“What do you know about the girlfriend?” asked Jones.
Merri lifted her palms. “Just a girl, some publicist, twenty-five. A total slut, sure.” She didn’t like that word; it was misogynistic wasn’t it? Wasn’t Wolf a slut, someone careless about sex and who they hurt with it? Though why should she be concerned about referring to her husband’s mistress that way? “But not someone who would steal a child. Anyway, they were both cleared of any foul play.”
There was that tone again, cold, disinterested in her husband’s infidelity. Boys will be boys.
Cooper nodded slowly but held her eyes. He saw it all, she thought, every shade and layer of her. He’d already decided that the affair had nothing to do with Abbey; he was just doing his due diligence.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to dwell on uncomfortable topics.”
“Topics?”
He cleared his throat. “There were questions about the prescription drugs you were taking at the time.”
Where do you get your pills? Do you have a dealer? Do you owe anyone money? Would they have come after you? Hurt your family? God, she could still taste the humiliation, the rage, the sick dread. It was a toxin. She might carry it in her body forever, like grief. Maybe it would kill her, show up as cancer or as some mysterious blood disease a couple years from now. When it manifested itself in her body, she would know precisely when she caught the germ.
A tragic event like this put your whole life under scrutiny. If Wolf had been having some petty affair, if she’d been taking too many Vicodin and Abbey hadn’t disappeared, none of it would mean very much. They’d still be shitty parents, but their flaws and mistakes wouldn’t be on display for everyone to see and judge. When you’d failed to safeguard the life of your child, people wanted answers, reasons why such a thing could never happen to them. Nothing like a good public flogging to make everyone feel better about themselves.
“A couple of years ago I had knee surgery and was prescribed some pretty powerful pain relievers to which I became addicted. I was in the throes of that problem when we lost Abbey, and that came to light as well. I had a nervous breakdown about three months after she went missing, and I was hospitalized.”
“Where were you getting your pills?”
Merri shrugged. “I did a little doctor hopping,” she said. “I got some online.”
“You didn’t have a dealer?”
Merri drew in a sharp breath. Could you call a colleague whose family lived in Canada and who on his regular trip up north picked up various prescriptions for friends a dealer? Ambien for his friend that didn’t have insurance? Tylenol 3? Vicodin? That friendship was over; she’d had no choice but to give his name. He didn’t get in any real trouble, but his drug-trafficking days, however benign, were over.
She explained this to Cooper.
“I understand,” said Jones again. Something about the way he said it was comforting, not judgmental, and put her at ease.
“Although it might not make me mother of the year,” she said. “I was fully functional, and my problems had nothing to do with Abbey going missing.”
Was that really true? She still didn’t know.
“Except that I should have been with them and I wasn’t always myself,” she added.
He reached out a hand and put it on her arm. Usually, she drew away from people, hated their touch. Especially since Abbey, and since she’d been off the pills. She felt like there was an electric current constantly running through her. But she was okay with him.
“I know you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to your daughter,” he said.
She looked down so that he couldn’t see how close she was to tears. It was embarrassing to be crying all the time in front of people. She had never gotten used to it, how raw she was, how near she always was to breaking apart.
“Please don’t waste any more time on those things,” she said. “I didn’t hire you to get stuck in old grooves in the road. I need a fresh approach.”
She was trying hard not to sound edgy, but she was practically vibrating with urgency. There was a clock in her head; she could hear it ticking. Every second Abbey was farther away.
“I had to hear about those things from you,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask.”
He explained to her how he was going over the files, and how he had gone to the lake house, and to the trail. And Merri was sure that was the right way to do things. But it was just more of the same.