On the other side of the pebbled glass window, a dark shape shifted.
Jonah opened the door to find Maurice, who appeared washed out and twitchy from sleeplessness.
“I’m on my way to search,” Jonah said.
“Let’s go inside.” Maurice tossed his head toward the TV van parked across the road.
“Do you have—”
“Inside, please.”
Jonah shuffled inside and collapsed on the couch.
“How you holding up?” Maurice said.
“Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t work. I’ve taken leave from my job.” Jonah’s throat felt grated raw, and his voice came hoarse from repeating the same words ad nauseam the past days, and from having taken up cigarettes, a habit he’d thought he’d left behind in his teens.
Maurice sat on the arm of Jonah’s favorite chair, the tattered recliner with the duct-taped arm. “You need to stay here,” he said, “in case they show or call. Or someone else calls.”
“The media is saying that by not searching I look—”
“Ignore them.”
“It’s not like I go looking to read the papers or watch TV. It’s just there. With twenty-four-hour cable news, the newspaper at the door, I can’t escape it. One newspaper ran a photo of me in the yard lighting a cigarette, with the caption father and husband enjoys cigarette while wife and daughter remain missing. Enjoys.”
“Ignore it.”
“I need to get out and help.”
“Have you thought more about any reasons Rebecca might leave you, take Sally on her own?”
As no evidence had been discovered in the first days, the theory that Rebecca had left Jonah and taken Sally of her own accord had seeded itself, though Jonah sensed Maurice knew something, possessed other theories he was holding back.
“I could give a million reasons she’d be mad, but not that mad,” Jonah said.
“Give me a couple. You never know.”
“I know.”
“Cough ’em up.”
“The usual. Money. My being years late with my dissertation. No tenure. You were right.”
Maurice looked confused.
“Things change when you’re married,” Jonah said.
“I did warn you,” Maurice said. “How you ever wooed her with poetry, I’ll never know.”
“Neither will I.”
Any other day, the men would have laughed at the improbability of Jonah winning over Rebecca. Instead, Maurice nodded grimly. “I don’t know how to say this, except straight. I need you to come with me, to the station. There are questions that need to be asked.”
“Ask them here. I’m going out to search, no one can stop me. Ask if you’re going to ask.”
Maurice sighed. “Do you have life insurance on Rebecca?”
The blood drained from Jonah’s face.
“They know you do,” Maurice said.
“So why ask? Do you have insurance on Julia?”
“My wife’s not missing.”
“Get out.”
“Jonah.”
“Get out. You come here like a friend then trap me?”
“You know that’s not it.”
“Rebecca and I, we had insurance. As a couple. For Sally. That’s what responsible parents do. The beneficiary is Sally, on both policies. So if they’re thinking there’s—”
“What if you and Sally were to pass, would it go to Rebecca?”
“Of course.”
“And if Sally and Rebecca—”
“Get out. Or I swear.”
“You want me out, force me out.”
In their teens, Jonah and Maurice might have come to blows several times except whenever Jonah had charged at Maurice, Maurice had simply wrapped Jonah in a headlock and insisted Jonah breathe and gain control himself, not let his emotions rule him, ruin him. Warning Jonah that one day they would destroy him, if he let them.
“Julia and I have a policy,” Maurice said. “I get it. But. The state police, they have questions. Questions I’ve tried to put off. I can’t anymore. I’m giving you a heads-up on this insurance thing, even if it’s shit. So you won’t be surprised and react like you just did. With anger. Because if you do, you’ll hang yourself.”
“And you’re doing me a favor, by asking yourself?”
“I’ve done favors for you all my life.”
It was true, he had.
“And you me,” Maurice said. “I haven’t forgotten. You can take my asking questions any way you want. But I’m here to help you. You have to believe that. When we find Sally and Rebecca, none of this will matter anyway.”
Jonah’s pulse calmed. They would find them. They had to find them. He had to see his wife and daughter again. How could he go on otherwise?
“Just come with me to the station, where I can ask the questions so it looks like I’m fulfilling my official capacity and not working to help you, make it look good for the staties,” Maurice said. “Be glad I’m the one asking this go-round. Some other new developments have come up, and—”
“New developments?”
“Come with me. We’ll sort it out.”
“Okay. I’ll go. I’m going crazy here.”
“No more crazy than usual.”