Rae stirred together the eggs she’d cracked into a bowl. Zoey was a vegan—the eggs were for Alan—so Rae hadn’t found milk to stir into the eggs. Not even soy or almond milk. The refrigerator should have been loaded with fruits and vegetables but was oddly sparse. Zoey had been distracted before she disappeared.
Alan continued to pace and vent and maybe even unravel completely. “She wants her mother, and I can’t give her that.”
A fist squeezed Rae’s heart. “And you want your wife.”
At some point, if Zoey didn’t return or they didn’t find her, or maybe even if they did find her—depending on how they found her—the police would look at Alan. They would suspect he was responsible for whatever happened to his wife.
That news story ran somewhere in this country just about every day of the week. Husband kills wife. Hides the truth. Rae kept that to herself. Alan didn’t need one more thing to worry about.
She glanced at her still-pacing brother. He wasn’t a killer.
Zoey wasn’t dead.
She had to be alive. Rae wouldn’t accept any other outcome—for her brother’s sake. For Callie’s sake.
The first seventy-two hours were critical in finding a missing person, the first forty-eight key before the clues and evidence started to go cold.
After putting the bread in the toaster, Rae scrambled the eggs. “Look, I know this is grasping at straws, but it’s worth a try. Maybe she went home to see her mother. I know the police asked you if you two had argued and you told them no. But it’s just me here. Did you fight?”
“No. We didn’t fight.” But the way Alan said the words, the slight nuance that edged his tone, gave her pause.
As an investigative journalist who interviewed those who often tried to hide the truth, she’d trained herself to watch for such distinctions. Still, Alan wasn’t a liar. He wouldn’t hurt Zoey even in a moment of anger. He was gentle. Those characteristics had drawn Zoey to him in the first place. If he was hiding something from Rae now, it had to be because any disagreement he’d had with his wife was a private matter.
“Okay, well, did you call her mom?” she asked.
“No.”
Rae had never learned why Zoey didn’t speak to her mom. But had Zoey shared her secrets with Alan?
Rae wasn’t sure what to say next, so she busied herself with plating the eggs. Alan would have eventually cooked breakfast for Callie. He wouldn’t forget to care for his daughter in the midst of this crisis, would he? She set a slice of toast on each plate along with the jam, then looked down the hallway.
Though Rae wasn’t hungry, Alan might feel compelled to join her if she ate too. “Breakfast is ready. Should we wake Callie to eat?”
He glanced at the clock and quickly shook his head. “She ate earlier. Cheerios and the last of the almond milk. Then I put her in her room to play, but she fell asleep, so I put her in bed. I don’t know if this will mess with her schedule too much, but since she didn’t sleep well last night, she needs the rest. And I need the break. Callie has certain things she eats in certain ways.” He eyed the eggs, then he glanced at Rae but said nothing more.
Had she made them wrong? Rae sagged. “I only meant to help. But you and I can eat. How about that?”
“How can I eat?”
“You have to stay strong for Callie, if not for Zoey.” Rae slid into a chair at the table, hoping Alan would join her.
Frowning, he nodded. He approached the table and slowly sat, staring at the plate as if he looked right through it.
Rae played with the eggs on her plate and felt utterly ridiculous for thinking that either of them would eat. “Do you want me to stay here and help with Callie? I can do that.” It wasn’t like she had an actual paying job at the moment. Even if she did, she would drop everything to help her brother.
And Zoey. Her friend. Oh, God, please . . . There were no words to speak, even from her heart.
“No. Callie needs me if she can’t have Zoey. At least for now. I want to make everything as normal for her as possible. I’m trying to keep up the pretense that her mother is gone to visit a friend.”
“Do you think Callie knows something is wrong?”
“I’ll keep her occupied so she doesn’t have time to sense how seriously wrong things are. But that won’t last. I don’t know how she’ll react. Kids like Callie are—”
“It’s okay, Alan. You don’t have to explain. This news would be hard on any child.” Fear hollowed her out. “I want to help. What can I do? Anything. Name it.”
Alan scooped eggs up with his fork. Like her, he pretended to eat, moving food around on his plate without ever actually taking a bite.
When he finally spoke, he choked on his words. “You warned me that she had secrets. That’s what you said about the time she went missing for days when you were her roommate. Maybe her sudden disappearance now has something to do with then. I can’t help but hope it does and that she’ll come back to me. Come back to us.”
That he’d connected the two incidents revealed Alan’s desperation. When he lifted his eyes to her, Rae thought she could read his mind.
“You want me . . . You want me to search for her?”
“You investigate for a living. I know investigative reporting is different than, say, if you were a detective, but in some ways it’s the same. You’re like Dad was.”
“Nothing like Dad.” Their father had been an award-winning journalist, a foreign affairs correspondent. He’d stood up for the voiceless, exposing the evils of the world until those evils finally killed him, silencing his voice. She tried to follow in his steps—except for the dying part. Instead, she let everyone down.
