Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,17
if to consider.
“Just what?” Abby prompted.
Dennis met her glance. “Can you think of anyone who might have had a reason to follow your husband? Maybe an associate or one of your husband’s clients? Someone who could have had a grudge or just wanted to talk with him? Outside the office, so to speak.”
“Why are you asking me that? The firm does mostly civil litigation. Even Nick would say it’s boring, not that it doesn’t get stressful at times. Some clients can be very—” Abby broke off, looking at the tag end of a memory...a discussion from a few weeks ago, a heated discussion she’d had with Nick about his hours. He’d brought up a client then, a woman who was being difficult about some real-estate matter Nick hadn’t adequately represented her interests in or something. Abby hadn’t listened really. She frowned now, hunting in her mind for a place where Nick might have mentioned the woman again, not finding it. Why hadn’t she paid closer attention? It seemed as if she’d let so many things, little telling details, slip by her.
“You remember something?” Dennis asked.
Abby shook her head. Why go into it? She had no facts, not even a name. “Nick’s had his share of difficult clients, but nothing out of the ordinary. He would have told me. We don’t keep secrets from each other.” That I know of...
The words hung unspoken.
* * *
The morning following Dennis’s visit, Abby showered and dressed in her own clothes, the ones she’d arrived in. She stowed her toothbrush and the assorted toiletries and underwear she’d purchased in a grocery sack, then changed the sheets on the guest-room bed. She was folding back the coverlet when Kate appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have to go,” Abby said, gathering the bed linen and the small pile of dirty clothes she’d borrowed from Kate into her arms.
“Go where?” Kate followed Abby through the kitchen into the laundry room.
“Home,” Abby answered.
“You can’t stay by yourself,” George said from where he was sitting in the kitchen having toast and reading the morning newspaper. Abby noticed the headline concerned the cost of the flood damage. Three quarters of a billion dollars so far, it read. Did that figure include the loss of her family, she wondered. Could a dollar amount be put on that?
“It’s too soon,” Kate said. “We want you here, where we can keep an eye on you.”
“I have to go home sometime,” Abby said. “I don’t like leaving Mama on her own for so long, and there are the horses. My neighbor, Charlie Wister, has been looking after them for me, but I can’t expect him to keep feeding them forever.”
George and Kate eyed her worriedly.
“Come on, guys. I’ll be fine.” She made herself smile. “I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever be.”
It wasn’t true. In fact, she was afraid of going home, of being alone. For the rest of your life? asked a horrified voice in her mind. But there was another voice in her mind, too, a louder one, that kept asking questions, such as what if Nick and Lindsey had amnesia and somehow recovered and went home, and no one was there? What if they didn’t remember her cell number and called the home number and no one answered? What if they were already there and Abby was the one missing?
She was convinced, and rationality had nothing to do with it, that if only she were home everything would fall into place. Nick and Lindsey would arrive there, too. Their survival would make headline news. Someone from Primetime or 48 Hours would call to do the story. Even Nadine Betts would say it was a miracle.
But when Abby returned, her house was deserted, the same as the day she’d left it, and Kate was right. It was too soon. Abby wouldn’t last a month on her own.
Chapter 5
Ordinarily Abby loved coming home, especially in the spring. Every curve of asphalt that led to the house was lavishly dressed in frilled masses of azaleas and camellias under a higher canopy of dogwood and redbud trees. There were drifts of daffodils, too, mixed with oxalis and wild sweet violets. She and Nick had planned the approach to the house deliberately in a way that would cause a driver to slow and take time to admire the view, but turning onto her street now, her stomach was in knots even as her head filled with ruthless, foolish hope.