Thought I Knew You (5 page)

Drew’s parents were older, and they passed away when Drew was in his early twenties, two years apart from each other. Mr. Elliot went first from a heart attack, and Drew claimed his mom died of a broken heart. They left him with a sizable inheritance, and since Drew was a
bona fide
genius, he quit his job to be a day trader. He saw the dot-com bubble about to burst and sold everything he had in 1999. In five years, he made enough to keep him afloat for the rest of his life.

With his newfound free time, he learned photography. He specialized in capturing images of the poor and indigent. Ironically, he recently sold a print collection for a few hundred thousand dollars. With that sale, he made a name for himself in the art world and has since fought off potential buyers with a stick.

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.

We rode in silence. I had no words in me—a recurring issue lately. I’d lost the ability to function in the real world, to make small talk with the grocery store clerk or the mailman. Some of the neighbors had heard about Greg’s disappearance. Pastor Joe had come over earlier on Sunday to say he had prayed for us. I thanked him, but had nothing else to add. After a lengthy pause, he began to shift his weight uneasily, then asked if we needed anything before he left, hurrying down the walk.

I didn’t know if my continued silence came from grief, fear, or anger, but I knew I radiated hostility. I felt completely ill at ease having a conversation at all, as if I might accidentally blurt, “Greg didn’t leave us,” during any conversation. I was so afraid of appearing desperate and reinforcing the image of a woman whose husband would pick up and leave without even a goodbye. Since desperation filled my thoughts, I kept them in, hidden from the world. Instead of projecting the image of a calm, pulled-together woman handling a crisis, I came off brittle, fragile, tenuous. I didn’t care. I felt as Greg must have with all my incessant questioning–violated and shut off from the world, until my only choice was to turn inward. I reveled in sweet silence.

We stopped for gas in Binghamton, right over the New York state line.

After filling the tank, Drew climbed back in the car and clapped his hands with exaggerated brightness. “Okay, what’s our game plan?”

I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm for the “game.” I shrugged and stared out the window.

He let me sulk for another half-hour, but when we merged onto Route 81, he said, “Listen, Claire. Going to Rochester isn’t the move of a timid or scared woman. If you really are looking for answers, you’re going to have to talk. And you’re going to have to be aggressive. Do you understand?”

I nodded. I didn’t think I had it in me. I wasn’t sure why we were going, or what we were doing. I leaned my head against the window. Outside, the highway zoomed beneath the car, while the bordering evergreens seemed to creep slowly, cementing the scenery with stable, unwavering anchors to the earth. Like Greg.

We checked into the Chariot, across the street from the Fairmont, where Greg had stayed. I followed Drew into the lobby and hung back while he paid and chatted with the desk clerk. The woman smiled with dazzling teeth and checked us in with acrylic nails tapping efficiently on a computer keyboard. I should have interrupted
—Oh, no, I’ve got this, Drew
—but I couldn’t. I had wanted him there, but irrationally, I resented his presence, his easy manner, his quick smile.

I needed a shower and a few minutes to myself. The rooms were adequate, with a queen-sized bed in each, a television, and internet hook-up, ideal for the business traveler. I couldn’t have cared less, as long as mine was clean.

Under the hot spray of the shower, I realized Drew was right; I needed to be predatory. I searched for the anger I knew was buried under the hopelessness and silence. I needed to channel that fury into a force that would find my husband and the person responsible for splintering our lives.
And what if that person was Greg?
If he wasn’t already dead, I vowed to kill him myself. By the time I dressed and blow-dried my hair, I felt determined. Or at least, I felt determined to fake determination until I was able to feel it.

I went into Drew’s room through the adjoining door. “Let’s go.”

He was reading a complimentary magazine, lounging on the bed, and he started at my voice. “She speaks!”

“Very funny. Ha, ha. Now get up.”

He saluted and followed me out of the hotel. Without needing to discuss it, we headed to the Fairmont. I asked the clerk at the front desk if Carol Ann was working, and he nodded, then walked into the back room. He returned a minute later with a short, plump, fifty-ish woman in tow.

“Can I help you?” she asked in her familiar southern accent.

I took a deep breath. “Hi, Carol Ann. I’m the woman who called you a week or so ago regarding Greg Barnes.”

“Oh, my goodness, honey! Yes, I remember.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You know, darlin’, the police were here, and I spoke to them. I told them everything I know. But I guess since you’re here, they haven’t found him yet?”

