The Night Before(33)

“Why don’t you come up for a drink? I feel like I want to keep talking to you, but it’s silly to be sitting in the car in a garage. I have a decent view.…”

Hell. No. I know better than that.

“We could go back to the bar on Richmond. Maybe the stalker is gone,” I suggest like a nice church girl.

He gets out of the car. He walks to my side and opens my door. He gives me his hand.

“Come on,” he says. Something comes over him then. It’s unbridled. It’s strong and manly and it sweeps me away like the ocean at the harbor.

I give him my hand and leave the car. Close the door. Stand beside him.

He looks me in the eye. The tears gone. The questions answered.

“Come on,” he says again. “You’re safe. It’s not the third date yet.”

Another page. A new chapter. This one has a title I’m familiar with. Mischief. It’s a title I like, that old me likes, and I cannot refuse her. Not after everything I’ve just put her through.

Old me rushes out the back door like a dog who’s been stuck inside all day. Running free on the lawn. Sun shining on her face.

“I may be safe,” I tell him. “But you may not be.”

Haha.





EIGHTEEN


Rosie. Present Day. Friday, 11 p.m. Branston, CT.

The house was quiet. This time, it was Joe in the bed with Mason beside him. They didn’t even bother putting him down in his own room. Even after an hour at the park with Zoe, Mason could feel things weren’t right in the house. Kids are like animals that way, sensing the storm before even one cloud appears in the sky.

Joe was in the bed, but he was not asleep. He was on his laptop, quietly searching for men named Jonathan Fields.

Back in the kitchen, at the table with Laura’s laptop open, Rosie stared at the message inbox for their fake findlove.com account. There was nothing new—not from secondchance or anyone else they’d contacted. Sometime between seeing those notes and this moment, the cells in her body had shifted. The shock and terror at the thought of Laura being gone, maybe forever, and in some horrible way, had morphed into something else. Not quite resignation like she’d seen on Gabe’s face. Not the feigned concern of the police. It was a mosaic of pain and sadness, fear and anger. She could taste them all as her thoughts shifted through scenarios.

Laura missing, never found. Laura found, hurt or worse. She couldn’t even think the other word. The tragedy was starting to take hold, progressing through stages. She suddenly had a window into the aftermath for parents whose children go missing—every day wondering. Every day, hoping. Every day, mourning. That could be her life now. The thought was unbearable.

She rested her head in her palms, elbows propped on the table. How did people learn to go on after something like this?

She thought about the parents of Mitch Adler, how they had learned to live with the loss of their son—their only son in between two daughters, a giant hole ripped into their family. That teenage boy, barely a man, whom Rosie could still see clearly in her memories, just gone. He was not a nice boy. Chances were, he would not have grown into a nice man. Still, whatever his life held, that life was ended on a gravel road. A crushed skull. Blood pooling around it. And Laura, standing there.

They didn’t stay long, his family. They had relatives in Colorado and were gone before Christmas. Rosie searched for them and couldn’t find any trace back in Connecticut. Still, they had friends here. Mitch had friends as well, many of whom had likely stayed or returned. Any one of them might have seen Laura in town. Any one of them could have sent those notes.

Rosie thought about what she might do if it had been Laura lying on the ground instead. If she might hunt down the person she thought was responsible. It was far less satisfying to believe that the killing was at the hands of a mentally ill hermit—a man who could not be held accountable. Justice must have felt very hollow to the Adler family.

She heard her phone ring on the counter by the sink and she was there in an instant.

“Gabe? What’s happened? Tell me…”

Gabe’s voice sounded tired. “The waitress called—the one from the harbor bar who waited on Jonathan Fields and one of his dates,” he said. “She found the credit card slip.”

“The date who bought drinks with her own credit card?”

“It was three weeks ago, like the bartender said. Her name is Sylvia Emmett.”

Rosie’s hand pressed into her chest.

“Rosie?”

“Yeah. I’m here. I want to speak to her. Can you get a number?”

“I did. I left a message. I gave her both of our numbers. She could be in bed already. It’s late.”

Rosie was walking now, around the island. “What if we go there. Or the police! They could go. We can’t wait all night. My God, Gabe—”

He interrupted her. “The police? You called them?”

Rosie stopped walking. “I did. It was time.…”

“What did they say? Did they…”

“Nothing—they didn’t seem to know who she was and they weren’t too concerned, either. They said they would try to get the phone records by morning.”

The line was silent for a long moment. Then: “It’s good you called, Rosie. You’re right. It was time.”