“What agent is that?”
“Lincoln. With the FBI.” A glance at the speedometer tells me I’m driving like a bat out of hell. I ease off the gas. “He was at the bank the day I left, and something in the way he was looking at me scared me. And there was a man on the fairway again, smoking. Micah’s gone, right? And I don’t know what he was dealing with, but I feel like all of you expect me to know the answers. I don’t understand any of this. You’re supposed to be helping me, but it feels like you’re hunting me. I left because I’m terrified.”
“Confirm this for me: you’re heading to Key West.”
This time, I’m the one who doesn’t reply for a moment. “Yes.”
“Please stay there until I get to the bottom of things. I’ll have local eyes on you, so don’t think about skipping town on me again.”
“I don’t”—I swallow over tears—“I don’t have anywhere else to go. We’re months behind on the mortgage at Shadowlands. Did you know that? Micah invented a job. Why would he quit a job with a commercial airline if he didn’t have another job?”
“I’ve spoken with other pilots in his class. He didn’t quit United for better opportunities. He quit to avoid a criminal investigation.”
“He . . . what? What kind of investigation?”
“Criminal. Meaning he did something he wasn’t supposed to do.”
I rub my temple, which is suddenly aching with the onset of a tension headache.
“And searches on his social security number . . . I’ve hit a brick wall with that, too. The search showed no legitimate employment since United.”
“No employment.” Yet he was paying medical bills out of pocket. Depositing cash into our account. Faking pay stubs. A gurgle of a sob escapes me. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“As a matter of fact, it’s your father-in-law’s social security number associated with your mortgage at the bank. Your husband couldn’t secure the loan for the house in the Shadowlands. Without traceable income . . . well, that’d be hard to do.”
“There has to be a mistake. Check again. Please.”
“I have.”
“But if that’s the social security number on the mortgage papers . . .” Is he saying Micah and I don’t actually own the house? That his father does? “It’s my fault,” I whisper. “I kept pushing for more children, more fertility treatment. I pushed and pushed, and I pushed him over the edge.” I pushed because I thought he wanted it, but still . . . I can’t imagine the pressure he must have felt to provide. Desperate men take desperate measures, but to have fabricated a job and insurance?
“It’s Micah’s social on your marriage license,” Guidry says. “So it’s safe to say you married who you thought you were marrying.”
I stifle a sob. God, what if I hadn’t? What if my marriage was as much of a ruse as the rest of this?
“How long did you know your husband before you were married?”
“Two years. It wasn’t like we rushed anything. I mean, the engagement was quick, but we waited until after graduation.”
After a few moments of silence, he says, “It does mean something that you proactively reached out. I’m grateful you called to tell me where you were going. It saves me some work. But I have to remind you, Mrs. Cavanaugh. You’re a person of interest in this case.”
“You think I know something I’m not telling.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the life insurance policy Micah took out last March?”
“The life insurance? I mean, I guess . . . of course he took out another policy. We were expecting twins, detective.”
“Twins to the tune of two-point-five million?”
“Two and a half million dollars?” I can barely speak the words. I blink hard. “Why would he need . . . two and a half million? I didn’t know—”
“Listen,” he continues. “You’re well within your rights to leave the state. Legally, I can’t demand that you stay here, but I asked you not to go. You have to agree this doesn’t look good.”
“That’s not why I left. I was scared.”
“Does the name Diamante mean anything to you?”
“Should it?”
“It meant something to your husband. When I traced the routing number on the electronic transfers at the bank, it led me to a corporation by that name. Based in the Dominican Republic.”
“Diamante. It’s Spanish?”
“It means ‘diamond,’” he says. “Found it interesting, given you thought your husband worked for Diamond Corporation.”
“The pay stubs said Diamond. Micah told me it was Diamond. I didn’t just make it up.”
A beat of silence answers me.
“If I agree to share with you everything I find in Key West,” I say, “will you believe that I’m not party to a conspiracy? My husband was my world—”
“So you’ve said.”
“And losing him is killing me. Killing me.”
“I’ll have eyes on you in Key West,” he reminds me.
“Okay. Thank you. I’ll feel safer knowing someone’s looking out for me.”
“Looking out for you, watching you. Whatever you prefer to call it.”
Chapter 19
November 22
Every time I close my eyes for the slightest amount of sleep, I remember her, my mother, calling to me. They’re coming for you. Even your earrings have faces.
And I picture them, the ruby crystals for marquis eyes, the cubic zirconia mouth in a solitaire O. Alien faces from Area 51. A perpetual expression of shock in the gems dangling from my earlobes.
They see. They know. They know what you’re doing. They know what you’ve done.
I hear a tapping at the glass.
Mama stands on the outside, looking in at her blue table, at the stones scattered over the pine surface.
I gather the stones and categorize them by size, shape, and color.
She’s pounding on the window with a tight fist, so small and brittle-looking that I fear her bones might shatter before she manages to crack the glass panes. Don’t you touch those stones, little Veri. Your human hands will poison their beauty.
The pounding grows ferocious. I feel its beat in my bones, hear its ring in my ears, cacophonic in combination with the chirp of the tines raking over the barrel in my music box.
I startle as I awaken.
No one is tapping on the glass.
The car is locked, and we’re parked in bright daylight at a rest stop. Safe.
Only seven minutes have passed since I surrendered to my heavy eyelids, but it’s enough.
I start the car and put it in gear, ready to blaze down the last stretch of road before me.
The route is self-explanatory. In order to arrive at the southernmost point in the United States, you have to drive south. If you take a wrong turn, you simply take the next fork south. In a way, all roads lead to where I’m going.
Now, we’re breezing down A1A amid an apricot sunset.
Water to the left, water to the right.
Everything is green and thriving, despite the apparent “cold snap” rushing through the Florida Keys. It’s sixty-eight degrees this evening, the lowest low they’ve had all week.
I look to my parka and Bella’s, stowed on the front passenger seat. The coats seem out of place with the mild breeze whipping through our open windows. I consider the possibility of tossing them into the first trash bin I see, which is silly. It’s not as if we’re never going back.
Micah’s body should be arriving at the funeral home soon. If for no other reason, I have to be back to put him to rest.
“Mommy?” Elizabella says from the back seat. “Nini’s hungry.”
“Tell Nini we’ll get her some nuggets and fries in just a bit.” I cross over the last bridge from Boca Chica to Key West. In all, we’ve been en route for the better part of three days, with a little more than twenty-six hours of driving time, considering I’d traveled into Wisconsin first. Talk about a roundabout route.