Chapter 23 Lindy
Lindy
“Maybe it’s in your regular savings account,” Eli suggested, after Lindy and Emma told him about the missing ninety-eight
thousand dollars. “Like, maybe he’s planning to use it to pay off the credit cards?”
That didn’t seem, at first, to make sense. Why would David cash in a whole retirement account that he’d end up having to pay
a tax penalty on, just to pay off a smaller credit card balance that had zero percent interest for another nine months? Unless
there were more outstanding balances they hadn’t found yet?
“Okay,” Lindy agreed. “Let’s log in to Citizens and look.” When she had called the automated line, the system had recited
only the three most recent transactions on their checking account, not their savings account balance. She’d had no reason
to wonder about that until now.
Eli found the information in the purple notebook and logged in. Quickly, he clicked to David and Lindy’s savings account page.
The balance was only three thousand twenty-one dollars?
That couldn’t be right.
All three of them were looking at the screen, but Emma saw it first. “Crap,” she said, tapping a short black fingernail on
the screen. Lindy blinked as she took in the numbers.
Back in March, David had withdrawn five thousand dollars from this small savings account. After that, every month he’d withdrawn
another two thousand, always two days before the end of the month. There’d been no new deposits.
He’d drained the account of eleven thousand dollars in just four months.
Also, evidently, this was their entire life savings?
“I guess he didn’t deposit the ninety-eight thousand here,” Eli said dryly.
“Has he given you kids any money? Or do you know if he’s given any to Hailey or Cody?”
Eli and Emma both agreed he hadn’t, and they didn’t think so.
Lindy bit her lip. “Click over to the checking account.”
That ledger showed nothing unusual. No strange withdrawals, no charges she didn’t recognize. But also no big deposits.
David had withdrawn a hundred and nine thousand dollars in the past few weeks that was now nowhere to be found.
“Look, Mom,” Eli said, pointing to the screen. “He applied for a mortgage a month ago and was turned down. Debt-to-income
ratio.”
“A mortgage? That doesn’t make sense. And what debts would we have? This house is almost paid off, I think. Student loans,
I guess.” Lindy looked over and noticed Emma was crying. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, dodging around where Eli sat in the big
chair to hug her, shoving her own fear and anger from her mind. “We’re going to find him.”
Emma, wiping tears away, dug into the pocket of her black miniskirt and came out with a tiny, folded piece of paper. “I didn’t
want to show you this. It’s what Reese heard yesterday. It’s why we fought. Why she left. I said there was no way, no way,
and she got mad and said I didn’t believe in her gift!”
Lindy took the paper, unfolded it, and read, in Reese’s pretty handwriting:
Midlife crisis!!!
He is probably having an affair
Lindy, feeling strangely numb, looked back up at Emma, who was distraught. “Look, Mom, I know you don’t want to think it,
but—two thousand a month? Right before the end of the month? That’s like he’s paying somebody’s rent, right? And, like, a
hundred grand is gone? Like, it seems like he ran off? Like, okay, he went to Kennebunkport. But did he, like, get a hotel
there? Like, with somebody? And maybe, like, that person is using their credit card and he’s paying in cash, because, like,
why else wouldn’t there be any more charges for anything after that? That’s, like, since Saturday, and he would’ve had to
eat and stay somewhere, right? Or, like, if he had a hundred grand in cash, they could’ve gone anywhere! Taken a bus or . . . or a train . . . from
Portland? Or if he’s, like, applying for a mortgage, he could be, like, buying a house for someone, right?”
Eli, who had pretended not to be listening and now pretended not to have heard, drummed his fingers on the desk, picked up
the little password notebook again and began flipping through it. “There’s got to be something else we can find.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just don’t think there’s any other explanation!” Emma said.
Lindy swallowed. She handed Reese’s note back to Emma. “The scenario you’re talking about would involve a person I don’t know,”
she said stiffly.
And yet, she was tallying the evidence in her mind. A new interest-free credit card, a possible heart condition, a missing
hundred and nine thousand dollars, a denied mortgage application. A hot young assistant who’d taken the week off at the same
time.
If Lindy hadn’t just seen that Kennebunkport gas charge and the letter from David’s doctor, she would’ve been a hundred percent convinced that Reese was right: David was having a midlife crisis, and definitely an affair—and Lindy had noticed not a single sign of either approaching.
