Chapter Sixty-Eight
Talia stands in the dining room with Ben, gaping at the broken china, toppled chair, spattered stains, and Hayley’s cell phone, lying on the rug.
“It looks like . . .” She swallows hard and recovers her voice. “It looks like there was a struggle.”
“I know.”
“My phone is in my bag in the car. You have to call—”
“I’m doing it.”
He presses three numbers on his phone, and Talia hears, “9-1-1. What is your emergency?”
“My daughter is missing. In Mulberry Bay. At Haven Cliff.”
Talia presses a fist to her mouth as he relays the specifics.
She can’t believe this is happening. Her worst nightmare has become a reality, and all she can think of is Caroline’s mother, standing on the doorstep, accepting that damned casserole.
Outside, thunder crashes, rattling the panes and her nerves.
She walks toward Hayley’s phone, about to bend over and pick it up, but he grabs her arm.
“No,” he says. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Why—”
She realizes he’s thinking that this is a crime scene. Evidence shouldn’t be disturbed.
She steps back from her daughter’s phone and buries her head in Ben’s shoulder. He wraps an arm around her as he confirms the address for the dispatcher.
Then he says, “I don’t know if this is relevant, but a man came by here earlier.”
Talia’s head jerks back, and she looks at him, mouthing, What?
“Probably in his late thirties, early forties,” Ben tells the dispatcher. “White, clean shaven, driving a black Ford Focus with rental plates. He said he was looking for an address . . .”
Talia listens in disbelief as Ben relays information he didn’t share with her. If he had . . .
“All right, thank you.” He disconnects the call and looks at her. “They’re on their way.”
“How could you, Ben?”
He doesn’t ask what she means. He knows.
“I didn’t think anything of it, Tal’. Not until we saw that Missing poster, at the restaurant. I didn’t . . . He wasn’t . . . Maybe he was . . .” His voice breaks.
“I told you. I told you that she shouldn’t have been left alone. Not here! I told you that people disappear! You didn’t listen to me! I tried to tell you!”
“Why would I listen to you? You lie!”
“I don’t lie!”
“You lied about why Camille called!”
She filled him in about Hayley and the genealogy website as they raced over here, needing him to realize that their daughter doesn’t tell them everything. Not by a long shot.
“Because that wasn’t the time to get into it, with Caleb there, and Kelly. I would have told you.”
“Like you would have told me everything else you’ve kept from me?” He sweeps a hand around them. “All of this . . . your friends, your past . . . you had this whole life I never knew a damned thing about.”
“Did you ever ask me about it?”
“I thought it was too painful, because of your dad.”
“It was! But you could have asked, Ben.”
“Would you have told me?”
She opens her mouth to say yes, but that’s a lie. She shakes her head. “No. I just wanted to forget. Especially . . . Caroline. She’s dead, Ben. She didn’t drown in the lake. She—”
She breaks off at another loud clap of thunder.
But no, it isn’t thunder.
It’s the door; someone is banging on the door, screaming her daughter’s name.
But it isn’t Hayley.
It’s Midge, with her gun drawn. “Where is she, Talia?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”