Chapter 15 Lindy
Lindy
“She’s on vacation?” Lindy said into the phone at Innisfree. She had called David’s office looking for Tiffany, who’d never
called her back yesterday, even after Lindy left a second message in the evening and sent three texts throughout the day.
Which was really weird, Lindy thought. They’d always been friendly enough. Not that Lindy had ever had much to do with Tiffany.
The occasional hello on the phone when Lindy called David at the office, that was about it. Though the girl had come to their holiday party at the house last December, wearing a slinky gold sequined dress and lipstick the color of a bruised
plum, downing Prosecco and talking on about what an amazing boss David was, and how inspiring it was to work at the Innocence Project, and how she’d come to Providence from Chicago looking for purpose and found it.
With her long lashes, glowing copper skin, and Pilates-toned body, she looked like she could’ve been Halle Berry’s hot
twenty-two-year-old sister, though she was, according to David, twenty-seven.
Lindy, who could not go sleeveless in winter, had primarily worried that the girl had to be freezing in her short spaghetti-strapped dress, and twice offered to loan her a sweater, but Tiffany had laughed prettily each time and refused, the second time adding an, “Aren’t you sweet?
” in a tone that Lindy couldn’t help but feel, on reflection, was a bit condescending.
Tiffany had not brought a date to the party, and everyone there was nearly twice her age, so who was she trying to impress with that dress?
David? No. Couldn’t be.
At least, that was what Lindy had thought at the time.
Now it all just seemed weird. Not only had the girl not responded to Lindy’s calls or texts yesterday, but she had taken vacation
at the same time as David?
Shouldn’t she be there to handle things while he was away?
“Just today?” Lindy asked the woman who’d answered the phone, who’d identified herself as “Shawna.” Lindy had never met a
“Shawna,” had never even heard David mention the name.
“She’s out for the week,” Shawna said, in a clipped way. “May I take a message?”
“Uh, no. No, thanks.” Lindy said goodbye and hung up.
She tried Tiffany’s cell again. Again, the call went to voicemail. “Tiffany, it’s really important,” Lindy said. “Please call me.”
As she replaced the old phone in its cradle, she felt hollowed out, alone.
This morning, when she’d asked her dad for ideas on what more she could do to search for David, he had only looked at her blankly.
Her mom had quickly broken in to say she was sure David would arrive today, then hustled a confused-looking Tom into motion and out the door for their morning walk.
Cody, meanwhile, had gathered all the kids—except Hailey, who was already out with Jack—to go out searching in the Jeep again.
When Lindy placed another call to the state police, the officer she spoke to had said there’d been no sightings of David’s car and that his case still didn’t meet the criteria to be added to the missing persons registry.
“Legally, an adult has the right for people not to know where he is,” the officer said, then suggested that, if she was really concerned, she could call the local TV and radio stations.
Heart in her throat, she had. The TV stations wanted pictures; driving to Portland and Bangor with them would be her next step. Maybe she’d ask Kate to help.
But right now, Lindy was alone with her thoughts. And, as if considering Kate’s and Josh’s worries about David’s mental state
hadn’t been bad enough, now she couldn’t help recalling all the times this past year that he had come to bed chuckling over
something.
Lindy knew he always checked his email last thing before crawling into bed, and when she would ask what was so funny, he’d
say, “Nothing,” still smiling to himself. A couple times, he’d actually said, “Oh, Tiffany sent me this joke. It would be
too hard to explain. I’ll show you in the morning.” Both times, he’d just leaned over to give her a peck goodnight on the
temple and flipped off his lamp—and neither time had he shown her the joke in the morning.
She also couldn’t help recalling the tender way he had helped Tiffany with her coat after that Christmas party—and how Tiffany
had reached up and pressed her hand over his against her shoulder for a moment, giving him a warm smile.
And then there were all the times he’d worked late these past few months. Tiffany had certainly been spending far more time
with him than Lindy had. Plus, Tiffany was in on all his confidential cases. The two of them could talk about everything!
Everything that was important to David.
Whereas, for David and Lindy, there was so much they couldn’t talk about.
God, it would be such a cliché, wouldn’t it? Man runs off with his assistant because they’ve bonded over shared “important work,” while his wife has been too distracted
to pay him any attention for the last six months? (Yes, Lindy was instantly blaming herself that this scenario even seemed possible.)
She didn’t want to think that her imagination was being unduly influenced by Kate.
Last night in the Volvo on their way to town to check their phones, Kate had told Lindy about a friend whose husband had disappeared for a few days, only to call and confess he’d run off with his assistant.
“That’s what fifty-year-old men do, I guess!
” Kate had declared. “And they’ve got five kids! Been together thirty years.”
“Hey,” Josh had broken in from the back seat, sounding offended. “David wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, yeah, no,” Kate said. She’d obviously had a couple glasses of wine again, which was bizarre. Was Kate off the rails because
of David? Or was she just letting loose because her husband and kids weren’t around? “Of course not, he wouldn’t,” she went
on, but by her tone Lindy couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.
Either way, a bad feeling had started whirring in Lindy’s gut the instant Kate had told the story, and now the image came
to mind again of beautiful young Tiffany in that sparkling gold dress, pressing David’s hand to her shoulder, smiling up at
him.
Was Lindy about to find herself in the same situation as Kate’s friend? Five kids, four kids, twenty-five or thirty years
together. Was there no point at which you could just relax and know that you were safe? That your family would survive intact?
She tried to boot this line of thinking out of her mind. It wasn’t that it was preferable to think of David lying injured
in the woods somewhere—she’d always worried that his knee would give out on him again—but . . . well, it kind of was. Because maybe Hailey would find him at
one of the local trails this morning! Maybe the other kids would find something!
Maybe.
