Mrs. Barrow sighs. “This is what I’m talking about.” Her voice has a confiding quality to it, despite Cole standing right there. “Ordinarily, he would talk your ear off. He just isn’t himself these days.” She turns her furrowed brow back to Cole. “Are you feeling all right, sweetie?”
He doesn’t answer her, but instead looks at me. “Is Lydia coming over?”
All I can do is stare back. Tears fill my eyes. “I . . .”
“Remember, dear? Lydia is busy with big-kid school. That’s why she hasn’t been over recently.”
Cole looks at me, as if waiting for me to confirm or deny this story. I can’t seem to make words come out of my mouth.
“Cole, honey, I think I hear Papa outside. Would you run and check for Mama?”
My sharp inhale draws Walter’s gaze. I push a smile onto my face. Walter is here, and I’m in the presence of David Barrow’s wife, son, and unborn child. Surely I’m safe.
Cole doesn’t run. He ambles to the window. And in my head, I recall Lydia’s breezy voice one day in the car. I’m exhausted. I swear Cole doesn’t walk anywhere. He’s always running.
“Well, Cole. Is he here?” Mrs. Barrow asks.
The door opens and in strides Mr. Barrow, looking very Big City Businessman in his three-piece suit and fedora. He drops his hat on Cole’s head. “Hello, Mr. Barrow.” His voice is deep and jovial. “Is the Missus around?”
Cole only stands there. He doesn’t even look up at his father.
And again, I hear Lydia. I always feel unsettled around Mr. Barrow, but he must be a good father, because Cole runs and jumps on him whenever he comes home.
Mrs. Barrow laughs with too much gusto. “Hello, dear. You remember Miss Piper Sail? And this is her friend, Walter.”
Mr. Barrow’s gaze swings to us on the couch. He’s not a particularly handsome man, but he dresses and carries himself in a commanding way. “Of course. You’re lovelier every time I see you, it seems.”
“We were just leaving.”
“They had come by to say hello. We were discussing the . . . the current news in the neighborhood.”
Mr. Barrow’s face flickers with understanding. “Yes, well, I’m glad to see you’re not out walking alone, Miss Sail. I’ll show you to the door.”
This seems rather absurd considering I can see the door from here, and unease tingles in my chest.
“Thank you for calling,” Mrs. Barrow says.
“It was our pleasure. Thank you for putting your dog away.”
“Of course. If you’re not used to them, they can be quite a lot to deal with. Good-bye, now.”
“Good-bye.”
Mr. Barrow follows us outside. The door clicks closed behind him. “I don’t want you coming around and upsetting Mrs. Barrow with your talk of Lydia.” His voice is quiet but also, somehow, threatening. “The pregnancy has been hard enough on her, and she doesn’t need the stress of thinking about some girl who got herself taken.”
My hands curl into fists. “Some girl who got herself taken?”
Mr. Barrow smiles in a thin-lipped way. “I trust this is the last time we’ll have to have this conversation.”
He turns on his heel and shuts the door, leaving me with the flavor of unspoken, venomous words on my tongue.
Walter tugs at my arm. “Let’s go, Piper. He’s not worth the energy.”
But I disagree. I think looking into Mr. David Barrow and where he was Tuesday around 5:20 might be worth a lot of my energy.
First, however, I intend to track down Dr. LeVine’s notebook.
When Mariano told me he didn’t think I should go to the LeVines’ anymore, he probably just meant when the family is there. Right?
That’s what I’m banking on, anyway, as I watch Tabitha leave the house, her shopping sack on her shoulder as she sets out to do her normal Saturday errands. Matthew drove Dr. and Mrs. LeVine to an appointment of some kind with Mariano and Detective O’Malley, and Hannah and Sarah have been shipped away to relatives in the suburbs so they won’t be underfoot.
I pull the LeVines’ house key from its hiding spot, slink around to the back door, and let myself in. My heart feels ready to catapult right out of my chest, and “What ifs?” circle my thoughts like birds of prey. But I have to ignore them. Getting my hands on that notebook, learning if there’s anything else Dr. LeVine hid about Lydia, must take priority over my fears.
Bread dough rises on the kitchen counter. My mind’s eye sees the scene from the last time I stood in this kitchen—Lydia unconscious and bleeding from her fall. Her soiled Presley’s uniform. Everything had seemed so bad that afternoon, and now . . .
I must focus. I brush tears from my eyes and make my way to Lydia’s father’s dark office.
The room is soaked in prestige. A bookshelf takes up the back wall, crammed with medical texts. Framed artwork of battle scenes and certificates of Dr. LeVine’s awards and degrees take up the rest of the wall space. A rolltop desk sits atop a blue-and-red rug, which seems just feminine enough for Mrs. LeVine to have done the choosing.