Greg said nothing.
“Is it possible she took off?” Vince asked. “Maybe had, I don’t know, a nervous breakdown, and needed to get away, or something?”
“What?” Greg looked at his father. “No. You know Jenn. She’d never leave Jake. No.”
Vince nodded.
“What did you and Jenn argue about? Jake said you fought about money?”
Greg shook his head.
“Competition for contracts is getting tough. I’ve got business loans for the truck, equipment. I’m carrying some debt. Now, Jake’s going to need braces. Stuff like that, nothing serious.”
“Sounds a little serious,” Vince said.
“All right, I admit it. I get a bit stressed about work, but it’s not going to make Jenn run away.”
Vince’s eyes swept over the scrapes on the backs of Greg’s hands as if he were deciding on what, or what not, to think of them before shifting his attention to the stairs.
Jake came down into the basement dressed in pajamas. Kat was behind him, and he went right to Greg and threw his arms around him. Jake’s skin was soft, his hair damp and he smelled of soap. Kat must’ve got him into the tub. Jake was always calmer and sleepy after a hot bath.
“I’m sorry I swore, Dad.”
“We’ll let it go.”
“Aunt Kat says we’re going to find Mom. She’s going to come home, right?”
“We’re doing all we can to make it happen.”
Kat rubbed Jake’s shoulder.
“He wants Dad and me to stay here tonight, okay?” Kat said.
“That’d be good,” Greg said. “Okay with you, Dad?”
“You bet.”
“We’re going to go pick up some things. We’ll be back soon,” Kat said.
After they left, Greg offered to play Jake’s go-kart video for him. Jake shook his head then he started crying again.
“Dad, can I sleep in your room tonight?”
“Sure.”
“And in the morning, can I go with you, Aunt Kat, and Grandpa to search for Mom?”
“We’ll see what the situation is in the morning. I’ll have to talk to the teachers at your school. Some of them were helping us today.”
Jake brushed at his tears.
Greg got the TV remote, pressed the commands to get online, and found a video of a beach with waves rolling over the sand in the moonlight. It was soothing. They watched without speaking. Jake fell asleep and Greg carried him to his bedroom, putting him on Jenn’s side of the bed.
Greg went to the kitchen and resumed reading messages on his phone, coming to one that said:
If there’s anything I can do for you, please reach out to me. Anything, at any time, Greg.
There was no name with the text, but he knew the number.
He took a breath and let it out slowly before texting back with one word:
Thanks.
* * *
Kat and Vince returned.
Within minutes, Kat began cleaning up the remnants of the tacos and nachos from downstairs. At the sink, running water, cleaning plates and utensils, she turned to Greg and Vince at the kitchen table.
“You need to go to bed, Greg,” Kat said. “We’ll search again in the morning.”
He didn’t argue.
In his room, Greg connected his phone to a charger cord and without removing his clothes, got into bed next to his son. Shutting his eyes, his body felt heavy as if under thousands of pounds of pressure at the bottom of the ocean, drowning in an abyss.
He woke, looked at the clock. He’d slept for a couple of hours.
Adrenaline was surging through him, words blazing across his mind.
“...too early to say if foul play is suspected...”
His heart hammered in his chest.
Where’s Jenn? Where is she right now? If she were alive, she’d call.
Horrifying scenarios burned in the darkness.
And where was I? What was I doing?
His stomach writhing with guilt and fear, Greg dragged his hands over his face.
This is wrong. I can’t rest. I’ve got to find Jenn before it’s too late!
He got up and left a message for Kat and Vince, who were sleeping in the extra rooms.
For the second time, Greg went out alone before dawn to search for his missing wife.
Eleven
Lancaster/Elma, New York
At sunrise, Al Clayton took in Phase 2 of Pine Castle Park and the streets of new houses in various stages of completion rising from the gouged earth.
He thought of how Greg was always the first to arrive at the building site, but not this morning.
Jenn was missing; it ate Clayton up. He shouted a curse as he navigated his truck deeper into the site because Greg was more than his boss—he and Jenn were friends. Clayton stopped, shifted into Park, gritted his teeth, and whispered a prayer that Jenn would come home to her family.
Then he grabbed his hard hat and got out.
Clayton didn’t know how Greg could do it—demand to keep the job going—but on another level, he understood. They needed to keep the crew working.
We’ve got contractual deadlines, and projects are tough to get these days.
Taking care to watch his step along the dried, mud-rutted trails left by trucks and equipment, Clayton walked alongside the different models of houses, their wooden skeletal frames evolving and taking shape. He continued past areas cleared to store building materials, insulation, shingles, framing lumber, roof trusses, and other preframed sections, eventually coming to lot #975 and #976, the two Greg had noted in their call. The subcontractors were on schedule.
Clayton knew #975 and #976 were ready to go, but would make another visual inspection.
The two lots had been excavated and were bordered with diminishing piles of dirt, in the process of being hauled from the site. The lots were ready for the next stages in the basement foundations. Forms for the footings had been installed, staked to the ground, waiting for concrete to be poured.
Twelve
Buffalo, New York, Blueripple Woods
At that same time, miles from where Al Clayton was in Pine Castle Park, Jayne Hicks was stretching on the porch of her friend Dianne Carr’s house in Noble Haven.
A moment later, the door opened.
“Hey,” Dianne said.