McNeil looked at Canfield hopefully. He stiffened, then waited a minute before saying anything.
“Handcuffs won’t be necessary. But don’t leave town.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“In fact, don’t even leave your house.”
“But—”
“Ms. DeFleur, I’m familiar with your type. You’re in a rush to get rid of us so you can go look for Stevie yourself.” I resented the implication that he thought he knew anything about me, even though he was spot-on.
“Surely driving around the neighborhood couldn’t hurt. Sitting around will accomplish nothing. I need to do something,” I pled.
“Promise me you’ll remain in this house, Ms. DeFleur, otherwise McNeil here will be more than happy to stay overnight.” She nodded her head in confirmation, and I imagined her calling her family to deliver the news that she wouldn’t be coming home. I didn’t bother to ask if she had kids.
“Fine,” I conceded. “Can you at least give me a telephone number so I can call and check in?”
“Here’s my card.” He reached into his pocket and handed it to me. “If you need anything, call the station and ask for me or McNeil. The number is on there.”
“You’re not going to look for her?”
“We’re not field officers, Ms. DeFleur. Let us do our jobs and you do yours, which is to wait here until we tell you otherwise. Either way, we’ll be back tomorrow with more questions.” Either way? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
“Thank you for your cooperation. I know this must be extremely difficult for you,” McNeil said under her breath, while Canfield did one last assessment of the first floor and Stevie’s bedroom, as if a bloody knife might have materialized since he last checked. “Try to stay positive.”
“I will.” She might as well have told me to relax while there was a gun pointed at my head. Still, I suspect her intentions are genuine.
Canfield reappeared minutes later. “Okay, we’re done here.”
“Thank you.” I walked them to the front door. I wanted them gone, even though I didn’t want to be alone. I wasn’t sure what that would feel like yet.
“We hope to have good news soon,” McNeil said at the door.
“I hope so, too. Please call me with anything.”
“We will.”
Once I’d closed the door behind them, I hurried to my house phone and dialed quickly.
“Laura?” Patricia picked up on the first ring.
“It’s me.” I started to cry again. “Something is horribly wrong.”
7 BREE
I nestled my body beneath the down comforter and tugged it up to my chest. As I reached for the remote, the phone rang, and I recognized the number immediately. I thought about not answering, but reconsidered.
“Hi, Mom.” I switched on the television and kept it on mute.
“Daddy and I just got home from a spectacular dinner at Indigenous.”
No hello or how are you. My mother doesn’t waste her breath on pleasantries. But she’s a champ when it comes to an air-kiss. These days it’s three.
“That’s nice.” I changed the channel from CNN to E! in search of something lighter.
“Remember we took you there? Right after.” She also refuses to use the word divorce; it doesn’t wear well on her résumé, especially because she and my father have been married for forty-five years. God bless that man.
“Vaguely.” I took a sip of water from the glass on my nightstand.
“You know it. It’s on Links Avenue in downtown Sarasota.”
“Maybe.”
My parents moved to the southwestern coast of Florida about two years ago. They were living in New York City, where my brother, Rob, and I grew up, and then one day my mother announced that she was “over Manhattan.”
“Don’t be silly. They have that famous chef. He was nominated for that award everyone always talks about.”
“James Beard?”
“Yes, that’s it! Roger, we don’t leave our socks on the floor,” she loud-whispered to my father in the background. “So, you know it?”
“Sure.” No.
“I had the shrimp. They were those really big ones. I got my money’s worth, that’s for sure, even though I couldn’t finish it. You know I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Of course.” My mother views willpower as a sign of strength and shames people who clean their plates.
“Your father, on the other hand, stuffed his face like a little piggy.”
“Mom.” My poor dad, who grew up on meat and potatoes and whose own mother taught him to finish his food if he wanted to live to see another meal, can no longer indulge without being verbally castrated.
“What? I can’t help the fact that he’s thirty pounds overweight and shovels it in like it’s his last supper.” He’s ten pounds overweight and eats like a normal human being. “He had the brisket. Can you imagine? It’s not a Jewish holiday.”
“Sounds good to me. And by the way, you can eat brisket any day of the year.”
“If you want to be fat, sure.” She rejected my opinion. “He also had dessert. Some chocolate thing that was so rich I couldn’t take more than a bite.”
“Not dessert!”
“Very amusing.”
“Is Daddy there?”
“He’s already in bed. He says he needs nine hours of sleep every night in order to function the next day.” Amen to that. “I might as well bury him now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You know what I mean. All he does is eat, sleep, and play golf. We’re not seventy.” He’s sixty-eight and she’s sixty-five, though somehow her driver’s license says she’s fifty-eight.
“He spent forty years doing brain surgery, cut the guy some slack.”
“Oh, believe me, I cut him slack every day,” she scoffed. “I’m worried about his heart, Bree.”
“What’s wrong with his heart?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“Then why are you worried about it?” Giuliana Rancic appeared on the TV screen. I tried to read her lips, but it’s a lot harder than you’d think.
“Because there’s nothing wrong until something’s wrong. And then it’s too late,” she stated, as if it were an ordained conclusion. “You remember what happened to Marty Horowitz.”
“Yeah. Drop—”
“Dropped dead. Just like that. Did he have a heart condition? No. Did he watch his diet and exercise? Yes. Did his wife, Sheila? No. But that’s another story altogether. My point is, there was no warning. Here one minute, gone the next.”
“So what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter whether you eat healthfully or work out.”
“Bree.” She sighed exasperatedly. “Am I wrong to care for your father? I don’t want to be a young widow.”
“You’re not going to be a young widow.”
“Look at you.”
“Mom, Jeremy isn’t dead. We’re just divorced.”