CLEO

Cleo

TWENTY-FIVE HOURS GONE

I dressed the part. Or at least I tried to. I mean, what does one wear to confront a famous CEO who may have attacked your mother? The priority was an outfit nice enough to loiter in front of a fancy doorman building without being shooed away. And I don't really have a lot of options for "respectable Upper West Side young lady," especially because I'm not 100 percent sure it's even a thing. Upper East Side? Definitely. Even I know that's some version of Chanel. But Upper West Side is trickier. It's more down-to-earth than Upper East, but not Brooklyn earthy, which is slightly (and only slightly) cooler. Upper West Side is like I didn't thrift this, because I'm above that. But I also didn't spend stupid money, because I'm above that, too. I'm rich, but I'm also a good Democrat . Even my mom follows the NYC neighborhood uniform—she's "working Park Slope mom" through and through. Think Vince sneakers that cost two hundred dollars. Never Gucci, even though she could afford them, because that would be in poor taste. Her Chloé flats are exactly it, the gray canvas ones that she is always wearing … or was.

So here I am, leaning against the side of the Dakota building on Central Park West in the frilly, not-me yellow Free People sundress my mom insisted I buy for my grandmother Nell's eightieth birthday party. I feel vaguely ridiculous, exactly like I did at the party.

I'm waiting for Vivienne Voxhall—woman of many vivid threats, who looks like a very tall, even thinner Anna Wintour. Luckily, she is easily googleable. Article after article about one high-powered job after the next. She was recently sued by her co-op board for renovations she undertook despite lack of approval. The complaint provided me with her home address—the Dakota, at Seventy-second and Central Park West—as well as allegations of familiar-sounding threats and, in one case, the record of a physical altercation between Vivienne and another board member. It was just a single shove in a fancy elevator, but it's enough to keep Vivienne at the top of my suspect list—that plus the small matter of her death threat.

I stand near enough to the entrance to see people coming and going, but I'm hoping far enough away not to be conspicuous even in my dumb yellow dress. Luckily the sun is going down, and the doorman who came on at 7:00 p.m. seems more interested in sneaking in discreet vaping sessions than in hassling me. I'm watching him pull out his vape pen again when I spot Vivienne Voxhall crossing the street. She's even skinnier than in photos; in her tight black dress, she looks like a huge praying mantis in a tube sock. She has her phone in one hand, earbuds in, and she's shouting at whoever is on the other end.

Get off the phone. Get off the phone. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to interrupt her, which I'm guessing isn't going to go well. I hear her snap, "I know you heard what I said, Bob. And I know you know what's going to happen if you don't listen." Now she's almost at the entrance to the building. "So put on your fucking big-boy pants, tuck your tiny dick up wherever you hide it, and let's get—"

"Excuse me, Vivienne?" I say, bracing for impact as I step into her path. "I'm Kat McHugh's daughter."

Vivienne peers at me like I'm an alien life-form. The corners of her mouth lift, but it's not exactly a smile.

"Bob, you heard me. Now do what I said," she continues, then taps to end the call, eyes still locked on mine as she drops her phone into her purse. "Now … who are you?"

It feels like a trap.

"I'm Kat McHugh's daughter," I repeat with an unfortunate waver to my voice. "She's a lawyer at—"

"Oh, I know who Kat is," she says. "I just can't believe she sent her daughter here. It's—"

"She didn't send me here. I—"

" Brave, " she finishes, eyes widening at my interruption. "Good lord, you do look exactly like her. She mentioned that once." She leans in so close, like she's checking to see how I smell. "Except …" She motions dismissively to my dress. "Never pretend to be someone you're not. It's ineffective. And it undermines your credibility."

My eyes start to burn. I'm not even sure exactly why. I blink a few times, but that only seems to make it worse. Vivienne looks away, shifts her weight, then clears her throat.

"Anyway, let me guess. You want an internship?"

"An intern—"

"Your mom shouldn't have sent you here when she knows I'm not happy with her. So don't go around telling people I'm mean or unsupportive of young women or a dragon lady." She lifts her chin defiantly. "That's exactly how rumors get started. And your mom should be calling me back. I'm her client. She can't ignore me because I got a little mad." She shrugs. "I'm entitled to my feelings, just like anyone else."

"You texted that you were going to kill her. "

"That was weeks ago. And it's confidential!" Vivienne shouts. "What were you doing reading her texts with clients? Those are all attorney-client-privileged." And then her eyes narrow. "Oh, wait, you're trying to blackmail me, aren't you? Your mom doesn't even know you're here. Are you hooked on Oxy or fentanyl or bath salts or some shit?"

