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Clearly, Annie was planning to go to the craft fair—though she hadn’t told him about it.
But she didn’t go, and her car was here, yet she and the kids were gone.
He looked around the bedroom and then he saw it. Annie’s wedding ring, on the dresser, next to her jewelry box. He stared and, as if in a trance, walked over and picked it up. He didn’t know how long he stood there staring at the golden circle, their names and wedding date engraved inside the band.
Annie, what have you done?
He put the ring down where he’d found it and went back downstairs. Checked the garage. The stroller was still there—she hadn’t taken them to the park down the street. Her luggage was still there.
Where the fuck was his family?
Annie was going to pay for this. For making him scared. For making him angry. For leaving her ring behind.
He went back inside and almost called Brian—maybe Natalie came over and took Annie and the kids to her place—when he saw an envelope clipped to the refrigerator. His name written in Annie’s perfect penmanship.
He grabbed it, ripped it open.
Peter:
You hurt me one time too many. I’ve left with the children. You will never see us again.
Annie
On the verge of hyperventilating, he pulled her phone from his pocket and looked through it, hoping to find answers as to where she was. There was nothing. She’d restored it to factory settings and only the messages that came in after eight-o-six this morning were on the phone. Every app she’d had was gone—her email, Facebook, photos, all gone.
He would find her. She couldn’t hide from him.
She had taken his kids. She couldn’t do that.
His wife. His kids. His life.
“Fucking bitch!”
Peter would find her, take his kids back, and then he would kill her.
But he had to think, be smart about it. Someone must have helped Annie. She didn’t have the money, the brains, or the courage to do something so despicable.
Find that person, and he would find Annie.
Twelve
Jack Angelhart
Most of Jack’s core memories growing up had centered around Sunday dinner. Between their parents careers and the busy lives of five kids—sports, theater, band, community service—regular weekday dinners were nearly impossible to coordinate. Sunday was the day for family. When they were younger they often went hiking after church, or to baseball games—especially during spring training—or took a day trip to Sedona or watched a movie they all wanted to see. As adults, they met at the house for Sunday dinner.
But when Cooper Angelhart went to prison after confessing to killing a colleague, their family night had virtually disappeared. Jack suspected it had more to do with Margo walking away—having Dad gone was bad enough, but with the family divided, dinner reminded them of loss, and the good memories faded away. Jack’s marriage had fallen apart and he only saw his son every other weekend. Luisa, then still in the Marines, was stationed in Hawaii. Their dad was in prison, and Margo stopped showing up. Someone was always missing and that hole was felt by all.
Sunday was also the day that their mother drove two hours roundtrip to Eyman Prison in Florence to spend four hours with her husband.
So when Jack walked into the house just after six, Ava Angelhart wasn’t cooking—she was sitting outside on the shaded patio drinking a glass of white wine and reading a book about the fentanyl crisis.
She looked surprised to see Jack.
“Hi, Mom,” he said when he walked through the back door and took a seat next to her.
His mother had turned fifty-nine last month. She had never seemed old to Jack, not until his father had gone to prison. Now, the fine wrinkles that had framed her eyes and lips were deeper, her makeup more carefully applied, her hair cut and styled short, dyed lighter than her natural brown in order to better hide the gray. She was five foot four, but had perfect posture and always seemed taller.
“Jack.” She smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. The sadness was always there, but Sundays it was on the surface.
