Chapter Nineteen

Jane returned to her house and retrieved the piece of paper Megan had given her with the security codes on it. Then she went back to Megan’s house and let herself in. She carefully typed the code into the keypad attached to the doorframe of the garage. The door slid noisily open. The garage seemed cavernous, especially because it was empty. Jane pressed a button, and the door slid down behind her.

Squinting at the paper, Jane punched four numbers into the keypad on the door that led from the garage to the kitchen. Once inside, she did the same with the keypad that disarmed the alarm.

Jane let out a long breath as she stood alone in Megan’s white kitchen. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she called. “Wembly!” Only the hum of the stainless-steel refrigerator echoed back.

Jane crept through the house. Wembly’s food still sat in the bowl where Jane had poured it the day before. The half-full mug of tea was still on the coffee table. The crocheted throw was draped haphazardly on the back of the couch. Jane examined the afghan more closely. It was lumpy and old, black square frames with garishly colored centers, made of cheap, synthetic yarn. Jane didn’t crochet, but she had friends who did, and she could tell the throw was made by a beginner, someone with little skill. She wondered if Megan had made it when she was a child.

The room was untouched. Megan had not been home.

Jane paused in front of the vision board in Megan’s kitchen, studying it more carefully than she had on her previous visits. The collage was almost childish, the edges cut in imprecise waves and the layering haphazard. It was a testament to a person who loved babies, cats, and tropical islands. There were groups of kittens, all different colors, and proud grown cats. Similarly, there were groups of babies sitting and laughing and one big cutout, the one Jane had noticed the first day, of a seated baby with curly brown hair and brown eyes smiling right into the camera.

Jane looked carefully at the photos of tropical gardens and swaying palm trees with bright blue water behind them, hoping they would give a clue as to some favorite island resort Megan might have taken off to visit. But the photos were generic, taken from travel magazines. Jane couldn’t discern anything unique about them.

Jane went into Megan’s study. The white-walled room was bare-bones. The stagers had done little more than suggest an office, and Megan hadn’t added any furniture to make it homier. As the police officer had reported, there was a laptop on the table that served as a desk, plugged in and open but turned off. There was no place for Wembly or anyone else to hide. Jane went back to the great room.

Calling for the cat, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. The carpet on the stairs and in the hallway was white. That would change when a child came into the house. If Megan ever came back. If she was successful in her attempt to adopt.

Jane opened the first door she came to. Inside was a guest room, also barely furnished. A queen-sized mattress sat on a metal frame. There were no bureaus, night tables, or bedside lamps. A few empty wooden hangers hung in the double-doored closet. The bed was not made up. It seemed doubtful Megan had many guests.

The guest bathroom was equally stark, all white subway tiles on the walls and black and white hexagonal tiles on the floor. Jane opened what she thought was a linen closet to make sure Wembly wasn’t trapped inside and found a stacked washer and dryer. “Are you stuck?” she called to the back of the space. Silence.

When Jane opened the next door, her heart skipped a beat. Unlike every other room in the house, the walls were not white. They were painted a pale mint green, a color for babies, and there was a mural featuring Winnie the Pooh on the wall, his red shirt pulled up over his round tummy. The room wasn’t furnished. Perhaps Megan didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself. Or perhaps she’d begun the effort and then abandoned it when she began to doubt her mental health. “Wembly, Wembly!” Jane called. She waited and then closed the door, feeling as if she were closing it on Megan’s dreams.

During the renovation, the master suite had been added over the double garage. A hallway divided the original bedroom that led to the addition. Clark Kinnon had used the old bedroom to create a large bathroom on one side and walk-in closet on the other. The new master bedroom was huge and, unlike the rest of the second floor, it looked lived-in. There were fabric shades on the windows and pictures on the walls. A king-sized bed was on the back wall facing the windows over the garden. Did the huge bed make Megan feel lonely? Jane shook her head. Stop it, you’re projecting. It would make you feel lonely. That’s not the same thing.

The portion of the bed nearer the door had been slept in. The cream-colored summer blanket and white top sheet were pulled back, revealing a long triangle of the bottom sheet. Megan had gone to bed before she left.

Midway between the bed and the doorframe, a single white mule-style slipper sat askew on the white rug. Jane stared at it. Neither the police officer nor Andy had remarked on this detail. It would be hard to tell a law enforcement professional that a single slipper in the middle of an otherwise tidy room meant anything. But the sight of it caused Jane’s gut to churn. Her instinct was to pick it up, but she knew she shouldn’t. If Megan didn’t reappear, if Alvarez came around to Jane and Andy’s way of thinking, the bedroom might be a crime scene and mucking about in it wasn’t going to help matters. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called from the door.

There was no answering meow. Jane walked across the room, continuing to call. She stood by the side of the bed and carefully lowered herself to her knees to look under it. There was nothing, just an expanse of white carpet.

Grunting, Jane used the bed to lever herself up. She left the bedroom, walking carefully around the white mule, and went back downstairs.

Back in the kitchen, Jane noticed the basement door was open about six inches. She hadn’t noticed a litter box during her search, and the basement seemed like a logical place for it. Jane wasn’t averse to basements as a rule, though the basement of a house whose owner had inexplicably disappeared did give her pause. One of the uniformed officers had searched it, but he’d been looking for a woman and only tangentially for a cat.

Jane flicked on the light at the top of the stairs and trod carefully down the wooden steps. The basement was clean and dry and almost empty. It didn’t smell of mildew or anything else, certainly not mold, but it did smell like a basement. Megan wouldn’t have had much to store, coming from an apartment she’d shared with Ben. The new heating system took up barely any space, same with the efficient water heater. A plumbing chase came down one wall. The ceiling was high, high enough that the big open space could be converted for living, but for now it was simply a basement. Jane took her cell phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight app, searching the dark corners for Wembly.

A light glowed from a wall under a portion of the kitchen, and Jane moved toward it, intrigued. It was some kind of a walk-in wine refrigerator with a light on inside. Jane opened the stainless-rimmed glass door. Apparently Megan wasn’t a wine connoisseur. There were only three bottles on the tilted shelves, some papers and a slim cardboard box on another shelf. “Here, kitty, kitty.” Jane took two of the bottles off the shelf and used them to prop open the door. The refrigerator must open from the inside, but Jane wasn’t taking the chance of being trapped in an empty house.

“Here, Wembly.” A light glowed dimly from the back wall. Jane moved toward it. As the space came into focus, she realized what she had taken to be the wall at the back of the refrigerator was actually a door. The wine shelves had concealed the frame. Jane reached for a handle, but there was none. “Wembly!” It came out of her mouth as a ragged cry. She wasn’t calling for the cat. Her pulse raced. She banged on the door. “Come out,” she pleaded.

Then she glanced up and to the right. A keypad and a camera. “A panic room,” she said aloud. The logs had said Megan never left the house. Jane banged on the door as forcefully as she could. “It’s Jane. I’ll get help!”