“Maybe he had a heart attack or something.”
“The boy at the gas station said he saw them drive away.” Abby toyed with her cup, thinking of the cabin, its remote location. She thought of Nick jotting Sondra’s name inside a book of matches in handwriting that was as familiar to her as her own. She could see it, the rushed slant of his “S,” the extra loop on the “r” that made its shape seem almost girlish. She could see him smiling over it, smiling at Sondra, and she felt insulted. She felt the awful insinuation that seemed implicit building in her mind, and she tightened her jaw. She looked at Hank. “I’d like to go there,” she said even as she was thinking how insane it was, completely insane to involve herself on any level with this man and his problems. Didn’t she have enough of her own?
“Go where?”
“To your wife’s cabin.”
Hank’s eyes widened. “You think Sondra and your husband—?”
“I don’t know.” Abby didn’t want Hank to say it, having an affair. “It might not be that.”
“What else then?”
“She worked for Judge Payne.”
“So? What does the cabin have to do with that?”
Abby pulled the book of matches from her purse and pushed it across the table with the tip of her index finger. “Do you know this place?”
“Riverbend Lodge? Yeah. It’s a dump on the highway outside Bandera.”
“Is it anywhere near your wife’s cabin?”
“Not really. You pass it going there, I guess.”
“Look inside.”
Hank opened the cover. “That’s Sondra’s fax number.”
Abby said, “That’s Nick’s handwriting.”
“This is how you found me?”
Abby nodded.
“But if he wanted to get in touch with her, why wouldn’t he just call her? She has a cell phone, or she did have.”
“He might have faxed her documents related to the trial,” Abby said. “I haven’t any idea, really, but there’s something else you should know.”
He waited.
“My friend Kate ran into Nick in Bandera last winter, not long before you lost touch with your wife.”
Hank’s brows shot up. “Alone or—?”
Abby shrugged. Kate hadn’t mentioned seeing Nick with a woman, but given Kate’s history, that might not mean anything.
Hank’s gaze considered her. “Your husband—he was implicated when the money went missing last fall from the account that was set up for those kids, wasn’t he? But it was that other guy, Helix Belle’s own attorney—Sanders, Sandover, something like that—”
“Adam Sandoval.” Abby supplied the right name. “Nick had nothing to do with it.” She stopped short of saying that she’d gone looking for Sherry Sandoval; she wasn’t going to repeat any of what the Sandoval’s neighbor had told her. It was as Kate said, nothing but gossip. It couldn’t be more....
Hank said he remembered the raw deal Nick got. “Sondra went on a rant about it.”
“Did she ever talk about Adam? She must have known him, too, from the courtroom.”
Hank kept Abby’s gaze, and she watched the wave of disquiet creep over his expression. Her own breath felt uncertain. Even her surroundings, their entire conversation, seemed unreal now, the product of bizarre imagination.
“Jesus, he’s gone, too, isn’t he? He jumped bail. It was all over the news.”
“Last spring, right before the flood, not long after your wife—”
“My wife and your husband took off.”
“Nick didn’t take off, not with our daughter.”
Hank’s eyes widened at the bite in Abby’s words. She didn’t care.
“So what is all this, then?” He matched her hard tone, spreading his hands. “A coincidence? My wife worked for a judge who oversaw a case where two of the opposing attorneys are now missing, along with a helluva a lot of cash. What’s next, or maybe I should say, who’s next? The judge? Is he going to disappear?”
Abby didn’t have an answer. She picked up the matchbook, returning it to her purse.
Hank’s sigh was heavy and unsettled the air. “I still don’t see what the cabin has to do with anything. Sondra never went there much. She’s a city girl, can’t stand being stuck in the boonies. She only kept the place because her grandparents loved it, and she loved them. But now that they’re both gone, she’s talked about selling it.”
“It’s isolated, then.” Abby found Hank’s gaze, saw him take her meaning.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great place to hide.”
* * *
“Mom? What are you doing?”
“Driving home,” Abby said. “Can I call you back?”
“No, Mom. Jesus, Gramma called me. That teacher from the school called and said you never showed. Gramma’s been trying your cell phone and the home number all morning. She’s about to go up to Hardys Walk.”
“Oh, God, Jake, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Hold on.” Abby laid the cell phone in the passenger seat and steered the car over two lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder of the freeway. Cars rushed past so close, they shook the BMW. Abby closed her eyes a moment, making herself breathe, then picked up the phone and apologized again.
“But what are you doing?” Jake demanded.
“I realize you’re angry with me, and I wish I could explain. I have to do this, that’s all. There’s just no other way, and I’m so tired of arguing—”
“Mom, stop. You’re jabbering.”
Abby pressed her lips together.
“You went to see the guy who sent the fax, didn’t you?”
“Who told you?”
“Gramma. She figured that’s where you were.”
Abby danced her fingers along the top of the steering wheel.
“I don’t know how you can accuse me of keeping stuff from you,” Jake said.
“I haven’t accused you, Jake.”
“Maybe not in so many words, but you make it pretty clear.”
Abby sighed. “Maybe we’re both insane.”
