The Last Thing She Ever Did

by Gregg Olsen

  Carole didn’t have it in her at the moment to create a scene by launching a slew of accusations. She was so done. All of her emotions had been wrung out like a bar rag, and there was very little anger to throw at David. Their son was gone.

  What did anything else really matter?

  She knew he’d look for her in Charlie’s room when he got home from Sweetwater, so she waited in the little bed, smelling the pillowcase scented from the baby shampoo that she still used on his precious head at bath time.

  Charlie, come home to me. Charlie, you are my only real joy. My sweet little love.

  A few minutes after midnight, David’s beloved Porsche came down the driveway, the engine over-idling in that show-offy way that stroked his surprisingly fragile ego by commanding everyone in earshot to look up and admire all that he had. David never did anything without making sure others could see it. If he bought a piece of jewelry for his wife, it was only so he could point to it and talk about the good deal he’d been able to negotiate. David lived to brag, but he’d never admit that. To be a braggart was gauche. He saw himself as far too sophisticated for that. Carole listened as the garage door went up. She could feel the slight vibration that came with the sound of the chain pulling the door upward. A beat later it went down. Next, David disarmed the alarm. He was getting closer. For some reason her heartbeat quickened a little. She’d do what she needed to do. She didn’t see that she had any other choice.

  He made his way to the kitchen. Opened a bottle of nonalcoholic beer. Silence as he took a drink.

  Everything David Franklin did was very predictable.

  Just as his affairs had been.

  “Babe?” he called into the darkened hall that led to the bedrooms. His footsteps found his way to her. “You in here?”

  “I’m here,” she said.

  He stood there. Moonlight seeped in through the miniblinds, marking the walls and Carole’s face like war paint.

  “You going to sleep in here again tonight?” he asked.

  Silence. Her heart was broken, and she didn’t want a fight.

  He looked down at her, crumpled as she was in their son’s bed. “Carole?”

  She stayed quiet, the bands of light from the blinds shifting on her face. “We can’t stay together,” she finally answered, barely looking at David. She ran her fingertips over the grosgrain edge of the Star Wars duvet; it had been Charlie’s favorite for building forts in the dining room. “I don’t think so. Not now.”

  David sat on the edge of the bed and reached for his wife, but she stiffened and pushed him away.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Again the bars of light moved across her face. “David,” she said, “you know.”

  But he didn’t. Or at least the look on his face indicated as much. Her words were a riddle, and he didn’t understand Carole.

  “Our son is missing,” he said. “We need each other right now.”

  There were a million things she could fling at him, but she chose only one. “You go to work like nothing’s happened, David. You’re carrying on like it was nothing. Like Charlie was nothing. There’s something seriously wrong with a man who would do that.”

  “I asked the detective,” he said. “I asked her what I could do. She told me that I needed to stay focused and clearheaded. That I needed to take care of business.”

  “That’s not what she meant. Trust me: no one loses their son and goes to work as if nothing happened.”

  “You’re wrong. Charlie’s on my mind all the time. He’s right here,” he said, touching the beer bottle to his chest.

  Carole didn’t want to fight. She wanted to save all of her energy for the investigation and, God willing, Charlie’s homecoming. “You have to go,” she said. “Stay at a hotel.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, getting up and standing over her.

  Carole stared at him. She’d faced tougher adversaries in the boardroom. She knew how to take the emotion out of her words. A tone of resignation was better than an avalanche of aggression. “Look,” she said, picking her words carefully, “let’s not fight. Let’s not say something that we will never forget or forgive.”

  “I want him home too,” he said.

  “I need you gone.”

  “I won’t go,” David said. “I tell you, I won’t.”

  Carole held her tongue. She didn’t tell him to go sleep at his girlfriend’s place. Whoever she was. She didn’t want to make her growing hatred for him be about another person outside of their marriage. This was a family matter. She could see his disinterest in their son from the day that he came home from the hospital. She saw the way he’d always feigned wishing he had more time with Charlie.

  But he was too busy.

  Too busy with the restaurant.

  Too busy having sex with some woman not smart enough to see through his lies.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  “Where will you go?” David asked, a response that only confirmed what she’d thought of him all along. He had no capacity for love. He only thought of himself. He didn’t tell her that she should stay: it was her money that had paid for the house, after all. He just asked where she would go.

  She went to an overnight bag that she’d already packed. She took her robe and a jacket and uttered not a single word. She simply fought to keep her resolve that when Charlie came home, she’d kick David out the door as fast as she could. She’d pull the credit line from the restaurant and she’d kiss him good-bye.

  For good.

  “Don’t do this,” he said.

  Carole turned the latch on the front door.

  “It will look bad, babe,” he said. “It will look like there’s been something going on here. Now’s not the time for this kind of drama. Think about Charlie.”

  She spun around and looked hard at her husband.

  “David, Charlie is all I think about. I don’t care what other people think. I don’t want to fight and I don’t want to bad-mouth you. I just don’t want to see your face. Not right now.”

