“I don’t suppose you’d like to look around?” Paul asked abruptly. He was talking to her.
Reflexively, Clara looked around the kitchen. It appeared the same as ever, save for a cardboard box on the floor filled with construction paper cutouts of fall leaves intermingled with brightly colored flowers.
“The crafts for the party,” Paul said, following her eyes. “There’s a big Farewell to Summer banner in there, too, if the school could still use it. You’re welcome to take it.”
“I think they’re on to pumpkins and scarecrows now,” she said, then wished she hadn’t. It made it seem as if a whole season had passed since Kristin and the kids vanished.
He nodded. “But maybe you could look around the rest of the house, see if you notice anything out of the ordinary, or … I don’t know, some clue as to where they might have gone. The police did a cursory search, but they don’t know Kristin from anyone. You stopped over often enough. Who knows, you might spot something I missed.”
Was he challenging her? It was true that she’d stopped over often enough, but if he wanted a second set of eyes, why not ask be fore now? Clara’s instincts told her this was some sort of game. But which one? An innocent round of I Have Nothing to Hide or an arrogant one of Catch Me if You Can?
“I’m not sure I—”
“If it would make you feel better, I’m sure Clara would be happy to,” Benny cut in, and she blinked at him, surprised. Was he overcompensating for the newspaper incident, or, contrary to his insistence that they shouldn’t get involved, was he just as curious as she to see if there was anything to be found?
Clara got unsteadily to her feet. Paul looked up at her and nodded. “I’ve done my share of obsessing over every room,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll hang here with Benny.”
Another potential motive for this setup occurred to her then: Was Paul trying to get Benny alone, with her out of earshot? To check up on her, to plant an idea there, to try to manipulate him in some way? Clara hesitated.
“You know where the twins’ room is, right? I remember Thomas playing up there.” She nodded. Preschoolers were huge on showing each other their bedrooms. They had so little territory they could call their own.
He looked at her expectantly.
“Right, then,” she said, backing her way into the dining room. The chandelier above the gleaming mahogany table was already lit, just like the rest of the house. Clara wasn’t sure if Paul was sending a message to himself, to Kristin and the kids, or to the rest of the neighborhood, but every night it was the same: Every light in the house on, until … Clara didn’t know how late. After the late news broadcasts, for sure. From a more distant vantage point, she would have found it heartbreaking.
Dust rimmed the circular impressions Kristin’s mother’s dishes had left in the mirrored hutch of the china cabinet. It made sense that Kristin would take family heirlooms, especially since the detectives had mentioned her mother’s declined mental state and poor health. The question was, would Paul think to remove those items if he were staging his wife’s disappearance? Clara doubted it. Benny always seemed surprised by how much she cared about such things, as if it were the first time she was reminding him to be careful with the cookie jar because it had been her grandmother’s, and that no, they could not throw away the ratty crocheted dolls her aunt had made for her as a child.
She made her way upstairs. The first door was to the master bedroom. She hesitantly poked her head inside. The bedside lamps were on, the bed was made, and the room had the inhuman presentation of a hotel suite ready for check-in; there was none of the clutter of the room she shared with Benny—not a single open drawer, or an item of clothing on the floor, or a mound of pocket change or jewelry on the dresser. She stepped in, tentatively, one foot in front of the other, and realized she was holding her breath. It was eerily quiet up here, and she strained for the low rumble of the men’s voices from the kitchen, perhaps a burst of laugher. But there was nothing, and the hair stood up on the back of her neck, as if Paul might come up behind her any minute and … and what? Catch her doing something he’d asked her to do?
On the upholstered chaise sprawled under the window was an open duffel bag with a mess of undershirts inside, and button-downs and slacks were spread on the chair’s back. So Paul was still living here like a guest; he hadn’t unloaded his things into the drawers again. She walked to the open closet and pulled the string of the overhead light. She’d never been in here before, but the number of empty hangers indicated that Kristin had taken quite a few things. She scanned the shoes and didn’t see Kristin’s trainers, or her black flats, or those knee-high leather boots she’d been coveting herself.
The adjoining bathroom was much the same: almost clinically clean. She pulled open a drawer and found a basket of makeup. Old stuff, probably, though it was hard to say. A couple of eye shadows and blushes were scattered among enough bottles of concealer and foundation to fill a drugstore aisle, in a range of shades. Kristin didn’t exactly embrace the natural look, but she never looked heavily made up, either—though maybe she was just more skilled in the art of application than Clara was. Clara touched her fingertip to one of the bottles. It looked almost full. Why so many? To match summer tanned skin tones and winter ones? Or did she use them somewhere other than her face—to hide bruises or scars? Clara rolled the drawer shut and pulled open the mirrored medicine cabinet. Just an ordinary assortment of over-the-counter stuff, no prescriptions. Nothing Kristin couldn’t buy wherever she was going.
This is silly, she told herself, snapping off the lights behind her, though they’d been on when she arrived. She made her way to the doorway of the twins’ room and stopped to take it in. Though the house had four bedrooms, they’d insisted they wanted to share, something Kristin had told her with pure maternal pride that her kids were smart enough to know from the start: We have each other. Let’s stick together.
Things weren’t quite so neat here, books off the shelves, bunk beds unmade, which, as Clara stood in the stillness, was even more eerie—as if the kids might come running in at any minute to pick up where they left off. She pictured Thomas’s room without Thomas in it, Maddie’s nursery with no Maddie, and shuddered. She didn’t want to do this. How much time needed to pass to satisfy Paul that she’d been thorough?
Aaron was attached to a stuffed elephant he called Fante, and she crossed to the top bunk and lifted the covers, checked under the pillow, patted down the length of the mattress. No Fante, which was a good sign. She ducked to the bottom bunk and discovered with relief the same void there. The favorites had gone with their owners. She turned to the bookcases, where the less loved plush animals lined the top shelf, some looking perpetually eager and others downright forlorn. Even stuffed animals could be divided into realists and hopeless optimists.