“That sounds like a good start. Is there anybody else?”
“I don’t know,” Liz began, her voice trailing off. There were other possibilities—the recently released coach, for instance—but she couldn’t think straight right now. “I mean, yes. I think so.”
Her father’s eyes filled with the strangest blend of traits. Pity and love and just a trace of excitement. “I’ll start brainstorming,” he said. “Colleagues, your pastor, his doctor even.”
Liz and Paul almost never went to church. Her parents knew that, even if they disapproved. And Paul shunned Western medicine. She couldn’t think of the last time he had seen a doctor for anything.
“You’ll see,” her father said. “There are plenty of possibilities.”
Liz’s mother was nodding. “Don’t worry, dear. In the worst case, even if you turn nothing up, I’m sure Paul will be back with the children. I’m going to hug those wee ones so tight the next time I see them …”
The words sounded strange, artificial-tasting, as they left her mother’s mouth.
Her father started to descend the stairs.
Liz had to shift to make room so that he could go by.
After her parents left, a dull, weighty paralysis settled into Liz’s limbs. She was aware that she had to shake it, but she couldn’t imagine anything to conjure up life or motion. Her father had said he would help, stepping in to take over as he always did, but Liz sensed the hollowness of what he had to offer. And she herself knew no more now than she had in Junction Bridge. All her attempts had come to nothing.
No. That wasn’t true. She had discovered that website. Learned where Paul had been spending some of his time, even if she hadn’t found him yet. Liz wandered back up to the study, lifted Paul’s laptop with her good arm, and turned away from the sight of the ruined window.
On the floor in the hallway outside, she opened up a browser and typed in PEW. The Internet was slower out here, far away from the router, and it seemed to take forever for the page to load. Liz watched the tiny disk spinning. Once it stopped, lines of text blurred before Liz’s eyes and she could hardly make sense of them. Her arm throbbed whenever she moved the mouse. There were avatars for people called Pam’s Mom and Processed and Enviro Pyro. Faintly punny things or references to children from people who seemed to want to parent in a more responsible way. Threads about how to turn off the TV for good, nature-deprivation disorder, alternatives to foods with soy or corn in them. A Motherdoctor who offered tips for healthy pregnancies and alternative birthing. Liz might’ve been able to imagine Paul chatting about subjects such as these, but she couldn’t find any instance of Professor, nor a single Reid’s Dad or Ally’s Dad on the off chance that Paul had decided to change handles.
And what did it matter if she did locate her husband in cold cyberspace? That wouldn’t have anything to do with wherever Paul was now. Liz was looking for Paul on a blank screen, in a nest of wires, when what she needed to do was pound the earth, find her children amidst live, growing things, hold the warmth of their bodies.
The urge came at her like a gathering storm.
Liz rose and walked back into the study. She picked up one of the journals Paul subscribed to, knowing there wasn’t likely to be useful information in it either, yet still leafing through, slowly at first, taking in passages, before starting to skim pages, flipping faster and faster until the type turned into skittering black beetles before her eyes.
The cover tore in her hand, and the sound was both sacrilege—Paul pored over these tracts with religious fervor—and so deeply satisfying that Liz hurled the book across the room. It hit the wall, dropping to the floor in a splayed-out position of ignominy. Liz was about to reach for another when she paused.
The first time she’d been in this study, she had built carefully segmented stacks of journals, sorting and grouping as she looked for anything that might contain a hint of meaning.
Some of those stacks were denuded now. There were fewer of them.
Liz looked around, nerve-endings alighting on her skin.
One stack of old journals remained, with a half stack, also dated, spilling over nearby. Liz went to straighten the slumping ones and an envelope fell from the center of one volume. A hard object slid around inside.
The edge of the envelope sliced her skin, and Liz let out a cry. Twin wounds on her hand and her arm pulsed in concert, but Liz ignored them, concentrating on slitting the seal.
A small, silver key dropped out, the kind that would open a lockbox.
