A Deadly Fall (12 page)

Sam – January 2010

“Have you gotten the birth and marriage certificates yet?” I asked Marissa when I got home from work. It had been ten business days since she’d put in her requests so they should be coming any day.

“The mail hasn’t come yet, but I’m crossing my fingers they come today,” she said, looking up from the journal she was reading. “There’s more, Sam. I think we need to find Jack. I don’t know where to start with that—I don’t have access to information. Can you pull his phone records or credit card information so we at least know where he is?”

“It would take some digging, but I could look into that. We can’t bring him yet, you know.”

“I know. But what if the medical records indicate abuse that could have caused a miscarriage? Could we arrest him on charges for murder of the fetus?”

“It’d be a long shot, but we could look into it.”

“The mail!” she said, jumping out of her chair like a kid on Christmas morning. I started getting things ready for dinner and poured two glasses of wine.

“Any luck?” I asked when she came back in.

“Yes, it’s all here. I’ll go back to Dr. Adams first thing in the morning.”

“Good, until then, let’s relax,” I said and handed her a glass of wine. “Cheers.”

***

Meet me for lunch?
the text from Marissa read at nine the following morning. She must have already been to Dr. Adams and wanted to talk about the medical records.

Yes—I’ll pick up something. Meet you at home
. I’d rather talk about it in private.

“What’d you find?” I asked when I got home.

“It’s a lot of medical language I don’t understand, but I stayed and asked the nurse about some of it until she got busy with patients. She said, according to Sarah’s records, the first miscarriage was not attributed to any particular incident. Since she was still so early in her pregnancy, that’s not that uncommon. Especially given that our mom had so much trouble getting pregnant. But the second one seemed to be due to excessive trauma on her uterus. Sarah told Dr. Adams when she went in afterwards that she’d tripped on the deck coming into the house. I didn’t say anything, but I looked at the journal dates again, and she wrote about Jack maybe hitting her two days before she miscarried. And, she’d visited the doctor before she died. She knew she was pregnant, so Jack must have too. Can we bring him in yet?”

“Not yet. But I started looking up his phone and credit cards. He’s been all over the place, and using several different cards. He’s either in financial trouble and using them to pay the others off, or he’s trying to hide. But he’s not doing a very good job. Maybe you can go to his office this afternoon and talk to his boss or whoever will talk to you. Verify that he’s still working there. Maybe it’s all work travel. In which case, they’d know when he’ll be back, or if he’ll be back.”

“Great, I can do that. And one other thing, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. Sarah had a will. I know she did, because she’d told me one time that she’d changed me from the executor on it to Jack. That made sense, they were married. But the will was never settled.”

“That’s strange.”

“Can we make him come back to deal with that and then I can talk to him when he’s here?”

“Yeah, I can get someone working on that this afternoon.”

***

I only had one more night with Marissa. She’d been working nonstop to find out as much about Jack as she could, and I’d been helping her as much as I could without raising suspicions in the office. Only Allen knew about it so far. He was the one tracking down Jack to get him back to settle the will.

I lay down in bed next to Marissa one more time and pulled her to me. She’d been just about asleep, so her body completely relaxed as I held her in my arms, my stomach against her back. Our body heat together was almost unbearable, so I’d learned quickly to turn the heat way down at night so I could lay closer to her.

“Marissa,” I whispered, checking to see if she’d woken up when I’d come to bed.

“Mmm.”

“I want you to move in with me.”

“Sam, I have a job in New York.”

“I know. You don’t have to move in tomorrow, or even next week. But if you’re seriously considering leaving your job, I want you to move here. To this town. To my house. We’ll make it ours.”

“But what kind of work would there be here for me?”

“What if you didn’t work for a little while?”

“I like my job. Well, I
liked
my job until last semester. I guess I could try that.”

“Yeah?”

She rolled over to face me, her eyes looking right into mine. “Yeah. I’d like to move in with you.”

Marissa – February 2010

It was tough leaving Sam toward the end of January. We’d both known it was coming, but the anticipation made it even worse when it came time to go back to work. I’d given myself a deadline of Valentine’s Day to put in my resignation, and today, the Wednesday before, was the day I planned to tell the department chair I would be leaving at the end of the school year.

“Dr. Rose?” I asked as I walked into my supervisor’s office.

“Marissa, how are you? I haven’t had a chance to talk with you one on one since you returned. How was your semester in Ottawa?” she asked, turning away from her computer screen and giving me her undivided attention.

“It was. . .a change. Thank you for working out all the details at such short notice. It was good to be away.”

“I’m glad to hear it. How are you doing since. . . your sister’s passing?” she asked hesitantly.

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Some things have changed drastically since Sarah died in September. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’m going to be leaving at the end of the semester.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I didn’t expect to have my life turned upside down last fall, but that’s exactly what happened. Ottawa was a good temporary change of scenery, but I need something more drastic to feel like I can get my life back on track.”

“You know that we’ll support you fully in whatever decision you make, and if you stay, we’re all here to support you as well.”

“I know. And I appreciate how close the department is. It’s been a blessing working with everyone for so long—you’ve all become my family. But it’s time for me to move on, to take this leap and trust that it’s really what I need at this point.”

“You have my blessing. We’ll need you to finish out the semester, of course.”

