Day Seven （Benny Abbott）
Benny Abbott
Day Seven
I roll out of bed at seven thirty, certain I’ve forgotten something. It bugs me while I make another one-handed attempt at scrubbing off the county jail, while I brew a strong pot of coffee, while I sort through emails and messages. And then, the moment I load our website, it hits me.
Sarah joins me as I’m opening the files I imported last night. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she says, “You’re up early. What are you looking at?”
I don’t respond. I know exactly which video I want.
It starts with a heavily pixelated Joy taking a seat at her computer. Typing. Then she picks up a phone call. “I thought you were at your dinner thing.”
“We watched this one already,” Sarah says.
I shush her as Joy says, “No, I don’t think so.”
Pause.
“I did. And it’s already done.”
Pause.
“Not exactly. He left, but—”
Pause.
“Stop. I know. I know. But I’ll be—”
Pause.
“I know. But just in case—”
Pause.
“Okay, but just in case, the file is in your cloud.”
Pause.
“I know. I promise. I’ll text you if I need anything.”
Movement. I squint at the screen, and my pulse starts beating in my throat.
“Okay. You too. Thank you.” Other small movements, and then she exits the frame.
“Did you see that?” I ask my sister.
“See what?”
“She was looking at the camera.”
“Are you sure? She could’ve been stretching her neck.”
I replay it. And though the picture is indistinct, I can tell—I am certain—that she’s staring right at it. “She knows it’s there.”
“Maybe.” Sarah frowns at the screen. “But what does that mean?”
MALLORY PICKS UP on my fourth try.
“I hear the last twenty-four hours have been eventful.”
I ignore the barb and go straight for it. “I found the surveillance camera.”
It takes her several seconds. “What do you mean? Where?”
“Above our recording desk.”
She doesn’t respond.
“Did you know it was there?”
“No.” Her tone is difficult to read. “What was on it?”
Sarah holds her hands out, fingers splayed—What’s she saying? I put my cell on speaker and remind myself to take it slow. To not come on too strong. To not piss Mallory off. “You didn’t find the episode. Joy gave it to you. That night. She called to tell you she put it in your cloud.”
“What?”
“You knew all along. From before they were missing. You kept it hidden for days.”
“I did not. I didn’t find it until Friday.”
“I have proof, Mallory. There’s no use denying it.”
“I’m not denying anything! I found it in the backup cloud. She’d deleted it. I had to pay someone to recover it.”
“No. She called you. That night. The night she went missing.”
“That’s not true. I haven’t spoken to her since we recorded on Tuesday. You can check my phone.”
I don’t believe her. My pulse is a bass drum. “What I want to know is, why you? Why would she give it to you if she knew you were spying?”
“Stop saying that! I had no idea he was going to ask me to do that when I took the job. If I’d known—if I’d known—but then I got here, and the stuff he asked me to do?
Keep an eye on her, report back to him? I told you already, I was afraid things had gotten out of hand.
I figured if I stayed…” She’s crying now. “If I stayed, I could protect her.”
I exhale slowly. “In case Xander did to her what he did to you?”
“I don’t … it’s impossible to…” She trails off, but the rest is clear. Now that Xander’s dead, there’s no way for us to ever know the truth.
Still. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I was trapped! I’d just moved four hundred miles. Quinn had just opened her bakery. I was afraid of losing my job.” She hiccups. “I’m not saying it was right. I know I should’ve done more.”
I look to Sarah, who’s rubbing her thumb knuckle against her lips. She raises her eyebrows in a way that suggests she believes Mallory.
“You’re not lying?” I ask quietly.
“No. Jesus, Benny, why would I lie about that?”
I replay the footage in my head. Just in case, the file is in your cloud. “Then who was she talking to?”
And just as I ask it, I know.
SARAH INSISTS ON driving, seeing my dominant hand is unusable, and we lead a caravan of paparazzi out of Mount Washington all the way to the Hollywood Hills.
Luna lets us in before we need to knock.
I haven’t been here since my last carload of boxes, and if I didn’t know better I’d say her house had been searched too.
There are clothes on the blue corduroy sofa.
Take-out containers on the storage trunk coffee table.
Balls of wool on the unvacuumed Moroccan rug.
Even Luna, usually so put together, looks the worse for wear in baggy sweats and a rumpled black tank top.
No bra. She crosses her arms, watching us take this in, as if daring us to say something.
“Get it over with,” she says.
I move a few items of clothing out of the way and sit on the sofa; she takes the burgundy wing chair opposite and tucks her legs to her chest. Sarah hangs back, keeping tabs on the paparazzi through the sidelight.
“You said the last time you talked to Joy was Tuesday morning, but I have surveillance camera footage of you calling her on Tuesday night.”
Her eyes narrow slightly, but she doesn’t move. “So you watched the rest of it.”
I nod.
“Did you find anything else?”
I shake my head.
She deflates.
“Why did you lie to us?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You said you hadn’t spoken with her since Tuesday morning.”
“No. I said Xander didn’t know what Joy was planning as of Tuesday morning. I didn’t say that was the last time I spoke with her.”
“Please don’t turn this into an argument over semantics. What else did she tell you? What else do you know?”
She presses her lips together.
“Xander is dead, Luna. And Joy is missing.”
“Right,” she says. “She’s just missing.”
“Just? What the hell? What the actual hell? Is this about us? Because I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry? This is dredging up a lot of shit for me too. But Luna, please. What the fuck is going on?”
Sarah’s gaze has been ping-ponging between the two of us, but now it’s fixed on my ex-wife.
“Luna,” she says, stepping forward. She kneels beside the wing chair and presses a hand to Luna’s forearm.
“I know it’s difficult, but I think you want to tell us.
” She tilts her head in, making eye contact. “And I think you should.”
Luna visibly shrinks.
We wait.
“You have to promise you won’t tell anyone,” Luna whispers. “Not the police. Not your lawyer. Not anyone.”
Every nerve in my body is on edge. I brace myself for the worst. “What?”
“I know where Joy is.”