12:14 p.m.
David sat on the muted-plaid couch in his finished basement, his cell clasped in one hand as he mentally replayed his recent conversation with Kurt Schriever. It had taken two days for the man to return his calls. And though his boss had offered up excuses about respecting his privacy, David could read between the lines. In marketing, branding was everything, and he was damaged goods. Schriever had probably been waiting until he could separate gossip from fact about David’s false arrest. And then worked overtime reaching out to pacify David’s clients, jittery at their brush with notoriety.
Son of a bitching Foster. The simmering fury at the BCI agent was always there, ready to ignite. David had asked Strickland about suing for false arrest. The attorney had cautioned against it. The evidence found with Kelsey’s body had been damning. The cops had had probable cause for arrest. But the hell with that. What about his reputation?
Kurt’s suggestion to take a few weeks at home could be interpreted as compassion. David was cynical enough to believe the man wanted to keep him as far away from his business as possible for a while. And who knew what would await him upon his return? Clients jumping ship. Accounts reassigned. David’s career torpedoed.
The cell rang in his hand. He checked the number. Not linked to a contact. He was too cautious for that. But familiar. David let it go to voice mail, just as he had the last several times Tiffany had called. Once she’d represented a haven to escape from stresses at home and at work. Now she was yet another complication in a life fraught with too many of them.
He stared dully at the opposite wall with its array of old family photos. Many of them were of Kelsey, taken at the pageants Claire had loved so much. Two-dimensional depictions of his daughter were all he had left. That, and the growing realization that he’d been lying to himself for seven years.
He hadn’t reached any magical pinnacle in the grief process after his daughter had been kidnapped. He’d simply done a stellar job of outpacing the swamp of guilt and sorrow that had threatened to suck him in. Devour him whole. But he was mired in it now. Trapped. He wasn’t sure he’d ever truly get free.
Maybe it was because they hadn’t lost Kelsey all at once. They’d lost pieces of her over time. The kidnapping. The first weeks and months when every new lead seemed to stall. Then the anniversaries that had brought knifelike sadness. The first Christmas without her. Kelsey’s birthday. The initial family vacation with just the three of them.
Was it easier to get over it all at once, he wondered. That single shock, a swift blade ripping your child away with a brutal finality? Or was the death by a thousand cuts harder? The constant pendulum swings between hope and despair; the endless grind of an investigation that went on for years, with he and Claire scrabbling for pieces of information the way a starving person gathered up crumbs. David had long left such deliberations behind him, setting aside the memories that threatened to snag him with skeletal fingers.
His cell rang again. This time he didn’t even look at it. A therapist at a long-ago support group had said that guilt magnified grief. That had resonated with him, because he lived with both. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Kelsey, her face stamped with disbelief. Rage. Hurt.
Stop denying it! I followed your car. I went inside and saw the two of you. Does Mom know you’re cheating? She will now. Because I’m not going to be part of your lie. I’m going to make sure you pay!
And he had, David thought dully. He’d paid and paid. He knew now that there could be no restitution.
He didn’t know how long he sat there before rousing himself to go upstairs. Check on the others. Reach out to Foster, that bastard, and see what the timeline was for Kelsey’s body to be released. The tedium of planning a funeral would lend focus to his days. Force him to move forward. If he moved fast enough, long enough, maybe he could escape the desolation.
He poked his head into the family room, then walked through it to the kitchen. Didn’t find Janie. Opening the door that led to the garage, he saw her car was gone. That was unusual enough to have him frowning. There was no way she’d be working. Maybe Claire knew where she’d gone.
He closed the door and headed to the stairway, meeting Marta halfway as she made her way down. The woman had been hovering around Claire since the news broke. Averting her eyes, she brushed by him. As he finished his ascent, he heard the sound of the coat closet opening. Moments later, the front door closed.
The door to the master bedroom was ajar. David paused outside it, steeling himself to deal with his wife before pushing it wide. And stopped in his tracks. “Claire. What are you doing?”
Suitcases were everywhere. Both garment bags laid across the bed, bulging and neatly zipped. Claire was crouched beside one bag, but at his arrival, she stood. Still in her pajamas, he noted dimly. “Packing.”
He took a deep breath. Reached for reason. “You’re emotional. We all are. But it’s not a good time to be making decisions like this. Besides, where would you go?”
She walked toward him, stopping a few feet away. With more life in her voice than he’d heard in a long time, she said, “I’m not going anywhere, David. You’re moving out.”
Special Agent Mark Foster
November 21
1:00 p.m.
“You’re a busy woman to get in to see.” Mark followed the nurse pushing Betsy Graves’s wheelchair down the hallway and into her hospital room. Betsy smiled up at him, and he was struck by how much younger she seemed in the last few days, despite the long dyed-gray hair framing her face. Freedom probably had that effect on people.
“Looks like your dad and sister must have gone out for a bite,” the nurse said chattily as she wheeled the woman to the side of the hospital bed and helped her into it. “That’s the last test for the day, although the gal will be around in an hour or so for more bloodwork.”
Betsy rolled her eyes and nodded, reaching for the iPad sitting on the table. Her family had brought it with them when they’d arrived the afternoon after her rescue. It had been an invaluable method of communication, as the woman had laboriously typed a statement and all her answers to their interview questions. She’d never speak again, her doctors had agreed. Luther Sims had almost killed her when he’d come home one day and heard her shouting for help. Her vocal cords were crushed.
Someone—probably her sister—had brought her pink silky pajamas to wear instead of the patient gown. Maybe she’d understood what a luxury they would be to a woman who had been relegated to wearing only the garments her kidnapper chose.
Betsy typed something painstakingly on the tablet and then handed it to him.