Page 53 of Missing White Woman

“We can buy you some more,” she said. “Newport Centre is just a couple miles away.”

“I don’t want new underwear.” I was crying again now. Big, watery tears that flew down my face. My breath sped up, faster and faster. Just as upset to be this panicked over underwear as I was upset about not having the underwear itself. By the time I did speak, I knew she wouldn’t be able to understand a word I said. “I want to wear my own clean underwear.”

“Two days, Bree. Just give it two more days and then I’ll call them back. Remind them how cooperative you’ve been and that it’s not your fault they can’t find their main suspect. You’ve done everything you could to help. Now please get in.”

I didn’t say anything, just continued to cry as I finally got into the car and closed the passenger-side door. Adore checked for traffic, then pulled out.

“Where are we going?” I was not in the mood to walk past a Bath & Body Works like everything was okay.

“My place. I have a washing machine. Dryer too.”

I was too tired to object.

She didn’t live far. A left here. A right there. Half a dozen or so stoplights. And then she was home. I texted my boss on the way there with a horrible excuse for why I needed more time. I didn’t want to mention what was going on. Her response was terse, but at least she didn’t fire me.

On the outside, Adore’s building wasn’t much. I’d been expecting a high-rise encased in glass. Instead, I got three stories of brick. It was wide, though, taking up at least half the block. And it was fancy enough to have the building name on the awning.

The building also had its own parking lot with a single entrance. Gated, of course. Adore waved her key fob in the general direction of the sensor and the gate slid open like it was supposed to. Hers wasn’t the only Tesla in the lot. She smiled after she pulled into a space marked 1B. “We’re home,” she said.

I hesitated only a moment before getting out, but by the time I did, Adore had her trunk open and my Kenneth Cole suitcase out. “I can take it,” I said.

“I got it.” She lifted the handle and started toward the door.

I didn’t follow right away, just watched her and my bag, looking like the Odd Couple. Adore had brought a bag full of Kmart’s finest with her freshman year. But this person, this A. Kristine McKinley, made that all feel like a literal past life. After a moment I rushed to catch up. She used the same fob to get us in the front door. The lobby was large, but it was also empty.

“No doorman?” I hated the way my voice had sounded as soon as I said it, the trace of bitterness in it like I had just swallowed a shot of cyanide. So I tried again. “Was just wondering how the Amazon deliveries come in.”

“They find a way.” She smiled then, playing along like she hadn’t heard my tone as she wheeled my luggage through the hallway past the lone elevator. “I’m right here.”

The inside was not what I’d thought it would be. I had been expecting one story. Low ceilings and not a lot of space. Instead, I got a two-story loft with an open floor plan. The kitchen was tucked in the corner closest to the foyer, leaving plenty of room for the oversized white couches and round marble dining room table. The place was a collection of muted colors—whites and nudes.

It was beautiful.

It was also exactly how she’d told me she wanted to live when we used to wax poetic about our futures. We’d talked about moving to DC, getting side-by-side fancy lofts with a view. Nothing like the house in the suburbs I had grown up in or the cramped two-bedroom apartment Adore had shared with her mom and three brothers.

And she’d done it, exactly what she’d said—we’d said.

She wheeled my bag to the kitchen, then left it to head to the stainless-steel fridge. My eyes took in the rest of the room, going up, up, up, until they landed on the second floor. More marble. This time on the wall. And two doors on either side of the short hallway. “Where’s the washing machine?” I said.

“Bathroom. It’s that door on the end.”

I mumbled a quick thank-you, reclaimed my Kenneth Cole bag, and wheeled it across her beautiful hardwood floors while praying I didn’t leave a scratch. Her bathroom was damn near bigger than my entire apartment. Even the washing machine was a thing of beauty. It had its own closet next to the glassed-in shower. It took everything not to slam the bathroom door.

I didn’t dare put my suitcase on anything, so I just opened it in the middle of the floor, smack-dab on the fluffy white rug. My plan was to just throw everything into the washing machine, pour in some detergent, and let it rip.

But then I got stuck.

My building had a teeny-tiny laundry room in the basement. Two washers. Two dryers. All probably older than I was. This one was fancy. A front loader with too many buttons. It felt like the machine version of some foreign language. I pressed a button at random based on size. It beeped. Nothing happened. So I tried it all over again, only to get the same result. And just when I was about to start crying again, Adore knocked. “Need help? I can barely use the thing myself.”

I stepped back to let her open it up, then handed her my clothes. She added a Tide Pod and pressed a few buttons until something beeped. I heard the water rush in. At least that was familiar. We both stood there, watching my clothes get more and more wet, before she turned to me. “I have wine.”

I didn’t even pretend like it was too early.

She chose a pinot noir. I knew because it said so on the label. She set it on the counter, then went straight to a cabinet. I figured there were wineglasses inside. I didn’t figure on so many different styles. Wide. Narrow. Shapes I’d never seen. She selected two of the wider ones, then came back to me.

“How much do you drink?” I was proud I’d kept my voice light.

“The ex-husband fashioned himself a wine connoisseur.” She didn’t use air quotes. Just rolled her eyes. “And there are different glasses for different types of wine. When he asked me for the divorce, I asked for them in our settlement just to be petty. He had to buy all new ones for that bitch he cheated on me with.”

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