I close my eyes and seethe at this comment. If her goddamn lips were sealed, he’d be there getting his “usual” and I would have some hope to see him, to figure out who the hell this really is. I have to go there anyway—I have to see the place he goes so often—to see if there are any clues that will help me understand.
Once I check on Hallie and see she’s sleeping, I turn off her TV and cover her with a jack-o’-lantern quilt, then I go downstairs to face the basement. I stand at the top of the stairs with my heart pounding. The memory of last night flashes back, flitting across my brain, telling me there’s danger, but the danger is gone and I have to look through all of the fallen bankers boxes that sit in a pile on the concrete. Would a normal person be doing this? I find that I ask myself that question a lot lately, but if I waited to feel safe, I’d never make a move. And if I waited for someone else to save me or offer answers to all these questions, or unearth the truth, I’d probably justgo on waiting forever. No one is coming to save me. I have to save myself.
I prop a chair inside the door to the basement, paranoid it could close on me. I triple-check that it’s secure, and then I make my way down. The police offered to board up the broken window until a replacement could be arranged later this week, and it’s that kind of thing that makes me feel grateful to live in a small town. It’s still freezing and damp and smells faintly of mildew at the bottom of the stairs, and I don’t want to be down here, but why did this man rifle through our things? There has to be a reason. I hadn’t been down here since last Christmas and even then it was only for exactly five minutes while I grabbed some storage containers of decorations. The only things here are old tools and boxes of photo albums, suitcases, Jack’s golf clubs, boxes of receipts from home repairs and KitchenAid manuals—stuff like that. What in the world would anyone want? Maybe nothing. Maybe they were just lying in wait to try to kill me, but I go over and over that, and they would have done the job if that were the case, not panicked.
I pick up a few of the boxes and straighten up the contents. One is kids’ craft supplies—pipe cleaners, cotton balls, markers. The next is stuff that should probably be in the locked file cabinet—tax stuff and expired passport and mortgage documents. The last box I pick up is heavy, too heavy for paperwork and fingerpaints. I peer in and see a safe box. The kind that feels like it’s made of lead. It’s only about twelve by fourteen inches, but it feels like it’s over twenty pounds. It’s solid as a brick and locked.
I have never seen this thing before in my life. And then ithits me, stealing my breath when I put it together. The key I found in the glove compartment of Jack’s truck. Holy shit. What if this is what it opens? I hold the safe in both hands and take the stairs up two at a time, breathless, shaking. I put the safe down on the kitchen counter and start to fish in my handbag for my keys. I examine the small brass key for a moment and then say a little prayer as I fit it into the lock.
Click. It opens. It fucking opens. My hand flies to my mouth involuntarily as I stare down at its contents, in anticipation, but when I register what I am looking at, it’s not a gun or a million dollars or whatever the hell else I thought it might be. I didn’t have enough time to really think about it, I guess. It’s just an ID. A driver’s license and social security card, actually, but it’s not Jack’s. It’s just some guy’s. A stranger’s. Someone named Patrick Finch. Who the hell is Patrick... Oh, my God. I pick it up and stare. I stand up and place my hand on my chest to calm my racing heart. What am I looking at? It doesn’t add up.
It’s Jack’s photo next to the name “Patrick Finch.” A very, very young Jack on an ID that expired years ago.What?What does this mean?
I throw it back down on the counter and stare at the wall, my mind reeling, trying to understand. Then I go to the sofa where my laptop sits, and I google the name Patrick Finch. Lots of people come up, but none of them have Jack’s face. There was no LinkedIn or social media to speak of that long ago, so if this man—Patrick Finch—vanished over twenty years ago, who the hell is Jack Hoffman? Who did I marry? And which one is dead?
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and I jump. Then Itake a deep breath and place both hands on the table for a moment.Get a grip. Calm down. There is an explanation. There must be.I look at my phone. It’s a text from an unknown number with a local area code. I click it open and gasp when I read what it says.
Jack is dead. If you don’t stop, you’ll be next.
