Before We Were Strangers

by Brenda Novak

  * * *

  Micah scrubbed a hand over his face as he waited for the doctor to finish bandaging Trevor’s finger so they could go. The kid had four stitches but was in fine spirits. The young were so resilient.

  “Can we go to lunch?” Trevor asked after they’d been released and Micah guided him out of the med center.

  “Sure.” He pressed the button on his key fob that would unlock the truck. “What would you like to eat?”

  They climbed in before Trevor answered. “How about a burger?” he said as he put on his seat belt.

  Micah chuckled. “Why’d I even ask?”

  As soon as Micah found a place Trevor liked, he pulled in, but he was a bit too uneasy to eat a full meal. Not only was Sloane at the cabin, scuba diving in the lake alone, no one had heard from Paige. He kept asking himself what could be going on with his ex-wife. How could a mother leave town and then turn off her phone when she had a young son?

  He checked for messages again, as he’d been doing all morning, while they went into the burger joint. He wanted to hear that Sloane was okay and receive some word from Paige.

  But there was nothing.

  “Dad? What do you want?”

  He glanced up to see the person behind the cash register waiting for his order. “What’d you get?” he asked Trevor.

  “A burger, fries and a vanilla shake.”

  “A shake?”

  “You won’t let me have soda.”

  “Because soda has too much sugar—and that isn’t much different from a shake, right?”

  Trevor lifted his bandaged hand. “But I have a hurt finger, and you feel sorry for me, right?”

  Micah rolled his eyes. One shake wasn’t going to kill the kid. And Paige wasn’t around to find out, so it couldn’t cause an argument. “Fine,” he said and ordered a bacon burger for himself.

  He’d finished paying and they were finding a table where they could sit and wait for their food, when he received a call from his mother. He assumed she’d heard about his suspension, or she’d heard about Trevor and his finger. Either way, he needed to reassure her, so he answered right away.

  “I have Hadley McBride’s cell phone number for you,” she announced.

  “You what?” It took him a moment to switch gears. She didn’t know about his suspension or Trevor, or she would’ve started the conversation differently.

  “The other night you asked me if I knew anyone who could reach Hadley. You said you needed to talk to her.”

  “I do, but you told me you didn’t have any mutual contacts.”

  “I asked around. Turns out your aunt June has the same hairdresser, Sally Redfern, and Sally had Hadley’s number right there in her appointment book when June went in to have her hair done this morning.”

  “Sally was willing to give out that information?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means June didn’t ask. While she was waiting for her color to process, and Sally was off shampooing someone else, she saw the book sitting there, open for all to see, and turned through it until she found Hadley’s last appointment. Her number was right by her name.”

  “Aunt June didn’t get caught?”

  “She did but she said she was just looking back to see how many weeks it’d been since her last color.”

  “That’s pretty resourceful.” He created a contact and put the number in his phone as his mother rattled off the digits. Then he thanked her, kept word of his suspension to himself—he was still hoping to work that out before the news broke—and told her about Trevor cutting himself, at which point she had to talk to her grandson.

  He allowed them a couple of minutes to chat, but once the food was ready, he took the phone back, sent Trevor to the counter to get the burgers, told his mother he had to go and called Hadley.

  * * *

  The lake was exactly as the diver who’d posted on the internet described. Dull, with only the occasional largemouth or striped bass swimming around for company. Less than five feet visibility. Muddy at the bottom. Lots of submerged vegetation, rocks, fishing lines and junk.

  Sloane listened to the sound of her own breathing as she swam in slow-moving laps stabbing a pole into the lake bed to see if there was something buried underneath in the section she’d designated as the area her father would most likely have dumped her mother. Given the conditions he had to have been facing that night—the need to act quickly, the darkness and the location of the cabin with the privacy it afforded him, she felt she’d chosen well. If she were him, this was where she’d come.

  She found an old tire, lots of beer bottles and cans, several lost shoes and eyeglasses, swimsuit tops and bottoms, even a shiny necklace, which she kept in case it had belonged to her mother. But she knew in her heart it didn’t. It was too cheap, more like a teenager’s necklace than something the wife of a wealthy man like her father might own.

  Careful to avoid the fishing hooks attached to the trotlines that’d become entangled with the submerged trees, Sloane stayed down as long as she could, searching for anything that might be suspect—a black plastic bag, bones, the nightgown her mother had been wearing that night, which she remembered clearly despite her young age, even a hank of her mother’s thick, dark hair—but after exhausting all her oxygen, she hadn’t found anything to lead her to believe this was where her father had dumped her mother’s body.

  Just before she rose to the surface—slowly to give the nitrogen in her blood time to dissipate through her lungs—she turned in a full circle to gaze in every direction. Searching the lake had seemed like such a great idea, such a finite and doable task, but after spending one whole afternoon underwater, she realized just how big the lake was and how difficult it would be to find something that’d been dropped in there only yesterday, let alone over two decades ago.

