‘And he didn’t say where?’ Jake dropped to the sofa to shove his feet into his trainers. Standing again, he raked a hand through his hair. ‘What time did he go out, Joyce?’ he asked after an interminably long minute, his voice tight with obvious emotion. ‘Right.’ Checking his watch, he breathed in hard. ‘And your neighbour’s called the police?’
Emily’s heart froze as he waited again, his face drained of all colour.
‘Is she with you now? Okay.’ He nodded, heading towards the hall. ‘Try to stay calm, Joyce. Tell the police everything you’ve told me. We’ll find him, I promise.’ He ended the call.
‘What’s happened?’ Cold foreboding clutching her insides, Emily spun around after him. ‘Jake, what it is?’
‘Ed went out, walking, he told Joyce,’ Jake said, searching the hall table, his jeans pockets and then his jacket pockets. ‘When she realised what the time was and came down, she found a note. She thinks …Dammit, where …?’ He looked past Emily to where Ben was hovering. ‘Ben, car keys?’
‘Shit.’ Clearly understanding the urgency, Ben parked any issue he had with Jake and hurried to grab them from his jacket hanging on the peg.
‘What did it say?’ Nausea churning her stomach, Emily followed Jake to the door.
Jake paused, his eyes flicking worriedly to Ben. ‘She thinks it’s a suicide note,’ he said, his voice tight.
‘Oh God, no.’ Emily reeled on her feet. ‘Not Ed.’ Panic clenching her stomach, she followed as Jake raced to his car, climbing beside him as he threw himself into the driver’s side. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Edward’s last words to her rang loudly in her head:Stand together. You’re a team. You always have been.
Jake didn’t argue. His faced etched with fearful trepidation, he glanced at her with a small nod and started the engine.
‘Wait!’ Ben called, stepping onto the drive.
Jake hit the brake. ‘You need to stay here, Ben,’ he shouted, opening his window. ‘I don’t want Millie coming back to an empty house.’
‘Queens Lake Woods,’ Ben said urgently. ‘Me and my mates have seen him up there a couple of times when we’ve been biking. He goes there birdwatching. He’s usually in the same place, looking for wood warblers or something. There’s a bench dedicated to the founder. It’s up by the Tall Trees Trail. That’s where we saw him.’
‘Jesus.’ Jake sucked in a breath. Exchanging glances with Emily, his eyes were shot through with palpable terror. Guessing that his mind had flown back to the darkest day of his life, that he was imagining Edward might have chosen this spot to end his life in the same devastating way his mother had, Emily’s heart constricted.
‘Thanks, Ben,’ he managed, his throat hoarse, nodded appreciatively in Ben’s direction, and reversed sharply.
Thirty-Eight
‘Why did I leave him?’ Jake gripped the steering wheel hard as they drove through the arboretum towards the Tall Trees Trail, scouring the woodland left and right as they went. ‘I shouldneverhave left him.’ Lifting a hand from the wheel, he slammed it back down hard, causing Emily to jump.
‘Jake, don’t,’ she said, tears springing to her eyes, fear for both him and Edward clutching her chest. ‘You couldn’t have done any more. He said he was tired. He said he was going to bed. He looked bone-weary. What else could you have done, other than what you did? You told him to come in and see you first thing.’
He shrugged hopelessly. ‘I could have stayed. Made sure he did.’
She reached across to him, squeezing his forearm. ‘You can’t do that for all your patients,’ she reminded him gently.
He drew in a breath, nodded and exhaled slowly.
‘Do you think he couldn’t bear the humiliation?’ she asked, her heart aching excruciatingly as she thought of Edward’s pain, the agony he must have gone through coming to such a horrendous decision.
Jake shook his head. ‘He didn’t do this for selfish reasons. I don’t think he has a selfish bone in his body. My gut tells me he’s doing it for Joyce. It was her he was worried about when he came to see me a while back. I’m guessing he thinks this way he will save her from the ignominy of his being charged with theft, a court case. She said he reminded her in his letter where his life insurance was.’
‘Because he wanted her to be able to stay in her beloved house.’ Emily understood immediately that that would have been exactly what Edward was thinking. He would have imagined she would need the money more than she needed a man who was about to bring shame to her door.
Swallowing back a jagged lump in her throat, she turned to the window. It was time to stop arguing, stop hurting each other. If all she’d thought about Jake were true, if he didn’t want to be with her, then she would have to try somehow to forgive him and let him go.
A few seconds later, Jake pulled the car to an abrupt stop. Behind Edward’s, Emily realised, her heart leaping into her mouth. ‘Please don’t let me be too late,’ he prayed out loud, shoving his door open and scrambling out.
Quickly Emily reached for her own door and climbed out.
‘Wait,’ Jake said as she headed into the woods, and raced around to the back of the car to grab the emergency medical bag he carried in the boot. His face deathly white, he heaved the rucksack onto his back and then, meeting her eyes briefly, nodded her on.
Passing a bench bearing no memorial plaque, they’d gone several yards down the trail when they reached the one Ben had described. Emily watched Jake looking up at the tall trees. She knew what he was thinking. Her heart bleeding for him, she tried to imagine what he was feeling, the unbearable heartbreak he would have suffered walking through his front door to find his mother’s limp form hanging in the hall.
Calling Edward’s name, they ducked into the trees, passing redwoods, maples and oaks, the smell of damp earth mingled with moss permeating the air, birds chirruping in the top branches, frantically or so it seemed to Emily. Keeping within earshot of each other, they separated but kept calling. Where was he? She prayed he had come to his senses and realised that Joyce would be lost without him; that all the money in the world couldn’t replace him. She’d almost convinced herself they would find him safe … until Jake said his name once again, his throat thick with disbelief.
