come up tomorrow morning. We need a family meeting right away.”

“Of course.” I squeezed my eyes closed, took a deep breath.

“Oh, God, Violet. I knew she was alive. I knew it.”

Oliver was spending the night at the apartment. Around midnight, he switched off the TV and stood up from the couch. “Aren’t you coming to bed?” he asked.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” I said. My mind was spinning through the same frantic loop. What would Kyle say? If they put it together, my borrowing Stella’s name so many years ago, how bad would that look? I reached for the remote and flicked the TV back on. I found it soothing, the blare and repetition of news and commercials, news and commercials.

Oliver looked at me like I was a simpleton. “The police get these bogus tips all the time. Walter probably only brought this up because he’s trying to justify his salary.”

“That’s pretty cynical.”

“My sister is gone, Violet. Whatever happened happened.” He yawned, stretching his arms above his head. Oliver was truly a sociopath. “Don’t let this get to you.”

  

Fazio was stuck in traffic and running late. The wait was excruciating: Thomas and Oliver talking stiffly about work and Thomas’s preparations for Everest, and Anne chattering about her travels, the times she was certain she had spotted Stella, only to realize it was someone else, which made sense now, given that Stella was on Long Island. Ginny nodded and held Anne’s hand, glancing over at me several times, skeptically. My pale exhaustion must have been obvious, even with concealer and blush.

Anne liked having Ginny there. She filled the role Anne was no longer capable of filling: the levelheaded woman, the person who kept track of the details. When Fazio arrived, Ginny answered the door, took his coat, offered him coffee. Anne herself was nothing but nerves, crossed legs jiggling as the detective took his seat.

“I talked to this young man last night,” Fazio said. “The bartender who claims he saw Stella. He says he first met her over three years ago, and recognized her as she was leaving the bar last Friday night. It took him a few days to put together that this was the same person he’d been hearing about in the news.”

He paused. “I hesitated to bring this up. I’m afraid this might not get us anywhere. But it’s been a while since we had a fresh lead, and I know you like to be kept in the loop.”

“Of course, of course,” Anne said, nodding vigorously. She had been calling Fazio every day for updates. Oliver looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, here’s the catch,” Fazio said. “The bartender says she didn’t look like the picture on the news. Similar, but not the same. She didn’t answer to the name Stella when he approached her, and then she left the bar abruptly. I asked him if he was certain this was the same person. He said it could be, accounting for the makeup that TV people wear.”

“And where precisely was this, Mr. Fazio?” Ginny said.

“In Sag Harbor. At a bar called the East End Tavern.”

“That’s where we were on Friday,” Oliver said.

“What?” Anne said.

“Violet and I,” Oliver said calmly. Across the room, Ginny’s eyebrows shot up. “We had a drink before dinner. The American is under renovation right now, which is too bad. But if Stella was there, she was doing a good job hiding. We must have been there for, what, Violet, an hour? Right around the time this man claims to have seen her.”

“Was there a security camera?” Ginny asked.

“No,” Fazio said. I felt a ping of relief.

“This cannot be a coincidence,” Anne said. “Stella appearing at the same bar as Oliver and Violet? She’s getting ready to come home, isn’t she? Maybe she’s been watching us! Doesn’t that make sense?”

Anne’s eyes were wild with hope and pain, looking for someone to agree with her theory. “Well?” she said, when the five of us remained silent. “She wants to see how we’re doing, doesn’t she? She misses us. She wants to be with her family.”

“Anne,” Ginny said quietly, taking her hand again.

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Bradley, I think this guy may be another crank,” Fazio said. “I was hopeful at first, too. He seemed certain. But maybe he recognized Oliver from the news. Or maybe he overheard them talking about Stella. He figured this was his chance for attention. And Oliver and Violet being at the same bar that night would give his story some credibility.”

“No,” Anne said. “No. I don’t get it. Why would he do that?”

“In a case like this, you get a lot of bad tips. We’ve had them from the beginning.”

“Should we talk to him?” Thomas said. “See if anything he says rings a bell?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Bradley, I spent several hours questioning him. I can show you the footage of the interview, if you’d like. And he’s been in for larceny, breaking and entering, a DUI. He’s behind on his alimony. I suspect this is a scheme to make money.”

The tattoos on Kyle’s forearms. The soft eyes, concealing some long-ago mistake. He was a kind man, an honest man, but certain things are held against you forever.

“So, what? We just ignore this?” Anne said. “We haven’t made any progress?”

“Mom,” Oliver said. “Calm down. You’re making yourself hysterical.”

“Don’t you condescend to me,” she snapped. “What the hell is wrong with all of you? Why don’t you care?”

I felt nauseous. I had thought Anne might react to Stella’s disappearance like before, with a cool and correct bearing. But in these months without closure, the raw pain had transformed her. Her color was high. Her hair was long and her skin tanned. She looked younger, inflamed with purpose. Her old armor of cashmere and pearls and La Mer had concealed the resemblance. But with that discarded, it was staggering.

She looked just like her daughter.

Thomas’s eyes brimmed with tears as he watched his wife snatch up her purse and car keys. Oliver was staring at the floor. Ginny hovered behind Anne, murmuring softly. But Anne refused to be consoled. The pain hadn’t lessened as the months went by. Now it was springtime. The air softening, the trees shimmering with green. The world was renewing itself, but Stella was still gone. Anne shook her head and said, “This is useless. If you won’t look for her”—she pointed at Fazio, then Thomas, then Oliver—“then I’ll just keep doing it myself.”

  

In the silence after Anne slammed the front door, Thomas retreated to his study. Ginny hugged Oliver goodbye. “I’m sorry about your mother,” she said quietly. “We’re going to make this right.” She stepped back, then she gave me a cold stare.

After Ginny left, Oliver shook his head. “I knew it was nothing.” He sighed. “What a waste of time. Should we head back to the city?”

But as we were gathering our coats, Fazio appeared in the foyer. He cleared his throat. “Miss Trapp, could I speak to you for a minute?”

Oliver frowned. “We really should get going.”

“This won’t take long,” Fazio said. “I just need a few minutes with you.” He held out an arm, ushering me back into the house.