“Because you’re hoping he’ll eventually find a thread you can use to unravel the whole mystery.”
Autumn bit her lip. “Yes. But am I letting my attention be diverted when I should be giving it to the kids instead? Am I throwing away money on a dream that will never come to pass? I need to know whether I should be chasing it.”
Mary heard the anguish in her voice. “I wish I could answer that for you. But only you can decide. It’s whatever you can live with, right?”
Autumn adjusted her sunglasses. It was too late in the day for there to be much glare, but she probably felt safer behind them. Mary understood the need to have a buffer of some sort once in a while. “I told Olynyk to continue to search for the rest of the month. Then I’m done. I have to make myself let go, have to stop letting Nick’s disappearance tear our family apart.”
“You’ve done all you could,” Mary said softly. “You’ve worked night and day, investigated every lead, spent a fortune.”
“I have, and yet...is it enough? There’s always more I could do. The items that remain just don’t come with much likelihood of being worth the time, angst or money. And my children deserve to have at least one parent fully present. At this point, to continue searching almost seems—” she wrinkled her nose “—selfish, I guess. That I’ll be indulging my own broken heart and thirst for the truth over what would be best for them.”
Mary studied her daughter. The golden brown of her eyes, hidden behind those sunglasses, as well as her long, dark hair came from her father. But the oval shape to her face, the way her eyes turned up at the outer edges and her prominent cheekbones were Mary’s. So was her thin build. She looked far more delicate than her own children. Taylor and Caden had Autumn’s eye color and the same thick, wavy hair, which Taylor also wore long, but those features were paired with their father’s stubborn jaw and sturdy build. “What would Nick want you to do?”
She folded her arms atop her knees, rested her chin on them and stared glumly off for a while, presumably at the ocean and her children—although it was hard to tell because of the sunglasses. “He’d want me to take care of the kids. He was generous that way.”
“But...” Mary could hear the hesitancy in her voice.
“As soon as I decide that’s the course I should take, I think...what if he’s alive? What if I’m giving up just a few weeks or months too soon? What if I could’ve found him if only I’d kept searching?” She gestured emphatically. “The possibility nearly drives me insane, keeps me chasing my own tail.”
Mary adjusted her dress while taking a moment to decide how best to approach what she wanted to say. “I can’t tell you how he’d feel,” she admitted. “But I can tell you how I’d feel if I were him.”
Autumn looked so tragic and forlorn sitting there on the beach with the wind whipping at her hair. “How’s that?”
“I wouldn’t want you to be sad, lonely or filled with regret. I’d want you to rebound and embrace the life you have, enjoy every moment of it. And I would want you to be available to Taylor and Caden.”
A tear slid from beneath Autumn’s sunglasses. She dashed it away with notable impatience, but then she sniffed and said, “Thanks, Mom. I’m glad we came.”
Mary smiled at the one person who had, once upon a time, been her only reason for living. “So am I.”
3
Is everything okay?
Nick? Are you there? Can you answer me?
I thought for sure you’d check in by now. Are you all right?
Please, babe. I’m going crazy. Answer me.
Seriously? You can’t even let me know that you’re okay?
WTF?????
What do I tell the kids? They’re asking about you, can’t reach you, either.
This can’t be happening!!! Where are you?
Unable to sleep, Autumn sat in the window seat of the dormer that served as the only window in the small studio above her mother’s garage, scrolling through the text messages she’d sent to Nick a year and a half ago. They started out conversational and friendly, quickly turned frantic, then angry and insistent before hitting heartbroken. The last one she’d sent: Please, babe! I can’t live without you.
But she was living without him. She had no choice.
She sighed. It didn’t matter which kind of text she sent, they’d all gone unanswered. So had hundreds of others over the months since then.
You bastard, she wrote to his FBI handler. She hoped having his phone suddenly light up or ding in the middle of the night might at least wake Richard Jenkins. He deserved it. He knew more than he was saying; she felt it in her bones. Whatever the FBI had asked her husband to accomplish had gone terribly wrong, and now those who were involved in sending him to Ukraine were worried about the liability. She didn’t think they knew where he was exactly, but she believed they could’ve provided information—in the beginning, anyway—that would’ve given her some direction in her search. And that might’ve made all the difference.
Because she saw no evidence that her text had been received, she assumed Richard was sleeping soundly, as unconcerned as ever. “Psychopath,” she muttered and tossed her phone onto the cushion beside her. Even after he got her message in the morning she wouldn’t receive a response from him. He’d quit communicating with her months ago.
In order to get her mind off Nick, so that she might be able to sleep at some point, she crossed to the bed and opened her laptop. She was curious enough about Quinn and Sarah Vanderbilt to want to learn more. No one could have predicted this wrinkle in his life; she was completely blown away by it. And thinking about his problems made her own a little easier to bear. She felt guilty acknowledging that, but “misery loves company” was a cliché for a reason. She felt less alone in her own suffering.
Quinn and Sarah had lived in upstate New York, where she’d heard on one of her many trips to Sable Beach over the years that he worked as a structural engineer. Because some areas of upstate New York were quite rural, maybe the stabbing incident had been remarkable enough to be reported in the local paper.
Sure enough, after about ten minutes of searching, she found a short article in The Villager, which touted itself as “Ellicottville’s Official Newspaper,” dated nearly two years ago.
Wife Stabs Husband Over Purported Affair
Last night police were summoned to the home of Quinn and Sarah Vanderbilt on Longwood Drive where they found Quinn Vanderbilt, a male in his thirties, suffering from multiple stab wounds. He was taken by ambulance to Olean General Hospital, where he was admitted and treated.
A spokeswoman for the hospital has reported that he is now in stable condition and is expected to recover. Mrs. Vanderbilt was no longer at the scene when police arrived, but one officer found her at a neighbor’s house. When asked why she stabbed her husband, Mrs. Vanderbilt claimed he was sleeping with another woman.