“Just a minute, baby. Stay right with me.”
Frantically, I pull on cords, lower blinds. Rip at tiebacks. Catch sight of more glass in the kitchen, then in the dining room. Curtains fall over the windowpanes.
My legs are shaking as I dart to the front door and engage and reengage the two locks on it.
Bella’s shriek sends an adrenaline shot to my heart.
“Mommmmmmy!”
I trip on the rug in the foyer but catch myself against the wall to prevent a fall.
“Mommmmmmy!”
“Bella!” I’m nearly out of breath by the time I see her, screaming, pointing at the shades I just lowered over the patio doors. “Bella! What’s wrong?”
She’s sniffling over her words: “Nini. Nini saw.”
I fold my arms around her and pull her to the sofa. “What, baby? What did Nini see?”
Bella’s brown eyes, reddened at the rims with either fatigue or tears, widen. “Mommy.” A pair of fat tears curb over her pink cheeks.
I tighten my grip.
“I’m gonna go be with Daddy.”
Chapter 15
“Bella, listen to Mama.” I take a deep breath. “Daddy is at God Land. It’s true, but you’re safe at home with me.”
Her cheeks puff out in frustration.
I reach for my phone when it rings and recognize the number as Detective Guidry’s.
Elizabella settles in on my lap.
I take the call. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh, we have a lead on your husband’s car.”
My mouth is dry, as if I’m about to cough. I don’t know why his car matters, if his plane has crashed, if he’s dead.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh?”
“I’m here,” I manage to say.
“I know it’s getting late, but would you mind if I stopped by?”
“It’s not too late.” Time is relative at this point, anyway. “There’s a man . . . he’s on the fairway . . . I think he’s spying on us.”
“I’ll send someone to check it out. Probably a member of the press, looking for a photo op. Keep your shades drawn.”
“A member of the press?”
“Probably. They’re desperate for human-interest stories.”
That’s what we’ve become? A human-interest story?
“No one can get in past the guard,” he continues. “Or without the gate code. And we’ve doubled the patrols at the county preserve just in case. If someone’s out there who shouldn’t be, we’ll know.”
A few minutes later, the detective is seated at my kitchen table, opening a file folder. “Is this your husband’s car?” He glances up at me.
With Bella on my hip, I award the photograph in his file a once-over.
Dark-blue Chevy Impala.
“Yes. But that’s not his plate.”
“The VIN matches. It’s at C-Way.”
“C-Way?”
“C-Way. An airport. It’s between here and the north woods of Wisconsin. About ninety minutes southwest of your father-in-law’s lake house.”
The familiar, dull ache in my lower back registers just then. I shift my weight to accommodate the bulk of kid in my arms, but she’s my security blanket, and I don’t want to let go of her.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh.”
“Yeah.”
The detective places a warm hand on my elbow. “Veronica.”
We lock gazes.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
Fresh tears swell in my eyes. I lower my tired body to a chair. Bella touches the glossy photograph in the detective’s file. “Daddy.”
Guidry tears off a few sheets from his legal pad and slides them across the table to my daughter, along with a pen. Bella isn’t usually allowed to write with ink, but I help her click it open and give a nod toward the paper.
“Could be he drove up north for some alone time before he took his flight.” Guidry’s voice is soft, assuring. “Security at C-Way says the car’s been there at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. It doesn’t fill all the gaps—the license plate switch, for example—but . . .” He sighs. “It’s something.”
“I don’t know why he would’ve left from up there.” I feel my brow creasing. As much as I don’t want to lose it—again—in front of Guidry, I’m powerless to stop the continuous flood of tears.
“I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” he says.
I wipe tears from my cheeks and again meet his gaze. “I never know what to say when people say that.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I mean, I appreciate the sentiment. You can’t not say you’re sorry, but—”
“You’re holding up okay? You need anything?”
It isn’t like I have a choice. I have to hold up okay, don’t I? And I don’t need anything, except my husband. But no one can bring him back to me.
“Detective, I’m . . .”
He narrows his gaze, but this time it comes off more concerned than usual.
“I’m . . .” I catch my breath over a sob. “My world is falling apart.”
“I’m sorry. I’m doing everything I can.”
Nothing makes sense.
“Perhaps if you dig deep,” he continues. “Think. What are you not telling me?”
I wish I knew what he wanted me to say. But all I’m thinking is that if the police can’t answer these questions, I have to find the answers myself.
They think I’m not telling everything I know, but I think it’s just the opposite, actually. They’re keeping something from me.
If Guidry is saying Micah never took a job with Diamond, then whose plane was he flying? And if he wasn’t a pilot anymore, then how did he die in a plane crash?
Chapter 16
November 19
“I don’t believe it,” Shell says through tears. “There has to be a mistake.”
I keep hoping the phone will ring, and that’s all this mess will have been—one big mistake.
“My son, my son, my son,” she murmurs. “God, why? And Bella . . .”
My tears intensify.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Except they found remains of a plane . . .”
“No, no, no.”
“It was off the coast of Florida. Atlantic side.”
“No, no, you said he was going to New York. There’s some mistake. There’s got to be—”
“That’s what he told me, Shell, but there were obviously things he didn’t—”
“We’ll figure it out. Someone’s made a mistake.”
“They sent federal officers to tell me.” I don’t say so, but it sure doesn’t look like anyone made a mistake.
“And Bella . . . she had a feeling. What was it she said?”
“God Land.” I hiccup over the words. “She said he went to God Land, and we know now she didn’t mean Wisconsin.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. How do you suppose—”
“I don’t know.” But I’d rather not think about it.
“So much life ahead of him,” Shell says. “So many years ahead for you, for Bella. You were trying to have another baby!”
“He was a good father,” I say.
“Good, period. He had plans. For you. For your family.”
“I know. I can’t believe it,” I say. “I don’t want to believe it.”
Until I’m holding the death certificate or until I see his dead body, I won’t believe he’s gone. Nothing adds up. Short of his flying a plane for some secret government agency, no two pieces of this puzzle fit together.
“But what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely, they’ve told you what they think—”
“If I knew, I’d tell you. They said they’d share the report, but—”
“What will you do?” Her tears rattle through the phone, which only leaves me falling apart into even smaller fragments. “With Bella . . . how will you . . . how will you manage?”
Just as Micah would’ve wanted me to. But I know what Shell means. Being a single parent—especially to a handful like Bella—is going to be hard. But even if I’d known eventually I’d be doing it all on my own, I still would have fought to have her.
“I’ll be there for you, for both of you.”
“I’ll never be the same,” I whisper. I’ll never be able to hold him again, to kiss his lips, to tell him I love him. I’ll never see Bella climb into his lap again. And that terrible truth keeps playing on repeat in my head. I keep seeing her climb into his arms. I keep seeing her eat ice cream off the spoon he held out for her.