Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,91
sick, she thought. He had wanted closure and didn’t find it. His sister Kim wanted Sondra’s dead body, and she hadn’t gotten what she wanted either. Abby was sorry for them. But they had nothing to do with her. Sondra had nothing to do with her.
“Mom? I think we probably have to face the facts.” Jake said this tentatively, but then he stepped toward her as if he meant to force the issue.
She twisted away. “I’ll call Nina. She’ll know about Sondra. Nina can look in Nick’s files, find his notes. Under the circumstances, I don’t think confidentiality will apply, but if it does, Dennis can get a court order, don’t you think? Isn’t that how it’s done?” She waved her hand. Abracadabra...
No one answered; no one looked at her. Abby’s stomach knotted.
Hank said he should leave.
Kate offered an invitation to dinner; he turned it down. Abby followed him out of the house, matching his quick, impatient stride. She wanted to let him go, to leave it alone, but she couldn’t. Not until he spoke to her, not until he looked her in her face and admitted he had been wrong about Nick and Sondra. Shouldn’t he do that much after all his accusations and drama? He’d put his hand through a window, for God’s sake, over nothing.
“Hank?” she called after him. “I’m very sorry you don’t know where your wife is, but I can’t help but be relieved that she wasn’t with my husband and daughter.”
He stopped and looked at her, and she saw his pity for her and his contempt. “Sondra was fucking your husband, Abby. I know it in my gut, just like I know they were together when the car crashed. I don’t know why her body wasn’t found with his today. Maybe she was thrown out; maybe some animal got her, but she was damn sure there when they wrecked, I know she was. I know she’s as dead as he is.”
“But why do you want to believe that? You should be thrilled. You could still find her.”
“Not alive. Ask them.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the house. “Ask your son. He knows the truth. They all know. The sheriff, too. The only reason they won’t tell you is because they don’t think you can take it.” Hank went around to the driver’s side of his car and started to get in, then he squinted at her through the metallic glare off the car’s roof. “Take your little theory about the jacket, that crap about how your husband loaned it to Sondra. Sometime last winter, you said, a jacket he didn’t have until Christmas Day, I might add, and then what? You’re the one who swears you saw it in a closet at home in May. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“No,” Abby said, but she did see, and she clenched her teeth against it. “Nick would not have involved Lindsey—”
Hank stabbed his skull with his index finger. “Think about it. If Sondra wore the jacket to the cabin last winter, how did it get back into your closet where you saw it last summer?”
He waited, but Abby didn’t answer; she wouldn’t. She hated him, the disgust so evident in his eyes, the curl of his lip.
“That coat didn’t get into the cabin on Sondra’s back, Abby. It went in on your husband’s back. He didn’t come out here in April to go camping with your daughter. He came out here to meet my wife and maybe even Sandoval. Hell, they could have all been in that car together. We’ll probably never know.”
Abby shook her head vehemently.
“Fine, don’t believe me. But you might want to go back inside and ask your son about the woman he saw with his dad in February.”
“What woman?”
“The same one your husband was seen with again last April at the gas station in Boerne.”
“There was no woman. Someone—the sheriff would have told me,” Abby said. “You’re crazy.”
“Oh, yes, there was. And just like every other fucking guy in the world, the kid behind the counter couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It was Sondra. He described her to a fucking T. He got a good long look. He told the sheriff he saw her get into your Jeep, Abby, and he never saw her get out.”
“You’re a liar, Hank! I feel sorry for you.” But doubt riddled her words; the bitter taste of it coated the margins of her throat.