by Jodi Thomas
“He’ll kill me if he finds me.” Blaine owed Miller information for the favor, but she couldn’t tell him more without putting Miller’s life in danger.
“You know him? He your husband? Your family?”
She shook her head. “No, but I saw him commit a crime a few days ago. The other person who could identify him is already dead.”
Miller took the news without blinking. Apparently he’d heard more frightening stories. “You getting enough to eat, pest?”
Blaine nodded, realizing she’d devoured everything on her tray.
“You got a place where you’re safe when you sleep?”
She nodded again. “All I have to do is be invisible for a few days. The police will catch this guy, then I can surface.”
“Any family looking for you?”
“I have a husband, but he’ll be all right. His work is very important. My guess is he’ll get lost in it.” She almost added that Mark never reacted to things. No highs, no lows. She could count on him always being the same. In the ten years they had been married, she’d never seen Mark show much emotion at all. Not anger or rage or frustration. Not passion or hurt or jealousy. Loving him was easy. Mark never snapped at her or got furious, but in turn he’d never made love to her as if he’d die if he couldn’t have her.
Somehow, in his early years, his parents’ coldness toward him had stunted his growth inside. She had no doubt he cared for her as much as he could and that had always been enough. His passion lay in his work and Blaine knew from the beginning she’d always be in the background.
“There’s a place to get lunch on Neches. Mostly sandwiches and soup.” Miller’s voice lowered. His words sharpened—the words of a man who knew what he was talking about. “They don’t ask questions. You’ll be safe enough there, but stay off the streets as much as you can and be careful going anywhere not surrounded by people.”
Miller stared at her as if sizing up her strength. “If he does see you and follows, the last thing you want to do is give him an opportunity to strike. He’s stronger than most men his size. If he gets his hands on you, he wouldn’t need a weapon to kill.”
“Are you trying to frighten me?”
Miller looked up from his food with steel-blue eyes. “Yes. This is no game out here and there may be no one to help you.”
Blaine studied Miller. “You will.”
“Don’t plan on it.”
She wished she could read his story in his eyes. Reasons hid behind his words, deep dark reasons that haunted him.
“You helped me yesterday. You’re helping me now. Why?”
“You’re nothing but a sparrow in a tornado. If someone doesn’t give you a hand, you’ll die circling in the wind.” He tossed his napkin on his tray. “Eat regular and mind what I said. I’ll ask around, maybe I can find out where the guy hangs out.”
“He’s not a street person,” Blaine volunteered.
“Neither are you.” Miller stood and left without another word.
Fifteen
“Anderson?” a male voice snapped before Mark had time to say a word.
Mark didn’t have to guess the caller, he knew. “Randell, how can I help you?”
The detective didn’t waste time with small talk. “We got the results back from the nurse’s dental records.”
“Yeah.”
“There is no doubt. The woman you thought was your wife is a Sindi Richards. She didn’t have any family here and no friends who knew her well enough to turn in an official missing persons the day after the bombing. The staff at the clinic hadn’t gotten around to it. But the doc says there’s no doubt about it being Richards’s body, even if she was holding your wife’s rings when she died.”
There was a long pause, then Randell added, “You all right? I probably should have come over to tell you. It’s not the kind of thing to just spring on someone.” Another pause, then he added, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine.” Mark’s voice was calm. No one could see the death grip he held on the phone. “You were right to call. I wanted to know the results as soon as possible.”
What the detective wasn’t saying rang in his head. If the body wasn’t Blaine’s, then where was his wife?
Finally, Randell said, “Do you want to file a missing persons?”
Mark closed his eyes. “No,” he finally said. He needed time to think. Everyone in the police station would look at him as if he was just another one of those husbands whose wife runs out on him. He knew Blaine hadn’t left him.
He didn’t know where she was, or why she hadn’t come home, but Mark refused to believe that she’d just left him. Blaine wasn’t like that.
“How are you?” Randell asked as if they were friends. “Really?”
“I’m all right.” He thought of adding that his world was collapsing in on itself. His wife had shifted from dead to missing. An hour ago Harry Winslow had distributed his caseload to the other lawyers as if handing out a dead man’s clothes. He was suddenly swimming in an ocean of feelings he’d managed to keep locked away most of his life. He had no wife, no work and he felt as if his mind might snap at any moment.
“I’m fine. Really,” Mark managed to say, wishing he could convince himself.
Randell would think he was cracking up if he talked about work after what he’d just learned, and he didn’t know enough to ask what next to do about Blaine. For Mark, work was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered.
Until Blaine disappeared.
Mark hung up the phone and drove back to the office. He had no reason to go in now, but he didn’t want to stay at the apartment. Maybe he could think more clearly sitting in the empty office.
Darkness settled over the city by the time he parked in one of the spaces out front of his building. He let himself in the main door and weaved through the outer office without bothering with the lights.
He was almost past Winslow’s door when he heard voices. Winslow sounded angry, yelling about finishing a job that was sloppy from the beginning.
Another male voice almost whined as he promised to get the work done.