David’s law office was in a giant old renovated mill building in Providence. Lindy left the kids at home to continue their
searching and made the twenty-minute drive into the city, the traffic moving easily across the five lanes of I-95. She took
the exit as if on autopilot, found parking on the street, and walked along the hot sidewalk and through a leafy courtyard
to the building’s entrance. She pressed the call button to get buzzed in, and, when the heavy steel door slammed shut behind
her, the cool of the air-conditioning was a relief. As her flip-flops echoed in the stairwell, she realized too late that
she probably looked disreputable. Her wrinkled yellow sundress was the kind of thing a person should wear only to the beach;
her hair was a frizzy mess. Her mother would’ve been ashamed to see Lindy out in public looking like this. Hell, Greta herself
wouldn’t have gone around looking like this even in the privacy of her own home.
But had Greta ever been in a situation like this? Lindy, flip-flopping up the concrete steps, had to think not.
“Lindy!” Gina Vanzetti was David’s closest friend in the office, as far as Lindy knew. At least, the two had been colleagues
for a good fifteen years, while others in the office had come and gone. Gina and her wife, Laura, had come to dinner at David
and Lindy’s a half dozen times over the years, and vice versa. They’d always had a good time, though without ever growing
truly close, which was how David seemed to prefer it. The receptionist, Shawna, had buzzed Gina at Lindy’s request, and she’d
come out right away, a wondering smile on her face. Petite with short salt-and-pepper hair, she wore red glasses, a conservative
white blouse and gray pants, and surprising red-and-white Mary Jane pumps. “I thought you guys were up in Maine!”
“Hey, Gina. Can we talk in your office?”
“Is everything all right?”
Lindy gave a tight nod but gestured toward the office.
David always said that Gina was an excellent attorney and that he’d trust her with any case, but as far as office gossip,
she was the worst. “She uses all her discretion on her cases, I’m afraid,” he’d said, describing how Gina preferred to spend
her lunch hours prying into the love lives of the young associates and staff. She offered advice and comfort as needed and
justified her behavior to David by saying that, as an “old married lady,” she needed some romantic intrigue in her life. As
Lindy followed Gina into her office and Gina shut the door behind them, Lindy hoped she could count on the woman’s lack of
discretion now.
In the room with high ceilings and a giant Palladian window, Gina sat down behind her desk. Lindy perched on one of the armchairs
across from her.
“You want some water?” Gina said. “You don’t look so good.”
Lindy swallowed and shook her head. “David’s missing,” she said. She explained in as few words as possible, while also conveying
the searching they’d done and the theory that he might’ve gone hiking in the woods and hurt himself. She didn’t mention the
potential heart problem, the money that was missing, or her suspicions about Tiffany.
Gina’s brow furrowed. “He was certainly looking forward to his time in Maine,” she said, with what Lindy couldn’t help but
feel was an odd carefulness. “It really is concerning that he didn’t arrive.”
“Have you noticed anything . . . strange about him lately? I mean, how has he seemed?” Lindy was sure Gina would know nothing
about David’s long-ago mental health struggles, but there was still a chance she could have observed something.
But Gina shook her head. “Normal! He’s seemed good! A bit stressed, but aren’t we all? His caseload . . . well, I’m sure you
know. It’s especially difficult right now.”
In fact, Lindy had not known that, but the information did bring to mind a possibility she hadn’t considered: David worked with some clients who might be dangerous.
Or who, even if locked up themselves, might have dangerous connections.
“Is he . . . can you think of any reason why he’d be in danger?
Is there anyone who’s . . . you know, after him? ”
Gina’s eyebrows shot up. “No! No. It’s business as usual around here. At least, as far as I know.”
It seemed unlikely that anyone who was after David would have followed him to Maine, so, given the Kennebunkport gas charge,
Lindy quickly decided the idea didn’t make sense. Still, she asked, “Does he owe anybody money?”
“I can’t imagine he would. He certainly hasn’t said anything about anything like that.”
Lindy, much as she hated to, needed to ask what she’d really come to ask. “Gina, this is awkward, but what about . . . what
about Tiffany? She’s out on vacation this week, too? I tried calling her and she didn’t answer, and she hasn’t returned my
calls.”
Gina’s face lit up. She appeared greatly relieved to no longer be tasked with thinking about what might have happened to David.
“Oh, yes! She’s camping.” Gina chuckled. “I mean, the girl isn’t much of a camper-type, but she got involved with a guy who