CLEO

Cleo

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS GONE

I'm painfully aware of the weight of my mom's laptop in my bag as I get out of the car and say good-bye to Detective Wilson. After she tells me again not to interfere and also to be careful, "about everything else I've got going on." Whatever that means. I'm not about to stick around and ask.

I want out of the car before the guilt overwhelms me. I had plenty of time to tell her about the laptop as she drove me home to Park Slope. But it feels like the very last thread connecting me to my mom, and if I give it away, I worry that I'll be handing away the last of my hope. There's no way I'm letting go of my mom. Not when I feel like I'm finally seeing her for the first time.

I pause at the bottom of our steps, filled with dread again. The way I had been when I came home to see my mom.

My dad might be inside already. I texted and asked for him to meet me at the house. It's one thing to tell Detective Wilson about the money and his affairs; it's another thing not to admit that I have. Then I'd be a liar, no better than he is.

"Oh, there you are," a voice calls out as I start up our brownstone steps. When I turn, George is standing at his gate next door, an old Yankees hat pulled low over his eyes. There's something accusatory about his tone. Like he feels put out.

He must have seen the commotion, the police cars. I know that Wilson interviewed him. George has a soft spot for my mom, but he's also … George.

"Sorry about all the … fuss," I say, though I feel annoyed.

"That's one way of putting it," he says, gesturing behind him to his front stoop, where he so often sits. I wonder if he's under the impression that he's now some kind of official neighborhood watch. As with his obsession with making sure everyone's trash cans are brought in right away after the garbage collection, it's a responsibility he does not seem at all happy about.

"Um, okay?" I say, because he's still glaring at me.

"Kids," he mutters, then charges away toward Seventh Avenue, newspaper tucked under his arm.

Inside the dark house, I lock our front door and lean back against it, eyes closed. Bracing myself. The smell, the blood, the screech of the fire alarm, the terrible details rush back. Luckily, when I finally do take a deep breath, it smells, so sweetly, of home—that gardenia scent my mom loved, loves.

I open my eyes slowly, squinting at first, still a little afraid of what I might see.

Relief—the house is immaculate. The kitchen has been cleaned up, along with the blood and the broken glass. Like nothing ever happened.

My dad must have taken care of it or, more likely, paid someone to. It's a little creepy, come to think of it. Like maybe he was so on top of it because he wanted to be sure any evidence of his guilt was washed away.

I sit on one of the stools at the island, smooth my hands over that porous marble, think of the place mat or coaster or newspaper my mom always insists goes under every plate or cup or bowl. Then I close my eyes and I'm seven or eight, watching her in the soft morning light as she races around making me eggs on toast, packing my lunch, and answering emails, all while smiling and chatting, like she doesn't have a care in the world. That was the way she was most mornings. But I wonder now, knowing the sort of cases she was working on, the kinds of people she was dealing with, whether she was more stressed than I knew. She hid so much; maybe she was even afraid that something might happen to her.

But I never felt it. She never made me feel like anything less than the most important thing.

"Don't go to work, Mommy," I'd said that morning. "Stay with me. And then you can relax."

And she'd smiled and said, "I'd love to, baby, but you have to go to school."

"No, I don't."

"Well, Mommy has to go to work, baby."

But I wasn't angry at her or resentful about her work. Not on that morning. Not on any other back then. Because I never had a need that wasn't fulfilled. When I was little like that, my mom was always where I needed her to be when it mattered. And I always, always knew that I was loved.

Where the hell are you, Mom?

I pull the complaint with the handwritten notes I found in Jules's apartment out of my bag and begin to read. It's the one document I didn't hand over to Wilson, which seems a reasonable compromise. DRAFT is stamped in the upper right-hand corner. The first few paragraphs are all formalities: identifying the parties, the law allegedly violated (negligence, product liability), and a section on jurisdiction. The second page is a summary of the charges in question, where the summary of what allegedly happened to Jane Doe begins.

The summary continues onto the third page, though after a few lines the handwritten notes stop and computerized Track Changes start—all attributed to Jules Kovacis. Except it's a document written by the plaintiffs' attorney, and Jules worked for Blair, Stevenson, so how could she be making changes to it? Wait, is this Jules's story? Some of the details about her daughter sound familiar. She's a plaintiff in this huge lawsuit? Because Blair, Stevenson couldn't have been okay with that. Is the lawsuit why Jules got fired? Why she's so scared? Did my mom do something to try to protect Jules and got hurt in the process?

