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Derek disappeared that night. At first, I didn’t realize he intended never to return. I only knew he’d left me alone in his condo, a place that had begun to feel a little like home. After our confrontation, I understood that I had never actually belonged there.
It only dawned on me that Derek had gone into hiding days later, after I alternately stopped by and called yet he didn’t turn up at his condo or, according to Toni, his office, and my voicemail messages remained unanswered. When the police still hadn’t located him ten days after he’d disclosed his crimes to me, I started accepting that I might never see him again.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised when he failed to surface. After all, what had I expected from a man who had confessed to committing a felony embezzlement, deserting a fatal car crash, and murdering a woman? Even if Derek had underestimated my character, given our rocky relationship he must have feared I would share this information with the authorities.
Still, if I had known our previous encounter might be our last, I would have given more weight to our final interaction, the last time I’d see my high school sweetheart—the man to whom I’d been married for seventeen years, dated for eight years before that, and seen fit to father my children. But somehow I’d taken it for granted that Derek would always be a part of my world. After spending the majority of my life with him, it was difficult to imagine him not being there. I’d never thought about him vanishing.
Of course, I’d never thought about his hands wringing the life out of a young woman either.
The irony of his disappearance—Derek relinquishing his old life in the same manner that I’d once accused Leticia—didn’t escape me. Now my father’s witness the night of his fateful crash really was lost.
Only, unlike Leticia, it was the police dedicated to finding Derek rather than his family.
And, unlike Leticia, I suspected I knew exactly where he was: hiding out in Mexico City where he had always wanted to be.
Two weeks after Derek’s disappearance, our daughters stumbled home from school in a daze, their normal way of functioning since their father had vanished and they’d learned about what had happened three years ago. I would have typically attributed their demeanor to school resuming after spring break—which conveniently occurred the week after Derek’s disappearance, giving the girls a brief respite from real life to help them adjust to their new circumstances. But I knew the true cause of my daughters’ fugue state and lying to myself wasn’t going to alter the reality of their situation.
In some ways, it was refreshing to share the awful secrets that recently had only been made clear even to me. In other ways, it was heartbreaking to know a little bit more of my children’s innocence had been permanently stripped away. But keeping them in the dark wasn’t an option. They had a right to know.
Meredith paused as she walked in the door, catching me watching her with the concern that tainted all my interactions with them now. Her voice was small and vulnerable when she spoke. “Is Dad picking us up tonight?”
Her question took me momentarily by surprise. Then I remembered today was Friday, an alternate Friday that would normally mark the start of one of Derek’s custody weekends.
My heart ached as I said gently, “I don’t think so.”
Their bodies wilted. Being teenagers—and therefore somewhat self-centered—I knew they were considering all the ways they’d contributed to Derek’s disappearance. They weren’t old enough to accept that sometimes things in life were just beyond your control.
In truth, maybe even I wasn’t old enough to accept such a cruel fact.
I patted the couch next to me. “Come here, girls. I want to talk to you for a minute.”
They approached, shuffling their feet as though they’d been sentenced to death row. Meredith perched on her favorite armchair. Katherine sat on the edge of the opposite couch, her feet braced as if she might bolt at any moment.
“What your father did was wrong,” I began.
The girls hung on my every word, waiting for me to say something to alleviate their pain. I knew this speech would only disappoint them, but perhaps they could learn from their father’s mistakes regardless.
I took a deep breath. “Some things in life will define your character. You will always have the option to take the wrong, immoral path, but if your ethics are strong you’ll stay true to yourself and do what’s right.”
Meredith’s face hardened. “What are you saying? That Dad didn’t have ethics?”
“I’m not sure it’s as simple as that,” I replied. “I think he’s human, and he made a bad choice.” Several of them, I mentally added. “Greed can sometimes overwhelm a person if they’re not strong enough to fight the temptation.”
Meredith’s eyes dulled, and Katherine’s face fell. Watching them, my heart cracked a little more.
“I know you both love your father,” I continued. “And I know he loves you too, even if he’s not here to tell you. Please understand that he didn’t leave because of anything you girls did.”
Katherine was crying openly now, while Meredith remained stoic.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You know, your father may never return.”
Meredith’s eyes bugged open. “He’s not coming back? Ever?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I hedged, “but I wouldn’t bet on it.” I didn’t say that if he did reemerge, it would probably be shackled in metal restraints at the police’s insistence. “What your father did was very wrong, and he knows that.”
Meredith broke down then, huge tears rolling down her smooth cheeks.
