She sighs wearily.
“Ms. Potter—” Franklin heaves a sigh of his own. “I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you this, but your husband wasn’t the man you thought he was. He hid a hundred grand in debt from you. He wasn’t visiting his mother, or paying her bills. And, oh yeah, he got power of attorney over her finances two weeks before he disappeared.” Annie’s breath catches. “Yeah, that’s right. We poked around, talked to people down at Rushing Waters, and we know that part too. You may like to paint us as the bumbling cops who can’t tie their own shoes, but we know what we’re doing. Bottom line, Annie: he’s a pathological liar, and you’re the wife, left behind, grasping at straws.” She can hear his chair squeaking. “And remember, Annie. You’re an attractive woman with a lot of good years ahead of you. Like I tell my daughters, don’t waste your time on the wrong guy.”
“Thank you, Franklin. That’s a good reminder.” She hangs up, holds her breath for a long moment, and then the rage rises, too much for her to contain. She screams as loud as she can and throws her phone across the room. It bounces off the sofa cushions and lands on the floor with a crack. She’s afraid to look, but she does; the bottom half of her screen is shattered. She drops to the couch, rests her head in her hands, and laughs. “Well, this is a very bad day,” she whispers.
Franklin Sheehy is not wrong, you know. It’s Sam’s voice, from the opposite couch.
“Go fuck yourself,” she whispers.
Okay, but it’s true that you’re grasping at straws.
“You think?” she snaps. “You think that was grasping at straws, Sam? Well, wait until you see this.” She takes the phone from the floor and squints through the broken glass, searching Google for a directory of phone numbers at the Daily Freeman.
“Harriet Eager,” she says, answering on the first ring.
“It’s Annie Potter. I need to ask you a question.”
“Okay,” Harriet says.
“The other day, you said that you’d received a few tips claiming that Sam was having an affair with a patient. Can you tell me who sent them?” Something about hearing this—she hasn’t been able to shake it.
“Annie, don’t worry about that,” Harriet says. “It was some lunatic with nothing else—”
Annie cuts her off. “Do you still have the email?”
“No, sorry. I delete that stuff.”
“Okay, thanks,” she manages before hanging up. She presses her eyes with the heels of her hands. That’s it. That’s all I can do.
Her phone beeps with a message.
Can’t wait. In car yet?
It’s Maddie. Annie checks the time. It’ll be here in a half hour.
She hits send and stands up. In the kitchen, she finds her passport and ticket on the counter and puts them in her purse.
When her phone rings a moment later, she can’t make out the name under the broken glass. She assumes it’s Maddie, but it’s not. It’s Harriet Eager, calling back.
“You got a second?”
“Yes,” Annie says, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
“A colleague of mine overhead our conversation,” Harriet says. “Turns out she did follow-up on the tip about the alleged patient your husband ran off with. I figured you’d want to know.”
“And?”
“And it was definitely false,” Harriet says.
“How do you know that?”
“The reporter asked at the university, where this fantasy patient was supposedly a student, and there wasn’t anyone who matched her description.”
“A student at the university?” Annie feels a twinge of dread. “What was the description?”
“What does it matter?” Harriet says. “It was a bum tip.”
“Please, what was the description?”
“Hang on,” Harriet sighs. “Let me ask.”
Chapter 51
I tug down my sweatshirt and smooth back my hair. With a deep breath, I open the door.
“Good morning, Albert,” Dr. Statler says from his chair, hands folded on his lap.
“Good morning.” I cross the room and take a seat on the bed. Dr. Statler observes me in silence. “You’re even better than I thought,” I say finally.
“Oh?” he asks. “How’s that?”
“Leading me to these realizations of myself.” I shake my head. “I didn’t see myself in those notes, but it makes sense. Insecure attachment, due to losing my mother at birth and being raised by a man like my dad.” My palms are clammy.
“What you’re going through is a lot to process.”
I nod. “Can you imagine what my life could have been like if they’d allowed her to be my mother?” I let myself imagine it last night, lying in the bed she used to sleep in, just as she’d left it. “I wonder if she would have taken me along on her trips. She traveled everywhere.” In the letters she wrote me, she described the food, the art, the apartments she rented. The affairs. I hope your parents are kind and your life is full, my beautiful boy. “She was the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met. Or never met, I should say.”
“But you did meet her,” Dr. Statler says. “You were together for six days.”