  Exhausted after swimming for so long and filled with a sense of futility and disappointment, she grabbed hold of the anchor line and let it guide her to the top. She could spend every day for the rest of her life out here and never find anything. That was the truth of it. Her father had won. She didn’t have a chance of holding him accountable for what he’d done, and she never had.

  After spitting out her regulator and removing her mask, she used the rope ladder she’d put out before diving to get back on the boat. The wind had kicked up enough to give her a chill, and it looked like rain on the horizon. She frowned at the sky before removing her flippers, raising the anchor and motoring to the cabin.

  What a difference three hours had made in the weather, but now that she was finished diving, she wasn’t too worried about it. She’d be inside for the next couple of hours. She planned to look around a bit more before she left. After all, she’d broken a window. She should make the most of it even though her hopes of finding any evidence had fallen to almost zero. She’d been through the cabin once already, understood how quickly current years could erase all traces of previous years.

  She peeled off her wetsuit before getting out of the boat and carried it, along with her equipment, up to the cabin. As sad as she was that she wouldn’t be able to bring her mother the justice she deserved, she was relieved to be out of the water. The lake was getting choppy as the wind increased.

  She set her gear near the door, so she could put it in her trunk when she left, and stood at the living room window to watch the storm gather. She could remember her mother looking out this same window, just as she was doing now.

  “Where are you?” she whispered. “What more can I do?” She’d believed she could handle the investigation alone, that sheer determination would change everything. But the past week had taught her that an entire army of detectives probably couldn’t figure out what happened that night.

  Lightning zigzagged through the sky. She guessed thunder wasn’t far off. With a sigh, she walked over and t
urned on the heater to combat the cold air whistling through that broken window. She couldn’t seem to get warm. She knew some of it had to be the encroaching despair she was feeling, but she couldn’t shake it.

  Before searching the cabin more thoroughly, she decided to let Micah know she was okay, but when she went to get her purse, it wasn’t there.

  * * *

  Micah plugged his left ear while pressing his phone to his right. It wasn’t easy to hear above the dust storm that’d come up while they were eating, but he didn’t want to go back into the restaurant, didn’t want anyone to overhear him, and he didn’t get in the truck with Trevor for the same reason.

  “Hadley, listen to me,” he said. “I understand you’re in a difficult position, but I need you to tell me what you were referring to in that note you left Sloane.” He’d already said as much, had been going around and around with her since she’d picked up, but he was hoping his persistence would pay off. She seemed to be torn, so he kept working on her. “You know what she’s been through, how sad it is that she has no idea where her mother went. If Ed had something to do with it, we need to hold him accountable.”

  “I want to help, Micah, I really do,” she said. “But I can’t get involved.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why. Ed doesn’t like anyone to get in his business. And I’m his daughter-in-law. I have to get along with him.”

  “We’ll figure out a way, if we can, to claim the information came from someone else. But please help. You could hold the piece of the puzzle that makes all the rest come together. Have some compassion for Sloane—and for Clara. She was a good woman. She deserves for someone to stand up and tell the truth.”

  “But the truth isn’t what you think! Ed didn’t kill her!”

  He ducked his head a little more since he was having trouble hearing. “Then who did?”

  She sighed into the phone—at least he thought he heard that above the wind. “I can only tell you what Edith once told me, in confidence.”

  “Edith?”

  “Ed’s secretary at city hall. We were working together on his last campaign and...”

  He could tell she was reluctant to continue. “And?”

  “And somehow the subject of who he was dating came up. She mentioned that none of the women he’d been with over the years could hold a candle to the woman he’d married. I said it was sad that Clara was gone, that I hoped she’d come back one day so I could meet her and she could get to know her grandchild. Then Edith gave me this funny look, like I should know better. I asked her why she was looking at me like that, and she said, ‘She’s not coming back, Hadley.’ So I asked her how she knew that, and she told me Clara was pregnant when she went missing.”

  “How’d Edith know she was pregnant?”

  “She said Ed broke down in his office only days after Clara disappeared and said he thought she was dead, that she’d been pregnant with someone else’s child and the father had been furious about it because he didn’t want his wife to find out, take his children and leave him.”

  “So why didn’t Ed go to the police?”

  “This is the part I’m afraid to talk about,” she admitted. “I don’t want to cause problems for my father-in-law. He’s not an easy person to like in some ways. He can be arrogant and egotistical and all that, but he’s been good to Randy and I. We wouldn’t have the dealership or most the other stuff we have without him.”

  “I need to know,” Micah said. “I’ll protect you as much as I can, but there are other people involved. They deserve some consideration, too.”

  “I agree. That’s why I feel I should speak up. But...”

  “Hadley, you’ve come this far...”