"No!" I shout back, a little more loudly than I intended. I can see the doorman watching us now out of the corner of his eye.

But Vivienne's not even listening. She's digging around in her bag, muttering to herself about fucking lawyers fucking thinking that they know more than everybody else. She stabs at her phone and puts it to her ear. "Your mother better hope that you read those texts without her permission, or I swear to God I'll have her disbarred."

"She's not going to answer," I say.

"We'll see about that."

"She's missing. Her phone is off. She can't answer."

Vivienne still has the phone to her ear. "What are you talking about? I just spoke to her." The color drains from her face in a way that would be very hard to fake. She didn't know my mom is missing. "Well, not just —but like a day ago."

"She disappeared last night. The police are investigating."

"The police?" My mom's outgoing voice mail message is playing on Vivienne's phone. She sounds very small and very far away on the other end. Vivienne ends the call and puts her phone in her bag. "Disappeared? Wait, what happened to her?"

I shrug. "We don't know."

"You don't know?" She sounds annoyed still, but she looks worried. "So far the Times hasn't run their article. I haven't even heard from that reporter in like … actually, maybe forty-eight hours. Hmm … The least your mom could do, though, is call and actually confirm that it's been handled, instead of leaving me wondering." But her heart isn't really in it anymore.

"Did you hear what I said?" I snap. "She's missing. There was blood in our house and broken glass. There's a bloody shoe. My mom is gone. What is wrong with you?"

She shoots me an angry look, then frowns as she fidgets with her bag. Finally, she looks away. "Well, how was I supposed to know any of that?"

"So you don't know anything about what happened to her?"

"You think I did something to her?" She laughs—brittle and sharp.

I shrug. "Somebody did …"

A storm cloud passes across Vivienne's face. "Fair enough," she says. "If I were you, I'd come for me, too. That's … logical. What day did this happen?"

"Yesterday. Around six-thirty p.m."

She pulls her phone out of her bag, consults her calendar. "I was on a Zoom conference call with Sidney then. People actually saw my face, and I was in my office. You can confirm that," she says quite calmly. "And I mean that—you should. I would if I were you. Also, you should know I threaten to kill people all the time. And all of them are still alive. At least as far as I know. Anyway, whatever happened to your mom didn't have anything to do with me. Besides, her vanishing only hurts me. It's not like I can find someone else to do the kind of thing your mom does."

"What does that mean—what kind of thing?"

"You know, clean up," she says, waving an imaginary magic wand.

"Cleanup of patents?"

"Ha. That's funny—patents." She gives another brittle little laugh "My situation was patently something; that's for sure."

"Please, can you—" My voice cracks again. I can't help it. I can't take one more bad surprise. "I don't understand what you're talking about. My mom is a patent attorney at Blair, Stevenson. And I'm not sure why you think this is funny, because none of it is funny to me."

Vivienne searches my face skeptically for a moment.

"Your mother isn't a patent lawyer. She's a fixer," she says, the bite gone entirely from her voice. "She helps with problems that can't be fixed in a court of law. You know, the tawdry kind."

" My mom? She wouldn't do anything that's even in, like, a gray zone." But I feel queasy.

"I agree that your mom is buttoned-up. I was actually worried about that when Mark first introduced us," Vivienne says. "I was like, this woman is going to sort shit out for me? She looks like she should be heading up the PTA in Greenwich. But Mark assured me there was more to her than met the eye. And if I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. But she's good. She showed up at this one guy's job to get information we needed. Huge mountain of a guy, worked in construction. Anyway, she scared the shit out of him somehow, and suddenly he would not shut up. Told us everything we wanted to know. She's also not afraid of me—which is extremely aggravating. But I respect her. From what I hear, she's tangled with a lot of powerful people in one way or another, though. You could have a long list of suspects."

"What other people?"

"I don't know names. No one wants these kinds of things getting out—sex, drugs, who knows what else." She thinks for a moment. "Your mom is always very discreet. And nonjudgmental. I appreciate that … Anyway, I'd find her other clients. I'm not saying any of them are violent, but it's also not impossible. Somebody caught with an underage prostitute or a hit-and-run, for instance …"

"She helped people with those things?" I can't believe my mom kept all this a secret. That she did any of it in the first place. I can't decide if I feel impressed or betrayed.

