“Do you think he’s sending the texts?” Andrew asks. I twist the strap of my purse around my hand as tight as it will go. Is he really asking if I’m still involved with Glenn, if we’re not completely over?
“No!” I’m speaking too loudly. “I haven’t seen him for years, and he doesn’t know … he couldn’t know how to find me. He and I were over long before I met you. He doesn’t know who I am now. I love you, you and Emma. My life is here in Texas.”
Andrew slows the car as we approach a stoplight. He darts a glance at me, and there’s so much sadness in his eyes. “Lizzie. How long has that even been your name? I just don’t know who you really are.”
“You do! I’ve been myself every day with you. I’m your wife. My name doesn’t matter; it’s not who I am.”
“You have a whole family, a whole past I know nothing about.” His lips tighten, and I can almost read the notes he’s making in his head as the light changes.
“None of that matters. It’s not who I am now.” I did this to Andrew, made him a single parent twice over. I found a grieving widower and then destroyed his second chance. I want to be Lizzie, loving and loved, and I’ve been working so hard to make her real. Then Zoe fucking killed her. No, Andrew can’t lose Lizzie; he can’t believe she’s gone. How can I convince him to trust me, to believe I’m a good person? I can make myself into the real Lizzie and be everything he and Emma deserve.
“There’s the station,” Andrew says. “You’ll be safe now.”
Immediately I feel the absence of the comforting we. I’m alone, even though he’s right beside me.
I know this loneliness. It’s a cot in a shelter, a tiny room in a houseful of students, a job where the name badge belongs to a stranger. Standing alone in court petitioning for a legal name change, as if that could destroy the person I was. Meals eaten out of a can or over the sink, no kitchen table, no family dinners, no Emma singing in the back seat, no Andrew next to me at night. It’s the year before I met him, one of the worst years of my life.
We pull into a parking space in silence, and even after Andrew turns the car off, we sit without speaking for a few minutes longer.
I want to ask him if we have to do this. A part of me wants to fling open my car door and run, vaulting the railing that borders the parking lot and darting through traffic. I could get to our bank, withdraw the max from our account, and disappear all over again. A new location for a few months to establish residency, another name change, and presto—a new life. But the other part just wishes Andrew and Emma would come with me. I could be happy in any city, in any anonymous room, by any name, as long as they were there.
For the first time I will have to stay and tough it out.
Andrew must be feeling uncomfortable, even guilty, for bringing me here. He says, “It’s okay. Like I said, this isn’t the FBI. Just make a statement, and it’ll all be okay.”
* * *
The station is cold, which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise in October, but in Texas buildings are generally only icy cold in the summer when the AC is blasting. The guy at the front desk doesn’t understand when we tell him we’d like to make a statement.
“You want to report something?” He looks about my age, late twenties, but he has reading glasses balanced on top of his head and a middle-age spread I wouldn’t have expected on a guy in a police uniform.
Andrew leans over my shoulder, and the warmth of him feels so comforting. “Is Bob around? My wife and I need to talk to him.”
“Sheriff’s out of the office. Leave a message?” He grabs a pen and rolls it between his fingers.
I can imagine how this deputy’s face would change if I started explaining who I am and why I’m really here. I glance at Andrew, longing for him to say, “Oh well, we tried. Let’s go home.” Stupid longing. The kind that never comes true.
“How about a detective? This is a sensitive matter. I can call Bob and get the okay.” Andrew’s voice is calm, but he’s pulled out his cell phone. Not threatening, just as a contingency. He’s not going to broadcast my lie, but we’re here to Do the Right Thing and we’re not leaving until that objective is accomplished. But that’s not really fair. Andrew believes that if you do the right thing, everything works out. He must believe that making this statement is the first step to putting our life back together.
The deputy glances at the screen in front of him like he’s wishing for an answer to appear there. I’d like to tell him it won’t take long, that it’s not a big deal, but neither of those things is true. Plus, I feel like a criminal, and anything I said would sound like a lie. Finally, he picks up the phone and hits a button. “Is there someone who can come up here for a minute?”
We wait, and when a detective finally comes to get us, she isn’t at all what I expected. She is the tallest woman I have ever seen up close, almost as tall as Andrew, and he’s over six feet. She’s lean with flaming red hair, like a comic book superhero. Her long, flowing hair can’t be regulation. I glance at Andrew to see if he is paying her too much attention, but he looks the way he always does. Calm. I don’t know if I even have the right to wonder who he looks at anymore.
“I’m Detective Valdez.” She reaches out to me first, maybe trying to put me at ease. Maybe because I look guilty. Her handshake is cool and firm. “I understand you want to make some kind of statement?”
I am tongue-tied. I don’t want to tell this strong, confident woman that I’m a liar and a loser. And like the weakling I am right now, I let Andrew answer for me.
“Can we speak in private?”
Detective Valdez doesn’t miss a beat. Her face is as impassive as if this happened every day. “Of course. Follow me.”
We follow her through the security door and down an anonymous white hallway. She leads us into a small room with a table and four chairs, an interview room like I’ve seen on television. Very minimal. She leaves the door open, but my heart is already racing.
Before she can ask me anything, before Andrew can start laying out my case, I blurt out, “I didn’t do anything. Someone’s trying to frame me.”
Despite her unreadable expression, I think I can see skepticism in Detective Valdez’s eyes. I keep talking, trying to convince her, before she even knows what’s going on. “I’ve been here in Texas, but my sister is missing. And they think—”
Andrew breaks in. “Ava Hallett. Her sister is Ava Hallett. We were on our way to the station when we heard on the radio that Lizzie … Zoe is a suspect.”
I flinch, and Detective Valdez’s sharp gaze misses nothing. What did it cost my husband to make that admission? I want to take Andrew’s hand, but I’m afraid he’ll pull away.
Instead we sit down next to each other on one side of the table, and Detective Valdez sits on the other. I tell her who I am, how long I’ve been living as Lizzie, about Andrew and Emma and my normal life. “When I heard on the news that Ava was missing, I tried to call my parents, but they didn’t pick up.”
Andrew leans across the table, and he’s so sincere, with his open face and clear eyes. He’s the believable one, the trustworthy one. I desperately want to think he believes in my innocence. But why would he? It’s far more likely he’s just trying to keep me out of jail. “There is no way Zoe could have been involved. She was here with Emma.”