The Spires

by Moretti, Kate

  “Leslie,” Penelope said softly and tucked the photo into her nightstand drawer. She smiled at her husband. “You’re probably right.”

  “Any idea of a plan yet?” Penelope asked casually.

  She didn’t plan to have this conversation again, but the events from yesterday swirled in her mind. Willa had stood in the kitchen, drinking coffee with Penelope (again) and promising that she’d know something soon—not an actual plan yet, but as soon as I know, you’ll know!—and asked if she could bring a friend for dinner. Penelope had swallowed hard before agreeing. It was likely Jaime again. She thought of the black-and-white photos in her room, the kiss on the porch, and her hands trembled.

  Willa clapped and kissed Penelope’s cheek excitedly and bounced out of the kitchen on her toes like the dancer she always said she was, blonde ponytail swinging. The front door creaked open, slammed shut, and outside, Willa’s car puttered out of the driveway.

  Penelope was alone in the house. She waited an extra minute to make sure that Willa was actually gone and then texted Nora—Dr. Appt this afternoon. I’ll be online this morning, but will be taking the afternoon off! Thx—and tucked the phone back into her pocket before heading back upstairs. The kids were at school; Brett had left early for the gym.

  In the family office, Penelope sat in the plush wheeled chair, powered on the laptop that sat unused for days on end. With everything available on their phones—bills, banking . . . hell, even grocery delivery—she found they needed the laptop less and less.

  She navigated to an incognito Google page and started searching: Willa Blaine. Willamena Blaine. Willa and Trent, Deer Run. Found a single Facebook profile for her, her picture fuzzy, like a filter over the camera, the edges of her cheek blurred, the scar rendered invisible. Intro: Teacher. Dancer. Married to the love of my life. Workplaces: Accounting Teacher at Pellville High School. Married to Grey Hudson. The rest of her profile was locked down for privacy.

  Willa had said she was married to a man named Trent. Obviously, she could have given Penelope a fake name. Penelope clicked the link to Grey Hudson. Intro: Loves to hike, bike, open mic. Macallan taste on a Bankers Club budget. His profile picture was handsome—thick gray hair, a wide white smile. He wore a suit.

  Not the garage dweller Willa made him out to be. He had no other photos available to the public.

  All the nerves in Penelope’s body were tingling, a steady thrum up and down her spine. She blew up the picture of Willa and studied it from all angles. It was definitely Willa—same narrow curve of her chin, same scar, same wide blue eyes, startled and watery. The same brilliant cheerleader smile.

  She opened a new tab and in the white pages, typed Grey Hudson, Deer Run, and just that easily—snap of her fingers, really—a phone number and address were returned. She copied the address onto a folded piece of printer paper, and before she could think twice, she picked up her keys, grabbed her purse, and headed out to her car.

  It was an hour and seventeen minutes from Wexford, New Jersey, to Deer Run, Pennsylvania, and Penelope didn’t even think about the E-ZPass catching her tolls or what it would mean later when she had to explain herself. She didn’t think to turn off her GPS, her phone location that the kids used incessantly to find out if she was on her way home from work yet and should they just pick up dinner without her.

  As soon as the car rolled into town, the main street that Penelope hadn’t seen in twenty years, her throat closed up and her hands rattled against the steering wheel. She was more anxious than she’d thought she’d be.

  She rolled down the window, just to smell the brisk, honey-scented air of a town frozen in time. The bookstore she’d worked at—Amelia with her plain bowl haircut, her watery brown eyes, but her shocking loud, infectious laugh. The walks home after her shift with Jack while he talked animatedly, hands flying, about his book, his cheeks pinked with warmth, his smile and the way she felt it zing her whole body. Did he ever publish the book? Penelope had never looked. Whenever she’d thought about the Church House, the five of them, her stomach had twisted with something sick, and she’d swallowed it all back until she found something distracting to focus on. Linc. Tara. Brett. Dinner. Dishes. Nora. Anything.

  She pressed fingertips to the bridge of her nose. All of this was too much. Too much, too fast. She pulled up in front of the address on the folded paper: a white ranch house, neatly decorated and landscaped, the lawn mowed green, even in the dead of winter, a row of boxwoods lining the paved driveway. In the back, a fence, a swing set, a small matching white doghouse. The whole property looked like something out of Edward Scissorhands.

