He couldn't win. There was no escape from her. He might as well give up and head back there first thing in the morning. Or get in his car right now and drive all night and...
No way. That's what the User wanted. For all he knew, she was putting these thoughts in his head right now to try to bring him back. Well, Lizzy had told him he was strong. He had some power to resist her. And the User wasn't all-powerful, Lizzy had said that, too. It strained her there in the library at breakfast to keep six dead people under control, maintain the illusion of Madeleine, and show various servants bringing in imaginary food, all at once. During the police investigation the User wouldn't have half so much to do. She wouldn't have to produce the deep illusion of Madeleine at all. As for this Ray Cryer, he might be a real person and not a mental construct at all. Making the house look clean and lived-in would be a cinch. But could she create the illusion of detailed chemical evidence? Bloodstains? Anything that would convince a court that a crime had been committed? Maybe—but wouldn't she have to know exactly what the lab technicians would need to look for? Could she make her illusions show up on a photograph? Or would she have to follow the photograph constantly to make sure everyone saw the right things when they looked at it? If she knew enough and had power enough to do all that, then there was no point in his even trying to resist her.
But she wasn't infinitely powerful. Her limits could be reached. And he was not going to roll over and play dead.
It was eleven at night. He called his parents in California.
"She left me," he said. Almost his first words.
"No," said Mom.
"Aw, Quen, I'm so sorry," said Dad. "I never would've thought. She was so—you two were so perfect together."
"I don't know where she is. She didn't tell me where she was going."
"How could she do that?" said Mom. "You just don't do that. Decent people don't..."
"Does her family know where she might have gone?"
Here it came—the beginning of his counter-story. Since he had never met or heard of this Ray Cryer, he wasn't going to go along with the User's story that they knew each other. "I never met her family. She took me to the house on the Hudson, but there was nobody there." That was dangerous, he knew, since they were telling the police that he had met her parents. But if they gave him a lie detector test about meeting Madeleine's parents at the house, he could pass it. "And then today, this afternoon, she left."
"But that's so odd," said Mom. "She was taking you there to meet them."
"Did you fight?" asked Dad.
"I had questions. She had no answers. She knew I wasn't happy but no, we didn't fight."
"Oh, son, it'll work out, I know it will," said Mom. "When she realizes you love her no matter what—"
"I do love her, Mom."
"Well there you are. She'll come back, Quen. How could she not? The way you two looked at each other, it was so sweet, you're so much in love with each other, for pity's sake!"
"Dad, Mom, it's not just that she's gone. I'm worried."
"What about?" asked Dad.
"What if something happened to her? She just walked out. I don't know where she went. I didn't see her on the road as I walked to the next town. I didn't see her footprints in the snow."
Silence on the other end of the line.
"Quen, I know this is out of line, but I have to ask. You didn't hit her or anything, did you?"
Mom was furious. "How dare you even suggest such a thing about Quentin!"
"Calm down, Mom, it's all right. If she doesn't turn up soon, the police are going to ask exactly the same question, and they ought to. Dad, I never raised a hand to her or hurt her in any way. The last time I saw her she was fine."
"Why do the police even have to be involved in this?" said Mom. "Wives leave husbands all the time."
"I never met her parents, but now all of a sudden I have a phone call from a man claiming to be her father and he probably is. But he's lying and saying that I met him, which I didn't, and he has the police looking for her and they're going to question me."
"This is so strange," said Mom. "You should be calling to tell us you're going to have a baby, Quentin, not that the police are going to question you."
"You never met her parents," said Dad, "and now suddenly her father is phoning you and they've got the police looking for her. Quentin, is there a chance that Madeleine was setting you up for blackmail all along? You pay up and suddenly there she is, and what was all this missing persons investigation about?"
"I don't know. So far nobody's asked me for money. It's all really confusing and I'm not sure what's really going on. But in case you're contacted and questioned, I wanted you to hear about this first from me."
"That was very wise of you, son."
"What should we tell them?" asked Mom.
"The absolute, complete truth, Mom. I didn't do anything wrong and there's nothing to hide."
"Quentin, I'm so sorry that this is happening," said Dad. "If it's any consolation, we thought she was as wonderful as you did."
"Yeah, well, we're all suckers for the perfect woman, aren't we, Dad? The difference is, the one you married is real."
"Oh, Quen," said Mom.
"Listen, there's a chance that this will hit the papers and if it does, they'll make it look like I'm guilty of something horrible because that's what sells papers. You know, Software Millionaire's Wife Missing, Husband Can't Explain Disappearance. If it's a con, and I think it is, you can be sure there'll be some evidence that supposedly contradicts things I've told you. No matter what other people are saying, though, you can be sure of this: I did no harm to Madeleine, and if I could have her back right now, as my wife, flesh and blood, right here beside me, I'd be the happiest man alive." And then, because this was true, and because he was tired, and because he had never had a chance to mourn for the wife he lost, he wept, his parents listening to him on the phone, believing him, comforting him.
And why not believe him? Everything he had said was true. And he had told them all that they could possibly believe.
Afterward, physically and emotionally drained, he fell asleep in front of the TV in the living room before Letterman got to the top ten list.
Next day he phoned his Virginia lawyer and asked him how to go about reporting a missing person. He explained that his wife had left him in New York State, but he had come home to Herndon assuming that she would find her own way back to one of their residences, only she wasn't answering the phone anywhere and until he located her he had to assume that something might have happened to her and he wanted the police to be on the lookout just in case—wasn't that the right thing to do? And his lawyer assured him, definitely, that was the right thing to do.
So he did it, but they didn't seem to think there was any urgency. "She'll turn up, Mr. Fears. Just give her time to cool down."
"I'm sure you're right," he answered. "But please just put out the word, won't you? Call the police up there and ask them to be on the lookout?" They assured him they'd see to it. He knew that the New York police would assume he was launching his own search because of the phone message from Ray Cryer, but if he didn't start searching it would look even worse.
That afternoon he boarded a flight to San Francisco and by evening he was in his lawyer's office.
"Only for you do I cancel dinner at my favorite restaurant in San Rafael and drive down into the city."
"You should have told me," said Quentin. "I would have come up and joined you there."