“And you’re moving on.”
He thought for a second. “To what?” he asked. Really he was asking himself. It was the question he’d been struggling with. “When Alyssa broke the bond I was furious. I hated her. I hated him more, but I was the one who suffered. Chris Derringer sure didn’t seem to suffer. And he didn’t change his ways, either.” He laughed without humor. “Oh man, did I suffer. No one wanted to come anywhere near me—I was loaded for bear. I was humiliated and betrayed and half-insane. I was so angry. I got depressed. I got out of shape and gained twenty pounds or so... So much for the divorce diet!”
“I remember,” she said. “You always did take comfort in food. I can completely understand that you don’t want to go through something like that again.”
“But see, I wouldn’t. I don’t feel about Sierra the way I felt about Alyssa. In fact, if I were a real asshole I’d thank Alyssa for cutting me loose. When I broke up with Alyssa I didn’t want to die. I wanted to kill someone. It’s different with Sierra. She already feels so much a part of me, if I’m wrong and lose her, it would be so much worse. It would be like...”
He stopped himself. He was starting to feel like a wimp, like a weakling.
“You’ll do the right thing,” Janie said.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Whatever you do, Connie, it will be from the heart. If there’s one thing you have always been, it’s honest. Sometimes too honest for your own good, but absolutely honest.”
He was a little lost inside his head, hearing a conversation with himself that he wasn’t likely to ever share with his mother. When Alyssa left he had said to her, “What the fuck? Wasn’t I good to you?” If he somehow lost Sierra he would ask, “Didn’t I love you with everything I had?” With Alyssa it had been pride. Sierra felt like the other half of his heart. He would do anything for her. He’d do anything to save her.
“Be sure to tell her how you feel about her,” his mother said.
“It’s not like I didn’t love Alyssa,” he said in defense of his own scrambled-up brain. “I tried to make her happy.”
“I know,” she said. “Connie, hear me on this. Things tend to happen the way they’re supposed to. I tried very hard to make my marriages work. I did everything I knew how to do. It wasn’t enough or it wasn’t what was needed or it wasn’t meant to be, I don’t know. But I felt as though I’d failed. Now I feel as though everything went just as it was supposed to—I’m happy with my life.
“You just follow your heart,” she said to him. “You’ll do the right thing.” Then she laughed. “There’s no stopping you anyway. You’re hell-bent.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “I am,” he admitted. “She was kind of mean to me at first. She doesn’t put up with much. I think when she rescued the dog, she had me.” On cue, Molly put her head on his thigh, ready for reassurance. “She’d never really had a dog before. She lived on a farm and said there were dogs but they weren’t really pets. They were farm dogs. Not the same thing. But this dog... Sierra reads to the damn dog. And the dog loves it.”
“You can tell a lot about a person by things like that.”
“I think she’s in trouble,” he said again. “She went back to Michigan to straighten out something to do with an accident. She wouldn’t give me the details but she took her brother with her and he’s a lawyer, so I think it’s sticky. I want to protect her if I can. I want to be there for her if she needs me. I don’t want to let her down. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll know,” she said. “Listen to that inside voice. You’ll know.”
“I better go,” he said, starting to rise.
“Sit down, Connie,” she said. “You just got here. We’re going to have lunch.”
He left a couple of hours later. He took a picture of Molly and texted it to Sierra, but she didn’t respond. Later he texted a selfie with Molly and said, We miss you. Nothing. The next day he drove out to the Crossing and asked Sully if he’d heard from either Sierra or Cal and he said he hadn’t, but Maggie said they’d made it to Detroit safely. He wanted to ask Maggie for more details but used all his willpower not to—Maggie was getting very pregnant and he didn’t want to act like they should be worried. But he left Sierra a voice mail. “I hope everything is all right. Call me if you need me.”
Nothing.
*
It seemed as though there’d been a lot of tension surrounding Sierra’s and Cal’s preparation to leave town. Maggie bit her lower lip a lot and looked at them with worry. Sully was morose and frowning. Moody suggested she locate meetings in the area and pack her inspirational books. And Connie was a little too cheerful as if he was making a real effort.
“Why is everyone acting so strangely?” Sierra asked Cal.
“Maggie, because she knows how hard it must be to face this event from your past. The rest of them sense it’s something more serious than a little car accident. We pick up each other’s vibes.”
“I better get a handle on that,” she said. “I don’t want the police picking up any vibes.”
“Don’t worry about it. The only one you’ve got going on is terror and it’s all right if they know you’re afraid.”
They checked in to a nice Westin and Cal took her out to dinner in a classy restaurant, which she just couldn’t appreciate under the circumstances. In fact, she was too gnarled up inside to even respond to Connie’s texts. Monday morning, donned in her hand-me-down dress and new pumps, they headed for the police department. They had an appointment with a detective who was assigned the case.
They met with two detectives in plainclothes in an office. Detective Swenson was young, maybe thirty-five and the other, Detective Lundquist, looked like he should retire—he had to be in his sixties with silver hair and a grandfatherly paunch. It was the younger man who questioned her. The questions began slowly and were disarmingly superficial. Full name? Date of birth? Where were you on April 22, 2015? Who were you with? His full name and address? Who were your friends? Their full names?
Sierra didn’t know where Derek Cox lived; there weren’t too many friends during that time. She gave information about her roommate, her last address, a couple of people from work, several people she knew by their first names only because they were regulars at her favorite bar, Charlie’s.
“Can we please get to the reason you wanted to interview Ms. Jones?” Cal suggested firmly.
“Why weren’t you at your favorite pub that night, the night of the twenty-second? You were seen at Flynn’s, is that right?”
“I was avoiding Derek Cox. He was pestering me and I thought he was following me. I just wanted to be left alone.”