Chương 6
“Can I have another cookie?”
Anna stared at her for a second.
“Sure.”
Lily slid off the chairs.
Robert appeared with the cookie before she had crossed the room.
“I heard that.”
Lily looked impressed.
“I like this house.”
Anna closed her eyes.
The first officers arrived through the service entrance because Charles insisted on avoiding the front drive.
The younger one recognized the Whitmore name immediately.
The older detective who arrived later did not appear impressed by anything except the rose bed.
Detective Lena Morales was in her late forties, wore practical shoes, and asked everyone to stop touching things.
That included Charles.
He surrendered the ring reluctantly.
Morales placed it in an evidence bag.
Eleanor objected.
“It is family property.”
Morales looked at her.
“At the moment it’s an object found in the location connected to a twelve-year-old missing-person investigation.”
“You don’t even know that.”
“No. That’s why I’m taking it.”
Ethan liked her immediately.
Anna did not.
Not because of anything Morales had done. Because the badge created an old pressure in her chest.
Morales noticed.
“Ms. Carter?”
Anna folded her arms.
“Yes?”
“You okay talking to me?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Anna looked away.
“No.”
“All right.”
Morales pulled out a chair.
“We can start with what you’re comfortable establishing.”
It was such a reasonable sentence that Anna distrusted it.
She sat anyway.
For the next three hours, the past became paperwork.
Dates.
Addresses.
Names.
Anna’s original name: Caroline Margaret Whitmore.
Date of disappearance: May 17, twelve years earlier.
Age then: twenty-seven.
Last confirmed sighting before vanishing: Whitmore Foundation offices at 6:12 p.m., recorded by lobby security.
Vehicle: a silver Volvo found three weeks later outside Portland, Maine.
Blood: none.
Signs of struggle: none documented.
Personal coat in vehicle.
Cell phone never recovered.
Bank activity: two ATM withdrawals totaling twelve hundred dollars, both disputed by Anna now.
Engagement ring: listed among personal effects assumed to be with her at time of disappearance.
Fiancé: Daniel Carter.
Ethan looked up.
“Dad?”
Anna went very still.
Morales looked from him to Anna.
“You didn’t tell them?”
“He died when Ethan was three.”
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You told me Dad met you after you moved.”
Anna shut her eyes.
“I met him before.”
“How long before?”
“A long time.”
“You keep doing that.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Morales said quietly, “I can give you a minute.”
“No,” Anna said. “Apparently I’ve used twelve years of minutes.”
Ethan pushed the peas away.
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Most of it.”
“And he didn’t tell me?”
“You were three when he died.”
“You could have.”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood.
“I want to go outside.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking.”
Anna stared at him.
For a second she was offended.
Then she saw herself in the sentence.
“Stay where Robert can see you.”
Ethan left.
Morales waited until the door closed.
“He’s angry.”
“He should be.”
“That doesn’t mean every choice you made was wrong.”
Anna looked at her.
“I’d prefer not to be professionally comforted.”
Morales’s mouth twitched.
“Good. I’m bad at it.”
That helped.
A little.
Police searched the rose bed before sunset.
They found nothing else beneath the bush.
No weapon.
No documents.
No phone.
Just old roots, stone, and soil.
The ring, however, changed the case.
Not because it proved who buried it.
Because it proved that Caroline Whitmore’s personal property had remained at the Whitmore estate after the date Eleanor had sworn Caroline left with it.
Morales requested the archived investigation files.
A lieutenant began the process of determining whether preserved evidence from the vehicle still existed.
Charles called an attorney.
Anna snapped, “For her?”
“For you.”
“I don’t want your attorney.”
“You may need one.”
“I have managed to obtain lawyers without family assistance.”
“You have a lawyer?”
“I have divorced, started a business, handled Daniel’s estate, fought with an insurance company for fourteen months, and once sued a contractor who installed plumbing backward. Yes, Charles, I know lawyers exist.”
For the first time, a faint expression moved through his face that might have become a smile under different circumstances.
It disappeared quickly.
“Your business.”
“Event flowers.”
“You did all this.”
She stared.
“What did you think I did for twelve years?”
He had no answer.
That hurt more than if he had guessed incorrectly.
Anna looked away.
Charles cleared his throat.
“I looked for you.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
“I believe you hired people.”
His face tightened.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then what would have been enough?”
Anna’s anger rose before she could stop it.
“Believing me before I vanished would have helped.”
Charles nodded.
Again, the lack of defense disarmed her.
“I failed you.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Become noble now. It’s irritating.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You’re doing it naturally, then.”
His eyebrows rose.
She heard Daniel’s voice in her memory: You inherited his temper and hate him for having yours.
Anna rubbed her face.
Charles looked toward the garden.
“Did Daniel know where you were?”
“Yes.”
“Was he with you when you left?”
“No.”
“Did he help you afterward?”
“Eventually.”
Charles hesitated.
“I blamed him.”
“I know.”
“For years.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“He told me.”
Charles looked at her sharply.
“You saw him?”
Anna stared.
“He was my husband.”
“I mean after you disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks later.”
Charles sat down.
“He told me he didn’t know where you were.”
“He didn’t.”
“But—”
“He didn’t until I called him.”
Charles looked stunned.
Anna suddenly understood how absurd the timeline sounded to him.
She explained.
After the garden confrontation, she had awakened in a motel outside Albany with seven stitches behind her ear and no clear memory of getting there.
The motel clerk told her a man had paid cash for the room and brought her in claiming she had fallen.
No hospital record existed because the stitches had apparently been done somewhere else.
Her purse was gone.
May you like
Her phone was gone.
Her car was gone.
