Sonya purses her lips. ‘Not directly. They’re always pleasant in this fake, simpering way, but there’s a nasty undercurrent there. Gabby has this way of making out that Otis has told her things he wouldn’t tell Lex. It drives Lex insane. Whenever Lex and Otis get into a bad fight, one of them leaves. Lex goes to me or to a hotel, but Otis? Well, he goes to Gabby. One time he was with her for three days.’
Sonya watches me, waiting for a reaction.
‘Janine, Otis went to another woman’s house forthree days.What do you think he was doing all that time?’
‘A man and a woman can be friends without being romantically involved,’ I acknowledge, but Sonya cackles.
‘Don’t be so naive! You’ve seen the way Gabby looks at Otis. I tell Lex all the time to leave and let the two of them get on with what’s obviously already happening.’
As Sonya shakes her head like I’m clueless, the discomfort I feel in her presence quadruples. It’s not that I don’t see the point she is trying to make, but I don’t agree with her black-and-white way of viewing the world.
‘Look at it this way,’ Sonya pushes, ‘if your husband disappeared to another woman’s house for three days, would you believe his pleas of innocence?’
When I say nothing, Sonya smirks as if my silence provides my answer.
‘Otis denies anything has ever happened, but if my ex-husband could find the time to have an affair in his lunch hour, then Otisand Gabby can find the time to have one in three days. Men, they take a whole, happy woman and suck the life out of her. Anthony did it with me, and Otis did it with Alexa.’
Sonya’s bitterness bites at my throat, although her rage makes more sense in light of the revelation about her own relationship. It’s hard not to pity her, even if she is making such wild generalisations.
‘The last time Lex let slip that she thought Gabby was too friendly with Otis, he said he was tired of the conversation and that Lex should trust him. Talk about gaslighting, right?’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, once again uncomfortable at Sonya’s scathing analysis of Otis Clarke. Or maybe the thing I’m uncomfortable with is how willingly I got into a car with a man who, according to Sonya, is not to be trusted. Maybe my judgement isn’t to be trusted either.
Misreading my discomfort, Sonya shakes her head. ‘Whose side are you on, Janine? My best friend is missing and you’re sitting there playing devil’s advocate. Get off the fence and open your eyes to the truth about Otis Clarke!’
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a young couple approaching a nearby table freeze when they hear Sonya shout. Sonya notices them, too. She offers what I think is meant to be a reassuring smile, but her tension makes it have the opposite effect. As the couple back away, Sonya deflates.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout,’ she says. ‘I’m just worried.’
‘It’s fine. Look, it’s not that I don’t hear your concerns. There are things about Otis that worry me too, but I’m just here to gather as much information as I can so I can help Alexa.’
Sonya’s chin dimples, but she nods.
With an easing of the pressurised atmosphere, my shoulders unclench. ‘Have Alexa and Otis stopped arguing about Gabby?’
Sonya nods again. ‘Lex learned to pretend she was cool with their friendship, although it still bothered her. The arguments about Gabby stopped, but maybe that’s the problem.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw it in my own marriage. When you argue, it’s because you care. It’s because you’ve got something to fight for. As soon as the arguments stop, that’s when you should worry, because that’s when whatever was there between two people has died.’
Even though I know Otis and Alexa argued the morning she went missing, I still gulp. ‘Do you think Otis and Alexa’s relationship has died?’
‘Think it? I know it.’ Sonya leans forward, so close her breath tickles my cheek. ‘Have you ever been around two people who were once madly in love but have lost the will to speak to each other? Two people floating around in a big empty house like ghosts?’
Kamal’s face flashes in my mind. His hand reaching for me, me pulling away. The two of us side by side in the same room, but oceans apart. I shake my head to answer, and to rattle the vision from my brain.
‘Well, that’s Lex and Otis. The love between them hasn’t been there for a long time. And that beautiful house they built? Let’s just say, these days, it’s more like a prison than a dream for Lex.’ Sonya sits back, watching me absorb what she said.
Wrestling my anxiety into submission, I ask Sonya perhaps the most important question of all. ‘Where do you think Alexa is?’
The change in Sonya is instantaneous. ‘I really don’t know. She’s never vanished like this before. But if you ask me, I don’t think leaving Otis was what she was doing that day.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She didn’t call me. Lex and I talk as often as we can. Life gets in the way of big catch-ups, you know? But whenever Lex took a break from Otis, she always called. Sometimes it was to check it was okay to stay with me, other times to say what had happened – but she always, always called. The thing is, I’ve not heard from Lex in two weeks.’
A dense silence follows Sonya’s admission.