When he told her, the blood drained from Carole’s face. It had been the morning of Charlie’s disappearance.
David hadn’t been out screwing another barmaid.
He’d been out fighting for his dream.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
MISSING: TWENTY-TWO DAYS
Carole and Liz faced the Deschutes. It was dusk. They’d already emptied a couple of bottles of wine and a bag of tortilla chips. No salsa. Just dry chips from Safeway. The air had cooled. Liz got up and retrieved a couple of old coverlets that her grandmother had made during her knitting phase.
“Fall is just around the corner,” she said.
“My favorite time of year, Liz.”
“Me too.”
“Charlie’s going to be a pirate for Halloween,” Carole said.
Liz took a breath. “Right. That will be great.”
Carole sipped her wine. She didn’t have to pretend not to drink to support her husband any longer. “I know,” she said. “I think I’ll make his costume. Last year was store-bought.”
“That will be great, Carole.”
A pair of mallards landed in the river, and the two women watched the ducks in the dim light.
“What’s Owen up to tonight?” Carole asked, filling her glass. “Another meeting?”
“Yes,” Liz said. “In a way I’m glad.”
“I noticed things are tense between you two.”
“I guess. Sometimes you need a break from your husband.” Liz looked over at her friend. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine. I know what you mean.”
“Did you talk to David today?” Liz asked.
“No, not really. He texted. I don’t know what to think of him. I don’t know, no matter the reason, if I can be with anyone capable of so much violence. After he beat up Mr. Collins, I’ve wondered if he’d done something with Charlie. A fit of rage. An accident. But he couldn’t have. He wasn’t home. Charlie’s gone because of me. David’s in trouble because of himself.”
Liz kept her eyes fixed on the water, which was turning gold and black. The picture in front of her was the same one that had been imprinted in her mind when she was a girl. The Deschutes was a gold-and-black snake flowing past the house, down to the bridge, then into Mirror Pond.
It looked the same. But it didn’t feel the same.
She lifted her eyes from the water. “Dr. Miller must be sick or something.”
“Oh? I hadn’t heard.” Carole looked across at the Miller place. “Maybe he moved without saying something.”
“Maybe. But his car was there. No, he’d never leave that house. He was going to die there before selling it.” She shook her head. “He’s never out anymore. His yard is a mess.”
“That’s all he cared about,” Carole said. “I wish he would move away.”
Carole had become increasingly bitter as the investigation stalled. Liz tried to bolster her spirits, but everything she said hid the underlying truth of what she’d done. She was a fraud sitting there patting Carole’s hand and telling her she’d be all right. For her part, Carole couldn’t see anything good in anyone. Everything was negative. No one could blame her.
She’d lost something precious that could never be replaced.
Liz thought of reminding Carole that Dan Miller had lost a son too, but she knew it would come off as a tit for tat.
Carole only wanted Charlie home.
And that, Liz knew, would never happen.
“Never cared much for the man,” Carole said. “All he ever did was complain about how big our house is. Funny, now I kind of understand, after staying here with you and Owen. A smaller place does feel more like home.”
“Your house is fine,” Liz said. “It’s all Owen talked about after you guys showed up here with your architectural plans. He wouldn’t shut up about it. Wanted to tear this place down that very night. Thankfully we didn’t have the money.”
Carole smiled a little. “God, you must have hated us, coming in and changing the way things are. You never think about the impact on others when you do something big like that. You just come in and do what you want to do.”
Liz poured some more wine for herself. “It’s fine. Really. I’m over it.”
Carole stayed quiet for a long time. Another pair of mallards careened downward and planted themselves on the shimmering water as though replacing the first pair. The women watched in silence while the birds floated down with the river’s current.
Carole got up and leaned against the porch rail overlooking the water.
“Wish we never came here,” she finally said. “It was a mistake. We should have stayed in California. David wore me down. Told me it would be better to raise a family in a place like Bend. You know, a place where everyone knows everyone.”
Liz joined Carole. “Bend isn’t like that anymore. Maybe no place is.” She put her arm around her friend. It was another of the rare times that they’d started a conversation that didn’t begin with Charlie’s name. In essence, he was in every word that Carole said. Although not by name.
“You think it will rain?” Carole said.
“Looks like it.” Liz craned her neck so she could see the driveway. “I hear Owen’s car. Let’s go inside. It’s getting chilly.”
“You go in,” she said. “I’ll be a minute.”
It was after 9:00 p.m. Owen set his keys on the table by the front door and watched his wife as she came through the old French doors that led to the river side of the house. By then Carole had gone to bed. She’d been going earlier and earlier. She told Liz that she thought that sleep was a better escape than wine.
“I talked to David today,” he said, keeping his voice down. “He really wants to talk to Carole.”
“You mean he wants to make sure he’s got her money for his defense,” she said, also in a whisper. Owen gave her a look that was meant to put her in her place, but she wasn’t going to let him do that. “Don’t give me that,” she said. “It isn’t the same thing.”
“You could be where he is,” he said. “With what you’ve done.”
She wanted to throttle him right then and here. She wondered if that was how David had felt when he confronted Brad Collins. A warning. A twinge of fear. The kind of emotion that pushes you to a place you ordinarily would not go.
“You’re agitated,” he said. “We can’t have that, Liz.”
Just then Carole emerged from her bedroom. She made her way to the kitchen to get some water for the sleeping pills she’d come to rely on.
“Hey, Carole. Talked to your husband this afternoon,” Owen said. “He’s a wreck. Restaurant’s empty. Looks bad. Says you won’t call him back.”
“Let it go, Owen,” she said. “I want to keep my focus on what matters to me. Charlie. Not David.” She turned to face them from the doorway to the guest room. “I don’t give a flying fuck about David. I know what he’s about. I always have. That’s my sin in all of this: not choosing a better man when it came time to finally get married and start a family.”
“He loves you, Carole,” Liz said, though deep down she’d doubted it.
Carole looked at the Jarretts. They were a young and beautiful couple. While they had problems, they weren’t insurmountable. They weren’t encumbered by the fight to have everything all at once. The way her husband had been.