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My mind is all over the place. Someone saw Lily and me move Jake’s car. Someone knows that I’m the one who broke into Jake and Nina’s house, or that I was back there again Monday night to return the key. I was in and out quickly that time. As far as I know, it was without incident. But I could be wrong. Someone could have seen me. Someone could have known that I was there.
“Is your wife home, Mr. Scott?” he asks, now angling his head to see past me and into our house. I turn around. Lily isn’t there, standing behind me. She’s in the kitchen, where it’s still dark. I can just barely make out the sound of the basketball game on the TV from here. “I was hoping to talk to both of you at the same time.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. Let me just go get her.”
I invite the officer into the house. I don’t know that I want him coming in, standing in the foyer alone, trawling the house while I go to get Lily, but it would look suspicious not to, as if I have something to hide.
“Sure,” he says, coming into the house and closing the door behind himself. “Take your time.”
Lily is at the table when I come back in for her. Her face has gone pale, her limp hair hanging into her eyes. She’s been sitting there, listening the whole time. I go to her and she reaches out for my hand. “What does he want?” she whispers. The tension in her voice, her eyes, is palpable.
I whisper back, “I don’t know.”
Lily and I stare at each other for a second, the fear in my eyes matching the fear in hers.
“What are we going to do, Christian?” she asks.
“Take a deep breath,” I say, pulling her into me, feeling her heart beat against me. “Come out when you’re ready. It will be fine. I’ll take care of this.”
When I come back out into the foyer, the officer is still standing by the door. His arms are crossed. My eyes go to the handcuffs and the firearm on his belt before rising to his. “She’s on her way,” I say. “She’ll be right here. Can I ask what this is about, Officer? Did something happen?”
“I need to ask you and your wife a few questions about Jake Hayes.”
My stomach turns to a rock.
“Jake?” I say, a question, as if trying to place who he is. My face does that thing where it looks like I’m trying to look inward, to think, to physically pull something out of my memory.
“Yes, Jake Hayes. His wife is Nina Hayes,” the officer says.
“Oh yes, of course. Jake,” I say as if my brain just made the connection. My eyebrows come together, my forehead tightening. I ask, “Is everything okay? Isheokay?”
Lily appears in the space behind me. I don’t hear her coming, but I see the officer’s eyes go to her, his stance change, and I gaze back over my shoulder to find her looking pale but better than she did a few minutes ago. She comes around the corner, her footsteps delicate and light, her feet bare. She’s wearing tight leggings and a baggy T-shirt of mine that slips from a shoulder, revealing the strap of her black bra.
“Lily,” I say, stepping aside, making room for her beside me as I slide an arm around her waist, “the officer wants to ask us some questions about Jake Hayes.” I’m grateful when Lily’s face goes blank and she goes along with what I’m trying to do. “Nina’s husband,” I explain, as if we only know him peripherally because of Nina, as if he hasn’t been the only thing on our minds these last few days.
“Right,” she says, “Jake.” The concern that manifests on Lily’s face resembles mine. “I work with his wife, Nina Hayes,” she tells the officer, whose intensity has seemingly diminished since Lily came into the room. Lily has that effect on people. “Nina told me that he hasn’t come home in a few days.” Lily gazes up at me. “I can’t remember if I told you that,” she says.
I say, “You did. It’s awful.” My eyes go back to the police officer’s. “What brings you here, Officer? Has something else happened?”
“I’m speaking to people close to the Hayeses, and trying to see if we can’t locate Dr. Hayes.”
I start to relax because I realize that the officer is only looking into Jake’s disappearance. He doesn’t know anything more than that he’s gone, than that he hasn’t come home. He has no clue of Lily's and my involvement or, if he does, he’s not letting on yet.
“When is the last time you saw Dr. Hayes?” he asks.
I think back. I look at Lily. “It’s been what?” I ask her. “Six months or more? We had dinner together,” I say, looking back to the officer, “but that was sometime last spring, I think.”
Lily says, “April, yes. We were celebrating Nina’s birthday.” I had forgotten that it was Nina’s birthday, but Lily is right, it was. We met for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, the night Jake showed up in his new car and took me for a ride. It had been Lily’s idea for us to all get together to celebrate. Nina chose the restaurant. Lily made the reservations.
“Nina said that she and Jake have been fighting,” Lily says. It’s scarcely audible, like a thought Lily meant to keep in her head, but it slipped out. She’s not looking at either the officer or me when she says it, she’s looking at her feet, where the pink nail polish flakes off. “I’m sorry,” she says then, shaking her head as if realizing her mistake, which wasn’t a mistake at all but a brilliant stratagem. “I shouldn’t have said that. Nina told me that in confidence, but it isn’t something she’d want other people to know. Nina is private.”
“Of course,” the officer says, like he’s really going to disregard what Lily just told him. “Was this something she told you recently?” Lily nods. “How long had they been fighting?”
“For a few months,” Lily says. “I’m not sure. I can’t remember when she said it began, but it seemed to have been escalating in recent weeks. She told me because it was really beginning to upset her. But I didn’t think it would come to this.”
“To what exactly?”
“To him leaving. Isn’t that what happened?”