  Penelope rang the doorbell twice and waited. She heard footsteps, a high-pitched squeal, and the door opened to reveal what was very obviously Grey Hudson. He looked exactly like his profile picture.

  “Hi, are you Grey Hudson?” Penelope asked, her voice shaking, and she cleared her throat to cover it up.

  “Yes. What can I help you with?” He smiled at her, teeth and warmth and kindness, and Penelope hated that her first thought was, This man could not have hit Willa, because honestly, how could you tell? This was why charming men got away with beating their wives—as long as they did it in places where the bruises didn’t show.

  “I’m actually looking for an old classmate of mine—Willa Blaine?” His face stayed frozen, and Penelope rushed on with a speech she had rehearsed in the car. “My name is Bree Haren. We lived together after college, and I was back in town for the first time in twenty years—I just thought I’d . . . you know, pop in to see her.”

  Grey’s face had gone the shade of his hair. Penelope had a flash that the man could be having a stroke right in front of her, and she cautiously asked, “Are you all right? You look like you might faint.”

  Grey gripped the doorjamb, exhaled loudly. “I’m . . . fine. I’m okay.” He shook his head. “It’s just that . . .”

  “If it’s a bad time, I can come back,” Penelope offered.

  A tiny voice behind him piped up. “Daddy, what does that lady want with Mommy?”

  Penelope caught herself as she gasped. A little miniature version of Willa stood behind Grey, all blonde pigtails and apple cheeks. She looked about four years old, with the squat, strong-thighed build of a budding cheerleader. Grey scooped her up and kissed the top of her head.

  “This,” he said to Penelope, “is Violet. She’s four.” Violet displayed five fingers, and Grey chuckled as he gently pushed down her thumb. Violet rolled her eyes at her father in a gesture so grown up, and so much like her mother, that Penelope almost said so.

  “Hi, Violet,” Penelope said to the child and felt instantly terrible for intruding on their life. This was the man who had hit Willa? This gentle gray-haired man with his little girl who seemed not at all afraid of her father? Although, surely it was true that some men would beat their wives, and their children were blissfully unaware? Penelope had no earthly idea. For all Brett’s faults—and they were numerous—he’d never been violent.

  In addition, Willa had fled to Penelope’s, leaving Violet in the care of her father? Who would leave a child with a violent abuser? Not to mention, the entire time Willa had been staying with them, she’d never mentioned a child. She talked a bit about Trent (or Grey?) but nothing about a little blonde pigtailed four-year-old who looked exactly—exactly—like her mother. Did Willa plan to come back for her? When she talked of her plan—finding a life for herself—was Violet part of that? Did Jaime know Willa had a child? Penelope’s mind was spinning, trying to make sense of the unexpected scene before her.

  “I’m sorry,” Grey said, stepping aside and waving her in. “Please come in. Sit down. I apologize for the mess. I’m trying to work from home, but Violet here makes it a bit difficult.”

  Still holding the child, he kicked newspapers out of the way with his foot. The inside of his house was a mess. Plates and coffee cups on the end tables, the pillows scattered on the floor, toys littering the hallway, children’s books on the couches and c
hairs. He deposited Violet on the floor, and she immediately started to suck her thumb. He went about quickly clearing a spot for Penelope to sit.

  Penelope feigned confusion (she was truly baffled, so this wasn’t hard to do). “Is Willa home? Or I could come back another time?” She shook her head to drive the point home, and Grey sighed and sat in the chair across from her. She realized then that he was probably still in his pajamas—a flannel shirt and a pair of sweatpants. And it was the middle of a workday, which had been fairly terrible planning, if in fact Penelope had planned any of this.

  “Look, I don’t know how to tell you this.” Grey leaned forward, elbows on knees, and tented his fingertips. “But about six months ago, Willa ran out to mail a package and never came home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  February 25, 2020

  Penelope had never had a poker face. At the Church House, they tried to actually play poker, and any good hand she had was immediately known. Jack would say, What do you have, two pair? Full house? Can’t be a straight. He’d prattle through all the hands until he hit the one and then break into a full grin. Yep, that’s it; look at your face.

