Good as Gone: A dark and gripping thriller with a shocking twist. Amy Gentry

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СКАЧАТЬ of Julie. I understood without being told that this new office was to be his command center for the search, that he was turning his longing for her into a full-time job. Only now, with Julie standing in front of us, does it look like an exorcism.

      “I don’t mind the sofa,” Julie is saying.

      “She can have my room,” Jane says, still hanging back, like she’s afraid to stand too close. Clutching her elbow awkwardly, she looks more like her ten-year-old self than I would have thought possible, though I notice with a pang that she’s taller than Julie by quite a few inches. Jane stares at Julie, not hungrily, like Tom, who looks as if he’ll never let her out of his sight again, but with a wary expression. “I don’t mind.”

      “No, please,” Julie says. “I don’t want to take anyone’s room.”

      I have a sudden longing to bed her down between Tom and me, like we did when she was a seven-year-old with a fever and couldn’t stop shivering. This, however, is not practical, and meanwhile, the living room yawns open like a mouth around us, the windows dark behind the curtains.

      “Tom, the air mattress?” I offer. “She could be in her room until we can move your desk out.”

      “A door that closes would be nice,” she says, and it’s decided. She has no toiletries or luggage, and no one wants to ask why, so Jane gives her a T-shirt and shorts to sleep in and I scrounge up a spare toothbrush still in its package. After the bustle is over, Julie disappears behind the door of Tom’s office like the sun behind a cloud. I wonder if she is comforted or disturbed by all the pictures of her in there.

      By the time we have seen Jane to bed as well, with reassurances that she can decide if she wants to come to the station when she wakes up, it’s almost dawn. The bedroom door closes and my legs want to buckle under me, but I also feel more awake than I have for years. My mind is racing, or rather somersaulting, tumbling over itself as I go through my bathroom routine.

      Tom says, “Anna?” in a way that suggests it is the second or third time. I come out of the bathroom and see him lying on his side of the bed, looking up expectantly.

      Instead of finding out what he wants, I surprise myself by saying exactly what I’m thinking: “What are we going to do?”

      “She’s back,” he says. “We don’t have to do anything anymore.”

      I slide out of my jeans, keeping my T-shirt on to sleep in.

      “She’s back,” he repeats, like a stubborn child.

      “We don’t know what she’s been through.” I think of the detective’s card tucked into the pocket of my jeans as I hang them on the back of the closet door. “We have to be careful.”

      “We should have been more careful then.” His voice breaks a little.

      I emerge from the closet. “She may not be — the same.”

      “None of us are,” Tom says. There’s a long pause. “You didn’t believe she would ever come home.”

      I sit down on the edge of the bed. I can feel his eyes burrowing into the back of my head, and I close my own, tasting the accusation.

      After a moment I turn to face him. “I didn’t believe we would find her,” I say, trusting him to know the difference.

      He doesn’t answer. But as I lean over to turn off the light on my nightstand, I feel something shift, just a little piece of the night air between us moving aside, like a breeze wafting through a chink in a wall. He turns onto his side, facing away from me, but there’s something about this argument that reminds me of the marriage we used to have, the arguments that bubbled up only when we were in bed together. How gamely we entered every fight back then, knowing we’d still wake up next to each other in the morning.

      Now, staring at Tom’s back, I think, Julie is home. Anything can happen.

      I see her face again the way I saw it on the front porch, just barely familiar, the flesh melted away from her cheekbones and jaw, leaving a butterfly of bone.

      “Good night,” I say.

      I sleep until noon and wake to the noise of pans clattering downstairs, voices in the kitchen.

      I know this dream. It’s the one where Julie shows up, and I say, “I’ve dreamed about you so many times, but this time you’re really home.” Now I get up and splash water on my face in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror, waiting for the features to distort, to drift. Everything stays put. This one is real.

      A chill runs through me and a faint headache alights in my frontal lobe. I pull on my jeans from last night and head downstairs.

      The kitchen table is bathed in light. My radiantly blond daughter sits on the side nearest the window, still wearing Jane’s T-shirt, which is too big on her. Tom beams at her from the head of the table as they talk — about nothing, it seems: orange juice, the weather, does anybody want more eggs. For a moment it looks almost normal. Then Jane comes in with a glass in her hand and sits across from Julie, and a shiver walks down my spine as I observe the odd regularity that has returned to our family: a girl for each side of the table, four sides for four people. The words fearful symmetry pop into my head.

      “Good morning,” I say from the doorway.

      “You slept forever,” Jane says, but Julie is already getting up and in three long strides she has embraced me. It takes me aback. How long has it been since a daughter of mine came rushing into my arms from across the room? Just as I am starting to notice the scent of her hair, she pulls back and looks at me, her hands sliding down my arms to grasp my hands. “Hi, Mom,” she says, a little awkwardly, and for a moment we are looking straight into each other’s eyes.

      I have become accustomed to looking at Jane, who shares my distinctive features, my sharp nose and deep-set eyes. As I stare into Julie’s woman’s face, I realize there are no moles, no bumps or blemishes or wrinkles.

      She’s perfect.

      She breaks away, embarrassed, and I realize I have been staring.

      “I’m sorry,” I say. “I haven’t seen your face in so long.”

      “I know,” Tom says.

      “Sit down, I’m just getting some coffee,” I say. “Did you sleep okay?” There’s a big pan on the stove with some scrambled eggs left in it, and I put some on a plate, suddenly ravenous.

      “I slept very well,” she says, like a polite guest. “The air mattress was comfortable.”

      “She’s only been up for a few minutes,” Tom says. “I’ve been fielding phone calls from the police department all morning. Come in whenever you want apparently means ‘If you’re not here by nine you’ll be hearing from us.’ ” His face darkens. “I suppose it makes sense. They’re worried about the press. I’m sure that’ll be starting anytime now.”

      Julie’s smile fades. “I guess we should probably go, now that Mom’s awake.”

      Tom puts a hand over hers on the table. “You take as much time as you need.”

      “The sooner we go, the sooner it’ll СКАЧАТЬ