“I lease,” he reminded her. “And I’m still paying alimony, if I’m not mistaken…”
“Have you ever been?” Caroline interrupted.
“…which gives me some rights…”
“Please,” Michelle said. “Do you have to argue about this now?”
“No,” Caroline said. “I’d be more than happy to take a cab.”
“Get in the car,” her ex-husband directed, throwing the two overnight bags into the trunk and climbing behind the wheel as Michelle crawled into the backseat, leaving the front seat empty for her mother.
Reluctantly, Caroline took her place beside her former husband, trying not to notice how handsome he looked. As good as ever. Maybe even better. His hair had yet to turn gray or thin out, and his waistline was as trim as it had always been. If anything, the years had sharpened his features, emphasizing the prominence of his cheekbones, which in turn emphasized the fullness of his lips. “How’s the baby?” Caroline asked in an effort to clear her head of such disconcerting thoughts.
“She’s fine,” Hunter said, paying the attendant and pulling out of the parking lot. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I wasn’t aware we had a subject.”
“Just tell me what happened. Everything. From the beginning.”
Caroline wasn’t sure what beginning he was referring to exactly, but the one thing she was sure of was that it was pointless to protest further. Hunter was a good lawyer, maybe even a great one. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to argue. And if he couldn’t win outright, he’d wear you down over time. Might as well get it over with, she decided, starting with Lili’s phone call. She watched his face as he listened, his expression changing from curiosity to disbelief to flat-out anger. When she reached the part about leaving a note for Lili with the reception desk when they checked out of the hotel, he was already halfway out of his seat, his entire body swiveled toward her.
“Watch where you’re going,” she cautioned.
Hunter returned his attention to the road. But even in profile his outrage was formidable. “And you didn’t even think to call me about this?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because Samantha was my daughter, too.”
Caroline blanched at Hunter’s use of the past tense. “What are you saying? That you would have come with me?”
“I might have. You didn’t give me that chance.”
“Because you wouldn’t have come. You would have said it was a wild-goose chase and I was a fool to even consider it, just like you did when I went to Tacoma and Miami. Be honest, Hunter. There’s no way you would have gone to Calgary. Or that Diana would have let you go,” she added, drawing a measure of satisfaction when she saw him flinch. She’d heard from multiple sources that his much younger wife had him wrapped around her little finger and that he rarely made a move without her okay.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that we could have talked it through. We should have talked it through.”
“We don’t talk, Hunter. We never have.”
“That’s ridiculous. We were married for twelve years. You’re saying we never talked?”
“You talked. I listened.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Face it, Hunter. You’re a bully. In court and out.”
“And you’re a victim. Like always. It’s the same old shit.”
“Guys, please,” Michelle pleaded from the backseat. “Can we not do this?”
“You should have phoned me,” Hunter repeated, either unmindful or uncaring of his daughter’s request. “You should have told me what was happening. You should have given me the option. Admit it.”
“Only if you admit that there’s no way you would have gone with me,” Caroline said, once again standing her ground, something she wished she’d done more often during their dozen years together. Maybe if she had, they wouldn’t be having this stupid argument. Samantha would never have gone missing.
“Well, I guess we’ll never know,” Hunter said.
“I know.”
“Right. Because you know everything.”
“I know there’s no way Hunter Shipley would have taken a few days off work for something as unimportant as his family.”
“Okay. That’s enough. You’re way off base.”
“Really? How many days did you take off work after Samantha disappeared?” Caroline knew she was being unreasonable, but the words escaped her mouth before she could stop them, pushed out by fifteen years of repressed rage.
“Mom,” Michelle said. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“How many days, Hunter? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?”
“I stayed…”
“Seven whole days,” Caroline said. “You stayed one whole week.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Really? How fair were you? Leaving me alone in Mexico to deal with everything.”
“I asked you to come home. I begged you, for God’s sake.”