“Check, check.”
His voice is crystal clear, like he’s speaking to me through a tunnel. The sound is amplified and crisp, and I can’t help but be surprised.
“That makes a big difference,” I say, speaking into mine.
“Sure does.” He flicks a switch on the stereo, and I notice now that there’s a green light blinking. “So, Isabelle Drake, thank you for having me in your home today.”
“You’re welcome,” I say again, aware now that the conversation has officially started. That whatever was said before, when this light wasn’t blinking, wasn’t being recorded—so, therefore, didn’t count.
“I’m sure all of you know Isabelle’s story,” Waylon says, leaning into the microphone, that familiar voice taking on a more official tone. “But for those uninformed few, here it is: Isabelle’s son, Mason, was taken from his nursery in the middle of the night exactly one year ago. His case is still unsolved.”
“That’s right,” I say, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“The police have no suspects, no leads, and practically no clues. So far, they’ve been completely unable to weave a story together of how the events of that night progressed.”
Waylon is silent for a moment, letting his point sink in for our invisible audience. Then he looks up at me, a little smirk tugging at his lip.
“And that, listeners, is where we come in.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We spend the first few hours rehashing what I shared with Waylon last night, going about the conversation as if it were happening for the first time, unfolding naturally—only this time, with that green light blinking.
“Did you hear anything strange during the night? Any noises?”
“What time did you notice he was gone?”
I answer in the same ways, telling him the truth. Telling him everything. And he nods, eyebrows scrunched, like he is just as enthralled to be hearing it again. It’s late afternoon by the time we’re finished, the entire day somehow gone in a blink right here at my dining room table.
After we’ve covered it all, Waylon reaches out and flips the switch, turning the green light off.
“I think we’re done for the day.” He smiles.
I watch as he packs up his things, a methodical movement to his routine, like he’s boxed up this equipment a million times before in this exact same way—which he has, I suppose—and it suddenly reminds me that I’m not special.
That this story, Mason’s story, is just business to him. It’s work.
“I have something for you,” I say, remembering the copy of the police records I made for him this morning. I lean to the side, digging them out of my bag. “I’ve told you everything, but I don’t know. Maybe reading through it will help.”
I hand the stack over to Waylon, watching as he takes the folder and flips it open, his eyes scanning the first page. Then he thumbs to the second, the third. I know what he’s looking at right now, skimming everything slowly, methodically. I’ve done the same thing myself hundreds of times. The missing persons report is in there, Mason’s picture and physical description: brown hair, green eyes, striped pterodactyl pajamas. Twenty-five pounds, thirty-three inches. Eighteen months old. There’s a copy of his MISSING poster, too; I remember making it on my laptop, feeling dazed at the pointlessness of it as I dragged his image to the center of the screen, cropping it tight. It had reminded me of applying for his baby passport the year before when I was trying to convince Ben to take a trip overseas—of laying him down on a thin white blanket, trying to calm his squirming as I snapped a picture of his face. It seemed like such a strange but necessary formality, because in truth, kids that age all look the same: fleshy cheeks, wispy hair. Lips wet and writhing like a gasping fish.
I watch Waylon flip the page again. Maybe he’s looking at the crime scene photos of our house now—empty crib, open window, partial footprint outside in the mud—or reading the dozens of interview transcripts with Ben and me: those first conversations, panicked and frantic with our fingers intertwined on our living room couch, followed by countless others at the police station. They kept us separated those times, estranged by the walls of the interrogation rooms, trying to catch one of us, or both of us, in a misstep. A lie. I remember looking at the wall between us, knowing that Ben was just on the other side of it. I could sense him there, the way you can somehow sense a body hovering behind a closed door. The misplaced air.
I remember closing my eyes, trying to hear what he was telling them—about Mason, about me. It seemed so imperative that our stories aligned, word for word, but I wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t. We were both home; we were both sleeping. We didn’t hear a thing.