“I told you when you bought, the Shadowlands is very desirable, so maybe it’s good that they’re spending the time, but I thought you should know.”
I wonder if Guidry knows what Shell and Mick are doing.
My phone blips with another call. It’s the Key West PD. “Claudette, I have to go. The police are calling.”
“Honey, call me, all right? If you’re not coming back, I’d like to arrange a time to visit. The kids would love to see you and Bella.”
“Sounds good.” As I click to answer the incoming call, I realize I’m actually looking forward to seeing her. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh, this is Officer Laughlin, Key West PD.”
“Yes.”
“Listen, I don’t how to tell you this, but we followed up on the residence in question—Christian Renwick’s, did you say?—and it’s vacant.”
My spine goes limp. I practically slump to the floor. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s furnished, ma’am, but it’s rented as a furnished house. It’s been vacant for a little over two months.”
“But you saw him . . . the guy that was at my pool the other day. And the night I got the call on the beach. You saw him.”
“I saw somebody, yes, but—”
“Are you sure you have the right house? Off-white. Pink trim. Blue table in the kitchen.”
“Yes. It’s vacant. Went through it myself. I spoke with the owners. It hasn’t been rented since early October.”
“The owners. Christian Renwick owns the house.”
“No, a Roberta Marley owns the house. If you search the address, it’ll take you to a vacation rental site.”
But he was there. I saw him writing in the kitchen. I ate Thanksgiving dinner on his back patio. He kissed me in the den a few hours ago.
“It’s safe for you to return, ma’am. We’ll have someone patrolling regularly, and we can better ensure your safety here than wherever it is you’ve run to.”
Unless I imagined it all.
Chapter 51
By the time we return to Old Town, Goddess Island Gardens is as calm as the wafting ocean breeze. One would never guess the frantic occurrences of this morning.
I wonder if everything suspicious is as much a fabrication in my mind as an imaginary friend. Did I conjure Christian—in all his feigned perfection—as a means to help me cope with the unthinkable things happening in my life? Could I have been so distraught over losing Micah that I brought myself into an alternate reality?
But what of Christian’s nieces, whom Bella has been drawing consistently since we met them? Andrea, with purple hair; Emily as a blonde. They, too, seemed too good to be true. Would eighteen-year-olds, on a gap year, be willing to spend their free time with my bossy three-year-old? Is it possible for a parent with delusions to pass the same visions onto her children?
Is Elizabella seeing people that don’t exist simply because I tell her they’re there?
Mama tried to make me see things from her point of view, but I never budged from reality. The state clinics declared me sane, even though she told the authorities I wasn’t right. I always thought she was simply good at convincing them of her sanity, but what if it’s the other way around? What if I managed to convince them of mine?
Or is there another explanation for Christian’s sudden exodus?
Could he have packed everything he owned, and everything his nieces brought for use during their gap year, and cleared out in less than an hour?
I mentally retrace the past twenty-four hours.
I was feeling guilty for neglecting to tell Christian the truth about Micah.
Bella and I paid him and his nieces a visit—at the very house that is now vacant, the very house Laughlin claims has been vacant for months.
Andrea answered the door, her vibrant purple hair voluminous in the humidity.
We entered. Bella wanted to play one-two-three-fly.
All of this I could’ve imagined, I suppose.
But wait.
The autograph tree.
Emily and Andrea added to the leaves others had decorated. They wrote their names and drew pictures. If their scribbles are still there on the leaves, I’ll know I didn’t imagine them.
Bella is tired; she needs a nap. But I buckle her into her stroller and take the long way around, down Elizabeth. By the time we turn left on Southard, my daughter is asleep. I continue to Christian’s place on Love Lane.
There, next to the front door, is the tree.
And on the leaves are signatures:
Emily
and
Andrea
And several others, as well, in different handwriting. This lends credence to the house being a rental for vacationers.
I look more closely. One of Christian’s twin nieces wrote GAP YEAR! on a leaf and the date of their arrival. They got here a few days before I did.
I’m not crazy . . . unless I decorated the leaves. Unless I wrote the girls’ names in varying fonts.
I’m about to turn around and walk home, when something catches my eye: a leaf from the tree, discarded on the porch. On it, someone wrote Miss You, Bella. Only it doesn’t match the handwriting of Emily or Andrea.
It looks, actually, like it could be Micah’s.
Chapter 52
My phone is ringing by the time I bolt the door behind me.
“Detective Guidry.” I’m near tears of relief to see he’s finally returned my call. “You have to follow up on my neighbor. His name is Christian Renwick.”
“Do you have a minute? I’m out front.”
I’m already on my way to the door.
A minute later, the detective is seated at my table. Eight-by-ten glossies occupy the space before us.
I’m looking at one of the photographs. “Yes,” I say. “That’s him. He said his name was Lincoln, and he was an FBI agent. He told me my husband was dead.”
“He has ties to Diamante, stationed in the Dominican Republic.”
“Diamante,” I repeat. “That’s the business account Micah transferred money from.”
“Yes. It’s a legitimate company. Once one of the biggest in international shipping.”
“If his name was on the Diamante account, are you telling me Micah owned a legitimate shipping company? If it’s legitimate, why would he lie about flying executives around the globe?”
“Diamante paid Micah, according to the transfers, up to four, sometimes five, times the going rate for carriers. Either he was transporting something illegal, or he was laundering the money they obtained from illegal goods. Those carriers are of another class they call de azul.”
“Azul.”
“You know the term?”
“No, but there’s a boat docked at Simonton Street Beach. It’s called Azul. It means ‘blue.’”
“Micah could have been a blue-status carrier—responsible for transporting high-risk shipments.”
“Micah said something about blue in my dream, but . . .”
“You don’t know anything about this?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“And you’ve never been to the family’s lake house in Wisconsin?”
“No.”
“Yet you took off, planning to drop in, on a father-in-law you’d never met, for the Thanksgiving holiday.”
“Shell invited us. I told you that.”
“Instead, you show up here. Your daughter starts talking about Connor and Brendan before I send over the birth certificates.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you claim you didn’t know about the boys—”
“I didn’t!”
“Until Laughlin gave you copies of the birth records.”
“Right.”
“And the boys’ and Gabrielle’s remains were in the plane that crashed off the coast. They died before they ever got on that plane. Their lungs were filled with lake water, not salt water. Venture a guess as to which lake we’re pinpointing?”
“Plum Lake?”
“That’s right. Traces of benzodiazepine were found in their systems. Drugged, then drowned. We’re guessing it happened sometime in the days before you claim your husband left or shortly thereafter.”
He’s looking at me as if he expects me to say something.
“Your neighbor says she picked up your daughter from preschool two days before your husband left.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re unaccounted for that afternoon.”
“I had an appointment with the fertility clinic. We batched oocytes.”
“Your husband was with you?”
“Yes. They fertilize right after batching. He had to be there.”
“And the clinic. They’ll confirm the appointment?”