Look Closely (15 page)

“I saw your wedding picture,” I said, desperate for safe conversation. “You both looked so happy.”

“That one?” Matt gestured to a wood-framed photo on the mantel, the same photo I had in my briefcase.

“That’s it.”

“Where’d you get it?” He looked confused and, for the first time, mistrustful. “We didn’t send many of those out.”

“Oh, I…” I stumbled with my words, feeling guilty that I had read Del a’s letters, that I had been prying in someone’s life.

“Did you get it from your father?”

“No,” I answered immediately. And then the next logical question occurred to me. “Does he have that picture?”

Matt sat in a wood chair to my right, but then he pushed it back a little as if afraid to come too close. “I don’t know. If Caroline sent him an announcement,shedidn’ttel me,butthenCarolineneverreal ytalkedaboutherfamily.Whenwefirstmet,she told me that her mom had died when she was about to start high school, and that she didn’t get along withherfather.Sheonlytoldmeaboutyouaftershe started making that last quilt, the one she wanted to give you, but I know that she’s had some contact with your father since we’ve been married.”

“She told you that?”

Matt shook his head. “When we first started dating, she said she hated Wil . She always cal ed him by his first name. Said she never talked to him, that she didn’t want to ever see him, didn’t want to invite him to the wedding. She seemed fine about it, and I never pushed her. But one day a few years ago, I came home from work and heard her talking on the phone. Her voice was strange, real y tight and control ed. I don’t know how else to describe it. She was talking very formal, saying she was fine and yes, she was happy. She got off quick when she saw that I was in the house, and when I asked her who she was talking to, she said no one. She left the house then and went for a walk.”

Matt stopped for a moment, removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I heard the wind chime tril from the front door again, making me aware of how silent everything else was.

“What happened then?” I said. I couldn’t bear the quiet.

Matt slid his glasses back onto his face. “I checked the cal er ID when she left. The name listed there was W. Sutter, and it said, ‘cel ular cal .’ I confronted Caroline when she came back.

I was probably too harsh on her, but I felt like she’d been holding something back from me. Final y, she told me that her father kept tabs on her.”

“Were those the words she used?” I asked. “Kept tabs?” How odd that sounded, not at al like a normal father-daughter relationship, but more like a warden and a paroled prisoner.

“Yeah. She told me that she’d tried to stay away from him because that’s what he told her he wanted. But he always found her, so she’d given up hiding from him. She talked to him every once in a while to make him go away again.”

I sat back and rested my head against the sofa.

“Itakeityoudidn’tknowanyofthis?”Mattsaid.

“No.”Iraisedmyhead.“Ihaven’tseenCaroline sinceIwaslittle,andmydadandIdon’treal ytalk abouther.Doyouknowwhyshedidn’twanttosee himorwhyshethoughthedidn’twanttoseeher?”

“She refused to tel me about it. I final y accepted that it was the one part of her life she wouldn’t let me into.”

“That must have been hard.”

“I hated it.” Matt shifted his gaze away momentarily. “I hated the thought that we would have any secrets from each other. And it scared me, because she always acted so strange whenever the subject came up. But I had to get over it. I thought it was for the best. Now I wish I’d made her tel me about your dad. She might stil be here.”

“Why do you think my dad had anything to do with Caroline taking off? Isn’t it possible that she has other problems or issues that might have made her leave?”

A look of annoyance took over Matt’s face. “Like what?”

Should I mention Crestwood Home? Maybe my sister hadn’t told Matt about that either. Maybe she wouldn’t want him to know. For al I knew, it could have been Caroline who’d caused my mother’s death.

“Depression, maybe?” I said.

“If you haven’t seen or talked to Caroline since you were seven, what are you getting at?”

I was silent, then I felt my face grow pink. I didn’t want to be evasive, but I didn’t want to betray my sister.

“Look, Hailey, I need to find my wife. I need to know she’s safe,” Matt said. “I’m doing most of the talking here, and yet I don’t know anything about you. I get the feeling we both care for Caroline and both want what’s good for her, but you’re going to have to tel me what you know. Anything might help.”

His face fel as he spoke the last sentence, and I knew he was right. I couldn’t expect him to contribute everything.

