You Deserve to Know

Chapter 34

34

NOW

Gwen stays at the entrance to the barn while Aimee runs to the car, flinging the doors open.

“Scott! Scott!” she cries, going from one side to the other.

The air is musty and dank, smelling of mildew and mice. The only things in the barn besides the black SUV are some rusty-looking gardening tools hanging from hooks on the wall. At Gwen’s side, Sababa whimpers. “It’s okay, boy,” she says, bending to rub his head, but she knows it is anything but.

Aimee emerges from the back seat of the car, tears in her eyes. “Nothing.”

“Let me check the trunk.” Gwen opens the back, but it is empty except for a few reusable grocery bags and a soccer ball.

“I’m so sorry, Aimee,” Gwen says, shutting it again. She didn’t expect to find Scott in the trunk, but she is desperate to help somehow.

Aimee crumples to the barn floor, her back against the tire of the car, and hangs her head. Her long waves hang like a curtain, hiding her face, but Gwen can hear her crying. Gwen is taken off guard. Aimee never loses it. Gwen crouches beside her. “Aimee, it’s okay, we’ll find him. This is good.”

“Good?” Aimee looks up, tears streaking her face. “How is this good?”

“Because it means he was here. This will give the police something to work with. I’ll call them now.”

As Gwen stands up and dials the number, it hits her that she would not have reacted this way if Anton went missing. She didn’t even burst into tears when she learned he had been murdered. She is oddly jealous of Aimee for being in so much pain, because it reflects how much she loves Scott. She’s forgotten what that feels like. Not to love someone, because she loves her boys more than anything in the world. But to be in love.

After Gwen calls the police, she and Jean take Aimee back inside.

“I had no idea the car was there,” Jean whispers as they settle Aimee onto the couch.

“No one’s blaming you, Jean,” Gwen tells her. “Can you watch Aimee for a minute? I need to ask someone to pick up her kids from school.” Gwen considers reaching out to Barb, but decides against it. Too complicated to explain everything to her mother. That leaves Lisa. She’s loath to contact her but texts her for Aimee’s sake. Lisa responds right away that it won’t be a problem.

Is everything all right with Gwen? Is this about Scott?

She’s fine. Will fill you in later.

Gwen purposely did not write I will fill you in later. Someone will, but it won’t be her. If she had her way, she’d never speak to Lisa again. She may have Marcus fooled, but Gwen knows the truth about her and Anton. Gwen returns to Aimee’s side to wait for the police. Finally, two officers show up, and Jean takes one of them out to the barn while the other comes into the house. Officer Tom Nguyen looks like he graduated from high school last year, but despite his baby face, he seems to grasp the severity of the situation right away.

Gwen is happy to take control, knowing Aimee is too distraught to do much talking. She relays the story—how Cathy Stocker pretended to live here but was really the cat sitter, that Scott never came home last night, and how they found his car in Jean’s barn. This is her role to play right now, but she also hopes it will win back some of Aimee’s trust. She needs Aimee and can’t bear the idea of losing her friendship.

“Where can he be?” Aimee asks of no one in particular. “I don’t get it. He can’t have just disappeared.”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Officer Nguyen says.

“Has he been kidnapped?”

“We don’t know that. Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” he says. “Let’s talk about Cathy Stocker. Do you have any other information about her? Even if it seems irrelevant? Did she mention friends?”

“I don’t know anything more than what she’s told you,” Aimee says.

“Did your husband ever meet her?”

“No, never. He never had a reason to.”

“But there may be a connection between them,” Gwen says, cautiously. “We just learned, today, that someone had been blackmailing him. And that this Cathy woman may have been involved.”

Officer Nguyen, who has been standing the whole time, takes a seat near Aimee. “Is this true? That your husband was being blackmailed?” He waits a moment for her to respond. Gwen nods. “That’s a pretty important detail to leave out.”

“We didn’t leave it out,” Aimee says. “I know it’s important. That’s why we’re telling you now.”

“What was he being blackmailed for?”

“I don’t know. I just found out today from a private investigator he hired to look into it.”

“Why didn’t you call the police when you found this out?” Nguyen asks. “What made you decide to come here?”

“I don’t know.” Aimee looks at her hands. Gwen’s heart aches for Aimee. It was a dumb thing to do, and it looks even worse now. But Aimee was so upset earlier.

“Do you think that it was Cathy Stocker who was blackmailing your husband?” he asks.

Aimee looks up at Gwen as if for approval. Gwen nods. She has no choice. They have to come clean if there’s any chance of finding Scott.

“No, it wasn’t Cathy,” Gwen says. “It was my husband. His name is Anton Khoury, and he was murdered Friday night.”

The officer stares at Gwen for a moment before standing. “Excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”

He leaves the room for about ten minutes, during which Gwen can hear his voice low as he talks on the phone. She wonders what he is saying. The whole story is so crazy. Finally, he returns and tells them they can go home.

“I’ve got everything I need from you right now. But a detective will come by your residences later to talk to you both,” he says. “Oh, and I need a current photo of your husband, if you have one.”

When Aimee doesn’t respond right away, Gwen pulls up a photo of Scott and texts it to him. She has plenty to choose from over the past year of shared meals and vacations. Once they are free to go, she takes Aimee outside.

“Do you want me to drive?” Gwen asks.

Aimee shakes her head. “I’m fine, really.”

The ride home is awkward and silent. Gwen pulls her cold, damp feet out of the muddy slippers and tucks them under her. She’ll toss the ruined slippers when she gets home, give Sababa and then herself a long shower. Barb can take care of everything else. Gwen wants to ask Aimee how she’s feeling, but she’s afraid that her friend might take out all of the day’s frustration on her. Aimee is giving off don’t-talk-to-me vibes, and Gwen wants to respect that. Her mind is cluttered with everything she has learned today and she doesn’t have the bandwidth to sort it out. Like the fact that Anton knew about Cathy. She feels the weight of his guilt pressing down on her. She wasn’t the one blackmailing Scott, but as Anton’s wife, she feels somehow responsible.

She wishes she could reach across the gulf that has opened between her and Aimee, that they could curl up on a couch with a bottle of wine and talk about it all. Together, they have a better chance of figuring things out. But Aimee is shutting her out.

When the truck pulls up in front of Aimee’s house, Gwen snaps out of her thoughts.

“I have to go to Lisa’s and pick up the kids,” Aimee says, getting out.

Gwen slips her feet back into her wet slippers and grabs Sababa’s leash. The late afternoon sun is hidden behind thick white clouds, and the air is heavy with impending rain. “Let me know if I can do anything to help,” Gwen says to Aimee as she locks the truck.

“Thanks,” Aimee says from across the hood.

“Maybe you should ask Lisa about Cathy.”

Aimee frowns. “Lisa? You think she knows something about Cathy?”

“Well, she did freak out when you said Noa was going over there.”

Aimee looks off in the distance. “That is true.”

“And if she was sleeping with Anton, maybe he told her something.”

“Gwen, we don’t know that.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Aimee says, irritated. “And I have enough on my plate right now.”

“Of course. You never want to think badly of anyone.” Gwen turns to her house, pulling Sababa, who has found something dead on the asphalt to smell, behind her. What she really wants to say is, You always wanted to see the best in her, but Lisa is a psycho, and your husband, he has some serious skeletons in his closet. And maybe it’s time you grew up and faced facts. But right now Gwen feels like Aimee is the only friend she has in the world, and she doesn’t want to lose her, so Gwen forces herself to smile. “And that’s one of the things I really love about you, Aimee. Just be careful who you believe.”