“Now you’re talking. Who is the guy anyway? Does he know Dad or what?”
“He doesn’t. But his wife might.” Abby waited for Jake to ask who the wife was, to ask why Hank’s wife would know his dad. But the silence from Jake’s end was profound.
“Jake? Are you there?”
He said, “Yes,” but the distinct hesitation before he answered was unmistakable. Ominous. Alarm prickled the fine hairs on the back of Abby’s neck; she put a hand there.
“Mom, it’s like I said before, you need to go home. You need to build a new life, because the one you had is over. You don’t need to be hurt anymore, okay? Just go home.”
Abby looked out at nothing, and when she finally said his name, she knew he’d hung up. She was talking to dead air.
* * *
Abby’s mother met her at the kitchen door.
“Jake said you’ve been into town to see that man.” She followed Abby into the kitchen. “I thought you threw away his number.”
“I did.” Abby sat down.
Her mother took a cup and saucer down from the cabinet.
“Could I have a glass of water instead?” Abby asked.
Her mother filled a glass and brought it to Abby, then sat in an adjacent chair. She took Abby’s hands. “What’s going on, sweet?”
Abby’s eyes filled. “Jake is pretty upset with me.”
“We were worried. We didn’t know what in the world had happened to you. Hap Albright called from Clark at nine and said you still weren’t there. The school is only a ten-minute drive from your house.”
“Hap was at Clark? What was he doing? Checking up on me?”
“I don’t think s
o. He said he just happened to be there.”
Abby made a face.
Her mother patted her hands and released them.
Abby said, “I can’t shake the feeling that Jake knows something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He just seems so determined that I should stop looking for answers. He wants me to go home. That’s all he ever says—go home.”
“He wants you to be okay, honey. We all do.”
Abby sighed.
“So, this man, this Hank person, did you learn anything helpful from him?”
Abby gave her mother the gist of their conversation. She said, “Clearly, his wife knew Nick, and if she knew him, she must have known Adam, too. They were all working on the same case.”
“Okay, but do you really think it’s possible the disappearances are related, that they somehow involve Helix Belle and the money that was stolen?”
“I know. It seems so far-fetched.”
“Abby, it sounds like an episode of Forty-Eight Hours.”
Abby managed a smile. She said, “I don’t know about Sondra, what she might be capable of, but Nick was cleared. He had no part in what Adam did. I know that,” she added. But did she? Did she really know Nick at all?
“Maybe you should go to the police.”
“And say what? That I think my husband, who they’re convinced drowned with my daughter in a flood, is actually alive and involved in some sort of—?” Conspiracy. Abby broke off before she could say it, remembering her confrontation with Joe at his office when she’d questioned whether it was possible that Nick had an unhappy client, one who might have followed him and harassed him. Even when Abby told Joe that Nick had mentioned that very possibility to her, Joe had been annoyed; he’d practically sneered. There’s no conspiracy, he’d said. But then she’d dismissed the possibility, too, when Nick brought it up to her.
Abby looked at her mother. “I don’t think the police would pay the slightest attention to me, Mama. I’m going tomorrow with Hank to Sondra’s cabin. Maybe we’ll find something there.”
“Like what? You don’t even know the man. Where do you intend to spend the night?”
“We’re not spending the night.”
“But the drive is too long to make it there and back in one day.”
“But I’m going to, and that’s that.” Abby stood up. “I only came by to say I’m sorry I worried you and to tell you I’m going.”
“But this isn’t like you, Abigail. What do you hope to accomplish? What could this woman, or Adam Sandoval for that matter, possibly have to do with Nick?”
Nothing good. The words rose into Abby’s mouth. She finished her water and set the glass in the sink. She thought in terms of the result she would hope for if hope were possible, and she might have laughed, but her mother’s anxiety was palpable. Abby turned and hugged her close. “I don’t know, Mama. That’s why I have to go there.”
Chapter 20
The neighborhood was old, not more than a handful of crumbling dead-end streets and ramshackle bungalows poked into a frayed pocket on the edge of downtown Houston. Abby would never have found it without the map Hank had drawn for her. He’d said the house was a yellow brick one-story, but pulling into the driveway, she thought the color was more drab. She thought it was as drab and sad-looking as Hank himself. Apprehension knotted her stomach. She wondered if she could go through with it, her fool’s errand. It’s not like you, Abigail…. Her mother’s caution rattled through her mind. Her ordinarily rational mind. But that word...ordinary...what did it mean anymore?
Abby got out of the car into air that was thick and still and too warm for November. The cloud cover had thickened, too, and grown darker like a ripening bruise. It would rain later just to spite her. She picked her way across the haphazard row of stepping-stones that led to the front door and paused at the front stoop, a misshapen, flatish chunk of rust-stained concrete pushed against the house. It looked like leftover construction, as if it might have fallen off the back of a truck bound for the city dump. It wobbled when Abby stepped up onto it. She glanced at the BMW and thought of going home. But that seemed as impossible now as staying here, and she turned, ruefully, to the old, metal screen door that rattled obnoxiously when she knocked. Abby expected Hank to answer, but instead it was a woman, a tall, angular, plain-faced, female version of Hank, who said she was his sister.