“Idon’tknowmuch,”Isaid,“butI’vebeenlooking into how my mom died.”
Look closely.
“So I’ve been asking around, trying to find out what happened and where my brother and sister are.”

“Why not ask dear old dad?”

I shot him a cool look. “Because it upsets him too much.”

“Oh, I bet.” Matt’s voice rang with sarcasm.

“What is it with you and my father?” My voice rose a little despite myself. “So what if your wife had a bad relationship with him? So what if she talks to him once in a while?” As I asked these questions, my mind echoed with another: Why didn’t my father tel me he kept in touch with Caroline?

Matt leaned forward, his eyes awake now, hard. “Wil Sutter clearly terrified Caroline. That was obvious every time I found her speaking to him.

But I could live with that. What I can’t live with is my wife disappearing. I have good reason to believe your father was the cause of that.”

“Why?” Immediately, I wished I could take the question back. I wanted to leave that sunny, dusty room. I wanted to forget Caroline’s quilt and the daisies and the apple tree outside.

But I didn’t move. I sat stil , listening to a breeze blow the wind chime into song again.

“He cal ed the day before we left for Charleston,” Matt said. “I was barbecuing in the backyard, and I came inside to get the garlic salt. Caroline likes that on everything.” He paused for a second, his eyes elsewhere, before he looked at me again. “Anyway, it was just like that other phone cal . I found Caroline sitting at the kitchen table on the phone. She was hunched over. She was talking like a little girl. She was saying, yes, no, I understand, stuff like that. When she saw me, she hung up fast, and I asked her who it was.”

Matt stopped and stared past me to the kitchen, the room where it had al happened.

“And,” I said, prompting him.

Matt returned his gaze to me. “And,” he said, the emotion gone from his voice, “she said it was Wil . Two days later she was gone.”

Matt remained stil , looking at me, as if daring me to chal enge his assumption. Something trembled inside me, and yet I ignored it. I did what I’d been trained to do, to analyze the situation. It wasn’t necessarily a logical assumption, I decided, to think that the phone cal was somehow a precursor to Caroline’s disappearance days later. Yet nothing about the last few weeks was logical. I had received the letter and started investigating my mom’s death. Around the same time, my father cal ed my sister, and then my sister disappeared.

“Maybe you’re looking for someone to blame?” I said weakly.

“Are you kidding me?” He nearly shouted the question, and I flinched involuntarily. He pul ed his glasses off again, and I thought he might cry. “I’m not looking to blame someone. I just want her back, and I’ve done everything I can think of. I’ve talked to the police here and in Charleston. I’ve been sitting around here every minute like the police told me, in case she cal s.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Is there anything I can do? I’d like to help.”

Matt replaced his glasses and stood up. “I’ve got to get out of here. Even if it’s just for half an hour. Do you want to get a bite? I haven’t eaten al day.”

I glanced at my watch: 5:00 p.m. There was no sense in checking into a hotel and trying to sleep before my flight. “Sure,” I said, and then as an afterthought, “Are you sure you want to leave? What if she cal s?”

Matt opened his mouth then closed it again, his eyes roaming his house as if he was searching for something. “I’ve been holed up here since I got back from Charleston. I haven’t gone to work, nothing. I’m about to get fired. But once in a while, I have to get out. There’s an old schoolhouse a few blocks away that’s been converted into a hotel and restaurant. It’s quick.”

I picked up my purse and fol owed him out the door.

We walked without speaking down Matt’s street, around a park, and along another street. I was acutely aware of Matt at my side, aware that he was family to me. Matt walked with his hands in his pockets, his head hung low as if it was an effort to keep it on his shoulders. I could almost feel how exhausted he was.

The rain had stopped but the air felt heavy with moisture. And I sensed something else, too, a feeling I’d had before, one that was growing familiar. I looked around and saw a black car as it turned a corner. A midsize sedan, an Alamo rental sticker on the bumper; a gray strap flapped from the trunk as if it had been closed too fast and had caught the handle of a bag.

There were probably a mil ion black rental cars cruising around Portland right now, yet I remembered that one in particular because of the Alamo sticker and the gray strap. The car had been in front of me for a few blocks on the way to Matt’s house, before it turned off. And I remembered seeing a black car behind me a minute or two later, but then I had begun to look for Matt’s address, and I forgot about it.

