Lost Read online

  Praise for the powerful novels of

  New York Times bestselling author

  JOY FIELDING

  LOST

  “Fine-tuned details … [a] compelling tale.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  WHISPERS AND LIES

  “[A] page-turner … [with] an ending worthy of Hitchcock.… Once again, the bestselling author tests the complex ties that bind friends and family, and keeps readers wondering when those same ties might turn deadly.… Those familiar with Patricia Highsmith’s particular brand of sinister storytelling will recognize the mayhem Fielding so cunningly unleashes.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Fielding delivers another page-turner … a suspense novel with a shocking twist [and] a plot turn so surprising that all previous events are thrown into question. The author keeps the tension high and the pages turning, creating a chillingly paranoid atmosphere.”

  —Booklist

  “A very satisfying page-turner.… Fielding does a very good job in building her story to a totally unexpected denouement.”

  —Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

  GRAND AVENUE

  “It’s hard to sit down and read a few pages of one of [Fielding’s] novels and not want to read the rest. Right now.”

  —The Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN)

  “Riveting? You bet. Powerful? 10,000 horsepower. A real page-turner? And then some. Must-read? And how. Clichés, but so true of Joy Fielding’s Grand Avenue.”

  —The Cincinnati Enquirer

  “Fielding deals confidently and tenderly with her subjects, and her plots and subplots are engaging. It’s a comfortable, engrossing book for anyone who wants to spend some time with four average, and therefore remarkable, women.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “A multi-layered saga of friendship, loss, and loyalty. Grand Avenue reminds us of how fear, unfulfilled dreams, and a thirst for power can ravage the closest of relationships.”

  —Woman’s Own

  “Surprisingly moving.… Don’t forget to keep a family-size box of Kleenex handy in preparation for the tear-jerking finale.”

  —Booklist

  “Emotionally compelling … hard to put down.… Fielding fully develops her four women characters, each of whom is exquisitely revealed.”

  —Library Journal

  “With her usual page-turning flair, Fielding [writes a] romantic drama with a thriller twist.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE FIRST TIME

  “Every line rings true.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

  “Dramatic and heartrending … the emotions are almost tangible.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “[An] affecting drama.… Fielding is good at chronicling the messy tangle of family relationships.… A three-tissue finale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This is rich stuff.… Fielding has again pushed a seemingly fragile heroine to the brink, only to have her fight back, tooth and nail.”

  —Booklist

  National Acclaim for JOY FIELDING’S

  Previous Fiction

  “Fielding’s specialty is stripping away the contemporary and trendy feminine masks to reveal the outrageous face of female rage.… But like a good mystery writer, she creates sympathy for the character.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “If you’re in the mood to bury yourself in a book … pick up Joy Fielding’s latest novel … it’s guaranteed to reduce you to tears, and once they’ve dried, will leave you feeling a little readier to tackle life’s challenges.”

  —The Gazette (Montreal)

  “Fielding masterfully manipulates our expectations.”

  —The Washington Post

  Also by Joy Fielding

  Whispers and Lies

  Grand Avenue

  The First Time

  Missing Pieces

  Don’t Cry Now

  Tell Me No Secrets

  See Jane Run

  Good Intentions

  The Deep End

  Life Penalty

  The Other Woman

  Kiss Mommy Goodbye

  Copyright © 2003 by Joy Fielding, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Seal Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

  LOST

  Seal Books/published by arrangement with Doubleday Canada Doubleday Canada edition published 2003

  Seal Books edition published June 2004

  eISBN: 978-0-385-67463-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Seal Books are published by Random House of Canada Limited.

  “Seal Books” and the portrayal of a seal are the property of Random House of Canada Limited.

  Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:

  www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  To Annie,

  my sweet potato

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again, my thanks and gratitude to Owen Laster, Larry Mirkin, and Beverley Slopen for their continuing friendship, insight, advice, and unfailing generosity of spirit. Please know that your support means the world to me.

  To my gorgeous editor, Emily Bestler, and her assistant Sarah Branham, for their smarts, hard work, and dedication. And to Owen’s assistant, Jonathan Pecarsky, for always managing to sound pleased to hear from me.

  To Judith Curr, Louise Burke, Laura Mullen, Estelle Laurence, and the wonderful people at Atria and Pocket, for their continuing efforts on my behalf—and for those wonderful chocolates at Christmas.

  A special thank you to Michael Steeves from MacInfo, who responded to my frantic cries for help when my computer seemingly swallowed my disk. His efforts on my behalf were truly heroic.

