One By One by Freida McFadden(66)

She eats another spoonful of cold soup. “Well, I got worried because Daddy said he was going to take that hike.”

“Hike? You mean go fishing.”

“Nuh uh.” She licks soup off her fingers. “Hike. In the woods.”

“Are… are you sure?”

She nods. “With Uncle Jack.”

I shake my head. “No, I was going to go on a hike with Uncle Jack.”

“Daddy was too,” Emma insists. “I heard them talking about it on the phone. They were going on a hike, just the two of them.”

Emma is looking up at me with her wide brown eyes. She has a great memory, and if she says she heard Noah and Jack planning a solo hike together, I’m sure that’s exactly what happened. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, that’s why we were going out to that remote inn. So we could hike and fish and whatever.

So why does this revelation make me feel uneasy?

I wanted to do whatever it took to get you back.

I never asked Noah why he had that Swiss Army knife in his pocket. Or why he stole it back from the drawer. It seemed so unimportant after the fact. And maybe I didn’t want to hear the answer.

It occurs to me that our luggage is still in the car. The police seized everything that belonged to Jack, Michelle, Lindsay, and Warner. But they let us keep our own stuff. When we got home, we were too excited to see the kids to think about our bags. Everything is still sitting there.

The timer goes off to signify that the egg noodles are cooked. I shut off the heat on the stove and drain the noodles into a colander. A puff of steam rises from the noodles.

“Hey, Emma,” I say. “I’m going to run out to the garage to get our bags. Can you keep an eye on things in the kitchen?”

Emma nods solemnly. “Yes.”

“And…?”

“I won’t touch the stove.”

I kiss her forehead. “Good girl.”

We have an attached garage, big enough for two cars. I grab my car keys and slip through the door to the garage, which is pitch black. I flick on the light, but it’s still only a dim glow. My minivan is sitting next to Noah’s Prius. I hit the button on my key fob and my car lights up.

Noah’s bag is the smaller green one. I feel around the edges, searching for the zipper. I’m not entirely sure why I’m doing this or what I’m hoping to find. I suppose I just want reassurance. I want to know for sure that the private hike Noah and Jack were planning together was nothing more than that.

I unzip the length of the luggage and throw it open. Those shirts and pants are folded haphazardly inside with sock balls scattered throughout. There’s nothing scary or unusual in this luggage. It looks like a typical guy’s messy luggage.

I let out a breath of relief.

Just to be sure, I start feeling around the clothing. His shirts feel soft under my fingers. I don’t know what I’m looking for. A gun? Another knife? In any case, I don’t find anything. Not that I’m surprised.

Anyway, I should probably bring our luggage inside. Knowing my husband, if I don’t do it, he’ll probably let them sit there in the trunk for the next several weeks. So I grab his luggage and pull it out of the trunk. I also grab his sweatshirt, which he had been wearing out in the woods and abandoned in the trunk. That one definitely needs to be washed, since I didn’t wash it out in the sink.

Except when I drop the sweatshirt down on his luggage, it pings.

I pick up the gray sweatshirt, curious what would have made that noise. I unzip one of the pockets on the side of the sweatshirt. Then I shake it out.

To my surprise, a little silver brick falls out.

I recognize it instantly. It’s one of the really strong refrigerator magnets Noah bought when Emma and Aiden’s drawings kept falling off the fridge. But why did he have a magnet in his sweatshirt? What had he been planning to do with it?

I wanted to do whatever it took to get you back.

This is silly to be suspicious. Warner probably put it there. They were planning to frame him, after all. Or did they?

I wanted to do whatever it took to get you back.

Anything.

“Claire?” Noah’s voice echoes from just outside the garage. I shove the magnet quickly back inside his shirt. “You in the garage?”

“Yes, just getting our luggage out of the car!” I call back.

I drop the sweatshirt back down on his bag just as he opens the door to the garage and finds me standing by his luggage. He raises his eyebrows. “You don’t have to worry about that, Claire. You’re cooking dinner… The least I can do is lug our bags upstairs.”

Last week, this would have been an argument in which I accused him of procrastinating every chore until I couldn’t stand it and had to do it myself. But things are different now. “I don’t mind,” I say.

“I promise, I’m on top of it.” He steps into the garage and joins me in front of the trunk. He lifts his dirty sweatshirt off the luggage and drapes it over his arm. “You shouldn’t have to deal with my dirty clothes. I can wash this myself.”

“Oh,” I murmur. “Well, I usually do the laundry…”

He grabs my wrist to pull me close to him. “It’s the least I can do. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you.” He kisses me softly on the lips. “I’m not going to screw it up again.”