When I was sure Sophie was asleep, we stepped out into the hall and I closed the door to the nursery, leaving a small gap.
Abruptly coming out of her preoccupation, Cathy said, “I’m sorry, I should have told you to keep the baby with you. We need to search the house.”
“Oh, no,” I said in dismay. “Why?”
“The dead woman was here. The missing woman was here.”
“But the dead woman wasn’t in my house!” At least, I hoped not. But now I felt even more jangled. How could I be sure of that?
“It has to be done. I hope you consent, because the sooner we start, the sooner it’ll be over. If you don’t consent, we’ll wait for a warrant.”
“Is there any way I could just go to bed? I’m running on empty, and I’m also running a temperature.” I hated to sound pathetic, but truly I wasn’t sure I could stand up, or sit up, any longer.
“I’ll ask them to search your room first,” Cathy promised. “I’ll do the baby’s room now, and as soon as I’m done, she can go back in the crib.”
I had a moment of great resentment when I thought of someone rummaging around in our house, disturbing our baby’s things. But I recalled a long-ago occasion when I had actually found something criminal hidden in a crib. I sighed heavily.
I had to lift Sophie out of her bed again, and carry her some more. All I wanted to do was collapse in a heap somewhere, and be sick in peace. Though I realized this was a whiny attitude, and that I was distinctly sorry for myself, that was how I felt. I wanted to maintain my anger, but I didn’t have the energy. Cathy was only doing her job.
Of course the police need to search the house. It makes sense. And it puts the perfect cap on the evening. I sure didn’t like it, though. “And after that? Phillip can go back to bed, too, after his room is searched?”
Cathy nodded. “Levon will have explained this to Phillip. And Levon will talk to Sarah and her family to confirm what Phillip told us.”
“Can’t that wait until tomorrow?” I said, dismayed at how unhappy Sarah’s parents would be when the police knocked at their door. This might doom the relationship. I tried to tell myself this was trivial, under the circumstances, but … it really wasn’t, to my brother.
“Oh, sure, Levon won’t talk to them for a few hours,” Cathy said. She opened the front door. “Okay, guys, it’s a go.”
Two uniformed officers nodded at me before going down the hall to start with the bedrooms. They were happy, and I could see why. It was a good thing to draw search duty inside, when the rain was drumming the ground outside.
Phillip was still, or again, sitting on the couch. Levon was nowhere in sight. “They’re going to search,” he said, and he had energy enough to be grouchy.
“After our rooms are done, we can go to bed.”
“Let me take Sophie,” Phillip offered. I could hardly wait to pass her over. After a moment, he said quietly, “Did Detective Trumble tell you there was a knife by the dead woman’s hand?”
“That was the shiny thing?”
He nodded.
“She didn’t tell me.” I tried to think intelligently about what the presence of the knife might mean, but I found it hard to care. We sat slumped in miserable silence.
After an eternity, Phillip and I got the green light to retire. Phillip took Sophie to her room. She stayed asleep while he put her in her crib. At this point, that seemed like a miracle.
Finally, I was in a room with a bed, and I was alone, and I was about to climb in it. I was so exhausted I was scared I wouldn’t hear Sophie unless she cried right in my ear, so I put the monitor on Robin’s pillow. The rain was pounding against the roof. I curled up on my side, and after saying a short prayer, I was out.
Chapter Seven
“Roe.”
I heard someone talking. I groped for the monitor, unable to open my eyes.
“Roe.”
The voice was insistent. And it wasn’t coming from Sophie’s room, but approximately a foot away from my head. With a huge effort, I dragged my eyes open. “Robin?” I couldn’t believe it. He was back. “Oh, you got here so fast. I was going to call you this morning. I didn’t want you to freak out last night.”
“I get to choose whether I freak out or not,” Robin said. His face was stern and serious. Though the last thing I wanted was to wake up to a very unhappy husband, that seemed to be the case.
“I didn’t think you could get a much earlier flight back,” I said, as my plan of going back to sleep retreated farther and farther into the realm of impossibility. “And you were so happy. And we were all okay.”
“Roe. You don’t get to make up my mind for me. I get to be scared if something happens to my wife and my daughter.”
I hadn’t had a moment to think about my decision at all.
Robin was right.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said. “I’m so glad. But all I could think was that I couldn’t bear ruining your big moment.”
Robin took me in his arms and held me fiercely. “Thank God you and the baby and Phillip are okay,” he said, his voice ragged. “I talked to the police before I came in the house. But I want to hear the whole story.”
“Wait,” I said, finally and completely awake. “How come you came back early?”
“Phillip left a message on my cell, but I didn’t check my messages for maybe an hour. While I threw my stuff together, I saw the phone light was blinking. Detective Trumble had called my room. But I was in too much of a hurry to return it. Maybe she was checking to make sure I was really in the hotel. I called her when I was waiting to board my flight.”
Phillip was a traitor! I’d told him I wasn’t going to call Robin, so my brother had taken it upon himself to brief Robin about our situation. Cathy Trumble, I could understand—I didn’t know why I hadn’t foreseen her calling Robin. She was doing her job. But Phillip!
“I checked on available flights on the Web. Found one on Delta. Took a cab to the airport. Called Uber when I got to Atlanta. It was raining awful hard, and he had to drive slow. I got pretty impatient.” I pulled back to look at his face. I could see that he had been not only “pretty impatient,” but frantic, to reach us to make sure we were okay.
It was a bit bitter to admit to myself he had reason to be upset. I had not done the right thing, and Phillip had made the right call (literally and figuratively)—which didn’t mean I wouldn’t be a little angry at him for a while.
“And when did your cold turn into the flu?” he said accusingly. My husband was determined to get all his grievances into the open, here and now.
“Uhhh … pretty soon after you left.”
He rubbed his stubbly face with his hands. “Roe…” He sounded hurt and exasperated and baffled. A lot to pack into one word.