"Again, I don't know what other people did, exactly," Vivienne says. "I'm just saying these are people with money and power and a lot to lose."

"Her boss has been really nice. He's trying to help—but he didn't say anything about this. Actually, he kind of lied when I asked about her job. He definitely said it was patents."

"Well, it's not exactly the kind of work they hand out bar association awards for."

"And now her assistant is having some kind of episode and—"

"Episode?" Vivienne makes a face. "You mean Julia? What are you talking about?"

"Jules. Yeah. They had to fire her."

"Huh." Vivienne considers this, looking up toward the sky. "That doesn't sound right. I talked to Jules like a day ago, and she seemed absolutely fine."

"And now her phone's been shut off. I tried to call her a little while ago. I have no idea how I would even find her."

Vivienne leans toward me. "Now that is something I can help with."

I sit on the edge of the tufted eggplant-colored sectional in Vivienne's fun house of a living room—there's a shag-covered armchair and large cushions on the floor, for sitting, apparently, the color the same as the bright orange poppies on the wallpaper between the massive windows overlooking Central Park West. Her fingers have been flying over her keyboard.

Vivienne snorts quietly, shakes her head. "You'd think that law firms would know better. Their personnel files are basically hanging wide open." She writes something down on a piece of paper. "Jules Kovacis. That's her home number and her address."

I take the piece of paper, look down at the address and nod. Washington Heights. "Thanks," I say to Vivienne.

"Listen, I know I haven't always been so easy on your mom. But I've always admired her. She's a fighter. You ask me, not enough women know how to fight." She's quiet for a moment. "Anyway, call me if you need anything else. I am very good at finding a way around almost any firewall."

The beautiful tree-lined block Jules lives on looks a lot like our street in Park Slope. Except up in Washington Heights, everything is on a slightly larger scale—the sidewalks a bit wider, the brownstones, too. It's also really quiet. Too quiet. There's not a soul in sight. In New York City, there's nothing good about empty—not empty streets or empty storefronts or empty subway cars.

I'm feeling pretty jumpy by the time I find Jules's building, one of the best maintained on the block. There's a FOR SALE sign out front. Luxury Two-Bedroom Unit! it proclaims with a Please Inquire and a phone number.

I look up toward the windows as I ring Jules's bell, 3F. No answer. I ring the buzzer again and lean back to see if the lights are on in her unit.

"You missed her." I whirl around, to find a short white man with a very thick mustache and a snug off-white tank top standing behind me. He's holding a broom. Maybe the super.

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

"Few days, maybe a few weeks." He shrugs. "Just left."

"Just?" I ask, looking up toward her dark windows again. "As in suddenly?"

He busies himself with sweeping the sidewalk. "I didn't say that." He sounds wary now.

"But was she … scared, do you think?" I ask.

He stops sweeping and looks up at me. "And who are you, exactly?"

There's a jingle when he shifts the broom between his hands—the keys on his hip. He could have the keys to Jules's apartment.

"Babysitter," I say, my voice rising at the end like it's a question, not an answer. Crap. "I left a book and I really need it for this big test I have … tomorrow."

Even I don't believe me.

"Oh yeah?"

Pivot. I can almost hear my mom's voice in my head. Pivot. The truth. It's the only way to go. It's what my mom would do. I feel sure of it.

"Sorry, that's not true. I'm not the babysitter. Jules worked with my mom," I say. "My mom is missing. And I'm so worried, and then Jules texted me about some kind of danger I might be in, people in cars that might be following me. But she didn't get a chance to explain, and I really need her to."

"Who's your mom?" He still sounds skeptical.

"Kat McHugh."

His body uncoils. "Ah. Kat. Yes. She's a good one. Jules always says she'd do anything for Kat." He leans toward me, lowers his voice. "There was a car, here, today, with two men asking for Jules. That's why she left."

Suddenly, it's hard to breathe.

"I'm really, really worried about my mom," I choke out. "Can you help me, please?"

A minute later, I'm trudging up the stairs behind him. He unlocks the door to Jules's apartment and steps back.

"Take your time. I will be downstairs with my wife. Knock when you're finished and I'll lock up."

It's a typical railroad-style apartment. The furniture in the living room is mismatched and dated—a bright yellow couch with a crocheted blanket folded across the back, a pair of faded tan Naugahyde wing chairs. It's sweet, though, homey. There are framed photographs on a wall of Jules, her daughter, and people who look like the other members of a very large, warm family—vacations, holidays, lots of hugging and smiling.

