Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,32

Even Nick’s desk, which was usually buried under a litter of paper, was eerily sterile, design-photo clean. Behind it, the assortment of family pictures he kept on the credenza appeared untouched, and the pair of framed, signed Leroy Neiman lithographs that Abby had bought for him when he’d made partner still hung on the wall. But the clutter that was uniquely his own filing system was gone, as if since he’d vanished someone couldn’t wait to tidy up. Abby felt a renewed jolt of alarm like a punch to her solar plexus. Her earlier aggravation freshened its heat. The nerve, that was one thing she thought as she walked behind the desk, but it was tangled with a colder panic, a more distraught sense that despite Joe’s reassurances, something awful was happening or had happened that affected her and her family, and she was deliberately being kept in the dark about it.

She set down her purse, picked up a framed photo of Jake from the collection on the credenza, turned when she sensed someone had walked in behind her. It was Nina, but Abby should have expected as much.

“He hates this picture.” Abby fought to keep her tone civil. “His skin was so broken out when he was in junior high.”

“I know,” Nina said.

Of course she did. Nina knew everything. She’d taken over Abby’s job as receptionist when Abby quit to marry Nick, and twenty-odd years later, the partners were still Nina’s only family. She called them her “boys” in the same smug way she’d said, “I know,” and the thing was, she did know nearly everything about all of them. Abby wanted to slap Nina; she wanted to wipe the smirk right off her carefully made-up face. But she wanted answers more; she’d come here to make someone talk to her, and the fact was that Nina’s “boys” told her everything. If anyone at Drexler, Davidson, Wilcox and Bennett knew where the bones were buried, it was Nina.

She came around the desk and hugged Abby, then held her at arm’s length. “Jessica told me you were here.”

“Of course she did,” Abby said.

“How are you?” Nina’s dark eyes searched Abby’s face.

“Better. On some days at least. It’s hard.”

“I can imagine.”

No, you can’t. Abby longed to say it.

The phone in the outer office rang. Nina started through the door, but when it stopped, her attention returned to Abby. “No one’s touched anything in here—” Yet. Nina didn’t say it, but the implication was there all the same.

Abby sat down in Nick’s chair, feeling with her own smaller backside the round contouring of Nick’s larger sitting depression. And independently of her will, her hands recalled the curve of his hip, the flesh there that was lightly haired and how it warmed beneath her touch. The memory started an ache low in her belly, a warm, hard swell of desire that she quickly closed off.

Light glimmered over the desk’s polished surface. So much surface. No one had touched anything? Was that a joke? A lie? Abby fingered the blotter, lifting it, shifting the edge. Did Nina expect her to believe that? Did she not remember how many times in the past she and Abby had joked about Nick’s mess? They’d shared lunch and commiserated with each other—Abby, the home wife, and Nina, the office wife. Along with the other partners’ wives, Abby had been part of Nina’s extended “family.” But now Abby felt a very unfamily-like strangeness. She felt unwelcome. And it occurred to her that, without Nick, she wasn’t one of them anymore. She didn’t belong.

“Everything is so tidy.” Abby looked at Nina. “You must assume Nick isn’t coming back. It makes me wonder what you know that I don’t.”

Nina’s eyes widened. She put her hand to her neck. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Abby followed her gesture, noting the strand of pearls that curved beneath the tailored collar of Nina’s cream charmeuse blouse, noting Nina’s nails, the immaculate French-style manicure. She was like Nick’s mother, Abby thought, always immaculate. Perfectly presented. Never a hair out of place, never a snagged nylon. Nina shared something else with Louise, too: a lack of faith; and it infuriated Abby. “You’ve written Nick off, haven’t you? You and Joe and Louise. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

“Abby—?” Nina broke off, shaking her head as if in admonishment of herself. After all, Abby was distraught, grieving. Allowances had to be made, if Abby sounded crazy, if she babbled insanely. Nina tried again. “I