I shook my head. I was being paranoid.

I was about to make conversation with Matt, but as I began searching for a neutral topic, we reached therestaurant.Itwasalarge,yel owstuccobuilding, with arched windows and doorways.

There

were

stone

reliefs

of

carved

cherubs

in

the

corners.

We

walkedupthesteps,andMattswungopentheheavy

wooddoorandhelditforme.Iwasabouttostepinside,whenIsawitagain.Theblackcar.Itwasparked

ahalfblockaway.Glareonthewindshieldprevented

mefromseeinginside,soIstayedwhereIwas,waiting for the car to move. But the car sat there, so that the sedan and I seemed in some type of standoff.

“Hailey?” I heard Matt say. “Ready?”

I felt foolish suddenly. “Sure, sure.” With one last look at the stil car, I walked through the door.

Inside the old schoolhouse, al the rooms were stil intact, so that what had once been the classrooms and offices were now bars, dining rooms and hotel rooms.

I remarked about how great the restaurant was, but Matt barely managed a smile in return. He led me down the old wood hal way to a courtyard that held a large fireplace pit in the center.

Once we were seated, Matt pushed the menu away. “The Caesar is excel ent if you like salads, and the burgers are my favorite.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I ordered a chicken Caesar, while Matt asked for a turkey sandwich. “No burger for you?”

“I normal y would, but…” He scratched his jaw. “I guess I don’t want to enjoy myself.”

I nodded. “I was wondering, if it isn’t too painful, if could you tel me what Caroline was like. I mean,
is
like.” I wanted to shoot myself for using the past tense.

Matt made a short exhale, almost like a laugh. “How do I describe Caroline? It’s so hard to come up with the words. What was she like when you were a kid?”

“Beautiful, quiet, sad, or at least I always thought she was sad.”

Matt nodded. “Caroline does carry around a certain amount of melancholy. One of the reasons she moved here was for the rain. Most people just put up with it, but she said it’s comforting to her, and that it’s the sunny skies that depress her. My friends were surprised when we started dating because she wasn’t the outgoing party type I usual y brought around, but they came to love her, too.”

“How did you meet?”

“We met in Astoria. It’s a smal town on the Oregon coast. My hometown, actual y. Caroline was taking a weekend trip there.”

“By herself?”

“Yeah.”

I knew he was going to say that. I was struck by the first similarity, other than physical, between my sister and me—loneliness had been a companion to us both.

“Imetherinadinerthere,”Mattsaid.“Westarted talking, and we were there for four hours. I knew by the end of that day that I was in love with her.”

Ourfoodwasdelivered,andMattlookedrelieved.

I began to eat my salad. “So I have to ask you. What did the police say?”

“I cal ed the Charleston police the night of the wedding,buttheytoldmeIneededtowaittwentyfour hours. Then I got back to the hotel and found the note from her.” He put his sandwich down.

“I was up al night, just waiting. And I waited al the next day. I wandered around looking for her. Final y,whennightcameIcontactedthelocalpolice again, but when I showed them the note, they weren’t interested. Gave me some line about how womendothatsometimes.”Helaughedscornful y.

“And that’s it? They wouldn’t help you?”

“Nope. I cal ed the Portland police, too. They were a little nicer, and they looked into her disappearance for a few days, but they kept coming back to the note, and eventual y they dropped their investigation. It was the same song and dance about letting her have a little space. I’ve been trying to find your father, but the number’s not listed. How about giving me that?”

His question startled me. My father was a private man, and I wasn’t sure what to do. “Do you stil have the note?” I said, ignoring his question for the time being.

Matt sighed. He stared at me. Final y, as if he’d made a decision, he nodded, then leaned back and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He pul ed out a smal , worn piece of white notepaper and handed it to me. Across the top, in green italic printing, it read,
Planters Inn.
Under that, in blue bal point ink and tiny cursive handwriting, Caroline had written: Matty, I love you so much, and I’m sorry to just take off like this, but I need a break. Please, please, please don’t worry about me. I’l be fine. I’l be in touch. Love, Caro.