In the area Jules uses as a dining room I spot a file box in a corner beneath the tall front windows. It's labeled Blair, Stevenson.

I sit on the floor in front of the box and lift the lid.

Inside are manila folders, all labeled with black Sharpie in clean, careful letters and lined up neatly inside hanging folders. Research, Impact Statements, Expert Reports, Court Filings: Jane Doe et al. vs. Darden Pharmaceuticals. That last folder contains copies of a complaint in a lawsuit related to some drug. I don't see my mom's name anywhere, and her law firm isn't listed as the defense attorney on the complaint. But then I find a file labeled MDL Certification. The new law firm on these documents is Blair, Stevenson.

At the far back of the box there's a correspondence folder. Inside are emails from somebody who worked at Darden, claiming the company knew that there were problems with the drug. Doesn't look good for them—but how is Jules involved?

And then I get to the last email in the folder, addressed to my mom, dated a few weeks ago. More accurately, it's the beginning of an email. Dear Kat, Where to start … But then that's it. That's the whole message.

There's a loud bang downstairs, maybe the front door. I stand, the box in my hands. I suddenly feel very nervous in here alone.

I step out of Jules's apartment, resting the box against my hip so I can quietly close the door behind me. I stand at the top of the stairs, listening. Silence. Could have been someone heading out instead of coming in.

Still, I start down carefully, one flight, then two. It isn't until I round the last turn that I can see a figure at the bottom, leaning against the wall near the door. Detective Wilson.

And she does not look happy. "Care to tell me what the hell you were doing up there?" She eyes the box.

"Not really," I say.

"I bet." She opens the door and motions me outside. "Let's go."

We sit in her unmarked sedan while I explain as much as I can, which is mostly a collection of random facts. A rundown of where I've been is unnecessary because Wilson has apparently been following me since I left my dorm. She watched me outside Vivienne Voxhall's building, managed to track me down in Washington Heights. I'm getting the sense that she's been watching me a lot. I explain what I now know about my mom's job and why I ended up at Jules's.

"I didn't find anything about any of the other people my mom was doing this fixing for. But, like I said, Jules was really freaked- out, and maybe she's just crazy or maybe she's not. I did find a bunch of documents." I gesture to the box in her back seat. "I don't know what they mean."

She glances back at the box. "You found them where?"

"In Jules's apartment."

She holds up a hand. "You stole something?"

"Borrowed. I didn't break in," I said. "The super opened the door."

"Which he shouldn't have done." She eyeballs me. "And what did you find?"

"Documents about some lawsuit against a drug manufacturer," I say. "Jules has a whole box of legal documents all about this one lawsuit. My mom's law firm is defending them. And there were emails from an employee threatening to expose the fact that the company lied, and another one from that employee to my mom, but it was only her name; there was no text—which is also weird."

"Fine, I'll take a look. But I want to be sure it's crystal clear that you are not to come close to breaking any laws trying to ‘help' here. You'd be surprised what a defense attorney can get excluded, claiming we put you up to it," she says. "What you should have done when you first learned about any of this was call me, Cleo."

"I know, I—"

"No, apparently you don't know. You think your biggest problem is that you can't find the person responsible for all this. But you know what'll be a bigger problem? If you do find whoever it is." She gestures toward the building. "Up in some apartment alone where no one even knows to look. You do remember the blood on the floor in your home, right? You think this person will be happy if and when you do find them?"

My throat feels raw again. I don't especially care if Wilson sees me crying—it might even make her back off a little. But I am afraid if I start crying now, I might never stop.

"I can't do nothing," I say. "I feel too guilty. I've gotten so much wrong about her … and I've been so mean to her for so long. What if … what if that's the last thing she remembers about me?"

Wilson sighs heavily. "Your mom knows you love her. From one ungrateful daughter to another—they always know how we feel, even when we don't." She taps the edge of the steering wheel with her index finger. "Listen … I came to find you initially because I need you to confirm your timeline for the evening your mom disappeared. You arrived at the house at six-thirty p.m. Is that right?"

"Seriously?" I shoot her a look. "You still think maybe it was me?"

"No. I do not," she says, looking right at me. "I never did. But I do need to know the time you got there."

"Six-thirty, yes. I guess," I say.

"And your dad says that you called him at around six-fifty-five p.m.?" Her tone is very deliberate. "Does that also sound right?"

