“Not yet.”
“I’m so very sorry to hear that. To lose a child…” Her voice trailed off, and Violet’s eyes closed at the sound of the pain behind the words. “That FBI agent—Martin, I think his name was?—called the other day, with all sorts of questions. I’m afraid I wasn’t any help. I haven’t heard from Finn in years.”
“That’s not why I … I mean, I think I might have different questions. If you have a minute?” The white noise of the room’s silence seemed to have been sucked into the phone line. “I don’t want to be insensitive—”
“Your child is missing. You’re allowed to be insensitive. I just can’t imagine Finn doing something like this. There must be some kind of misunderstanding, surely.”
An uncomfortable pressure was building in Violet’s chest. “I hope so.”
“I was happy to hear that he’d gotten married and had a child. I only heard that recently—through the grapevine, you know—and I really did think to myself, Good for him. He deserved happiness. We tried to reach out to him after the accident, but I think it was just too difficult for him. Some people found it hard to believe—most of all him—but we really didn’t blame him for what happened. Maribel had been so crazy about him, and he was so clearly devastated…” Her voice trailed off into a heavy sigh. “Pointing fingers wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Our pastor said maybe it would help him if he could feel our forgiveness, but I don’t think he wanted to feel it. I think he wanted to punish himself. If that makes any sense.”
“I think it does, actually.”
“We even offered to help him financially, and he declined, though I’m pretty sure he was desperate. If Caitlin and George hadn’t taken him in, I really don’t know what he would have done. Most of his stuff given away for the move, all that debt from the wedding deposits—” She stopped herself abruptly. “I’m sorry. Here I am rambling on. What exactly was it you wanted to know?”
Violet hesitated. It could be hurtful to Maribel’s mother to learn that Finn had never once mentioned Maribel to his own wife. She might take it as a sign that he’d put it behind him, though Violet was starting to suspect the opposite was true. Then again, she didn’t want to play along, pretending this was all old news, and risk not learning some crucial bit of information that might help her make sense of what was happening now.
“Just … exactly this sort of thing. I’m so sorry to dredge all of this up for you. It’s just that Finn didn’t talk much about”—she wavered—“about that part of his life. And I thought it might be helpful now to know what I missed. You mentioned them getting ready for a move, for instance—that was for a job, right?”
Violet could remember staring at Finn’s portfolio in her office, those words from HR echoing despondently in her mind: relocating for his fiancée’s job … his fiancée’s job … his fiancée …
“Well, sort of. Maribel did manage to get an offer. But really they were looking for any excuse to move to Asheville. I think they would have gone even without one. Two talented artists like them, they would have figured something out when they got there.”
Violet felt as if someone had slammed on the brakes. The ice in her glass clinked, and she looked down at her shaking hand as if it belonged to someone else. When her voice returned, it sounded far away. “Asheville, North Carolina?”
“Yes. It’s a beautiful town. Very individual, very artsy. Very Maribel. And Finn too, I gather. He never mentioned it?”
It was like rewatching one of those flip-the-switch movies like The Sixth Sense or The Others after you know the main characters are not what they seemed. So many scenes look different now that you know the twist, now that you’re looking for the things you didn’t catch the first time around. Violet could see it all: How Finn had gotten uncharacteristically quiet when she’d told him about Gram’s retirement plans in Asheville and suggested they go along to stay close. How he hadn’t answered that night but had agreed in the morning, then disappeared for hours on his road bike. How something had suddenly come up at his office the weekend they’d been scheduled to make the long drive to tour rental houses, and he’d insisted Violet and Gram and Bear go ahead without him. He’d just gone along with whatever Violet wanted, from the house to the furniture and décor, and she’d felt so adrift by his lack of initiative that she had ended up picking things she really didn’t want at all, things that she thought might please him or suit the family but ultimately did not.
A life in Asheville was a life he had meant to be living with someone else.
She never would have suggested they come here if he’d told her. She would have missed Gram, but … no. If Gram had known, she wouldn’t have suggested it either. They’d have gone somewhere else. Someplace they could all be happy. Unhaunted.
But he hadn’t told her. And they had come here. How could Violet possibly tell Maribel’s mother that she was here in Asheville now? Would she still think Finn and Bear’s disappearance was so tragic if she knew the extent to which Violet had apparently taken Maribel’s place?
Violet sidestepped the question. “I’m clear on things from the point when Caitlin and George took him in,” she said. “Before that, though—I’m trying to fill in some blanks.”
But even as she spoke the words, she wondered if she did know everything from Caitlin and George on. She was starting to grasp the gravity of the things that her friends had never revealed—of their loyalty to Finn over her, even if only through silence.
“Well, they were so excited about the move. Everything was all set—she e-mailed me so many pictures of the studio they picked out that my in-box practically crashed. They both just loved the town. It was one of the first things they bonded over, that night they met—one of the things that I think convinced Maribel from the start that Finn was the one, though that probably sounds silly.”
“Not at all.”
“You probably don’t want to hear about this, your husband and his ex. Certainly not while your child is missing—”
“Actually, I do. I really do. How did they meet, did you say?”