by David Bell
chapter
fifty-two
2:57 A.M.
Michael found a blanket at the foot of Felicity’s bed and unfurled it, using it to cover Erica’s soundly sleeping body. He tucked the blanket around her, his mind going back to days in college when she would fall asleep in his dorm or apartment. Very little disturbed her sleep, and in the first days they dated, when he was young and lovestruck like a fool, he’d watch her sleep for a few moments at night, enjoying the peaceful look on her face, the gentle rhythms of her breathing.
A sliver of those feelings lived inside him somewhere. Maybe they always would. It didn’t seem possible to feel absolutely nothing for someone he’d once been so close to, as though every positive memory and emotion had been wiped away from his brain. But he also knew nothing of great importance remained. His life, his world, resided in the house in Cottonsville, and just thinking of home told him he needed to check in there.
He left Felicity’s room and walked back out to the kitchen. The dog, Trixie, seemed to have taken a liking to Michael, and she followed along, her nose pressed against his pant leg, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, and her tail wagging whenever he looked down. He stopped and extended his hand again, scratching the dog behind the ears.
“I have to make a phone call,” he said, straightening up.
The dog’s ears perked up, her face inquisitive. Is she asking me who I’m calling?
Then another, more pressing question entered Michael’s mind. How exactly did he explain his presence in Erica’s house to Angela? When he’d left the house—several hours earlier now—he’d told his wife it would be a quick trip up and a quick trip back. It certainly hadn’t worked out that way, and why should it have? What ever worked out exactly the way it was planned?
But he knew he needed to check in with Angela, to let her know he was safe and out of harm’s way. That he hadn’t stopped thinking about her even though he was off with Erica. When he’d last talked to her, standing on the side of the road with Wayne Tolliver still in the car, she’d brought up the police searching through his computer, which also meant she could have seen search histories and, yes, even photos.
But then he remembered: No, that’s not the last time he talked to her. . . .
He’d talked to her on the road, after the car went through the fence, after Tolliver ran away. Michael’s memory of the conversation was tattered and ragged, like fragments of a dream.
“Shit,” he said to himself. “I must have sounded like a nut.”
He patted his pockets. No phone.
He looked around the room. He saw Erica’s purse on the floor, right where she’d dropped it as she came into the house. He dug around in the purse, feeling like a creep or a thief, but he found his phone.
Why didn’t she give it back right away?
He pushed his suspicions aside and dialed, listening to the phone ring while Trixie moved around the kitchen, her nails clacking against the tiles and her tail still wagging.
The phone rang and rang and then went to voice mail.
Why?
He thought Angela would be on high alert to answer his calls, even if she had fallen asleep.
He called again, and the same thing happened. Ringing and ringing and then voice mail. He couldn’t leave a message. What was he supposed to say? Hey, I’m at my ex-wife’s. She’s asleep in one bed, and I’m standing here with the dog, . . .
He hung up. When he looked around, Trixie was just disappearing out of sight, trotting down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Michael worried she’d go in and jump on Erica, waking her up, so he followed behind, trying to steer the dog in another direction. But she went past Felicity’s room and to the end of the hallway and made a left turn at the end, presumably into another bedroom. Michael stopped for a moment at the door to Felicity’s room and looked in where Erica continued to sleep in the exact same position in which he had left her.
He went on to the end of the hallway, looking for Trixie.
When he turned into the bedroom, he saw Trixie standing on the king bed, her ears up, her snout pointed at the window.
“What is it?” Michael asked. As soon as he spoke, the dog relaxed her pose and turned around, wagging her tail again. “Are you supposed to be on the bed like that?”
As if she understood him, Trixie jumped down and ran past him, leaving the bedroom and going back up the hallway. Michael decided to let her do whatever she wanted. Maybe the amount of time she’d spent alone as well as Felicity’s absence and the chaos of cops and reporters coming through the house had left her agitated. After all, he was a stranger, and he was wandering around the house while Erica slept.
He looked around the room. The bed was made, the closet door closed. It looked as neat as the rest of the house, sparsely decorated and furnished. In fact . . . He walked across the room toward the dresser.
“Holy crap,” he said.
It was the furniture they’d had in their bedroom when they were married. The set belonged to Erica’s grandmother who had died shortly before their wedding. When they lived in the apartment on the east side of Trudeau, they’d used this set—dresser, bureau, bed. It still looked to be in good shape, and Michael ran his hand across the smooth top of the dresser. The feel, the look of the furniture, took him back. He remembered that first autumn, shortly after they were married, when the weather was warm and the leaves fell. For a time, he thought it was going to work, that they’d be together for the long haul—house, kids. Life. Michael approached the marriage with a certain defiance. He wanted to prove to everyone, including his family, that he’d made the right choice, that he and Erica were embarking on a mature, lifelong journey together.
But he couldn’t sustain the feeling. They simply weren’t a match. And soon enough, the marriage felt like walking through sludgy, heavy water. Every day became an effort. Michael wished none of it had ever happened.