Chapter Seventeen
Sasha
When Sasha comes to, she can’t remember where she is for a moment. She blinks open her eyes and finds herself lying on a concrete basement floor. The air is smoky and heavy with the cloying scent of tobacco. She hears men’s voices talking nearby. The searing pain of her broken pinky almost makes her cry out, but she bites her cheek and holds back terrified tears as she pushes herself to sit.
There are three men across the room, sitting on metal folding chairs at a card table. One is smoking a cigar and they seem to be arguing about something, but her head is spinning and she can’t really put it all together—what’s happened, what they would want with her.
“My son,” she says in a hoarse whisper. The men look over, and one stands and comes over to her, peering down. She presses against the wall behind and shakily pushes herselfup using the basement doorknob as leverage. She doesn’t take her eyes off the man, calculating the distance—could she run up the stairs before he reached her? She’s not bound or locked up. Why not?
“What are you doing here?” the man asks, standing directly in front of her, holding his cigar and blowing the smoke sideways, not moving toward her like he plans to attack, but she doesn’t know what to expect. Her heart pounds. She grips the doorknob of the open basement door with one hand and the brick wall behind it with the other, feeling cornered and paralyzed with fear.
“My son,” she repeats. “What do you want with him? Why was he here?” she asks, more desperate than ever to protect Drew. The man’s expression changes into a smirk.
“The kid. That’s what this is about. Jesus.”
“We don’t want nothin’ with that kid, lady,” one of the guys at the table says, but he’s not even looking at Sasha. He’s drinking a beer and focusing on the cards in front of him. She feels her phone buzzing in her pocket again and again.
“Is he in trouble? Does—does he owe you money or something? I’ll pay. I can—”
“He already paid,” the guy with the cigar says, smoke billowing out the sides of his chilling smile. “Stay out of it,” he says, and Sasha feels a cold sweat forming beneath her coat and the broken bone in her finger throbbing and her head aching and she wants to be home and she hates that all of this is happening, but she can’t possibly stay out of it. It’s her son. He’s been through enough. She won’t let him ruin his life or get himself killed. Who the fuck are these people? What do they want?
“Told ya she wasn’t police,” another of the men says.
“Paid for what? Please. I need to know if he’s in trouble. What do you—why was he here? What do you want from him?” Her phone buzzes in her pocket again—Tom worried sick about her, no doubt.
“Not a thing,” the man with the cigar says, turning his back to her and walking over to the coffee table, where he sits with the other two beneath the swaying single lightbulb that hangs above it and casts dancing shadows around the basement. She cradles her hurt hand in the other and looks down at it completely confused, unsure what to do next.
“That was just a little warning, from me to you. You were never here. And if you forget you were never here and tell someone... well, that won’t go well for you. Or Drew.” When he says her son’s name, Sasha feels a wave of nausea so strong, she actually cups her hand over her mouth, briefly thinking she could vomit. The pain, the confusion, the fear... it’s all so overwhelming.
One of the men who has remained seated gets up as if he’s suddenly annoyed and rushes to Sasha, who backs up and falls, catching herself on the stairs.
“823 River Ridge Lane.”
“What?” she stutters.
“Are we clear?” the man says, slamming the door closed so she’s sitting in the dark basement stairwell realizing they’ve let her go and are not, in fact, planning on killing her or breaking the rest of her bones. It was all a warning. She jolts to her feet and runs up the stairs and out the metal side door and just like that, she’s outside. She’s free. Her car is there. She scrambles, almost tripping over herself to open the car door, and once she’s safe inside, she understands what has just happened. Not all of it. But 823 River Ridge Lane is her address. If she goesto the police, or even tells Drew or anyone, she supposes that means she’s dead. Or worse, one of her children will be dead.
She screeches away from the empty parking lot and onto the main road, too numb to cry, glancing back in the rearview mirror at the nondescript smoke shop that has a secret identity. It’s a front for something and she can’t believe she can’t figure out for what. She tries to think about what she will tell Tom. How did she break a finger? She looks at the clock and it’s just after 5 p.m. Tom might not even have noticed she’s been gone. He’s in New York and was going to have a busy day. She looks at her phone and he hasn’t called yet. Thank God. Just a text that says,love you, I’ll call after the dinner rush.