Untold amounts of time passed—great, leaching stretches of it as Liz looked through Paul’s study, then the rest of the house, searching for a lockbox she never knew her husband had. She opened every closet and cupboard, took out each drawer. She lifted the dust ruffle on their bed, then dared to look beneath Reid’s and Ally’s, trying not to focus on the childhood detritus under there: abandoned items that had once meant everything to their owners. Liz searched the dirt-floored basement; she even checked the attic crawlspace. Finally, dusty and rumpled and disheveled, she had to give up.
There was no lockbox in the house.
Had Paul kept it in his office at school? Maybe Marjorie would know.
It was after midnight.
Liz trudged into the dining room, the room that had been left the most intact by her hunt. She curled into a ball on the floor next to the table, and fell asleep to the far-off lowing of a train, tiny key still gripped in her hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
By dawn Liz had combed the house again, still finding no sign of a box. She had neither the energy nor the will to put the house back to rights, and the siren’s call of the garden was strong. Roots was a sprawling expanse, but once it had simply been the plot of soil into which Liz deposited seeds with cupped hands, watching fronds and shoots appear weeks or months later with a sense of wonder trumped only by the first times she’d felt Reid and Ally flutter-kick inside her body.
Liz pulled on her boots and a jacket against the pre-morning chill, then went outside into the fading moonlight.
She wove between overflowing rectangles of squash, checking their wrist-thick stems for signs of blight, until she came to the raised beds that lay adjacent to the wildflower meadow. It was almost impossible to keep on top of weeds here; often an utterly perfect dame’s rocket or a spiky elecampane was discovered in a handful of bindweed that Liz or Jill had been just about to pull out.
Liz crouched down, feeling a sense of solace steal over her as she plunged her hands into the growth, separating strands. Leaves tickled her wrists above her gloves, and the loamy smell of earth filled her nostrils. Liz teased apart stalks of Indian paintbrush and cornflowers, plucking the occasional interloper and bagging it carefully to prevent spores from dispersing.
She didn’t realize how far she had migrated from her original spot, sidling on her knees deeper and deeper into the field of blossoms, until she felt a vibration of footsteps on the ground.
Liz looked up, blinking away an orangey afterglow from the flowers. The sun had risen in the sky and she had to block her eyes.
Tim spoke as she got to her feet. “This is some plot of land.”
Liz nodded, tracking his gaze.
“I saw that you called,” he said.
He was dressed in jeans; still off-duty, or just going off. Liz told Tim what had happened last night. The wind, the punching branch, the repairman who had come. Even her sense that journals might be missing from Paul’s study, along with her realization that no branch could’ve flown that far by itself.
Tim’s expression was implacable. He was no easier to read now than he had been as the completely alien species of teenage boy. Way back when, Liz and Jill had wiled away untold hours, trying to understand that species. Trying to understand Tim.
“Why don’t we go take a look?”
Liz shucked off her muddy boots before leading Tim up to Paul’s study. She flinched at the disarray, the journal she’d thrown, all the items moved in her searc
h. But Tim appeared unfazed, taking the measure of the room. She supposed he had seen much worse.
He turned to face her. “Mind if I take a walk around outside?”
This time Liz followed.
From the ground Tim tilted his head up to the missing window, then walked a wide, looping circle toward the woods. “It came from one of these?”
Liz shook her head, the back of her neck prickling. “It was an oak branch. Not a fir.”
Tim left the evergreens and counted out his paces forward. “Still couldn’t have made it. You’re right.”
Liz nodded, tentacles of fear upon her. “The glass guy was up there,” she said. “On my roof. He broke the glass himself.”
“That’d be my guess,” Tim agreed. “That’s how he knew to come.”
“Maybe he was trying to get those journals.”
“Maybe,” Tim said. “But it’s not the biggest question I have right now.”
Liz frowned.
“Liz,” Tim said, and his tone contained an aching kindness, even if his next words penetrated like a spear. “Why were you in the yard when less than a week after your children were taken, two strangers showed up at your house?”
