Benny Abbott - Day Two
Benny Abbott
Day Two
I tear over the hill in my Prius to find Luna’s already let herself in. A tidal wave of hope passes over me as I slam on the brakes and sprint through the gate. Luna would’ve waited if there was a stranger inside.
I don’t knock. Swinging open the door, I call, “Joy? Xander?”
No one answers, so I hurry toward the kitchen, where I run into a wall. The wall screams and drops something. “What the hell?”
It’s Mallory. Quinn stands behind her with a stack of rags.
“I thought…” I pant. “It was you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Luna saw someone through the window.” I press my palms to my knees, struggling to catch my breath.
“It was them,” Luna says, entering the kitchen through the other door, still in her red leggings and white tank. Was it only this morning she brought over breakfast sandwiches? Has it been two whole days since Joy and Xander went missing? Time is an abstract concept I can no longer grasp.
“You thought…” Mallory says.
I nod, adrenaline muddling with disappointment as I pick up the bottle of cleaning spray Mallory dropped. This is when I register the mess.
Papers and empty mugs litter the dining room table. Fine black powder sullies windowsills, door frames, and cabinets. The air smells of cologne and leather, and this violation of Joy’s space, combined with the fact that she’s still missing, feels as if someone just spat in my face.
“There’s a lot more downstairs,” Mallory says quietly.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
Mallory doesn’t look like she’s slept, but then again neither do I. Her blond hair is damp, leaving wet marks on the shoulders of her TSMSYL T-shirt. “Keller said the house was done.”
I remember then what else Keller said. “Why did you tell Keller that Xander and I don’t get along?”
Mallory blinks at me, opaque as usual. “Should I have lied?”
I realize I don’t have an answer for this.
Quinn, wearing a set of collared cherry-print pajamas, shifts her bare feet. “They asked a lot of questions. I wouldn’t take it personally.” She offers me a rag. “We could use a hand.”
Luna touches my arm, reminding me why she drove up the hill in the first place. “Want to deal with that other stuff before helping them clean?”
“Other stuff?” Mallory asks.
“Bank stuff,” Luna says, catching me in a sidelong glance.
I agree to the plan, grateful when Quinn and Mallory ask no further questions because I have no clue how to explain the million dollars I’ve purportedly attempted to transfer.
The mess is indeed worse downstairs. Our recording desk has been heavily violated by the evil dust. Our backup drives are gone.
The docking station in the middle of the desk is an untethered octopus, unplugged cords splayed in every direction.
Xander’s drawers are open, as are Joy’s.
The double file cabinet has clearly been rifled through.
Both office closets are ajar, boxes upon boxes of swag and listener art cascading to the floor like waterfalls.
Apart from the missing electronics, I can’t tell what they’ve taken, or what might have needed analyzing, but even Fonzie seems altered.
He gazes at me, thumbs up, as if to say, Ayyy?
Luna sits beside me at the desk. “All right, what did Alex say again? Why are they suggesting fraud?”
“Because I didn’t do it.”
“I know, I know, but how do they know?”
I shrug. “I’m guessing Xander got a message asking him to verify the transaction.
He’s the main contact on the account. I got some texts from him that night.
” I bring them up on my phone and show her.
“At first I thought he must have overheard my conversation with Joy somehow…” I look away and clear my throat.
We’ve already established that Luna would rather not talk about this.
“But now I’m pretty sure he was referring to the money. ”
She studies the screen with a frown. “Did you call him?”
I shake my head. “Do you think Joy did it? Did you guys talk about money?”
“Briefly. I told her to set some aside in a safe place. We didn’t get into details, but maybe…” She casts her eyes downward, lips pressed together.
Maybe I’m her safe place. All my organs settle at the base of my spine because, clearly, I’m not.
“What if it wasn’t Joy?” I pivot, needing an answer that doesn’t make me feel like an ass. “What if this is all a setup?”
“How? A setup for what?”
“What if—hear me out.” I glance up at the ceiling, through which a vacuum has begun squalling, and lower my voice. “What if Xander did it?”
Luna squints at me. “Why would he put money into your account?”
“That’s just it. It didn’t go through. It was only an attempted transfer.
Everyone keeps saying Xander didn’t know Joy was planning to leave him, but what if he did?
He was the one who helped me set up my account.
He could’ve logged on through my username, made the transaction, and then called it in as fraud. ”
Luna’s brow wrinkles. “Why would he do that?”
“You said yourself Joy wanted to divorce him with the least disruption possible. Why? Because if Xander caught wind of her plan, he would absolutely manipulate the situation like this in order to make me look like the bad guy. That way he’d have some leverage when we were fighting over the business.
Especially—especially!—if he knew we were planning to preempt him with our secret episode. ”
“But if he did it, then why send you those texts?”
“To cover his bases.”
“Benny.”
I know. It’s a lot of conjecture. But if Joy did leave me clues, then the question burning at the forefront of my mind is Why?
Why did she need to? And how did she know she would need to?
The only thing I can think is that she was afraid Xander would figure it out and pull a power play just like this one.
“Why else would she have been so secretive about the divorce?”
