Chapter 5: What The Phone Could Not Say
The phone was colder than I expected. That was the first thing I noticed after I got Lily onto the couch and slipped it from my pocket. It was a cheap Android with a cracked screen protector, the kind with the little plastic peel at the corner that never quite lies flat. I pressed the side button and nothing happened.
Lily sat curled against the armrest, her white tights smudged at the knees now, her hands tucked between her thighs. She watched the phone like it might bite me. Through the arched doors behind us, I could still see Vic's shape by the black SUV. He hadn't moved. He was leaning against the passenger door, one ankle crossed over the other, checking his own phone. Waiting like he had all the time in the world.
I pressed the button again and held it. My thumb slipped on the gold of my watch and I had to steady my hand. Lily's breathing was shallow and fast.
"That's mommy's?" she whispered.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm trying to wake it up."
The screen finally lit. Not fully on, just the lock screen, low battery at twelve percent. The photo there stopped me cold. Elena and Lily in a booth at the diner off Route 19, the one with the red vinyl seats. Elena had her arm around Lily and they were both laughing, Elena's hair pulled back the way she always wore it when she cleaned for me, Lily with ketchup on her cheek. The time stamp at the top said 2:14 PM and under it, two missed calls from an unsaved number and a text preview I couldn't open without the passcode.
I stared at that picture and I felt my stomach drop in a different way.
Elena hadn't just been my housekeeper. She'd been here three mornings a week for almost a year. She let herself in at seven, left lunch in the fridge, folded Lily's little jackets when Lily came with her on school breaks. Two days ago she'd quit. No, not quit. She'd stood in this same study with her bag over her shoulder and said she couldn't work here anymore. I'd asked her why, and she'd looked past me toward the driveway where Vic was washing the SUV.
"He says if I tell you he'll tell them I stole," she'd said, her voice low enough that I had to step closer. "He says no one will believe me over him."
I'd thought she meant money. I'd told her if Vic had said something to her I would handle it, that she didn't need to worry about her job. She'd shaken her head. "You trust him. Everyone trusts him." Then she'd picked up her bag and left before I could get more out of her. I'd let her go. I'd told myself I'd talk to Vic later, and then I didn't. I'd had a call, and the decanter on the desk, and the easy assumption that it would sort itself out.
Now her phone was in my hand and her daughter was on my couch and the man she'd been afraid of was twenty feet away through diamond-pattern glass.
Lily reached out and touched the screen with one finger. The photo didn't move. "Mommy let me have pancakes," she said. Her voice was very small.
I cleared my throat. "She did?"
"With sprinkles."
I nodded. I locked the phone again before the battery died completely and set it face down on the wood desk next to the open book. I couldn't get into it without her passcode, and guessing felt wrong and useless. Even if I could, what was I going to do, confront Vic at the SUV and show him a text preview he could just deny? He worked for me. He had keys to this house. He'd driven Elena home more than once when her car wouldn't start.
I looked at the double doors. Vic had pushed off the SUV and was looking toward the house now, as if he could sense me looking at him. I turned my back to the glass and picked up the landline on the desk instead of my cell. My cell felt too loud, too close to the window.
Lily watched me dial. "Who you calling?"
"The sheriff's office," I said quietly. "Not 911. Just the regular number. So someone can help find your mom."
I had the county non-emergency number taped under the desk from when the alarm company installed it. I ran my thumb over it and dialed. The line rang twice, then a recorded message about high call volume and to stay on the line. I kept my voice low and angled my body so the glass doors were out of my sight line. I didn't want Vic reading my mouth.
When the dispatcher picked up I gave her my name and address and said I needed a welfare check call back, that it wasn't an emergency yet but I had a missing housekeeper and her child with me and a concern about an employee on site. She asked if anyone was in immediate danger. I looked at Lily, at the lock screen photo still glowing faintly on the desk.
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"Not right this second," I said. "But I need someone to call me back as soon as they can. And please don't send a car with lights to the front. Can they call first?"
She said she'd log it and have a deputy call me within the hour. I gave her the landline and my cell and hung up. The study was quiet except for Lily's breathing and the faint tick of the clock on the mantle. Through the glass, Vic was still there, still waiting. The phone on the desk went dark again as the battery slipped to eleven percent, Lily and Elena frozen in that diner booth, smiling at a camera that couldn't help them now.
