Thought I Knew You (7 page)

Chapter 9

M
orning wasn’t friendly. I sat
up, my head pulsing, and drank from the glass of water on the nightstand. I spotted a bottle of Advil beside the lamp and threw back two of them. Bless Drew.

He lay next to me on the queen-sized bed, sleeping on top of the covers, always the gentleman. He looked older than I remembered, still handsome with his dark hair and Roman nose. He was thinner, lankier. He had always been good to me, and I’d always taken advantage. I knew of some of his girlfriends, and I knew some of the breakups were painful, but he’d never called me in the middle of the night to talk, never showed up at my front door unannounced. I put my hand on his stubbled cheek.

He opened his eyes and broke into a wide grin. “You have got to feel
awful
.”

“No, I’m okay.” I kissed his forehead. “Thank you. I mean that. I don’t know what I would have done on this trip without you. And thank you for the water and the Advil. That’s so you.”

“No problem.” He stretched, yawning loudly. “So… what’s today’s plan?”

“Same as yesterday’s—find Greg. I have ideas. Go get a shower and meet me back here?”

He saluted sleepily and trudged heavily into his room, shutting the door behind him.

We left the hotel an hour later, got a table at Starbucks, and formed some kind of game plan. My newfound kick-ass attitude was more comfortable with the game analogy than I’d been previously. We outlined a list of stops and walked the quarter-mile to Advent Rochester.

At the front desk, I flashed my Advent badge and asked to see Burt Rainer. Burt was the compliance contact at Rochester, and I knew he’d have a complete list of training classes and be able to talk about Greg’s schedule. I asked Drew to take a seat and wait for me. I explained that everything in the company was badge access, and an outsider wasn’t likely to be admitted past the lobby.

A few moments later, a tall, heavyset man in a navy blue suit came around the corner, puffing and red-faced from exertion. “Claire Barnes?”

“Hi, Burt.” I extended my hand, and he took it. “We met a few years ago. I’m Greg’s wife. I also work at Advent, but I’m based in Raritan.”

A look of alarm crossed his face. “Hi, Claire. Of course I remember you.” He motioned me down the hall and badged us into his office. He moved to sit behind his desk, and I chose one of the two chairs across from him.

He fiddled with a pen. “I heard something happened to Greg. The police were here, and I spoke to them, but I haven’t heard any updates. What’s going on?”

“Well, Greg is missing. No one from work has heard from him. I haven’t heard from him, and the police can’t find him.” I took a deep breath. From what I remembered, Burt was a family man. “Burt, I have to be honest. I’m here because I’m driven to be. The police don’t know I’m here. But honestly, if your wife went missing, wouldn’t you feel compelled to go to the last place she’d been? I’ve already uncovered at least one detail the police didn’t, based on the fact that I knew my husband. So, please, could you tell me what you told the police?”

He nodded. “I’d be happy to tell you the same thing I told Detective… Reynolds, was it?” I nodded. “Greg wasn’t here for any official business. There was no training scheduled for that week. I have no idea why he was in town.” He fidgeted, twirling his wedding ring around his finger.

I felt thrown down the rabbit hole. Again. I sat breathless, in stunned silence. Of all the responses I thought I would get, that was not one of them. I didn’t scream or cry. With each blow, I became further removed from Greg, the husband I thought I knew so well. Each new heartbreaking fact hardened my armor.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

“Yes, I’m okay.” Shockingly, it was true. I had a thought. “What about Toronto?” Advent had a small satellite site in Toronto, mostly just offices, no labs or manufacturing, but it had a regulatory section, which infrequently required Greg for training.

Burt looked thoughtful. “I haven’t heard of anything, but I didn’t think about that.” He held up a finger and picked up his phone. He dialed and then waited a few seconds. “Hi, Jeannie. This is Burt. Can you check the training schedule for me about something?” He nodded. “Yep, the week of the twenty-sixth through the first of October. Did you guys have anything scheduled? How about the week before or after? Okay, thanks a bunch. Yep, I’ll talk to you soon.”

He hung up and shook his head. “No, there was nothing that week or the week before or after. That’s not unusual. They only need annual training sessions, and I think they have qualified personnel onsite, even if they required an extra one.” He looked thoughtful. “I’m really scratching my head here, trying to think of a reason why he would be in Rochester. We didn’t even have any training scheduled for that week taught by anyone else.”

“What about a meeting with someone?”

Burt shrugged. “When the police were here, I did a search of everyone’s calendar for Greg’s name. In addition, we pulled everyone who would have had reason to meet with him into the office, and the police interviewed them. Detective Reynolds said he was going to go back and interview Greg’s manager and colleagues, but I haven’t heard anything else.”

I put my hand to my head, trying to steady my spinning thoughts.

“I’m sorry, Claire. I wish I had more. I know you said you uncovered a detail by coming here, so I’m glad it wasn’t a wasted trip, but I do think you should go home and communicate with the detectives. I hope you figure all this out.” He stood up then, a dismissal, a polite one, but still a dismissal.
Oh, your husband’s missing? Well, that stinks. Listen, I have a ten o’clock, so can we reschedule this?
The corporate world turns.

I stood and shook his hand. “Thanks for meeting with me. I’ll keep you updated. Please give me a call if something turns up.” I pulled out a business card, jotted my cell phone number on the back, and handed it to him.

He took the card, flipped it over twice, studying the front and back, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He coughed nervously and walked me to the door, promising to call if he learned anything.

In the lobby, I filled Drew in on the development. He finally looked shocked, the seeds of doubt about Greg’s fidelity creeping into his eyes.

Husband lies about business trip, goes on fake business trip, checks into hotel for fake business trip, eats Thai with mystery woman, disappears.
I was starting to see the writing on the wall, and it read,
Lying Cheating Bastard
.

