Since She Went Away(104)

“Ursula, honey . . .” He managed to keep his voice level, but Jenna could sense his struggle. “I need you to call me. As soon as possible. I need to know where you are. Right away, honey. Okay?” He paused but didn’t hang up. “You’re kind of scaring me, honey. I need to know where you are.”

He lowered the phone and stared straight ahead, his body slumping back against the wall of the staircase.

“Why don’t you come downstairs?” Jenna asked. “You can sit.”

“I have to call the police, don’t I?”

“Yes, you should. Right away. She could be in danger or running away. You need to know why she’s doing this. Why now.”

Ian nodded as he started dialing. “Why would she run now? After everything.”

“I have no idea,” Jenna said. “But you’re right when you say we need to know.”





CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE


Jared walked across town. The day promised to be bright and clear and warmer, but it was early enough for his breath to puff like little clouds as he moved.

He thought of Natalie. He didn’t know where she was or who she was with. Detective Poole said she’d go to the doctor and then into foster care. She told him to be patient, to wait as the process played out.

The time ahead of him stretched out like an endless highway, like walking through quicksand toward a destination that receded farther and farther away.

He needed to so something besides sit in his room and wait.

His mom. She was off looking into something about Celia. He knew it. Something that old guy, Domino, said. It set her off. The old guy who saved his bacon. He hoped he was okay, that his blood pressure hadn’t soared off the charts or blown up in his brain.

After fifteen minutes of walking, the sweat forming in his armpits and on his back, he came to Bobby Allen’s street. It was the same house he’d lived in when they were kids, just a half mile from Ursula.

Jared walked up to the front door and was about to ring the bell when he heard a car coming down the driveway. Bobby sat in the driver’s seat, and he looked over at Jared, standing on the porch with his hand raised.

Bobby didn’t look completely surprised. He stopped the car and rolled down the window as Jared moved across the grass.

“You looking for me?” Bobby asked.

Jared said yes, although it seemed obvious.

“I guess this isn’t strictly a social call,” Bobby said. “We didn’t even do that when we were kids.”

“I wanted to ask you something. I’m sorry, Bobby, but it’s something about your dad. And Natalie.”

Bobby didn’t look surprised or offended. He waved his hand. “Get in.”

Bobby looked as tired as Jared felt. As he drove, he gave off a jittery energy, the kind kids had when they’d been up all night studying and throwing down coffee to stay awake for a test. Jared chalked his behavior up to the weird aftereffects of grief.

“Where are we going?” Jared asked.

Bobby stared straight ahead. “That depends on what you ask me.”

The first budding of fear sprouted in Jared’s chest. Bobby drove downtown and around the square. He did it once and then he did it again, circling while Jared sat in the passenger seat.

Jared started. “Okay, so Natalie—”

“Your girl.”

“Right.”

“And the daughter of the guy who killed my dad.” They were starting a third circuit around the square. “My mom told me they caught him today, by the way. At your house.”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “I’m glad they did.”

“I was supposed to have gone somewhere sooner, but when that news broke . . . well, my mom was kind of upset. My sister too. I had to stick around, and then the cops came by again.”

“You have somewhere to be?” Jared asked.

“It’s probably too late,” Bobby said. “I was meeting a chick.”

“Ursula?”

“The cops say this guy William Rose is claiming he’s innocent, that he didn’t hurt anyone, including Ursula’s mom.”

“No surprise, I guess,” Jared said.

“There could be a trial,” Bobby said. “That would be shitty for my mom.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Your mom too.”

Bobby left the square, heading west. No music played, and he seemed to be driving faster than the speed limit.

“Do you need to call your friend?” Jared asked.

“She keeps calling me. I turned the phone off.”

Jared went ahead and asked the question on his mind, the one that had driven him to leave his warm bed when he was dead-dog tired and trudge over to Bobby’s house in the late-winter cold.

Jared said, “Your dad, the night he was killed . . . you know, Natalie was in the house. She heard it happen. She heard them arguing and then fighting.”

Bobby’s lips were pressed tight. He stared straight ahead.

“You see, Natalie swears she heard your name come up. And Ursula’s. During the argument. She told this to me and then to the police. Maybe she misunderstood, but I was just wondering if you thought that was possible.”

Bobby didn’t answer right away. They were out near the old state road, the one people used to take to Lexington before the interstate went in, leaving this one kind of forgotten. They came to a four-way stop, and Bobby let the car sit there, the heater humming softly, the engine a low purr.