Trespassing(19)

“You sure about that?”

“I just don’t know why she’d say it.”

“You’re in a gated community. We should have record of anyone coming in.”

“Unless they came in with the gate code. Or came through the county forest preserve. But we haven’t lived here very long. I wonder if she might even mean our kitchen in Old Town.”

“When did you leave Old Town?”

“This past spring.”

“Is there anyone who can help you out tonight? Anyone who can come stay with you while you wait for him to come home?”

“You think he’ll come home.”

For the first time, Detective Guidry cracks a smile. “I do.”

I hope he’s right, that I’ve overreacted, that I did contact the wrong company.

“Can you call your mother maybe?”

My heart plummets to the hollow of my gut. “I wish I could.”

He continues. “Even if she isn’t local—”

“She died when I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry. Father? Siblings? Aunt? Cousins?”

I shake my head. There’s no one. I never knew my father, and when my mother died, I officially became a wolf without a pack.

“Your friend . . .” He checks his notes. “Claudette Winters. Give her a call maybe.”

I take a deep breath and mentally debate whether or not I should explain the difference between friends like my estranged college roommate and friends like my neighbor. Some friends you can entrust with anything and everything that crosses your heart and mind. Others, you tread carefully with, in order to decide what information to disclose. I just don’t know Claudette well enough yet to determine which of the two categories she falls into. However, given my lack of options here . . . “Yes. That’s a possibility.”

“Keep calling him, check credit card statements, cell phone records, what have you, for recent activity. Keep me informed. But in the meantime, you shouldn’t be alone. This IVF business sounds like quite an ordeal. Maybe that’s why your husband checked out. Maybe the news about this embryo—”

“He was gone by the time I got the call. He still doesn’t know.”

“Lieutenant?” The call comes from across the house.

Guidry raises a finger to delay whatever the beckoning officer needs, then pockets his notebook. “You’ll call Claudette Winters?”

“Sure.” I won’t do it tonight. I’m not together enough for a visit from Claudette. But I don’t see an end to the conversation without my acquiescing.

“Got a minute, Lieutenant?”

I’m already on my way to the great room when Guidry falls in step behind me.

Elizabella is sitting at her table with a uniformed officer, pointing out details in her drawings. “This is the water where his plane is. And over here is where the big house is, by the big boat. And here’s my daddy at God Land and my baby brothers, who went to God before they were born.”

“Where’s Nini?” the officer asks.

“Silly. Nini is on your lap.”

“On my lap?”

“She’s being good.”

“Is she usually naughty?”

“She gets us in trouble all the time.”

“And she’s the one who told you Daddy went to God?”

“Not to God. He’s at God Land.”

“Does Mommy know he’s at God Land?”

“Yes.”

“How does Mommy know?”

I stiffen. This officer is insinuating that I know what happened to my husband. Furthermore, that I’m responsible.

“She watched. He kissed me bye-bye, and she watched.”





Chapter 9

November 14

“I need to leave a message for Lieutenant Jason Guidry.” I say the name as articulately as I can, given I’m choking on tears. I pull the phone away for a split second, to blow my nose again.

“I can connect you to his voice mail,” the switchboard operator says, “but the schedule has him out until Tuesday.”

“Out? As in . . . on vacation?” I’ve tried his cell phone. I left three messages for him already. “How can he be on vacation when my husband is missing?”

No one can tell me Micah isn’t missing now. He was supposed to be home over twenty-four hours ago. There’s been no activity on his credit cards. No activity on his cell phone. And Diamond Corporation—I’m certain I’ve reached the correct company after calling at least seven others with similar names—still denies knowing him.

“Would you like his voice mail?”

After a stuttering inhalation, I say, “Yes. Thank you.” I wait for the machined voice to prompt me to leave a message.

“Detective, this is Veronica Cavanaugh calling again. Please call me back.” A sob escapes me. “No word from Micah.”

I stand there stupidly, with the phone to my ear, as if I expect the voice mail to comfort or console me. “I just—” But there’s nothing else to say. I hang up the phone and drop my head into my hands.

Nearly instantly, the phone begins to ring. I answer without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

It’s the IVF clinic. I vaguely remember listening to the details of yesterday’s report: “Not generating at an acceptable rate.” I repeat the news matter-of-factly. Without Micah, there’s no reason to generate embryos at all. But I repeat what I remember from the clinic’s last call: “Cautiously optimistic about the embryo.”