After talking to Burt, I just wanted to leave. I felt so foolish, as half of what I found out, the police would already know. I needed to go home and meet with Detective Reynolds, who had probably found out about our adventure and wasn’t thrilled with it. What had I been thinking, that I was going to ride up to Rochester and rescue Greg from invisible kidnappers? That I would find him when the police couldn’t and magically bring him home?

I asked Drew to drive, and I resumed my window watching. I actually felt sorry for him; this was some sad excuse for a road trip.

When I said as much, he laughed. “Oh well. I got something I needed out of this trip, too. You think I did this all for you? Pfffffttttt…” He waved his hand.

“What are you talking about?”

“I got to disappear for a few days,” he said. “Pardon the expression. My disappearance is temporary, of course.”

Ah… nothing is sacred.
“From who?”

“Clients.” He shrugged. “I have my agent and potential clients cold-calling me to find out when I’m releasing more prints. You know what I called the last one?
Irony.
”

I laughed. A real laugh and it felt good. “Why
Irony?
”

“Because it contains nine photographs I took of complete poverty, not in Ethiopia or some third world country, but in New York City. It’s disgusting, and the guy who eventually bought it paid three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. He hangs the whole collection in his foyer, which I swear would hold your house. So there you go. That’s irony, right?”

I was awed by the figure, but tried not to let it show. “If you’re so disgusted by it, why do you do it?”

“Because what else am I going to do? I love photography, and I love making money on it. I hate that people will pay that amount of money for photographs of poverty, though. It seems criminal. I mean, that guy should have just donated three grand to charity. But he told his rich friends, and now, everyone wants pictures of poor people. It’s so twisted.”

“The world
is
twisted,” I agreed.

“You know the worst part? I gave more than half of that away. I gave it to the people whose pictures I had taken. I condemn the rich for paying that much for art, but then I give only half of it away? I should just give it all away, but I don’t.” He shook his head.

I gaped at him. “You gave that much away? That’s amazing. Nobody else would do that. Why would you put yourself down for that?”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. The point is, I came here for you and your crisis in part, but really, I came for me. So thank
you
.”

My heart swelled with love. It didn’t matter if his story was true or not. I knew he had told me to help me feel as if I wasn’t using him, though we both knew I was. I also knew he told me some of it to distract me from my own plight for the first time in about two weeks. That alone was worth the trip.

Five hours later, when we pulled into my driveway, Detective Matt Reynolds stood on the porch waiting for me.

Chapter 10

“N
o, you’re right. I’m not
happy with it.” Detective Reynolds sat in my living room, in Greg’s easy chair. Drew and I sat on the couch, chastened children in my own home. “Here’s why. We don’t know Greg at all. For all we know, he was involved in something criminal and is now at the bottom of the Delaware River. Or more likely, the Genessee River.”

I must have made a face because the detective gave me a stern look. “Mrs. Barnes, excuse me if I don’t mince words, but you openly admitted you didn’t know your husband well at the time of his disappearance. So you go to Rochester and start asking questions. What if someone finds out and decides you should take a swim with your husband? It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Let us do our job. I repeat. Let. Us. Do. Our. Job.”

“I understand,” I said. “But
you
have to understand. Wouldn’t you be drawn to the last place your wife was seen alive? I don’t know if Greg is dead in a ditch somewhere or hiding out in the Dominican Republic with his mistress. I have no idea. Although I did find something that you didn’t, so it wasn’t a wasted trip.”

“Okay, we’ll retrace your steps. But please don’t do that again. I promise we’ll do all we can to find your husband. Now, please, let’s run through what you did, who you talked to, and what you found out.”

Drew and I recounted the events of the last two days.

When I told Detective Reynolds about confirming with Burt Rainer that there was no scheduled training class for that week, he nodded. “We knew that, but we didn’t check with Toronto. So, that was good thinking.” He wrote something down in his notebook.

I told him about
Pad Thai
, and he looked surprised. “We’ll have to go back and formally interview the hostess, but we were planning on going back up there next week anyway.”

“But I don’t know what I’m supposed to
do
. I’m driven to do something. I need to be part of this, to find resolution.”

The detective shook his head. “Claire…” He reached over and put his hand on mine. “You can’t be part of this. We will update you as often as we can. We have Greg’s car. It was at the airport, where we expected it. It’s been at the station for a few days. It had to be searched and processed. You can come get it at some point, or I can drive it over.”

“I don’t want to drive it.” I closed my eyes. I pictured the driver’s side with the seat fully extended for Greg’s long legs and his glasses, which he wore only to drive, in the glove compartment. All the mirrors were positioned for his eyes, and adjusting them so that I could drive would feel like another erasure, another small exorcism of Greg from our lives. Greg’s car had a wonderful smell, like leather, cologne, vanilla air freshener, and Greg, all mixed together in an intoxicating cocktail. I knew there was no way I’d be able to drive that car.

“I’ll pick it up,” Drew said.

For a moment, I had forgotten Drew was there. I thanked him and turned back to the detective. “What else have you found out?”

Detective Reynolds opened his notebook. “Sometime after he landed in Rochester, he withdrew a thousand dollars from the ATM. Is that usual? Did he usually carry that much cash?”

I was taken aback. “Greg never really carried cash. I used to tell him all the time to take out more than twenty bucks at a shot because the surcharges are so high, but he never did. He used his debit card for everything. So, no, that’s not like him at all.”
That sounds as though he was planning something.

Detective Reynolds wrote in his notebook. “We did get a hold of his corporate cell phone, corporate credit card records, and with your permission, we’d like to review your personal credit records, Claire.”