Evidence of Life. Barbara Sissel Taylor
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be able to resolve. He kept asking her questions, all manner of questions, to which she had no answers. What must he think of a wife who didn’t know her husband’s destination, a mother who would let her daughter leave home without knowing exactly where her father was taking her? You can make a lot of mistakes in your life trying to figure out what matters. Nick’s line to Jake passed through Abby’s mind. What mistakes?
She turned to face Dennis. “We’ve been over this a dozen times.”
“I know, but it’s always possible you’ll remember something new. So, you mentioned that you and your husband had talked of retiring out here. Could he have been looking at land?”
“No. We couldn’t possibly afford to buy property right now.” Abby thrust up her hands. “We have two children, one in college, another one on her way there. There’s the mortgage, car payments. Nick just bought a new BMW. He’s crazy about cars, so is my son.”
“He was worried about finances, then.”
“I’ve told you, not more than the average husband and father.” Exasperated, Abby crossed her arms. “Did you talk to Joe Drexler, Nick’s law partner? Did he tell you how unfounded those allegations are about the settlement money?”
“He confirmed what you said. Helix Belle’s legal team is trying to muddy the water, which is what I figured. It’s just—” Dennis stopped as if to consider.
“Just what?” Abby prompted.
Dennis met her glance. “Can you think of anyone who might have had a reason to follow your husband? Maybe an associate or one of your husband’s clients? Someone who could have had a grudge or just wanted to talk with him? Outside the office, so to speak.”
“Why are you asking me that? The firm does mostly civil litigation. Even Nick would say it’s boring, not that it doesn’t get stressful at times. Some clients can be very—” Abby broke off, looking at the tag end of a memory...a discussion from a few weeks ago, a heated discussion she’d had with Nick about his hours. He’d brought up a client then, a woman who was being difficult about some real-estate matter Nick hadn’t adequately represented her interests in or something. Abby hadn’t listened really. She frowned now, hunting in her mind for a place where Nick might have mentioned the woman again, not finding it. Why hadn’t she paid closer attention? It seemed as if she’d let so many things, little telling details, slip by her.
“You remember something?” Dennis asked.
Abby shook her head. Why go into it? She had no facts, not even a name. “Nick’s had his share of difficult clients, but nothing out of the ordinary. He would have told me. We don’t keep secrets from each other.” That I know of...
The words hung unspoken.
* * *
The morning following Dennis’s visit, Abby showered and dressed in her own clothes, the ones she’d arrived in. She stowed her toothbrush and the assorted toiletries and underwear she’d purchased in a grocery sack, then changed the sheets on the guest-room bed. She was folding back the coverlet when Kate appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have to go,” Abby said, gathering the bed linen and the small pile of dirty clothes she’d borrowed from Kate into her arms.
“Go where?” Kate followed Abby through the kitchen into the laundry room.
“Home,” Abby answered.
“You can’t stay by yourself,” George said from where he was sitting in the kitchen having toast and reading the morning newspaper. Abby noticed the headline concerned the cost of the flood damage. Three quarters of a billion dollars so far, it read. Did that figure include the loss of her family, she wondered. Could a dollar amount be put on that?
“It’s too soon,” Kate said. “We want you here, where we can keep an eye on you.”
“I have to go home sometime,” Abby said. “I don’t like leaving Mama on her own for so long, and there are the horses. My neighbor, Charlie Wister, has been looking after them for me, but I can’t expect him to keep feeding them forever.”
George and Kate eyed her worriedly.
“Come on, guys. I’ll be fine.” She made herself smile. “I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever be.”
It wasn’t true. In fact, she was afraid of going home, of being alone. For the rest of your life? asked a horrified voice in her mind. But there was another voice in her mind, too, a louder one, that kept asking questions, such as what if Nick and Lindsey had amnesia and somehow recovered and went home, and no one was there? What if they didn’t remember her cell number and called the home number and no one answered? What if they were already there and Abby was the one missing?
She was convinced, and rationality had nothing to do with it, that if only she were home everything would fall into place. Nick and Lindsey would arrive there, too. Their survival would make headline news. Someone from Primetime or 48 Hours would call to do the story. Even Nadine Betts would say it was a miracle.
But when Abby returned, her house was deserted, the same as the day she’d left it, and Kate was right. It was too soon. Abby wouldn’t last a month on her own.
Chapter 5
Ordinarily Abby loved coming home, especially in the spring. Every curve of asphalt that led to the house was lavishly dressed in frilled masses of azaleas and camellias under a higher canopy of dogwood and redbud trees. There were drifts of daffodils, too, mixed with oxalis and wild sweet violets. She and Nick had planned the approach to the house deliberately in a way that would cause a driver to slow and take time to admire the view, but turning onto her street now, her stomach was in knots even as her head filled with ruthless, foolish hope.
But the moment she caught sight of the driveway, her heart collapsed into despair. It was a mess, buried under layers of debris, the obvious effects of a storm. She went slowly toward the house, wincing at the sound as the tires crunched over downed thickets of leaf-clotted limbs. Who was going to clean it up? Who was here but her? And what about the rest of it? There were three acres to mind, plus the house, plus the horses and the barn.
Abby set her foot on the brake. She studied the house, noting the pale square of light that glowed from the dining room, and above that, on the second floor, the window that looked into her and Nick’s bedroom was cracked open. She didn’t recall leaving a light on or a window open when she’d left for the Hill Country, but she must have. No one else had been here since the flood. Not even Jake. When she parked around back and got out, a horse nickered softly. Miss Havisham? Abby’s throat closed. She wanted to leave but pushed herself across the driveway toward the back porch, noting the loosened handrail lying where she’d left it on the steps and her Wellies, caked with manure, sitting in the corner where she’d discarded them. She opened the door, and the acrid stench of mildew hit her—from the load of jeans she’d tossed into the washer on Saturday in the half hour before she’d sat down to look at the seed catalogue. In the waning moments of her ordinary life.
The phone rang, breaking the silence, startling her, and she ran to answer it, grabbing it up as if it were her lifeline. “Hello!?”
“Abby?”
“Katie!” Of course it wasn’t Lindsey or Nick.
“Are you okay? Is it okay, being there?”
“It’s weird.”
“Weird, how?”
Abby looked around, unsure how to answer. She passed her glance over the familiar surroundings that no longer felt familiar, that somehow seemed to accuse her: Lindsey’s basketball game schedule and Jake’s class schedule pinned to the refrigerator, the dish towel hanging askew on the oven door handle. Her dishes in the sink, the seed catalogue open on the table. She looked at the Texas Highways calendar over her desk. The picture was of bluebonnets, the month showing was April.
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