“This is your last job, Jimmy, don’t screw it up.”
Mark quietly retraced his steps to the front door and opened it just enough so that he could close it hard, then he flipped on the lights.
Winslow appeared in his door a moment later. “Mark!” he almost shouted. “What are you doing here? I thought you were taking the week off.”
Mark didn’t miss the redness in Harry’s face.
“I just came in to pick up some papers,” he said. “Bettye Ruth said she’d leave them on her desk.”
As Mark moved across the room, he noticed Winslow blocked the door to his own office.
“You’re working late,” Mark said casually. “Hope taking on my extra load isn’t too much.”
“No. No.” Winslow tried to look relaxed, but didn’t quite pull it off. “I was just finishing up a few things.” He stepped aside. “In fact, my mechanic just delivered my car, so I’ll be heading out soon.”
Mark looked past Winslow and saw a thin man wearing a baseball hat that had seen better days.
Harry waved his hand. “Mark Anderson, this is Jimmy, a guy who has worked for me off and on for forty years.”
Mark nodded with the introduction, but Jimmy didn’t look at him.
Winslow hurried to add, “We met out in West Texas during my wildcatting days in the oil business. There’s not much old Jimmy can’t do when the need arises.” Winslow glared at Jimmy meaningfully.
Mark had heard a hundred of Harry’s stories about his early days, but he wasn’t in the mood to visit with this guy named Jimmy any more than Jimmy seemed to want to talk to him.
“Well—” Mark grabbed the first file he saw on Bettye Ruth’s desk “—I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
Winslow nodded, but Jimmy seemed fascinated with the carpet. He didn’t bother to look up when Mark disappeared.
&nbs
p; Once alone, Mark tossed the file on his desk, emptied his pockets of cell phone and keys, then began to pace in front of his long row of windows. Harry Winslow had some shady people who came to him for counsel, everyone in the office knew about it. He was a lawyer who sometimes liked to work for trade and didn’t always bill from the firm. No one said anything about it since he was a senior partner, but more than once Mark had wondered what had been on the table in the swap.
Mark plopped down in his chair and leaned back. More than likely Harry was getting engine work done for nothing while he handled talkative Jimmy’s divorce papers. Mark would be willing to bet his pink slip that the mechanic wasn’t just delivering Winslow’s car.
For once in his life, Mark couldn’t get everything to fall into place. He felt as if he was working with puzzle pieces to ten different puzzles. An hour passed and the lack of sleep caught up with him.
When he awoke it was after midnight. He grabbed his keys and forced himself to head home.
He was in his car before he realized he’d forgotten his cell phone. No problem. He had no clients who’d be calling anyway.
Strange though, he thought, he usually picked it up with the keys. He didn’t even remember seeing it on the desk. Mark scratched his head. He really had to get a grip.
Sixteen
Mark drank his way through the next few days. Not bothering to shower or shave he waited, like an addict, until almost nine to venture out to restock his supply of alcohol. It didn’t matter what he drank, as long as it would dull his mind. He worked his way through the liquor cabinet and then selected bottles at the liquor mart based on how close they were to the counter when he hurried in to buy more.
Several people called from the office wanting to know when Blaine’s memorial service would be. Mark couldn’t bring himself to tell them that there was no body, so he simply said they were waiting on family from out of town.
By Saturday, the alcohol had made him more sick than drunk. His message machine was full, and after listening to the first few, he erased them all. He read about Sindi Richards’s funeral service and sobered up enough to dress and go. It was held at the funeral home, and the folded card he was handed when he walked in told him her body was being taken back to Jefferson, her hometown, to be buried in a family plot. For some reason, that made him feel better. After she’d lain in the morgue under someone else’s name for days, at least she’d be among family now.
The smell of flowers greeted him as he walked in and looked around the small chapel. Twenty people sat a few rows back from what had to be her family. A long blond-wood casket waited at the front. A picture of a young woman in a nurse’s cap sat atop the casket.
Mark took a seat near the back. As the funeral started, he decided the older couple in the first row had to be the girl’s parents but, of the younger couples, he couldn’t tell which were siblings and which were just kin by marriage. Every one of the young couples had children.
The minister gave a canned sermon where he filled in the blanks with Sindi’s name now and then. A man identifying himself as a brother gave a short history of the girl’s life and how much she was loved. Several people began to sniffle. A woman, who said she was Sindi’s boss, told of what a good worker she was and how greatly she’d be missed.
Slowly, Mark realized the very fact that had caused him hope had been a blow to this family. Until Randell called, Mark thought Blaine was dead, now he was searching for answers and the Richards family had found theirs.
Mark blinked hard and slipped out during the prayer. He hurt so badly, his chest heaved in pain. The girl had had so many people to cry for her, to miss her, to wonder how they’d go on without her. His wife had only him and he was a poor excuse for family.
He climbed into his car and pressed his palms into his eyes. “I’ll find you, Blaine. I swear.”
He drove home and called Bettye Ruth, asking her to find out who was the best private eye in Austin. As usual, his secretary made no comment about why. He then drank himself to sleep and dreamed of digging through ashes franticly searching for Blaine.