I shook my head. “Can you go over exactly what you told the police?” I asked with a forced air of confidence. I wasn’t expecting anything big out of Carol Ann, but hoped to possibly glean some small detail from a personal conversation with her. I leaned forward on the counter
—Let’s chat like girlfriends.
I wanted her to
want
to help.

“I told them about our conversation and how Joe—he’s the hotel manager—and I went up to the room to make sure your husband hadn’t had a heart attack in there. When we went in, the place was spotless. I swear to you, honey, no one ever slept in there. I could just tell, you know?” She had adopted a nervous habit of ending all her sentences with a question. “Then they asked who was on duty when Mr. Barnes checked in—”

“Who was on duty?” I interrupted.

“That would have been Joe, the manager, who checked him in. The front desk clerk was on his dinner break.” She gestured toward the man from earlier.

He nodded. “I’m Joe Templeton, Mrs. Barnes. I didn’t remember him until the police showed me a picture.”

I pulled out my stack of the same fifteen pictures the police had copied. I fanned them out in front of him.

He looked down and nodded. “Yes, that’s the man I remember.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about the check-in?” I asked. Drew inched up behind me, and I shifted to give him room at the counter.

“It was a routine check-in. He had one bag. I offered to bring it up for him, but he said no thanks. He paid with a corporate credit card, not so unusual in this place, and he said he wanted to pay up front so he wouldn’t have to check out later. That’s typical. People want to go to their meetings and get…” His voice trailed off, and he looked at Carol Ann.

“Home.” I finished for him and gave him a small smile. “That’s okay, Mr. Templeton. They want to get home. Then what? Did you see him go to his room?”

“As I told the detective that was here, the office phone rang, and I had to run and get it. The desk clerk had stepped out to dinner. After he paid, I went into the back office. No one was in the lobby.” He genuinely looked as though he wished he had seen if Greg walked toward the bank of elevators or out the front door.

A thought occurred to me. “What about surveillance?”

Joe shook his head. “We have one video camera on the front desk, and it keeps forty-eight hours of video and then tapes over itself. This is a corporate hotel in a corporate center. There’s no crime here. The only reason we had the cameras installed was to watch the employees.”

Carol Ann offered, “We had a situation a year or so back. The gentleman has since been fired, but that’s why we have the cameras now.”

“What time did the clerk come back? Maybe he saw Greg leaving on his way in?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” Joe said. “Carlos went to the new Thai restaurant around the corner and returned through the side entrance, closest to the street. I’m really sorry, Mrs. Barnes. We said all this to the police. I really wish I had more information to give you.”

My heart skipped. “Where is the Thai restaurant?”

Joe gave me directions.

“Thank you very much. I might be back with more questions,” I added over my shoulder as I turned toward the door.

Drew had to jog to keep up. “Okay, Sherlock, what are you thinking?”

“Drew, Greg
loves
Thai, but I hate it. So he
always
eats it when he’s away.” I paused at the light, and even though the red hand flashed, I darted across the empty four-lane street, heading for the neon
Pad Thai
sign
.

When we got to the other side, Drew grabbed my elbow. “Listen. You can’t go in there guns blazing. You’re not the cops. These people are probably immigrants. If you go in there, all hopped up on adrenaline and flashing pictures, you’re going to scare them into silence. We need to finesse them. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to be sadder. Be the Claire I drove up here with and less your old self.”

“I’ll try,” I promised, but my hands were shaking. I wasn’t a cop, but I knew a lead when I had one. I also knew my husband. He had checked into the hotel around dinnertime, and there was a Thai restaurant within walking distance. He had eaten there. I could feel it. No one but me would know that.

When we pushed open the door, a bell chimed. The restaurant was empty, and pop music drifted softly out of the Muzak system. The intoxicating scent of fried seafood made my mouth water, despite the fact that I didn’t like Thai food. A fifty-gallon aquarium filled with bright orange and white koi took up one wall. A thirty-ish Asian woman sat behind the counter on the opposite wall, reading a tabloid. She looked up, and I gave her as sad a smile as I could muster. She returned my smile with her own inexplicably sad one.

I wondered what time they opened for dinner and checked my watch—two fifteen. “Hi. My name is Claire Barnes. I’m looking for someone. Can you tell me who was working on the evening of September twenty-eighth?” I tried to look forlorn, but I was fearful that I had come on too strong. It was a cop question, not a sad woman missing her husband question.