Three Women Disappear

by James Patterson

  “Goodness,” she said. “Sit back down and let’s get you fed.”

  “It isn’t food I need,” I told her. “I mean it is, but—”

  “Insulin,” she guessed. “Why on earth didn’t you say something? How long’s it been?”

  She bolted out of the kitchen before I could answer, returned seconds later with the emergency kit she kept on hand for my visits.

  “This’ll fix you up,” she said.

  And then she was on her knees, administering a fifteen-unit shot. The relief came instantly—a fleeting high that could trick you into believing the disease was worth the reward.

  When I opened my eyes again, I found Aunt Lindsey in full nurse mode, cutting my jeans open with a pair of scissors, tossing away the makeshift tourniquet, dousing the wound with rubbing alcohol and covering it with gauze. I did my best not to grimace.

  “That should hold off any infection,” she said.

  I watched her pack away her gear, then flit around the kitchen, brewing tea and arranging an assortment of biscuits on a badly tarnished tray.

  “That’s just to tide you over,” she said, setting the tray in front of me and taking a seat. “Now talk.”

  I started and stopped a half dozen times before I made it to the end. There was so much I couldn’t say, so many questions I couldn’t answer. I still couldn’t remember any of what happened before I woke up on that rock. I didn’t know who killed Anthony, didn’t know if I’d been there when it happened or if I’d run off beforehand. I couldn’t say for sure that it hadn’t been me wielding the knife.

  “That’s an easy one,” Aunt Lindsey told me. “You didn’t stab that man.”

  “Because I don’t have it in me?”

  She nodded.

  “When you were ten or eleven, I took you out on a fishing boat. I’m not much of a fisherwoman myself, but it’s a useful skill in this part of the world, and I thought I should let you try. You know what you did? You went around setting everyone’s bait free.”

  I shook my head.

  “You didn’t know Anthony,” I said. “He was maddening. He could drive people to—”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. “The evidence points to someone else.”

  I looked at her as if she’d just posed me a riddle.

  “What evidence?”

  “You said the power was cut, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And then someone put a bag loaded with jewelry in your car? Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewels?”

  “Yes,” I said, starting to wonder if she believed me, if my story was too much for even Aunt Lindsey to swallow.

  “Sounds like a multi-person operation to me,” she said. “Too many things happening at once. Somebody put in a lot of thought, not only into how to kill him but also how to get away with it. You might not remember the event itself, but you’d damn well remember planning it. You’d remember conspiring to commit murder. You’d remember what was said and where it was said and most importantly who said it. So put the idea that you killed Anthony Costello out of your mind. The only question that matters now is, how do we keep you safe?”

  Whether I was a six-year-old who’d just scraped her knee or an adult whose life was hurtling off the rails, Aunt Lindsey always knew how to talk me down. She’d cut through what didn’t matter and find the nugget that put everything in perspective. I’d made some wrong turns. My marriage, my job—a woman with her head screwed on right would have said no to both. But I wasn’t a killer. I hadn’t done the one thing that couldn’t be undone.

  “Thanks, Aunt Linds,” I said.

  She sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest.

  “The jewels are key,” she said. “Mind if I have a look?”

  “They’re in the foyer,” I told her. “I’d get them myself, but my leg—”

  She jumped up, fetched the tote bag, came back and tossed it on the table.

  “Now show me,” she said.

  I pulled the straps apart, rolled the canvas down until the trove was laid bare. Aunt Lindsey just shook her head.

  “The things we choose to care about,” she said. “The things we call valuable. In the end, we murder each other over random nonsense.”

  She went quiet. I waited, knowing there was more to come.

  “Sean and Anna did this together,” she said.

  I stared at her.

  “Sean and Anna?”

  “Hear me out.”

  On the surface, Anthony’s murder looked like a crime of passion—“clearly” Anna did the stabbing—but there was something larger at play, something to do with money and matrimony.

  “Look at the evidence. Look at who benefits. Two bad marriages snuffed out in one go. Anna doesn’t have to look over her shoulder. Sean doesn’t have to pay alimony. All that’s left is for Sean to arrest you so they can get the loot back.”

  My chin fell to my chest. I didn’t know if I was going to cry or fall asleep.

  “Even if that’s true,” I said, “what do I do now?”

  “Now,” Aunt Lindsey said, “I feed the cook. You need some nourishment. Something that’ll stick to your ribs. Then we’ll talk about the future.”

  She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a large Tupperware filled with an old-fashioned, tomato-based stew. She called it her triple threat: three kinds of meat, three kinds of beans, three kinds of vegetables. Ten seconds in the microwave and the room started to smell like an herb garden.

  “That’s the stuff that made me a chef,” I said.

  I remember the taste of okra and lima beans, pork and cauliflower. I remember letting out a little moan. And then I remember darkness. I’d fallen asleep with my fork in my hand, my plate still heaping.

  Chapter 12

  “THIS IS all very touching,” Haagen said. “Your aunt sounds like a gem. Really, she does. It was good of her to solve the case for you, and it was good of you to pass her insights on to me. Still, if you don’t mind, let’s stick with the facts. Save the alternative theories for court.”

