Her chest constricted, making it an effort to breathe normally. It seemed as if news like this reared up to ambush her every few months. Something would appear in the papers or on TV that would cause the past to rage to the surface, every slice of pain and fear fresh again, hot and pulsing with new life. As if a stranger’s tragedy belonged to her in some way because she’d lived through it, too. And this . . . this wasn’t even a stranger. She knew Helen DeVries. Claire and the woman used to attend the same church. Whitney, the girl’s name was. She’d be about the same age Kelsey had been when she was taken.
“I’m so sorry, Claire.” Mimi looked shaken, whether from her verbal faux pas or her throbbing toe, it was difficult to tell. “I’m sure the girl will be found safely.”
“Yes.” Because the word came out husky, Claire cleared her throat. “But her poor parents . . .”
Barbara’s hand snaked out to capture hers under the table. Gave it a brief squeeze.
Claire felt like a fraud. Because her words had been automatic. A sound of empathy when, in fact, she possessed none. Dealing with the loss of Kelsey should have made her more attuned to the agony of others, but too often it felt like a contest of who had suffered more.
Whitney is probably alive! She’ll eventually return unhurt and happy, not gone forever . . . dead or as good as . . .
The waitress began clearing the salad plates. Claire fought an overwhelming urge to excuse herself. David. She needed to call David. It was a habit she’d tried to break herself of because her husband had grown weary of it years ago. Each instance when she heard details of a missing child on the news . . . every time she learned of some atrocity inflicted on a young girl, the details would take up residence in her brain and lodge there like a burrowing parasite spreading its poison until it was all-consuming. Certainty would grow that the case mirrored Kelsey’s fate. She’d been murdered by her kidnapper. Forced into child prostitution. The victim of a pedophile.
There had been a time, a long while ago, when her husband had tried to calm her when she’d worked herself into a state over news like that. When they’d embrace tightly to form a human shield, a fragile defense against an unimaginably cruel fate.
Those days were long past. Claire couldn’t remember the last time David had touched her in any but the most casual of ways. And still, the familiar urge burned hotly within her, demanding a release.
“Claire, your entree looks delicious. You have to tell me if it’s as good as it looks. For the sake of my waistline, please lie to me.”
At Barbara’s words, she realized their lunches had been served. Like an automaton, she picked up her fork. The first bite was tasteless. So was the second.
She was thinking of Whitney DeVries’s parents. She always thought of the parents when she heard news like this. Not what they were feeling. Not sympathy for what they were going through.
No, Claire always found herself wondering what they hadn’t told the police.
David Willard
November 2
2:54 p.m.
“Great news on the Turnbull account, Willard.” Steve Grayson stopped David in the hallway, flashing his toothpaste-ad smile. “You pulled that one out of the fire. Sometime over drinks you’ll have to tell me how you kept them from following through on their threat to go with Samuels’ Marketing.”
The man stepped closer, lowered his voice. “I’m hearing murmurs of corporate espionage.”
“Espionage? That’s water-cooler gossip, Steve,” David said easily. “Although I did discover some interdepartmental errors that almost cost us the client.”
His cell phone vibrated. Checking the screen, he saw that it was another call from Claire. He held the phone up. “I have to take this.” With a wave, he headed toward his office. His corner office and the symbol of everything he had that Steve Grayson wanted. There had been times in the last few days when he’d been certain that the man was finally going to get it. But yesterday he’d finally prevented Turnbull from jumping ship, and today his world was right again.
David stopped by his assistant’s desk and plucked the fistful of blue while-you-were-gone notes from her outstretched hand.
“Mr. Schriever called and wants you in his office at three thirty.” David checked his watch. He had half an hour. “Everything else there”—Traci gave a nod to the messages he’d taken from her—“can wait until tomorrow. Except for Claire. She called twice. She sounded upset, David. She said you weren’t answering your cell. But when I asked, she said it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Really?” He frowned at the phone he still held, making a show of thumbing through his call log. “Nothing here. I swear I’m getting another carrier. This one drops calls all the time. I’m sure that’s what happened with hers.” He shoved the cell back in his pocket and headed toward his inner office.
David dropped the messages on his desk to deal with later and crossed to his private bathroom. Figuring he had time for a shave and to change his shirt, he unknotted his tie, already planning strategy. Kurt Schriever would have heard about the near debacle with the Turnbull account—Grayson would have made damn sure of that. Which underscored David’s suspicion that the younger man was behind the screwups. Kurt would be livid, David figured as he quickly shaved his five o’clock shadow and turned toward the closet. Taking a fresh white shirt from a hanger, he slipped it on. But Kurt would calm down after they discussed the interest Bonner Nursery was showing following a meeting David had had with them.
Still plotting strategy, he reentered his office, shoving his shirttails into his unzipped pants and then started. “Jesus, Claire!”
His wife rose from the edge of the couch she’d been perched on. “Did I startle you? Traci showed me in. Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I just got into the office myself.” He zipped up and grabbed his suit jacket from the chair he’d draped it over. Donning it, he added, “I had my cell turned off during my meetings today, so I missed your calls. But I’m afraid I’ve got to meet with Kurt in a few minutes. What do you need?” He stopped, a sudden stab of concern piercing his impatience. “Is Janie okay?”
“Yes, of course.” She made a face. “Still insisting on Stanford after she’s already been offered a full ride at OSU, and quite vocal about it. She actually made a list of her reasons for attending a university halfway across the country. I swear, under different circumstances she’d make an excellent trial lawyer. One conversation with her, and I feel like I’ve gone three rounds in the ring.”
He felt a flash of relief. “She’s a teenager. She’s supposed to be argumentative.” That behavior, at least, was normal, a description that didn’t always fit their youngest.
“Yes, but she’s particularly good at it.”
They shared a rueful smile, and he looked, really looked at his wife for the first time . . . in a while, he realized. She was impeccably dressed, still a damn fine-looking woman. But she could no longer completely hide the shadows beneath her eyes, and despite the subtle plastic surgery she’d had last year, there were stress lines that creased her mouth when she was worried, like she clearly was now.