“I know, I know. I do the same.”
Isabel and Albert were now talking to each other, less focused on the woman in the parking lot.
“Guys, look,” said Norman.
The woman, as though she could sense she was being observed from afar, turned and gazed up in their direction.
Looked directly at their window.
And waved.
Fourteen
Jayne Keeling, listening to Detective Hardy, had felt her world falling apart.
She’d sat across the table from her, hearing details about Andrew that she could hardly bring herself to believe.
“Why do you suppose Andrew hasn’t told you any of this?” Hardy asked.
Jayne did not know what to say.
“He was lucky, finding someone like you, someone from out of town who wouldn’t have been following the news at the time.”
“What do you want?” Jayne asked. “Why are you telling me all this?”
The detective smiled, leaned in. “I guess, if I were you, I’d want to know. I would feel I had a right to know.”
“But why now?”
Hardy offhandedly pointed at her phone, still on the table. A reference to the picture she had shown her moments earlier. “A development.”
“Is it a development? I mean, what do you make of this?”
Hardy shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But I have to check it out.”
“But if... if that’s Brie, then everything you’ve believed about Andrew is wrong. She’s alive, and he had nothing to do with it.”
“The first part might be true. That she’s alive. But I don’t know that that means he had nothing to do with her disappearance. All the more reason for me to talk to him. Why don’t you text him and see when he’s coming back.”
“I did. Just before you got here.”
Hardy shook her head. “You know what? I’ll catch him another time.” She picked up her phone, scrolled through some contacts. “I still have a number in here from six years back, unless he changed that along with his name.” She read it out to Jayne. “Is that still it?”
“Yes.”
The detective pushed back her chair, stood, dropped the phone into the small purse that hung over her shoulder. She pulled a business card from it and placed it on the table.
“If you want to call,” she said.
Jayne glanced at the card but did not pick it up.
“And if you need someplace to go,” Hardy said, “I can help you with that. Someplace for yourself, and for your brother.”
“What are you talking about? Are you talking about a shelter?”
Hardy nodded.
“We don’t need to go to any shelter. I’m not being abused. Tyler’s not being abused.”
“Okay. But there’s my number, should you change your mind.”
Jayne followed Hardy out of the house and watched her get into her car, start it up, and drive off.
She was numb.
So this is what it’s like, she thought, to be in free fall, to be plunging through the air with a parachute that won’t open.
She was about to go back into the house, then decided to wait out here for his return. She sat on the front step, placed her palms on the cool concrete. As soon as he came around the corner in his Explorer, she would see him. And then she had a thought.
Maybe he isn’t coming back.
He knew all about what had happened that morning. The detective had told Jayne that when she went to talk to that Max person, he’d told her his first call had been to Andrew, that he had already been there, listened to Max’s eyewitness account, then seen what was on the next-door neighbor’s security camera.
So much for going to Home Depot for weed and feed.
Jayne wondered if what he’d seen in that surveillance camera image had somehow frightened him. Made him want to run.
She knew the truth, knew about the secrets he had kept from her, and now he was heading for the hills.
She thought of all the stories she’d read over the years of women who’d been duped. Women who had met the man of their dreams, only to learn he was a con artist intent on swindling them out of their fortune. Or a bigamist with another wife, and family, on the other side of the country.
Well, Jayne had no fortune, so there went that motive. And if Andrew had another family somewhere, he certainly hadn’t been spending any time with them.
But was he a murderer?
No, no, not possible.
Then she heard the car. There, coming down the street, was Andrew.
The sight of his SUV prompted both relief and a wave of dread. Relief that he’d not run, and dread over the discussion that lay ahead.
Why had he not told her about Brie? How did you go through something like that and not feel the need to talk about it?
She began to make excuses for him. As they’d grown closer, as they’d fallen in love — and she had no doubt, at least not until now, that she loved him and believed in her heart he loved her — he might have wanted to tell her everything, but was afraid that if he did, she’d break things off.
And she had to ask herself, had he been honest with her, would she have stayed in the relationship? Would she have moved in with him? Would she have brought her brother into this home?
That had to have been his reasoning. He didn’t want to lose her. He was afraid to tell her.
Of course that was it.
And let’s face it, she thought. It’s not like I’ve told him everything, either. About Tyler, or about myself.
Fifteen
Andrew
I pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, opened the door, and got out slowly. I was feeling a little woozy from my visit to the bar, or maybe it was stress that had thrown me off balance. Either way, I was glad I’d made it home without getting stopped.
I had a feeling my luck was about to run out.
Jayne remained sitting on the front step. Didn’t get up. I could see in her face she knew. I walked over slowly, stood a couple of feet away.
“So,” she asked, deadpan, “how’d it go at Home Depot? You get the weed and feed?”
“No.”
“A trip back to the old neighborhood instead?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And then I kind of drove around for a while.” Didn’t mention my trip up to Trumbull to talk to Greg.
Jayne nodded solemnly.
“Detective Hardy was here,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And she filled you in.”
“Yes.”
I drew in a long breath, let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. I’ll pack up my things right now and get out. You can stay here. Whatever you want, that’s what I’ll do. Or I can just leave right now and you can throw my shit out here onto the lawn. I’ll come back later.”
She put one hand down on the cement to help push herself off the step. I extended a hand to help her up but she didn’t take it.
“I have one question,” she said, a slight tremble in her voice.
Here it was, I thought. I was ready with my answer.
No, I did not kill my wife.
“Okay,” I said.
“If it’s her, if she’s back, what happens to us?”
I blinked. Before I could think of what to say, she had a second question.
“Do you still love her?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question any better than the first one.
“Can we go inside and talk?” I asked.
She considered the suggestion, finally nodded, and said, “Okay.”