So much to unpack here. Financier, for one thing. That’s how they’re identifying him, as opposed to rapist, child abuser. Murderer. It bothers me so much, it doesn’t even register at first that Gary Kimball’s beautiful age-appropriate wife is named Marietta. Or that he was reported missing, not dead. But then it does.
They haven’t found the car yet. It’s been three days.
I’m here to meet with a potential client—a jewelry designer named Xenia Hedges who also happens to be Glynne’s ex-wife. On my screen is a folder full of potential website designs, from clean and simple to purply ethereal and several options in between, and I should be going over them, making final edits. But what I want to do is go online and deep-dive into Gary Kimball and his wife, Marietta, all the young girls he’s ruined, with or without her knowledge.
I know I need to keep up appearances, to focus on the day-to-day rather than on my work for the collective. It’s so hard, though, to care about website design when, three days ago, I got rid of the person who made 2223 wake up every day with her gut tied up in knots, with that all-the-time humming in her brain and the deafening, draining rage that I feel so often myself. I wish there was some way I could let her know that he’s at the bottom of a lake. Not missing at all.
“Mr. Kimball was last seen leaving for Long Island MacArthur Airport at six p.m. on January twenty-seventh,” the announcer is saying. “His wife told authorities that he was scheduled to board a private plane bound for Pennsylvania, where he planned to meet with an investor. But he never arrived at the airport. He was driving a black Mercedes S-Class.”
A memory flashes through my mind—my head resting against the plush leather, the heated seat, Wendy grinning behind the wheel. I wonder who belongs to this beauty. I wish I could talk to her about this.
My gaze rests on a youngish couple at the next table, both in jeans and flannels, laptops open in front of them. I’m guessing they’re city people who can never truly escape their jobs—we get a lot of those up here, and true to form, the guy’s been working his keyboard nonstop. But not the woman. She’s been listening to the radio, just like I have.
“Bullshit,” she says once she catches my eye.
“Excuse me?”
“Gary Kimball isn’t missing.” She spits out the words. “He escaped. And his wife’s in on it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting theory.”
“It’s what happened,” she says. “Come on. It’s obvious. He’s probably in fucking Thailand right now.”
“I don’t get it. He did his time. I mean . . . what would he be escaping from?”
She puts down her coffee cup. “More girls were coming forward.”
“What?”
“They were planning a civil suit.” She gives me a bitter smile. “You haven’t read about it?”
“No.”
“It was on Jezebel a few weeks ago.”
“I . . . I didn’t see it.”
She sighs heavily. “Not surprising. It’d be everywhere if they were rich white girls.” Goes back to her keyboard. “Anyway . . . I hope they catch his sorry ass.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
I open the design folder on my screen and stare at it, my brain reeling. It doesn’t matter. Their case doesn’t matter. If he’d lived and if this went to trial, he’d hire the same expensive lawyers he had before, and they’d do the same number on these girls that they did on the victims in the criminal case and they would wind up broken and humiliated and none of them would see a dime. 0001 gets that. There’s no way she didn’t know about the civil case when she gave Wendy and me the assignment. And if I talked to Wendy, she’d agree. If I talked to her, just about the civil case and how it’s been in the news. Just that.