Dear Wife - Kimberly Belle Page 0,40

they’re a million times better than a desk in the bull pen they surround.

Jeffrey and Ingrid arrive a full twelve minutes late, and just like yesterday, the two are practically vibrating with animosity. He opens the door for her but only because I’m watching, prompting a thanks she doesn’t want to give. These two people detest each other, and I want to know why.

I gesture for them to follow. “This way.”

I usher them through the rowdy bull pen to the open door of my office. “Have a seat,” I say, gesturing to the twin chairs across from my desk, but only Ingrid sinks into one. Jeffrey is frozen just outside the door. He pokes his head into the room, and his relief when he sees it’s an office is palpable. The sucker thought this was going to be an interrogation room. I raise a brow, and reluctantly, he steps inside, sinks into a chair.

I round my desk and drop into mine. “We found Sabine’s car.”

“What?” the two say in unison, their voices high and wild.

“Omigod, where?” Ingrid says. “When? And that’s good news, right? It means you have some idea which way she went.”

I don’t shake my head, but I don’t nod, either. A car is not necessarily good news, especially one like Sabine’s—undamaged and untouched. So far, the only DNA we’ve found on it is hers.

“The car was parked at the far end of the Super1 lot on East Harding. According to the security footage, she walked through the door yesterday at 1:49 p.m. Ten minutes later, she purchased a loaf of bread, some sliced turkey and cheese, and a lemonade. She paid with her ATM card and was out the door by 2:03 p.m. The cameras don’t cover the entire parking lot, unfortunately, so we lost her soon after.”

Ingrid scoots to the front edge of her seat. “I don’t understand. You’re saying she never made it back to her car?”

“It sure looks that way. We searched the lot and trash cans for the groceries, without any luck. Somebody could have picked them up, or maybe she took them with her.”

“With her where?” Ingrid shakes her head. “What are you saying, exactly?”

“You both mentioned you talked to Sabine—” I flip through my notes, pausing to find the right page. “Ingrid at 10:45 a.m. and Jeffrey...” I look up, meeting his gaze. “You didn’t actually tell me a time.”

“I was at the Atlanta airport, boarding a flight.”

“The DL 2088, I know.”

Jeffrey told me he talked to Sabine as he was boarding his flight, but he didn’t say which one. He didn’t even mention the airline. I did a little digging.

“The flight left Atlanta at 11:30 a.m,” I say, “so boarding would have been what, a half hour earlier?”

He nods, shifting in his chair. “Yeah, eleven sounds about right. I can pull it up on my call log if you need the exact time and duration.”

I ignore his offer, turning to Ingrid instead. “In either of these conversations with Sabine, did she mention where she was going?”

Jeffrey shakes his head, but Ingrid nods. “She was on her way to the office.”

I frown. Not the answer I was expecting. “This particular Super1 is nowhere near her work. I checked with her office, and she didn’t have any showings that morning. Only a staff training later in the afternoon at the office, which she missed.”

“Oh, she had a showing, all right,” Jeffrey says, his voice thick with sarcasm and something else. Anger, for sure. Disgust, too. And more than a little pain.

Ingrid looks over with a frown.

“Sabine was coming from the hospital.” His lip curls into an ugly sneer. “Her lover told me she dropped by for a little conjugal visit.”

I lean back in my chair. By now I know about the affair. Dr. McAdams already told me, tripping all over himself in his hurry for a face-to-face, a million questions disguised as a statement. The poor guy is desperate for answers, almost too desperate to be believable. “Well, if she was coming from the hospital, the route makes more sense. She could have stopped to buy herself a late lunch.”

“And then what?” Ingrid squirms on her chair, clutching her hands. “Where did she go next?”

“Well, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Sabine left on her own accord, that she got into a car with a colleague or a friend, but my gut says no. For one thing, she wouldn’t have left her cell phone behind. We found it