“That’s why we’re here,” Esther said. “We want to find out more about what’s going on with you and your husband.”
Carole wrapped her arms around her thin frame and looked nervously away. “I don’t understand. What are you getting at?”
“Carole, we need some honesty here,” Esther said. “What is going on in your marriage?”
Carole stiffened. “Our marriage is solid.”
“We’ve heard otherwise,” she said, trying to push gently. “We need to get at the truth.”
“What you need to do is find our son. That’s all you need to do. The state of my marriage to David is irrelevant and has nothing to do with what happened to Charlie.”
“You don’t know that, Carole. Look, we don’t like to pry into private matters. We don’t. But in this case there are a few things going on that we need to discuss. We need to better understand the dynamics here.”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“We need to,” Esther said.
Jake, inexperienced and impatient, spoke up. “Is your husband having an affair?”
Esther gave him a sharp look but noted that Carole hadn’t flinched at the question. Not in the slightest.
“What does that have to do with any of this?”
“Maybe nothing. We need to investigate all possibilities. If there is another party involved, we need to talk to her.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You should probably ask him that question. And so what if he is? What would that matter?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Esther said. “Do you know who it is?”
“No,” Carole said. “Not really. I thought I did—I thought it was Amanda Jenkins at Sweetwater, but as I got to know her, I could see that she really didn’t like my husband in that way. Maybe not at all. Besides, I don’t think she is the type of girl who would waste her time on a married man.”
“Then who?” Jake asked.
“Look,” Carole said, “if there is someone, I don’t know who it is. David’s a private man. My family says secretive is a better word for the way he operates. I say private.”
Esther leaned closer. “But you suspect he’s seen others.”
“Of course,” she said, again without hesitation and with just a glance at the detective. “He had a fling with a girl before we moved here. It was messy. She turned aggressive about it. I wasn’t about to lose my husband. In part, it’s why we’re here. We had to get away from her.”
Carole got up, her gait unsteady, and observed the river, the current slowly propelling some paddleboarders toward the old beaver lodge.
“We should never have moved here,” she said. “It was David’s idea. I shouldn’t have listened to him.” She fell silent, appearing to forget they were there. “God,” she said to the window, “I want Charlie to come home.”
He ran his fingers over his fashionable stubble and took a deep breath. Owen Jarrett felt his own handsomeness, a chin that was chiseled just so. Another deep breath filled his strong, runner’s lungs. He reached for his new phone and scrolled through the latest messages from Liz. While she was refraining from directly referencing what had triggered her meltdown, her neediness had been accelerated by what she’d done. And by what she’d forced him to do. She was drowning and wanted a lifeline.
He wanted to throw her an anchor.
Can you come home? I’m falling apart here.
He was tempted to write back to her: You’ve ruined my life. I don’t want to come home ever.
Instead, he shut her down with a terse two-word message.
Working late.
He swiped a finger against the glass of his phone and sent out a text to a different contact.
I’m going through a lot here. Don’t you even care?
He put his feet up on the desk and waited for an answer.
None came. He put his palm against his forehead and rubbed at a throbbing pain.
Answer me!
He texted again.
I promise. I’ll be free of her.
No answer.
His rage began to fester. He hated being ignored. Everything he’d ever wanted was all out of sequence. It all teetered because of Liz and what she did.
He told Paula, who was on the phone at the front desk talking to her boyfriend, that he was heading out for a bit. The young woman smiled and waved. With Damon off getting an eyebrow wax or something, Owen felt it was safe to take a minute to think.
To plan what to do next.
He drove down Wall Street and around the block to Newport, where he crossed the river. A couple of miles out of town, he pulled over behind a brewery that had somehow managed to fail in a town that’s a magnet for brewmasters—and beer drinkers. It was the only place he knew would be deserted and available for what he knew he had to do.
He rolled up the windows and faced the mirror.
“Oh, God, no!”
The words had stuck in his throat. He took in some air and tried it once more.
“Oh, God! My wife! You need to come quickly. I think she’s dead. She’s dead. She’s really dead! Hurry!”
That was too definitive. And why would he say “Hurry!” if he’d thought she was dead? Do-over.
“I think something’s the matter with her. I just got home. She’s unresponsive. She’s been depressed lately. Really depressed. I never thought this could happen. Please hurry. She’s all I have.”
Owen looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He’d have to do better. He’d have to find a way to ramp up the anguish and release some actual tears if he were going to be believable.
Liz was never going to make it through the investigation into the disappearance of the neighbors’ boy. It had been obvious nearly from the first day. In fact, when he thought about it, his wife had been fragile before the incident. Unsure. A second-guesser at everything. He wondered what he’d seen in her in the first place. She’d idolized him. That was true. She’d been an available sounding board when he talked about his grand plans, a ready lover when he wanted sex. She was beautiful. And she was smart. But all of the things that he had found appealing were now coming under more scrutiny. His. Others’. She’d failed the bar twice. She talked about how humiliating that had been. She’d never once acknowledged the shame he felt. All of the people in his circle at the office and in the industry were unquestionably A-listers. She could have been one too. She looked it. In the way that a jeweler can tilt a diamond to conceal the flaw, the experience with Charlie had revealed something so deep and so wrong that there was no fixing it.