“Yes. Yes, you are. The war zones, the battles you’ve faced are different, sure, but you find people, Rae. You find their stories.”
Not anymore. She’d spent years writing exposés, only to be tossed aside after the “debacle,” as her boss had called it. Well, that debacle might have produced a story that could have won her awards if things had taken a different turn. She focused back on the moment. “Did you tell the police about the time she disappeared before?”
“I’ve told them everything. I have nothing to hide.”
Rae tapped the table.
“Rae, you never told me details about that time she disappeared in college.”
“That’s because I don’t know anything.” At least anything that would have made any difference then—or make any difference now. Rae forced herself to chew the eggs that had become cold and rubbery, and Alan followed suit. Good. At least her efforts to get him eating weren’t for nothing.
And maybe she could investigate like he requested, and those efforts would make a difference too. “Mom. Does she know about this?”
“I’ve dreaded telling her.”
“Call her. She’ll come up and help with Callie.” Mom lived in Texas now, working as a secretary for an oil and gas executive.
Rae glanced at the TV. Alan had the sound turned down. The news captioned a story about remains being identified. He normally enjoyed watching nature and science shows but was probably watching the news because of Zoey’s disappearance. Rae knew one thing—if Zoey didn’t come home soon, reporters would start to line the street. Detectives would be in Alan and Zoey’s home asking questions and searching. His and Callie’s lives would be turned upside down even more.
What was this going to do to Callie’s regimen? Her gut churned.
“And Rae . . .”
She looked at Alan.
“Remember.”
She’d never heard Alan sound so defeated. She forced confidence into her tone for his sake. “Remember what?”
“If you do this, remember that this isn’t a story. This isn’t for a Pulitzer Prize. This is our family. It’s my wife—whatever secrets she has.”
Regret squeezed her lungs. Rae understood. “No, it’s not a story, Alan. I hope you know m
e better than that.”
“I hope so too.”
Rae also hoped Zoey would return on her own like she had the last time she’d disappeared. Zoey had survived an unspeakable trauma, and then she met Alan on the heels of that.
Rae suspected that Zoey had been the victim of abuse or a stalker before. Zoey never wanted to talk about her childhood home or her family, stating she would never go back. And now, though Rae tried to believe the best about Zoey’s current disappearance, she feared the worst. Zoey was suffering, or she was already gone.
Alan pushed away his plate. “I think you should start by going to Jackson Hole and talking to her mother. Find her. She could have moved, for all I know. Zoey’s father died a long time ago. That’s all she shared about her life before. It’s like she wanted to forget about her past. Hide from it. And after what she’d been through, I never questioned her about why she moved to Colorado. We put all our hopes in the present and future and put the past behind us. We even eloped so there was no pressure to invite the people from her past. And now, looking back, I realize that was a mistake. I should have pressed her for more information. Pressed her to include them.”
“You can’t think that you made a mistake when you married her. You can’t.”
“I love her. Love covers a multitude of sins, right? I didn’t make a mistake. Callie isn’t a mistake. I could have done things differently. So now, I’m going to do something. I think starting with her mother is a good place to begin. It’s all I can think to do.”
Rae’s throat tightened. She should avoid being within a thousand miles of Jackson Hole. That valley was the current residence of the reason for her financial, emotional, and psychological woes. The source of the daily pain in her chest.
Alan watched her as if he sensed her hesitation and waited for confirmation. Was she willing to do this? The police would do everything in their power to find her sister-in-law, but Rae knew from experience that their efforts couldn’t save the day every time. There was simply too much ground to cover. Too many criminals.
Rae closed her eyes and exhaled.
What should I do? What should I do? Am I the right person to take on such an enormous task? What if she let Alan down? Callie?
Zoey.
“Why don’t you call her mom, then?” Rae asked.
“And say what? This is your son-in-law? Your daughter is missing?”
“I see your point.” Zoey’s mom wouldn’t know him from Adam. “Still, I think you should make that call.”
Alan scraped his hands through his hair, then cracked a sob. Finally, he lifted his face, his eyes meeting hers. “I don’t know how to reach her. Even if I did, I can’t talk coherently at the moment. Rae, if you don’t help me, who else will? I mean, besides the police. Besides the media that will eventually blast her face everywhere. I feel so helpless. I want to be out there looking, searching, but the truth is, that never was my thing. I’m not good at that even if I’m desperately looking for my wife. But it’s your thing. You are good. If you don’t do this—”
“All right. All right.”
Rae stood and gathered their dishes to place in the sink.
“Just . . . let me think.”
Alan approached. “It can’t hurt to have one more person digging into things. In fact, if you need me to help you research, I’ll do what I can. But remember, my time will be limited since I’m caring for Callie.”
“You would have made Dad proud, Alan.” She offered a tenuous smile. “You might not be an investigative journalist, but you do think like one.”
“I’m no journalist. You got those genes. I’m a nerd. A computer geek. You know that.”