  “Fine. I guess there was a time when the police were trying to pin the murder of Ed’s parents and brother on him. The detective investigating their deaths tried to say he hired the man who shot them so he could inherit their money, which is crazy. Anyway, he was afraid to go to the police about Clara, thought it would bring all of that back and destroy his political career. Not only that but he and Clara were having marital problems. They had had an argument the night she went missing, and he had been seeing other women. Edith said he knew he’d look like the bad guy.”

  “So he just ignored the fact that his wife went missing?”

  “He believed she was already dead and going to the police wasn’t going to bring her back.”

  Micah squinted to keep the dust out of his eyes. “Did he mention the father of the baby? The man he thought killed her?”

  “No. Edith said he wouldn’t tell her who it was, but her niece is a teacher at Millcreek Elementary School, and she said Clara was always helping out in Brian Judd’s class.”

  There was the name Micah had expected. “Because he was Sloane’s kindergarten teacher,” he said, just to see if she’d offer more to substantiate what she was telling him.

  “She was going beyond helping out, Micah. Edith’s niece saw them kissing in his class one day when she stopped in after school to say goodbye.”

  Trevor banged on the window to see what was taking Micah so long, but Micah waved him off. “So Edith believes Brian Judd killed Clara McBride because she was pregnant and news of their affair was bound to come out?”

  “That’s not the only reason she thinks he did it. Edith said her niece also told her he didn’t show up for school the day after Clara went missing. And when he did show up a day later, he had four scratches on his cheek. Looked like someone had gouged him with their nails.”

  “Did she ask where he got those scratches?”

  “He said he was play-fighting with his kids.”

  “And Edith’s niece didn’t buy that?”

  “No, because he was acting funny, too. But don’t let Ed know I’m the one who told you all this. He doesn’t want an investigation, especially now, with another election coming up.”

  “I won’t tell him.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come back on Edith, either. That’s the thing. But... I don’t know. I have felt as though I needed to say something. It sort of feels good to have it off my chest, to be honest. I’ve thought a lot about Sloane over the years, felt bad for her.”

  “I appreciate your help,” Micah said.

  “What did you say?”

  The wind was growing stronger and louder. She couldn’t hear him. “Thank you!” he shouted and climbed into his truck to call Brian Judd.

  “What’s going on?” Trevor asked. “What took you so long?”

  “I’m working on something,” he said. “I need another minute.”

  Trevor gave him a tortured look, as if he was so bored he couldn’t wait any longer, but Micah didn’t have time to encourage him before a woman answered at Brian’s house.

  Micah glanced over to see his son messing with the bandage on his finger and reached over to stop him. “Is Brian there?”

  “I’m afraid not. Who’s this?”

  “An old friend of his from college.” Micah wasn’t sure it was necessary to lie, but he couldn’t risk putting Judd’s wife on the defensive by explaining who he really was. “Can you tell me when he might be back?”

  “Oh, not for a while.”

  “What time does he normally get home? Is he still at the school?”

  “No, he took a vacation day and went fishing up at Lake Granbury.”

  Micah couldn’t believe his ears. “Did you say Lake Granbury?”

  “Yeah. With the weather turning, I can’t imagine he’s still on the water, but it’ll take him an hour or so to drive back.”

  “Has he been planning this trip for a while?”

  “It was sort of last minute. Can I have him call you?”

  Micah told her he’d call back and disconnected. He had to get to Sloane right away. He tried calling her to warn her that Brian Judd was in the area. Afte
r what he’d heard from Hadley, he was worried Brian might not be happy they were digging up the past. If he’d killed Clara, as Edith believed, he’d no doubt risk a lot to keep that hidden.

  But Sloane’s phone didn’t even ring, indicating she’d turned it off.

  Why? Micah wondered. She knew he was worried about her.

  The most probable answer to that question made his heart race.

  Starting his truck right away, he drove over to Paige’s parents’ so he could drop off Trevor. He had to get to Ed’s cabin as soon as possible.

  There could only be one reason Brian Judd had gone to Lake Granbury, and it had nothing to do with fishing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “What are you doing here?” Although Sloane had been cold only a moment before, she was burning up, sweating as though she’d just run a mile. She couldn’t see what Brian Judd had done with her purse. He didn’t seem to have it with him, and it wasn’t in the room. But he held her phone in his hand and stood between her and the door as though he was purposely cutting off her escape.

  “I needed to talk to you—right away.”

  She felt for the breakfast bar behind her, wanting to put it between them. “You could’ve called me.”

  “No, I couldn’t. Then I wouldn’t know how you were taking what I was saying, who else was around. I had to speak to you alone, to tell you that you don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “I understand you’ve been lying to me. You said you didn’t have sex with my mother, that it didn’t go that far, but she was pregnant with your child when she went missing.”

  “You’re wrong! I didn’t have sex with Clara. It wasn’t my baby she was carrying—it was your father’s. She was upset that she was going to have another baby with him.”

  She could see how desperately he wanted her to believe him, but something about his body language seemed to contradict his words. “My father had a vasectomy after I was born. Besides, my mother told Vickie Winters it was your child.”