Liz’s fingers hooked themselves into claws; she felt crumbly bits of soil beneath her nails. She’d been pulling up weeds. When her children were missing.
Everything Jill had said was true. Liz had always accorded Paul the power to figure things out. But he hadn’t taken control—she’d ceded it. Given it up. And then her father showed up, and Liz was all set to do it again. Her terror-induced epiphany in the bunker at Matthew’s farm, when she’d realized that she could get out by herself, had been just as short-lived as her time down there. Left to her own devices, Liz embarked on futile searches and met dead ends. She was waiting for someone not only to chart a course, but to navigate it for her.
Liz wandered blindly back into the house. Walked in circles until the smell of coffee lured her toward the kitchen. Tim was standing there, wiping his hands on a dishcloth and watching the dark brew drip.
He took a cup from a shelf and offered it to her.
Something in Liz seized up and she snatched the cup away. “Isn’t this my job?” she snapped. “I can make coffee in my own damn house.”
“Of course you can,” Tim said, his voice hoarse. “You just looked as if you could use someone—”
“What?” Liz broke in. “To do it for me? Do I need everyone to do everything for me?”
“Just make you a cup of coffee once in a while.”
Liz turned around, hunting milk and sugar, and Tim reached for her. She whirled. His fingers felt like brands upon her shoulder, and his eyes were dark coals.
“Liz,” he said. “I’ve never been the one who doubted you.”
Something in Liz began to move and break up. Portions of time, relationships shifting like tectonic plates. She was the one who had found PEW, even if the chance that it might contain any relevant information was uncertain. She’d discovered the tragedy that had assailed Paul long ago, and the link it might hold to today. She had a key now, a literal one.
Liz and Tim seemed to realize at the same moment that his hand was still gripping her. He let go, averting his gaze. Liz thought about the glass that had been punched in last night, and wondered why, of all people, Tim had been the one to open this window into herself.
“So you do think there’s a connection,” she said when she could trust herself to speak. “Between the things that happened here and Ally and Reid going missing.”
Tim responded swiftly. “As I mentioned before, I don’t trust coincidences.”
Liz nodded toward the table. “Please. Have some coffee.”
Tim took a seat and drank from his mug.
After a moment, Liz joined him.
“So, do you investigate?” she asked him.
Tim hesitated.
“I mean, this is criminal, right? Destruction of property? Trespassing?”
Tim tented his hands. “Normally I’d submit a report and we might have a man drive by your house a few times over the next couple of days. Make sure the guy doesn’t come back.”
Liz nodded. “And abnormally?”
Tim began drumming his fingers upon the surface of the table; they made a steady beat. She watched his hand move rhythmically.
“Look, I could do a more thorough search for a company called Crane’s. If I come up with anything, I’ll take a trip out to see if anyone matching your description works there.” Tim paused. “This guy sounds like he’d stand out.”
Liz could still see that sweeping wave of hair, the sheen over the man’s eyes that masked any feeling. He’d spoken with exquisite precision, yet he’d just been crawling around on her roof in order to smash through the window while Liz sat at Paul’s computer, blithely unaware. Jill and Lia had been working right nearby, also unwitting. Liz’s insides gave a slow heave.
She fought to keep her voice level. Emotion still churned inside her, a mix of many things, only one of them her nightmarish last night. “Thanks, Tim. I really appreciate that.”
He stood up, coffee cup empty, and came to a halt behind her chair. Liz closed her eyes, listening to the sound of Tim’s breathing. It was slow and even, strangely comforting.
“I hope that I …” he said from above.
But his words tapered off, and Liz was left listening only to the firm retreat of Tim’s boots and wondering what he had decided not to say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
She looked up a glazier, a real one, and arranged for an emergency appointment that morning. Liz tidied up the study, then the rest of the house. She stood by while the window was repaired, no word or notice paid to which glass was chosen.
