9:44 a.m.
Claire sat on the edge of the bed with no memory of how she’d gotten there. Oh, yes, she’d seen Janie downstairs. Had said something to her—what was it again?—before coming back upstairs. But she didn’t recall why she’d left the room to begin with. Everything seemed so foggy. There was a knot of tension between her eyes. She should take something for that. Had she already? Claire couldn’t remember that, either. But she knew there were new prescriptions, brand-new bottles lining the counter in the adjoined bath. Somehow Dr. Schultz’s compassion had kicked in again, now that they’d found . . .
She snatched up a pillow and buried her face in it, stifling the scream that threatened. There was one lodged inside her all the time now, an instant away from being ripped from her throat. Her baby, her baby, her baby . . . how would she ever bear it? Why would a parent want to?
There had always been that possibility. Getting less likely with each passing year, but still there. The chance that Kelsey would be returned. Damaged by her experience, whatever it might have been. But home safely where they could put all their effort into helping her mend emotionally. They’d heal together as a family. All the pieces inside of them that had grown brittle and broken with despair would be cured given enough time. Enough love.
And now even that distant hope had been snatched from them. Claire began to rock, tears dampening the pillow. Everyone had been wrong. Closure didn’t help you heal. It just stole away your last reason to live.
She knew from experience that the day would come when the well of tears would dry, become impossible to muster. It was around the same time that people would start putting on those determinedly cheerful expressions. Look, I’m moving on. Just follow my lead. I’ll show you how it’s done.
A hole had been drilled in her heart the day Kelsey disappeared. She’d drifted through seven years waiting for it to be filled again. Now it never would be. Claire knew she didn’t have another seven years left in her.
Last night, she’d lain awake for hours, staring at the ceiling. She’d thought David had been asleep. The words had burst forth, a brutally raw truth. “I want to be with her.”
“Claire.” The pain in her husband’s voice had registered. But she’d had no comfort to offer. “That’s unhealthy talk.”
It might be unhealthy. But it was utterly honest. She couldn’t do it again. This time the grief would surely suffocate her.
There was a tiny sound at the door. The knob turned. It was locked. She waited for David to call to her to open it. When no voice came, she knew it was Janie hovering out there, her expression stamped with worry.
What had her youngest daughter thought when she’d heard her father speaking to the agent downstairs? The shock of her husband’s lies was buried somewhere deep inside Claire, but she couldn’t really feel it on any level. Seven or eight years ago, they had not been in the market for a lake house. The idea was laughable. That was the time period when she and her husband had made a loan to her mother so she could avoid foreclosure. A loan that hadn’t been repaid, just as David had predicted. Things had been tight for a while, until he’d gotten a substantial raise at work. And then another. Just the idea of a home outside of town was ludicrous. David’s idea of country living was driving a golf cart around eighteen holes.
But Claire had no doubt that he’d been in the lake house. Likely more than once. Tiffany White had been the young Realtor in charge of it then. In her early twenties, the girl had babysat for them several times when they went away for the weekend. Pretty, lithe Tiffany, with the sparkling green eyes, husky laugh, and long, blonde hair. Odd, with her thinking so muddled that she could be so clear about this. David and Tiffany had had an affair.
A fist squeezed her heart. So perhaps she wasn’t completely numb inside, after all. Tiffany had left town years ago, for a bigger realty agency in . . . Cincinnati? No, Columbus. Claire’s stomach did a neat flip. It was possible to feel more pain, she discovered. Even when she’d thought the layers of agony couldn’t get worse.
She threw herself back on the bed. Straightened her gown and lay very straight, arms at her sides. Was he still seeing her? David was in Columbus an awful lot. At least eight days a month. Sometimes more frequently. Something’s come up. A major wrinkle with one of the Columbus accounts. She’d been so easily fooled. So lost in the effort it took to get through each day that she’d never questioned his absences. Never stopped to wonder if it was normal for a husband and wife to remain married for seven years and not have sex once during that time.
Nothing had been normal since Kelsey had been gone. Nothing would ever be normal again.
She thought again of the new prescriptions. No need anymore to hoard pills in secret places. No more shopping for doctors. There were also all those unused pills in Janie’s room. Claire’s own medication would flow freely again, at least for a few years.
She wouldn’t need it for that long.
A sense of calm settled over her. She’d wait until Janie was at college. She owed her youngest that. She’d help her through the hell that the rest of this year would be. Accompany her on the college visits. Remain stoic when Janie chose the one across the country. She’d wait for a morning next fall when Marta wasn’t coming.
And then Claire would swallow every last pill in the house. It wouldn’t take long. A brief bout of unpleasantness, quickly over.
Then she’d be with Kelsey for eternity.
David Willard
November 18
9:50 a.m.
“We don’t have to talk about this now.” It was at least the third time Agent Foster had made the suggestion. “It can wait . . . until later.”
“Some time when it’s easier?” David sat on the couch in the formal living room, bent at the waist, his forearms resting on his thighs. He raised his head to look at the other man. “When will that be? God, I wish someone would tell me when it gets easier. I’ve been waiting for that day for seven years.”
“I know.” The agent looked miserable. “But I don’t think hearing all the forensic details right now will help.”
David wanted to tell him that nothing he learned could make it any worse. But that was probably a lie. Hell had infinite depths, and just when he thought he’d explored them all, he was plunged deeper into the pit. He’d struggled out of it once. Somehow. He didn’t know if he had the strength to do so again. “Just tell me,” he said dully. “What have you learned about my daughter? You promised us that much.”