There’s a brand-new tone in her voice. I recognize it. I take a photo of the contents of the medicine cabinet before I say, “Oh?”
“You’re that killer’s wife.”
“Not anymore,” I say. “I divorced him. And then I killed him in self-defense.” I close the door and turn to face her. “I’m also trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” she says. There are stiff lines bracketing her lips now, and a dull fury driving out her grief. I’m toxic by association. A reminder that not everything works out for the best.
I try not to sigh as I reply, “Mrs. Landry, you’re more than welcome to ask J. B. for another investigator, but I’m the closest, and frankly speaking, I have a better idea of what you’re going through than you realize.”
“Just because your husband stole those girls away from their families, you think you understand what this is like?”
“No,” I tell her quietly. “I understand because my own children are constantly under threat. Ruth . . . my children have gone missing before, and I thought I would die. I got them back, thank God, but those hours they were gone felt like eternity. I’m on your side. Please let me help.”
She doesn’t like it. She’s afraid of the violence that surrounded me and still does. And maybe she’s right to be afraid, but she should also be reassured.
Nobody else is going to take this as seriously as I do.
She takes her time before she finally, stiffly nods. “You got what you need?” The subtext is that I’d better.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I’d like to also talk to your husband—”
“If you can get him to do that, I’ll be amazed,” she says. “Joe doesn’t like talking about Remy. He can’t face the fact our son’s gone.”
Hearing the word gone, I instinctively know that some part of her has accepted the likely truth: her son is dead, beyond even a mother’s desperate reach. But as if she realizes what she’s said, she quickly rejects it again. “I know he’ll be back,” she says, and lifts her chin as if daring me to correct her.
I don’t. This woman is fragile, frightened, clinging to a lie she’s telling herself, but I won’t break her heart. Not until I know for sure I have to.
I say, “Thank you for your help, Mrs. Landry. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything.”
She’s reluctant to say it. My history and infamy are weighing on us now, but she finally says, “Please find him for me. Please.”
I don’t promise. I can’t.
But it’s hard for me not to recognize the despair and horror in her eyes. She’s living a nightmare but pretending everything is just . . . normal. For so many years I lived with Melvin, struggled to please him, to pretend that everything was fine. I pretended so hard that I thought it really was okay. All that changed the day a drunk driver opened up a wall of our house and revealed all of Melvin’s evil, horrible secrets. The sight of that poor dead woman—Sam’s sister—will haunt me forever.
The knowledge that if I’d only been more curious, maybe I could have done something . . . that’s even worse. I’ll do anything I can to finally end Ruth Landry’s nightmare . . . one way or another. Maybe I’m doing it for her. Maybe for myself.
But either way, I’m committed.
7
GWEN
As I idle in the parking lot at Navitat and wait for the kids to finish their last zip line run, I try to focus on the case, the clues. I can’t shake the unsettling truth that is Ruth Landry. Baking cookies no one eats. Begging for a ghost to come home.
I don’t know what I’d be if I lost Connor and Lanny.
I’m looking things up using a bespoke app that J. B. Hall commissioned—like Google on steroids, built solely for finding traces of people by their names or other significant identifiers—when Connor and Lanny pile into the car. Instantly, they’re both talking.
“Mom, that was great, you should have come in with us, the lines weren’t bad at all—”
“Did you find out where he went? What happened to him?” Connor’s voice overrides his sister’s.
Lanny glares at him. “How the hell is she supposed to solve a case in, like, two hours?”
“It’s Mom.”
I laugh as they strap themselves in. “Nice vote of confidence,” I tell him. “But your sister’s right. This is going to take a while, I’m afraid.”
“Oh. So, are we going somewhere else?” My son seems entirely too intrigued by that possibility. “We can help you.”
“Nope,” I tell him. “I’ll make some calls once we’re home. A lot of this is just making appointments and convincing people to talk to me. Honestly, it’s boring.”
He doesn’t believe me, and neither does Lanny, but they devolve into squabbling in a few short minutes. Apparently he thinks Lanny admired another girl on a zip line, and teasing is required. I don’t shut it down too hard. He isn’t harassing her because she’s gay; he’d have razzed her if it were a hot boy too.
Lanny insists it never happened anyway. They lapse into a mutinous silence after I finally order the two of them to drop the feud, and that rumbles between them the whole rest of the way home.
“Right,” I tell them as we pull into the driveway. “I want you two to make up and get to your lessons. I’m going to check your work tonight—” My voice stops hard when I see that there’s an unfamiliar vehicle parked by our house. A big, muddy truck plastered with NRA decals and a bunch of cling-film American flags. The paint job is dull jungle camouflage.
I stop the SUV halfway up the hill and wait to see what’s going on. Lanny and Connor fall silent as they, too, register the presence of an intruder. I feel Lanny leaning closer, but I don’t look back. “Who is that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. I put the SUV in park and leave the engine running. A million things flash through my mind, including the stalkers and trolls who regularly email in death threats. “I’m going to find out. Lanny, you get behind the wheel. Get ready to reverse down the driveway if anything goes wrong and drive straight for the Norton police station. Connor, you call 911 the second Lanny puts it in reverse. You do not wait for me, no matter what you see. All right? Everybody know their jobs?”
My kids nod, but I can see the look in Connor’s eyes. He’s scared again. This is yet another traumatic event . . . like yesterday’s active shooter drill.
“Connor,” I say, and he blinks. “Everything is okay. Breathe and count. Do what Lanny tells you. You can do this. I believe in you.” It’s not enough, not nearly, but I don’t have time for more. I just have to hope he can keep it together.
I step out of the SUV, and Lanny moves to the front seat. She locks the doors without me telling her. And then I have to focus on what’s ahead of me, not what’s behind.
I walk up the driveway, gravel crunching underfoot, and two doors on the pickup truck open with rusty squeals. One disgorges an old white man in faded, distressed overalls and a flannel shirt underneath; he’s not visibly armed, unless you count the giant bristling beard.