COMMUNITY SEARCH FOR SAM STATLER! MEET AT THE BOWLING ALLEY! DRESS WARM!
They’re looking for him! Right now, probably. Sam imagines them, out in this rain, searching for his car—wherever the hell that thing went! Which means it’s only a matter of time before they find him and—
Missing Chestnut Hill Psychologist Discovered to Be in Significant Debt at Time of Disappearance.
Chief of Police Franklin Sheehy says investigators will continue to pursue all credible leads, but in light of the recent discovery of Statler’s debt, which is believed to be upward of $100,000, and kept secret from his wife, law enforcement officials are increasingly considering the possibility that his disappearance was not accidental.
No.
He feels sick to his stomach, and yet he turns the page to another sleeve of photographs. It’s Margaret, in her room at Rushing Waters, cheek to cheek with Albert.
He’s been visiting Sam’s mother.
And here we go, folks, Teddy says. Statler’s on the move. Sam drops the binder and heads through the pocket doors. Back in the living room, he studies the picture window again, wondering if it’s worth the risk to throw an end table through the glass and do his best to jump, when something clicks in his head. He turns his chair around and gets himself back to the kitchen, to the wall covered in the cascading leaves of the hanging plants. He yanks a handful of leaves, bringing a plant crashing to the floor. Yes! He was right. There’s a sliding glass door behind these plants. He swipes at the leaves, pulling the plants down, one by one, leaving a carpet of dirt on the floor.
Looks like Statler found a way out, his father observes as Sam stares at the sliding glass door that opens onto a small stone patio. He reaches for the lock on the handle. He slides it up. It works. A lock in this house that actually unlocks. Sam yanks the door open. He gazes at the backyard, and with one deep breath, he throws himself off his chair, onto his stomach.
Would you believe it? He did it, Ted Statler purrs as Sam crawls out the door into the cold and wet backyard. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this kid’s not completely useless after all.
Chapter 42
The cute woman behind the bar shoots Annie the perfectly normal smile of a person pretending not to know she’s the one married to the hot guy who went missing, his face smiling from the MISSING flyers still hanging on in some places. “What can I get you?” she asks, setting a menu down in front of Annie.
“A job with a living wage and a restored faith in humanity,” Annie says.
The woman makes a face. “What do you think this is, the Netherlands?”
Annie laughs for the first time in eight days. “Gin martini with five olives.” She pushes the menu away. “That counts as dinner, right?”
Annie watches her mix the drink and she can feel the chill off the glass when the woman sets it down in front of her. “Happy anniversary, asshole,” Annie whispers, raising the glass to the empty stool beside her. She takes a long swallow and considers the idea again: this is part of the chase. He’s playing a part, the most fucked-up one yet: the Missing Husband. She imagines him, his feet up in front of a fire at an Airbnb in Saugerties, their favorite town in the Catskills, relishing it all. He’s been taking his meals at the diner, sitting in front of a sausage scramble and bottomless cup of coffee, reading the articles about his disappearance. He’s probably busy planning his return right now, in fact, when he’ll burst through the front door disheveled and unshaven, his face artistically streaked with mud for the big reveal. “Honey, guess what? I’m alive!”
He’ll take a seat at the kitchen table and spin a story about the fugue state he’s been living in for eight days, brought on by a concussion he doesn’t remember getting. How he hitched a ride home from New Orleans with a dude in an eighteen-wheeler who chain-smoked the whole way. She’ll break down in tears and tell him how much she missed him, and the inevitable sex will be so hot she’ll regret not having thought of the scenario herself.
The gin is warming her, and she’s aware, of course, that it’s far more likely that this was all “the chase,” the entire thing, from day one. Sam was the deeply kind and curious man determined to change her idea about love, and she was the schmuck who fell for it. She’s got to give him credit: He really committed to the role, sweeping her off her feet at a goddamn Brooks Brothers. She thought he might be fun for a night, but he surprised her. He was witty and smart, introspective in a way she’d rarely experienced in a man.
It took him only six months to suggest marriage, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse for sale in his sleepy hometown. He had spent his weekend at his mother’s house, packing her for the move to Rushing Waters,? when he called Annie and told her about the house he’d found for sale. “There’s a train leaving in forty-seven minutes,” he said. “Get on it and come see it with me.”