Since She Went Away (33 page)

Someone sat on the diving board, his feet dangling over the thick green tarp that was pulled tight over the pool with a series of dark ropes. The tarp looked like part of the ground, something a person could walk across and never know there was water underneath. The guy on the diving board took a drink from a bottle of whiskey, tossing his head back as he threw down the liquor. He smacked his lips, the noise reaching Jared in the dark. It was Bobby Allen.

Jared walked over, his shoes scuffing against the concrete pool
deck. Bobby looked up when Jared approached, his eyes heavy lidded and wary. Jared remembered what Ursula had said in the park the night before, her mention of a falling-out between them.

“Hey, Bobby.”

“Hey.”

Jared looked around. The couple that had been making out suddenly stood up and walked inside, hand in hand, no doubt searching for a vacant bedroom. The music still thumped but was muffled by the walls and doors of the house. Jared knew how these parties ended. Some neighbor would call the police. They’d break it up, send all the kids scattering into the night.

“Have you seen Ursula?” Jared asked, cutting to the chase.

Bobby made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “She was here earlier.”

“She left?”

Bobby took another drink and then he tilted his head back, taking Jared in. “You love her, don’t you? Ursula.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You want to fuck her.”

Jared didn’t feel like arguing or verbally sparring with a drunk rich kid. “I’m sorry about your dad, Bobby. I’ll see you around.”

“You don’t have a dad either, do you?”

Jared didn’t say anything. He looked at the house. If Ursula was gone, there was nothing and no one for him to find in there. He wanted to just slip away, maybe even leave Mike to whatever adventures he had found.

“Ursula told me all about you,” Bobby said.

“Why was Ursula talking about me?” Jared asked.

“Who knows? The girl talks. She talks and talks.” He held up the bottle. “Want some?”

“No, thanks. I guess there’s nothing new about your dad’s case.”

Bobby shrugged. “Cops say they keep getting reports about this William Rose guy. Once they put the word out, everybody thinks they know where he is. Like with Ursula’s mom. People think they see her everyplace, just because her face is all over TV. I guess they all think they’re going to be the hero and save the day. What do you want Ursula for if you don’t want to fuck her? I mean, you guys aren’t friends or anything.”

“I just wanted to talk to her about something.”

“She probably went home.” He pointed to an empty space next to him on the diving board. “She was right here. Right in this spot.”

“She told me you two had a falling-out.”

“We always do.” Bobby shrugged, the liquor bottle waving in the air. “She’s always mad at someone. Me, you. Her mom, her dad, her cat. Always mad.”

“She was like that as a kid too,” Jared said. “She told me off all the time when we were little. I guess some things never change.”

“They don’t.”

Jared started to walk away.

“Hey,” Bobby said.

Jared turned back. Bobby had shifted his body a little. He sat farther out on the diving board, his legs dangling more quickly.

“It feels a little like spring, doesn’t it?” he said.

Jared hadn’t noticed. It still felt cold, as far as he was concerned. But Bobby was right that the temperature was a little higher, the air and the wind less biting. He’d seen the forecast and knew some warmer temperatures would be arriving during the next week. Highs in the mid-fifties, maybe even near sixty, a little hope amid the gloom.

“I wish I was graduating,” Bobby said. “I’d be getting out of here, moving someplace else. When the warm weather comes, it’s time to go. Am I right?”

“Sure,” Jared said, although he didn’t know exactly what Bobby
was talking about. Maybe rich kids thought that way. They could imagine doing anything and getting away with it, even dropping out of school. But he and Bobby weren’t that different after all. Jared dreamed of leaving Hawks Mill, of going someplace very different. Everybody must at one time or another.

“Everything will be different then,” Bobby said. “So maybe I’ll go.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

I
an walked across the room and sat again. He placed his hands on the tabletop, and he looked calm, almost professorial. “I’ve already told you I wasn’t perfect, as a husband or as a father.”

Jenna felt uncomfortable as she sensed a revelation coming.