  It was one in the morning when Owen Jarrett climbed out of bed to answer a tentative but persistent knocking on the door. He fumbled for a pair of sweatpants in the shadowy light and hurriedly put them on. Liz, startled by the commotion, started to get up.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll find out what’s up.”

  “It’s the police,” she whispered. “They’ve found me.”

  He slipped a T-shirt on. “Be quiet,” he told her. “It is not the police. Someone’s car broke down or something. Or some kids are shit-faced and can’t find their way home. It isn’t the police. Just wait here.”

  Liz put her head back down on the pillow and pulled up the covers.

  Owen opened the front door.

  It was Carole. She stood there with a small suitcase. Owen could instantly see what was going on. She’d left her husband. She looked more embarrassed than upset.

  “Owen, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s late. Can I come in? I don’t want to spend another night in that house with David. I just can’t.”

  He opened the door wider, and she came inside.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’ll figure out what I’m going to do tomorrow. I mean later this morning.”

  “Let me get Liz,” he said.

  Carole put her hand up. “No, don’t bother her. Let her sleep.”

  A beat later Liz appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Carole, I heard your voice. What happened? What’s going on?”

  “She and David had a fight,” Owen said. “She’s crashing here.”

  “It wasn’t really a fight,” Carole said. “I’m sorry, Liz. I just can’t stand being in the same room with David. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him anymore.”

  Neither of the Jarretts asked why she didn’t trust David. They just let the words hang in the air.

  “I’ll make up the bed in the guest room,” Liz said.

  “No. I can sl
eep on the sofa.”

  “Don’t be silly. The bed is supercomfortable. I take naps in there sometimes.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother. Of course, I know I’ve already been one. It’s so late and I am sorry. The sofa is fine.”

  Owen started for the bedroom. “I’m going back to bed while you two figure out the winner of this little battle. Early meeting in”—he looked at the time—“six hours. I should be fresh as a daisy, don’t you think?”

  “Sorry, Owen,” Carole said. “Really, I am.”

  Liz put her arm around her friend. “Come on, I’ll get you settled.” She led Carole into the small back bedroom that she and her brother had shared when they stayed for the summer. The room was full of memories. On one wall was the acrylic painting that her mother had made of Jimmy and Seth. They wore oversize orange life preservers that nearly swallowed their bony torsos. It was inspired by a photograph she’d taken a few years before the accident near the turnoff to Diamond Lake. It had hung over the fireplace in the living room at first. When Miranda stopped coming over, she told Bonnie it was because of the painting.

  “I love it,” Miranda said, doing her utmost to hold her emotions inside. “I think you did a beautiful job. Maybe too good a job. I just have a hard time looking up and seeing him. Dan too. It just hurts.” Her voice cracked a little, and she looked away. “It’s a lovely tribute, but it still makes my heart ache.”

  Bonnie had felt sick about hurting her friend. She apologized profusely and put the canvas in the bedroom that very afternoon. It didn’t seem to make much difference. Miranda and Dan Miller didn’t return much after the painting was moved out of sight.

  Over time, the doctor and his stylish wife all but disappeared.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  MISSING: TWO WEEKS

  The morning of the finalization of the funding by the venture capitalists, Owen tried not to wake his sleeping wife. She’d taken some pills after putting Carole in the guest room and had tossed and turned most of the night. At the moment she was snoring, and he was glad. As long as she was snoring, she was asleep. As long as she was asleep, she would make no trouble for him. He couldn’t have any trouble. Not on the biggest day of his life.

  The night before, he had unzipped the protective plastic garment bag that held his new suit. It was a rich cocoa-brown Boglioli that he’d bought online and had tailored by a local seamstress. The suit had cost almost a thousand dollars, more money than he’d ever spent on a single article of clothing in his life. That would change, of course, with the cash coming from the East Coast and the promise to spin off Lumatyx into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. He ran his fingers over the soft fabric of the jacket. It was something Don Draper from Mad Men might have worn. Cool. Hip. A sixties vibe. If clothes make the man, then Owen Jarrett felt that he was unstoppable.

  The only thing in his way was snoring in the bed.

  He showered, shaved, and dressed. When he was done, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was everything he wanted to be. The money would come all at once. After today the tap would be turned on. He’d get that new car. A new house. The respect of his family, who had considered the high-tech industry a world populated by spoiled millennials who didn’t know how to do anything except make money, spend it, and talk about it all the time. His father had run a landscaping business, and his hands showed it, with calluses and a nail that had broken off an index finger and never grown back. Owen, his father once remarked, had the hands of a woman. The comment burned him. His hands were soft because he took care of them. He worked hard on having a man’s body. His new suit clung to his ripped physique. When he undressed at night, he found himself gazing at his abs, running his fingers over the six-pack that he’d nurtured by running, lifting weights, and eating right. He looked damned good.

  And now he was going to be rich.

  Fuck Dad. Fuck them all.

