Lost by Joy Fielding

“Yes. Neil. Hello.”
    “Is this a bad time?”
    “My daughter didn’t come home last night,” she heard herself whimper. “I’m so scared.”
    “I’ll be right over,” he said.

EIGHT
    “H AS she ever done anything like this before?”
    “You mean, stayed out all night?”
    Neil nodded. He was sitting beside Cindy on one of two tan leather sofas in her living room. Behind them a wall of windows overlooked the spacious backyard. Facing them were three paintings of pears in varying degrees of ripeness. Cindy couldn’t remember the name of the artist who’d painted these pictures. Tom had bought them without asking either her opinion or approval,
I make the money; I make the decisions
, being pretty much the theme of their marriage. Along with the never-ending parade of other women, Cindy thought, smiling sadly at the good-looking man perched on the opposite end of the couch and wondering if he’d ever cheated on his wife. She ran her hand across the sofa’s buttery surface. Fine Italian leather. Guaranteed to last a lifetime. Unlike her marriage, she thought. The sofas had also been Tom’s decision, as was the checkered print of the two wing chairs sitting in front of the black marble fireplace. Why had she never bothered to change anything after he left? Had she been subconsciously waiting for him to return? Sheshook her head, trying to excise her former husband from her brain.
    “Cindy?” Neil was asking, leaning forward, extending his hands toward hers. “Are you all right? You have this very strange look on your face.”
    “Yes, she’s stayed out all night before,” Cindy said, answering his question, wondering how long ago he’d asked it. “But she always calls. She’s never not called.” Except once just after she moved back home, Cindy recalled, when she was making a point about being an adult and no longer answerable to her mother. Her
father
, she’d argued pointedly, had never placed any such restrictions on her. Her
mother
, Cindy had countered, needed to be assured of her safety. It was a matter of consideration, not constraint. In reply, Julia had rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room, but she’d never stayed out all night again without first phoning home.
    Except one other time when she forgot, Cindy remembered, but then she’d called first thing the next morning and apologized profusely.
    “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked Neil, trying to prevent another example from springing to mind.
    “I take Fridays off in the summer.”
    Cindy vaguely recalled him having told her that last night. “Look, you don’t have to stay. I mean, it was very thoughtful of you to come over and everything. I really appreciate it, but I’m sure you have plans for the long weekend.…”
    “I have no plans.”
    “… and Julia should be home any minute now,” Cindy continued, ignoring the implications of his remark, “at which point I’m going to strangle her, andeverything will be back to normal.” She tried to laugh, cried out instead. “Oh God, what if something terrible has happened to her?”
    “Nothing terrible has happened to her.”
    Cindy stared at Neil imploringly. “You promise?”
    “I promise,” he said simply.
    Amazingly, Cindy felt better. “Thank you.”
    Neil reached over, took her hands in his.
    There was a sudden avalanche of footsteps on the stairs, and Heather bounded into view. “I heard the door. Is Julia home?”
    Cindy quickly extricated her hands from Neil’s, returned them primly to her lap.
    “Who are you?”
    “Heather, this is Neil Macfarlane.”
    “The accountant.” Heather advanced warily, quick eyes absorbing Neil’s black jeans and denim shirt.
    “Neil, this is my younger daughter, Heather.”
    Neil stood up, shook Heather’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Heather.”
    Heather nodded. “I thought maybe Julia was back.”
    “No,” Cindy said.
    Heather swayed from one foot to the other. “Duncan and I were just going to head down to