“I felt I had to protect my family. After Celia . . . wandered, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to protect Ursula. And Celia, frankly.”

“And you wanted to protect yourself.”

He nodded. “Self-preservation was part of it. Sure. I just knew if Celia strayed again, she could be putting not only our family in jeopardy but also herself. See, I always worried something like this would happen.”

“Something like a kidnapping?” Jenna asked.

“Something dangerous. When someone, a woman, puts herself out there that way, she risks the consequences of being around a man who doesn’t feel any loyalty to her. No commitment. No honesty. An affair is built upon lies, isn’t it? So what’s to stop that man from doing nothing but lying to the woman?”

A clock above the kitchen doorway ticked. Jenna remembered going along with Celia when she registered for wedding gifts. The two friends laughed a lot that day, joking about the kinds of things
they could add to the registry to shock the guests. Silk sheets. Or a box of rubbers. One of the things they selected—in all seriousness—was the clock that still ticked in the Walterses’ kitchen seventeen years later. Something itched below the surface of Jenna’s mind.

“What form did this ‘self-preservation’ take?” Jenna asked.

“It’s more complicated than that. I want to explain myself.”

“You were worried about an affair, or Celia being in danger. You were also worried about your reputation. The family’s reputation. The foundry. A straying wife in a small town isn’t good for business.”

Ian made an exasperated noise in his throat. “Don’t try to reduce me. Or my family.”

“You weren’t worried about that?” Jenna asked.

“I worried about my family more.”

“So, what did you do with all this worry?” Jenna asked.

“Jenna . . . because of my job, I have access to certain people and things that an ordinary person might not have access to. You’re right, a company needs to protect its reputation. And there are people who can do that for us.”

“You mean PR people?”

“No, I don’t mean that.”

“Then what?”

“I’ve been clear about this with the police,” he said. “I talked to them again when that man died. Henry Allen. His son and Ursula—”

“Holy crap,” Jenna said. She remembered her conversation with Ursula in the park. “Did you know Henry Allen?” she asked. “The guy who was just murdered in William Rose’s house?”

Ian sounded reluctant. “I knew him. Some.”

“Did Celia?”

“No,” Ian said. “He and I were once in a foursome at the country club. Some tournament thing to raise money for charity. Golf and then drinks. The usual bullshit.”

“But you knew him well enough,” Jenna said. “Well enough to enlist his services?”

Ian didn’t respond. A flush rose on his cheeks. He looked down at his folded hands, staring at them as though he could open them up and find some wisdom hidden there.

“So, what happened? You had drinks together at the club and that loosened your tongue?” Jenna said. “And then how did it come up? You started bemoaning the fact that you couldn’t keep your woman at home?”

Ian looked up. “Hold on. You’re making it sound so nefarious. I told you I was trying to keep the family together.”

“So you talked, and he told you what? That he knew a guy? A guy who could do the job for you? And you asked Henry Allen to have someone follow Celia?”

“I did. And yes, Henry did have employees who could follow Celia. It was supposed to be simple. Keep an eye on her when she left the house in the evenings and let Henry know if they saw anything suspicious. I called a number when she was going out and told them. Or I’d call them if I wasn’t going to be home. If they didn’t see anything, they didn’t tell Henry anything. No news was supposed to be good news. I was trying to protect Celia. And the truth is, they never saw anything. Nothing was ever reported back to me.”

“She was right,” Jenna said. “Celia was right. Someone was following her.”

“Maybe. We don’t know—”

“And you trusted these guys?” Jenna asked.

“I trusted Henry. He’s a prominent businessman in town. He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“Businessmen never hurt people, do they?”

“Jenna, you know I’d never put my family in danger.”

“What did you tell the police about it?” Jenna asked.

“I gave them Henry Allen’s name, Jenna. I told them the whole thing.” He tapped his fingers against the table a few times. “They questioned him, but I don’t know what he said. And when Henry Allen turned up dead, I told them again. Even though I didn’t need to. They remembered, of course. What are they supposed to think when a guy who might have been involved with having my missing wife followed turns up dead? It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

“Bad for who?”

