Alice stands up herself. “Derek never touched her,” she insists, her voice low. She shows Erin to the door, and then watches as she goes down the sidewalk to her left, and up the driveway to the next house. She really means to find this witness, Alice thinks. She means to find the truth.
* * *
? ? ?
William Wooler paces his small hotel room, weighed down with grief and guilt. He’s trapped in an unimaginable situation. He wants to make things better, but it seems impossible.
His standing in the community is ruined. Even if Ryan is convicted, he will always be the infamous Dr. Wooler, who lied to the police when his daughter was missing. And if Ryan isn’t convicted, what does that mean for William? There will be a permanent cloud over his head for the rest of his life. A significant number of people will always believe he killed his little girl.
His marriage is over. Even worse, his relationship with his son is probably damaged beyond repair. William collapses onto the bed and weeps for the loss of his daughter, his son—and his wife too.
Things will never be all right again with Erin. But he must try to mend things with Michael. He wishes he could go to the house, talk to him, but he doesn’t want to face Erin, and he doesn’t think she’ll let him in. But he can call Michael’s cell. He texts him first, to tell him he’s going to call him from a new number.
He’s nervous as his son’s phone rings. It rings a few times. William is about to hang up in despair when Michael picks up. He doesn’t say anything.
“Michael?” William says.
“Yeah.”
William finds himself at a loss for words. “Are you okay?” he asks at last.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t sound okay. He sounds lost, like he’s hurting. And William knows he shoulders a lot of the blame for that.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” William says. “I’m sorry for everything.” His voice catches on a sob. “You know I love you, right? I love all of you.” Michael is silent. “I’ve made mistakes. I know that. But I want—I hope—I can be there for you, Michael. I’m your dad.”
The line goes dead. His son has hung up on him.
* * *
? ? ?
The burger and fries that Gully wolfed down sit in a lump in her stomach. That’s the thing with cases like these, she thinks—it’s all junk food and no sleep. No time for proper exercise either. It’s hard to keep your mind sharp. She recalls her telephone conversation with Erin Wooler earlier that evening and sighs, exhausted. It’s critical to know whether Marion Cooke is telling the truth. Is this just some wild-goose chase? Is the boy down in the cells innocent? Are they wasting precious time while the real culprit gets away?
She pulls up to the computer. She looks more closely into Marion Cooke. She’s divorced. No children. She looks into her ex-husband. Greg Kleig. She runs a search on him. He still lives in Boston and has not remarried. He has a job in IT. And he has two assault convictions from charges against him brought by his ex-wife. She looks a little deeper and finds a record of the restraining order she got against him. It looks like Marion Cooke is telling the truth—about that, at least.
* * *
? ? ?
Nora sits alone in the dark house, thinking about her son, alone in a cell. Faith is staying over at her friend Samantha’s for the night—she’d again arranged for Samantha’s mom to pick her up when they followed Ryan to the police station that afternoon. How dark the world has turned. She’s frightened for Ryan. She’s frightened for herself, afraid of her husband. Her face aches where he hit her.
Will he come back tonight?
And if he does, what will happen to her?
She wants to believe that everything is going to be all right, but she hasn’t believed that for a while now. Not since Avery Wooler went missing. That’s what started everything. If only she hadn’t been sent home that day, none of this would have happened.
Nora could have decided to end her unhappy marriage, like millions of other women had before her. She could have divorced her husband, William could have divorced his wife, and they could have been together. They could have been happy. They could have made it work. Blended families are hardly unusual. But now . . .
She can’t think of William without despair. Her guilt overwhelms her. She thinks that somehow their actions are at the core of all this horror. The last time she spoke to him, on the phone, he’d sounded like he was falling apart. He’d said he loved her. Now her son is in jail, suspected of murdering his child. What if William can’t think of her now without revulsion? What if her husband is to blame?
She knows she should pack a bag and leave. But she has nowhere to go and children who need her. And she feels, somehow, that whatever is coming for her, she deserves. What she wants now is the truth. Whatever happens, she wants to know what happened to Avery Wooler.
She waits for her husband to come home.
Forty
Erin makes her steady way down the east side of the street, giving the Blanchards’ house a wide berth. She knocks on doors, endures the looks of horror and pity she receives. Some people are genuinely kind and wish they could help; others don’t want to talk to her, as if she’s tainted somehow. But no one admits to being the anonymous witness, and none of them seems to be lying, as far as she can tell. She reaches the end of the street and curves around to the other side. She sees The Winters painted on the mailbox of the next house. Erin doesn’t know the Winters or anything about them. She knocks.
When the door is opened, it’s clear that the woman who opens it knows who she is though. How could she not? Erin’s face has been splashed all over the news. She asks, “May I come in and talk to you for a minute? I’m Erin Wooler.”
The woman hesitates and then says, “I know. And I’m so sorry. Come in. I’m Gwen.”
She seems like one of the kind ones, Erin thinks. She’s led into the living room, where a good-looking teenage boy is slouched in an armchair with an iPad.
“Adam, do you mind leaving us alone for a bit?” his mother asks.
He looks up, avoids Erin’s eye, and quietly leaves the room.
“I know why you’re here,” Gwen says, once they’re alone, seated in the living room.
Erin looks back at her, her heart beginning to pound. Has she found her witness?
“But I assure you, Adam had nothing to do with your daughter. That’s just vicious gossip someone started because he’s different. Adam has autism. The police were already here, and they know he had nothing to do with it.”
Erin is taken aback. “Oh, I didn’t know that.” She pauses. “I imagine it’s difficult,” Erin says, “having a child on the spectrum.”
“Yes, very difficult,” Gwen concedes.
“Avery is very difficult too,” Erin finds herself saying. She didn’t intend to say it, it just came out. “She’s got behavioral problems, she’s very oppositional.” She suppresses a sob. “I want her back more than anything.”
“Of course you do,” Gwen Winter says. “You’re her mother. You love her, no matter what.”
“There’s an anonymous witness,” Erin goes on, “who says they saw Avery getting into Ryan Blanchard’s car.”