Chương 6
At 11:30 she had called Noah and gotten no answer.
At 11:42 she had texted David.
Did he drop him off?
No answer.
At noon she had reheated coffee.
At 12:17 she had called again.
At 12:30 she had become irritated.
Not afraid.
Irritated.
That detail would punish her longest.
“What did David tell Noah?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“You have to know.”
“We’re trying.”
“Was he waiting for somebody?”
“We found calls and messages.”
Megan looked up.
“To who?”
“That’s the other thing we needed to discuss.”
Price slid a printed page across the table.
It showed a phone log.
David had called Eric once at 9:52.
No answer.
Again at 10:29.
No answer.
At 10:35 he sent a text.
Call me now.
At 10:38 another.
Emergency.
At 10:41 he called Megan.
Her phone showed no missed call from him.
She shook her head.
“He didn’t call me.”
“The call lasted one second.”
“He hung up.”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
“We can’t establish why.”
Megan stared at the page.
At 10:43 David called a number she did not recognize.
Three minutes.
“Who is that?”
“Cruise customer service.”
Megan looked at Morales.
Price stopped turning his wedding ring.
“He called the cruise line?”
Morales nodded.
“What did he ask?”
“We’ve requested the recording.”
Megan sat back.
A laugh rose in her throat again.
This one frightened her.
She covered her mouth until it passed.
“So my brother locked my son in his car and called to make sure the ship wouldn’t leave without him.”
“We don’t know what the call was about.”
“Okay.”
“Megan.”
“Okay.”
She stood.
“I need to go home.”
Morales rose too.
“You shouldn’t drive right now.”
“Why?”
“You’re shaking.”
Megan looked down.
She was.
Both hands.
She put them under her arms.
“My car is downstairs.”
“I can have someone take you.”
“I don’t want someone.”
Morales studied her.
“Is there anyone you can call?”
Megan almost said no.
Then she thought of her mother and couldn’t bear the idea of telling her.
Rachel would come.
Rachel always came.
Even when nobody particularly wanted her.
“Yeah.”
Megan took out her phone.
On the way out of the room, she stopped.
“Detective?”
Morales looked back.
“Don’t tell David I saw that.”
Morales’s expression changed slightly.
“We won’t discuss investigative strategy with you or him.”
Megan nodded.
It was not the agreement she wanted.
It was better.
Rachel picked her up forty minutes later in a Honda with three empty coffee cups in the center console and a child seat in the back for her four-year-old.
She did not ask what happened until they had merged onto the highway.
Then she said, “Do I need to pull over?”
Megan stared through the windshield.
“No.”
“Okay.”
“They have more video.”
Rachel gripped the steering wheel.
“Okay.”
“He put Noah back in the car.”
Rachel’s hands tightened.
“What?”
“He got him out. Twice. Then he put him back and locked the door.”
Rachel drove another quarter mile.
Then she pulled onto the shoulder.
Megan turned toward her.
“I said you didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, well, you also once said tequila and orange Gatorade was a cocktail.”
“We were nineteen.”
“It remains evidence of poor judgment.”
Rachel put the car in park.
Neither woman laughed.
Traffic shook the Honda as trucks passed.
Rachel stared ahead.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they say?”
“No.”
“Was he… was Noah acting up?”
Megan looked at her.
Rachel’s face changed immediately.
“No. God, no, I didn’t mean—”
“You think he punished him?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“He was eight.”
“I know.”
“He was scared.”
“I know, Meg.”
“He was crying.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
Megan looked away.
A truck passed carrying lumber.
For several seconds they listened to the vibration disappear.
Rachel said, “Vanessa?”
“Says she thought Eric was coming.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Probably.”
Rachel wiped both eyes.
“Do you want me to take you to your mom’s?”
“No.”
“My place?”
“No.”
“You can’t be alone.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Megan.”
“I have been alone.”
Rachel flinched.
Megan regretted it.
Again.
She was collecting small cruelties now, dropping them behind her wherever she went.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“No,” Rachel said. “It isn’t.”
She pulled back onto the road.
At Megan’s apartment, the Cocoa Pebbles were still in her car because she had forgotten the grocery cart at the store.
She remembered at midnight.
For some reason that was when she cried.
Not while seeing the video.
Not in Rachel’s car.
Not when she stood inside Noah’s bedroom and saw the Lego spaceship still spread across the rug.
She cried because she had paid for cereal and left it in a cart.
She sat on the kitchen floor with her back against a cabinet and laughed once before the crying took over.
Her phone rang.
She almost ignored it.
Vanessa.
Megan stared at the name.
The call ended.
A text appeared.
Please talk to me.
Megan set the phone facedown.
Another message.
I told the police everything I know.
Then:
There are things I didn’t understand until today.
Megan picked up the phone.
She called.
Vanessa answered immediately.
“Megan.”
“What didn’t you understand?”
Silence.
“Megan, I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I am.”
“That isn’t information.”
Vanessa breathed in slowly.
“He told me Noah was staying with Eric.”
“Eric was in Tennessee.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew then.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did. Noah talked about it. Everyone knew.”
“I knew Eric had been traveling for work. I didn’t know where he was that weekend.”
“What happened in the garage?”
Vanessa did not answer.
Megan closed her eyes.
“Do you want me to hang up?”
“No.”
“Then stop making me drag every sentence out of you.”
“I’m trying to figure out how to tell you without making it sound like I’m protecting myself.”
“You are protecting yourself.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised Megan.
Vanessa continued.
“I’m terrified.”
“Good.”
Another silence.
Megan felt ashamed of the word.
May you like
She did not take it back.
“At the garage,” Vanessa said, “David told me Eric was meeting us. Noah didn’t want to stay in the car because he said it was hot.”
