Seeing Jenn’s Corolla, swallowed by the dense growth, gave way to Greg’s imagining that she was out there, deep in the darkness, taken by the abyss.
What happened to her?
Still shaken, he used both hands to steady his hold on his coffee mug while he sat at the kitchen table across from Kat. The BLT she’d made him was untouched.
“Greg, did you actually see her?”
Looking at Kat, he said: “No.”
His phone vibrated again. This time a text from a TV news channel requesting an interview. He ignored it.
“Did any cop actually tell you anything?” Kat asked.
He shook his head, turning to the window, eyes glistening as his sister looked him over. Hair mussed, face unshaven, worry lines from not sleeping, or eating.
And now this.
Greg had been out all night looking for Jenn. Then after daybreak, Greg followed police to Blueripple Woods, where they’d found Jenn’s car. They’d held him back when he tried to look for her, upsetting him so much he was driven home in the back of a state trooper’s car, nearly two hours ago.
“So no one said they’d found her?” Kat asked.
Greg shook his head.
Kat placed her hand on his.
“Then there’s hope we’ll find her,” Kat said.
“Alive?”
“Yes, alive.”
“How can you say that? I mean her car, the way it was when I saw it—I just don’t—” His voice broke and he buried his face in his hands.
Kat moved to him and rubbed his shoulders.
Greg’s phone rang. It was Liz Miller. He let it go to voice mail. Vince returned to the kitchen.
“That trooper’s still parked out front, but a Channel 2 News truck pulled up.”
As if cued, the doorbell rang.
“That’ll be Channel Two,” Vince said.
“Nobody talks to them,” Greg said.
“But they may know something,” Kat said.
“No,” Greg said. “If there’s something to know, I want it officially, privately, from police. Not while a news camera’s rolling. Go tell them no comment, Kat. I mean it.”
Less than a minute after she answered the front door, Kat returned.
“I told them we’re not making any statements right now.”
“Good. What did they say?”
“Here.” She handed him a business card for Shayna Ward, Reporter. “She said they’ll wait out front on the street, and that they know about Jenn’s car, that police have an active crime scene at Ripplewood.”
“An active crime scene?”
Greg shook his head. Police and press were waiting out front, friends and reporters calling. An active crime scene. He looked around at nothing, helpless when he thought—
“Where’s Jake?”
“I told you. Downstairs,” Kat said. “He’s playing a video game online with Carter. He’s got a headset on.”
Greg left, opened the door to the basement, went far enough down the stairs to see his son engrossed in his game. Jake didn’t see him. Greg returned to the kitchen, trying hard to form a clear thought, something he could anchor himself to.
“Kat, could you drive me to Ripplewood so I can get my truck? Dad, could you stay here with Jake?”
Kat and Vince looked at each other then back at Greg.
“You don’t need to do that now,” Kat said. “We could get a neighbor, or one of your crew, to do that.”
The doorbell rang.
Greg frowned, figuring it was another reporter.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
At the front of the house, through the narrow pane of glass beside the door, Greg glimpsed two people on his doorstep. A man with short, neat, gray hair, wearing a jacket and loosened tie, and a woman with a jaw-length bob, dressed in a navy blazer and pants.
Both were sober-faced.
When Greg opened the door, they held up badges.
“Are you Gregory Griffin, husband of Jennifer Marie Griffin?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Claire Kozak. This is Ned Carillo. We’re New York State Police investigators, now in charge of your wife’s case.”
Now in charge.
“May we come in to talk, sir?”
Kozak held Greg with a steady gaze while Carillo made a quick, intense head-to-toe audit of his appearance and demeanor. Greg’s thoughts whirled back to Sister Mary walking him down the hall, then he tried to remember his last moments with Jenn, the last thing he said to her. Squeezing the door handle hard, his knuckles whitened as he found the words.
“Did you find my wife?”
A few seconds passed; Kozak’s eyes were locked on Greg.
“No. We found her car and we still have people working the scene. We’d like to come in and talk to you—”
Greg licked his lips.
“—and,” Kozak continued, “we understand you have a son, Jake. Is he home now?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We’d like to talk to him first. Alone.”
“Why? He doesn’t—he’s only eight. I should be there.”
“You’re not required to be present,” Kozak said. “We can talk to him alone.”
“I’m sure you want to cooperate, to help us locate Jennifer,” Carillo said, casting a slight glance over his shoulder to the news cameras—now there were two crews—that were trained on them.
Greg opened his door wide, inviting the investigators inside.
Sixteen
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
Greg led Carillo and Kozak to the kitchen where they introduced themselves to Kat and Vince.
They declined Kat’s offer of coffee, and when Vince asked them about finding Jenn’s car in Blueripple Woods, they revealed little, other than repeating what they’d told Greg.
The investigators’ eyes went around the room, taking a quick inventory of everyone and everything before following Greg to the basement door.
Descending the stairs, they saw Jake, sitting on the floor at the coffee table working the controller for his game. He stopped, swept off his headset, and eyeballed the strangers who stood nearby while Greg went to the sofa.
“Sit with me, son,” he said, shutting off the screen. “These people are with the police.”