"I didn't check the clock. But I looked around inside, found the shoe and everything. And I was supposed to get there at six-thirty. I was probably a little late—I usually am. So when all is said and done? Six-fifty-five could be right."

Wilson nods, frowns. "Because we checked with the airline, and it seems your dad's plane actually landed at four-thirty p.m."

It takes me a second to process what she's telling me. Didn't my dad tell me that he'd just walked off a plane when I first called him? Now there's nearly an hour unaccounted for, during which time my mom disappeared.

"Okay," I say carefully. "I don't know the details of his flight times."

"A neighbor says they saw you head into your house about five-thirty p.m. Is it possible you somehow got the time wrong?"

"Possible that I was a whole hour early ? I've never been early for anything in my life, let alone by a full hour," I say. "Who told you that?"

"Older gentleman, lives right next door?" she says. "He says that he saw you going up the steps then. He described the clothes you were wearing."

"Oh, you mean George ?" I ask. "George has no idea where he is half the time. I mean, I feel bad for him and he's a good person and everything, but he's not exactly on point when it comes to details like time. He always used to yell about the garbage not getting picked up when it had been the day before. My mom said that was how they first picked up on the Alzheimer's. He was losing whole days."

She shrugs. "He wasn't exactly happy being disturbed or letting us sit at his kitchen table. But he seemed lucid enough."

"That's George—he comes and then completely goes. He used to be a kind of famous doctor. But his wife died, and then he got sick. My mom checks in on him most weekends—she isn't bothered by the hostility." Because that's the way she is—kind. Maybe that's the same reason she hovers over me. Maybe it is just her trying to show love. "Anyway, in exchange, George does things like sweep up our yard, like without asking, which is sometimes nice and sometimes kind of … aggressive. But his kids have, like, abandoned him … Maybe he saw my mom coming home at five-thirty; we do look a lot alike."

She makes a clucking sound. "I suppose that could be. Now is there anything else you've left out?"

I try not to squirm under the weight of her stare, knowing I need to come clean. It's not too late to start telling the actual truth for once in my whole stupid life.

"There's this guy, Kyle, I was seeing. He's … not the best person. My mom didn't like that we were together. And he knew she was the reason I broke up with him. That was months ago, though. So I really don't think—"

"How many months?"

"Like six?"

"Six months?" She pulls a notebook from her center console. "But you still stay in touch?"

"No."

"You're sure?" she pressed.

"I'm sure." I hate how defensive I sound.

"Mmm. Okay. What's his last name?"

"Lynch."

"And you know this Kyle Lynch from where?"

"NYU. He's a student."

"A student, huh?" She sounds skeptical.

"Yeah, but he's … he's also into some other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

"He's a dealer. Not big time, only on campus to the other students." I shift uncomfortably in the seat. "I used to help him sometimes."

"I see," Wilson says, raising her eyebrows slightly as she scribbles in her notebook.

"Anyway, you should check him out, but it would be good if he doesn't know it's because of me. It could make my life … hard," I say. But I need to get the rest out, to say all of it. "Also, my dad is or was—he's been having an affair."

"I see," she says quietly.

"I still don't think he'd ever hurt my mom, though," I say. That's still true, but it does feel different when I say it this time. Like maybe I believe it just a little less.

"I understand," Detective Wilson says, and I'm pretty sure I hear pity in her voice.

I think back again to the beach, but not to the day when I learned to swim. The time years earlier, when I nearly drowned. I remember it only in flashes: the way the sand burned my feet, the roar of the waves like a train. Then the terror—the world upside down, the burning pain. Water up my nose, the rocks gouging my knees. That horrible snap of whiplash as I was yanked by the water. This is dead, I remember thinking. I'd only just learned what the word meant. And it was so much worse than anybody had said.

But I'm thinking now about what I don't remember—anyone trying to stop me from running into the water. No one shouted Wait! Or called my name. No one chased after me. It was only me, sprinting headlong into the roiling sea.

A lifeguard pulled me out. His blond hair hanging down in front of my eyes was all I registered when I came to. And the smell of coconut sunscreen. My chest hurt for days from the compressions. Later, my dad leaned in close and made me promise never to tell my mom, like it was a special secret we shared.

"My dad also wanted to borrow money from my mom, for his movie." And there it is, the last of his secrets I've been keeping. "And she said no."

I meet eyes with Detective Wilson and it feels for a moment like she's holding me in midair.

"Except now—my dad somehow has the money. Her money."

"Oh," she says. "Well, isn't that something."

"Yes," I say. "I think it could be."