Chapter 20
AS SOON AS THEY hung up with Veronica, Emily dialed the main number for Julia’s law firm on speaker and was connected to Julia’s assistant, a woman named Robin.
“Who did you say this was?” Robin asked skeptically before answering Emily’s very direct and immediate question, if she knew where Julia was.
Nora cleared her throat and took over in her stage voice. “Julia’s younger sisters, Nora and Emily May. She was supposed to meet us in California yesterday but she hasn’t shown up yet.”
Robin didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she said, “I’m not sure where she is right now. Julia hasn’t been in the office for almost three weeks. She took a scheduled leave, so we’re not expecting her back here until after July Fourth.”
Scheduled leave? Nora and Emily exchanged a glance. Nora thanked Robin and asked if Julia checked in, to please have her call her sisters.
“So she took off work for a while,” Emily said after she hung up. “Wherever she is… this isn’t unexpected, is it? She planned this?”
Nora chewed on her bottom lip. Something still felt off, but Emily was also right.
This didn’t feel like a call-the-police kind of situation, as she’d thought it was when she’d first woken up.
Julia had told work she’d be gone for eight weeks.
She’d clearly gone… somewhere on purpose.
Just not here. But was it possible that was very much on purpose, that Julia was avoiding seeing her?
Nora inwardly kicked herself for not picking up the phone just once over this last year and apologizing for what had happened last May. Would that have made a difference?
“I think this might be all my fault,” Nora suddenly blurted out. “Julia must still be mad at me for last year.”
“What?” Emily looked confused. “Because we took Veronica out on the last night?”
There was more to it than that, of course, a very mortifying piece that Emily didn’t know. But Nora felt so embarrassed thinking about it now, how stupid she’d been when she was drunk, that she didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
Emily shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “I’ve talked to her since then and she never brought that up. And besides, you know her, she’d show up just to yell at you in person if she really was still mad about it.”
But would she? All bets were off with Julia whenever it came to Nate. Nora knew that, which made what she’d done even dumber.
Just then, the sound of a truck pulling into the driveway next door startled them and they both turned. It was like he’d somehow intuited what Nora had just been about to spill to Emily. Nate was home.
He parked in his driveway, hopped out of his truck, and spotted Nora and Emily sitting on the porch step.
He looked around them, as if searching for the missing member of the Trouble Trio.
But before he could walk over, Mallory ran out of his house, right into Nate’s outstretched arms, and gave him a huge hug.
“Their air-conditioning is broken!” Mallory told Nate as he gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Were you good for Mrs. McAllister?” he asked.
“It’s really hot next door,” Mallory said, extracting herself from Nate’s embrace. “You should go fix it before they all die of heatstroke.”
Nate laughed and tousled one of her braids. “It’s in the seventies this morning. No one is dying of heatstroke, Mal.”
As if on cue, Emily fanned herself with her hand. It may have only been in the seventies, but the cloud cover had already burned off, and the sun beat down on them.
“Dad, I’m serious,” Mallory said. “Go help them. Nora might melt.”
Emily was, in fact, the one who was melting, but Nora was the one who blushed. Nate just laughed, gave Mal another kiss on the forehead, and then walked over. He glanced around again, clearly looking for Julia.
“She’s not here yet,” Emily said flatly. “We don’t know why. We’re working on figuring that out.”
Nate frowned deeply, and Nora noticed how much older he looked, how the wrinkles and worry lines had bloomed around his acorn eyes.
In her head, she always pictured him as that same twenty-five-year-old she’d had a crush on as a teenager.
But up close, he appeared believably now only a few years shy of fifty.
“She didn’t say anything to you about not coming this week, did she?” Emily continued.
Nate shook his head. “I’ve… had some… um, stuff I’ve been dealing with recently. I haven’t talked to her since…” He paused, like he was trying to remember the exact last time they’d spoken. “She texted me after she moved Veronica to college. I got a picture.”
“That was January,” Nora said, and her voice came out more accusatory than she meant it to. Considering she had also gotten a picture and had never responded to that text.
“Everything okay with you?” Emily asked Nate, and then Nora felt like a total bitch for not picking up on that part of Nate’s answer.
Nate nodded. “Yeah, of course.” He ran his hand through his brown, messy hair, sprinkled, Nora noticed now, with not a small amount of gray.
“But you know Julia,” Emily continued. “It’s not like her to disappear. Although Ronnie just told us it happened once before, years ago…”
Nate averted his eyes and didn’t say anything for a moment. “Let me go take a look at the AC,” he finally said, and Nora and Emily exchanged another look. Nate walked the rest of the way up the porch, toward the front door. “Okay if I go inside?”
They nodded, and as he went inside, Emily turned and whispered to Nora: “Evasive much?”
Yet again, Nora considered telling Emily the whole truth about what she had done last year. But instead, she nodded. She agreed with Emily on this much: Nate was acting like he was hiding something.