Page 9 of Missing White Woman

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The rest of the day was a fairy tale, complete with a whole horse-and-carriage.

We didn’t run to the waterway as originally mentioned, instead sticking closer to Little Street. The entire neighborhood was equally as gorgeous. More row houses that hadn’t been chopped and screwed into multiple apartments. Each one looked more taken care of than a twenty-five-year-old Sugar Baby. The only indication of the age of a house was the size of the trees in front of it.

Our race didn’t truly start until we were a block from our Airbnb, and then it turned into an all-out sprint. Ty had speed, but I had endurance.

I won.

I got dressed while he got started on breakfast.

Once we’d eaten and he’d dressed, we headed for the PATH and took it under the Hudson River into Manhattan. I was expecting to hit all the tourist traps. Ty had something much better in mind. We walked the city, hitting the places he loved the most. We started high, some place called Washington Heights, at this botanical garden by the same people who did that fancy celeb party every year. Then we made our way down, hitting his favorite cookie spot (Levain) and bookstore (Kinokuniya), before eating dinner in the outdoor space of his favorite restaurant (Scalini Fedeli).

He tried to stay present, but I’d still catch him on his phone tapping furiously when I came back from the bathroom or spent too much time browsing bookshelves. He always put the phone away as soon as he noticed me noticing.

Despite the test run, my feet were killing me by the time we made it back up to Central Park. So I was especially happy when Ty took us right to the line of waiting horse-and-carriages. Our driver was named Bill. Though I didn’t have glass slippers, he had on a top hat. We both jumped when Ty’s phone rang when we were about a half hour in. Bill was in full tour-guide mode. “We’re coming up on a great place for photos.”

Ty was a vibrate person. It was the first time I’d even heard his ringtone. He quickly checked the phone, then glanced at me as if remembering his promise to not work. He gave me a tight smile, then put it away.

We’d been taking pics all day, mostly solo shots of each other or selfies with the two of us to add to our couple shot collection. None of them had made it online. We weren’t “Instagram official.” Not yet. When it came to twenty-first-century dating, that didn’t happen until after we both said an “I love you.” There was no worse feeling than dealing with a breakup and having to delete dozens of pics from your social media. Or so I’d been told.

We’d just stopped at the lake when Ty’s phone rang again. “This is Cherry Hill,” Bill said. “We’ll stop for a few minutes so you can get some beautiful photos. I’d be happy to take one of the two of you by the fountain.”

I spoke as we got out of the carriage. “Work again?”

“Client,” Ty said. “It’s fine.”

But I could tell by his voice that it wasn’t. I nodded and then: “Ian gonna get mad?”

His boss.

“Probably,” Ty said.

“Don’t you have that meeting with him when you get back home?”

Ty was up for a promotion. I didn’t understand any of it but didn’t have to in order to know what a big deal it was. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted it. Bad. And I would be damned if he didn’t get it because I was looking at lakes in Central Park.

Ty loved his job. Make that his career. Because that’s what it was. He was a numbers person who had always been good with money and had parlayed that into a career at one of the biggest finance companies in the world.

My job paid enough to keep me fed, even if it didn’t keep me happy. Five-year-old Breanna never saw herself in a dead-end job. She’d wanted to be a lawyer like her dad, and the feeling only intensified after his death. College Breanna had even signed up for the LSAT and was supposed to take it—until that night.

It was why I was so proud of Ty. So determined to get this promotion. Follow his dream. “You should answer,” I said.

He kissed me so quick I wasn’t even sure it had happened. His phone was already at his ear as he started to walk away for privacy. “Hi, this is Ty—” He pulled it away to stare at the now-black screen. “It died. It’s fine.”

But once again, I could tell it wasn’t. “You can always call them back with my phone. I’m at, like, at least fifty percent.”

He turned to look at me as I held my own up, complete with a photo of the two of us on our rare-for-me second date. “You don’t want photos of us in front of Cherry Hill?” He motioned to Bill at the ready a few feet away.

“We’ll take them after you call your client back.” I handed it over. “Hurry up, Mr. Future Vice President.”

The second kiss was much longer.

THREE

Ty wasn’t in bed when I woke up, and he didn’t answer when I called his name. I glanced at the wall clock: 11:06 a.m.

That was more like it when it came to my sleep schedule. My train wasn’t until 7 p.m. It left plenty of time to explore either the city or each other.