  Penelope must have shown some kind of shock because Grey immediately stood and retreated to the kitchen, returning only seconds later with a glass of water.

  “I’m so sorry to just blurt it out like that. It’s been a long few months.”

  Obviously there was nothing surprising about Willa going missing; after all, she was probably sitting in Penelope’s kitchen. However, Penelope was utterly confounded by the fact that Willa had been gone for six whole months. Where had she been this whole time?

  “What happened?” Penelope finally asked.

  “Damned if I know.” Grey sighed. Violet sat, staring at her father, her eyes a mirror of Willa’s—bright blue and shining. He said to her, “Violet, honey, can you please run to your room for a little while I talk to Mommy’s old friend from college?”

  She scampered away, but Penelope didn’t hear the steps down the hallway and suspected the child was lurking right around the corner, listening intently, a cool, fat cheek pressed against the drywall.

  “She seemed fine. I don’t know. They found her car at the post office, no purse, no wallet, cell phone, keys inside. The camera outside the post office has her entering the building. A second camera inside has her exiting about ten minutes later, but it only captured to the vestibule. In the corner of the vestibule, there’s a blind section. Between where the indoor camera cuts out and the outdoor camera clicks on. It’s a few seconds, at the most. But pffffft.” He made a waving motion with his hand. “She was gone.”

  “What did the police say?” Penelope was truly riveted, even though she could barely reconcile the cognitive dissonance. Willa, this sweet man’s missing wife, a child’s mother, was . . . what? Dancing barefoot around Penelope’s kitchen? Kissing Penelope’s neighbor?

  “They looked for months. I still have a detective that shows up here once in a while. Nothing new to report.” Grey shook his head. “They think maybe she just left of her own volition, but I know Willa. She might have left me. Might. We weren’t perfect, but I thought we were doing all right. But if she left me, I could accept it. But she’d never leave that little girl.” A fat tear escaped and rolled down Grey’s cheek, and he made no move to wipe it. He didn’t look embarrassed.

  “What do you think happened?” Penelope asked.

  “I’ve no earthly idea,” Grey said, his voice hoarse. “One minute she was here, about to mail a package to her sister in Louisiana, and the next, nothing. We’re just supposed to go on, then?”

  “No cash missing from your bank account? No credit transactions?”

  “Nope, nothing. We checked all that.”

  Penelope had a thought. “What kind of car did she drive?”

  “A 2019 Honda CRV. Silver. It was at the post office, and they towed it here after it was processed by the police lab. It’s in the garage now. I have no idea what to do with it. Sell it?” He ran a palm across his stubble, a soft scratching noise. “What if she comes back? She’ll need a car, right?” His eyes grew unfocused, imagining a life where Willa would need to run to the grocery store, even the post office, again.

  The car parked in front of Willa’s house was a dark-blue beat-up Chevy. Probably an early 2000s model. It had a large dent in the passenger-side door.

  “Do you mind if I look?” Penelope stood, indicated toward the living room wall—a mural of pictures. Grey waved her on with one hand but didn’t stand.

  The three of them at the beach, Willa with her head thrown back, her teeth white and exposed, the raw strip of neck pale where the sun didn’t hit, her hair gleaming. In the photo, Grey and Violet watched her, rapt. In another frame, the ocean behind her, Willa smiled brilliantly into the camera, Violet perched on a hip. She wore the same clothes in both pictures.

  Willa looked the same in the photo as she had that morning standing in Penelope’s kitchen. The same cheerleader grin, a sparkling, mischievous glint in her eye, the same pink scar, faint with concealer. Penelope couldn’t make sense of any of it—her mind swam with a thousand questions.

  “It was a family photo shoot. We didn’t usually do things like that, but Willa found a coupon on vacation. So . . . we did.” He shrugged, helplessly, from the couch.

  The air over by the fireplace held the smell of Willa—a distinct, light musk. The same scent that had been permeating Penelope’s house for almost two weeks. It had seeped into her throw pillows, her couch, the chair she preferred to sit in, her legs tucked underneath her, reading a folded paperback. At first, Penelope thought it smelled lovely—and familiar. Now it was beginning to give her a headache.