Luna appears to be mulling this over, and for a moment I feel vindicated, prepared to share my theory about Joy’s encrypted file. I may not know what’s on it yet, but perhaps its very existence, coupled with this alarming money transfer, is all the proof Luna needs to take me seriously right now.
But before a single word can leave my mouth, she’s shaking her head. “Some things are especially difficult to bring out into the open. I didn’t tell anyone we were having problems until our marriage was officially over.”
My shoulders drop so low I feel like I’m melting.
“And anyway,” Luna adds, “that doesn’t explain why they’re missing.”
“I’m just saying,” I say, hating myself, hating this conversation, hating everything. “Anything’s possible at this point.”
FINGERPRINT DUST IS an evil, evil thing.
It takes a while to figure out which combination of wet and dry towels works best to remove the dust rather than push it around, and this only after Luna has sucked up the loosest particles with a hand vac.
After half an hour of this, I need a clean rag, or at least that’s what I claim as I climb the stairs, only to find myself sinking onto the sofa the second I reach the living room.
Noise continues all around me as I close my eyes to block out the mess.
It’s unclear how much time has passed when I open them—a minute?
an hour?—but the intermittent start and stop of the vacuums has shifted to a solitary, consistent whine.
The longer it lasts, the warier I become, and I find myself following the sound to the hallway behind the kitchen.
The guest room door is closed, and through it, almost inaudible beneath the irritating whine, are the muffled voices of Quinn and Mallory.
They sound upset, and I’d be willing to bet neither is cleaning.
I consider going downstairs to give them privacy but change my mind when I hear Mallory shout, “You don’t know what you’re saying! ”
“Then tell me what to think, because I’m imagining all sorts of crazy things right now,” Quinn says.
I hold my breath. Mallory’s voice sinks out of earshot, but Quinn—dear, bellowing Quinn—is impossible not to hear.
“I uprooted my life for you so you could take this job, and don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to play the martyr. I went willingly, I know. But I did it because I thought it would make you happy.”
The only word I catch in Mallory’s response is “podcast.”
“Bullshit,” Quinn snaps. “You and I both know that’s not true. You did it because he’s got you under his thumb. Because for whatever ungodly reason, you can’t say no to the man.”
They dip out of range again. I inch forward, and as I do the floor lets out a startling creak of protest. I freeze mid-step, heart leaping into my throat. The vacuum stops. Quickly, as quietly as I can, I tiptoe out of the hallway.
I’m at the sink rinsing a rag when Quinn exits the guest room.
“How’s it going down there?” she says with an air of forced casualness.
I focus on the water, praying my voice doesn’t betray me. “Slow.”
Five minutes later, I find Luna in the yard, standing opposite the judge and her partner at the fence. Carlotta and Emil are both in robes—Carlotta’s, long and silky, tightly bound at the waist; Emil’s, terry cloth, open to expose his bare chest.
“Do you know there’s a search party tomorrow morning?” Luna asks when I join them.
I hadn’t heard about this.
“At the elementary school,” Carlotta says, wispy white hair softly backlit by the adjacent porchlight. “Your fans organized it on Facebook.”
It’s not a police-sponsored activity, Luna explains, but she thinks we should go. The implication being that it would make a bad impression if we didn’t. I reluctantly agree.
“What else have you learned?” Carlotta asks.
The shrill chirp of crickets fills the background as Luna shares what we know.
“That’s not a lot to go on, is it?” Carlotta says with a frown. “What about the stalker? Any news there?”
“None,” I say. “And he hasn’t posted anything.” Which doesn’t tell us much. If he was responsible for their disappearance, he wouldn’t be announcing his whereabouts. If he wasn’t, there would be no pictures to post.
“And they still haven’t figured out who he is?” Carlotta asks.
I shake my head.
“One thing I’ve been wondering”—Emil inches closer to the fence—”did Joy or Xander mention anything about the MG having issues?
Because I told that detective woman my concerns, and—well, Xander bought it from me, didn’t he?
I did a good job restoring it, I’m proud of my work.
But you know those old roadsters. I’d feel terrible if the car was somehow to blame. ”
I shake my head again. “Not that I’m aware.”
“Good, good.” He rests a hand on Carlotta’s shoulder. “That’s good.”
Luna nudges me. “You should tell them about the money.”
I flash her a look.
“What? They might have ideas. It’s not like you have anything to hide.”
This is not info I’m willing to share, not until I have a better understanding of what’s going on. But Luna is right about one thing—they might have ideas. I lower my voice to a whisper. “Mallory and Quinn were fighting just now.”
Luna leans in. “About what?”
Quickly, I report what I heard. “What do you think? Do you think Mallory knows something?”
Carlotta glances up at Emil, who shrugs. I wait impatiently for someone to chime in.
Finally, Luna says, “I don’t know, Benny. That could’ve been about anything.”
“She’s right.” Carlotta nods. “Let’s not read too much into it. Everyone’s a little on edge right now.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I regret snapping before I even close my mouth, but come on. She’s a judge. She’s seen terrible things in her court. She of all people should understand why I would be suspicious. “I’m just saying. It didn’t sound like a domestic squabble.”
None of them respond, and suddenly I feel like I’m all alone out here. Like I’m imagining things. Face hot, I stare at the ground as the thrumming shriek of crickets fills the silence.