Bella races from the room and flies down two flights of stairs, ready to bolt out the door and hurl herself into her husband’s arms.
Someone steps into her path, and she skids to a breathless halt.
‘Mrs Jordan.’ Detective John Grange looks her up and down with flinty gray eyes. ‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’
‘Bells!’ Misty is there, too. ‘Are you OK? You look upset.’
‘I’m not upset … I was just going to catch one of my guests who just left. I think she, uh, forgot something in her room.’
‘Too late. She drove away,’ Grange says.
‘In a white Chevy?’ Bella asks, peering through the window in the door as if looking for Polly’s car.
‘She was in almost as much of a hurry as you seem to be.’
The spot where Sam had just been standing is vacant.
Where is he? Where did he go? Had she imagined him?
I think you’re perfectly sane, Bella Jordan.
‘Mrs Jordan?’
‘What?’ She whirls on Detective Grange. ‘What?’
‘I have a couple of questions for you.’
‘About what?’
‘I’m conducting an investigation.’
‘Now? Can it wait? I have to—’
‘Now. According to Mrs Arden, you have some information about the case.’
Bella looks at Misty, who mouths, Sorry.
Think, Bella! Think! You aren’t insane, and you didn’t imagine Sam, and you have to get out of here and find him.
She clears her throat and asks Grange, ‘Which case is that?’
‘The break-in over at the Slayton place.’
‘Oh, that’s right. Of course. Let’s go into the parlor. Do you want some coffee?’
‘No coffee,’ Grange says.
Misty shakes her head. ‘No, I’m good.’
‘Do you mind if I go grab mine, Lieutenant Grange? It’s already been such an exhausting morning.’
‘Exhausting how?’
‘Oh, you know … the usual …’
‘Bells, are you sure you’re OK?’ Misty asks. ‘You really seem—’
‘Totally fine. I just need my coffee.’ She hurries toward the back of the house, calling, ‘Have a seat, detective. You, too, Misty. I’ll be back in two seconds.’
In the kitchen, she pulls her phone out of her pocket and quickly opens the string of texts from …
Polly?
Or Sam.
Sam, whom she’d seen outside just moments ago, with her own eyes, holding a phone.
Yes, there’s a slight chance that she’s delusional, because the delusional probably don’t know they’re delusional.
But if there’s also a chance that he really is alive, and needs her help …
She starts typing in the message window, ignoring her own inner voice, and Luther’s warning not to engage.
‘I have to do this,’ she whispers, breathing hard. ‘I have to. Right now.’
Yes, I’ll help you. Meet me at the Stump in fifteen minutes.
She hits Send.
‘Mrs Jordan?’ Detective Grange calls.
‘Be right there!’ She opens a cabinet door and slams it. ‘Just grabbing my coffee!’
Wobbling dots appear in the message window.
She sucks in a breath of air and holds it until a message appears.
With the money?
‘Yes!’ Bella whispers.
Yes, she replies.
She leaves the kitchen quickly. Not with coffee, and she isn’t returning to the parlor.
Slipping into the mudroom, she finds the puppies sound asleep. The hound, curled up in her basket of dirty clothes, looks up at her.
About to rush past him, she pauses to give his brown head a quick pat. ‘Shhh, it’s OK. Don’t tell them I left, OK? I’ll be back. I promise.’
Then she’s out the door, across the fenced area, and through the gate.
Praying that Grange hasn’t already come looking for her in the kitchen, she darts across the yard in full view of anyone who happens to look out of a back window.
Ducking into the trees, she begins the long, circuitous route across the Dale toward Inspiration Stump.
She’d chosen it because it’s far enough off the beaten path that no one will see her, and because it will be deserted at this hour, with no Stump reading until later in the day.
As she reaches the trail into Leolyn Wood, her phone vibrates with an incoming call.
It’s from an Unknown number.
She holds her breath and answers. Her instinct is to say, Sam? But is she really convinced it’s him?
Not one hundred percent.
‘Hello?’ she croaks into the phone.
‘Bella! It’s Millicent. I’m so sorry I didn’t call back sooner. I just got your message this morning. Can you hear me?’
‘Millicent! Yes, I … I hear you.’
‘Good. I had to borrow a phone. Mine keeps dropping service out here. What’s wrong, Bella?’
‘Oh … nothing’s wrong, I just …’ She chokes back a sob.
‘Bella! Is Max OK?’
‘Yes! He’s fine, it’s nothing like that. It’s just … I know this is going to sound crazy, but I saw Sam, in Chicago and now here in the Dale.’
Whatever response she was expecting, it isn’t, ‘You saw him in Lily Dale?’
‘Yes. And in Chicago. He was driving a gold car, and Max saw him in front of your building, and then we both saw him at the airport.’
Millicent says nothing.
‘Millicent? Are you there?’
There’s crackling on the other end of the line, but the call hasn’t dropped. Bella can hear George’s voice, rumbling in the background.
‘Now? Like this?’ Millicent says, but not to Bella.
George says something else. Bella strains to hear but can’t make it out.
‘Yes,’ her mother-in-law is saying, ‘I know I should have told her, but it wasn’t the right time.’
‘Millicent!’ Bella calls. ‘What are you talking about? Tell me what?’
‘I’m sorry, Bella. It’s a long story, and it’s about my first husband, Thierry.’
‘Sam’s father?’
‘Yes. It turns out he’d had—’
The line crackles again and goes dead.
Bella looks at the phone. There’s a notification: Call Failed.
There’s a new message, too, from Unknown.
Not Millicent, on her borrowed phone.
I’m here at the Stump. Where are you?
‘Sam!’
She shoves her phone into her pocket, hurries up the trail, and bursts into the clearing.
She scans the rows of benches, and the Stump.
‘Wow. You really came.’
Hearing the voice behind her, Bella whirls to see a figure stepping out from a clump of trees.
She gasps. ‘Sam!’