  To Maya Mavjee, John Neale, John Pearce, Stephanie Gowan, and the staff at Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House, who have never flagged in their support. Our association has spanned many years and several publishing upheavals, and I am both proud and happy we’re still together.

  Lost is the first of my novels to be set in my hometown of Toronto, and I realized as I was writing this
book how much this beautiful city means to me. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Jim Cairns, the Deputy Chief Coroner for the province of Ontario, and to Gord Walker in the dispatch regional office for the time both so graciously took to answer my questions and share their expertise. My thanks also to the Toronto International Film Festival—the greatest film festival on earth—for providing both the backdrop for this book, and also some of my greatest film memories.

  To my readers, again I thank you for your emails, your comments, and your enthusiasm. And a special thanks to those of you who show up at book signings. You make book tours worthwhile.

  And lastly, to my family and friends, especially Warren, my amazing husband of almost thirty years, and our beautiful and talented daughters, Shannon and Annie. Without you, truly I would be lost.

  ONE

  THE morning began, as did so many of their mornings, with an argument. Later, when it was important to recall the precise order of events, the way everything had spun so effortlessly out of control, Cindy would struggle to remember what exactly she and her older daughter had been fighting about. The dog, the shower, her niece’s upcoming wedding—it would all seem so mundane, so trivial, so unworthy of raised voices and increased blood pressure. A blur of words that blew past their heads like a sudden storm, scattering debris but leaving the foundation intact. Nothing extraordinary to be sure. The start of an average day. Or so it had seemed at the time.

  (Images: Cindy, in the ratty, green-and-navy terrycloth bathrobe she’d bought just after Tom left, towel-drying her chin-length brown hair as she emerges from her bedroom; Julia at the opposite end of the wide upstairs hall, wrapped in a yellow-and-white-striped towel, pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom between her room and her sister’s, impatience bubbling like lava from a volcano inside her reed-thin, six-foot frame; Elvis, the perpetually scruffy, apricot-colored Wheaten terrier Julia brought with her when she’d moved back home just under a year ago, barking and snapping at the air as he bounces along beside her.)

  “Heather, what in God’s name are you doing in there?” Julia banged on the bathroom door, then banged on it a second time when no answer was forthcoming.

  “Sounds like she’s taking a shower,” Cindy offered, regretting her interference as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  Julia glared at her mother from underneath a mop of ash-blond hair, painstakingly straightened every morning to obliterate even a hint of its natural curl. “Obviously.”

  Cindy marveled that one word could contain so much venom, convey so much disdain. “I’m sure she’ll be out in a minute.”

  “She’s been in there for half an hour already. There’ll be no hot water left for me.”

  “There’ll be plenty of hot water.”

  Julia banged her fist a third time against the bathroom door.

  “Stop that, Julia. You’ll break it if you’re not careful.”

  “Oh, yeah, right. Like I could break the door.” As if to prove her point, she thumped it again.

  “Julia.…”

  “Mother.…”

  Stalemate, Cindy thought. As usual. The way it had been between the two of them since Julia was two years old and had balked at wearing the frilly white dress Cindy had bought her for her birthday, the stubborn toddler refusing to attend her own party even after Cindy had conceded defeat, told her she could wear whatever she liked.

  Nineteen years had passed. Julia was twenty-one. Nothing had changed.

  “Did you walk the dog?” Cindy asked now.

  “And just when would I have done that?”

  Cindy pretended not to notice the sarcasm in her daughter’s voice. “When you got up. Like you’re supposed to.”

  Julia rolled large green eyes toward the ceiling.

  “We had a deal,” Cindy reminded her.

  “I’ll walk him later.”

  “He’s been cooped up all night. He’s probably desperate to go.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want any more accidents.”

  “Then you take him out,” Julia snapped. “I’m not exactly dressed for a walk.”

  “You’re being obstinate.”

  “You’re being anal.”

  “Julia.…”

  “Mother.…”

  Stalemate.

  Julia slammed her open palm against the bathroom door. “Okay, time’s up. Everybody out of the pool.”

  Cindy absorbed the reverberation from Julia’s hand on the door like a slap on the face. She lifted her fingers to her cheek, felt the sting. “That’s enough, Julia. She can’t hear you.”

  “She’s doing it on purpose. She knows I have a big audition today.”

  “You have an audition?”

  “For Michael Kinsolving’s new movie. He’s in town for the film festival, and he’s agreed to audition some local talent.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Dad set it up.”