There was only one place to go after that.
Liz drove through the gates and parked in Paul’s faculty spot. Security wouldn’t be too voracious about checking stickers before the start of the semester, and Liz wanted to get close to her husband’s office. She was tired, sleep largely lost to her now.
Paul had gone to school here in the mid-nineties, coming up from Junction Bridge, while Liz herself had been downstate at SUNY Binghamton. Liz had once expected to be a Lit professor, or maybe a writer, and Binghamton had a great English department. Funny how things ended up. Liz had met Paul during their senior years while she was home on break. After they started dating, she’d seen the struggle he went through as academia began to close in on itself. Even after getting a master’s degree—which Liz helped pay for, working mostly pointless admin jobs—Paul hadn’t been able to find any position besides a non-tenure track at his alma mater. But those early years of their marriage had served a purpose. They’d exposed Liz to Paul’s preoccupation with matters of the earth, and she had discovered a deep vein within herself that connected her to the outdoors. It made any life of the mind feel imprisoning.
She tried Paul’s office door, not surprised to find it locked. Backtracking down the hall, she was relieved to see Marjorie at her desk.
The secretary looked up, such a light of hope in her eyes that Liz almost pitied her.
“He’s not back,” Liz said.
Marjorie closed a window on her computer. “I suppose you wouldn’t be here if he were.”
“No,” Liz agreed. That had been the problem, hadn’t it? Her willingness to let life proceed largely at Paul’s direction, and unseen by her? She took a breath. “Marjorie, do you know if Paul kept a lockbox of some sort? Maybe in his office?”
“Not that I know of.” Marjorie rose. “But you can certainly check.”
The two of them walked down the hall so that Marjorie could unlock Paul’s office door. This room was neater and more spare than his office at home. The bookshelves contained the popular texts that Paul used in his courses—Bet the Farm, Garbology, The Humanure Handbook—but no teetering rows of journals. The desk was bare; Paul had simply brought his one laptop back and forth. And most of the drawers were empty. Here at school, Paul had demonstrated
his philosophy of small living. There certainly was no lockbox. Liz felt something inside her deflate. She reached into her purse, reassuring herself that she still had the key, even though there seemed no place to make it fit.
“Thanks, Marjorie,” Liz said, watching the secretary read resignation in her eyes. “I think I’ll go try to catch Lia.”
She could thank their intern for her help last night, and apologize for the tension coming from Jill. Although part of her wondered what her best friend meant by untrustworthy. Jill had been right about the charges she leveled at Liz. Maybe she was on to something where Lia was concerned, too.
Liz steered toward the students’ workspace. She got twisted around in the halls and had to walk through an adjoining department. Urban Planning and Design didn’t seem to fit the scope of Ag, but as Liz walked, she realized that dividing walls were coming down. There were now farms on high-rise rooftops, and city dwellings had postage stamp–sized gardens. Liz’s eye was drawn to the display of one student’s work. Jeffrey Matters seemed to be interested in the transformation of gray water. His model contained a tiny stand of cattails: invasive phragmites that filtered contaminants so that only pure drinking water remained.
Liz could’ve remained there a while, studying the minuscule grouping of carp in a circle of glossy painted water and reading how they fed on shrimp the size of rice, but she wanted to try to catch Lia. She sorted out the skein of hallways, coming at last to the retrofitted closet. Liz knocked, but nobody answered. She tried to swivel the knob, but it was closed up tight, and she found herself backtracking to the football display case, staring at its sorrowful contents.
Liz turned at the sound of footsteps. Adoring Girl—Sara—wore a long, flowered dress, and was knotting a blond dreadlock around her finger as she meandered along.
Liz called out, and the girl stopped.
“Is Professor Daniels back?” Sara dropped her eyes, but couldn’t hide a flush that deepened the color in her cheeks. “I mean, I just had a question to ask him. About getting into one of his classes.” The flush had gone from a ruddy pink to something that looked almost blistered.
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