The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist by Joël Dicker (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

been able to ask them a few preliminary questions. Did Stephanie have any problems? No, they were categorical about that. Did she do drugs? No, definitely not. Did she have a boyfriend? Not as far as they knew. Was there any reason they could think of why she should drop out of sight? No, none.

Their daughter was not the kind of person to hide anything from them. But I soon discovered that this was not exactly the case.

“Why did Stephanie go to Los Angeles two weeks ago?”

“To Los Angeles?” Mrs Mailer said in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Two weeks ago, Stephanie was in California for three days.”

“We didn’t know that,” Mr Mailer said apologetically. “It’s not like her to leave for Los Angeles without telling us. I guess it must have been in connection with the newspaper? She’s very discreet about the articles she’s working on.”

I did not think that the Orphea Chronicle could afford to send its reporters to the other side of the country. And, in fact, it was her job at the paper that raised a number of further questions.

“When and how did Stephanie arrive in Orphea?”

“She had been living in Manhattan for the last few years,” Mrs Mailer said. “She studied literature at Notre Dame. She’s always wanted to be a writer, ever since she was young. She’s had short stories published, two of them in the New Yorker. After her studies, she worked at the New York Literary Review, but she decided to leave in September.”

“Did she give you a reason?”

“She quite soon found a job at the Orphea Chronicle and decided to come back to this area and settle here. She seemed pleased to be away from Manhattan and back in a calmer environment.”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Then Mr Mailer said:

“Captain Rosenberg, we’re not the kind of people who trouble the police for no reason, believe me. We wouldn’t have raised the alarm if we weren’t both convinced that something was wrong. The police in Orphea made it very clear to us that there are no grounds for them to be involved. But even when she took a day trip to the city, Stephanie would send us a text or call us when she got back to let us know that everything was alright. Why text her editor and not her parents? If she had wanted us not to worry, she would have sent us a text, too.”

“Speaking of which,” I resumed, “why does Stephanie go so often to Manhattan?”

“I didn’t say she went there often,” Dennis said. “I was only giving an example.”

“But she does go there often,” I said. “Usually on the same days and at the same times. As if she had a regular appointment. What is it she does there?”

Again, the Mailers seemed not to know what I was talking about. Mrs Mailer, realizing she had not managed to convince me of the gravity of the situation, asked:

“Have you been to her apartment, Captain Rosenberg?”

“No, I’d have liked to, but I didn’t have a key.”

“Would you like to go take a look now? You may see something we didn’t see.”

I accepted, only so that I could close the case. A swift study of her apartment would surely convince me that the Orphea police were right and that there was nothing that pointed to the possibility that Stephanie’s being missing was grounds for my being involved. She could go to Los Angeles or New York as often as she pleased. As for her work at the Orphea Chronicle, it was feasible that after losing her job in the city she had seized on the opportunity presented while waiting for something better to come along.

*

It was a little after eight o’clock when we got to Bendham Road. The three of us climbed the stairs to her apartment. Trudy handed me the key. I turned the key, but the door was not locked. I felt a powerful surge of adrenaline. There was someone inside. Was it Stephanie?

I signaled to Stephanie’s parents to make no noise, say nothing, and gently pushed the door. It opened noiselessly. The shambles in the living room was appalling. Someone had been searching the place.

I whispered to the Mailers. “Go down the stairs. Wait for me in your car. I’ll come and get you.”

When they had gone, I took out my pistol and, looking left and right, stepped into the apartment. It had been turned upside down. I began by inspecting the living room. Its bookshelves had been pulled over, the cushions on the couch were ripped open. My attention was drawn to the objects scattered on the floor and I was unaware of a figure approaching me noiselessly from behind. It was when I turned to look in the other rooms that I found myself up against a shadowy apparition who sprayed tear gas in my face, burning my eyes and making it hard to breathe. Blinded, I bent double. I was struck on the back of my head.

A black curtain descended.

* * *

8.05 at Café Athena.

It is said that Cupid arrives without warning, but there was no doubt that Cupid had decided to stay home when he inflicted this dinner on Betsy. For a whole hour now, without a pause, Josh had been talking. Betsy, who had stopped listening to him, amused herself counting the number of “I”s in his monologue, trotting out like little cockroaches that repelled her a little more each time they appeared. Lauren, who did not know where to put herself, was on her fifth glass of white wine, while Betsy made do with alcohol-free cocktails.

At last, perhaps exhausted by his own eloquence, Josh reached for a glass of water and knocked it back in one go. After this welcome moment of silence, he turned to Betsy and asked her in a formal tone, “How about you, Betsy, what do you do for a living? Lauren wouldn’t tell me.” At that very moment, Betsy’s cell phone rang. Seeing the number displayed on