“What motel would that be?”
Al can feel the blood rushing to his face. He’s feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “The Breezes Motel, on Route Nine.”
“And what were you doing there?” Bledsoe asks, glancing at his partner.
Al shifts in his seat. He doesn’t want to tell them. He feels his anger and his shame growing. How can he be in this position, being asked this? He remembers who has put him here. His wife. Finally, he answers, trying to pretend it doesn’t bother him as much as it does. “If you must know, my wife is having an affair. I suspected her some time ago, so I followed her one day. She goes to that motel every Tuesday afternoon. To meet William Wooler.” He feels the heat rise up his neck. “So every Tuesday, I park in the back behind the dumpster, and I watch for them to come out.” And then he suddenly feels everything inside him give way and he begins to cry. Oh, the embarrassment of it, the humiliation. The shame. They wait till he pulls himself back together.
“What time did they come out?”
He wipes his eyes roughly with his hands. “It was about three forty-five.” He adds, “Earlier than usual.”
“And what did you do then?” Bledsoe asks.
“Nothing. I just sat in my car behind the dumpster until it was time to go home. I left there about five thirty.” He confesses, his misery and shame complete, “That’s what I do every Tuesday. I told work that I have an appointment every Tuesday afternoon at three, and I don’t go back.” He adds, his voice breaking, “And then I go home and pretend I’ve been at work.”
* * *
? ? ?
Gully and Bledsoe take a moment alone before interviewing Ryan Blanchard. They have suggested that Nora and Al go home, but they have chosen to remain and wait for their son. It might be a long wait. Or it might not.
“You just never know what people are really up to, do you?” Gully says, thinking of Al Blanchard sitting in his car behind the dumpster, every Tuesday afternoon, while his wife and William Wooler were having sex in a motel.
“It gives him motive,” Bledsoe says darkly.
Gully nods. “It does.”
“We only have his word for it that he stayed there till five thirty. We already know there aren’t any working surveillance cameras on that motel,” Bledsoe says. “Maybe that particular day he’d had enough and followed Wooler home to have it out with him. But then William left again and maybe Al saw Avery leave the house and took her. Maybe he thought he could take the daughter and everyone would think William had done it.” He adds, “Revenge—the oldest motive in the book.”
“Assuming Wooler didn’t kill her himself, and assuming Ryan Blanchard didn’t pick her up in his car.” She adds, “And there’s still the boyfriend angle. I need to talk to Derek Seton.”
“Yeah,” Bledsoe agrees, sighing heavily. “We’d need Al Blanchard’s cell phone records to pinpoint his location and eliminate him as a suspect, but I don’t think we have enough for a warrant.”
Gully muses, “It’s too bad Nora didn’t seem to have much insight into William Wooler—or into his relationship with his daughter.”
“Other than to tell us that he could never have done it—and to admit he was upset that she’d just broken off their relationship. Maybe that was enough to tip him over the edge?” Bledsoe says. “Let’s talk to Ryan—it probably won’t take long, with his attorney here. If he doesn’t say anything, we’ll have to let him go—for now.”
Twenty-seven
The tension in the car as the three of them drive home makes Nora want to throw open the passenger-side door, leap out, and walk home by herself. She knows the detectives talked to Al after they talked to her. Al must know now for certain, if he didn’t before, that she and William were lovers. The air is charged between them. They’re not going to discuss it with Ryan in the car, but it will come up later tonight, when they are alone, and she’s a little frightened. How angry will he be? She’s seen a side of him lately that she hasn’t seen before. The angry little jabs whenever William Wooler’s name comes up. Something seething beneath the calm, detached surface. How will she respond? What will she tell him? That it’s over, and she’s sorry and she’ll make it up to him? Or will she tell him that it’s not over, she’s not sorry, and she’s in love with William? She doesn’t know. All she knows for sure is that her two children are the most important things in the world to her, and they need her.
More frightening even than an enraged husband and the end of her marriage is that the detectives seem to believe that Avery got into Ryan’s car that day. Nora no longer knows what to believe. She wants to ask Al later whether he thinks Ryan knows about her and William. Maybe Al told him.
“What did you say to the detectives?” Al asks Ryan, glancing at him in the back seat through the rearview mirror as he drives.
“Nothing,” Ryan says.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Al says. “You must have said something.” There’s an edge to his voice.
“I didn’t. Oliver told me to say nothing, so I didn’t say a word.”
“What did they ask you? What did Oliver say?” Al presses, as Nora listens anxiously.
“Nothing, really. Nothing new.”
Nora wishes she could believe him. But this is what he was like before, shutting down, shutting them out, not wanting to tell them anything, until it was too late.
* * *
? ? ?
As evening descends, Erin locks herself in the bathroom and has a hot bath. She leans against the back of the tub and closes her eyes. If it’s true that Ryan Blanchard took Avery, or anyone other than her husband—that will make it easier, in the end, for her and Michael. It will be easier to have someone else to blame. But they’re no closer to finding her daughter. She does the rough calculation in her head—Avery’s now been missing for about fifty-one hours. Ryan was taken in for questioning, but she knows they let him go—she saw it on the news. They don’t know who the witness is, so they let him go. They should be hammering at him until he breaks down and tells them where Avery is, Erin thinks in fury. But, of course, he’s got a lawyer, and she knows how it works. They won’t get anything out of him. He’s protected by his rights. Even though her poor daughter is out there somewhere, and Ryan may know where she is. Where is the humanity in that? Where is the fairness, the justice? What about her rights, and her daughter’s? It’s fine to be a defense attorney and do your job, until you look at it from other eyes—from the eyes of a mother whose child has been taken by a monster.
* * *
? ? ?
Gully knocks on the Setons’ door, following up on Derek Seton. Maybe the search of Ryan Blanchard’s car will turn up something. But maybe it won’t. They need to find Avery. And every hour that she is missing is making people around here become more unhinged. The calls from the public about suspicious people are increasing. She remembers the shocking scene earlier that afternoon—Erin standing over Ryan after knocking him to the floor, his mother hovering over him protectively, those hyenas from the news outlets pressed up against the windows. They all need the truth.