  In other words, any attempt to win her over would have the opposite effect.

  “You want me to keep going?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Just skip over the parts where your loved ones declare your innocence.”

  I woke up in the spare room thinking an hour had passed, but really it had been a whole day. My heart began racing before my brain understood why. There were voices coming from downstairs. At first I thought it was Aunt Lindsey’s TV, blaring as usual. But it wasn’t the TV. A live and heated conversation was unfolding somewhere below me, the deep pitch of a man’s voice overwhelming my aunt’s soprano.

  “Regardless,” the man said.

  His voice sounded calm and violent at once, a combination I’d recognize anywhere: my husband, Detective Sean Walsh.

  “Regardless nothing,” Aunt Lindsey said. “You need to leave now.”

  I slid on my glasses, crossed the hallway to the top of the stairs, and crouched down, listening. I put a hand over my mouth to quiet my breathing.

  Sean didn’t know I was up there. Not yet. If he had, Aunt Lindsey wouldn’t have been able to hold him back.

  “I’ll leave when I’m satisfied,” Sean said.

  I could see down into the living room through a narrow gap between the banister’s posts. I saw the back of the top of his head. I saw Aunt Lindsey’s feet. The two of them were standing inches apart. I told myself that if Sean stepped any closer, I’d come charging down those stairs.

  “Why wouldn’t Sarah run to you?” he asked, pressing.

  “I have no idea. But like I said, she’s not here. Maybe she realized she should go to the police.”

  “She didn’t go to the police.”

  “How do you know? Maybe she called another precinct. Maybe they kept it from you for a reason.”

  Aunt Linds, I thought, be careful now.

  “You’re sure she didn’t reach out to you?
” Sean asked. “Even by phone?”

  “No,” she told him. “I mean yes, as in, yes, I’m sure that no, I haven’t heard from her.”

  “Lindsey, let me spell this out for you. Your niece is in trouble. She’s in trouble from every possible angle. I know you don’t trust me, don’t believe my intentions are good. I know you know—or you think you know—that she and I have had our difficulties. But I’m the only one who can help her now.”

  “You’re right: I don’t believe in your good intentions. But that doesn’t change the truth: I haven’t seen Sarah or heard from her.”

  “Really? Then why is that here?”

  He was pointing.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That.”

  I craned my neck. His finger was aimed at the insulin kit. Aunt Lindsey could explain why she kept one in the house easily enough, but could she explain what it was doing in plain view?

  “That’s just…” she began. I heard her brain working to invent a story. I knew Sean heard it, too. “That’s just a travel kit. I always keep one for her. You know that. And every few months I restock it. As any good nurse would do.”

  “You’re a generous soul,” Sean said.

  Translation: He didn’t buy a word she was selling.

  “Listen,” he said, “I need your help. I’m launching a statewide search, just in case Sarah’s been abducted. I need photos. Lots of photos. Long hair, short hair. Summer clothes, winter clothes. No one has more pictures of Sarah than you.”

  He turned toward the staircase. Toward me. I yanked my head back. Sean wasn’t asking; he was declaring. He knew she kept her family albums in the upstairs study.

  “Wait,” Aunt Lindsey said.

  He was mounting the steps now, his badge flashing on his hip, his gun glistening in its holster. I scrambled away.

  “I don’t have any photos of her up there,” she said.

  Sean sniggered, as if she’d just confirmed something for him. He kept climbing.

  “You don’t, huh? I saw a gallery’s worth in your study last time I was here. I’m sure any of them would—”

  “No,” she said.

  I was crouched down at the far end of the hallway, too scared to stand and run.

  “Sarah,” Sean called, “I love you. You know that. I want to help you. Please don’t shut me out. Not now.”

  I crawled on hands and knees into Aunt Lindsey’s bedroom and then into her walk-in closet, hoping the general clutter might give me a place to hide. I heard Sean moving through the upstairs, opening and closing drawers, knocking on doors. Toying with me, like the stalker in a slasher flick.

  “You know who I work with,” he told Aunt Lindsey. “You know who she works for. At a crossroads like this, up against an organization like this? She needs me. Question my integrity all you like, but she needs me.”

  He opened the bathroom door.

  “I could have sworn you had a framed picture of her in here.”

  “Look, Sean, the scrapbooks—”

  “Are in the guest bedroom? Maybe?”

  She lost her patience, decided to make a stand.

  “You need a warrant, Sean. You can’t go through a house without a warrant.”

  I caught a slight tremble in her voice. She thought I was still lying asleep in the spare room—the room Sean was about to search.

  “My little Sarah is nobody’s enemy,” she added.

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Lindsey. For once we’re in agreement. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if Sarah is or isn’t their enemy: it only matters that they think she is.”

  Step by methodical step, he made his way to the master bedroom. I’d pulled the closet door shut, crept behind Aunt Lindsey’s luggage collection, and covered myself with an armful of winter coats.

  “Here’s one,” Sean said.

  He was talking about my high school graduation photo. Aunt Lindsey kept it in a silver frame on top of her dresser.