  Cindy forced a smile through tightly gritted teeth.

  “You’re doing it again.” Julia mimicked her mother’s strained expression. “If you’re going to go catatonic every time I mention Dad.…”

  “I’m not catatonic.”

  “The divorce was seven years ago, Mom. Get over it.”

  “I assure you, I’m well over your father.”

  Julia arched one thin eyebrow, plucked to within a hair of its life. “Anyway, they’re looking for an unknown, which probably means every girl in North America will be up for the part. Heather, for God’s sake,” Julia shouted, as the shower shuddered to a halt. “You’re not the only one who lives here, you know.”

  Cindy stared toward the thick cream-colored broadloom at her feet. It had been less than a year since Julia had decided to move back home with her mother and sister after seven years of living with her father, and only because her father’s new wife had made it clear she considered their five-thousand-square-foot lakeside penthouse too cramped for the three of them. Julia had made it equally clear to her mother that her move home was temporary, one borne of financial necessity, and that she’d be moving into her own apartment as soon as her fledgling acting career took off. Cindy had been so eager to have her daughter back, to make up for the time missed, the years lost, that even the sight of Julia’s unruly dog peeing on the living room carpet did little to dampen her initial enthusiasm. Cindy had welcomed Julia back with open arms and a grateful heart.

  The door to Heather’s bedroom opened, and a sleepy-eyed teenage girl in an oversized purple nightshirt spotted with tiny pink hearts squinted into the hall. Delicate long fingers pushed several tendrils of loose brown curls away from the slight oval of her Botticelli face, then rubbed at the freckles peppering the tip of her upturned nose. “What’s all the racket?” she asked as Elvis jumped up to lick her chin.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Julia muttered angrily when she saw her sister, then kicked at the bathroom door with her bare feet. “Duncan, get your bony ass out of there.”

  “Julia.…”

  “Mother.…”

  “Duncan’s ass is not bony,” Heather said.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to be late for my audition because my sister’s moronic boyfriend is using my shower.”

  “It’s not your shower; he’s not a moron; and he’s lived here longer than you have,” Heather protested.

  “A huge mistake,” Julia said, looking accusingly at her mother.

  “Says who?”

  “Says Dad.”

  Cindy’s lips formed the automatic smile that accompanied each mention of her ex-husband. “Let’s not get into that right now.”

  “Fiona thinks so too,” Julia persisted. “She says she can’t understand whatever possessed you to let him move in here.”

  “Did you tell that pea-brained twit to mind her own goddamned business?” The angry words flew from Cindy’s mouth. She couldn’t have stopped them if she’d tried.

  “Mom!” Heather’s dark blue eyes widened in alarm.

>   “Mother, really,” Julia said, green eyes rolling back toward the ceiling.

  It was the “really” that did Cindy in. The word hit her like an arrow to the heart, and she had to lean against the nearest wall for support. As if eager to add his opinion, Elvis lifted his leg into the air and peed against the bathroom door.

  “Oh no!” Cindy glared at her older daughter.

  “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who swore and got him all upset.”

  “Just clean it up.”

  “I don’t have time to clean it up. My audition’s at eleven o’clock.”

  “It’s eight-thirty!”

  “You have an audition?” Heather asked her sister. “What for?”

  “Michael Kinsolving’s in town for the film festival, and he’s decided to audition local talent for his new movie. Dad set it up.”

  “Cool,” Heather said as Cindy’s lips curled again into a frozen smile.

  The bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam rushed into the hall, followed by tall, skinny Duncan Rossi, wet black hair falling across playful brown eyes, and wearing nothing but a small yellow-and-white bath towel and a large, lopsided grin. He quickly ducked into the bedroom he’d been sharing with Cindy’s younger daughter for almost two years. Of course, the original deal had been that he occupy the spare room in the basement, an arrangement that lasted all of three months. Another three months were spent denying the obvious, that Duncan was creeping up to Heather’s bedroom after Cindy was safely asleep, and then creeping back down before she got up, until everyone finally stopped pretending, although no one ever actually acknowledged the move out loud.

  In truth Cindy had no problem with the fact Heather and Duncan were sleeping together. She genuinely liked Duncan, who was considerate and helpful around the house, and had somehow managed to maintain his equilibrium and good humor even after the maelstrom that was Julia moved in across the hall. Both Heather and Duncan were nice, responsible kids who’d started dating in their first year of high school, and had been talking about marriage ever since.