  She continued to study the family photos—older relatives she didn’t know, a row of little kids holding hands. Likely nieces and nephews on Grey’s side, parents, and in one frame, a very elderly man in a wheelchair. How could Willa just up and leave all this—this wasn’t just leaving one man. This was leaving a whole life. This was grief for dozens of people who loved her, would miss her, cry for her, give small prayers at Thanksgiving in her honor or tiny memorial speeches at weddings.

  Penelope felt the room spin slightly and sank down into the chair next to the fireplace, and the Willa scent grew stronger.

  “That was her favorite chair,” Grey said, a husk in his voice. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  Penelope nodded, but she felt light headed. She studied the carpet pattern—a blue-and-white floral swirl—to regain her composure.

  Grey cleared his throat. “It’s actually kind of strange that you’re here. She had gotten pretty quiet and secretive about a month before she disappeared. Taking phone calls in private, that kind of thing. I had asked her what was going on, but she said it was work. I guess I was an idiot, but I believed her. I told the police this, but only recently remembered something. I didn’t think it was connected, but now that you’re here, maybe I do?” His voice pitched up at the end with a slight wobble. Penelope nodded, and he continued, “She had a nightmare about two or three nights before she disappeared. She woke up crying, sweating, the whole nine yards. I got her water and helped her calm down. She was never really a nightmare kind of person, so it really felt off to me. But when I asked her what it was about, she just said it was about college.”

  Penelope made a valiant effort not to look startled and probably failed. She watched Grey smooth the sides of his hair back, fidgety and nervous. “See, she didn’t talk much about college—or rather that year after college. We only met ten years ago; she just said that she had a ‘bad year,’ her house burned down, and that was that. I didn’t ask too many questions. It never seemed . . . relevant. But I have to ask you now—” He stopped long enough to inhale deeply, his eyes deep and earnest and a sheen of sweat shining along his upper lip. “Did you live with someone named Grace?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Then: Widening circles

  Grace had become a fixture
at the house. In the kitchen, rooting through the refrigerator for a healthy snack (You’re all going to get scurvy, not just Jack); lounging in the great room, legs slung over the arm of Flynn’s big chair, reading a book (You guys really need to get a TV); leaning over the railing of Jack’s loft bedroom while Flynn cooked dinner (Remember, no mushrooms—I’m allergic to mushrooms!). The sound of her voice, the soft natural rasp that was actually, if Penelope weren’t so anti-everything when it came to Grace, soothing and sexy. Penelope wasn’t the kind of person to be easily driven crazy. But this was going to do it.

  The night before, Grace had brought her sister to meet “all her new friends.” She announced gaily, “This is Talia!” Talia was slightly smaller than Grace, dark haired, with huge glasses perched on the edge of a prominent nose. She’d barely said a word the entire time, and what she did say, she whispered to Grace, who repeated it for everyone else.

  After she’d left, Flynn said, “Your sister seems nice. Super quiet.”

  Grace had sighed. “She’s interesting, for sure.”

  Later, they’d see Grace duck out to the front hall, take a phone call in hushed tones: “It’ll be fine; listen, you’ll be okay. It’s not a big deal, okay? Just calm down.” She’d excuse herself after dinner, disappear into Jack’s bedroom for an hour.

  “Who is she talking to?” Willa asked Jack once, blunt in a way none of the others would dare.

  “Her sister. She’s . . . got issues, I think.” He shook his head, shrugged. Then his face grew soft. “I think Grace takes care of her. Emotionally, I mean. Maybe financially? Not sure.” Then he sighed. “She’s just such a good person.”

  Penelope felt the sting of that, her cheeks flaming pink.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange?” Bree asked one morning while Grace puttered around the kitchen. She had picked wildflowers from Bree’s garden and was arranging them in a vase. Bree was lying flat on a yoga mat in the great room (no one actually ever did yoga on it, but it was always there), her red hair fanned out around her, her legs straight up in the air, feet flat like she was balancing an invisible book.