The Last to See Her

by Courtney Evan Tate

She worked all afternoon, writing words about a fairy-tale ending, a love story that would withstand time. It tweaked at her heart, because with every minute, she knew hers wasn’t a fairy tale. Hers wasn’t an enduring love. Even if it turned out that Thad wasn’t cheating.

  It was something she didn’t want to focus on yet.

  She’d deal with it later.

  For now, she had a den of solitude. A place of her own.

  It felt wonderful.

  She went out and bought poster board and tape and glue, and a printer.

  When she went back to her Safe Haven (which was how she would think of it now), she started printing out pictures. Of Thad, of Thad’s office and Thad’s car. She pasted them onto a poster board, and tacked it to the wall, just as she did with her storyboards for her books.

  She drew a map, of where his office was from their condo and the paths in between. What routes he could take on the L, if he chose to take the train. What restaurants were on the way, which ones were around his office. She felt slightly unhinged as she did it, but it didn’t matter.

  No one would see it but her.

  She was safe here. She was away from prying eyes.

  She could obsess as much as she wanted.

  And so she did.

  27

  Meg, Now

  “Mommy misses you, too,” Meg told Joey. He had spent fifteen minutes telling her about the fire truck he saw earlier, how the lights were bright and the siren was loud. She missed the days when the world was so simple.

  Joey’s voice was sweet, and it twinged in her belly.

  “Maybe you and Joey could come here for a few days,” she suggested to Joe when he took the phone back.

  “Joey would feel cooped up in a hotel room, you know that.” Joe was doubtful and with good reason. Joey was pure little boy.

  “I guess you are right,” she said. “I just miss him.”

  “Have you talked to your parents lately?”

  “Oh, yes. My mother is trying to decide whether to come here.”

  “God help you.”

  Meg managed to laugh. Her mother would definitely make things more tense. She was an anxious woman anyway, and in this situation, she’d be a nightmare.

  “The detective would probably arrest her just to keep her out of the way,” she said. Joe laughed.

  “How is the detective anyway? Still being a dick to you?”

  “Depends on the day,” she answered honestly. “There are times when I think he’s focusing on me as a suspect, and then times when it feels like he believes me. I honestly don’t know, to tell you the truth.”

  “He’ll love you when he gets to know you,” Joe decided. “Everyone does.”

  “You know, I’m not sure how I feel about having the kind of personality that people have to get to know in order to love,” she pointed out. “With people like Gen, they’re just loved automatically.”

  Joe laughed again. “You’re a complicated woman,” he clarified. “Driven, beautiful, intelligent. I’d marry you all over again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Definitely. Now go find your sister so you can come home.”

  The tone of his voice made her pause. It was almost unconcerned.

  “You think she left, don’t you? You think she ran away and didn’t tell anyone.”

  Joe paused.

  “I don’t know. But I think maybe. She wanted to be rid of Thad. And let’s be honest. For the last couple of months, she’s been erratic.”

  “That’s not true,” Meg protested. “She’s been distracted.”

  “She’s been gone a lot, and no one has known where to find her. How many times did Thad call you and ask if you knew where she was?”

  Meg considered that. How many times Thad had gotten home from work late and Gen hadn’t been home. It was so odd that Thad had called looking for her. It wasn’t like her sister at all.

  “Has anyone considered the possibility that maybe Gen was having an affair, too?” Joe asked hesitantly.

  Meg’s head snapped back. “No. That isn’t Gen.”

  “It wasn’t Gen,” Joe pushed back gently. “But then Gen’s husband had an affair. I think it wouldn’t be so uncommon that she went out and found some solace of her own.”

  “That’s a good word,” she answered, without thinking about it, the way she always did with their son.

  Joe sighed. “Yeah. I know a few.”

  “But Gen...she’s loyal to the bone. She’s been that way since she was born. She would never.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Joe answered firmly. “You’ve never seen a cornered animal. I have. A cornered animal will retaliate.”

  “She’s not an animal,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes.

  “No, but she’s wounded,” Joe answered, and in that moment, he sounded so wise.

  “I guess you could be right,” she finally said. “Maybe I’ll mention it to Hawkins.”

  “Have you told him about her odd behavior lately?”

  “No. Because I didn’t want him to think she’d run away.”

  “Meghan.”

  She sighed, and sighed hard.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll tell him.”

  “Good girl. I’ll talk to you later. I love you, Megs.”

  “Love you, too.”

  And she did. She hung up, thinking on that. She did love her husband. What she’d done with Thad was separate, unrelated. She’d stepped out of herself, the way she did in the operating room, and she’d participated in that night while she was separated from her feelings, from her guilt.

  In order to not torture herself, she’d have to continue that.

  She’d have to bury it and never think of it again.

  She sent Hawk a text and asked to see him.

  He said he’d meet her for lunch, so she waited and showed up five minutes early.

