“There’s a golf course in East Amherst where I had a call. Give me your pad and pen. I’ll draw you a map.”
“A map?”
“You’ll need to go there right away.”
“Why?”
“I want outta here. Look, there’s a dirt service road here at the southern border of the course, a fence line, and here, there’s a fallen oak. This is what you do.” Volk sketched. “At this spot here, under the rock, I buried...”
Eighty-One
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
While the investigators worked in Clarence, Greg was at home with Jake, eating the tacos he’d picked up for their supper.
It was good to see Jake biting into his food.
Living on the hope that Jenn is alive.
They were downstairs in the man cave, sitting at the coffee table in front of the TV because Jake wanted to watch videos online about his drone, which was on the floor beside him.
“Danny at school said there are new ones on how to make the flight time last longer, Dad.”
“We’ll see them after we’re done eating, okay?”
Greg took up the remote to watch the news. For anything about Jenn. The broadcast began with reports on local, then state political issues.
The news bored Jake. Between bites, he fiddled with his drone. Half watching the reports, Greg glanced at his phone on the table.
Still no messages from Toronto.
No messages from anybody at the moment.
The last time Greg had talked to Vince, he’d seemed out of sorts with a toothache.
Shrugging it off, Greg’s thoughts shifted to Kat. She was home and would have contacted Greg if she’d heard anything arising from their efforts in Larkin earlier that day. That young guy with the dog said his sister knew Jenn’s family, said he’d get her to call from Toronto.
Greg checked his phone again.
Nothing.
He thought about how he and Kat had pored over the sympathy cards for Jenn’s mom and dad, made calls before door-knocking in her old neighborhood. He needed to know if she had a relative so he could find out who died in Cleveland, find out who he buried, and how it was connected to his wife because—emotion tore through him—because maybe it will help me find Jenn and bring her home...
Turning away from Jake, Greg swallowed hard, holding himself together.
“Hey, Dad,” Jake said, “that man used to talk to Mom at school a lot.”
Greg looked at the TV. A photo of Porter Sellwin filled a quarter of the screen with the graphic Fatal Crash on I-90. Greg grabbed the remote and increased the volume.
“...has learned that the victim in that fatal single-vehicle crash has been identified as Porter Sellwin, aged forty-four, a Buffalo Realtor...”
News footage showed emergency vehicles, traffic, a car overturned in a swamp, the area cordoned off with tape.
“...Sellwin, the sole occupant of his car, was killed when it left the westbound lane and overturned, coming to a stop in a culvert between Batavia and Buffalo. Sellwin was also a school board member for the district that included...”
Not knowing what was coming next, Greg hit record on the remote then switched to a sports channel.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“A terrible accident, I guess. I’ll finish watching the news later.” Greg wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Are you done? Go wash up, then we’ll work on the drone videos, son.”
Gulping the last of his tacos, Jake plodded upstairs to the bathroom. Greg then played the rest of the Sellwin story he’d recorded, checking to see if it reported anything linking Sellwin to Jenn.
It didn’t.
Still, Sellwin’s sudden death weighed on him as he recalled Kat’s account of him with Jenn in the parking lot and what Sellwin had said after Greg had accused him of being interested in Jenn. I don’t know what Jennifer told you. Then what Sellwin said at the funeral: Jennifer will always have a special place in my heart.
All of it was weird, puzzling. Greg didn’t know what to make of it—and now Sellwin was dead.
Will I ever know the whole truth? Jenn would never be unfaithful. I just know it.
“All done, Dad.”
Jake came back and for the next couple of hours, they played the videos and made adjustments to his drone. When they finished, Jake begged to fly it outside.
“It’s late. Bedtime for you, pal.”
“Okay, but can we start the chime for a little bit, Dad?”
Greg set it up on the kitchen table, dimming the lights. Jake was enraptured by the dancing flames, the tinkling, glittering angels with their mesmerizing shadows twirling. Greg’s thoughts cast back to Jenn’s old neighborhood, thinking of her growing up there a happy child until her world collapsed around her.
Some fifteen minutes passed before Greg put out the candles and Jake went upstairs to brush his teeth, put on his pajamas, and get into bed.
“I wished again on the chime for Mom to come home,” Jake told Greg when he tucked him in.
“Me too.”
Greg kissed him good-night and returned to the kitchen.
He started taking care of the chime when his phone rang.
“Is this Greg Griffin?”
“Yes.”
“This is Frances Penney. My brother Louis in Buffalo told me to call you at this number.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you for calling. My wife, Jennifer—she was Jennifer Korvin then—grew up near your house...” Greg sat at the table as he explained.
“First, Greg,” Frances said, “I’m so sorry Jennifer is missing. Louis told me. I looked at reports online, and I said a prayer for you before I called.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, I remember Jennifer. Such a sweet little girl. We talked sometimes, but not too much. I was older. She would be skipping, or riding her bike. But she had no relatives, except her parents and grandmother. No brothers and sisters. She was an only child.”
“What about her mom? Was she married before? She must’ve had other children?”
“No, I don’t think so. My mom worked with her, Sofia Korvin. They worked at the Colby Food Mart before they turned it into a call center. Mom said Sofia was never married before. We talked about that, after.”
“After?”
“The fire. Awful. We saw it, the flames and smoke. There was nothing we could do. I remember my dad telling the firefighters he thought he saw someone running from the house just before it went up. Nothing came of that because the arson guys said the cause was a cigarette left smoldering in the sofa. It was Christmas, such a horrible tragedy, leaving her an orphan. And to think, she was only eight.”