The New Husband(100)

CHAPTER 55


Nina didn’t waste one second getting to the school. Maggie was waiting for her in the nurse’s office, feigning a stomachache. She talked to her daughter in private, and made the exchange. Of course Maggie wanted to go with her to Simon’s place, but Nina’s denial was firm. So she agreed to stay put with the nurse, where she’d be safe and looked after, recuperating from nothing, while Nina went on her mission.

She was furious with her daughter for taking the risk, but at the same time incredibly proud of Maggie’s bravery and ingenuity. Ben’s, too. It was actually a stroke of genius, though Nina doubted the kids had thought it through, especially since Maggie said it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Either way, according to Ben’s research—and plenty of photographic evidence gathered by her children—Simon’s home would be without renters and vacant while he was at school. She hoped he hadn’t changed the alarm code, but if he had, she’d lie to the police and tell them Simon had given her permission to check the house for her dog. Why have his keys? It would be a case of he said, she said. If Daisy were there, Simon’s denials wouldn’t carry much weight. Getting the keys back to Simon would be easy. She’d leave them in the school parking lot—or perhaps she’d just toss them down a storm drain.



* * *



IT WAS a few minutes after eleven thirty in the morning when Nina pulled to a stop in front of Simon’s home. The air carried a bit of a chill, portending winter, and as if in answer to that thought, she heard the geese that nested on the lake. A moment later, Nina saw them taking off in chevron flight, en route to a warmer climate.

The house had an attached garage and a well-kept lawn, one of the few in the neighborhood not blanketed with fallen leaves. Somehow, he was keeping up with the maintenance here.

Maker Lane, where Simon lived, was a quiet street in a part of town Nina seldom frequented. She didn’t know any of Simon’s neighbors. Not that it mattered, not that she would have called on them. She’d come here for one purpose only: get in and get out as quickly as possible, hopefully with Daisy. She stuffed her cell phone and a leash into the pocket of her dove-gray jacket, leaving her purse in the backseat of her car. She wanted to enter the home as unencumbered as possible.

She didn’t see Simon’s pickup truck anywhere, and after checking the home’s exterior and seeing no lights on inside, felt confident that he wasn’t around.

She found the right key. There was a faint click as the lock disengaged. She opened the door, hearing the beep-beep-beep of the alarm. All went silent when she entered the code, and Nina breathed a sigh of relief.

She had watched Simon turn the alarm on and off many times and automatically committed the sequence to memory. Nina thanked her social work training for sharpening her observation skills, as well as Simon’s complacence with keeping the same alarm code.

If she had second thoughts, Nina couldn’t act on them now. She was here. She had no choice but to push forward. A split second after setting foot inside, however, she knew something was wrong—terribly wrong.

As a childless bachelor, Simon didn’t own much furniture. What he had acquired, he had moved into the new home. He had told her he bought new furniture for the renters, so she expected to see couches, chairs, tables. But the home was stripped bare of everything—there were no rugs, no plants, no nothing. Even the walls were smooth, no markings where pictures might have hung.

It looked to her like nobody lived here, but when she checked the floor with her fingers, not a speck of dust collected on the tips. Someone was keeping the home spic and span, just the way Simon liked it.

Nina peered down the front hallway before taking one tentative step followed by another. With nothing to absorb the sound, her footsteps echoed loudly, and her heart stayed lodged firmly in her throat. She listened. Did she hear something? A scratch? A bark? No, the home was as still as a morgue.

“Daisy? Are you here?” Nina’s voice bounced off the walls as she ventured farther into the quiet, empty house.

Emboldened, she wandered about, noting the lack of furnishings in each room, the dearth of comforts of any kind. She passed through a spotless kitchen, where there were some signs of actual life—dishes drying on a wooden drying rack, pots on the stove. She checked inside the refrigerator. There was milk, along with cheese, eggs, and vegetables for a salad. Someone was eating, but she didn’t see any dog food, and that was upsetting. Maybe Simon was telling the truth. But every fiber in her body told her Daisy was here, somewhere, so she kept searching.

Eventually, Nina made her way to the master bedroom, which was at the end of a short hallway. It was the room where she and Simon had first made love, but what had once been a cozy space was now nearly barren. There was a mattress on the floor and bedside it a lamp, no end table. The bed was made, neat and tight like a soldier’s bunk.

Nina’s gaze went to three framed photographs hanging on the walls, the only pictures she’d seen in the entire house. Her blood froze. She approached and studied the images carefully. One picture was clearly of Emma Dolan, but lacking the genial smile she’d worn in the image Hugh had shown her. This portrait was far more subdued, taken in black-and-white at what looked like a photography studio, with her hair styled as Nina’s was now. The second picture was of Nina, a photograph of her that she remembered Simon taking in a park after she’d gotten her new hairdo. It, too, was printed in black-and-white, mounted in a simple black frame with a white mat.