“Kim.” She gave her name, and Abby sensed aggravation and unhappiness.
It must run in the family, she thought. “Hank didn’t mention having a sister. It’s nice to meet you. I’m—”
“Abby Bennett, I know.” Kim continued her scrutiny and her silence, and Abby was unsure what to do.
“Shall I come in?” she asked finally. “Is Hank here?”
Kim’s answer was to thrust open the door so abruptly that Abby was forced to step down off the stoop. She looked at Kim in bewilderment, a bit of alarm, but Hank’s sister only rolled her eyes. “Come in,” she said, “before the mosquitoes do.”
Reluctantly, Abby obeyed, losing her vision for a moment in the dark confines of the tiny entry hall.
“Caitlin and Hank have allergies. You aren’t wearing any wool, are you?” Kim looked Abby up and down.
“No,” Abby said. “It’s a little warm today for wool.”
“They’re very sensitive. I have to be careful.”
“Of course,” Abby said. She stowed her keys in her purse, taking her time, uneasy under the weight of Kim’s gaze, her intensity that was reminiscent of Hank.
Kim said she was taking Caitlin to school. “I drop her off every morning,” she said, “on my way to work. I’m a teller at First Century Bank, the one near Caitlin’s school. Hank picks her up after. I don’t like her to ride the bus. Too many bullies. Who knows what could happen? I don’t trust a single one of those drivers anyway.”
Abby nodded, as if Kim’s concern seemed natural when it didn’t. It seemed possessive, more like fear-driven obsession. But fear of what? Bullies and bus drivers? Abby didn’t think so. Some instinct said it went deeper.
“Hank tells me you believe your husband’s run off with his wife.” Kim said this bald-faced, without so much as the blink of an eye.
Abby’s mouth fell open a little.
“We’re close,” Kim said. “We talk about everything.”
You’re rude. Abby wanted to say it. “I’m not sure what I believe actually. What Hank and I are doing, making this trip to the cabin, it’s probably crazy.”
Kim sniffed. “Since Hank brought Sondra into this family, I’ve had to raise the bar on what’s crazy. You know they were separated?”
“He mentioned it.”
“Well, did he tell you the sort of work she found for herself after she moved out?”
“He said she opened an interior-design business.”
Kim hooted. “That little venture lasted less than a month and cost my brother half his savings to set up. I told him he was a fool. Sondra can’t balance her checkbook, much less run a business. She’s got the attention span of a gnat, never sticks with anything. As soon as she ran out of money, Hank caught her stripping again, and I’m not talking wallpaper. She refused to come home, even to see Caitlin. Now she’s gone. Poof. No one’s seen her since. Good riddance, I say.” Kim peered at Abby, but if she wanted a response, Abby didn’t have one.
“Well, come along then.” Kim turned. “Hank and Caitlin are in the kitchen. This way.”
Abby followed in Kim’s wake. They passed a dining room, crossed the den. The white walls and scuffed floors were bare of any adornment other than a sofa covered in plastic and the vinyl blinds that were pulled low over every window. There was a definite smell of disinfectant that made Abby think of hospitals and isolation, that made her think of loneliness and depression
. Her heart tapped nervously against her ribs.
Kim paused before a closed door and rested her hand on the doorknob, facing Abby. “I should warn you Caitlin might be upset. She doesn’t like it when Hank leaves, not since Sondra went off. She’s afraid of losing him, too.”
“We won’t go then.” Abby was hopeful.
“But you have to. Hank won’t see the truth otherwise.”
“The truth?” Abby was at sea.
“About Sondra.” Kim was impatient. “I’ve tried since high school when he had the misfortune of meeting her to get him to listen to me, to see reason. We’ve always watched out for each other, you know? Since we were kids. But he’s totally blind when it comes to Sondra. He can’t believe a woman like her would look at him twice, much less marry him. As if she’s the prize. Hah! If you could see her, nothing but blond hair and cleavage. And Hank? Well, we’re plain people with simple tastes, that’s all.”
Abby lifted her hands. “I don’t know—” what this has to do with me. That’s what she intended to say, but Kim huffed a short syllable of disgust.
“Let me tell you something—” she bent toward Abby “—the first time Sondra left Caitlin, the child was scarcely six weeks old, and Hank called me to come and change her diapers. Sondra was gone the day Caitlin spoke her first word, took her first step. When Caitlin nearly died from an asthma attack, who do you think took the time to learn about it and how to protect her?”
Kim thumped her chest. “Me! I’m the one who knows she can’t live in a house that’s cluttered with the pillows and throw rugs and drapery that Sondra insists on dragging in here. I know green is Caitlin’s favorite color, not pink—everything Sondra gives the child is pink—and that she hates the Barbie dolls Sondra insists are her favorites. I keep this house clean and dust-free and see to it that Hank and Caitlin are properly fed and when that—that whore deigns to show up here, she cries to me and promises she’ll do better and thank you very much but go home.” Kim paused, pressing her lips together. Still, her chin wobbled.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Abby said.
Evidence of Life Page 19
