At first I carefully float around the room. I run my fingers over things. I want to know Jake Hayes. Not the Jake Hayes who was arrogant but funny and fun to be around, like a rich frat boy, but the one Lily bumped into this week. That’s a man neither of us knew.
Jake was a man who was hard to get a read on. Lily and I talked about that and agreed. For a doctor, he wasn’t compassionate or empathetic. After a few drinks, he had a tendency to make light of things that happened on the operating table. Maybe it was his way to cope with the stress of it all or maybe he was just cold. I’ve read his reviews online, mostly because I was curious and they were there, public and easily accessible. Patients complained about things like appointments being rushed or feeling not listened to, but they said that he was highly competent, that they trusted his decisions. I’ve also read that people with a higher IQ have a lower emotional intelligence than people with a lower IQ. Jake is the classic example of this. Smart but emotionless. The red flags are more obvious now, in light of what’s happened. They’re less easy to dismiss. From the things Nina has told Lily, smart but emotionless is not an unfair assessment of him. It’s practically spot-on. Even in their marriage, he could be cold.
But now, moving around his office, I want to know the side of him I never knew, this other side of him that thought it might be okay to try and come on to my wife, to exploit her trusting nature, to force her to her knees on the dirt and attempt to do things to her that I can’t stand to imagine. Jake isn’t just arrogant and cold. Now I know that there’s this violent, brute side of him that keeps me up at night, wishing I had been the one to bash his head in with a rock, although maybe it’s better that it was Lily because sweet, little, one-hundred-and-ten-pound Lily would have been less forceful about it than me, dragging it out, killing him slowly. I like to think he died slowly. That it was painful. That he suffered.
I don’t try to be particularly quiet as I riff through the desk drawers, sliding my hand along the inside of them and beneath piles of notebooks and paper, feeling for the key. I take things out, looking under and behind them. I keep thinking I might find something damning among Jake’s things, but it’s all harmless, files and such. I sit in his executive chair for a second, swiveling around, letting my eyes wander around the room, considering the file cabinet or a safe. Is a key fob the kind of thing you keep in a safe? If you don’t want to lose it, maybe.
I rise up from the desk to go to the file cabinet.
It happens at the same time. The phone, in my pocket, vibrates against my thigh. I take it out to look. It’s Lily. Thai tonight?
From upstairs, above my head, comes a noise like footsteps. It crosses above me, and then stops. I hold my breath. Not ten seconds later I hear the rush of water like through pipes. My eyes follow the movement of water as it snakes across the office ceiling and then descends behind the wall, down to the basement.
Someone, upstairs, has flushed a toilet.
My instincts were right.
I’m not alone in the house.
Someone else is here with me.
NINA
The restaurant where Lily and I meet is one of my favorites. It has a rustic farmhouse feel to it, while still being modern at the same time. The decor is all black-and-white and wooden, with things like white shiplap walls; wide, wooden floorboards; painted, black exposed pipes that run along the ceiling. The fabric of the chairs and booths is all black-and-white, in geometric designs. It’s visually pleasing and the food is divine. A line of people wait for a table, but Lily was smart. She thought ahead. She made a reservation so that we’re able to skip the line, much to the chagrin of those who see us come in and get immediately seated.
“Thank you for suggesting this,” I say to Lily as we settle into a small table, sitting across from each other. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“Yes. Of course. I wanted to talk to you, just to make sure you’re hanging in there and that you’re okay. It’s so hard to talk at work, when we’re always in a rush or getting interrupted.”
I put my bag on the floor beneath me and say, “I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but Jake still hasn’t come home.”
Lily sighs, sympathetic as she reaches across the table to set her hand on mine. “I’m so sorry, Nina. Have you heard anything from him?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “I spoke to his colleagues the other day and drove around looking for his car at both the hospital and his office. I don’t know where he is, Lily. It’s like he’s just completely gone.”
“I wish you would have told me you were going to Jake’s office and the hospital,” Lily says. “I would have gone with you, to keep you company at least, or to help you look for him.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
“I can’t imagine how hard this must be, Nina.” Lily offers a commiserative smile. She is a good listener. She’s always been. It’s one of the reasons I find it so easy to talk to her. Lily’s secret, I think, is that she actually listens. She doesn’t offer advice like other people feel the need to do. People always want to fix things. They want to make them better, which is sweet and well-intentioned, but not everything can be fixed. Sometimes a person just wants to find an outlet for their feelings.
“It is. You don’t even know. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. All day and all night I think about him, wondering where he is and if he’s okay, if he’s dead or hurt or if he’s just intentionally avoiding me. I don’t even know what would be better,” I admit, “if he’s hurt or if he’s avoiding me, because if he’s hurt then at least maybe he doesn’t hate me.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” Lily says.
The waitress appears and asks if we’re ready to order. Lily asks for toast and scrambled eggs and I get an omelet. We order coffee. Lily asks for decaf.
When the waitress leaves, Lily says, “Have you heard anything more from the police?”
“I went back to the police station last night. They had told me when I filed the missing person’s report that most people come home on their own within three days. It’s now been five.”
“Do they have any leads?” she asks.
“Not yet.”
“Have they tried tracing his phone?”
Last night, I asked the police the same question. Phones can be traceable. But, from what the police told me, it can be hard to find a phone if the battery doesn’t retain some of the charge. Even if Jake’s phone isn’t somehow dead—which I’m sure it is—the carrier can ping the phone, asking it to reply with its location but still, the results are imprecise. They can track a phone to a broad area, but not a specific location.
But that doesn’t matter, because Jake isn’t a minor, he isn’t high-risk and he isn’t on my phone plan. The cell phone carrier won’t perform a warrantless search, and only now have the police issued a warrant. They were reluctant to do so because it’s not a crime to disappear, though, now that so many days have passed and Jake hasn’t once accessed our bank accounts, gone to work or spoken to anyone, the police have started taking his disappearance more seriously.