When You Find Me Page 7

  What medications does Paul take?

  What’s Paul’s blood type?

  Any reason to believe Paul might be at risk of either injury or death?

  Under the table, I dug my nails into my thighs.

  Nina exhaled as she finished writing down my answers. “This next one’s going seem a bit redundant after our conversation last night, but I’ll need an official answer.”

  “Okay…”

  “What reasons do you, as the reporting person, have to believe Paul is missing?”

  “I don’t think he’s missing,” I answered. “We’re going through this as a formality. At your suggestion. We had a fight. He took off to cool down.” My reasoning rang hollower every time I repeated it. More and more time had passed since I’d first made the assertion.

  Nina held that same stout poker face, but she no doubt heard my argument for all its hollowness, too.

  “You indicated there had been a fight? Over Jacob Wilcox?”

  “Yes.”

  “Intoxication from alcohol prevented your recollection of events beyond that initial fight?”

  “Yes.” I avoided Mamma’s eyes.

  “Has Paul been jealous before?”

  “Well, yes. But everyone gets jealous.”

  She paused for a moment, then continued, “Let me turn the question around: Have you ever been jealous of Paul?”

  “I don’t understand,” I told her. What do I have to be jealous of Paul for?

  “Have you ever questioned Paul’s own fidelity? The way he seemed to have questioned yours?”

  This line of inquiry made me itch, and my thoughts darted to his phone. To the way he’d kept its screen obscured. “Why is that important?”

  Her face was unchanged. “Sometimes in stressful situations, people project their own feelings onto others. When someone’s hiding something, it’s not unusual to accuse loved ones of keeping secrets themselves. Perhaps Paul became accusatory because of his own insecurities?”

  I shook my head. “That’s crazy. He’d never. Besides, I…” I hesitated as Nina leaned forward. “I kissed Jacob. Or at least, he kissed me. I don’t remember which.”

  “Gray!” Mamma’s face flushed.

  I explained quickly. “Briefly. I tried to stop him. At least, I think I did.”

  “And Paul saw this?” Nina asked.

  “Yes. He did. I’m sure of that much.”

  “And that’s where the memories stop?”

  “Yes.”

  Nina leaned back in her chair.

  “There’s something else,” I dug my phone out from my hand bag. “A voicemail. A woman called me last night, but I didn’t have my phone.” I placed my cell phone on the table top. Screen up.

  “You didn’t have your phone, and your husband is missing?” Nina looked incredulous.

  My foolishness had caught up to me again, like a razor-toothed trap I’d set, only to forget about and later walk into. “I know it sounds stupid. It is stupid.”

  She creased her brow. “Who is the woman? What did she say?”

  “She said she wanted to talk to me about Paul. She said her name’s Annie, and she’d be in touch. No callback number. The caller ID had been blocked, too.”

  Phone on speaker, I played the cryptic voicemail.

  “… there’s something going on here you don’t know,” the woman whispered as she wrapped up her message. She sounded a touch different now. A dash smug.

  Nina spoke, “A woman named Annie calls the day after Paul disappears and indicates a desire to communicate with you. But leaves no number? That’s interesting.”

  “It’s absurd is what it is,” Mamma added.

  “And I’m guessing the name Annie rings no bells?” Nina’s tone had changed. Maybe Annie’s voicemail would change her approach? Take the glare off me?

  “No. And why would she say she wanted to talk and not provide a number? Set her own number to private?” I scoured Nina’s face for an explanation.

  “Perhaps she’s afraid of something, something leading her to hide her contact information. But it’s not frightening enough to prevent her from at least attempting to reach out. Or…”

  “Or?” My eyes widened. I clung to each new word as though they were rungs on a ladder meant to rescue me from drowning.

  Nina spoke slowly, “Maybe she’s alerting you to her presence. To her existence.”

  11

  Nina

  As the interview concluded, I handed off the paperwork to Sammie, who’d popped in to collect it. His timing had been perfect. Sammie had a sixth sense for when he was needed as a foil. To drain whatever tension the Fish Bowl had accumulated.