I open my mom's laptop and type in "Xytek and Jules Kovacis," but nothing comes up. It's her personal computer, though, so nothing would. I'm staring at the screen when a notification pops up from her messaging app—a missed dentist appointment. A text dated yesterday. I didn't realize she had her texts linked to her laptop. Holy shit.

I hear the front door open and slam the laptop shut. Protect my mom —it's instinct now.

"Yikes," my dad says almost playfully as he steps into view. Because why not? This is all a game, right? "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"You scared me!" I shout. "What are you doing?"

"Meeting you!"

"I know that! I mean, why didn't you knock?"

"It's still my house, remember?" He puffs up his chest when he says it.

It was never your house. She paid for everything.

"If you say so." I tuck the laptop into my tote bag.

"You still have that, huh?" he asks, gesturing to it. "Detective Wilson is not going to be happy."

"You and Wilson are tight now, huh?"

"Whoa, Cleo." I can tell he's trying for a joking tone, but he sounds annoyed. "What's with the hostility?"

"Nothing," I say, then look away. I think of demanding an explanation for why he's lied about so much. But what's the point when I'm not going to believe him anyway?

"Detective Wilson actually just called." I prepare myself for what's next: How could you tell her those things about me, Cleo? But I'm ready to own it. I told her the truth, that's all.

"Oh, yeah," I say noncommittally.

"She said you told her something about Mom having some kind of special role at her law firm?"

I shrug, feeling like I dodged a bullet. "She's some kind of fixer, apparently. I talked to one of the people she was helping … a client, or whatever you want to call it."

"A client?"

"It's a long story." I have no intention of getting into a discussion about how I found Vivienne through Randy. As far as I'm concerned, that's my mom's business. "But this one client, this woman, she … she sort of threatened to kill Mom. That's why I thought I should talk to her."

"She threatened to kill Mom and so you went to see her? Cleo, what were you thinking!"

"That I actually want to find Mom!" I yell back at him.

"And I don't?"

"I don't know, Dad," I say. "I don't feel sure about anything anymore."

He looks like he's about to tell me off. But instead he blinks and looks away. Like even he isn't willing to come to his own defense anymore. The silence is unbearable.

"Anyway, I went to see her in front of the Dakota, " I go on. "What was she going to do, attack me in front of a bunch of moms pushing thousand-dollar strollers? Also, she threatens to kill people all the time … it's, like, her thing."

"Cleo, what are you doing?" my dad asks quietly. And he does look concerned now for real.

"What am I doing?" I say. " Something. Somebody has to."

"This is all really dangerous—Cleo, I'm worried."

"You want to know what I'm worried about?"

"What's that, Cleo?" he asks in this aggravating, extra-patient dad voice that I've never in my life heard him use before.

"I'm worried about the fact that you were cheating on Mom," I say.

His face is freakishly still. It looks like a mask. "What are you talking about?"

"I know, Dad. Mom told Lauren about Bella. It's creepy."

He shakes his head. "It's not what you think … I'm not dating Bella."

"Okay, fucking." My face feels hot. "It's pretty creepy for you to be fucking somebody who's only a few years older than I am."

"Jesus, Cleo." He looks disgusted. Like I'm the disgusting one. "I did … I made a mistake," he admits. "It wasn't with Bella, though. It's still not good, I know. I'm not making excuses. But it's not that … bad."

I'm surprised by how tight my throat feels. "What about the money, Dad? Lauren told me that Mom didn't want to give you some loan. When I was in your office, I saw the emails that show you have it now."

My dad opens his mouth, then closes it like a big dumb fish. Then he gets up to pace, energy turned manic. He's scrambling now.

"The situation with money, between your mom and me, it's complicated," he says, rubbing his forehead.

"What does that mean?"

"It means maybe because this movie is so important, and so close to being done, it pushed me to make some bold choices."

"So instead of figuring out how to, like, raise the money yourself, you took Mom's money?"

He closes his eyes for a moment. "Yes," he says, finally looking at me. "But I have a line on some new financing, and my plan was to get the money back before your mom even knew it was gone." He grimaces as he rubs his forehead with a hand. "Or maybe I was hoping she'd change her mind. There's always a first time, right?" And then he kind of half laughs, like Come on, you know how she is.

"This isn't funny." I start gathering up my stuff. "None of it is."

