“So I tried, but he couldn’t…see it through. He even said at one point that he wasn’t a very sexual person.”
Beverley scoffs.
“What sort of nonsexual person has those magazines?!”
Margot recaps. “So, we’ve got this sort of violent pressure, the sexual perversions, the look they get in their eyes. Can that really help us catch this guy? What do we do, ask every woman in California whether her husband has a stack of pornos behind the toilet tank?”
“Itcanhelp us,” Elsie argues. “I’m sure of it. But what do we actually know now? Margot, did you ask the family about the letters Diane Howard Murray had been writing to that movie guy?”
“Pearl didn’t seem to know anything about them, but I pulled some strings, managed to get myself an invitation to a party he’s throwing tonight. Thought I’d spritz on some Diorissimo, do a bit of undercover work.”
Beverley shifts in her seat. There’s something that’s been ticking over in her head, something about Diane. “Pearl said Diane had beenworking for a cleaning company, right?” she asks. “Any idea what the name is? Where they’re based?”
“Hmm.” Margot turns the sides of her lips downward. “No specifics per se, but there is this.” She reaches for an envelope on the table and pulls out several photographs, fanning them out.
Diane Howard Murray is a knockout. Even in a photograph, she has the sort of wide, clear eyes that seem as if they are peering into your soul.
“Let me just…” Margot sorts through them, then pulls one out, hands it to Beverley. “She’s got a logo on those overalls, I think. I couldn’t read the name.”
Beverley studies it, but the logo is so small, she can’t make out the name, either.
“Wait a minute.”
Beverley looks up to see Elsie leaning across the table, peering intently at the photograph.
“Show me that.”
She hands it over, and they watch as Elsie squints, then as her mouth falls slowly open.
“What is it?” Margot asks. Beverley leans in closer.
“The logo,” Elsie replies, reaching for her notebook. “I’ve seen it before.”
Ten days missing
My days downhere are marked by the sounds of everyday life continuing, time marching on, things turning as normal, just feet above my head.
Ten trills of the paperboy’s bell.
Ten rising swells of the birds’ morning chorus.
Ten barking fits from the neighbor’s dog when the mailman arrives with his bag.
I’ve lost count of the footsteps—so close but so far away—of the occasions when I’ve heard a distant laugh, wondered if I could rattle this pipe loudly enough to catch their attention, if I could use the power of my mind to let them know, to letanyoneknow, that I am being kept here.
I’ve spent hours assessing how I might get out. What I might use as a weapon if I could free my hands. Whether I could break a window, scream loudly enough, overpower you.
What terrifies me most is not what you might do to me next. Not the cable ties around my wrists. Not the way I’m forced to go in abucket, hunched and watched like an animal. But the sheer helplessness. The loss of any control I once knew.
If I get out of here, if I survive—no,whenI survive—I’ll never forget this feeling. When I brush my teeth, when I choose what to wear in the morning, when I take a lipstick from the vanity and spread crimson slowly across my Cupid’s bow, I will remember how I didn’t let you win. I will remind myself, every day, that you did not defeat me.
Nineteen
“Huh.” Patti hooksher thumbs into the pockets of her bell-bottoms, bends to inspect the photograph more closely. She turns her attention to the sketch Elsie hurriedly put down on paper after Cheryl Herrera’s vigil, glances up at her. “Same logo.”
“Same logo.” Elsie nods eagerly.
“So, what does that tell us?” Patti stands and fixes Elsie’s eye as if she’s setting a challenge.
