He was surprised that Tanisha had such insight into Rachel’s personality, but on retrospect, he shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Tanisha had known Rachel a couple of years longer than he had, and had worked with her daily. Her opinion of his wife was as valid as his.
“She’s very private,” he said.
“I could be way off base,” Tanisha said, “but in my experience, when someone tries to keep you from getting too close, it’s ’cause they have something to hide.”
“What do you think she was hiding?”
“I don’t know, but let me tell you what happened yesterday, around lunch. Rachel was doing a client’s hair, and all of a sudden, she gets a call on her cell and practically runs back here to take it. Like it was an emergency.”
“Any idea who called her?”
“I thought it was you, actually. Maybe fifteen minutes later, she left. She said she had to go to an appointment, but she looked to me like she’d been crying her eyes out. Of course, she wouldn’t admit it—she was keeping me at arm’s length, like she usually does.”
He thought about when he’d seen Rachel at home yesterday, and the bizarre bout of tears that she declined to explain. What the hell had happened?
“So.” Tanisha clasped her hands together in her lap. “I don’t know what you can do with that information, but that’s what happened here. Whatever went down, it probably had something with her leaving so fast. When was the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday evening. I think she’s in some kind of trouble, but I’ve no idea from what, or who.” He added: “She left me a letter.”
She touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“She said she’s coming back. But she didn’t say when.”
“Take it from another woman,” Tanisha said. “If a woman’s in trouble, a man usually has something to do with it.”
“Has she ever mentioned another guy, anyone you can remember?”
“No way. In the three years I’ve known Rachel, you’re the only man she’d ever even dated. She’d say you were the most special guy she’d ever met.”
“Obviously, not special enough to tell the truth,” he said, under his breath.
“Come again?”
“Never mind. One more thing: did Rachel dye her hair?”
“Oh, yeah, all the time. Auburn was her natural color, but she liked to keep it dark. Why?”
“It was something I never knew about her,” he said softly.
“Between you and me, I get the feeling there’s a lot we don’t know about Rachel.” She smiled bitterly.
He stood, putting the box under his arm. “Thanks for giving this to me, whatever it is. And thanks for talking to me about Rachel. It’s helpful.”
“I wish I had more answers for you. You love that girl to death. It’s all in your eyes.”
“Yeah.”
“God’ll work it out.” Tanisha closed her fingers around the gold crucifix that dangled from her necklace. “Stay faithful, honey. Let go, and let God.”
He barely heard her last words—a ray of insight had struck him. He thanked Tanisha again and quickly left the salon, oblivious this time to the curious glances from the assembled women, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
He knew where he could find the key to open the box.
30
At home, Coco greeted Joshua excitedly, running in circles and whining to be taken outside for a walk, but the little dog would have to wait.
He switched on the lights in the kitchen and placed the box on the table.
When Rachel had left him the letter yesterday, she’d also left him a key. He’d stored both in a kitchen drawer. Leaving them in clear view was too hurtful a reminder of what had happened.
He dug the key out of the drawer and inserted it into the padlock. It fit. He turned it, and the lock clicked open.
He removed the padlock and raised the lid.
A layer of black velvet concealed the contents. He grasped the edge of the fabric, peeled it away.
His heart beat soared.
A revolver lay inside, in a metal tray fitted to the weapon’s contours. The gun had a black rubber grip, and a stainless steel barrel about three inches long. Smith & Wesson was engraved on the side of the barrel.
He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but he certainly had not been expecting this.
Slowly and carefully, he lifted the gun out of the tray. The tray shifted at the disturbance, and something moved underneath. He placed the gun on the table, and lifted out the tray, too.
There was a cardboard box of ammunition.
“Jesus,” he said.
This latest discovery was another piece in the jigsaw puzzle that was his wife. Why had she kept this gun at the salon? Had she been concerned that she’d have to put down her curling iron and blow someone away?
He tried to imagine Rachel, his sweet-tempered wife, wielding this lethal weapon, and it just didn’t fit into what he knew of her.
But as Tanisha had aptly noted, there was a lot that neither of them knew about Rachel.
He gripped the revolver’s black handle.
He’d never fired a real gun. His only experience with firearms was of the toy variety: Laser tag, Paintball, video games. When he was a teenager, his dad had been a weekend outdoorsman and would go hunting for white-tail deer and quail, and he would want to bring Joshua along, but his mother had forbid it. She’d been concerned for Joshua’s safety.
He cautiously touched the trigger. The thought of handling the revolver and actually using it for self-defense was almost as absurd as the idea of Rachel using the weapon. He was not a combative person by nature, would have rather fled the scene than engage someone in a violent confrontation of any kind—least of all a gunfight.
He opened the box of ammo and dumped a couple of rounds into his palm. They were shiny, silver, deadly.
Was the revolver loaded? He didn’t know, and didn’t know how to check, either.
DON’T EVER TELL 173
He was tempted to pack the revolver in the box, shove it to the rear of a closet, and forget about it. But Rachel’s warning from her letter whispered through his thoughts.
I’ve left you a key. It will unlock something that I pray you won’t need.