“Everybody.”

“So they’re all connected. Ian . . . you . . .”

“I was trying to protect all three of us. To ensure that our family would make it. Celia had been wandering. Hell, I thought about having Ursula followed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think kids should be free to make mistakes and learn from them.”

“But not wives?”

Ian started to say something, but then he just nodded, almost like admitting defeat.

“Jesus, Ian. Celia said she thought someone was following her. You know what? I thought she was just being paranoid, seeing shadows that weren’t there. But she wasn’t crazy, was she? She was being followed.”

Jenna was up, grabbing her coat and heading for the door.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

J
ared felt as if he was on a wild-goose chase, walking through the streets of Hawks Mill hoping he’d come across Ursula. All he knew from Bobby was that she’d left the party early, possibly heading home. But she could be anywhere in town—another party, a friend’s house, a restaurant, a store. Jared didn’t have a car, didn’t have any easy way to find her.

And once he did find her, then what?

He wanted to ask her about her insistence that he do the interview as well as the information Reena revealed on TV.

Ursula and her family lived six blocks east of downtown in a neighborhood called Teakwood, on the opposite side of the heart of Hawks Mill from where Natalie’s father lived. As Jared walked away from downtown, the houses were newer, built mostly after World War II, and the streets felt more suburban, like something you’d see in a movie about kids who were rich but not too rich. Jared didn’t know, but he suspected Ursula’s family could afford to live someplace more expensive, out in one of the fancier suburbs where the doctors and lawyers—new money, his mom called it—lived with their three-car garages and giant swing sets. But Jared knew Celia’s family lived
in Teakwood when she was growing up. She must have felt comfortable there.

Jared thought about turning around. The more he walked, the farther he knew he had to walk back to his house as the night grew colder. He thought about calling his mom for a ride, but then he remembered: She was already at Ursula’s house. Maybe she’d even started back home.

At least that seemed to be her plan.

He started checking the cars that passed. If he saw his mom driving by, heading for home, he’d wave his arms, flag her down, and get out of the cold. But it was dark, and the headlight beams glowed bright, almost blinding him.

And then he saw a figure up ahead.

He thought he recognized the size of the body, the gentle rolling bounce of her hips.

Was it Ursula? The girl was two blocks ahead of him, walking slowly in and out of the glow of the streetlights. He quickened his pace and saw he’d catch up to her easily. He tried to land gently, to make sure his footfalls didn’t startle her in the dark. As he came closer, though, she slowed down, and he saw it was Ursula. She came to a stop next to a bench and slumped down. For a moment she stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the pavement, and then her body shook as she started to cry, her hands rising to her face to brush the tears away.

Jared felt like an intruder.

She was sobbing, her body shaking. Jared thought about walking away, turning around and leaving her to her private moment. But he stood still under a streetlight, and Ursula looked over and saw him, her face coated with tears.

He couldn’t leave then. Not unless he wanted to act like a completely heartless bastard.

So he moved forward. He expected Ursula to stand up and leave
or tell him to get lost, but she didn’t. He came alongside her and said the idiotic thing everybody says to someone who is horribly upset.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer with sarcasm. She shook her head as her breathing started to return to normal. Jared’s hands were jammed in the pockets of his coat. He brought one out and gently, cautiously, placed it on Ursula’s shoulder. He felt like a man testing a stove to see how hot it was.

“Is there something I can do?” he asked.

Ursula wiped at her face with both hands.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m sick of all these fucking people. And this fucking town.”

“Do you want me to at least walk you the rest of the way home?”

“I don’t care.”

“Did something happen at the party?” he asked.

She looked up. “You were at Kirk’s house?” Even through her tears, she managed to convey the appropriate amount of shock and dismay at the fact that Jared attended a party given by one of her friends.

“I was. Just for a minute. I saw Bobby.”

Something flashed in her eyes at the mention of Bobby’s name. But she said, “I had to get out of there.”