Greg wasn’t listening.
Looking at Jenn, his chin crumpled with a sob. Kat turned from the sink where she was cleaning up to see him put his hands over his face.
“Why can’t we find her, Kat?”
Drying her hands in a towel, Kat hugged him.
“We’ll find her, Greg.”
Pulling his face from his hands, he looked at his sister. She stood, straightened, his gaze locked on her, growing colder. Wheels turned within Greg, the memory of a troubling moment bubbled to the surface.
She knows something.
“Why’re you looking at me like that, Greg?”
“Early on, you wanted to say what you thought happened—but didn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Yes, it was. Kat, you know something, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“No, Greg, I don’t know anything.”
“Tell me.”
“Greg, please.”
“I know when you’re lying. Tell me what you know about Jenn!”
“Keep your voice down. I don’t know anything.”
His chair scraped along the floor as he got to his feet, stepping into her space. Kat was five-ten, but at six feet, Greg stood over her.
“Tell me.”
Kat stepped back from her brother.
“All right but sit down. Please,” she said. “I don’t know anything but I had a thought.”
“A thought?”
“Yes. Sit down.”
Greg sat.
Kat took the chair across from him. Sadness in her eyes, she reached out, taking one of his hands.
“Greg, do you think it’s possible that maybe, just maybe, she was seeing someone?”
Greg pulled his hand away.
“No. What makes you say that?”
“I never told anyone this but—”
“Never told anyone what?”
“I saw—” Kat looked away to find the words to continue. “I saw Jenn with another man, Greg.”
“What?”
“A couple of months ago, I had a delivery at Jake’s school and I saw Jenn with a man.”
“Saw her, how? What’re you talking about?”
“Greg, you had to be there. They were in a corner of the parking lot, like they wanted to be alone. He was touching her shoulder gently, smiling.”
Struggling to interpret Kat’s revelation, Greg said: “Who was the guy?”
“Porter Sellwin.”
“With the school board?”
“Yes. I asked Bert Cobb who he was because Sellwin’s come out to the searches. You met him, Greg.”
Shaking his head, he said: “No, I don’t believe there’s anything to this. Jenn’s on a lot of committees, dealing with school polices. They were likely talking about school stuff.”
“Greg, you didn’t see it the way I did, their body language,” Kat said.
“Don’t, Kat. Just don’t.”
“Sellwin’s a handsome man with a reputation with women.”
The muscles in Greg’s jaw began pulsing.
“Stop!” He glared at her. “I know you don’t like Jenn.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s been that way ever since I brought her home, and it continued when we got married,” he said. “And you want to know why Jenn didn’t invite you to be part of our wedding party? It’s because you and Neil were coming apart and you were a wreck.”
“I was not.”
“You were, Kat. You were dealing with so much, you were drinking, and Jenn didn’t want to put more on your plate. But since then, you’ve fought a silent war with her.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is! And now you tell me this crap.”
“Greg, I know what I saw.”
“God, Kat, do you hate her that much?”
Tears rolled down Kat’s cheeks, and she returned to the counter. Greg drove his hands in his hair, his creased face sagging as he stared at the floor. A tense, quiet minute passed.
“Everyone’s stressed. You need to sleep,” Kat said. “Go to bed. I’ll finish cleaning up. We can go searching in the morning.”
Greg nodded, then said: “I’ll get Jake.”
Descending the basement stairs, Greg’s legs nearly buckled. Wobbling from exhaustion, he gripped the railing and sat on the stairs. After a few seconds, he continued down to see his father had fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV on. The drone was on the table.
No sign of Jake.
“Dad?” Greg nudged Vince. “Where’s Jake?”
Waking, Vince groggily looked around.
“Isn’t he with you? I thought he went upstairs.”
Greg hauled himself back up to the kitchen.
“Did you see Jake?”
“Isn’t he downstairs with Dad?” Kat said.
“No. You look around here for him. Jake!” Greg called then started upstairs, where he checked every bedroom, bathroom, and closet.
No sign of Jake.
Greg returned to the kitchen.
“He’s not on this floor,” Kat said. Vince was next to her.
“I swear he went upstairs.”
“But you fell asleep, Dad,” Greg said. “Did you see him go upstairs?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Greg returned to the basement with Kat and Vince behind him. A sickening new fear twisted in Greg’s gut. Maybe Jake had heard him arguing with Kat, became upset, and ran off into the night to Carter’s house? In the basement, Greg checked the man cave again and the spare rooms. Then he opened the door to the room with their furnace, hot water tank, boxes and crates of things, what he and Jenn called their storage room.
Raising his hand for the light switch, he stopped.
The light was on.
Jake was on the floor, asleep on the thick area rug, next to a couple of stacks of plastic tubs and older cardboard boxes where Jenn kept their Christmas decorations. Some of the containers were open and decorations displaced as if Jake had been rummaging through them.