Rae opened her mouth—
“Save it. I already searched her personal laptop. I know how to look, Rae. There’s nothing there except research about autism and everything she can do to help her little girl grow up and live a happy life. On her work computer, I confirmed nothing more than the part-time work she does for the cyber-security software company. I searched before I even called the police.” He held Rae’s gaze. “Not that I didn’t trust her, but I had to look first.”
Of course Alan had looked. Rae had often suspected one of the big reasons Zoey and Alan had hit it off so well was that they were both computer geeks.
“The police will want to look too. They’ll look at all the calls she’s made. Any digital trails she’s left.”
As much as Rae hoped that Zoey would walk through the front door any moment now, a sixth sense told her it wouldn’t happen any time soon—if it ever did.
“There’s one more thing you need to know before you search for her mother.” Alan slid back into the chair at the kitchen table.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve learned something about her past. The police told me there’s no record of a Zoey Dumont who moved to Colorado from Wyoming. No Zoey Dumont who fits her description lived in Jackson Hole. Zoey Dumont isn’t her birth name.”
“Then who is your wife?”
He blew out a long breath. “I wish I knew.”
CHAPTER TWO
Alan stared at the door his sister had exited. She was going to do what he should do—look for his wife. But he had other considerations.
His entire world felt as if it were folding in on itself. At the moment, he was so wiped out that he wasn’t sure he could tell fact from fiction.
“Daddy?”
Ah—his most important consideration. Definitely fact.
Callie held on to a stuffed panda bear. She’d always preferred stuffed animals to dolls. She preferred the softness—a sensory thing—to the harder plastic from which dolls were made. Her room was painted pink and decorated with panda decals. Who knew one could purchase bedspreads and curtains covered in fat black-and-white bears. She crept toward him, rubbing her big blue eyes. Her long blonde curls had tangled during her nap. Even tangled, they were soft, so soft.
He loved hearing the way she called him Daddy and was grateful that she could at least speak. Some children with autism were nonverbal. He should have woken her earlier to better keep with her schedule, but he needed to make sure he and Rae had time to discuss Zoey without Callie overhearing their conversation.
She climbed onto his lap. She had her mother’s eyes—no doubt there.
Zoey had finished college while they were married and she was pregnant with Callie. She’d only had a few credit hours left to earn her degree. When Callie was born, Zoey wanted to stay home with her and love and protect her as long as she could. With his tech job, they could afford that luxury. He loved being able to provide for them. Still, Zoey worked part-time, claiming it kept her mind sharp.
To hide the turmoil rolling inside, he smiled for Callie. Callie’s eyes were bright and innocent. In that way, they were far different from Zoey’s. He’d always sensed a murkiness in his wife that came with keeping the past behind her. He wanted to shield and protect her from the demons that haunted her.
He choked on the thought.
Protect them . . . Protect Zoey.
Right.
Zoey was gone.
For all any of them knew, Callie could be missing now too if she hadn’t been in therapy. He hugged her again, grateful that she wasn’t opposed to hugs. She was on the too-social end of the spectrum, easily warming to strangers, hugging them or even going along with them. Everyone was worthy of Callie’s love. Everyone was welcomed into her world.
He kissed the top of her head and willed the surging tears back into place. He would protect her from his dark emotions as well.
After a while, the way her body went limp and comfortable against him made him think Callie had gone back to sleep. But then she lifted her face to stare at him. “Mommy. I want Mommy.”
Emotional pain—much worse than anything he’d ever experienced—lanced through him. He couldn’t take this. But he had no choice.
“I know, sweeth
eart.” He snuggled her for a few moments, then tickled her, and she giggled, giving him the response he needed. Joyous laughter spilled from the small bundle—an amazing, miraculous creation.
But tickles and snuggles and excuses would only last so long.
If Zoey didn’t return soon, he had no idea what he was going to do. He couldn’t bear to think that something nefarious had happened to her. Deep inside, he somehow sensed she was still alive. Like the sense Mom always had that Dad was okay, until he wasn’t. That day, she’d had a sense of loss. Then they heard that he’d been killed along with the soldiers he was traveling with.
Alan knew finding Zoey’s vehicle would go a long way in learning where she had gone. Or if she’d been abducted.
He braced for the possibility that he might become a suspect in his wife’s disappearance.
God, please don’t let it come to that. For Callie’s sake. She’s so sweet and innocent. Just a child. She doesn’t deserve to have her world rocked.
But what child ever deserved the loss of a parent? Yet that tragedy happened every day. His reporter sister had told him enough about the evils of this world—it boggled his mind. His father had exposed those truths too. A person would have to be completely unaware of the world around them not to understand the unimaginable evil waiting in the shadows.
If the police decided to invade Alan’s life and arrest him, what would happen to Callie? He was innocent, but he’d heard those stories too—innocent men sent to prison. Dying at the hands of capital punishment. If the worst happened, Mom or Rae could take Callie, but Alan wanted to be the one to raise his daughter. He wanted to love his wife.
God, please let Zoey return safe and sound and unharmed.
And then when she did, then and only then, could Alan fall apart.
Don’t Keep Silent Page 2