Nora says, “I did some shopping, ran some errands, you know.”
“What time did you get back?” Bledsoe asks.
“It must have been sometime around four forty-five, before Faith got home from soccer at five. Around there, anyway. I’ve told you all this already.”
“And Ryan wasn’t home?”
Nora shakes her head.
“His car wasn’t there?”
“No. He already told you he went out in his car around four thirty.” She sounds impatient.
“What time did he get home?”
“It was after six, maybe closer to six thirty.”
There’s a knock on the door of the interview room, interrupting them.
“Yes?” Bledsoe calls, looking over his shoulder at the door.
A uniformed officer beckons him out, and Gully is immediately curious. A moment later Bledsoe returns and sits back down. “Guess what they just found at your house?” he says.
Nora Blanchard goes rigid.
“A pay-as-you-go phone, hidden behind the air vent in your bedroom.” He adds, “How about that?”
Gully watches the other woman’s face collapse and can’t help feeling sorry for her.
* * *
? ? ?
Nora falls apart, sitting on the hard wooden chair in the interview room. With everything that had happened—Erin attacking Ryan, the journalists taking pictures of it all through the windows, the search warrant, and all of them being hustled off to the police station like criminals—she’d completely forgotten about her hidden phone. She can’t believe she’s been so stupid. She should have gotten rid of it, but she wanted to keep that connection with William. Now they know. And Al will know for certain, his suspicions confirmed. She will be publicly shamed, because they won’t keep this quiet, why would they? Such an interesting twist to the case—the father of the missing girl and the mother of the prime suspect, lovers—how the media will love it!
She looks back at the detectives, who are waiting for her to say something. “It’s mine,” she manages finally.
“We know.” He adds, “William Wooler had a hidden burner phone too. And the only number he called on it is the one to the phone we found hidden in your house.” He pauses. “You two are having an affair.”
“We were,” she admits, looking down at the table, defeated, ashamed. “I ended it.”
“Such a small world, isn’t it?” he says. She remains silent, miserable. “How did your son, Ryan, feel about you sleeping with William Wooler?”
She lifts her head. “He didn’t know,” she says.
“Kids usually know more than their parents think,” Bledsoe says.
Nora’s heart trips as she asks herself the question. Could Ryan have known she was having an affair with William? They can’t think he took Avery to punish William? To punish her? No, that’s not possible, she can’t believe that. Ryan wouldn’t be capable of it.
Oh God. The bile rises in her throat, and she swallows it back down. Her head swims, and she grabs the edge of the table. Gully pushes a glass of water toward her. She drinks the taste of bile away; her hand that’s holding the water glass shaking. They wait.
“He didn’t know,” she says at last. This is the ultimate betrayal, she thinks, worse even than sleeping with another man. She will surely rot in hell for this. “But I think my husband did.”
* * *
? ? ?
Faith Blanchard has been picked up after soccer by Samantha’s mother, Mrs. Slagle. Faith doesn’t want to go to Samantha’s house after practice, she wants to go home. She’s anxious and wants to be with her mother. Samantha chatters beside her in the back seat of the SUV, happy about the change of plans.
Faith isn’t listening. She’s remembering the awful tension in the living room last night when she woke up and they had to tell her what was going on. If she hadn’t woken up, they probably wouldn’t have told her anything, they think she’s still a baby. They’d told her that the police had questioned her brother about Avery because someone had called in a false tip. Even then she wondered if it was true. She’s been feeling sick to her stomach ever since. And now she’s heard that the police are at their house, and that’s why Samantha’s mother has picked her up, to keep her out of the way.
She’s still angry at her brother about last spring, what he put them all through. The house had felt like a storm was brewing, and everyone was worried, herself included, that Ryan would go to jail. Her mother cried a lot in secret, and her father was very quiet. Ryan was sullen and unapproachable. And Faith was upset and humiliated because some of her classmates knew about it—even though Ryan was a minor and his name was supposed to be kept private—because Katie’s dad was a police officer and she heard him talking about it, and Katie has a big mouth. Other kids made fun of her, of her family. But they’d somehow got through it, and Ryan didn’t have to go to jail. He just had to miss going to college this year and work in the homeless shelter. She knows he’s not happy about it, but he deserved it, she thinks. Now she wishes he had gone away to college.
Because now there’s this. She’s worried sick. Her stomach hurts. It’s happening all over again. Only this is a million times worse.
She catches Samantha’s mother watching her in the back seat through the rearview mirror. Faith glares at her, and Samantha’s mom averts her eyes, embarrassed.
Twenty-six
Al Blanchard waits anxiously in the empty interview room, wondering what the hell is going on. He hates not knowing. How long can they keep him here? Can they keep him here? And then he remembers Oliver Fuller telling them, before, that if they detain someone, or have them in custody or arrest them, they must read them their rights. No one has read him his rights; he thinks he’s here voluntarily, that he’s free to leave.
But just as he stands up, the door opens, and Detective Bledsoe and Detective Gully enter the room. He quickly sits back down.
“Sorry for the wait,” Bledsoe says, pulling out a chair opposite him. Gully sits down too.
“Do I have to stay here?” Al asks.
“No,” Bledsoe tells him. “You’re free to leave. But it would be helpful to us, and perhaps to your son, if you could answer a few questions.”
“Of course,” Al says, deciding to cooperate. There’s no point getting confrontational.
“Where were you on Tuesday afternoon?” Bledsoe asks.
“What?” It’s not the question he was expecting; he thought they wanted to talk about his son. The detective doesn’t repeat the question. Al says, automatically, “I was at work.”
“And is there anyone at your place of employment who can confirm that?”
No, there isn’t. Because he remembers now that of course he wasn’t at work on Tuesday afternoon. “Actually,” he says, “sorry, I just remembered. Tuesday I was out of the office. I had a meeting with a client from one till shortly after two.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“Why are you asking me this?” Al says.
“Please just answer the question.”
Al swallows.
He takes his time answering. He doesn’t want to lie to the police. “I didn’t go back to the office,” he admits reluctantly. “I—I stopped at a motel.”