Chapter 37
Night Thirteen
Sybil
Simone had left them with Julian’s files. Sybil wasn’t quite sure what to do next, but Simone was too overwhelmed with the logistics of what she was dealing with in the wake of her father’s death to handle anything more.
“We’ll take care of this,” she had said to Simone as she was headed out the door, back to Julian’s apartment for the night and the foreseeable future.
“I’m going to try to, I don’t know, see if my work will let me move up here,” Simone said. “I have to deal with the apartment. And, just, all of his stuff. A memorial. The cat. And I didn’t know what else to do with this. I thought you might—”
“Honey, really.” Sybil placed both hands on Simone’s shoulders, which started to shake. “This is ours now. Don’t even give it a second thought. But text me as soon as you need help with anything else, okay?”
It was all awful, wretched, horrific. But at least Sybil could be put to work. That’s what she did best after all.
An hour later, they were sitting at Zeke’s breakfast nook. Sybil felt as if the world had just been tilted off its axis, not just with Julian’s death but with Betty too.
“I didn’t even ask her,” Sybil said with a start. “About the hit-and-run. If they found the guy.”
Zeke ran his hands over his face. His right arm was bending now in ways it previously couldn’t, and Sybil made a mental note, even in this chaos, that he was improving.
That he could make his way back by spring.
He didn’t see it, his progress, because he was so disinterested in actually embracing it, like his brain wanted his body to stay stagnant, and his body, a miraculous work of art, was healing itself anyway.
“I’m worried about Betty,” Zeke said. They’d each tried her twice since Simone left, and their texts were marked as delivered but unanswered. “Should I go up to the diner? Or…I mean, I don’t even know Caleb’s last name. Do you?”
“No,” Sybil said. “Fuck. He works at Morgan Stanley though.”
“Don’t ten thousand people work at Morgan Stanley?”
“Let me text Natalie. Her ex-husband used to work there. He owes her.”
Sybil shot a quick text off asking if her ex could search the bank’s directory, and surprisingly, Natalie wrote her right back, even though it was nearly three a.m.
Natalie: I’ll make him. Why?
Sybil: We want to make sure Betty is ok.
Natalie: Did something happen? I didn’t want to say anything but she didn’t show for the audition I had set up.
Sybil: WDYM?
Natalie: Huge national audition. They loved her look. Set for today at 3:30. Never showed.
Sybil: She didn’t let you know or cancel?
Natalie: Nope, not a word. I covered for her bc I think she could still land it but she hasn’t returned my calls.
Sybil: ok thanks, why are you awake?
Natalie: why are you?
Sybil: life
Natalie: exactly
Sybil handed her phone to Zeke, so he could read the exchange.
“Zeke, I think Betty could be…missing.” She didn’t want to be dramatic, but none of this felt right, and she’d listened to enough podcasts to pay attention to her intuition.
“Missing?” The color drained from Zeke’s face as he reread the texts. Her phone buzzed again, and his cheeks flushed as he handed it back to her.
Natalie: are you with that hot piece of ass
“Oh shit,” Sybil said, her own cheeks pinkening.
“I don’t assume that was about—”
“No, right, anyway.” Sybil batted a hand around like she could bat away her embarrassment. “Absolutely, let’s just—”
“Let’s focus on Betty,” Zeke said, and Sybil nodded Yes absolutely. She was very good at multitasking, but this was too much for even her.
Something occurred to her. A puzzle piece already fitting into a slot. “That night when she went out,” Sybil said. “And Julian panicked, thinking she had gone—I didn’t really get why he cared at the time.”
“Holy shit,” Zeke said.
“Do you have any Scotch tape?” Sybil stood, made her way to the kitchen counters, started opening the drawers beneath.
“I don’t think so,” Zeke said, just as Sybil pulled out a roll triumphantly.
“When all of this is over, we need to familiarize you with your own life,” she said, moving back toward him and grabbing the folder off the table.
“What are we doing?”
“We’re building an evidence wall.”
“Sybil—”
“I know, this isn’t an episode of Dateline,” she said, and she did really know that. These were two people who were real to her, whom she had come to love. She wasn’t solving a sensationalized television bit, and this wasn’t some morbid podcast.
“If we think Betty is gone, we need to call the police,” Zeke said.
“Absolutely, but…” Sybil chewed on it before she said anything.
She flopped over, touched her toes, tried to do those stupid stretches as if that would ensure that the blood was flowing to her brain and she wouldn’t sound like a conspiracist who had consumed too much real crime.
Even if she had. She righted herself. “What if she left by choice?”
“You mean what if she’s avoiding us?”
“Maybe yes. She could just be with Caleb, and her phone is on silent. That would be logical.” Sybil needed to believe that Betty was okay, even if it was na?ve, even if on one of her shows, this would be when the baritone voice said, Betty Jones had not returned home in three days.
“But the audition,” Zeke said.
“Right.” Sybil dropped her chin to her chest. “The audition.” She resented that she was so exhausted that her brain was already forgetting critical facts.
“And Julian knew her,” Zeke said.
“But she didn’t seem to know him.”
There was a rhythm now between them, like they were volleying tennis balls back and forth.
Zeke paused, then pulled out his own phone. “Wait a second.”
Sybil slid into the seat next to him, like they were two middle schoolers working on a science project. He scrolled until he found what he was looking for, and his eyes widened.
“I knew I was remembering this right.”
This time, he passed his phone to Sybil. It was the chat from the first few nights they met on the Insomniacs board.
“Oh my god.” Sybil put her hand up over her mouth.
“He set us up,” Zeke said.
Sybil reread the back-and-forth. It was undeniable now, what Julian had done. He’d been the one to suggest that they meet in person that first week. He’d been the one to suggest the diner.
He’d been watching Betty all this time.