  “That picture’s twenty years old,” Aunt Lindsey said.

  “True, but like I told you, I need a wide range. People have to know what she used to look like, what she looks like now, and what she might look like tomorrow.”

  A quick tour of her dresser drawers, maybe a glance under the bed, and then he was making his way toward the closet.

  “Last chance,” he said. “If she’s in there, why not just tell me? We’re all a little old to be playing hide-and-seek.”

  “How could she be in there when she hasn’t even been by the house?”

  Her tone—exasperated, fed up with being called a liar—was damn convincing. I hoped Sean thought so, too.

  “All the same, I’ll just take a peek.”

  The door opened. I felt every muscle in my body contract. I expected the coats to go flying, expected to see Sean’s smug face staring down at me. Instead, I heard him curse, heard his fist slam against the wall. Aunt Lindsey let out a little gasp. Then they went quiet while Sean regained his composure.

  “You’re a bit of a hoarder, Linds,” he said. “I shudder to think what we’ll find in the basement.”

  Chapter 13

  WHEN I knew for sure he was gone, I pushed my way out of the closet and peered into the hall. Aunt Lindsey was sitting on the floor, knees to her chest, head resting on her forearms. She’d heard me coming but didn’t look up.

  “God bless you, Sarah,” she said. “I don’t know how you do it. You’re the bravest person I know.”

  I looked around as if maybe she was talking to someone else.

  “Brave?” I said. “I cowered in a closet while you fought my battle for me. I’m so sorry, Aunt Linds. If he’d done anything, if he’d so much as…”

  She stared out at nothing. There was sweat trickling down her forehead.

  “I failed you,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? Never—not even once. You’ve been my champion every step of the way. My hero. It’s me who failed you.”

  I sat next to her, took her hand.

  “A child can’t fail a parent,” she said. “That’s what I was, really: a parent. I wanted to do right by you. By your mother. I should have been paying closer attention. I should have been more forceful. Now it’s too late. You come to me for protection and there’s not a damn thing I can do.”

  I squeezed her hand a little tighter.

  “My marriage isn’t your fault, Aunt Linds. And you did do something.”

  “What’s that? Chase him around my home while he hunted you down? Fat lot of good I’d have done if he found you.”

  “I don’t mean that,” I said. “You moved my car, didn’t you? While I was asleep.”

  She smiled in spite of herself.

  “It’s in the church lot down the street,” she said.

  “And Anna’s jewelry?”

  “In the attic, wrapped up in your old sleeping bag.”

  “You know if Sean had seen my car parked out front, I’d be in jail now. Or worse.”

  Her smile faded.

  “And if I’d put my foot down when it mattered, you wouldn’t be mixed up in—”

  “Shush now,” I told her. “I love you. That’s all that matters.”

  Downstairs, she sat me on the couch and brought out her nursing bag. The gash in my leg looked swollen and pink. She was busy tending to it when something—or the absence of something—caught my attention.

  “Aunt Linds?”

  “Am I being too rough?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  I pointed to the coffee table.

  “Did you move my insulin kit?”

  She looked over, saw a stack of magazines and an empty space where the kit had been. She stood up. I stood with her. We searched the living room, the kitchen, the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. The kit was gone. We both knew: Sean had taken it.

  He must have figured it would work to his advantage once he found me. How could I run from him when he was holding the thing that kept me alive? Or maybe this wa
s his way of flushing me out. There were only so many places I could go looking for insulin. He was probably camped outside my doctor’s office right now.

  “I’m so sorry,” Aunt Lindsey said. “It’s gone.”

  Then she walked over to me and took my face in her hands.

  “Don’t worry, child, we’ll get through this. Together. You hear me? We’re in this together.”

  I nodded, knowing full well this was my fight, and mine alone.

  Next morning, Aunt Lindsey woke up to find the following note on her kitchen table:

  Dear Aunt Lindsey,

  I know if I delivered this message in person you’d try to talk me out of it, and I know you’d probably succeed, so I’m writing a note because I can’t afford to be weak. Not now. I love you. There’s no one I’d rather have in my corner, but this is our reality: in order for me to survive, and for you to be happy, I need to disappear. Alone. No forwarding address means no need for you to lie—to the police, or whoever comes calling. I don’t want you on the hook for my mistakes. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.

  There’s something else. Something far more urgent. I cooked up a batch of buttered grits for you. They’re in the Tupperware on top of the stove. Six stars.

  All my heart,

  Sarah

  PS: As you can see, I’ve left you both my credit cards. Wait a few days and use them to buy anything you need/want. Use them for my sake, to throw the dogs off the scent. Then destroy them, along with this note.

  It took me three drafts to get the wording right, then a fourth to make my penmanship legible. The note felt to me like a good-bye. A permanent good-bye. Because somehow I was sure I’d never see Aunt Lindsey again.

  Chapter 14

  Detective Sean Walsh

  SíMON QUIT work at five o’clock sharp, spent an hour pushing weights around a boutique gym, then hit a local fast-food chain, where he sat by the window scarfing a three-tier cheeseburger and curly fries. No doubt about it: the man had assimilated.