35
NOTICE: WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY?
Please use the main police line ONLY for URGENT matters. If you’re not sure whether it’s urgent, it isn’t. Direct all other calls to the non-emergency number below.
—Sign posted outside the police station
“Thanks for making time to see me.” Clara accepted the steaming paper cup Detective Bryant handed her as he took his seat across the table. She felt ill at ease being back in the station, willingly risking more of the scrutiny that was finally starting to fade, and a bit let down, too, that it was not the more forthcoming Detective Marks who’d taken the appointment. He’d offered to meet her out for coffee, but the idea of being somewhere that Paul or Izzy might see them together the day after the Second Date Update call was a far worse thought. They might think she was intervening, doing something drastic.
She wasn’t.
Not really.
She didn’t want to do anything, she just wanted some answers. And she had a valid enough cover story, one that happened to be true.
“Your kid’s school seriously said he couldn’t be there because of the case?”
She nodded. “Too distracting to the learning environment.”
He rolled his eyes. “By those standards, no one in an urban school would ever get an education.”
“I thought if I could give them a little more information on where things stand, they might relax.”
“Well, there’s nothing distracting about it. I wish there was. A couple of times I thought we were on to something, but no dice.”
“So you’ve stopped looking?”
“Not yet. But unless we turn up something new to go on soon, we’ll have to shelve it with the cold papers.” He seemed to be measuring his words, waiting for her to protest.
“How much longer?”
“Usually we’ll work a missing persons hard for about a month. In this case, with the children involved, I pushed for two. Resources are tight around here. Halloween is a busy time, thanks to the petty idiocy it inspires. My boss met me in the middle at six weeks.”
“So not quite a week left, then.”
“It’s getting pretty chilly.”
“That helps to know, thanks. Is it, um, okay to share that?”
“Between you and the ridiculous school director, yes. I wouldn’t, you know, start your own newspaper or anything.”
Clara flushed, but when he laughed, she granted him a weak smile. “Too soon,” she chided him. If they were on good enough terms to get this far, maybe she could nudge him just a bit farther.
“I’m curious: What sort of thing might prompt you to reopen the case, down the line?”
“When a missing persons case goes cold, it isn’t like with a homicide,” he began.
“Even if you don’t know that it isn’t a homicide?” The words stuck uncomfortably in her throat, and his eyes narrowed. Still, she couldn’t regret asking. It was now or never.
“It’s a missing persons case until we have reason to think that it isn’t,” he said, and she wondered if the exhaustion in his voice was thanks to her, or the process, or his job in general. “And when it goes cold, we need a reason to open it back up.”
“What kind of reason?”
“A sighting. A credit card purchase. Some sort of traceable activity.” Clara nodded. They both knew anything that concrete was unlikely.
“Look,” he said, “I know you care about Kristin and the kids. But you might need to accept that you just need to move on from this, questions unanswered. So does the school. The whole town, for that matter.”
She nodded, and a beat of silence fell between them. “Just one more thing I’ve been wondering, since I’m here.” He crossed his arms but didn’t object. “If something was going on with Paul, would there have been a … a better way?” she asked. “I mean, if she’d come to you for help, if she’d come to you and said, ‘I need to get away from my husband, I need to disappear,’ would you have helped her?”
The detective looked genuinely surprised by the question. “Us? Help someone disappear? No. But there are proper measures. We could issue a restraining order—”
She shook her head. “You know as well as I do those things don’t stop anyone with a strong enough desire to be unrestrained.”
“You get cynical working these things, year after year. These women, you feel sorry for them, but…”
“But what?” Clara squared her shoulders.
“Most of the time they don’t really want help. They call us to intervene in the middle of a fight, but as soon as we try to arrest the scumbag, forget it.”
She bristled at the stereotype even as she checked herself that her own experience with the subject was more limited than his. More limited, maybe, but also more personal. “So you might argue that if she did take off for that reason, she did the sensible thing.”
He shrugged. “You might. Unless you’re me, with the open file stuck on your desk.”
“Or Paul.”
“Yes, or Paul. He’s not likely to give up so easily, though.”
So he might go through with the investigator, then. She nodded, trying to keep her expression impassive. “I’m sure he, uh, misses the kids.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Like I said, you get cynical working these things.” He stood. “You might see me around the neighborhood this week, dotting i’s, crossing t’s. You’ve saved me a trip to your front door, so thanks.”
Clara’s mind was racing as she collected her purse from the floor and got to her own feet. “My neighbor across the street, Isabel. Were you going to check in with her?”
“With everyone I can get to. Why?”
It wasn’t as if she could tip him off without involving herself further. The best she could hope for was that Izzy would let slip something that might prompt the detective to warn her away from Paul. “Oh, I think she was just wondering, too, what would happen from here. That’s all.”
He nodded, holding her gaze. “I just wish someone who knew something that could actually help me was wondering about it too.”
She made her way to the door, then turned once more.
“You said you couldn’t help someone disappear. But do you think disappearing is possible?”
“For someone who has money, resources? Yeah. I can’t say I haven’t given it thought. I think I could do it. It’s definitely possible.”
A warm reassurance spread over her. This, then, was what she’d choose to believe. That Kristin and Abby and Aaron were gone of their own volition. Safe. No matter about the broken window Paul had jumped the gun to repair. No matter about the tattered book cover Abby wouldn’t have left home without. No matter about the computer search history, or the plea from her sister, or the other odd threads found dangling. No matter about this feeling of unease that had taken up residence the moment they’d left and grown in intensity as small, heart-tugging truths had been revealed.
She had to listen to Benny, to the detective, even to Izzy. There was truth in their admonition to stop projecting her own past on the present. Kristin was not her unsuspecting coworker from the holiday retreat.
In fact, it was obvious that by the time she’d vanished, Kristin had suspected plenty.
Clara had to try to stop worrying that something had gone awry. She had to believe the best, whatever that was. She had to let go.
Leaning against the conference room doorframe, she flashed Detective Bryant a sad, sideways smile. “So how would you do it?” she asked.
“Disappear? Start over?” He shook his head. “Why don’t you ask any of the thousands of illegal immigrants who do it every year.”
With that, he raised his hand in a wave and strode past her, down the corridor that led deeper into the station. The strange smile stayed on Clara’s lips as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the sunlight warming her face. What an unexpected relief, that there was nothing left to ask, and nothing left to answer.
36
Please join us in welcoming Adele to the wide world. Can’t you just see it in her eyes—her whole life ahead of her? We can’t wait to watch her grow.