Confessions on the 7:45(63)

But mostly to protect herself, or the image of herself that she wanted people to hold. Selena—good mom, happily married, successful career woman. Perfect. Instagrammable. Better than her sister. Better than her friends. But you know, in a humble, generous way.

Humiliation had a taste, a thickness at the back of her throat.

Fear had a sound, a ringing in her ears.

“Mrs. Murphy.”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “How should I know?”

“Has he cheated before?”

“Yes,” she said. She stared down at her wedding ring, the big diamond, the platinum band.

“More than once?” His voice was gentle.

She ran it down for him. The sexting with his ex-girlfriend, which he said was nothing more. The counseling. Then the incident in Vegas.

Crowe looked at his notes. “A stripper,” he said. “Is that right? There was an assault.”

“Yes.”

“He propositioned a stripper after a lap dance, and when she declined, he assaulted her. A fight ensued between the club bouncers and Graham and his friends,” he said.

“That’s right,” she said stiffly. Only her mother knew about this incident. Maybe her sister knew too. Selena always suspected them of gossiping about her behind her back.

“More counseling after that, I’m guessing,” Detective Crowe said.

When she looked up at him, she expected to see mockery or judgment on his face. But instead she saw kindness, compassion.

“My wife,” he said. “She cheated on me a couple of times before I got the message that she was always going to cheat. That it wasn’t about me but about her.”

He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He nodded. “I am, too.”

Outside, she thought she heard voices, but it went quiet again. Would the media gather? she wondered. Probably. Wasn’t that the way it worked now? A circus of news vans, true crime bloggers posting theories and pictures, endless phone calls, emails.

“It’s obstruction, you know, that you didn’t tell me any of this.”

She was quiet a moment. Then, “I didn’t think it was relevant. Truly.”

He nodded. “I get it. There’s a disconnect between those things and this thing for you. Those things—the texting was virtual, right? The woman in Vegas, almost an abstraction, far from his life with you. You didn’t want to believe that he could have anything to do with Geneva’s disappearance.”

The words hung on the air, ominous. You didn’t want to believe that your husband would hurt a young woman. Even though you knew he had already hurt another young woman.

“What about your husband’s job?”

There was a dump of dread in her belly.

She knew, didn’t she? On some level, she knew that he hadn’t told her the real reason why he’d lost his job. Jaden, his boss, their friend, hadn’t returned her calls. The last email Selena had received had been friendly, but brief. We miss seeing you! Sorry we’ve been so busy. Maybe we can plan something for the warmer months?

A clear blowoff.

Selena had ignored those instincts, too. She didn’t want to know.

She was just like her mother.

“What about it?” she asked quietly.

“There were allegations from a junior member of his department.”

She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

“You weren’t aware.”

Another shake. She didn’t want to cry. If she started, it was going to get ugly.

“A coworker accused him of making advances, not taking rejection well. She said he became aggressive, threatening.”

Again, the urge to defend. He said, she said. Wasn’t this the minefield of the workplace these days? But no, she wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t even think it. She wouldn’t be another woman hiding the bad behavior of men.

Who was he? Who was her husband?

She remembered the bruised face of the Vegas stripper—her black eye, swollen purple mouth. A lap dance gone wrong. He wanted more; she declined. So he beat her. That was her husband; there was no disputing it. Even he didn’t try to deny it. She’d flown to Vegas, bailed him out. He got a drunk and disorderly summons, paid a fine, flew home with her the next day.

But Selena still thought about that girl, a young woman he’d hurt because she didn’t give him what he wanted. His infant son and wife asleep across the country, waiting for him.

Who was he? Who was she for staying with him? For burying that incident so deep in her subconscious so that it only surfaced when she was angry, or on sleepless nights when all her worries and fears danced and spun in the dim of her bedroom.

“Has he ever been violent with you?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Never.”

He pointed to her eyebrow, which was bruised from her fall.

“I fainted, hit my head on the way down.”

They locked eyes and his were dark and deep, probing.

“Look,” he said. “If you know more, if you have suspicions about what might have happened to Geneva, now is the time to help her. I know you want to protect your family, but a woman is missing.”

She shook her head. “My husband, he’s been unfaithful. He’s lied to me. And, you know, in the best case, our marriage is probably over. But I don’t believe he’s capable of hurting anyone.”