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“Are you gonna take that mad with you to the grave,chère?” her grandmother would have said. “It won’t keep you warm in the ground.”
Needing to sit down, to gather her thoughts and steady her nerves, B’Lynn poured herself half a glass of red wine from the open bottle on the counter near the stove. She sat down at the kitchen table, on a chair that had already been pulled out.
Had she left it that way when she’d gone upstairs? That wasn’t any more like her than leaving the back door unlocked, but it was something she had corrected Robbie for a million times.
Always in a hurry, he was the kid who left doors open, gates open, chairs pulled out. He was always gone, on to the next moment, the next adventure. What got left behind left his mind. His focus was always forward as he dashed off to football practice, basketball practice, baseball practice, running out the door with half a sandwich in one hand, in too big a hurry to sit down and finish a meal.
As sad as she was, she smiled at the memory. So many good memories from those years in this house.
She sipped her wine and looked around the kitchen and thought of all the family meals she’d made there, the holiday gatherings, the laughter, the love.
She thanked her lucky stars and her maternal grandmother for willing the house to her and insisting it be in B’Lynn’s name and her name only, years before any hint of trouble in her marriage, Mamere Louisa having always possessed a healthy, hard-earned distrust of men in general. When the end of B’Lynn’s marriage had come, she had at least had her home. By Louisiana law, an inheritance was considered separate property, not community property to bedivided among the combatants in a divorce. In the end, Robert had packed up his Porsche and gone, leaving her to the comfort of this house and its generations of memories.
It was a gracious old Queen Anne Victorian, built in 1886 with the requisite gables and wraparound porch, located in a neighborhood of similar homes, in the part of town historically populated by doctors and lawyers and successful businessmen. It had been in her mother’s family all that time. B’Lynn would pass it on to her daughter when she died. Eventually, some descendant wasn’t going to want the house and its expensive upkeep, but she would be long gone before that happened. The idea of all those memories dying was too sad to contemplate.
There was enough history in this house to fill a book, and in fact, one of her great-aunts had written one that sold a few copies every year down at the historical society. There was an entire chapter on the supposed ghosts that haunted the place. B’Lynn couldn’t confirm any of the tales herself, though now she wondered if she hadn’t encountered one tonight.
You can’t help me now…
No. She couldn’t think that he might be dead. She’d been on that roller coaster all day, first hearing about the murder victim found outside of Luck, then holding her breath waiting for a call from Detective Broussard to confirm or deny the awful possibility. She desperately needed to hang on to the renewed hope that had come after that call. He wasn’t on a slab in the morgue at Our Lady; therefore, she wouldn’t believe he was dead.
Better to think he’d actually been there and gone tonight than that he was gone and never coming back. But whether he’d been there or not, she wasn’t sure what to do next. If she told Detective Broussard what had happened, what then? Would law enforcement stop looking for Robbie if they believed he’d been to the house? Would B’Lynn admit to the detective she’d taken half a sleeping pill earlier and be accused of hallucinating the whole thing? Would a detective see the bottle of wine on the counter with two-thirds goneand decide she was a drunk? God knew, they probably thought she was unstable anyway after her performance at the sheriff’s office this morning.
No. She wasn’t going to say anything to Annie Broussard about any of it. What difference would it make if Robbie had been there or not? She still didn’t know where her son was. She still needed help finding him. That was the bottom line. It wouldn’t be a lie, exactly, not telling, just a sin of omission, a religious technicality. If that kept the investigation going, that was a good thing.
B’Lynn checked the clock. It was nearly one in the morning. She was exhausted, but the wheels of her mind were spinning now. Even on half a sleeping pill and a glass of wine, she wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. She would lie awake and wonder, if he’d been there, where had he gone? Back to his place?
She rinsed out her wineglass and went in search of her shoes and car keys.
—
Melissa woke with a start from a fitful sleep, her heart racing, her pulse pounding in her ears. She held her breath and tried to listen beyond thewhoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The wind had come up outside, shaking the trees, creating a creepy black-and-white show of moonlight and shadows on her bedroom walls like something from an old Hitchcock movie. She had forgotten to pull the drapes closed over the sheers on the sliding patio door, and now she suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable.
The overwhelming feeling of being watched crawled over her, sending a shiver down her back. She wanted to leap up and run to close the curtains, but at the same time she felt too afraid to do so. What if she went to the window and someone was looking in? What if the sense of a presence was what had awakened her in the first place? And if she turned the bedside light on, she would only be more exposed to anyone standing outside.
Now she began to wonder if the door was locked. She had goneout that door earlier to sit by the small firepit and have a glass of wine with Will. What if she hadn’t locked it when she had come in?
She wished now she had asked him to stay. To hell with how that looked to her nosy neighbors. What did it matter if they saw a strange car in her driveway overnight? She didn’t give a shit what these people thought of her. What did she care if a bunch of Louisiana hicks thought she was a whore, or believed she’d killed her husband, or anything else? She was moving back to Philadelphia as soon as she could manage to make it happen.
If someone didn’t break into her house and kill her first.
She tried to tell herself that was a ridiculous thought, even as she glanced around for something to arm herself with. The story of Will’s sister being raped and murdered in her own home just blocks away from there sat in the back of her mind, stirring her anxiety. Lindsay Faulkner had no doubt thought that would never happen to her, either.
The only thing within reach was her TV remote. Melissa snatched it up and held it in her hand like a club.
The baby monitor on her nightstand came alive, and she startled at the sudden sound of her daughter stirring and whimpering.
Madeline. What if someone had come into the house and was now across the hall looming over her baby in her crib?
The baby began to cry.
Melissa glanced at the patio door, then at the door to the hallway. Her imagination raced to picture herself on the way to Madeline’s room and some black-clad, faceless assailant rushing in through the patio door, running up behind her, knocking her to the floor, her stupid TV remote flying out of her hand, useless.
From somewhere out in the house came a loudBang!Melissa jumped out of the bed, her heart pounding like a hammer in her chest.
Should she call 911? Where was her phone? She usually charged it on the nightstand overnight, but it wasn’t there. Where had she left it? On the vanity in the bathroom? In the kitchen? Or hadshe left it out on the patio table? She’d had a little too much wine. She’d been slightly tipsy when Will stood up to go. She might have just left the phone out there when she’d gone to see him out.
