* * *
? ? ?
Gully’s eyes are glued to the laptop screen. The drone hovers for a while over the Winters’ house as it begins its flight. Then it travels along and over the street, moving north toward the field at the top of the street, where it turns east onto Greenley. The drone circles over the empty field to the north of the Woolers’ and eventually heads over the woods along the river.
The drone is nowhere near Connaught Street at 4:30, when Avery is supposed to have gotten into Ryan Blanchard’s car, or for that matter, at 4:20, when Wooler’s car left the garage. Shit. Gully has to swallow her disappointment. She wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. Adam had already said he hadn’t seen anything.
Even so, Gully has the other officer sit with Adam while they go back through the previous days of footage, working backward from Tuesday, to see if they can find anything that might relate to Avery—maybe they’ll see Avery with Ryan, or with someone else. “And let’s get a copy of everything, okay?”
* * *
? ? ?
Nora hears a disturbance outside and looks out the living-room window to investigate. She sees a woman she recognizes as Erin Wooler—but a very different-looking Erin Wooler—turning up her driveway, followed by a pack of media. She feels a wave of panic. Erin must know. She must know, somehow, that Nora is William’s lover. He swore he wouldn’t tell, just this morning, on the phone. She believed him. Or did Erin find out some other way? And now she is coming up Nora’s walk, followed by all those reporters, and this can’t be happening, she wants to hide. She will hide. She won’t open the door. She’ll pretend she’s not here. Even though her car is sitting there in plain view in the driveway.
Now Erin is pounding forcefully on the front door. Nora covers her ears with her hands, slides down the wall to crouch on the floor, and closes her eyes tight. The photos of this will be everywhere—Erin pounding angrily on her door. But she won’t open the door, and Erin will have to go away, taking the reporters with her.
The pounding on the door intensifies, the door is rattling in its frame, and now the doorbell is ringing incessantly. She hears Ryan coming down the stairs and opens her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asks in alarm, looking at her strangely.
She stares at him in dismay; she’d forgotten he was home. Thank goodness Faith isn’t home from school yet. What must he think of her, finding her crouching on the floor with her eyes shut tight and her hands over her ears? She has no time to answer. She hears the front door flung open. Shit. It wasn’t locked. How dare Erin just barge in here? Nora scrambles to her feet, comes out of the living room, and faces Erin Wooler, standing in their foyer. Erin thrusts the door closed behind her.
Nora stares at her. Erin is almost unrecognizable. Her attractive face has become gaunt in such a short time. She is without makeup, her hair unwashed; she’s wearing track pants and an old hoodie. She looks like she’s almost out of her mind. Nora observes all this and is frightened. And percolating beneath the fear is shame, shame that she’s brought more pain to this suffering woman. In that moment, Nora feels that she deserves to go to hell. Perhaps that is where Nora is right now, and Erin too.
Nora trembles before her, but Erin barely looks at her. She turns her attention to Ryan, now in the foyer with them.
“What are you doing here?” Ryan demands.
Nora notices that he looks frightened of her as well.
“Where is she?” Erin asks, her voice threatening. “Where is my daughter?”
Nora is hit by a wave of nausea.
“What?” Ryan stammers.
“She was seen getting into your car,” Erin cries, her eyes wild. She comes up very close to him and cries, more loudly, “What did you do with her?” And she pushes him aggressively, both hands against his chest.
Ryan falters but recovers his balance. “I didn’t do anything with her,” he protests. “That’s a lie. She didn’t get into my car. Someone made that up.”
Nora watches in disbelief as Erin pummels Ryan violently with both fists. Ryan backs up to get away from her and loses his balance, landing on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
“Get off him!” Nora screams, animated out of her stupor now, rushing to the side of her son. She glances up at Erin as the other woman stands over him, breathing heavily, her eyes murderous. Beyond her, Nora can see the journalists pressed up against the windows, hear them outside baying for blood. She feels the bile rising in her throat. This can’t be happening. They can’t be seeing this.
She turns back and leans over Ryan. He’s not hurt at all and waves her off. He sits up, looking warily at Erin. But she’s harmless now, weeping raggedly, a figure of raw pain. Nora begins to cry too. And that’s when the police arrive.
Twenty-four
Gully knows that something is amiss when they pull up outside the Blanchards’ house and see reporters wedged in together in the dead flower beds, hands cupped around their eyes, peering in the large living-room window.
“What the hell?” Bledsoe says, and he’s out of the car as soon as she’s got it in park. She’s close behind him. They race up to the house, calling to the crowd to get away, to step back, ordering them to retreat to the sidewalk. Gully sees Bledsoe knock on the door before quickly opening it—they have a search warrant, after all. Glancing over her shoulder, Gully sees the search team arriving, the white van now parking on the street.
When they step inside, she’s not prepared for what she sees. Erin Wooler is sobbing and gasping, and Nora Blanchard is hovering protectively over her son. She looks at the two women, a world of pain between them.
“What’s going on here?” Bledsoe asks.
“She assaulted my son!” Nora says wildly.
Gully closes her eyes briefly, opens them again.
“What are you doing here, Erin?” Gully asks her gently. But Erin doesn’t seem capable of speech. “I’ll take her home,” Gully says to Bledsoe. “I don’t imagine you want to press charges,” she says to Nora and Ryan, hoping she’s right. They glance at each other, as if uncertain what to do. Gully takes advantage of their hesitation. “That’s that, then. Come, Erin, I’ll take you home.” She wants to defuse the situation.
“Who called you?” Nora asks. “Why are you here?”
Bledsoe answers, producing the requisite document. “We have a search warrant.”
Gully watches the color drain from Nora Blanchard’s face. Ryan looks even worse. She leads Erin away.
* * *
? ? ?
Erin accompanies Gully in a daze.
She can’t believe what she just did. She completely lost control. It was like she was out of her mind, outside of her own body. She might be charged with assault. They could charge her if they want, but the Blanchards have bigger problems right now. She’s glad they’re going to search Ryan Blanchard’s car and house, like they searched theirs. They must find Avery. That’s all that matters. She doesn’t care about anyone, or anything, else.
They make it to the detective’s car. They can’t walk back down the street with this rabid bunch following them, shouting questions, taking photographs, not after what just happened. She and the detective don’t speak on the short drive back down the street. Gully gets her safely inside the house and sits her down on the sofa.