  He made his way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

  “You clean up good, Owen.”

  It was Carole.

  “You’re up early,” he said.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Made some coffee. Pour you a cup?”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Her skin was pale, like her hair. She tugged at her robe as she filled his travel mug.

  “Big day for you,” she said, then started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He stepped closer and touched her hand. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “I keep seeing Charlie,” she said.

  Owen didn’t know where to go with that. He wished to God that she’d just go back home. Seeing her and her constant tears ate at him. There was nothing he could say to make her feel better. Every word that came from his lips felt hollow. Just empty.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he finally asked, although he knew there wasn’t. Besides, he’d done enough already.

  “No,” she said, backing away toward the sink. “And this is your day, anyway. I remember what it was like to launch a new product in a new country. How it felt to put on a game face and go meet the people who had the power to get you what you came for.”

  He was grateful for the change of subject. “Right,” he said, trying not to look at her. “Any advice?”

  Carole was silent for the longest time. “Not really,” she said finally. “Enjoy every minute of it. Everything can change in a second. Savor all of it.”

  Her tears started again.

  Owen knew Carole wasn’t talking about the venture capital team. She was referring to her son and everything that had happened since the morning he went missing. He patted her shoulder and she drew close to him and started to give him a hug, then stopped herself.

  “Sorry,” she said, backing off. “Don’t want to mess up your suit.”

  “That’s all right,” he said, though he didn’t mean it. He pulled a paper towel from the dispenser behind her and dabbed at the streak of tears she’d left behind.

  “I’m worried about Liz,” she said. “She’s hurting pretty bad.”

  “I know,” he said. “We all are, Carole. We’ll just have to continue to keep Charlie in our prayers and know that he’ll be found. He’ll be safe.”

  “You really think so?” she asked.

  Owen patted her once more. “Yes,” he said. “I know it in my bones.”

  “Thank you, Owen. Thank you so much.”

  Owen turned the engine over and sat in his car. He gulped in some air and tried to keep his cool. He gripped the wheel of his soon-to-be-ditched Forester. A stranglehold. He looked at his white knuckles and thought of his father again. Goddamn him! His old man never respected anything that you couldn’t see or touch. So literal. Always so sure that he was right and Owen was wrong.

  Jesus! What did I do to deserve these people in my life?

  He took in more air and started for the office. Things were spinning dangerously. He’d expected Charlie to be found within days. It had been two weeks! And he certainly hadn’t expected Carole would move in with them. Liz was fragile as hell as it was. Her fragility had made the situation escalate. He’d done things he’d never thought he could do and now he was on the cusp of everything that had ever mattered to him.

  Charlie.

  The devastation resulting from the boy’s disappearance was a festering open sore. Carole and Liz were saltshakers dumping their worries and sadness onto him when he needed to focus on what was really important. Charlie was gone. End of story. Owen’s life was just beginning. He needed to be on. As much as he admired Damon’s intelligence and knew that Lumatyx would never have happened without him, Owen was getting the distinct feeling that his partner believed he had the leading role in its success. Sure, he was always effusive about the partnership that had led to the development of the product. Still, there were signs that he viewed his role as more important than Owen’s.

  “Without code you have nothing,” Damon had told a Wall Street Journal reporter who was doing a story about the emergence of Bend as a new h
igh-tech center. “Ideas are great, but at Lumatyx our achievement is building a tool that actually delivers on promises.”

  Owen was in the conference room during that interview and inserted himself in the conversation, but it was awkward.

  Later he asked Damon about it. “Man, it felt like you were taking total credit for what we’ve done here.”

  Damon blinked his big brown eyes. “Not at all. Just giving the reporter a story. Fanning the flames. Getting the VC community to consider our intellectual property as the value driver here, Owen. That’s all.”

  Owen didn’t buy it.

  As he drove to the office, he thought about what he’d done to the little boy next door and how easily he’d been able to put it all behind him. It was like the affirmation cards he’d used in college to get him through a tough exam. Visualizing a goal was the way to make something happen.

  It was eight thirty when Owen arrived. Paula at the front desk looked as if she were going to burst with excitement. An enormous bunch of calla lilies in a clear cylinder vase dwarfed her. “Look what they sent us,” she said. “They must really like us.”

  “Boston?”

  She nodded. “I’ve never seen a bigger bouquet. Must have cost more than two hundred dollars!”

  “I’ll bet,” Owen said.

  “You look great, Mr. Jarrett,” she said.

  Owen feigned an appreciative smile and looked past the receptionist to Damon’s office down the sandblasted brick corridor. The lights were off and the door was shut.

  “Damon’s not in?”

  The young woman peered up from behind the wall of flowers. “No,” she answered. “He’s at the early breakfast meeting. I thought you just came from there.”

  Owen didn’t know a thing about any meeting. The agenda for the visit had been planned weeks in advance. The venture capital team would arrive around noon, sign the agreement, and chat with various employees. A celebratory dinner at Sweetwater would conclude the day.