“Anyway, there was a reporter from one of the trades who wanted to interview her. Sutton took the call, told the reporter she hadn’t been involved and all of it was a smear designed to make her look bad. Saying my account has been hacked, no one ever believes that. They just think you’re trying to cover your arse.
“Sutton tried to calm the whole situation by posting on her Facebook fan page explaining that she had never been in touch with the reviewer, hadn’t left the comments, that someone had impersonated her. She explained about losing our son, and you’d be amazed at the things people said. Horrible, appalling stuff. We closed the account and tried to walk away. Thank heavens, someone else came along and did something stupid, became the flavor of the week, and the fervor died down. But after everything that happened... She couldn’t handle it, had a bit of a collapse. It broke something in her.”
He paused. “It was out of character, actually. Her reaction, I mean. Sutton usually took reviews of her work with a grain of salt. Believe the bad, you have to believe the good, and all that. For some reason, this one upset her tremendously. Hit her at the wrong time, I guess. Most of it’s been taken offline now. Stellar Reads even sent apologies.”
Enough, you don’t need to tell them everything. This is irrelevant.
“Has the situation been resolved?”
He shook his head. “Sutton has at least twenty new hate emails this week alone. So, no, I’d say it hasn’t been.”
“We’d like to take the computer with us, let our forensic technicians go over it. Are you okay with that?”
Robinson cleared his throat. “I would think, if you want my client to hand over information related to his wife’s disappearance, a warrant would be in order.”
Ethan wanted to climb inside the bloody marble and disappear. Now he was Robinson’s client? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Coming, right after we leave here. Unless Mr. Montclair—”
Ethan had to get this back under control. “You don’t need a warrant. Feel free to look at anything in the house you want. I’ve done nothing wrong. You’re welcome to take the computer with you.”
He tried to block a vision of his wife, his very private wife, her face drawn in shock, allowing him to let the police walk away with her computer.
You’ve given me no recourse, wife.
“Ethan,” Robinson warned, but Ethan held up a hand to stop him.
“Seriously. Look at the computer. Then you’ll see. I have absolutely nothing to hide.”
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON HERE?
The female cop nodded. “Okay. This is very helpful information. I’m going to need names and dates. But before we do all of that, would you categorize your relationship with your wife as volatile, Mr. Montclair?”
“Never. We just didn’t always see eye to eye.”
The cop glanced at the older one, who nodded slightly. “We have a number of domestic calls to this address.”
Ethan took a deep breath. “I know how that looks. Sutton and I fight. We argue. We’re very passionate people. Sometimes we argue on the porch, or in the backyard, and neighbors take it the wrong way.”
“So your wife hasn’t called the police? It’s only been the neighbors?”
“Yes. No one will admit who made the calls, but you’ll see in every incident, no charges are filed. There is no evidence of abuse, no physical altercations. Just some nosy neighbors who don’t like to mind their own business. It’s been hard on us, since the baby...”
Graham looked around the kitchen. “Where is the baby, sir?”
Beams of light pouring in the kitchen, the small crystal Sutton had hung in the window above the farmhouse sink catching the sun, suddenly spinning, shooting fractured light through the room. It looked so homey, so normal, except for the albino cop standing across from him.
He took in a breath. The cop’s head had cocked to the side, like a spaniel. Now she was really paying attention.
“You don’t know? I just assumed, but no, you’re so young, so new, I suppose you wouldn’t know. Our son, Dashiell, died. SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He wasn’t even six months old. It was headline news for a few weeks, raising awareness for the condition, all that. Sutton didn’t handle it well.” Ethan’s voice cracked. “Neither of us did.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. When did he pass away?”
“Last year. It was in April. Tax day, April 15. We went to check on him, and he wasn’t breathing.”
He choked a little on the last word, suddenly having difficulty catching breath himself. God, he’d wanted that baby. When she fell pregnant, he was ecstatic. After all he’d done to help her get pregnant, after all their arguments, his cajoling, begging, her final agreement to have the child, to lose him in an unexplained death sometimes felt like punishment.
He knew Sutton had grown to love Dashiell. He’d seen the joy on her face when she didn’t think he was looking. And now he was gone. His perfect son had been taken from him. And his wife was missing.
Your wife is missing, your wife is missing.
“So she disappeared on the anniversary of your son’s death?” Moreno asked.
It hadn’t hit him, the significance. He’d been too caught up in his own unique brand of self-flagellating mourning to realize, and too worried about where she might be to look at the calendar. He hated to think back to that day. There was no such thing as an anniversary with grief this new, this raw. It was a daily, visceral, animal thing that ate at him constantly. He didn’t think in terms of dates, or months since, years since. There was just Before, Dashiell, After.
“Yes, that’s right. The anniversary.”
H. Graham looked to the older officer, then closed her notebook and stuffed it into her back pocket, like a professional golfer. “We’ll put together a report, sir, be on the lookout, check everything we can. But I think it’s safe to say your wife isn’t in any danger. I bet she comes home anytime now. People deal with grief in different ways. Sounds to me like things were just too much for her. An anniversary like this, it’s difficult. Add in complications from work? Sounds like she’s been having a really rough go of it.”
He felt relief. They believed him. They didn’t think he was involved.
Ivy came into the kitchen, so quietly they didn’t hear her until she said, “Ethan, you need to tell them everything.”
Ethan saw the cops both start slightly.
“Ma’am?” Graham asked.
“We are very concerned Sutton may have harmed herself. She has been having a hard time lately,” Ivy said.
“Mr. Montclair mentioned things have been tenuous with her.”
“Tenuous. That’s a good term. She’s been on edge, upset, angry, and crying.”
Ethan shot Ivy a glance. Whose side are you on here?
“What’s had her upset, ma’am?”
“What hasn’t? I mean really, can you blame her? First her baby, then her career? Anyone would be laid low. Sutton is a brilliant artist. She’s sensitive.”
Ethan stepped closer to Ivy, put his hand on her shoulder. “Ivy and Sutton are very close. She’s been helping me search for Sutton.”
Officer Graham looked at him again, this time with wariness on her lovely face. He dropped his hand, in case it looked bad. He wouldn’t want her to think there was anything untoward happening with Ivy.