Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,89
of this, how the jacket got to the cabin, the odd things that have happened at the house, the phone calls—” she looked up sharply “—and please don’t tell me again that I’m imagining things because I know what I know, what I heard. Those calls happened.”
“Maybe tomorrow you’ll get some answers.” Kate stirred the milk.
“Nothing I want.” Abby realized now that her hope that Lindsey was alive had begun to loosen. Something warned her. Her instinct knew it wasn’t possible.
“No,” Kate agreed. “Probably not.”
A long note of silence between them filled with the brush of the spoon circling the pan.
Abby hugged herself. “One thing I know for sure, my marriage was in a lot more trouble than I thought.”
“Based on what?” Kate turned from the stove. “What that weirdo Hank says? He’s crazy, Abby. He’s got issues. I mean, really—people faking their deaths? Do you really think Nick would do something like that? When he had Lindsey with him? There’s no way. She’d never go along with it in any case.”
Abby was surprised. “You’re defending him?”
“I might not be Nick’s biggest fan, but I know he loved his children. He wouldn’t hurt them. You don’t think he would, do you?”
“I wouldn’t have. Maybe I wouldn’t now if it weren’t for Lindsey’s call. I’m talking about the one she made from the gas station in Boerne. She sounded scared, even hysterical.”
“I thought you weren’t sure.”
Abby rubbed her eyes. “I’m not. I go back and forth. I drive myself nuts. It’s like this special corner of hell I live in.”
Kate attended to the milk.
“She memorized Nick’s closing argument.”
Kate switched off the burner and looked askance at Abby.
“The one he made at the end of the Helix Belle trial. Hank told me Sondra knew it by heart. Jake and I were in court that day; Nick was fantastic. His argument might well have won the whole thing, but I couldn’t quote a word of it to you now.”
“Abby, honestly, so what? You were there for him. You supported him. You were a good wife.”
She didn’t answer. It wore on her to remember how little she had made of Nick’s performance, his victory. Looking back, all she could see was his vulnerability in the wake of the accusations that had been made against him, and how much he had needed her, and she had turned her back. She’d left him alone. Left him for someone else to find and comfort.
“Come on, Abby. Sondra sounds like she’s as big a lunatic as Hank. She was a stripper, for God’s sake. Would Nick go for someone like that? Besides, he adored you.”
Abby thought of the photographs of Sondra, beautiful and elegant. “Well, she looks a whole lot better than me in a bikini.”
“Oh, Abby.” Kate’s whisper was full of regret.
The scope of the mystery, and her own failure to question any of the troubling signs that had led up to it, was too much to bear. Abby lowered her forehead to her crossed arms. She would never forgive herself if she learned Nick had involved their daughter, if he had taken Lindsey into this mess. But what was the mess? What would Dennis find in that car tomorrow?
Abby felt Kate drop into the chair beside her and scoot close. She felt Kate’s arm come around her and Kate’s cheek against her hair, and they sat together for a while, hip to hip in the dim silence. Because there weren’t words but only presence, only Abby’s fear and her grief and Kate’s love to receive them.
* * *
It was late in the afternoon, and Abby was alone in the great room staring from the window when the phone rang. She heard George pick up in the kitchen. Jake and Hank were in there, too, Abby thought, having a sandwich. Kate was unloading the dishwasher, but that clatter stopped abruptly. Abby rested her forehead against the window. She felt empty of everything, even the sense of waiting. But as moments passed, she became impatient. What were they doing? Abby straightened. Whispering. She could hear them, and she started across the room.
George appeared in the doorway. “It’s Dennis,” he said and held the cordless phone out to Abby, his big, work-roughened hand shaking, his face crumpled with sadness and concern.
She wanted to say something to reassure him, but the most she could manage was to take the phone. “Dennis?” she said.
“Abby, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s my car, you’re sure?”
“It’s a Cherokee, same make and model. The license plates are