Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(50)

Imagine—Alana doesn’t look thrilled by the prospect of wardrobe donations from the Walsh family.

Thankfully, Ryan appears, lugging the final box.

“Is that it?” Lauren asks.

“That’s it.” He plunks it down, hard—with the distinct sound of breaking glass. “Oops.”

Alana shakes her hair-sprayed head. “I certainly hope that wasn’t anything valuable.”

What, she thinks there might be vintage Haviland Limoges amid the wreckage?

Dismayed, Ryan looks at Lauren.

“It’s okay, sweetie. Accidents happen.” She reaches for the box and notes that it’s the one she marked “FRAGILE.” Of course it is.

But who cares about a couple of old teacups?

“What are you doing?” Alana asks as she lifts it.

“We’ll take this one home and get rid of whatever’s broken, then bring the rest back.”

“That’s not necessary. I can take care of it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to cut yourself,” she tells Alana—just as her cell phone rings in her back pocket.

Nick?

She hurriedly plunks the box down—more breaking glass—so that she can answer it, dimly aware of Alana’s incredulous expression.

It isn’t Nick. The call is from home.

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Is everything okay?” she asks Lucy as her thoughts fly to the unfamiliar dog walker. What if—?

“No,” Lucy replies. “Have you talked to Daddy today?”

With another twinge of foreboding, she tells her daughter that she hasn’t. Conscious of Ryan’s concerned gaze—and Alana’s curious one—Lauren adds, “I’m sure he’ll call. Don’t worry.”

“I can’t help it. I sent him a bunch of texts and he never answered any of them. I just tried to call him at home and on his cell phone and at work, too, because Sadie was worried, and I got his voice mail, too. He should be there by now, Mom, it’s after nine o’clock.”

“Maybe he’s out of cell phone range and he can’t get messages.”

Silence. Lucy isn’t buying that. She knows something is wrong. Not oops-crossed-wires wrong.

Seriously wrong.

“Listen, I’m going to drop Ryan off and then I’ll be home. We’ll figure things out when I get there, okay?”

“Okay,” Lucy says in a small voice.

Hanging up, Lauren sees that Alana is now holding the box marked “FRAGILE.”

Lauren no longer gives a damn whether she cuts herself or not. She can keep the box, and everything in it.

“Come on, Ryan.” She fishes her keys from her pocket. “I know you have to meet your friends.”

“Maybe I should just come home with you instead, in case… I mean Dad…we don’t know where he is, and—”

“Dad’s fine,” she assures Ryan—and Alana, in case she was thinking about telling her Junior League friends that the philandering Nick Walsh is now MIA.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Nick has to be fine. Please, please, please let him be fine.

If only it were possible to make something happen simply by telling yourself over and over that it will—that it has to.

But no one knows better than Lauren that that’s impossible. If it weren’t, Nick would still be here with her and the kids, instead of…

God only knows where, she thinks bleakly.





CHAPTER TEN




Back when she and Nick were still married, Lauren spoke often to his assistant, Georgia. If she couldn’t reach him in his office or on his cell, she had no qualms about calling Georgia directly and asking her to track him down.

Things are different now.

She’s had no contact with Georgia since Nick moved out. She often wonders what—if anything—he’s told his colleagues about the situation. Do they even realize he’s no longer living at home? Maybe not—she doubts he bothered to change his address in the personnel files. He gets very little corporate mail, but what there is still comes here to the house.

Now, as she dials Georgia’s number with both her daughters looking on from their seats at the kitchen table, she rehearses her words carefully. The moment she hears the assistant’s familiar voice on the line, though, she forgets what she was going to say.

“This is Georgia.”

“Georgia, this is…” No, not Nick’s wife. “…Lauren Walsh.”

“Lauren!”

Funny, what one can read into one word spoken over a telephone line.

She knows about the split, Lauren realizes. And she’s nervous.

“How have you been? And the kids? How are the kids? They must be getting so big.”

“Yes…listen, Georgia, I need…is Nick in today?”

There’s a pause.

Lauren’s heart sinks.

It’s a simple yes-or-no question. Rather, it would be, on any given weekday. Nick should be there.

“Actually—I’m not quite sure he’s in yet,” Georgia tells her.

“Yet? I mean, it’s almost ten-thirty. That’s not like Nick. Did he have an early meeting or something?”