Even so, she felt the eyes of the cook behind the counter and the older waitress over by the cash register. People in The Hollows knew her because of Abbey. Folks were always kind to her, but after a while their kind and pitying glances were heavy and brought Merri down. But it was more than pity, too. There was a current of fear, of distrust. As if the horror that had befallen her family might in some way be contagious. Merri could just imagine other mothers wanting to hug their children away when she was around. She didn’t blame them. She would have felt the same way once upon a time.
She stayed bent over her phone, scrolling through news. In true Jackson fashion, she’d set up an alert for stories relating to that missing man. A shadow caused her to look up, and the waitress was standing over her with an ice water and a menu.
“Thank you,” said Merri.
The woman placed the red plastic tumbler on the table with a ringed, elegant hand. Merri glanced up and saw her own reflection in the woman’s glasses, then the cool, ice-blue eyes behind that. Her smile was warm, attentive.
“Mrs. Gleason?” she said, laying the menu down.
Merri nodded. Shit.
“I was one of the volunteers that helped search for your girl,” she said. “I want you to know that we’re all still hoping you’ll find her.”
“Thank you,” Merri said. Her face felt like ice, like it might crack into a million pieces.
People didn’t even know how cruel kindness could be, how much it hurt.
“I pray for your family every night,” she said. She smoothed out the front of her yellow-and-white uniform, something odd, uncomfortable about the gesture.
Yes, from the safety of your home, where your life is perfectly intact, you pray for us. Why did that always sound so condescending? She’d asked Wolf once. So goddamn superior. Because you’re a hard, cold bitch, Merri Gleason, Wolf would joke. Or half-joke.
“That’s very kind,” said Merri, even though she wanted to gather up her things and run. There was absolutely nowhere to hide from people, though that’s one thing she had learned. You couldn’t get away from good-intentioned folks who hurt you without even knowing.
Jones Cooper came through the door then with a jingle of the bell. The woman looked at him and back at Merri with an understanding nod.
“I’ll get another water and a menu.”
He slid into the booth across from her. She liked his face, strong brow, high cheekbones. Those eyes—what would she call them? Penetrating. The bad guys must squirm before him. Even she felt a little uneasy, wondering what he could see when he looked at her: Someone unstable? Someone desperate? Was she unstable and desperate? Would any other type of person have hired a psychic to find her daughter?
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said.
“You’re at Miss Lovely’s?”
When she confirmed, he nodded his approval. “That’s a good place for you.”
He didn’t go on, but Merri thought she knew what he meant. Better than a rental or one of the impersonal places she might have picked outside of town. At Miss Lovely’s she felt safe and cared for, a rare experience.
The waitress came back with the water and menus. Cooper ordered coffee and a patty melt. Merri ordered a pot of tea and chicken noodle soup.
“I have a couple of things I want to get straight before we continue,” Cooper said when the waitress had gone.
“Okay,” she said.
“After Abbey disappeared, suspicion turned to your husband for a time.”
She bowed her head, took a breath. She tasted the familiar flavor of shame and anger in her mouth. She had to force herself to say the words she’d repeated too many times to too many hired detectives.
“At the time of the abduction, Wolf—my husband—was having an affair,” she said. Merri never got used to the word girlfriend. It sounded so sweet and innocent, when in this case, it was anything but. “The police discovered that pretty quickly, and a lot of time was spent on Wolf and his mistress.” Another strange word, somehow antiquated, with an almost permissive quality.
“They didn’t have anything to do with this,” she concluded.
The police didn’t believe Wolf that he couldn’t identify the men on that trail. That he’d never seen the perpetrators, had his glasses knocked off in the fall, as had Jackson. That all he saw were some vague and fuzzy dark forms through the trees, listened to Jackson get shot, the kids screaming. But he was in shock, terrified for the kids and himself, not thinking about identifying anyone. He’d been plagued by nightmares since. Merri told Jones all of that.
Jones nodded gravely. “I’m sorry to have to bring this up, Mrs. Gleason. But are you absolutely certain he had nothing to do with it?”
It was a question she almost couldn’t bear to answer again.
“What motivation would they have to hurt or abduct Abbey?” asked Merri, trying and failing to keep the annoyance from her voice. “Their thing—it was tawdry, insubstantial.”
She hated the way she sounded, like a jaded New Yorker.
“He was careless, stupid,” she continued. “But he loves his children. He’s—broken by this. Just as I am.”
She looked away, swallowed back the tightness at the base of her throat.