“Jake Fisher.”
“You married, Jake?”
“No.”
“Ever been married?”
“No.”
“You got a serious girlfriend?”
I didn’t bother answering.
“Shame.” Sylvia Avery shook her head. “Big, strong man like you. You should be married. You should be making a girl feel safe. You shouldn’t be alone.”
I didn’t like where this conversational route was taking us. It was time to change it up.
“Miss Avery?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what I do for a living?”
She looked me up and down. “You look like a linebacker.”
“I’m a college professor,” I said.
“Oh.”
I turned my body so that I could get a clearer look at her reaction to what I was about to say. “I teach political science at Lanford College.”
Whatever color had remained in her cheeks drained away.
“Mrs. Kleiner?”
“That’s not my name.”
“It was though, wasn’t it? You changed it back after your husband left Lanford.”
She closed her eyes. “Who told you about that?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Did Natalie say something?”
“No,” I said. “Never. Not even when I brought her to campus.”
“Good.” Her quivering hand came up to her mouth. “My God, how can you know about this?”
“I need to speak to your ex-husband.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in fright. “Oh no, this can’t be…”
“What can’t be?”
She sat there, hand on mouth, saying nothing.
“Please, Miss Avery. It is very important I talk to him.”
Sylvia Avery squeezed her eyes shut tight like a little kid wishing away a monster. I glanced over her shoulder. Beehive was watching us with open curiosity. I forced up a smile as fake as hers to show that all was okay.
Sylvia Avery’s voice was a whisper. “Why are you bringing this up now?”
“I need to speak to him.”
“It was such a long, long time ago. Do you know what I had to do to move past that? Do you know how painful this is?”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“No? Then stop. Why on earth would you need to find that man? Do you know what his running off did to Natalie?”
I waited, hoping that she’d say more. She did.
“You need to understand. Julie, well, she was young. She barely remembered her father. But Natalie? She never got over it. She never let him go.”
Her hand fluttered back toward her face. She looked off. I waited some more, but it was clear that Sylvia Avery had stopped talking for the moment.
I tried to stay firm. “Where is Professor Kleiner now?”
“California,” she said.
“Where in California?”
“I don’t know.”
“Los Angeles area? San Francisco? San Diego? It’s a big state.”
“I said, I don’t know. We don’t speak.”
“So how do you know he’s in California?”
That made her pause. I saw something skitter across her face. “I don’t,” she said. “He may have moved.”
A lie.
“You told your daughters he remarried.”
“That’s right.”
“How did you know?”
“Aaron called and told me.”
“I thought you didn’t speak.”
“Not in a very long time.”
“What’s his wife’s name?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. And I would not tell you if I did.”
“Why not? Your daughters, okay, I get that. You were protecting them. But why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes shifted from left to right. I decided to bluff.
“I checked the marital records,” I said. “You two were never divorced.”
Sylvia Avery let out a small groan. There was no way Beehive could have heard it, but her ears still perked up like a dog’s hearing a sound no one else could. I gave Beehive the same “all’s fine” smile.
“How did your husband remarry if you two were never divorced?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“What happened, Miss Avery?”
She shook her head. “Let it be.”
“He didn’t run away with a coed, did he?”
“Yes, he did,” she said. Now it was her turn to try to sound firm. But it wasn’t there. It was too defensive, too practiced. “Yes, Aaron ran off and left me.”
“Lanford College is a small campus, you know that, right?”
“Of course I know it. I lived there for seven years. So what?”
“A female student quitting to run off with a professor would have made news. Her parents would have called. There would have been staff meetings. Something. I checked the records. No one dropped out when your husband vanished. No female student dropped her classes. No female student was unaccounted for.”
This again was a bluff but a good one. Campuses as small as Lanford do not keep secrets well. If a student ran off with a professor, everyone, especially Mrs. Dinsmore, would know her name.
“Maybe she was at Strickland. That state college down the street. I think she went there.”
“That’s not what happened,” I said.
“Please,” Miss Avery said. “What are you trying to do?”
“Your husband vanished. And now, twenty-five years later, so has your daughter.”
That got her attention. “What?” She shook her head too firmly, reminding me of a stubborn child. “I told you. Natalie lives overseas.”
“No, Miss Avery. She doesn’t. She never married Todd. That was a ruse. Todd was already married. Someone murdered him a little more than a week ago.”
It was one bombshell too many. Sylvia Avery’s head lolled first to the side and then down as though her neck had turned to rubber. Behind her, I saw Beehive pick up the phone. She kept her eye on me and started talking to someone. The wooden smile was gone.
“Natalie was such a happy girl.” Her head was still down, her chin on her chest. “You can’t imagine. Or maybe you can. You loved her. You got to see the real her, but that was much later. After so much changed back.”
“Changed back from what?”
“See, when Natalie was little, my God, that girl lived for her father. He’d come through the door after class, and she’d run to him screaming with joy.” Sylvia Avery finally lifted her head. There was a distant smile on her face, her eyes seeing the long-ago memory. “Aaron would pick her up and twirl her and she’d laugh so hard…”
She shook her head. “We were all so damn happy.”
“What happened, Miss Avery?”
“He ran off.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“Poor Natalie. She couldn’t let it go and now…”
“Now what?”
“You don’t understand. You can never understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
“Why? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the man who loves her,” I said. “I’m the man she loves.”
She didn’t know how to react to that. Her eyes were still on the floor, almost as though she didn’t have the strength to lift even her gaze. “When her father ran off, Natalie changed. She grew so sullen. I lost that little girl. It was like Aaron took her happiness with him. She couldn’t accept it. Why would her father abandon her? What did she do wrong? Why didn’t he love her anymore?”
I pictured this, my Natalie as a child, feeling lost and abandoned by her own father. I could feel the pain in my chest.
“She had trust issues for so long. You have no idea. She pushed everyone away and yet she never gave up hope.” She looked up at me. “Do you know anything about hope, Jake?”
“I think I do,” I said.
“It’s the cruelest thing in the world. Death is better. When you’re dead, the pain stops. But hope keeps raising you way up high, only to drop you to the hard ground. Hope cradles your heart in its hand and then it crushes it with a fist. Over and over. It never stops. That’s what hope does.”