Did she believe he actually might be in danger, too? If so, from who?
He placed the gun and the ammo back in the box, and locked it. But he didn’t store the box in the closet—he left it on the kitchen table.
And then he called Eddie.
31
Eddie lived in the West End, not far from where he worked at the college, in a tree-lined, historic district of Craftsman bungalows, Victorians, and Colonial Revival homes. Like many in-town Atlanta neighborhoods that had once suffered severe urban blight, the West End was in the midst of a revitalization campaign. Less than a mile from the historic area, new condos were being constructed, big box stores were opening for business, and well-heeled residents who wouldn’t have dared to visit only a few years ago were purchasing old homes and renovating them.
Eddie’s green clapboard-shingled Craftsman stood behind a wrought iron fence, a narrow paved lane leading to the detached garage. A web of holiday lights was spun across the trimmed shrubbery and eaves, and a plastic Frosty the Snowman spread cheer in the front yard.
Eddie greeted Joshua at the door.
“Hey, dawg. Come on in.”
Joshua walked inside with his satchel dangling over his shoulder. Although much of the exterior and interior of their home had been restored to its period detail, the furnishings were completely modern: microfiber sofa and chairs in light earthy colors, glass tables, track lighting, stainless steel appliances. A child safety gate surrounded the home entertainment center, childproof lever locks protected the doorknobs, and cushions softened the edges of the tables.
The house was quiet.
“You here alone?” Joshua asked.
“The wife’s at work, the kids are at
day care—that’s right,
they’re at day care and I’m home in peace. I’m playing Madden and eating Cheetos.”
When Joshua had called Eddie, he hadn’t told him the reason he wanted to visit. Eddie, an assistant football coach at Clark, was on vacation since the season had recently wrapped up, and probably assumed Joshua wanted to hang out playing video games and eating junk food, as if they were teenagers again.
“Check this out.” Joshua placed the satchel on the sofa, removed the box, and set it on the coffee table.
“What’s that?” Eddie asked.
Joshua unlocked the case, opened it, and pulled back the swatch of velvet.
Eddie’s eyes swelled like balloons.
“Oh, shit. Where’d you get that from, man?”
“Rachel gave it to me.”
“Rachel? Your wife?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, tell a brother. Damn.”
Joshua related the entire course of events to Eddie, starting from the nightmare Rachel had experienced the other night—which he’d already told Eddie about—and on through his discovery of the handgun that morning.
“I don’t believe it,” Eddie said. “How the hell could she do this to you, man?”
“I thought I knew her.” Joshua shrugged, exhausted from his retelling of the story. “Guess I was wrong.”
“I need a drink. You want something?”
“It’s kinda early for a drink.”
“This ain’t the time to be straitlaced. Your wife is gone. You need a damn drink.”
While Eddie dashed to the kitchen, Joshua glanced around the room. Photographs of Eddie and his wife and children were everywhere. Colorful snapshots of familial bliss.
Feeling a hard lump forming in his throat, Joshua had to look away.
Eddie returned. He offered Joshua a glass teeming with dark amber liquor and ice cubes.
Joshua sniffed it. “What is this?”
“Cognac. It’ll set you right.”
Joshua took a small sip. The cognac hit him like a taste of fire, but it immediately loosened the ball of tension that had been knotted in his chest for the past two days. He exhaled a deep breath.
“See?” Eddie sipped his own shot of cognac. “Relaxes the nerves. You were wound up tight as a clock spring, dawg.”
“I wouldn’t want to make this a habit, but thanks.” Joshua tapped the gun case. “What do you make of this?”
Eddie set his liquor aside and plucked the revolver out of the box.
“It’s a .38,” Eddie said. “Nice piece for home defense.”
“So you know guns?”
With an adept flick of his wrist, Eddie swung out the cylinder.
“It’s not loaded,” Eddie said. “Rule number one: always assume a gun is loaded, until you prove that it isn’t.” “That means the answer to my question is yes.”
“My pops was an army man. He taught all of us how to handle a piece. Matter of fact, I’ve got a couple of pieces here, too, under lock and key ’cause of the kids, you know?”
“I never knew that about you.”
“You never know everything there is to know about anyone, do you?”
“Tell me about it.” Joshua smiled grimly.
Eddie lifted the tray out of the box and located the ammo. He shook one of the rounds into his palm and held it up for inspection.
“Hollow points,” Eddie said. “These will get the job done for real.”
“All I know about hollow points is what I’ve heard in a few hip-hop songs. They seem to be the ammo of choice for gangstas.”
“Here’s the deal. When they hit flesh, they expand.” Eddie traced his index finger along the top edge of the round. “It goes from looking like it does now, to a mushroom. Tearing up all kinds of tissue in the process.”
Joshua grimaced. “I don’t know if I can shoot someone, Eddie. I mean, you know me. I’m not a violent guy.”
“Remember our little talk at your party the other night? About protecting your wife and your kids?”
Although he hadn’t told Eddie about Rachel’s pregnancy, in retrospect, their conversation that night seemed prescient. “I remember.”