  He was already there, sitting there in gray slacks and a deep blue shirt. It made his eyes stand out, definitely bluer than gray. She could see his strength from beneath the material on his arms, the way the shirt stretched across his chest. She hated that she noticed. First, she’d slept with Thad, and now she was noticing a stranger. What the hell was wrong with her? She was a married woman with a child whom she loved.

  “What brings us here?” Hawk asked curiously, as she took a seat.

  She inhaled and leveled a gaze at him.

  “I haven’t been entirely truthful,” she admitted. Hawk’s eyebrow lifted and she rushed to tell him of her sister’s odd behavior in the prior months.

  When she was done, the detective was unrattled. “So, she stayed out late and didn’t offer explanations,” he said. “Maybe she was sleeping with someone.”

  “That’s what my husband said,” she sighed. “I can’t fathom it.”

  “Because you’re seeing her through the lens you’ve always viewed her in,” he offered. “You’re seeing her as your sister, not a woman. Think of your own life. Surely, there have been times you have kept things from her, things you wouldn’t want her to know?”

  Meg startled. Surely, he didn’t know. Thad certainly wouldn’t have told him.

  “Of course. I mean, sometimes.”

  Hawk nodded. “As I’m sure she did the same to you. No one reveals all of their secrets. Not to anyone.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ve requested a warrant for all of Gen’s things,” Hawk added. “Her bank accounts, her condo, everything.”

  “The condo is being sold,” Meg told him. “I don’t know when the closing date is.”

  “If Gen’s not there to sign, then that will be put on hold,” Hawk pointed out.

  “Crap. I didn’t think of that. I’ll ask Thad if he’s told their Realtor.”

  “Good idea. But in the meantime, I’ll be gettin
g a warrant to search through her things. All of it. And if there was someone else, I’ll find him. I’ll figure out a motive, Meg.”

  He meant to reassure her, but deep down, it unsettled her.

  He’d find out about her and Thad. And when he did...not only would it cast suspicion on her, but he’d stop looking at her in the way he had been lately. And that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  What is wrong with me? she wondered, as she tried to hail a cab. She had a perfectly respectable husband at home, a son, a career. Why did she even care how this man looked at her?

  She only knew that she wasn’t the woman everyone thought she was.

  She was flawed.

  Her heart heavy, she climbed into the cab.

  28

  Gen, Then

  Gen lay on her back on the cream-colored carpet. It was soft, unlike the marble floors in the condo she shared with Thad. This suited her better, she decided. She stared at the ceiling, intent on the plot of her book.

  She’d written here in this apartment more than she had in months.

  Her work was good, inspired. Her agent would be happy.

  Sitting up, she peered out the window. It wasn’t as high as her condo, so she could see people’s faces as they passed by on the sidewalk. They hurried, as people in Chicago do. The wind blew, and she was above it all, up here in her sanctuary.

  She glanced at the woman on the wall, the beautiful painting.

  What was the woman crying about? She didn’t know, but she knew the story would come to her. The woman had been her muse for a week, sparking her creativity to write. That was enough for now.

  Her cell phone rang, and she recognized Jenkins’s number.

  She answered immediately.

  “Hello.”

  “Gen, I may have found something. Can you meet me?”

  She agreed, and he gave her the address of a restaurant on the edge of town. They met there an hour later.

  Gen was dressed in jeans and a sweater, and Jenkins was in another wrinkled shirt.

  He’d already ordered her a drink, a glass of whiskey.

  “I don’t drink whiskey,” she said as she sat down and sniffed at it.

  “You will today,” he said knowingly.

  She stared at him, and heaviness settled in her belly at the look on his face.

  “Why?”

  “Drink,” he instructed. Obediently, she took a gulp.

  “Talk,” she instructed.

  “I’ve found records of an apartment that your husband has been keeping. He’s had it for years.”

  Gen stared at him. For a minute, she was outraged, but then she remembered her own. She’d literally kept her own, and her motivations were not nefarious.

  “Where is it? Maybe it’s his apartment from before we got together.”

  But Jenkins rattled off an address that was a mere block from Thad’s office.

  “Oh, my God,” Gen breathed. “Isn’t that convenient for him?”

  “I spoke with the doorman, and while he was very tight-lipped and loyal to Thad, I did learn from him that Ms. Thibault is there quite often.”

  “I’m Ms. Thibault. And I didn’t know anything about it.”

  He pushed a manila envelope across the table. “You’re a Ms. Thibault. The real Ms. Thibault. But someone else is calling herself Ms. Thibault. Isn’t that convenient? And there’s this. This isn’t from the apartment, but I followed him last night.”

  Her fingers shook as she opened the envelope.

  There were pictures inside, of her husband.

  Thad was standing outside of a hotel, and there was a woman with him. It was night, and so a bit difficult to see, and Gen couldn’t see the woman’s face. But she could see her coat.

  It was pink and had a bow on the back.

  Her breath halted and her heart seemed to stop.

  “Drink,” Jenkins urged again.

  Without hesitation, Gen knocked back the rest of the whiskey and signaled for another from the bartender.

  Jenkins nodded.

