“No, Jake,” Esther said, shaking her head slightly. “We’ll be fine without those.”
“What’s happening here?” Amanda asked again. Her voice had grown louder, and it carried past the hostess’s desk. The two patrons sitting closest to the door looked up to see what the commotion was all about.
“Amanda,” David said, his tone calm, words measured, “I need you to handle things until I get back.”
She started to shake. “Where are they taking you?” she asked, pushing past the detectives and standing next to David. “What did you do? Did you do something to Charlie?”
He turned around just as he was about to be taken outside. He looked around the entrance to Sweetwater and then over at the young woman.
“Never,” he said. Her words had stung. “Not Charlie. Not ever.”
The next morning, Carole sat in the Jarretts’ kitchen and stared at the paper. Her phone had gone off what seemed like a hundred times during the night. Some were texts from her husband, but most were media requests. She’d ignored them all. There was nothing left inside of her but the ache for her missing son. Everything else felt like a pile-on that was burying her. Bertie folded herself on Carole’s lap and purred.
Liz emerged from the bedroom. She wore her running clothes; her hair was in a loose ponytail. Each day she felt worse than the day before. She knew how things would go. Carole would cry. She would cry. Carole would rage about David. She’d complain that the police weren’t doing enough. She’d remind Liz over and over that there would be no point in going on without Charlie.
That morning, though, there was no instant litany of those same old subjects.
“What is it?” Liz asked, sliding into the chair next to Carole.
Carole tapped her finger on the screen of her phone, showing the latest post from the Bend Bulletin.
Liz read, occasionally taking her eyes away to meet Carole’s.
Restaurateur Charged with Assault of Ohio Man
David Franklin, a popular Bend restaurateur, was arrested on suspicion of assault in the beating of Bradley Collins, an Ohio man recently interviewed by police in connection with the disappearance of Franklin’s three-year-old son, Charlie.
“If this goes to trial—and we think it won’t get that far—then David Franklin will be a very sympathetic defendant,” said Stephen Richter, Franklin’s attorney. “No one knows what happened to his son, and no one knows the kind of grief and distress that kind of uncertainty causes. I’d probably do whatever it took to get answers, too.”
Franklin was released last night.
“He didn’t, Carole? He didn’t do this, did he?”
Carole nodded. “He did. He texted me.”
“My God,” Liz said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. He’s done now. When Charlie comes home, David will never be alone with him again. I knew he was self-absorbed. Selfish. A jerk. But I never thought he had that kind of hate or violence in him.”
Liz set all of this in motion, and she knew it. She wondered if there would be any way out of what she’d done now.
“He was trying to find out what happened to Charlie,” she said to fill the air.
Carole put Bertie down. “Doesn’t matter. He almost killed someone. I can’t see any circumstances where I could forgive that.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MISSING: TWENTY-TWO DAYS
From his DoubleTree hotel room, David could see the medical center. The sight of the sprawling building with the illuminated white cross made him ill. He’d been booked and released on bail that tapped the last bit of his cash reserves. Such as they were. All without a word from Carole.
She’d ignored his calls and texts.
He caught the sight of his bruised knuckles as he pulled the heavy curtain and took a tiny bottle of scotch from the minibar. He’d beaten a man nearly to death. For his son? For himself? To prove he was the equal of his wife, a former Google executive? He stared at the bottle, trying to decide if he should twist the little red wax cap and sink down even lower. He’d heard that Brad Collins would likely recover. If he did, it was a kind of gift that David didn’t deserve. And though he didn’t live and die on the patronage of local diners to keep the restaurant afloat, he knew that word would get around and people with a justified sense of righteousness would abandon Sweetwater. Whatever had been so important was ebbing away. His lawyer said the prosecutors would probably give him probation for a guilty plea.
“A jury will hate what you did, but they can be made to see that your anguish over losing your son was a mitigating factor,” the lawyer said. “At least I think so.”
He dialed Carole’s number again, but she didn’t answer.
I can’t explain why I did what I did, he texted. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.
A moment later, a text came back.
Sorry isn’t enough. Bye, David.
Carole had been ignoring the calls from Washington Federal. They had been persistent and completely annoying. Whoever had been trying to reach her obviously didn’t know that there were more pressing matters than whatever it was the bank was trying to tell her.
Finally, she could take it no more.
“Look,” she said, before letting the caller say a word, “I don’t mean to be rude, but now is not a good time. Please stop calling.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Franklin,” a young man said. “I’ve been trying to reach your husband.”
She wondered if the caller had seen the news. Her husband was unreachable because he’d been arrested for aggravated assault.
“He’s indisposed,” she said. It was the only polite way of putting his unavailability to a stranger, especially someone who didn’t have a clue about what had been going on.
“Oh,” he said. “But I have good news. I need to let him know that we’ve approved the loan we met about.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. The line of credit for Sweetwater.”
“What line of credit?”
“Mrs. Franklin,” he said, “you’re on the paperwork. I see your signature right here.”
“You do?”
“Right,” he said. “The line of credit should keep the restaurant going until Mr. Franklin’s TV appearance kicks off his platform. Exciting times.”
All of this was news, of course. She knew cash was tight at Sweetwater, but David had insisted she didn’t need to pull out any more funds to keep it afloat.
“I can do this on my own,” he told her.
“It’s our money,” she’d responded.
“Not really, Carole. It’s yours. And that’s okay. I need to make a go of it on my own.”
“Mrs. Franklin?” the loan officer asked.
Carole snapped back into the moment. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Good. I thought something might have happened to you. The phone felt like it had gone dead.”
Carole slumped into a chair. “No, I’m here,” she said. “When did my husband meet with you?”
“Let’s see. This has been ongoing. We’ve had several meetings. This is tricky stuff. No one wants to bankroll a restaurant. Not even in a cool place like Bend.”
“Right,” she said. “When was the last meeting?”