Chapter Twelve
Olivia knocked on Zoe and Dylan’s apartment door. Footsteps approached inside, and she could feel someone staring at her through the peephole. A few seconds later, the door opened.
Dylan stuck out his head and looked both ways. Then he gestured for Olivia to enter. “Come in quickly.”
“Is something wrong?”
“A reporter was here earlier. He tried to push his way inside.”
“I’m sorry.” She walked in. The odor of rotten food hit her nose.
Dylan closed the door and leaned on it. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before, including the shirt with the wine stain. She suspected he hadn’t even combed his hair, and he hadn’t showered. He smelled like whiskey and stale sweat. His bloodshot eyes attested to more booze than sleep.
She went to the kitchen. The source of the odor was easy to spot: a garbage can so overfilled the lid was propped open by an empty whiskey bottle. Olivia grabbed the bottle, rinsed it, and put it in the recycling bin. “Have the police called today?”
“Yes. They aren’t doing anything. In their opinion, she left me, and that’s that.” Dylan followed her but stood in the doorway and made no effort to help. Was he afraid of taking out the trash for fear the reporter was watching?
Olivia lifted the garage bag and tied it closed. She brushed past him and carried the bag outside, setting it on the concrete next to the door. Returning to the kitchen, she found a new bag under the sink and put it in the can.
Dylan swayed slightly on his feet. Was he drunk again this morning or still drunk from last night?
Both, she decided, with a twinge of irritation.
Give him some slack. He was no doubt depressed and anxious over Zoe’s disappearance.
Sure, Lincoln hadn’t given up on finding Olivia when she’d gone missing, but everyone was different.
She washed her hands and looked for a paper towel or dishcloth to dry them. With none in sight, she wiped her palms on her thighs. “It’s not uncommon for the family of a missing adult to need to hire a private investigator to look for their loved one.”
“That’s not right. I pay taxes. I deserve their help.” His eyes narrowed to mean slits. “They owe me.”
“I know that you’re upset, and I also would like the police to do more,” Olivia said.
“But if I put my emotions aside, I know it’s not their lack of interest that’s holding them back.
Privacy laws limit how deeply they can delve into someone’s personal accounts without permission.
And if it seems the person left of their own free will, they can’t legally pursue them. ”
Do I tell him about the storage unit or not? What would Zoe want me to do?
If Zoe had asked Olivia to keep a secret, she would have never divulged any information.
But that hadn’t happened, and Olivia couldn’t put aside her belief that something truly terrible had happened to Zoe.
Something awful enough that she’d felt running away was her only option.
If Dylan knew anything that might help find Zoe, Olivia had to try.
After a deep breath, she told him about the storage unit and the text message on Zoe’s phone.
He listened with stunned attention. “She’s had a vehicle stashed in a secret storage unit?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know?” he asked, his voice suspicious.
“I didn’t.”
“Why would she keep secrets from me?” Dylan sounded hurt. “Why would she need to rent a storage unit? What would she need to hide from me?”
“We don’t know why she rented the unit. We don’t know the exact date she rented it.
It could have been before she met you.” After all, if Zoe had rented the unit and stashed a car while she was married to Dylan, that brought up a whole other realm of possibilities, ones that suggested she’d felt the need to hide her escape plans from her husband.
Maybe he was the reason. Was Dylan the person she was running from?
“But she still didn’t tell me.” His words slurred, but he understood what Zoe had done. “If it was so important, she should have shared it with me. Husbands and wives are supposed to share everything.”
“I’ve known her fifteen years, and she didn’t tell me either.”
“You’re not her husband,” Dylan spat. He moved to the table and swiped at the stack of flyers.
They scattered, floating to the floor. Dozens of overlapping images of Zoe’s face stared up.
The photo Dylan had chosen for the flyer was from their honeymoon.
Zoe stood on the beach at sunset. The golden light gave her face a youthful glow, but as usual, her smile was crooked, her mouth pursed just a little to one side.
Olivia had always seen her friend’s sideways grin as a smirk, representative of her smart-alecky sense of humor.
But now, Zoe’s expression looked almost secretive.
You’re imagining things.
Whatever had caused Zoe to rent that unit had happened years ago.
How much do I know about Zoe’s past? Not much, considering we’ve been friends for fifteen years.
Olivia had always assumed Zoe’s past was painful, and that’s why she didn’t like to talk about it.