I blinked back my own tears. “I want you both to know I love you very much. If you ever want to talk about your father or what he did—or anything, really—please know you can come to me. We’ll all get through this together. This is what family is for.”
I reached out my arms, and they both relocated on either side of me. I gathered them close to my heart and let them cry. Then I allowed myself to join them.
I wondered what Derek was doing in Mexico City while I consoled our daughters. I had no doubt that he’d absconded with enough cash to live comfortably down there for a long, long time. I didn’t know how much of the embezzled money he’d had left in that safe-deposit box, but the sum was substantial enough for him to walk out on me that Thursday.
Was he enjoying himself? How often did he think about us? Would our lives have been significantly different if we’d thrown caution to the wind twenty or twenty-five years ago and relocated south together as we’d often fantasized about doing?
But, of course, everything would be different, I reminded myself. For one thing, he wouldn’t have left me with two wonderful girls.
Sometimes I pictured him happy, lying around and offering free poolside therapy to local sunbathers as his own Seattle complexion gradually darkened, allowing him to blend in with the law-abiding locals.
Sometimes I imagined the police storming into the small hovel he called shelter and slapping handcuffs around his pasty-white wrists, extraditing him back to the States where he’d be punished for his crimes.
A part of me wanted to see him locked up forever for what he did to Leticia. The embezzlement I could eventually forgive, but ending a promising young woman’s life was not an act so easily excused.
And another part of me, the part that remembered who he used to be before greed overwhelmed him, hoped he was never found.
* * *
“So, that’s basically the story,” I told Harold Earnest, spreading my hands to indicate I had nothing more to offer. “I thought you should know.”
Harold frowned. The information still seemed to be sinking into his brain. I couldn’t blame the poor man. The whole tale was a lot to absorb.
The other patrons in the Fremont coffee shop milled around us, oblivious to the story unfolding at our table. At least I’d had the foresight not to spend any money on tea this time, having learned my lesson from my first visit here.
“I know it’s a lot to take in at once,” I commiserated. “And I want to extend my apologies for my own husband’s role in the whole thing.”
A few more moments passed. Maybe I should have ordered something, I reconsidered. I felt naked with nothing to keep my hands occupied.
Harold adjusted his glasses. “You know, we really were close to having a working prototype.”
“I’m sorry you never saw your dream realized,” I told him. “For what it’s worth, Derek did assure me that Track-It would have gone bankrupt regardless of their theft.”
I didn’t tell Harold I wasn’t sure whether to believe this, considering the source. I didn’t think I’d ever know for sure, my father taking that knowledge to the grave with him three years ago.
Harold looked at me through the thick lenses of his spectacles. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I enjoy working at Honeywell. To tell you the truth, I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don’t have the people skills necessary.”
“We all have our strengths,” I assured him.
Harold squinted at me, as though wondering what my hidden strength might be. Then he shook his head, apparently at a loss. “What I meant was, Leticia and I were close to a working prototype.” He captured my gaze and maintained it. “Very close.”
My brain tingled from the intensity of his stare. I didn’t know whether to classify the sensation as a premonition, women’s intuition, or simply a feeling. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Harold leaned forward. “As you know, our overarching goal was to track a person’s—mostly children’s—whereabouts on a smartphone using a removable chip and geolocation technology. We’d gotten far enough in our development to pick up a chip’s location using a hand-crafted device. Unfortunately, our inchoate integration of geolocation capabilities only allows the device to register the chip’s presence if it is physically nearby, within about ten feet.” Harold looked around before turning his attention back to me. “We implanted one of the test chips in Leticia’s purse lining a few months before Track-It went under.”
I slowly let out the breath I was holding, considering the implications of this information. “So you’re saying with the aid of this handmade device we may be able to locate Leticia’s remains?”
“That’s assuming she didn’t remove the chip and her purse is in close proximity to Leticia herself.”
“According to Derek, he buried it with her body.”
“And you’ll still have to get pretty close, but you suspect she’s somewhere in Marysville, right?” He continued once I nodded my confirmation. “That limits your search area at least. If she’s not too far underground or underneath any substances hindering the transmittal ability of the chip . . .” He shrugged. “The device may help.”
Excitement built over the possibility of locating Leticia and giving her a proper burial. Despite her involvement in the embezzlement, she still deserved at least that.
Ursula deserved at least that.
I folded my arms on the table and bent my head toward Harold. “So, where can I find this device?”
He winked at me. “You’ve come to the right person.”
