Pete sent her home as soon as the press conference was over. “I’m gonna go by the Malcor house and make sure they’re squared away,” he’d said. “I’ll call you if they need anything urgent, but I bet they’d like some time alone, and I think you could use a break. So go home and get something to eat, freshen up, take a nap, feed your pets, whatever you need to do. Later we’ll reconvene, see what needs doing.”
He’d waved vaguely in the direction of the room where Gordon Swift was being questioned. “He’ll be in there for a while, and they don’t need us hanging around while they do their jobs.” He gave that little half smile of his and added, “They get pissy if they feel like I’m looking over their shoulders anyway.” Then he pretended to sniff under his armpits. “Besides, I need a shower.” He’d patted her shoulder, nodded, and walked away.
She, too, needed a shower. And food. Maybe a nap if there was time. And she could feed the stray cat and pretend for a moment that she did have something, if not someone, waiting for her at home. She drove straight there, making sure to park and enter through the back of her condo just in case any nosy neighbors had been watching the press conference and had questions for her. It had happened before. And over a case much less high profile than this one.
She ate a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich standing at the sink, then opened a can of tuna to leave on the front stoop for the cat. She hoped the cat would see it and come eat. Maybe it would let her scratch its ears. What she really wanted was a hug from a human, but she wasn’t going to get that. Brief contact with a stray cat was as much as she could hope for at present.
She tugged at the door, noticing it felt heavier than usual. It gave way and a man fell backward into the open doorway, sprawling at her feet, landing like a turtle turned on its back, his arms and legs briefly clawing for purchase. When he stopped moving and looked up at her, their recognition was simultaneous and disbelieving. For a moment she hoped they would both crack up laughing at the absurdity of the scene, but then she saw a look pass over his face that was the opposite of laughter.
“Thaddeus?” she asked, trying to remain calm, not to let his imposing, angry presence get to her. “What are you doing here?”
He had jostled her when he fell and tuna juice was snaking down her hand, then her forearm. She looked around for a place to set the can. Only her little entry table was nearby, and she didn’t want to mess up her art book with tuna juice. So she continued to stand there, absurdly holding a can of tuna, the strong odor wafting between them.
She knew why he was there, and why he didn’t understand why she was. When he asked her how it was that she lived in the very spot where his brother had disappeared, she decided to play dumb. Deny, deny, deny. She’d worked in law enforcement long enough to know that, when cornered, it was as good a tactic as any.
“What do you mean?” She answered his question with a question, forcing herself to look surprised.
Thaddeus ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Davy went missing from a field in 1985.”
“Right,” she said, keeping her voice even and calm. “I know that.”
He shook his head. He thought she was slow on the draw. Of course she knew where Davy disappeared from. Anyone on this case would know that, regardless of whether they’d been present on the night in question.
She wanted to tell him the truth, but what would he think if she did? And what if she told the truth and he told the sheriff? It wasn’t like she’d hidden it—her address was in her personnel file, after all—but it wasn’t as if she’d been completely transparent either. If she told Thaddeus Malcor the truth, he could go to the sheriff and spell it out for him in no uncertain terms. Then she might lose her job, the only thing she had left.
No. She had to pretend not to know that her condo stood on the very spot where Davy was last seen. But of course she knew that. She’d been the last one to see him. He’d been standing right about where her dining room table sat now. She’d asked for this plot of land within the complex, even waited months for them to get to this phase of development. She couldn’t ever say why exactly, except that if someone was going to live in this location, she felt it should be someone who could appreciate the boy who was last seen here. She felt it should be her.
“That field was right here.” He pointed at the floor of the condo. “The land was sold a few years later and eventually these condos were built. But because I was there that night, I know exactly where he was before he went missing.”
She inhaled as if incredulous. “You actually saw him here?” This was low and borderline cruel because she knew his answer already. This was the inconvenient part of the story, the part he’d left out of his book.
He didn’t directly lie about it. Like her, he just left it out. Some might call this a lie of omission, but she wasn’t in a position to point fingers. He could have his omissions and she could have hers, and they could both do what they had to do to live with what happened that night.
He huffed. “No. He was with his friends, and I was nearby with mine. But I know where he was when he was last seen.” He gave her a hard look. “And it was right here.”
“Even though you weren’t with him,” she said, knowing this exposed his great shame and that, if necessary, she could use it against him to save her job. She hoped he would never realize that she’d been there too, just a kid herself.
“No,” Thaddeus said. “I wasn’t with him.” He huffed again. “I should’ve been, but I wasn’t.” In his hand his phone rang, but he shoved it in his pocket instead of answering it. “I guess I’ll always wonder what would have been different if I had.”
“I’m sure that’s hard,” she said. “The wondering.” She wanted to tell him that she, too, wondered over the what-ifs. If she hadn’t insisted they check out the old farmhouse . . . If she hadn’t challenged Davy to that race . . . If they hadn’t felt the flutterings of a first crush that night.
The weekend after he disappeared, she’d spent her entire birthday party glancing at the door of the McDonald’s. By then she’d invented a fantasy of Davy walking in and everyone cheering. In her fantasy he confessed to her that it was because of her party that he’d found his way back, that it was all for her. Even now her ridiculous heart could still soar at the thought.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Thaddeus, but the consolation was for them both.
In his pocket his phone rang again and he grimaced. He went to retrieve it and said, “I better see who this is.”
She nodded and he ambled off, raising the phone to his ear. She closed the door between them, pressing her back against it as she waited for her heart to slow down, her breathing to return to normal. When she was sure Thaddeus was gone, she opened her door and finally left the tuna for the cat, who was as usual nowhere to be found.