Название: Evidence of Life
Автор: Barbara Sissel Taylor
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9781472014900
isbn:
“You don’t believe me.”
“I just can’t stand for you to hurt anymore.”
“Is there a way not to? Is there a cure for this other than finding them? One of them called me, Katie. They’re alive. Can’t you even say it’s possible?”
Kate didn’t answer.
“I think someone was here.”
“In the night?” Now Kate sounded even more alarmed, and Abby filled with even more regret.
But she went on. “I mean while I was gone. Things aren’t—”
“Aren’t what?”
Abby said she didn’t know. She said, “You think I’m insane.”
“Honey, I think you’re exhausted. I think I should come.”
“No.” Abby didn’t want her. She didn’t need traitors, naysayers. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure you’re right,” she added for effect. “Jake’s coming home this weekend. I’m making him a meatloaf.”
* * *
Abby grocery shopped and managed to make a meatloaf—Jake’s favorite—before his arrival. To go with it, she made mashed potatoes and carrots she’d harvested from last fall’s vegetable garden. She did not plan to tell him about her middle-of-the night mystery caller. But he already knew. He said Kate had called him because she was concerned.
“She shouldn’t have bothered you,” Abby said. They were repairing the back porch rail. Abby was holding it while Jake filled the sockets with glue.
“She’s afraid you aren’t telling her the truth about how you are,” he said.
“So, what do you think?”
“About how you are?”
“No, the call. Do you think it’s possible?”
“I think stuff like that, thinking Lindsey and Dad are calling, thinking someone’s in the house—it’ll make you crazy.”
“According to Kate, it already has.”
“Come on, Mom. Let’s say it’s true, that it was Lindsey or Dad on the phone. Where does that leave us? I mean, do you think they’re out there somewhere? Like what? Kidnapped or something?”
“No,” she said, but her brain wanted to argue. Sheriff Henderson had questioned her in this regard. He had asked her if there might be someone who was a threat to Nick. Nadine Betts and the San Antonio D.A. had both insinuated they thought it was Nick with Adam Sandoval on the surveillance tape. Suppose it was? Suppose Adam was holding a gun on Nick, forcing Nick to help him? But no one could see that because the quality of the film was too poor. Stranger things had happened. Abby could have said all of this, but she didn’t. Jake was right; she would drive herself crazy. Worse, she would drive him crazy. “I’m sure it was nothing,” she said, handing him the railing. “A wrong number is all.”
He gave her a look.
“What?” she said. “I’m fine. Fine,” she reiterated.
* * *
The next day, working like demons, they got the yard work caught up and thoroughly mucked out the horse stalls. They labored mostly in silence as if they had no idea what to say or how to be around each other anymore.
At dinner, they sat at the kitchen table in a well of light, silverware clanking monotonously against china. Abby couldn’t stand it. “When are finals?” she asked, although she knew, but she couldn’t think of anything else, and anyway, it was a normal, motherly-type question.
“Next week,” Jake answered.
“I guess you’re studying like mad then.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re okay, grade-wise?”
“Yeah.” He forked bites of meatloaf into his mouth, keeping his gaze from hers.
Deliberately, Abby thought, the same as answering her in monosyllables was deliberate. This was not normal. “Jake, is anything wrong?”
His head came up. “Wrong? Gosh, Mom, what could be wrong? Here we are at the dinner table, the two of us, one big happy family with a mountain of food.”
She frowned at him. “I knew you’d be starved. You always are when you come home.”
“I can’t take their place. I can’t eat for them. I can’t be here all the time like they were.”
“I don’t expect that.”
Jake thrust aside his napkin and stood up; he took his dishes to the sink and rinsed them. He came for Abby’s.
She grasped his wrist. “I should have stopped them; that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“How? It isn’t like Dad was going to listen to you.”
She loosened her hold, and he took her plate away.
He turned from the sink, towel in hand. “You aren’t going all paranoid on me now, are you?”
Her laugh was uneasy. “Maybe I am.”
His smile seemed forced; it seemed pitying. He said, “I’ll try and come home more, okay?”
He left for school the next day, and without him the house was dead still again.
Chapter 6
In May, nearly seven weeks after the flood, Dennis Henderson came to Abby’s house to collect DNA samples. When Abby opened the door, he took his hat from his head and said, “I’m sorry I have to put you through this.”
She widened the door, allowing him to enter. “I can’t believe it’s come to this.”
He followed her through the house, and Abby saw how it must appear to him. He couldn’t fail to notice the neglect, the musty smell, the dust everywhere, the sheet and blanket tossed in a heap on the sofa in the den where she was sleeping. She thought of making an excuse. Or she could tell him the truth, that she couldn’t bring herself to do the household chores, to wash the clothes, to dust and scour. The messiness and smells were all that was left of her husband and daughter, and she clung to them.
“I expected one of your deputies.” She poured tea over ice into two glasses.
“I’m trying to give them a break.” He put the metal case on the table next to his hat. “We’ve made a lot of progress since the flood, but it’s still pretty much nonstop.”
She brought the tea to the table, indicating he should sit. She set the sugar bowl within his reach, and Abby sat down across from him. “I thought you were the boss.”
“Yes, СКАЧАТЬ