Lindy went to the kitchen and made a fresh cup of coffee—she’d need to be alert for a full day of driving—and, as she drank it, tried to worry about other things.
There were plenty, including the fact that Hailey was out with Jack Westfield this morning.
Lindy would’ve been glad to have seen the last of Jack Westfield.
The summer Hailey was seventeen, he’d had her in tears more times than Lindy had seen Hailey in tears before or since.
And to think he’d show up less than two weeks before Hailey planned to get married!
If Lindy was on speaking terms with God right now, she’d be asking, What is this, some kind of joke?
And, yesterday, driving around with Emma and Reese, Lindy had learned that what she’d assumed in Reese to be an actor’s cool
veneer was actually that of a fashion model—perhaps even more concerning? Then, though the girl had sat mostly silently in
the back seat, seemingly asleep, head leaned back, mirrored aviator shades on—Lindy kept an eye on her in the rearview—suddenly,
two hours into their searching, she’d sat up straight, flung off her sunglasses and exclaimed, “Lighthouse!”
“Pardon me?” Lindy had said.
“Lighthouse?” said Emma in the passenger seat, turning eagerly toward Reese.
“Yeah! Lighthouse!” In the mirror, Reese sagged, frowned. “Or, light. House. Two words? Or, White House? Give me a piece of
paper. I’ll write it down.”
Emma nodded and turned to face front, opening the glovebox to root for paper and a pen, saying to Lindy, “Reese is clairaudient.
Psychic, but she hears things rather than sees them, you know? She’s been trying to get information about Dad.”
“Oh!” Lindy said. “Wow! Really?” She paused, taking it in. “Lighthouse?” She tried to be open-minded.
“Yeah,” Reese said, busily writing.
Emma was Googling on her phone. “Oh, God. There are sixty-five lighthouses in Maine.” She whirled to face Reese. “Is he at
one of them?”
Reese shrugged, handing the piece of paper to her. “No idea. I’ll keep trying.” She sank back into her seat and replaced her
sunglasses. Lindy glanced over to read the paper that Emma held in her hand:
Lighthouse?
light house?
White House? (D.C.)
white house?
At least the girl had pretty handwriting, but was this the kind of partner a mother wanted for her daughter?
Crazy? No. It was not. And now Lindy had to consider whether they ought to take the girl seriously and start searching the sixty-five lighthouses that were, according to Emma and Google, strewn along the length of Maine’s coast, which, Emma said, when you included inlets and islands, ran for 3,478 miles.
Or should they check the White House? Or a white house?
Their house in Cranston was white, but the kids had already looked there!
For God’s sake.
And one more thing Lindy almost couldn’t stand to think of: the empty look in her father’s blue eyes this morning. Wasn’t
he worried about David? Was there something else wrong? Or was he just that involved in the new book that her mom had said
he was writing now, the one that was keeping him at his desk in the bedroom pretty much all the time so far this summer? Because,
typically, he would’ve done or said something to help her . . .
None of these thoughts stopped Lindy’s mind from circling back. It’s what fifty-year-old men do.
The gold dress. The late-night emails. The warm smile. The hand on the shoulder.
She stepped out onto the deck, taking in the deep blue ocean and a lobster boat motoring past, relishing the salty breeze
on her face, letting the beloved scene strengthen and console her, even as she tried again to clear her mind.
Then she remembered: Tiffany had been on their Christmas card list last year, and Lindy had written her mailing address in
the family address book, beside where David had earlier written her cell number. And, at Lindy’s request yesterday—she hadn’t
known who she might end up needing to call—the kids had brought the address book back from Cranston.
Maybe Tiffany had a home number that would be written in there, too?
Lindy hurried back inside to where she’d left the address book beside the phone, set down her coffee, and flipped to the J page. There was the girl’s name—Tiffany Jeffries—and cell phone number in David’s handwriting, plus her mailing address in Lindy’s. A Providence apartment.
There was no landline number.
Lindy would call Information!
Quickly, she dialed 411 and supplied the operator with Tiffany’s name and address. Quickly, the operator found the number.
Lindy’s hand shook as she scratched it with pencil onto her mother’s notepad beside the phone.
She hung up and sipped her coffee again, pacing. Why was she so nervous about calling this number, after all the other, potentially
more consequential, calls she’d made?
David was not having an affair. He was not at Tiffany’s apartment—or with Tiffany anywhere—right now.
But Tiffany might be privy to some information about him that Lindy was not.
She set down her coffee and dialed.
In her ear came the ringing. One. Two. Lindy’s heart was in her throat again; she told herself to get a grip. Three. (Involuntarily, she saw tangled white sheets, David’s pale body, the woman’s golden legs kicking off the sheet—to get up
and answer the phone?) Four.
A bored-sounding woman answered. “Hello?”
Lindy cleared her throat, collected herself. “Is this Tiffany Jeffries?” She tried to sound stern, though she didn’t think
the voice sounded like Tiffany’s at all.
The woman yawned. “No, she’s not here. Can I take a message?”
Lindy exhaled. Explained who she was and why she was calling. “I tried my husband’s office, and they said Tiffany is out on
vacation all week. I really need to speak with her.”
“Oh! She’s on vacation? I thought she was at work when I got home this morning. I’m a resident at the hospital. I’m there
more than I’m here. I never see her.”
Lindy wondered if all of this was really true. “You have no idea where she is? Or who she’s with? Or why she wouldn’t be answering
her cell?”
“No.” The woman seemed unconcerned. “I’ll leave a note to tell her you called, for when she comes back. Good luck.” The woman hung up.
Lindy pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it.
Okay, it was ridiculous to think David might be having an affair with Tiffany.
Wasn’t it? When he and Lindy had been each other’s one and only for so long?