She had to move cautiously here. A man with that kind of violence in him could do terrible things in a sudden fit of rage.
“Maybe you should take a trip on your own,” Michael suggested. “Let me look after the kids for a while. You need to get some real rest, and Addie and Bryce need their mom functioning at a hundred percent.”
Something about his suggestion, a subtext she noted, made Natalie perk up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Michael, sounding defensive. “I’m just saying the kids need their mom healthy and well, that’s all.”
“Are you implying that you’re worried about my fitness as a parent?”
Michael scoffed at the insinuation.
“No, babe, I’m worried about you as a person, you and your health. You’ve been under a lot of strain, and you’re sounding kind of paranoid now.”
Was she?
Natalie took a few steps back from Michael to get a better look at him. The threatening behavior she thought she’d seen mere moments ago—a menace lurking in his eyes, the intimidating way he carried himself, an unsettling timbre to his voice—wasn’t there anymore. What she saw now was unfiltered empathy pouring out of him in waves.
“Look, if you want to go to Charleston, if it means that much to you, then we’ll go.” Michael tossed out his concession as if it were nothing to him now. “It’s got a lot of great beaches and restaurants and a lot of bad memories for me, but whatever. If you think that’s what you need to get better, then I’m all for it. But you need to think about the children. You have to do what’s best for them, and sometimes that means putting yourself first.”
Michael’s eyes were kind, but in his voice, she heard the distinct undercurrent of another threat.
Get your shit together, or I’ll get the kids away from you.
She could confront him on it, push him for his true intentions, but Natalie didn’t want things to escalate. She returned what she hoped was an appreciative nod.
“Thanks for caring,” she said as sweetly as she could manage. “I’ll think about that getaway … and your other suggestion.”
“Good,” Michael said, as if that had settled matters. “You want help cleaning up?” He gestured to the mess.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” said Natalie.
“Okay, then I’ll get dinner started.”
He planted a quick kiss on her cheek before departing.
After she was sure he was gone, Natalie slumped into her office chair, decompressing. Michael may have left the room, but his words (his implied threat?) lingered.
Natalie set about her cleanup effort thinking, planning what to do next. Sarah had done a deep dive on Michael, but not on Audrey Adler, which made sense. The police were looking into Audrey’s life, and it was more as a favor (or morbid curiosity, as Sarah had put it) that she went looking into Michael’s.
Now, Natalie wondered what an investigation into Audrey might reveal. Was there more to her gruesome murder than a secret love gone sour? Sarah had mentioned investigating all kinds of corporate misdeeds. She hated Michael for his affair, his many betrayals, but it would still be a relief to get proof that the father of her children wasn’t a killer. Perhaps Audrey had gotten herself caught up in something nefarious, which might mean Michael wasn’t responsible for her death.
She suspected this inquiry into Audrey was a waste of time, but what did she have to lose? While she wasn’t a trained investigator like Sarah, and a Google search had revealed nothing of consequence other than what the newspapers had already reported, she did have the pictures she’d taken with her phone inside Audrey’s home. She breezed through the photos of the living room and foyer. Nothing there. But who was the girl in the framed photographs decorating Audrey’s hallway? She was someone important to her, that much was obvious. The papers had made no mention of Audrey’s family, but that girl had to be her sister. Natalie took out her phone and confirmed that the likeness between the pair was too similar to be anything else. Both girls had reddish hair, a similar mouth shape, full lips, a dappling of freckles.
Why was there no mention of a sister, or parents for that matter, in the news reports?
Natalie thought of calling Sarah Fielding for guidance, though she would first attempt this on her own. Could she identify a person using a photograph, a web search for facial recognition? She googled that very subject on her phone and got plenty of hits. One site in particular seemed especially promising—BitEyes advertised itself as a reverse image search. The instructions were simple enough: upload a photo and find where images with that face appeared online.
Creepy, Natalie thought, but she did just that, uploading a cropped image of the girl she presumed to be Audrey’s sister. She knew Audrey, a murder victim, would get plenty of hits.
The reverse image search completed in a matter of seconds, returning a series of images that depicted the mystery girl’s face. She was online. In fact, she was all over the internet, it seemed. But who was she? To get that information, the corresponding URLs for each image returned in the search required Natalie to pony up $19.99 for a one-month subscription, which she had no problem paying.
The problem came moments later when Natalie clicked on the first image in the results. As the webpage loaded, the headline immediately jumped out at her:
FORMER BOYFRIEND CHARGED IN MURDER OF WESTCHESTER’S BRIANNA SYKES
A color photograph below the headline showed a young man dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt, with the words Rye Wrestling stenciled in white. His hands were shackled in front of him and a uniformed officer kept a tight grip on his arm. The young man appeared to be in shock, his eyes blank, staring straight at the camera. There was a second image overlapping that one, a photograph of a girl—the victim, Natalie supposed. She had no doubt this was the girl whose photos hung in Audrey’s hallway.
But the boy. An icy chill came over her as she studied the young man in handcuffs. His face wasn’t just familiar, it was seared into her being. It was older, now weathered from years of toil and struggle, but it was him, she had no doubt about it.
It was her husband, only so much younger.
But the name printed below his picture read: Joseph Jacob Saunders.
CHAPTER 34
NATALIE
It was her first night sleeping—or more accurately, trying to sleep—at the farm.