“How big were these meetings?” I asked, frowning. I could certainly see why she thought the temple was involved.
“I don’t know. That first night there were about twenty people there, I think.”
“Did you ever ask to go with him again?” I could hear the frustration rife in her voice.
“I did,” Wendy said. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I thought, so I suggested I go along after I saw he wasn’t going to stop.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that I wouldn’t like it. He said I’d get bored, that he’d moved into a ‘higher rank’, whatever that meant. After a while, I quit asking, but demanded that he spend more time at home. That was our sex life stopped. But he didn’t seem to care. By then, he felt so distant. He’d built a wall around himself and I couldn’t break through,” she added. “Then, last week, he just vanished, with most of our cash. But I know something happened to him. He wouldn’t just run out on me.”
It occurred to me that too often, spouses did just that. And nobody ever suspected they were the type until it happened.
“Did you do any investigating on your own?” I asked. “Have you called his friends, coworkers?
“Everybody I could think of.” Wendy sat back and crossed one leg over the other. Frowning, she added, “I’ve tried, I really tried. But the trail just died. His phone hasn’t been touched since his last phone call to me. The credit cards, either. The only thing is that he stole all our money—well, most of it.”
“What about the group? What do you know about it?”
She shook her head. “All I know is the names of the pair who run it. I’ve looked on line but can’t find out anything—not even when it was formed. They don’t have a website that I can find. I don’t think it’s a nationwide group. And now, I don’t know what to do. I went to the police but they said that Mark’s an adult and they can’t do anything unless there’s some sign of foul play. I think they just don’t want to add to their caseload.”
“You’re probably right on that count,” I said. “All right, if you’re up to it, can you walk us step-by-step through the day he disappeared?”
“It started like most days. I woke up and made my breakfast. Mark had stopped eating breakfast with me, he said he wanted to lose a lot of weight. I didn’t think that makes sense because he always ate a healthy diet, but he started shying away from the foods he used to love. He started wanting more fish, a lot of sushi, which he’d always hated.” She paused to finish her lemonade.
“So his eating habits were different, as well?” Dante made a note on his tablet.
“Right. I figured I didn’t want to make that my hill to die on, so I decided to ignore it. I was tired of the bullshit, and that day, I told him that he needed to come home early because his parents were coming over. It wasn’t true, but I figured that would make him come right home.”
“What would you tell him about why they weren’t there?”
“I figured I could make up some excuse as to why they weren’t there. And so he puttered around until I left for work. During the day I texted him several times, reminding him how important it was that he come home that night. I think he texted back twice, saying to quit worrying, that he’d be there.”
“But he never came home, correct?” Normally, I’d suspect a mistress, but something about this case screamed that Mark didn’t come home because he couldn’t.
“Right. He did text me, asking if I needed anything and saying that he was heading out. I told him no, we were fine. I waited, and that was the longest evening ever. By eight, I called his parents to see if he talked to them and found out that I lied to him. But they hadn’t heard from him in weeks. I broke down and told them everything that had happened. They said they would come over the next evening. That they would try to talk to him.”
“Do you have each other’s location marked on your phones?” Dante asked.
Once again, she gave a exhausted sigh. “We did, for safety’s sake. But when I went to check out where he was, it said his phone was turned off. I tried calling him, but he didn’t pick up. It went straight to voicemail. I waited up till one in the morning, and I called all the nearby hospitals in the area. I called all our friends. Nobody had seen him, nobody had heard from him. That’s when I began to panic.”
I could see several situations where he might turn off his phone — or it might have run out of charge. But even then, it seemed odd that he wouldn’t borrow somebody else’s to at least let Wendy know he was okay.
“I’m going to ask you a very difficult question now, but I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary. Twenty-five thousand dollars vanished from your bank—and they caught him on camera withdrawing it. Seriously, do you think there’s any possibility that Mark might have run away? That he might have just dropped everything and vanished on his own?”
Wendy thought for a moment. “If I thought he wanted to run away, if I thought he wanted out of the marriage all he would have to do is tell me. I’d be crushed, but I wouldn’t fight him, not if he insisted. I’m a selkie. I’m not dependent on any man for my happiness. Not in the long scheme of things. But I know Mark. The man I’ve lived with the past few months is not the Mark I married. Please help me find him. I have to know he’s okay. Even if he doesn’t want to come home, I have to know.”
She gave us all the information she could pull together about Mark, his friends, the path he took to work, a picture and even his suit size.
Finally, I asked, “Do you have anything he touched over the past few weeks? Something that might have his energy on it, that we can borrow? I have a friend who has some experience with psychometry, and I’d like to have her see if she can find anything.”
“Wait here.” She vanished, returning after a moment. She held out a watch. “This is his watch. He seldom went without it. In fact, when I found it on his nightstand, I almost called him to let him know it was safe. You can take it.”
I pocketed the watch, thanking her. She looked on the edge of tears and I decided that she had reached her limit. It was time to wrap this up.
“We just need the names of his close friends and work, and their contact info. Then, we’ll start investigating. We can always call you if we need more details.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll pay whatever it takes. Money’s not an issue. He took the majority of our cash, but I have investments.”
