I Will Find You(18)

Ted felt lost, adrift.

“But let’s dispense with such unpleasantries, shall we? We are friends. Friends don’t make idle threats. We are on the same side. The best relationships are not zero-sum, Theodore. The best relationships are win-win. And I feel as though I’ve behaved poorly here. Please accept my apology. Plus a ten-thousand-dollar bonus.” Sumner licked his lips. “One hundred and ten thousand dollars. Think about all that money.”

Ted felt sick. Idle threats. Guys like Ross Sumner don’t make idle threats.

Like the man said, Ted had no choice. He was about to be pushed across a line from which there was, he knew, no coming back.

“Tell me your plan again,” Ted said.





Chapter

7



Back in her room, Rachel stared at the maybe-Matthew photograph, picked up her phone, and debated calling her sister Cheryl and blowing up her world.

It was odd that David didn’t ask her to show him the photograph again. She had been prepared for that. Doubt burrows in when the photograph isn’t front and center. When you’re staring right at it, you somehow know that it has to be Matthew. When you put it away, when you rely on your imagination instead of something as concrete as the actual image, you realize how ridiculous your supposition is, that your belief that a distant view of a young child is somehow evidence that a toddler murdered five years earlier is, in fact, still alive is beyond ludicrous.

She shouldn’t call Cheryl. She should keep this from her.

But did Rachel have the right to make that call?

Rachel was staying at the Briggs Motor Lodge of Maine, famed, she imagined, for having walls made of some kind of gauze or cotton mesh. Right now, she could hear her neighbors fervently and lustily enjoying their stay as though they were sharing this bed with her. The woman kept yelling out “Oh, Kevin,” and “Go, Kevin,” and “Yes, Kevin,” and even—oh, how Rachel hoped this was something the woman shouted lost in the throes of passion rather than trying to be cute or funny—“Take me to Heaven, Kevin.”

A little afternoon delight, Rachel mused somewhat bitterly. It must be nice.

When was the last time she’d had an afternoon like that?

It wasn’t worth thinking about. Rachel was still coming down from a full-fledged panic attack brought on, she assumed, by the combination of seeing David and going off her antianxiety medicine. The medicine didn’t work for her. Not really. She took the Xanax or whatever, hoping to deaden the pain of being responsible for another human being’s death, but while it may have put some of the guilt at a distance—made it feel more elusive—the guilt clung on.

She blinked her eyes and tried to focus on doing the right thing here.

She should call her sister and tell her. That was what Rachel would want if their roles were reversed and Cheryl was the one holding this photo. Rachel picked up her mobile. Service was spotty up here in rural Maine. This was a prison town. Everyone staying at this motor lodge was somehow connected to Briggs Penitentiary—visitors, vendors, suppliers, deliverers, that kind of thing.

She had enough bars to make the call. Her fingers clicked the Contacts icon and scrolled to Cheryl’s name. Her finger hovered above the call button.

Don’t do it.

She’d promised herself that she would keep this from Cheryl—protect her sister—until she knew for certain. Right now, when you stripped out the emotion, she still knew nothing. She had a photograph of a boy who resembled her dead nephew. Period. The end. David’s enthusiasm notwithstanding, they had diddly-squat.

She flicked on the motor lodge’s television. On the sign outside, the Briggs Motor Lodge of Maine actually boasted that all rooms had a COLOR TV, spelling out each letter in a different color—the C was in orange, the O in green, the L in blue—to emphasize that fact, though Rachel figured that the real draw would be if the motor lodge still had black-and-white televisions. She flicked through the stations. Mostly daytime talk shows and bad-take cable news. The commercials—buy gold, get a second mortgage, consolidate your debt, invest in crypto—all seemed like legal versions of Ponzi schemes to her.

The American economy relies more on the con than we like to think.

The festivities next door reached a crescendo when Kevin repeatedly announced with great gusto that he was nearing the finish line. A few seconds later, the symbolic cymbals crashed and then all went quiet. Rachel was tempted to applaud. David had asked her about her journalism career, and she’d balked at answering. There was no reason to get into how she’d messed up and destroyed herself, how she’d been fired and humiliated and how, in truth, a story like this might be the only chance to resurrect her career. It wasn’t worth discussing. It was a distraction. She would be here anyway. That was what she told herself, and it was probably true.

Her phone was on the bed.

The hell with it.

She picked it up and before she could talk herself out of it, Rachel hit her sister’s number, the top one in her favorites. She put the phone to her ear. No ring yet. Still time to hang up. She closed her eyes as the first ring sounded. Still time. On the second ring, Rachel heard the phone being answered. A clipped voice, not her sister’s, said, “Hello?”

It was Ronald, Cheryl’s new husband.

“Hello, Ronald,” Rachel said. And then, even though the phone undoubtedly had caller ID, she added, “It’s Rachel.”