But if Felicity was really his child, then hadn’t something good come out of it all? Finally?
If she was alive . . .
From another part of the house, Michael heard Trixie barking, low, sharp sounds. He again worried that she was going to wake Erica up.
But before he turned to leave the room and go shush her, he saw a framed photo lying flat at the far end of the dresser. He recognized the frame just as he had recognized the furniture. It had been a wedding gift from his aunt, and it had sat on a shelf in the apartment in east Trudeau the entire year they were married.
He went over and picked it up. He saw himself arm in arm with Erica on their wedding day. He wore a black suit and white shirt. She wore a traditional gown. They looked happy. And young. It was the same photo she’d shared on Facebook around the time of the tenth anniversary of their divorce, the one he’d copied and kept in a folder on his desktop.
Why did she still have it out in her room after all that time? Did Felicity see it every day and ask who he was? Did Erica hide it if she brought men home and back to her room?
He picked it up. The glass was clear, dust free.
If he wondered about Erica, then he needed to wonder about himself. Why had he copied the photo from Facebook and saved it to his computer? Michael wished he could say. Curiosity first and foremost, the basic question of how his life might have been different if he’d never left Erica. Would he be happier now? No. He shook his head, standing in Erica’s bedroom. No.
But would he be happy at all?
He couldn’t say with certainty. And if Felicity—and maybe another child—entered the equation, then that life with Erica looked very different. The game of thinking about that alternate life simultaneously fascinated and terrified Michael.
When he’d seen the wedding photo on Facebook and saved it, he knew nothing about Felicity. But his mind still played the “What If” game from time to time by taking a peek down the road not traveled. Years removed from
being with Erica, it became easy, at times, to remember their relationship as calmer and smoother than it really was, to focus on the highs and not the lows. Like just about any married person, he could fall into the trap of focusing on the difficulties he and Angela experienced, and that photo looked like a window into another world, one free of life’s more mundane responsibilities and problems.
But he always came out of it quickly, always emerged into the clear air of his real existence knowing he belonged with Angela.
He jumped when his phone rang. It felt like perfect timing, and he assumed it was Angela. He was surprised to see his sister’s name on the caller ID screen.
“Lynn? What’s up?”
“I’m checking in on you,” she said.
“On me?” Michael looked at his watch. He held the phone in one hand, the wedding picture in the other. “It’s three in the morning. Are you in California or something?”
“I’m not at home,” she said. “And I know you aren’t either.”
“Oh, Lynn, it’s a long story.” He started to tell her, but she cut him off.
“I know all about it,” she said. “Angela called me. I just now got a chance to call you back.”
Michael felt his face flush. His wife called his sister because she was worried about him? Who would be calling him next? His mother?
“Lynn, I’m fine. I don’t need—”
“Just go home, Michael.” Her voice sounded strained. “Let this go and head home.”
“Lynn, you don’t know anything about it. I don’t need a lecture from you. This girl could be my child.”
She sighed. “I know, Michael. I get that. But . . . you’re away from your wife in the middle of the night. With your ex-wife.”
“Did Angela say all of this? Did she complain about me to you?”
“No, Michael, she didn’t do that.” Lynn spoke with the affectionate disdain that only one sibling could have for another. “She knows it’s complicated with kids for you and me. Because of Robyn. You’re not thinking with your head here. I know better than anyone how sore that wound is. I know it’s never healed. Remember, I’m the one who’s supposed to be the oddball in the family.”
Trixie made a low grumbling sound from the other room.
“God, Lynn, it’s awfully late for this. We’re not in high school anymore. We don’t have time for one of our late-night, philosophical chats. And we don’t have time for the whole ‘Dad doesn’t respect me because I’m an artist thing’ either.”
“Okay, but we all know you and Angela are trying to have a baby. And struggling . . .”
“So much for privacy. My sister knows about my reproductive life.”
“And I know you’ve talked with Erica about Robyn. You told me when you were first dating that you shared everything about Robyn with her. I remember that much, okay?” Lynn made a low murmuring sound that came through the line. “Don’t make me talk about this more. You know I can’t. . . . I just can’t. . . . Okay? Just . . . stop.” She sounded like she was sniffling. Allergies? Or crying?
“Lynn?”
“I look at that damn picture,” she said. “The one Dad took of the three of us at the lake. I know you have it up in your office. That was my birthday, July seventh. About two weeks before Robbie died.”
“I know.” He spoke low, consoling.
“Every year I have to put my copy of the picture away. I hide it in a closet. I can’t look at it when the anniversary is coming up because I always think stupid shit like why hasn’t anyone invented a time machine so we could go back. We both have money to buy anything we want, but we can’t go back in time, can we? We can’t undo the one thing we’d undo.”
“Lynn, I’m sorry this is upsetting you.”