By Monday, the paper had the story of the mix-up in bodies. By Tuesday, everyone Mark knew called, wanting to know more and to ask how he was holding up under all the pressure. A few invited him out to dinner, as if Blaine’s disappearance might be an interesting topic of conversation.
Winslow called, suggesting Mark make sure all the correct papers were filed and all accounts were in Mark’s name. He talked as if he was worried that Blaine might never be found, but he ended the conversation by making Mark promise to call the minute he had any news.
Mark was surprised and touched by his depth of concern.
Randell came by and together they made a list of places Blaine usually went, even asking her hairdresser and nail tech for information. The cop claimed that women will tell those people things they’d never tell even a husband. He also wanted a list of people who knew Blaine.
Mark realized no one knew his shy wife very well. No one had taken the time. Including him. Most of the research work she did was contracted and she worked at her own pace, then mailed the results. Though she had an office and a mailbox at the library, she didn’t report to anyone there.
By Thursday, he’d sobered up enough to shower and pick up the bottles around the town house, which had the faint smell of a brewery about it. Tres still wasn’t talking to him and Mark couldn’t find the cat food. He’d bought her several different kinds, but she’d only stared at them as if to say, “You expect me to eat this?” He scrambled her an egg the way he knew Blaine did, and dropped it in her bowl on top of the one he’d scrambled a few days before. He didn’t have any milk, and the fussy feline didn’t seem to like watered-down coffee creamer. She circled the kitchen a few times and went out the pet door as if she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him.
“Leave me too,” he yelled after the cat. “Why not? Leave me without a word.”
When the cat door flapped back into place, Mark realized how foolish he sounded. He knew he needed to get a grip on his anger, but he wasn’t sure how to do it. Blaine had always been the listener who helped him work through everything. Sometimes, when he’d had a hard day, she didn’t have to say a word, just being with her made him feel better.
He went from worrying himself sick about what might have happened to her, to hating her for leaving him and hating himself for being the kind of person people never cared about. He wanted to stand on the balcony and scream that he was worth something, see all he’d done, see all he’d accumulated. He was worth something. He was worth someone caring about. He was worth being loved.
Friday, when he went down to check his mail, he ran into Miss Lilly painting daisies on her mail slot. The old woman was dressed in overalls embroidered with tiny purple frogs and wore a straw hat that looked as if it had once been wrapped around a potted plant.
Her smile was somehow sad as she asked how he’d been.
They talked about the weather, and the traffic, and the new neighbors who would be moving in next month, but Miss Lilly didn’t mention Blaine. It was as if her name was on both their tongues but they had to talk around it.
Miss Lilly must have read the papers. She knew Blaine wasn’t dead. Maybe she was afraid to think about what might have happened to her. Mark knew the possibilities were nightmares.
Just as he turned to say goodbye, Mark did something he’d never done before—he asked the old lady if she wanted to go to dinner. They had lived next door to one another for four years as polite strangers and now he was about to eat with her twice. He could attribute his insanity to the fact that the only calories he’d had in days had come from a bottle.
“You plan on shaving?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrow.
“No,” he answered. Just to be ornery he added, “You?”
She set down the paintbrush and laughed with her whole body, taking no offense to his comment.
“You buying?”
“If you’ll was
h that paint off your face,” he said, “I’ll buy.”
“I pick the place, though.”
He agreed, relieved. He had no idea were one takes a little old neighbor to dinner. “Deal. How do I dress?”
“You’re fine just the way you are. Pick me up in ten minutes.” She waddled off with her paints in one hand and brushes in the other.
Mark almost ran after her and said he’d changed his mind, but the old woman had allowed his brain to think of something else besides Blaine. Maybe, if only for a few moments, he could relax and breathe. He felt as if he’d been holding his breath for days.
Ten minutes later he tapped on her door and wasn’t surprised to see she hadn’t bothered to change clothes. It crossed his mind that she might pick an expensive place, but he doubted she even knew where the trendy spots were located. He had made the rounds, both with Blaine and without her, when clients needed to talk. She never seemed to mind when he couldn’t make dinner, and he wondered if she bothered to eat when she wasn’t dining with him. No matter how late he might be, she usually managed to wait up for him, if only to say good-night.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he helped Miss Lilly into his car. Lilly and his BMW might both be built low to the ground, but she didn’t fold inside easily.
“Subway,” she answered as she fought with her seat belt. “I got a two-for-one coupon. You get two six-inch sandwiches for the price of one.”
Subway wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but it sounded as good as anywhere. She gave him a commercial on the place having all these sandwiches with less than six grams of fat, but made no comment about the six cookies and extra bag of chips she ordered with her meal.
To his surprise, after picking up their food, they were not eating at the plastic tables surrounding the counter. She wanted to drive out to Waterloo Park.
They talked of nothing while they ate. Mark picked at his sandwich, tossing most of it to the squirrels.
Lilly insisted they both have 7-Up to drink. She pulled a bottle from her suitcase-size purse and divided a few ounces of the red liquid into their drinks.
