Trespassing(27)

“I’ll check it out.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

Again, I shake my head.

He fixes me with a stare that’s almost accusatory. “Are you sure? There’s nothing else you’d like to tell me?”

“I wish I knew what else to tell you, but he’s just . . . gone. I wish I knew where to find him, but . . . look, no one in her right mind would choose to go through this.”

“Okay, then.” He drums his fingertips on the table. “Does he have a computer?”

“A laptop, but I assume he took it with him. And there’s a desktop upstairs, but he hardly uses it. It’s more for Bella. Her games.”

“It would be helpful . . . and this is voluntary, you understand . . . could we take his computer? Analyze the files? The Internet searches, that sort of thing?”

I wipe at my eyes. “If you think it’ll help bring him home, you can take the whole house.” I choke over a sob. “Just bring him home, okay?”

“I’ll send a team of techs.” He moves to get up. “I’ll be in touch.”

But I see it in the detective’s eyes. He thinks I know something I’m not telling.





Chapter 11

November 16

Shower.

Dishes.

Another box of tissues.

News from the lab: a week after fertilization, the embryo is officially gone. I can stop the hormone injections, as there won’t be an embryo transfer this month. Sit back. Wait for a menstrual period. Call the office when it comes and try for another retrieval to see if we get better numbers.

I hear Micah’s voice in my head: We still have two frozen at the lab. All it takes is one.

But does it matter anymore? If Micah isn’t coming home, there’s no reason to have another child. When I lost the twins last spring, everyone at the hospital tried to comfort me with generic sentiments like God has a better plan for you. Or Maybe God is looking out for your family in ways you don’t understand.

For the first time, I consider they might’ve been right. Maybe I lost the boys then to save my sanity now. I’d been beside myself with grief. There’s a limit to what a human being can endure, after all, and I’d felt as if I were well over that limit with the miscarriage. But what position would I be in now with a missing husband and three children to care for instead of one?

As soon as the thought enters my mind, I cast it out. Shame on me for feeling a modicum of relief at losing my sons!

My tears, which never stop but for a minute here and there, intensify.

Elizabella’s been bathed, and half a bottle of detangle spray later, she looks presentable again. She and Nini are watching a morning cartoon.

I’m on hold with our cell phone carrier, who is reluctant to give me any information, as my name isn’t on the account. Everything is in Micah’s name. “I just need to know,” I say. “How many times did he call the number with the three-oh-five area code?” If there’s a connection to the plane found off the Florida coast, I need to know.

“You can access the account online.”

“Only the current billing period. I need to know historically how many times he called the number.”

“And I can’t disclose that information without you being an authorized user on the account, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“But it’s my phone plan. I should have access to the account information.”

“If that’s true, you’d have the required password.”

“My husband is missing,” I say. “Missing! This information could help me find him!”

“We can release the information with a court order, but—”

“Can you tell me if anyone’s ordered the records yet?”

“I can tell the authorized user of the account whether the records have been ordered, but—”

I hang up in frustration. I’m looking at the past few months of cell phone bills, which Micah apparently hadn’t paid, as we had an outstanding balance of nearly $400 until a few minutes ago, when I paid it by credit card over the phone. Apparently, I’m authorized to pay a bill, even if I’m not authorized to peruse the records. There are no itemized calls or texts on the bill. Just total minutes used, total texts sent, and total texts received for each number.

Light bulb.

There are 334 more texts sent from Micah’s number than those received on mine, which means he wasn’t texting me exclusively. Who might he have texted? Roughly ten times a day?

I know what Claudette would say. That he’s been texting the proverbial Misty Morningside.

I shake away the possibility. Maybe he was texting colleagues. What colleagues? According to Detective Guidry, Diamond had not hired him once he left United.

Friends from Old Town? We hardly had any. None that we’d text with, anyway.

His mother maybe. I’ll send a quick note asking her about it.

I open my laptop.

Maybe Micah’s e-mailed.

I click on the icon that will take me to my mail server, and a second later, the sign-in page is brilliant with today’s headlines: LOCAL PILOT MISSING, REMAINS OF PLANE FOUND.

Everything is moving in fast-forward. My finger running over the mouse pad to click the link, the words flashing before my eyes, the verdict of the press: he’s dead.