Cree LeFavour

Private Means


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       Also by Cree LeFavour

       Lights On, Rats Out

      Private Means

       A Novel

      Cree LeFavour

      Copyright © 2020 by Cree LeFavour

      Cover design and collage by Gretchen Mergenthaler

      Cover collage images: Sleeping Venus by Giorgione,

      photo © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY;

      various detail images from BigStock and Shutterstock

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011, or [email protected].

      FIRST EDITION

       Published simultaneously in CanadaPrinted in the United States of America

      First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: May 2020

      Text design by Ashley Prine

      This book was set in Scala with Frutiger

      by Tandem Books

      ISBN 978-0-8021-4888-9

      eISBN 978-0-8021-4890-2

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title.

      Grove Press

      an imprint of Grove Atlantic

      154 West 14th Street

      New York, NY 10011

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      groveatlantic.com

      20 21 22 23 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

       For Dwight Garner

      Contents

       Cover

      Also by Cree LeFavour

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Friday, May 25, Memorial Day Weekend

      Friday, May 25, Memorial Day Weekend

       Tuesday, May 29

       Tuesday, May 29

       Saturday, June 16

       Friday–Sunday, July 6–8, July 4 Observed

       Tuesday, July 17

       Monday, July 23

       Friday–Sunday, July 27–29

       Wednesday, August 8

       Friday–Sunday, August 10–12

       Friday, August 17

       Monday, August 27, and Thursday, August 30

       Saturday–Monday, September 1–3, Labor Day Weekend

       Acknowledgements

       Back Cover

       Friday, May 25, Memorial Day Weekend

      Spotting the phone charger, she unplugged it from the wall by the nightstand and threw it onto the bed where the hard, white cube clattered against the fiberglass rim of the tennis racket. Tossing orange swim trunks she found hanging inside the closet in the same general direction, Alice again scanned the space before leaving the battered leather weekend bag for Peter to stuff, zip, and carry. Entering the kitchen, she pressed her bare foot to the side of the half case of 2018 Domaines Ott Bandol and slid it across the scratched oak floorboards to the door.

      She’d offered a reward. Would she be forced to demand a photo of Maebelle sitting on that day’s newspaper? Would the Post be too tawdry? She should insist on the Times. The insanity of it. This wasn’t Somalia or Afghanistan or the Philippines; it was Manhattan’s Upper West Side—and Maebelle was a dog.

      Standing at the kitchen counter, waiting for her husband to move toward the door but not daring to rush him—he was quick to snap lately—she thought of the dog’s future face. Unnaturally aged, the muzzle grizzled and eyes flat, the geriatric canine profile persisted in her mind. It was nothing like the image on the LOST DOG flyer featuring Maebelle’s eager, adorable mug, her nose practically touching the camera lens.

      LOST DOG

      $2,000 REWARD

      NO QUESTIONS ASKED

      Do NOT Chase

      Last seen May 17th in Riverside Park

      at 97th St. Please call:

      914-219-8331

      Microchip Number: 4689654234566

      No, she would not be putting up these posters on every available surface in the neighborhood five years from now. It had been just over a week. When would she give up? In two months? A year? How long was long enough?

      He’d left his office door open. Two rooms away she could discern the distinctive inflection of her husband’s official doctor voice on the phone.

      Yes, Wellbutrin 300 XL, and the patient does not want the generic … No. DAW, dispense as written.

      Waiting for him to finish the call, she remembered taking her twin daughters, Bette and Emile, to a 4-H fair upstate when their chubby legs were just sturdy enough to walk in a crowd—maybe three or four years old. Biting her cuticles, the ragged skin around her nails desperate for a manicure, she recalled the heat of that dusty August day as they waited in line for funnel cakes. She’d been transfixed by a photograph of a teenager on a LOST CHILD poster. The girl’s face was somehow off, but she hadn’t been able to identify what was wrong with it until she read the fine print below the photograph. Her name was Kaylee, and she had been taken from that same 4-H fair. She’d disappeared at just four years old; the photo on the poster was a computer rendering of the girl at fourteen, her nose transformed from a fleshy button into a bony structure, her jawline formed into a too-perfect half oval like the sharp end of an egg, her eyes set deep in their sockets beneath well-defined eyebrows. The artist had even glossed her with lipstick—or at least it looked