After all, she’d been orphaned and spent some time in a foster home.
Even if her foster parents had been kind, the deaths of one’s parents would be traumatic, especially for a teenager.
Now, Zoe’s refusal to share information about her childhood felt intentional rather than emotional.
Then again, nothing created better clarity than hindsight.
Dylan kicked at the flyers. “I don’t need these if she left of her own free will. If she wants me to know where she is, she’ll call me.”
“But why hasn’t she?” Olivia argued. “The text message suggests she could be running from something or someone. She could be in danger. Whatever the threat is, it must be serious for her to just drop her entire life.”
“She should have told me!” Dylan insisted. Was the alcohol making him belligerent? Or was this the real Dylan, minus a public facade—was this the man Zoe lived with?
Olivia wondered how long he’d been drinking this heavily and if he and Zoe had fought about that too. “I know Zoe, and I have to believe she had to have a very good reason to disappear like this.”
“She left me!” Dylan shouted. “In the middle of the night, without any explanation. She had a secret escape plan in place. She didn’t even leave me a note saying, ‘Sorry. Don’t worry.
I’m alive.’” He threw his hands into the air.
“I don’t think the why matters very much.
” He crossed to the couch, picked up a glass of amber liquid on ice, and drank deeply.
He seemed to have forgotten Olivia was there.
Well, he isn’t very useful anyway.
“Fuck!” Dylan yelled, then threw his whiskey glass across the room. It hit the metal coffee table and shattered, whiskey, ice, and glass shards skittering across the table and onto the carpet.
With his sudden burst of violence, Olivia was done with him. She headed for the door, walking around the mess.
“Women. All they do is leave when a man needs them!” Instead of cleaning up the broken bits of glass, Dylan headed to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and took down a fresh glass.
Olivia didn’t grace his nasty comment with an answer. If he wanted to drink himself unconscious, he had the freedom to do so, but damned if she’d endure his behavior. Nor would she feel any further responsibility to keep him updated.
She closed the door behind her, grateful Lincoln had worried more about her than himself.
He’d refused to believe she would just disappear.
He’d searched 24/7 until he’d found her.
There’d been no wallowing in self-pity. Instead, he’d used all his energy to find her.
Every comment out of Dylan’s mouth had been based on I or me.
He didn’t seem worried about Zoe at all.
She left Dylan to pickle himself in self-pity and whiskey while she continued her investigation. On the way to her car, she dropped the garbage bag in the dumpster, which felt like taking out the trash in more ways than the obvious one.
She started for home. She’d dig into Zoe’s past, research the Jennifer Hamilton case, and see where that led. As she drove out of the lot, her phone played Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” the ringer assigned to Nicki. Olivia answered the call on speaker.
Nicki’s shout filled the car. “I found something!”
Confused, Olivia turned down the volume. “Something?”
“About Zoe. I’m at your house.” Why did conversations with Nicki always seem to start in the middle?
“It’s still morning. Why are you up and out?”
“I had a meeting.” Nicki’s eye roll came through in her voice. Over the connection, kitchen cabinets opened and closed. “You don’t have any food.” Nicki had her own key to Olivia’s house.
“There are overnight oats with strawberries in the fridge.”
“Do you really eat that on purpose?”
“Yes. I like it,” Olivia said. “Did you really find some real information about Zoe, or do you just want free breakfast?”
“It’s real, but I wouldn’t object to food.”
“I’ll make a stop.” Olivia ended the call, then detoured to a café in Scarlet Falls. She grabbed a syrupy drink masquerading as coffee for Nicki, a green tea for herself, and two breakfast options. She parked in her garage, plugged the charger into her car, and carried the food into the kitchen.
Nicki attacked the bag as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. She set Olivia’s parchment-wrapped selection in front of her. “Is that a croissant?”
“Yes. Chocolate.”
Nicki unwrapped her bagel, egg, and cheese sandwich. “You always get the healthy egg white and vegetable things.”
Olivia sniffed the croissant. It smelled like butter and chocolate and reminded her of Paris. “It’s been a day.”
“It’s only eleven a.m., though it is a Monday.”
“Exactly.” Olivia sipped her tea and dug into the pastry, giving Nicki a quick synopsis of her morning between bites. “He was seriously drunk when I left.”
“Do you think he’s an alcoholic?”