College had been Michael’s first time away from home, the first chance to really talk about his family members with someone who didn’t know them, someone outside the cramped confines of Cottonsville. Erica happened to be that person he shared with back then. He took a quick glance at the photo again.
“Lynnie, this is about so much more than Robyn, okay? Don’t reduce it to that. You’re right, of course. We both have a blind spot for her. We were both there that day. And I know how much it hurts. It’s like . . . an ice pick in my heart.”
Trixie’s barking became steady, incessant.
“Just go home, Michael. The problem can be solved without you. Okay? Something will work out. The police, the reporters, all of it. Let it be their problem and not yours. For now, let it go.”
Then Trixie’s barking grew even louder.
Was someone at the door?
Could it even be . . . ?
Felicity? Returning . . .
“I have to go, Lynn. Not home, but something’s happening here.”
“Michael—”
He tossed the photo aside and ran to the front of the house.
chapter
fifty-three
3:08 A.M.
They pulled up in front of Todd Friedman’s house. Griffin counted five squad cars and two news vans. Even so late at night, the media dispatched a couple of reporters to cover whatever Todd Friedman was up to. She felt cynical, angry. When she saw them, she thought the worst. They were only there in case Todd Friedman tried something really crazy. They wanted to see some kind of carnage they could play on the news, a viral clip to draw just a little more attention to their own station and reporters.
They remained in the car for a moment. Twitchell shifted his bulky body around, looking over his glasses at Randi Friedman who remained hidden in the dark, her posture hunched and withdrawn like a small child’s.
“I want to tell you what we’re going to do out there, Mrs. Friedman,” he said. “We’re going to find the officer in charge. That would be our colleague, Detective Phillips.”
Griffin felt a more acute spasm of anger when she heard his name. She caught herself feeling it and forced herself to wonder why. Did she really know Phillips had done anything wrong a decade ago when Stacey Flowers disappeared? She kind of didn’t care. She just wanted to feel pissed at someone. The sound of Twitchell’s voice, calm and placid, grated on her.
He went on. “When we do that, we’re going to see what he needs you to do, but if we can, our hope is that you’ll be able to talk to Todd and see what’s going on with him. You said on the way over that your ex-husband has never been suicidal.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
Her voice was small, emerging from the dark backseat.
“Okay, good. So maybe he’s just scared and needs someone to tell him it’s okay to come out of the house. Do you think you can try to do that?”
Griffin saw a faint movement in the dark. Randi nodding.
“You ready?” Twitchell asked.
He didn’t wait for a response, but turned his body around and went out through the driver’s-side door. Griffin pushed her door open as well, and she noted that Randi Friedman came out on her side and waited with her hands folded in front of her body, as though she expected Griffin to lead her around.
“We can head this way,” Twitchell said across the car.
A light rain had started to fall, but nothing like the storm they’d been expecting. It wasn’t even enough to warrant the use of an umbrella or a rain hat. The thunder rumbles and lightning flashes on the horizon seemed to have slowed as well, but the humidity grew, a thick cloak that stuck to her body.
Griffin walked behind the two of them as they approached the cluster of plainclothes officers gathered around a car. Behind them, across a small lawn, sat Todd Friedman’s house, a modest brick structure with white awnings over the front porch and every window. Phillips and Woolf turned as they approached and nodded to the trio.
Twitchell handled introductions and told the other detectives that Randi was ready to talk to her ex-husband if it would help. They explained t
hat they could summon him by telephone, but he’d told them if they stepped one foot on the lawn, he’d either shoot at them or himself.
“Do you know if he has a gun?” Phillips asked Randi.
“He had a rifle. He used to hunt. He talked about buying more, but he didn’t when we lived together.”
Phillips nodded, his eyes moving to the other detectives. “I’m going to reach him on the phone and tell him you’re here. Okay?”
Randi nodded.
While Phillips made the call, Griffin wandered a few steps away from the cluster of detectives. The crickets chirped a rising chorus, and when the light breeze kicked up, pushing the hot air around, the trees rustled. Two uniformed cops stood with their hands on hips, keeping some gawking neighbors from getting any closer to the action. She knew those people were there for the same cynical reasons as the reporters—they wanted to see something garish and grisly. They wanted to have a story to tell at school or church or the beauty parlor. Something no one would be able to forget.
She heard Phillips’s voice in the background. He spoke in low, soothing tones, like a man trying to defuse a bomb with words. She sensed someone come up next to her. And she knew who it was before she even looked.
“What?” she asked.
“I only told the boss because I was concerned about you,” Twitchell said. His glasses fogged, so he pushed them up on his forehead. “I was trying to help.”
“Help what? Make me look pathetic?”
“You shouldn’t have gone to see Tiffany Flowers that way. Not alone. Not without clearing it with Phillips or Reddick.”
“Somebody had to do something,” she said.
Twitchell was silent for a moment, his lack of words filling up the space between them. Then he said, “I guess I missed the part where the two of us were sitting on our hands all day.”
“I mean keep doing something. Not just go home and wait.”