Chapter 18
Annie stands at the window and dials the number again. “St. Luke’s emergency room, can I help you?” It’s the same woman who answered a few hours ago.
“Yes, hi, this is Annie Potter,” she says. “I called earlier, inquiring if there have been any reports of an accident since last night. My husband didn’t come home—”
“His name again?”
“Sam Statler.”
Annie hears the woman typing. “Give me one second.” The line fills with a Richard Marx song. This is the third call she’s placed since eight last night, and not once before was she put on hold. Maybe this means they found his name in the register and—
“Sorry about that,” the woman says, returning to the line. “Had to sneeze. And no, no accident victims brought in tonight.”
Annie exhales. “Thanks,” she says, hanging up. She slides the phone into the back pocket of her jeans, and remains at the window, willing his stupid car to appear in the driveway. She imagines him parking under the pine tree, in his usual spot, and running toward the house, a pepperoni pizza in his hands. “Waited nearly fifteen hours for this thing,” he’d say, shaking the rain from his hair. “The service at that place is terrible.”
She paces the room, ending up in the kitchen. Sam’s hoodie is where he left it yesterday, draped over a stool at the island, and she slips into it, opening the refrigerator and staring blankly inside. Her phone rings in her pocket, and she scrambles for it, her heart sinking when she sees the number. It’s not him. It’s Maddie, her cousin, calling from France.
“Hear anything?” Maddie asks when Annie answers.
“Nothing.” Annie called Maddie last night, telling her they were having a bad storm and Sam was two hours late coming home. The town had issued a travel warning, the chief of police advising people to stay off the roads. Annie’s calls were going right to his voice mail, and she’d decided to brave the roads and drive to the Lawrence House, praying he had decided to stay at the office to wait out the storm. The rain battered her windshield so hard she could barely see. Downtown was dark and deserted, large branches strewn across the street. Her phone vibrated on the passenger seat as she drove over the bridge on Cherry Lane toward the Lawrence House: an emergency alert from the National Weather Service. Flash flood warning in effect. Avoid high water areas. Check local media.
The Lawrence House was dark, and Sam’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Annie got drenched as she raced down the path to Sam’s office, where she cupped her face to the glass. The waiting room was dark, the door to his office closed.
“Did you call the police?” Maddie asks.
“Yes, last night. An officer took my statement, said they’d keep an eye out for his car.”
“That’s good, right?” Maddie says.
“None of this is good.”
Maddie sighs heavily. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m terrified,” Annie says.
“You want me to come over?” Maddie asks.
“Of course I want you to come over,” Annie says. “But you live in France.” Maddie, her cousin, is the closest person to her, the daughter of her mother’s twin sister, Therese. It was at their house Annie spent holidays after her parents died, with the aunt and uncle who opened their home to her as if she were their daughter.
“I know,” says Maddie. “But they have airplanes now. I can be there tomorrow.”
“I’m fine.” She tells Maddie she’ll call if she hears anything and then heads down the hall to the bedroom. She stops at the French doors that open onto the stone patio and sees they’ve lost one of the young oaks they planted a few weeks after moving in. Sam will be back to clean up the yard, she thinks. He’ll be out there tomorrow, piling branches into his wheelbarrow for firewood.
She sits on his side of the bed and rests her face in her hands. Something’s been off with him. For a few weeks now he’s been distracted and distant, sleeping poorly at night. She asked him the other day, over breakfast, if he wanted to talk about what was on his mind, and he grumbled something vague—the new practice, his mother—making it clear that he didn’t. She left it alone, figured he’d tell her when he was ready.
She lies back and closes her eyes, and she’s on the cusp of sleep when she hears a car in the driveway. She scrambles out of bed and looks out the window. It’s the police.
“Franklin Sheehy,” the man says when she opens the door. “Chief of police.”