Page 8 of Made for You

“So Mr. Wekstein may have been the last person to see your husband,” says Adams, scribbling on his notepad.

“No. Josh didn’t show.”

I know this from Andy, because he was the second person I called Monday morning, after my calls to Josh went to voicemail.

“Hey, Andy,” I said. “Josh didn’t come home last night. No need to panic, but...you met him for breakfast yesterday, right? Did he mention when he was coming home?”

“He never showed,” Andy said. “Sorry, I should have told you right away, but... I didn’t want to cause any more tension between the two of you.” And without missing a beat, “Are you okay, though? Tell me what you need and I’m there.”

“Nothing!” I said, not wanting to alarm Andy further, even adding a laugh for good measure, even though my brain was spinning in a panicked carousel of questions. “It’s probably fine. It’s possible he said it was a two-day trip? I had a lot of wine Saturday night! Some of which you contributed, ha ha. It’s all a little fuzzy.”

Not a little, a lot fuzzy. Even the things I can remember feel sheer rather than substantive. Impressions, ghost-lights, floaters that skit away when I try to look straight at them.

I’ve rarely been drunk in my short time alive. It figures that the one night I went to town on a bottle of wine would be the night it’s most important for me to remember. The last time I saw Josh.

“How often were his trips?” says Adams.

“He’s been on two. Before this one, I mean. Since we got married.” I look between the men. “Do you have any leads?”

“One or two,” says Sheriff Mitchell so casually that he can’t expect me to believe him. “But in the meantime, I do have a few...personal questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“Where’ve you been, since he left on Saturday?”

“Here. At home. I mean, also at the grocery store. And... CVS. For infant Tylenol. Um—how much detail do you want?” I’ll drown him in detail, as long as I can skim past the problematic area of Saturday night.

“If needed, could you give a complete account of your movements over the past four days?”

“I...think so.”

“One of the neighbors reported hearing a woman shriek at two in the morning,” says Mitchell. “This would have been Saturday night.”

“Sunday morning, sir,” corrects Adams.

I shrug despite the shivery crawl up my spine. “I was sleeping.” The instant the words leave my mouth I realize how pretend they must sound, even though it’s true. The wine knocked me out. “But the woods...” I gesture vaguely to the back window. “Maybe it was a fox?”

Deputy Adams nods as he addresses his boss. “The cry of a fox does sound like a woman being brutally murdered. Or...” His cheeks go pink. “This is the old Royce Sullivan site, sir. They say that the murdered women wander the woods, shrieking—the ones they never, er, fully...found. They can’t rest until they find their missing limbs.”

“When did your husband last communicate with you?” says Mitchell, ignoring his deputy.

“Sunday morning,” I say without hesitation, trying to dispel the idea of the ghosts of Sullivan’s victims creeping through the trees. Sunday is solid ground. “He texted.”

“May I see?”

I grab my phone, unlock it, find the message. It’s from five o’clock Sunday morning.

Morning babe! Reception’s spotty here so...love you.

I didn’t respond until six thirty, with a kissy emoji and a simple Good morning and good luck!

I show it to the sheriff, keeping control of the phone, taking care that the previous messages in the thread aren’t visible.

“You and Josh have trouble at home?” he says, squinting at the screen.

“Trouble?” I allow my brow to wrinkle even as I quickly remove my phone. If he demanded I scroll up just one more message... “You mean the vandalism?”

There’s a dead silence. Even Annaleigh is quiet now, gumming her spoon, drool running down her chubby chin.

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