Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,34
she gritted her teeth. She made herself breathe.
Nina seemed oblivious; she held Abby’s gaze. “Isn’t what happened awful enough? It’s tragic that so many people lost their lives, but the sad, horrible fact is they’re gone, and holding on to the hope that the outcome is something other than that, well, it seems so hurtful. For you, I mean. I’m not the only one who feels this way,” she added when Abby didn’t answer. “Louise does, too, and she’s Nick’s mother.”
“If you’re going to bring up the idea of a memorial service, don’t.”
“But we’d like you to help us plan it.”
Abby shook her head in disgust. “You’re talking about a funeral. What are you going to bury?”
“Not a funeral, hon, a ceremony to honor Nick and Lindsey.” Nina spread her hands. “People have asked. Nick’s clients, his colleagues.”
Sondra, Abby thought. Was she a client?
“Louise needs closure. We all do.”
“Closure to what? My husband and my daughter are missing. Mis-sing.” Abby repeated the word, placing heavy emphasis on each syllable.
“So if that’s what you believe, maybe you should check with his father, given the history.”
Abby chose to let that pass. She picked up her purse. “It was nice seeing you, Nina.”
“I hope you aren’t angry with me. I only want to help,” Nina said.
Abby walked past her.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Nina called after her.
* * *
In the parking garage, Abby sat behind the steering wheel of Nick’s BMW, fished the book of matches she’d filched from his desk out of her purse and opened the cover. It was definitely Nick’s handwriting. The 713 area code was local, one Abby associated with downtown, mostly, everything that lay inside the 610 loop. It was probably the number of a business or another law firm where someone named Sondra was employed.
But suppose it wasn’t? Suppose it was something else? Something more personal? A new suspicion lifted from the floor of Abby’s mind, unbidden, disquieting, and it confused her. Since when had Nick ever given her a reason to doubt him, his loyalty, his love? She found her cell phone and dialed the number, and in the moment the connection was made, she caught her breath in anticipation of hearing a female voice. Instead, what she heard was the insistent beep of a fax machine.
She pulled her cell phone away from her ear and studied the screen as if it might explain, then set it against her ear again, listening a moment longer to the shrill, rhythmic pulsing.
So it was nothing, she thought, and she was somehow disappointed. But what had she expected? That someone named Sondra had been waiting all these weeks for her call, waiting to answer all of her questions, waiting to lead her to the very spot where Nick and Lindsey could be found warm and safe and alive? A sound broke loose from Abby’s chest; she pressed her fingertips to her eyes. Nina was wrong, she thought. It wasn’t false hope that hurt her; it was not knowing.
Chapter 9
“I think you have to let Louise and Nina go ahead with the service.” Abby’s mother shook that morning’s coffee grounds around the hydrangeas.
“A lot of this thyme has died, Mama.” Abby rested on her knees nearby. “We could go to the nursery, see if we can find more. I don’t know though, at this time of year—”
“Abby, did you hear me? It’s been five months.” Her mother came to stand beside Abby in the grass.
She looked at her mother’s feet. “You shouldn’t be out here in your slippers, Mama. You could fall.”
“Abigail, if it were you who had disappeared—” Abby’s mother’s voice trembled a little “—wouldn’t you want Nick and the children to do what was necessary to bring themselves to terms, to find peace? It’s what Jake needs, honey. And as much as you resist the whole notion of a service, it’s what’s done. It’s the appropriate thing. It sends a kind of signal, can you see?”
“But we’re not religious. Where would it be?”
“Nick was raised Baptist, wasn’t he?”
“But he hated it, having to go every Sunday. Louise wanted us to be married in that huge Baptist church she belongs to in Dallas. Nick refused, remember?”
“But this isn’t for Nick, is it? I mean in terms of whom it will serve. It’s for everyone who wants to show how much and how well your family was—is—loved. It would be a kindness to Louise, especially, I think, to let her have her way in this.”