Missing Pieces(45)
But Sarah couldn’t get past the fact that Jack had promised, had sworn, that there was nothing else Sarah needed to know about his past, that there was nothing more worth knowing. More lies and secrets.
The notes scrawled at the bottom of the transcript said that there were inconsistencies in Jack’s statements, that there were reports of frequent arguments with his mother. What inconsistencies? What arguments? Didn’t every teenager have fights with their parents? God knew she did. What made Jack’s dustups with his mom worth noting in the file?
Sarah flipped through the transcripts. There were pages of additional interviews with other family members, friends and townspeople. But this certainly wasn’t the bulk of the case file. Margaret must have been only able to get this section for her. Sarah needed to see the rest.
She felt something shift in her mind, in her heart. When she first began to learn of Jack’s secrets, she thought they were the closely guarded memories of a traumatized boy who found them too painful or embarrassing to share with even his wife.
But now, Sarah wasn’t so sure. The sheer energy that Jack must have expended to keep the secrets hidden and the lies straight in his mind for so many years must have been exhausting. There had to be more that Jack wasn’t telling her. Don’t ask the questions if you don’t want the answers. This was something that her editor, Gabe, had told her over and over again during her early years at the Messenger. If she didn’t want to ask the hard questions, if she didn’t want to know the truth, she had no business in being a journalist.
But the stakes were so much higher if she dared to ask the questions that she couldn’t quite let take shape. This was her marriage. This was her husband, the father of her daughters. Did she really want to keep asking the hard questions?
She stepped from the car. A westerly wind swept across the countryside, kicking up dust from the gravel road and covering her clothing with a thin, powdery layer. Three fork-tailed, cobalt-blue barn swallows dipped and swooped playfully in the hay field. Yes, a quiet voice echoed through her head. She needed to know. Had to know.
*
She sent a quick text message to Margaret that innocently read, Thanks for the recipe. Would love some more. Can we meet? Jack had sent her texts of his own asking her if she had talked to Amy and for her to please call him.
Amy. Being so immersed in the tape recordings, she almost forgot about Amy sitting at the sheriff’s department, probably already charged with first-degree murder.
Almost grudgingly she called Jack. He was a liar and possibly worse. She didn’t want to talk with him, didn’t want to put on the supportive-wife face because his aunt had died and his sister was in trouble, but she knew she would. It might be the only way she would get the answers she was searching for.
“Sarah,” Jack said the moment he answered. “Are you okay? Where are you? We thought you were going to meet us for lunch.” He sounded genuinely concerned about her. Was it authentic, she wondered, or was he just that good of a liar?
“I’m fine, but Amy isn’t,” Sarah said in a rush. “Jack, Sheriff Gilmore is going to arrest her if he hasn’t already. You need to get her...”
“Whoa, slow down.” Jack stopped her. “Where are you? Come back to Dean’s and we’ll talk.”
She didn’t want to go back to Dean and Celia’s house. She didn’t want to see Jack. She was sick of his dysfunctional—and dysfunctional was a kind description—family. She wanted to finish listening to the audiotapes of Gilmore’s interviews with the witnesses, and she wanted to connect with Margaret so she could read the rest of the case file. Jack had had his chance, had his opportunity to come clean with her, to tell her the full truth, and he hadn’t. He had traded twenty years of marriage for lies.
“Jack, trust me on this. The sheriff has most likely arrested Amy. If there’s any part of you that thinks she wasn’t the one who killed Julia, you need to get an attorney over there right away.”
Jack was quiet on the other end of the line. “You think she did it?” Sarah asked incredulously. “Really?”
“No. I don’t know,” he amended softly. “I hope not, but I don’t think I really know Amy as well as I thought I did.”
“About as well as I thought I knew you,” Sarah shot back. “Forget it. I’ll get her a lawyer if you won’t.”
Sarah disconnected. She wasn’t even sure as to how to go about finding an attorney for Amy. Hell, she wasn’t convinced that Amy wasn’t guilty. All the evidence seemed to be pointing toward her; even the presence of poison. Amy was the one who had spent the night in Julia’s hospital room, who was most likely to have the time to poison her.
She pulled out her phone again and did a quick search of Penny Gate attorneys. Only two names popped up. Arthur Newberry and Dallas Hogan. She settled on Arthur Newberry—at least his name sounded like he was older than twenty-five. She called his office and left a message explaining who she was, why she needed his services and to please return her call as soon as possible. In frustration she tossed the phone back into the car and began to walk down the gravel road, her argument with Jack replaying over and over in her mind.
She heard the rumble of tires from behind her and a cloud of dust rose from the road. Sarah shielded her eyes from the sun to get a better look and realized that she had walked more than a football field away from her car. A large truck emerged from the dust and slowed as it approached.