The kids adored Drew. He was loud and raucous and everything that Greg and I were not. Next to Greg and my children, I loved Drew more than anyone else in my life.
“How long are you staying?” I asked. I needed a buffer between the girls and me, someone to absorb the silence and fill the spaces between my words, which were becoming few and very far between. Drew would fill the silent house with noise and laughter and voices again. I had to think to remember the last time I had seen him. A month ago? I wasn’t sure, but it had been a little while. While not seeing each other wasn’t unusual, we generally didn’t go more than a week without catching up on the phone. I felt another pang of guilt for not returning his call last week.
“As long as you need me to.”
Hannah whooped. “Leah! Uncle Drew is here and is staying with us forever!” She ran down the hall, her feet slapping the tile, the most animation we’d had in the house in days.
“See? Now you have to stay. Hannah said it, so it’s unmitigated fact.” I grinned.
“What’s going on, Claire?” he asked, ignoring my attempt at levity. I filled him in on the facts as I knew them over a cup of coffee. He shook his head. “It’s just not like Greg. I mean, I know what the police say, but do you think Greg left?”
“No, I don’t. If it was just me, maybe. But even that seems weird and out of character. We weren’t great, but we weren’t bad. We had a great day together three days before his trip. Even if he could leave me, which I still doubt, Greg loved those girls. He wouldn’t just pick up and leave them. He’s not heartless. He’d miss them like crazy, and never mind the part where that leaves them fatherless. That would break his heart.”
Drew nodded. “Greg is a rules guy. Not me. I don’t buy into the nine-to-five job. I don’t own a house because I don’t want to be nailed down. I don’t want a mortgage or even a long lease. Greg isn’t like that. He does what’s expected of him, what needs to be done.” He sighed. “I’m not saying this right. I know guys. I know guys like Greg. They make mistakes, sure, but they always do the right thing. There’s an underlying sense of responsibility. Does that make sense?”
“More sense than anything anyone else has said,” I said with relief.
Drew had put into words what I couldn’t. He strengthened my belief that Greg could not have left us. He was right. Greg, above all, had a ridiculously strong sense of responsibility. He was never late on a bill or even a library book. He’d never received a parking ticket. He believed the speed limit was absolute, that rules were meant to be followed, not broken. Leaving his family would have been the most out of character act I could imagine. I felt a release, an exhaled breath of air.
“So now what?” Drew asked.
We sat in silence, thinking, tapping our coffee mugs.
Finally, Drew said, “I think we need to go to Rochester.”
Chapter 7
I did not tell Detective Reynolds that Drew and I were going. I knew he would try very hard to stop us, and I feared that he could. Interference with an investigation was possibly a crime. Maybe he could call me a suspect in order to keep me in the state. I had no idea if that was realistic or if my fears were based on what I’d seen on television.
The next day, I asked Mom to stay with the girls while we went.
She agreed with raised eyebrows. “I think the police—”
“We’ll take them for as long as you need, sweetheart.” Dad hushed her concerns with a wave of his hand and pulled me into an infrequent hug. “Whatever you need us to do.”
Drew and I packed the SUV with enough clothes and toiletries for four days. We didn’t make a hotel reservation. I wanted to stay at the same hotel where Greg registered, but Drew convinced me it would be too macabre. I kissed the girls goodbye with a heavy heart. Instead of having a mother that was present in body, but not in mind, they wouldn’t have a mother around at all. I turned my head when I hugged Hannah so she wouldn’t see my tears.
“Are you going to bring Daddy and Cody back?” Hannah asked.
“I’m going to try, Hannah-banana.” I felt a pang of guilt, knowing that even if I figured out what happened to Greg, Cody most likely wasn’t with him.
“I love you,” Hannah said.
“I love you more,” I whispered. I kissed Leah, cupping her small head against my shoulder.
As Drew backed the SUV out of the driveway, I watched Mom usher the kids into the house, probably singing brightly to keep their attention. They’d forget I was gone in no time at all. I had to believe that.