Trespassing(31)

I shiver a little every time she references it. Remembering how eerily her drawing predicted the accident churns my stomach.

“Why do you think she’s saying that?” Claudette asks.

I haven’t the slightest idea. “She knows about the remains of a small jet off the coast of Florida, and her dad flies. Maybe she’s assuming—”

“Or maybe she knows something.” Her eyes zero in on me. “When Brad was involved with the tramp, he was extremely careless around the children. He took phone calls in front of them, even talked about her to them.”

“That must have been awful, but—”

“But nothing, Veronica. The way Bella’s behaving . . . she’s dealing with something she doesn’t understand, and one thing little girls don’t understand is that their fathers can be complete and utter assholes.”

“Or maybe it’s exactly what the doctors say. An imaginary friend.”

“An imaginary friend who draws plane crashes?” After another long, thoughtful slurp of tea, my neighbor calmly places her mug on the table and dabs her glossed lips with her napkin. “Maybe she overheard Micah talking to that other woman.”

“No.” Memories of our last twenty-four hours together zing through my system. The cha-cha in the kitchen. The sex we had before he left. “He wouldn’t have.”

Then I think about what Shell said. I glance at Claudette, quickly assess her, and decide to trust her with a tidbit: “Except his mother admits to knowing a Gabrielle.”

Claudette raises a brow. “It’s time to delve into his secrets, if you want to get to the truth.”

I blink, and I’m back in a bungalow in Maywood at eighteen, digging through boxes of my mother’s things while she was stashed in a drawer down the road at Loyola University Medical. The musty scent of that old attic revisits me now, along with the bite of tears that welled the moment I found the paperwork—old medical records. My mother’s grandmother had been institutionalized. The doctors suspected schizophrenia.

We had a history of schizophrenia in the family, and I’d never known it.

And my mother had just taken her own life at the behest of mysterious voices who told her to do it. Learning of the family history after her death helped explain it.

Maybe learning Micah’s secrets—and I’m starting to think he had a lot of them—will help me deal with his disappearance.

The chime of the doorbell—church bells, which remind me of the day I buried my mother—jolts me from the memory.

“I’ll get that.” Claudette is halfway there by the time I think to insist on answering my own door.

“Nini,” Bella’s saying from the next room over. “That’s not nice. Tell Fendi you’re sorry.”

And a deep voice from the foyer: “Good day, ma’am. I’m Special Agent Lincoln with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this is . . .”

Clumsily, I pull myself out of my chair and stumble on the first step down the hallway.

“. . . here to discuss your husband’s accident.”

Claudette, shaking the taller one’s hand: “Come in.”

The shorter fed, as he takes my neighbor’s hand: “Veronica Cavanaugh?”

“I’m . . . it’s me. I’m Veronica Cavanaugh.” My toes are numb. My fingertips tingle. Federal agents? I stop several feet away from the two gentlemen, smartly dressed in black suits and striped ties, as if they happened by on their way to a funeral.

“Mrs. Cavanaugh.” The taller one—Lennon? Lincoln—folds his hands in front of him, perhaps when he realizes I’m not going to shake his hand. I’m too afraid of what he’s here to tell me to remember social graces. “May we come in?”

“Of course.” My voice sounds weak, more like a few pips than words.

Everything feels cloudy for the next few seconds as I lead the gentlemen, Claudette following close behind, to my kitchen.

Lincoln’s partner pulls out a chair and presents it with an abrupt palm up. “Would you like to sit down?”

Maybe I should. But I can’t seem to propel myself forward. I’m glued to my spot. Everything echoes and blurs.

“Sit.” Claudette guides me onto a barstool. “I’ll take the children outside.”

I meet her gaze, see her lips moving, but I don’t know what else she’s saying. Then suddenly, she’s gone, and the kids are gone, and Lincoln is talking with me.

I catch only a few words:

Accident.

Plane.

Debris.

Identified.

Declared.

Dead.





Chapter 14

November 18

I awaken from a fitful nap.

An hour has passed.

Or maybe a day or two.

I check the time on my phone. Just after seven at night, over twenty-four hours since my husband has been declared dead.

My call log tells me I missed a call from Shell, who must have been returning the call I made just after I heard the devastating news about Micah.

Her message: “I’m sorry I missed your call. Honey, you’ve got me worried. Call me back.”

I will. But she deserves to sleep through the rest of the night. Her world can end in the morning.

I glance at Claudette, who is busy with the dishes in my sink, and try to remember what she was wearing the last time I looked at her to determine if it’s the same day as the last time I saw her in my kitchen.