The Kind Worth Saving (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #2)(68)

But maybe he wasn’t. With him dead now, they’d be looking through his house. Maybe he kept a diary, a place where he’d written down everything they did together?

Panic was surging through her, but there was something else, as well, little stabs of grief, the realization that Richard was gone from the world, and he was the only person to whom Joan had ever revealed herself. It was an almost physical sensation, and Joan held on to the edge of her velvet love seat, doubled over as though she’d been punched in the stomach. The feeling was intense, and surprising. If she’d simply been told that she would never see Richard again it wouldn’t have bothered her at all, but somehow knowing she couldn’t see him even if she wanted to felt like more than she could bear. His death had erased a part of her own life she wasn’t yet willing to give up.

And then the feeling passed. Richard had disappointed her, like every other stupid person on this planet. He’d clearly screwed up somewhere along the line or Henry Kimball would never have gotten that close to him. What she needed to find out was how much Henry knew, if there was anything concrete, or if it had all just been a guessing game. What if he’d written his suspicions down? Had he told one of his old police colleagues?

Joan put on jeans and a sweatshirt from Springfield College that she’d had forever, and got into Richard’s BMW, speeding down her driveway so fast that she nearly hit Gretchen Summers, out power walking with her yappy dog. Joan lowered her window and Gretchen leaned in, her brow furrowed, and said, “Joan, how are you?”

“You know,” Joan said.

“I know everyone writes the same thing, but what I said in my note I absolutely mean. Anything, I mean anything you need, just let me know, okay?”

“I appreciate that, Gretchen,” Joan said. The little dog whose name she’d forgotten was emitting eardrum-splitting barks, and Joan wondered if she let the car roll a little forward during this conversation if she could crush it under one of her wheels.

“Where are you off to now? If you have errands, you know I’d be happy to do them.”

Joan said, “I’ve gotten some more bad news, I’m afraid. As I’m sure you know I hired someone to follow Richard and he was the one who found the bodies. He was an old teacher of mine, and sort of a friend, and I just found out he’s in the hospital.” Joan had said the words out loud partly to hear them and judge them for herself. She knew that if she wanted to get close to Henry then she would need to create a narrative.

“Oh, no. What happened?”

“Did you read about that explosion in Cambridge?”

“Of course. Oh my God. Did that . . . Was that . . . ?” Gretchen transformed her rubbery face into a look of concern and shock, but Joan could also read the pleasure in it.

“It was Henry Kimball’s office. I’m sure it had nothing to do with me or with what happened with . . . Richard, but I’m worried. I mean, I’m worried about Henry, and I want to find out what happened.”

“Of course you do. Of course you do. That makes total sense.”

“So I should . . .”

“Of course.” Gretchen straightened up. “Cinnamon, stop barking at Mommy.”

Joan drove away, weirdly happy she’d been able to talk with one of her neighbors. It had helped to clarify in her mind her next steps. It made total sense that she’d be rushing off to the hospital to find out how Henry Kimball was, and that she’d want to talk with police detectives. She’d been through a major trauma. Her husband had not only been cheating on her, but he’d turned out to be a murderer. She’d be frazzled and nervous and wondering if the explosion had anything to do with her. And if she was asked if there was some connection between her and Richard Seddon she’d simply deny it. There wouldn’t be any proof. Even if Richard somehow wrote about it, she could just claim he’d been obsessed with her since high school, that she’d never even thought about him until she heard his name in the newspaper story about the explosion.

She was going to be fine.

And not only that, she wasn’t bored anymore. She’d discovered she was happiest when the world was concerned about her. That period right after she and Richard had drowned Duane Wozniak, when she’d been repeatedly interviewed by the police about what had happened on the jetty, had been one of the happiest nights of her adolescence. All those adults, all those concerned faces, and it was like she was conducting them with every word she said, every tear that spilled down her cheek. She had felt more power in the immediate aftermath of Duane’s death than she’d ever felt before, more power than she felt in gymnastics, knowing she was the best in her school.

The feeling had been almost as good in the aftermath of the classroom shooting when she’d arranged to have Madison killed. There had been attention, then, as well, everyone worried about PTSD and how she’d process the trauma of what had happened along with the tragedy of losing such a close friend. The problem then had been that she had to share the spotlight with all the other kids who’d been in that classroom, and some of the kids, like Missy Robertson, had totally fallen apart at the time. That girl had actually wound up hospitalized, which had probably all been bullshit because she was fine now, on one of the local news stations as a weatherperson, and the rumor was that she was writing a book about what it was like to survive a school shooting. No surprise there.