Rob isn’t a wealthy entrepreneur like Derek, so our house is much more modest than the one I just came from. Two stories, three bedrooms, two of which aren’t much bigger than Quinn’s walk-in closet. It was a fixer-upper when we bought it three years ago, and we haven’t entirely fixed it up. The outside still needs a good coat of paint. The porch is still unfinished, and six months ago I put my foot right through a floorboard.
Rob is handy, and he always swears he’s in the middle of fixing it all. Every Sunday, he gets out his tool belt and acts like he’s doing something important, but meanwhile, the front of our house still looks like something out of a gothic horror novel.
I’m dripping wet when I walk into the house through the garage entrance. Standing in the freezing rain for hours will do that to you. But on the drive home, the rain turned into snow—Rob was right. The roads became incredibly slippery, and I had to focus all my attention on getting home safely.
When I get into the living room, I’m pleased to find that Rob has cranked the heat way up. Usually it annoys me when he does that, but now I’m grateful for it.
Rob is sitting on our secondhand sofa, reading the newspaper, although it’s probably just the sports page. He might be the only person under the age of fifty who still reads a paper newspaper. And he isn’t even forty yet, although he could easily pass for ten years older since he started losing his hair a few years ago.
When he sees me, he tosses the newspaper aside, his fingers coated in a layer of ink. Rob’s fingers are always either covered in ink from the paper or covered in grime from his job. I feel like I need to hose him down before he can kiss me hello.
“So what’s going on?” he asks. “Do the police have any leads?”
I swallow a lump in my throat. “They’re trying to trace her phone. But somehow they can’t do it. Something about the weather. They said the storm is messing everything up.”
Rob’s brow crinkles. “How are you doing?”
I take a shaky breath, shivering under my damp clothing. “I can’t believe this is all happening. I only just spoke to her this afternoon. I knew something was wrong…”
Knew it better than the damn cop.
He comes over to me and massages my shoulder. I let him do it for a second, but then I jerk away when I remember his ink-stained fingers.
“Can you wash your hands please?” I say.
Rob blinks at me. For a moment, I think this is going to be the start of another fight. But then he goes over to the sink and washes his hands. He soaps them up and everything. He’s on his best behavior.
“Good thing you went over there to check on her,” he says as he rinses off the black tinged soap.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
When I close my eyes, I can still see the scene that greeted me when I stepped into the Alexander household hours earlier. I shudder. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.
“Claudia?” I open my eyes. Rob has finished washing his hands and is staring at me. “Are you okay?”
“I…” I shiver, and I’m not sure if it’s from the cold. “Maybe I’ll go upstairs and take a shower. Is the hot water working?”
He nods. “Should be.”
Part of me wishes I had stayed at the crime scene. Maybe I’m just a masseuse, but nobody knows my sister like I do. If anyone could find her, it’s me.
But Scotty promised to call me if they find any new information. I’m terrified the new information will be finding
Quinn in a ditch somewhere. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight.
I climb the stairs to the master bedroom—the only one of our three bedrooms that isn’t pint-sized. When we bought the house, we imagined the other two bedrooms would be for our kids, but no kids have come along yet. So right now, we’ve got two guestrooms. Not that we get many guests. I told Quinn if she ever left Derek, she could have her pick.
The bed is still made from this morning with the green floral printed bedspread. I make the bed every day after I wake up in the morning. Even though nobody sees our bedroom besides me and Rob, my mother always made us make our beds, and I can’t leave the bedroom with the bed still unmade. I just can’t. And I would die of shock if Rob ever made the bed.
While I’m stripping off my wet clothing, my phone rings. Again, my heart leaps, hoping it’s some sort of news about the case or maybe Quinn herself calling. But instead, the name on the screen is Lori Marshall.
I only have Lori’s phone number programmed into my phone because I gave her a massage a few times. But I stopped taking her calls after Quinn told me she was pretty sure Lori was having an affair with Derek. She’s exactly his type. Blond with legs longer than the Empire State Building. He loves blondes. That’s why Quinn started coloring her hair.
Why would Lori be calling now?
I consider letting it go to voicemail, but curiosity gets the better of me. So I answer the phone. “Lori?”
“Hi, Claudia.” I can tell from the hushed tone of her voice that she knows what happened. I didn’t see any reporters around, so I assume it isn’t on the news yet, but it must have spread through word-of-mouth. “I… I heard the news. Is it true?”
“Is what true?” I ask drily.
“You know, about…” Her voice breaks. “Derek. That he’s been… killed.”
I consider denying the whole thing, but she’ll know the truth soon enough. “Yes. It’s true.”
Lori lets out a strangled sob. “Oh, how awful! How could Quinn do something like that?”
“Excuse me,” I hiss into the phone. “But my sister is
missing, and I don’t appreciate your assumptions.”
“Your sister killed her husband then ran away! What other conclusion can you draw?”
“You know…” I lower myself onto my bed. “The police have a reason to suspect Derek was meeting another woman this afternoon.”
“He… he was?”
“That’s right.” I clear my throat. “Tell me, Lori, are you still sleeping with Derek?”
“Claudia! What are you saying?”
“I think you know what I’m saying.”
“Well, that’s just preposterous!” She’s trying to sound indignant, but I can hear the tremor in her voice. “I think the police should focus their energy on locating Quinn.”
“Actually,” I say, “I don’t care what you think, Lori.
Expect to be hearing from the police.”
I hang up the phone and drop it down onto the center of the bed. Back when I was a kid, we used to have a real phone. A landline. And when you were mad at someone, you could slam it down. It’s just not the same with a cell phone.
As much as I dislike that woman, I don’t genuinely think she knows what happened to my sister. She’s just a busybody. She’s the sort of person who would take pleasure seeing Quinn on trial for what happened to Derek. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Derek was eminently likable. As well as rich and powerful.
The phone rings again. If it’s another one of Derek’s mistresses, I swear I’m going to lose it. But when I look over at the screen, I see a name I didn’t expect.
It’s Quinn.