"Cleo, please," he says, a sharper edge creeping into his voice. "No one's saying it's funny."

"But you're also not exactly devastated that she's gone, are you?"

"Cleo, your mom left me," he says. "I'm not at the peak of my warm feelings toward her. But I will always love her, of course. I want her to come home safely, and as soon as possible."

"You love her?" I cross my arms. "Was that before and after you were having an affair?"

My dad's eyes have gone cold in a way I've never seen before. It's like he can tell he's lost control of me. "I've admitted that, Cleo. And I take full responsibility. Obviously, it would be very bad if the police found out about any of this. That detective already seems to suspect me of something. But you know as well as I do that your mom wasn't exactly warm and emotionally available. She had her reasons for being a little closed off, sure. But it didn't make her the easiest person to be married to."

And the look on his face, eyebrows lifted, head tilted slightly: Come on, cave. Because I always do in the end. But this time I only stare back at him.

"Well, at least she didn't pretend to be something she wasn't." I hop off the stool and gather my things.

"And I do?"

"No, you're just a liar." I turn away from him and start for the front door. "If I were you, I'd figure out what to tell Detective Wilson about the affair, though. And the money."

"Why would I tell her anything?" he asks.

"Because she already knows. I told her. And for the record, that wasn't a ‘mistake.' I did it on purpose. Because I'm not covering for you anymore."

I cry on the subway back to Manhattan. I can't help it. And I'm not even sure what I'm crying about—except everything. When I'm back at my dorm, I text Will—even though it's late, even though I know it will make me seem needy. Even though, all the rest. Could you come over?

Now?

I don't do this—ask him to come over in the middle of the night. But I need Will here now. I need him to put his arms around me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. I need to be able to believe him.

Yes, now. Please.

Will also doesn't usually come to my dorm. But I need for tonight to be an exception.

Of course. Be there in a few.

As I wait for Will, I return to my mom's laptop, to the text messages I didn't have time to read before my dad interrupted me. Sure enough, this is where her dating back-and-forths are, at least with that one guy Lauren mentioned, the one who died. There are lots of texts with my dad, too, but what catches my eye is a reply to an unknown number, a few down from the top. I SAID I WOULD PAY.

I tap on it—my stomach dropping when I see how far back the chain goes. There are at least ten messages. One of the last ones from my mom was in response to a photo of a bunch of parked cars. I scan the other messages. They're all pretty much the same—some person, whoever it is, going on about "some terrible thing" my mom had supposedly done a long time ago. And my mom repeating some version of I don't know what you're talking about.

No matter how many fancy degrees you get or how perfect you make your house, we both know you'll never be anything more than a white-trash slut.

What the fuck? And then another:

I bet your own daughter doesn't have any idea who you really are. What you're capable of. But I do—I know everything. And pretty soon, I'm going to make sure everybody else knows what you did, too. You'll spend the rest of your life in jail.

Jail? My mom?

I click back through the messages, but I can't focus on reading them in a coherent way. My eyes keep jumping around from one to the next. I think of that last journal entry I'd read of my mom's, about her having some kind of explosion. What did she do?

I startle when there's a knock on the door.

I hurry over to open it and Will slips inside, wearing a casual blue button-down and jeans, a loose kind of canvas jacket. Cool, easy. His cheeks are a little flushed from the chill in the air, which makes his blue eyes glow even more than usual.

He smiles gently and tilts his head to the side. "Are you okay?"

Instead of answering, I reach for him. I want to disappear inside him—safe and hopeful and free. I need to. I press my lips hard against his. Feel the burn of his stubble against my cheek as I slide my tongue into his mouth. Will hesitates for a second—I'm not usually so aggressive. But then he moves toward me. Because he knows this is what I need right now. A second later he's tugging off my shirt and pushing me back toward my bed. We don't make it that far, only to the wall nearby. I tug at his shirt and then at my own jeans. When he pushes inside me, my back is up against the wall. And I am lost to the heat of our bodies becoming one.

I gasp when it's over. Will is breathing even more heavily than I am. He laughs. "You may be the death of me, Cleo. Literally."

I force out a laugh, too. But what we have feels serious. Right now it feels like my one good thing.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" Will asks once we're curved around each other under the covers. He wraps an arm around my waist and presses his mouth gently against the back of my neck.

"Yes," I say, pulling his arm tighter. "But not right now. Right now, all I want is this."