It’s their fault. Not his. Not hers.
They climb the two flights in silence. Scarlett gets to the door first, knocks hard. It is 6:15 a.m. These are college students. Chances are they will still be asleep, having rolled home only a few hours earlier.
Kids still did that, right? Get out from under their parents’ thumbs and turned into booze-soaked loons for a few years until they figured out how boring it is waking up feeling like crap all the time?
“Coming,” a girl’s voice trills. The door opens to reveal a willowy girl dressed in yoga clothes, hair up in the same type of messy bun Scarlett is sporting. Like they watched the same Instagram Reel on how to pull it up, fold it over, secure, fluff the front…
“Can I help you?” she asks, chipper as a puppy. Not the hungover slouch Darby was expecting.
“We’re looking for Peyton. Is he here?”
“Peyton? I don’t know anyone named Peyton.”
A young man Darby recognizes joins the girl, looping an arm possessively across her shoulders. He, too, is dressed in workout clothes, his eyes clear, breath minty fresh, beard trimmed, hair twisted into a small bun on top of his head. Darby scolds herself internally for a moment for making assumptions, but Scarlett charges in.
“Peyton Flynn lives here, doesn’t he? Or do we have the wrong apartment?”
“Hi, Mrs. Flynn,” the boy says. “Peyton moved out, a while ago.”
Darby’s heart quite literally stops for a moment, then rages ahead, dumping so much adrenaline into her system she has to take a few quick breaths to control it. It’s the same feeling she gets when they have a code blue at the hospital, everyone charging toward the room in question to try and save a life.
“What do you mean, he moved out? David,” she adds, the boy’s name finally penetrating her senses.
“Yeah, it was pretty uncool of him. He took off in July.”
July? It is September now. Where in the world has her boy been living? “But the lease was signed through December of this year.”
“Yeah, I know. I had to scramble to find another roommate who was taking summer school and needed a place and would stick around through fall semester.”
“Did he tell you where he was moving?”
“No. He came home one night just rocked out of his mind and took off the next day. He looked like he’d been in a fight. I haven’t seen him since. I’ve been keeping his mail. You should probably take it. There’s some stuff from school in there. Hold on.”
Darby can’t meet Scarlett’s eyes. Peyton has been lying to her for months, apparently.
The willowy girl moves deeper into the apartment, away from the drama. Darby can hear whispers. David comes back to the door alone and hands her a brown Whole Foods bag full of mail.
“Did he leave his furniture?” Scarlett asks, and David shakes his head.
“No, he packed everything up into an old van and bounced. Sorry I can’t be more help. Gotta go, we have a class. Willow is a yoga teacher.”
The willowy girl is named Willow. Of course she is.
Darby thinks she might just be losing her mind a bit.
“Thank you,” she says numbly, and follows Scarlett back to the car. Darby leans her arms on the doorframe and her head onto her arms. Scarlett riffles through the bag of mail like a terrier after a rat. She rips open an envelope, thrusts the paper toward Darby’s nose.
“He dropped out of school, Mom. This is confirmation his tuition refund is being processed.” Finally, finally, Scarlett loses it. The tears course down her face. “Why would he lie to us?”
Not to you, Darby thinks. To us. What small comfort that tiny word brings.
“I don’t know, honey,” she says, gathering her weeping daughter in her arms. “I don’t know.”
Scarlett hiccups and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Darby automatically reaches into her pocket for a tissue. Scarlett wipes her face and gives a great, shuddery sigh.
“So now what do we do?” she asks, infuriatingly calm for a girl who’s just had a massive breakdown in an apartment complex parking lot.
“I don’t know. But it’s only a matter of time before someone sees that sketch and recognizes him. Maybe we need to go to the police.”
“Oh my God,” Scarlett mutters. “This isn’t happening. Try him again.”
Darby calls, again. No answer, again.
She stashes her phone in her pocket. “All right. Let’s go back home. We can discuss what we should do when we get there.”
They are on the outskirts of Nashville when her phone rings. Hope flares—Peyton, please be Peyton—but she doesn’t recognize the number. The car’s system picks up the call, and Darby reaches over and presses the phone button on the steering wheel.
“This is Darby Flynn,” she says.
“Mrs. Flynn? My name’s Detective Osley. I’d like to talk to you about your son.”
32
THE WIFE
Olivia wakes to the sound of beeping, and the heady, unwelcome stench of lilies. It takes her a few moments to piece her world back together.
IV. Bright light. People bustling about. Hospital.
Her throat is sore.
A quick heartbeat of elation. The procedure is over. Her hands go to her stomach, caress the flat planes.
As of this moment, she is officially pregnant. Of course they must wait for the test results, but she can already tell, can already feel them inside her. Her babies. The doctors were thrilled; they had several excellent, healthy embryos to implant, and two possibles that were still being analyzed as she was put under. Here she is, with them inside her.
Amazing, even with the haze of the leftover medication they gave her to help her relax while they did the transfer, how quickly she is attuned to them. They are her, and they are apart, floating in their safe, happy home.
“Hello,” she whispers. “I hope we get to meet one day soon.”
“Oh, finally. You’re awake.” Park takes her hand. “I’ve been so worried.”
“It went well?” she asks. “The babies are okay? How many did they put in?”
He seems to be struggling for composure, and her heart sinks. Did it not work? But she can feel them.
“Honey, you’re confused. We’re not at the clinic. We’re at St. Thomas. You had a car accident. You’ve just come out of surgery.”
But she can feel them… Nothing makes sense.
She struggles to sit up, is forced back by a searing pain in her shoulder. Her arm is strapped to her side. Park gentles her back down as if she’s a spooked horse.
“No, no, you need to stay lying down until the nurse comes.”
The pain clears her head a bit. “Oh God, that hurts. What’s happened?”
“You hit a deer. The antlers impaled you. It’s a miracle, a few inches lower… Your collarbone was broken, badly. The doctors pinned it together, removed some pieces of shattered antler. Do you remember?”
A flash of white, an eerie screech, the impact. The rolling black eye. The blood.
The searing physical pain is replaced with a deeper, primal soreness. Blood, and cramping. Her heart, broken.
“I lost the baby.”
“That was earlier. Not because of the accident.”
“Oh, Park.” Her voice is thick with tears and leftover anesthesia. She is chilled, and begins to shake, the movement jarring her body. Park pulls up the blankets and clings to her good hand.