“Oh, I plan to! I’m happy to be as close to the hiring process as needed, or completely hands off if that’s what you prefer.”

“We’ll cross that bridge in the next few weeks. Do you want a few days to tell people yourself before I send a formal announcement to the staff?”

“That would be great. Is there anything else you need from me at this point?”

“A formal letter of resignation with your intended end date will be needed so we can add it to your file.”

“Not a problem. Can you give me until the end of the week before you let everyone know? I’ll share the news personally with a few people before then.”

“That’s fine. I hope this is the best move for you,” she said sincerely.

“Me too.”

***

“I told the department chair today,” I told Sam after work.

“Congratulations! This calls for a visit. When is your next long weekend?”

“I only teach Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this semester, so every weekend is a long weekend!” I told him happily.

“Why don’t you come out here tomorrow after work and spend Valentine’s with me to celebrate you leaving and moving in just a few months?”

“I’d love that,” I said. I’d timed it perfectly to put in my resignation.

“Also, Jack is back in town. He’s here to settle the will.”

“Great,” I said with a mixture of relief that he’d been found so I could ask him the questions I needed answers to, and fear at what those answers might be. “Have you seen him?”

“No. Allen ran into him at the hospital—”

“Is Allen OK?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Yeah. And so is Krista. And their two new baby girls—Alexis and Avery!”

I could hear the excitement in his voice. “That’s great! When were they born?”

“Last week. They weren’t even early. They were both healthy and happy and on time.”

“That’s great! Send them my congratulations if you see them before I get there tomorrow. Is Allen working already or does he have paternity leave?”

“He’s taking this week off, but that’s the end of his paid vacation time. So he’s coming back on Monday to see how it goes. If Krista can’t handle it—her mom is staying with them for now too—then he’ll take some unpaid time.”

“I’m happy to hear that they’re all doing well,” I said, genuinely excited for the new family—the life change that Sarah had been hoping for so badly.

***

My last class on Thursday ended at four, so I had to do most of the drive in the dark. And the back roads of Vermont and New Hampshire are incredibly dark, with few street lights. I was thankful there was no new snow.

I got a chance to reflect one last time on the changes I had coming up—leaving the job I’d had for over five years and moving back to a town I had run away from as soon as I’d gotten the chance. Both seemed like exciting new opportunities now.

I also had time to think about the questions I needed to ask Jack—where had he been? What was he running from? Had he really been away on a business trip when Sarah died? Why was she even hiking if she’d learned she was pregnant? And she was so careful all the time, she would have checked the weather before heading out alone. Why hadn’t he kept in touch with any of their old friends? There were too many red flags that I couldn’t understand why her death hadn’t been investigated more by the police or even her friends.

“You made it!” Sam said as I walked through the door hours later.

“I did!” I said with a smile as I dropped my bags and let myself be engulfed by his hug.

“Congratulations again.”

“Thanks. I’m really excited about the new opportunities.”

“Me too. How was the drive here?”

“Boring—the way it should be!”

“I’m glad to hear it. Did you eat?” he asked. I could smell dinner.

“I didn’t. But I didn’t expect a meal either.”

“I couldn’t help myself,” he said as he turned and led me into the kitchen. The table was pushed up against the dark window, a chair on either side. There were two places set, each with a glass ready for wine, and candles between. I didn’t see the food, but I could smell it and suddenly my mouth watered. “Roast duck with blackberry sauce and butternut squash risotto.”

“You made this?” I asked incredulously.

“I did. I knew I’d have plenty of time so I made something extra delicious. And I’ve been taking a cooking class and we learned both of these things in the last few weeks.”

“A cooking class?”

“Allen talked me into it since Krista expected to be so busy with the babies that he’s had to learn to cook. He didn’t realize he was signing up for a higher level class. So he gave this one to me and then signed up for the beginner course,” he said, laughing.

“This smells incredible. I’m blown away,” I admitted.

“Have a seat and we can taste it. The backup is leftover pizza,” he said, guiding me to my chair and pouring the wine.

“You’re setting very high expectations for what living with you will be like,” I said, laughing.

“You’ve spent enough time here already that you know this isn’t the norm.”

Sam sliced the duck on the counter and brought the whole platter to the table. The risotto had been kept warm in the oven and the bowl was put on the table as well. I was suddenly starving, and perfectly content with the decisions I’d made about my future. We both dug in and enjoyed each others’ company.

***

“Are you working today?” I asked Sam when I heard him stirring next to me the next morning.

“Yeah. But I took Monday off. I thought this would give you a chance to see Jack before the weekend. I think the meeting with the lawyer is scheduled for Monday morning, so I thought I’d come with you. If you want me to,” he added quickly.

“That’d be great. I don’t know what to expect.”

“Are you ready to talk to Jack, or did you want to wait until Monday?”

“I’ll go over to his house today and see if he’s there. I know I need to talk to him, but it’ll be a hard conversation. And I’d rather do that one alone.”

“I heard he switched companies, so I don’t think he’ll be going into an office. If all of his recent travel was work related, it wasn’t the same company.”

“Good to know,” I said as I snuggled into Sam’s arms and kissed him, no longer concerned about my morning breath.

“It’s good to have you here,” he whispered on my lips as they turned upward into a smile.

“Soon enough, it will be everyday we get to wake up like this,” I whispered back.