But Mom had not called the cops. Of course, with Mom there was always a chance that she’d let her cell phone battery run down. But if she’d been able to flee, why on foot? Why not take the car?
Useless question. She had not taken the car.
More useful questions: On foot, where would she go? Where could she go?
Mulling, Quinn completed a circuit of the property. As he passed the house, Forrest came out to walk along with him. “AC’s starting to take hold,” he reported, then asked, “Find anything?”
“I hope I don’t. Forrie, where would she go?”
“We’ve been through this with the cops. We have no idea.”
“But now that we’re here, look around. Where would she go on foot?”
Both of them stopped where they were, scanning, and both finished by focusing on the bright blue shack a short distance down the road on the other side. Then they eyeballed each other.
“Come on,” Forrest said. “What are we waiting for?”
• • •
Amy made a cow face at the mirror she was polishing, then laughed at her own reflection and herself inclusive because she could not stop housecleaning. She knew that neither Chad nor his father nor least of all his father’s dog would give a rat’s sphincter whether the mirrors and drinking glasses were spotless, yet here she was trying to put a shine on every possible surface. She had already dusted the house, including every angel figurine in her large collection that spread throughout every room, but next she planned to take porcelain angels into the kitchen and wash them. With Dawn dish detergent. Until each ceramic face and feather sparkled.
She was being ridiculous and she knew it and she humored her ludicrous self. While not exactly afraid, she felt as nervous as a cat having its whiskers shaved, and she could not sit still until Chad and his father arrived. Chad’s sudden actions, not only visiting his dad but bringing him home for her to meet, signaled a huge shift of some kind in her husband. With no idea what to expect, Amy reminded herself that the marriage couldn’t end up in much worse shape than it already was.
Downstairs again, finished with all the mirrors, she had just picked up the first cloud white porcelain angel when she heard the truck pull into the driveway.
“Jesus!” she cried more in prayer than in frustration. Then she put the angel down and headed for the front door. Allowing herself no more time to dither, she opened the door and went outside to meet her husband and his father, feeling as if she were greeting not just one stranger but two.
• • •
Because the day was heating up like a gas-fired barbecue grill, Quinn insisted on driving the short distance to the tastelessly blue house. He parked the dinky rental car in front. As he and his brother approached the door to make inquiries of whoever was home, Quinn felt as if he were stepping into a Hollywood melodrama: Did you by any chance notice what has become of our mother? You say three swarthy men in a black Cadillac stretch limo with tinted windows took her away? Did you happen to memorize the license plate?
Quinn knocked and got no reply. Forrest made a futile effort to turn the doorknob.
“Locked,” he said unnecessarily.
“Nobody home,” said Quinn just as unnecessarily. He felt an uncharacteristic desire to peek inside, but saw that the window blinds were drawn right down to the sills.
“Maybe they’re out back.”
“Taking a sweat bath?” said Quinn sarcastically. But in this outlandish area of what barely seemed to be the same country he lived in, Quinn couldn’t rule out the possibility. Still, his feet felt nearly steam-cooked in their wing-tipped shoes, and he had to force himself to trudge around the corner of the blue house. Forrest, despite his heavy work boots, strode ahead, around the house and out of Quinn’s sight.
When Quinn caught up, he found it easy to see that there was nobody in the backyard and no reason for anybody to be there—no aboveground swimming pool, no lawn chairs in the shade, and, for that matter, no shade. Only a rectangle of sand and/or grass. No fire pit or grill, but no need, Quinn thought. The sun might as well have been a flamethrower. Its blaze would sizzle anybody. It was sizzling him right now.
His brother stood staring at the back of the blue shack with an odd look on his face.
“What?” Quinn demanded.
“Why would anybody board up their window that way?”
Quinn stood beside him and looked. The small house’s smallest window, set rather high in the wall, had been barricaded by a rank of two-by-fours so close-set they wouldn’t let in the light.
“Left over from a hurricane?” he thought aloud, not convincing even himself.
Forrest said, “Don’t they use plywood? Anyhow, none of the other windows—”