  “That’s it,” he soothed. He had a crusty exterior, but he’d been here before, with a betrayed spouse when he’d had to deliver the news. He knew what to do.

  Gen gulped the second tumbler of Jack Daniels down in one drink, then slammed the glass on the table.

  “Is my sister sharing that apartment with him?” she asked, stiltedly.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll find out. It seems odd that they’d meet at a hotel instead of the apartment if that were the case, but there could be a hundred reasons.”

  Her eyes were wide, like a startled doe, and Jenkins didn’t take his eyes off hers.

  “I’ll need to get more pictures,” he told her. “Ones where your sister’s face shows.”

  “Why?” Gen asked, feeling empty. “I know who she is.”

  “You’ll need them in court,” he said simply. “To completely wreck him, to get everything, you’ll need to show what an asshole he is.”

  “What about her?” Gen asked. “It will wreck her life.”

  Jenkins’s face was impassive. “I think she made that choice on her own when she got involved with your husband,” he said flatly. “You didn’t do this. She did.”

  “Why would she?” Gen asked, and her stomach was quivering. “Why would she want my husband? He’s an asshole. Joe is so sweet, so hardworking, so loyal. I can’t fathom why she’d want Thad, of all people. Why would she do that to me?”

  “Maybe she knew what I’ve known from the beginning...that you don’t love him anymore,” Jenkins suggested. And that snapped Gen’s head up.

  “What do you mean? Of course I love him.”

  “No, you don’t,” he answered simply. “I’ve known it from the first time I met you. You probably did once. But not anymore.”

  Gen thought about it, about that absence of feeling in her heart, the raw void. She couldn’t deny it, and so she didn’t try.

  “But that doesn’t excuse her,” she said stoutly. “My own sister is sleeping with my husband.”

  “I don’t know for sure yet if they actually had sex,” he clarified. “But they walked into that hotel together, and they left separately about an hour later.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last night. Ten o’clock.”

  “I’d just gone to bed. He texted me and told me he’d be working late, and not to wait up.”

  “I bet,” Jenkins answered.

  Damn it. Even if she didn’t feel the same about her husband as she once had, the feeling of betrayal was immense. It was all-consuming, because not only had her husband screwed her over but her flesh and blood, her very best friend in the world, had, too.

  “Don’t tell them you know,” Jenkins reminded her. “I want more proof.”

  “I don’t know if I do,” she answered honestly.

  “Trust me, you may not want it, but you need it. I’ll get it for you.”

  She was woozy from the whiskey, since she wasn’t used to it.

  Jenkins got into the cab with her.

  “I’ll ride with you to your condo,” he said in explanation.

  For a PI, he was protective, she decided.

  She sat stoically in the cab until one red light when, against her will, her head slid down to Jenkins’s shoulder. She remained that way until the cab stopped in front of her building.

  Jenkins let her out and hugged her briefly.

  “You’ll get through this,” he said awkwardly. “I know you will.”

  She nodded, and he got back into the cab. She watched it drive away.

  Shouldn’t she feel more pain about Thad? But she didn’t. All she felt was deep betrayal at her sister’s actions. Her sister was the one who had shattered her heart.

  She couldn’t just stand
here and allow it, no matter what Jenkins said.

  Rage boiled in her blood, pulsing through her heart.

  Joe should know about this.

  She couldn’t outright tell him, not now, but she could figure something else out.

  Instead of going up to the condo, she hailed another cab and rode the few blocks to her apartment. She tacked the pictures of Thad and Meg onto the wall and stared at them.

  The wheels of her brain turned and turned, and a plan began to form.

  She smiled.

  29

  Meg, Now

  Detective Hawkins stared at the pad on his desk, at the notes he’d scribbled. He checked his email again, waiting to see that his warrant had been granted.

  His phone rang.

  “Hawk,” he answered.

  “Detective, this is Marion Keoghe from the Aristotle Hotel. We’ve pulled the video surveillance that you asked for—from the night Mrs. Thibault disappeared, and from the following night when the ring was left in front of Dr. McCready’s room.”

  “Can you email me the files, or do I need to come there to view it?”

  “I can email it now.”

  Hawk spelled out his email address and clicked refresh on his inbox.

  The files showed up.

  He’d watched it at the hotel once already, but it was always different when he watched them alone at his desk.

  “Thanks,” he said curtly, and hung up. He pressed Play and watched the grainy image.

  On the first video, Gen Thibault could clearly be seen exiting the hotel, alone and drunk. He shook his head at the naivete in that. She was old enough to know better. She was from Chicago, for God’s sake.

  He pushed Play on the second video.

  According to the note accompanying the files, Meg’s room was beyond the reach of the camera, so there wasn’t footage from in front of her door. But they’d sent the lobby and elevator footage from the two-hour window that the ring was delivered.

  He spent the next two hours scouring it.

  At one point, there was a slight figure in a hooded sweater who entered the lobby. The person’s face was obscured, but he felt it was a woman. He watched the figure as it purposely walked straight to the elevators. But didn’t recognize the person.