“If you meant what you said, then you’ll do whatever you’ve gotta do,” Eddie said. “I don’t agree with what Rachel’s done, but she’s still your wife, you still love her. She’s running scared from somebody, man, and when push comes to shove, you’ve gotta be ready to protect your own. Are you? If not, you might as well lock this gun in the box and forget about it.”
Joshua sat quietly, swirling the cognac around the glass. He took another sip. It was like liquid fire going down his throat, but it felt good, like a fortifying element steeling his spirit.
He reached for the gun.
“Show me how to use this,” he said.
32
Dexter had logged over three hundred miles that day, driving from one place to another around metro Atlanta, and he had yet to find his wife’s residence.
He’d visited single-family homes, townhouses, and apartment complexes. He’d driven through the hood and upscale subdivisions. He’d been mired in gridlock in various parts of town—this city had the worst traffic he’d ever seen in his life—for a cumulative total of maybe five hours.
But no luck.
He was convinced that he would know intuitively when he arrived at his wife’s home. The exterior details of the residence, and the neighborhood in which it was located, would be telltale indicators of whether he was at the right place. He knew his wife.
So he continued to drive, undeterred, crossing an entry off the print-out after each unsuccessful visit. He interrupted his work only to eat, grabbing fast food and wolfing it down in the car, staying on the move.
It reminded him, pleasantly, of detective work. When you were a cop, success was usually a matter of methodically grinding it out, finding leads, discarding leads, until you finally struck pay dirt and caught your man—or woman.
The cold, gray winter afternoon had darkened into a frigid evening when he began driving to the next-to-last address on his list. It was an apartment in College Park.
The StreetPilot instructed him to hook a right at the next intersection. He made the turn, which plunged him down a stomach-flipping hill. At the foot of the hill, the road banked to the left, wove around a cluster of pine trees, and then unfurled into a long straight-away bordered by winter-ravaged trees and shrubbery.
A large sign came into view ahead on the right: FOREST
RIDGE APARTMENT HOMES.
A cool tingle traveled the length of his spine. This was it. This was where she lived. It felt right.
Entry to the complex was restricted by a set of electronically activated, wrought-iron gates. Big, red holiday bows adorned the centers of the gates, and a call box, also garlanded in holiday finery, stood in front of the gateway, between the entrance and exit paths.
He drove to the call box and lowered his window. Chilly wind hit him in the face. He squinted against the gust, studying the small lighted display and the accompanying keypad.
Residents were listed by first name initial and last name; a three-digit code was beside each entry, so you could call the person you were visiting and ask them to buzz you inside.
Putting his thumb on an arrow button, he scrolled to the “H”s. He did not find any Halls.
A Honda Civic with a Papa John’s placard on its roof had pulled up behind him. The driver tapped his horn, impatiently.
Dexter veered to the right, out of the entryway, and stuck his arm out the window to wave the driver past.
The pizza delivery driver punched a code into the call box, and the gates began to swing inward.
Dexter pulled behind the Honda, only inches from the rear bumper, to fool the sensor system. He followed the car through the gate without incident.
So much for security.
The complex was a maze of four-story buildings with stacked stone foundations and gray siding,
accessible via blacktopped, debris-free roadways. The leasing office and a clubhouse stood off to the right, near a large fountain with an angelic sculpture centerpiece. A sign on the clubhouse advertised an upcoming holiday party for community residents.
His survey of the property cemented his belief that his wife lived here, or had, until recently. The gated entry offered the promise of safety that she would desire, and the environment was solidly middle class: upwardly mobile single professionals and young families saving for their first homes would choose to live in such a place.
Most important, besides the complex’s appearance, the needle on the compass of his intuition was vibrating as if he stood smack dab on magnetic north.
According to Omega Search, her apartment number was five-seventeen. He followed the signs to building five hundred, and found it located squarely in the middle of the community. Unit five-seventeen was on the third floor, and knowing his wife, likely faced the parking lot so she could look through the window and see who was coming and going.
A handful of late-model cars were parked in front. When he and his wife had lived in Chicago, he hadn’t allowed her to own a car; a pretty woman with her own set of wheels was destined to get into trouble. But she had once expressed interest in an Acura sedan, a silver one, and he was sure that she had purchased the vehicle when she’d relocated, using his money. Her way of celebrating her liberation from him and all of that feminist bullshit.
But there were no Acuras parked nearby.
He parked in front of the building, checked his face in the sun visor mirror. Satisfied with what he saw, he got out of the car and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
Apartment five-seventeen, as he’d suspected, was an end unit that overlooked the parking lot. A couple of phone books were stacked on the doorstep, and a trifold menu for a Chinese restaurant bristled between the knob and door jamb.
He rang the bell a couple of times, but predictably, no one answered. The apartment was vacant.
He ought to drop a pointed note to Omega Search. Their database was out of date. How long ago had she moved?
He considered kicking in the door, but there would be little point. Whenever a tenant left, the apartment manager most likely dispatched housekeepers to clean these units from top to bottom. There would be nothing inside that might tell him where she had moved.
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