Lie To Me. J.T. Ellison

him. Lifted the receiver. It was a man this time.

      “Ethan Montclair? Tim Mappes, New York Times. I understand your wife, Sutton Montclair, is missing. Would you like to give me a comment?”

      Click.

      The doorbell rang. He could hear someone calling his name, a strange woman’s voice. “Mr. Montclair? Mr. Montclair? Will you come talk to us?”

      Holy Christ, he was under siege.

      You knew this would happen, didn’t you, Sutton? You knew the whole world would want to find you. Well played, wife.

      Finally, exhausted, drunk, but unable to sleep, he turned off the ringer, took one of Sutton’s Xanax, and passed out cold for a few hours.

      * * *

      Ethan woke to a blinding headache. The front of the house was dark. He’d passed out on the couch.

      Smart move, idiot.

      He groaned as he sat up, perched on the edge of the couch with his feet on the floor and his head in his hands until the worst waves of nausea passed. Managed to make it to the kitchen and put on some tea. Popped three Advil, drank a bottle of water. The kettle took forever to boil. When it started whistling, pain rippled through his head.

      He needed...something. Help. Support. Getting pissed and passing out wasn’t going to solve things. The media wasn’t simply going to walk away because he told them to. There was a story here, and everyone knew it.

      The phone was sitting quietly on the counter, innocuous. He picked it up, ignoring the wave of burning bile that forced its way into his throat, and turned the ringer back on. It started to ring immediately. This number he recognized, and wasn’t entirely unwanted.

      “Hullo, Bill.”

      “Hullo? That’s all you have? Where the fucking hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for two hours!”

      “Asleep. Drunk. Like most normal people.”

      “It’s been half a day, Ethan. You’re not a normal person, and you’re definitely not in a normal situation. The New York Times is printing a story about Sutton being missing. Since you’ve been ignoring me, I have a flight to Nashville first thing in the morning. We have to coordinate a plan, figure out how we present this—”

      “Would you calm down? It’s my wife who’s missing.”

      “And I’m your agent. You should have called me the minute you realized this was turning into a story. I could have helped. You really don’t have any idea where she is?”

      Shafts of light cruised across the kitchen, first there, then gone, then back again, fading. The beams from the news trucks as they shuffled positions out on the street. The on-again, off-again light reminded him of the past few months with Sutton. If only he could count on the clouds parting. He managed a sip of tea.

      “For Christ’s sake, Bill, if I knew where she was I wouldn’t have called the police to start looking for her.”

      “You called the police?”

      Ethan hadn’t known a man could shriek, but Bill had just offered a full-fledged shout that would make a pterodactyl proud.

      “And a lawyer.”

      Bill started moaning into the phone.

      “Listen to me. Sutton left a very ominous note. I am worried sick. I’m worried she may have hurt herself. She asked for time, but now...something’s not right. She left everything behind, and...it feels wrong. She’s been gone too long. I had to involve the authorities. I needed help. So get off my back.”

      “Bullshit. She’s just trying to hurt you. She could be holed up with some lover, laughing up her sleeve while the police make a case against you. We gotta get out in front of this. Right now.”

      Ethan rolled his eyes. “Bill, you read too many novels. There is nothing to get out in front of. I’ve done nothing wrong, and neither has Sutton. It’s been a bad time for us both. She’s had a lot to deal with, and I’m praying all she’s done is take off for a few days, like her note said.”

      “There’s your quote. I’ll call the Times, say that exactly.”

      “No story. Seriously. You have to quash it. I can’t face the scrutiny.”

      “It’s too late. And it sells books, buddy.”

      “You didn’t just say that to me. Go away, Bill. Make sure the story isn’t run. Don’t come down. I’ll call if I have news.”

      He hung up. The phone rang immediately. He debated for a moment, then turned off the ringer again. Drank some more tea. Foraged in the refrigerator, found some prosciutto-and-mozzarella wraps. He needed fuel. The idea of eating was repugnant, especially with the constant visions of Sutton lying dead and broken in a ditch that inundated him, but he’d do her no good drunk and empty.

      Ethan ate. He looked out the window. The media were still lined up, camera lights on, beautiful young reporters fluffing their hair and straightening their ties. The local evening news was about to start.

      He debated for a few moments: Turn it on? See what Sutton had wrought?

      Then: Dashiell.

      The thought of his dead son, of the things the reporters would be saying, made him want to crawl right out of his skin. Bolts of panic shuddered through his body. He was stuck in the house; he knew the moment he tried to step foot outdoors, the media would pounce on him. Stuck, trapped in this moment in time, unable to walk away, unable to function. He simply didn’t know what to do.

      He watched the scrum of reporters on his front step. He decided to stay away from the TV, decided against any internet reading. He was afraid what he might see there. Himself cast as the villain. Sutton, his beautiful Sutton, dragged across the coals again. The baby, resurrected and killed, all over again.

      He couldn’t take this. He couldn’t stand it anymore.

      So he poured a drink. And then another. He walked around the house for some exercise, looked at pictures of Dashiell, and for one long, odd moment, stood in Sutton’s closet and smelled her scent and masturbated.

      What else was a trapped man supposed to do? It’s not like he could open his laptop and write, could he? Could he? Yet a little voice said, You’re a selfish man, Ethan Montclair. Might as well take advantage.

      How in the name of God it happened, he didn’t know, but when he opened the manuscript that had lain dormant for the past two months, the words just started to flow.

       THE FIRST BREAK

      The call came very late that evening, while Ethan Montclair sat in his lonely house, contemplating whether he should go searching for his wife or continue to allow the inertia and ennui to consume him. Get lost in a bottle, or possibly stumble across his dead wife’s body?

      An easy, unsurprising decision. He’d poured a drink and continued to type.

      Officer Holly Graham, though, had already gone to bed. When her cell phone rang, she fumbled with the phone—who wouldn’t, that late? When she finally got it to her ear, there was silence. She feared the caller had hung up. They hadn’t.

      “Officer...Graham, is it?”

      The voice was female, deeper than normal, but feminine. Graham glanced quickly at the caller ID—private. That could be anything from a blocked number to a pay phone.

      “Yes. Who is this?”

      “You need to look closer at Ethan Montclair.”

      “Who is this?” Graham had asked again.

      “A concerned friend. Sutton Montclair is my friend. I’m afraid, we’re afraid, Ethan’s hurt Sutton.”

      The