  Joanna King came with her own set of concerns. “You won’t disclose the report to anyone, will you? Beyond law enforcement?” she asked as I escorted her and Gray to reception.

  “It’s standard practice not to comment on any ongoing investigation when asked. But—”

  “But someone like Paul,” Joanna said, “he’s so well known amongst certain people. Important people. And this is a very delicate matter.”

  Her unusual request stopped me in my tracks, and I did my best to speak clearly. “Mrs. King, alerting the media to Paul’s absence might be helpful. At the very least, it’ll multiply the pairs of eyes on the lookout for him. If he is engaged in something…” I glanced at Gray, “untoward, it might expedite his return to the family.”

  “Untoward?” Joanna arched her brow. Gray remained silent, fidgeting with the strap of her designer bag.

  “If he’s in some way involved with this woman, Annie, wider knowledge of his absence might compel him to come home. For someone like him, the media is often the best tool for this.”

  “But he’s not a child. There’s no Amber Alert to send down the wire. You don’t have to tell anyone on the outside.”

  The idea of people knowing irked her. I wondered if uncovering Mr. Godfrey’s whereabouts was nearly as important to her. Joanna’s check to Auntie Tilda rushed to the forefront of my mind.

  “Recall, Mrs. King, it wasn’t until news of Governor Mark Sanford’s absence broke, that he returned from his trip to Argentina,” I said.

  Joanna shot down the comparison to the disgraced South Carolina politician. “Don’t be ridiculous. Paul’s not cavorting with some South American mistress.”

  Dancing around the subject was getting us nowhere. “According to you and your daughter, Paul isn’t at risk of injury from any medical condition. The keys had been taken from the abandoned vehicle indicating a desire to maintain access to the car or whatever else he had keys for in his life. And a woman makes her presence known the instant he runs off. After a jealous altercation. I believe it would behoove us to alert news outlets.”

  Joanna began to speak again, but Gray interrupted. “Do it,” she said. “Inform the news.”

  “Gray, he’s preparing a run for office.” Joanna struggled to whisper, but her icy eyes remained tightly focused on mine.

  Now it made sense. “Mrs. King, until Paul is located, he’s not running for anything.”

  “I said to do it,” Gray repeated. “I’m his wife. It’s not up to Mamma.”

  “Thank you.” I nodded. “Sammie’s uploading your report to all the appropriate databases now. We’ll begin monitoring the accounts Paul maintains access to. And, importantly,” I paused to lock eyes with Gray, “we need to identify who Annie is and where Annie is. Whatever her motivation, I suspect she’ll reach out again. You need to let me know the moment this happens.”

  “I understand,” Gray replied.

  “I’ll phone Channel Thirteen and the Elizabeth Gazette. Be prepared for questions, phone inquiries, reporters showing up at Piper Point unannounced. Remember, the more information we share, the sooner Paul returns.”

  “Mrs. King.” A baritone voice called from behind me. Sheriff Burton.

  A moment later my boss stood beside me, uniform diligently pressed. Short and completely bald. Arms gym-thickened to compensat
e for both.

  “I wanted to say hello before y’all left,” he drawled. “Give you my personal assurances this matter will be resolved quickly and to your liking. Won’t it, Nina?” He managed to patronize me and overpromise in a single breath. A personal best on his part?

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  “See that you do,” Joanna said, added, “The both of you.”

  The two women smiled—Joanna’s faked and Gray’s strained—and vanished through the revolving front doors.

  I’d yet to fully make up my mind about Auntie Tilda’s will, but Joanna King’s penchant for secrecy put me over the edge. I’d become executer over my lunch break today.

  Intense discretion, my ass.

  * * *

  Later on, I sat at Auntie Tilda’s kitchen table. Jasmine tea in a Disney mug, notepad, and tape recorder in front of me. I rewound the tape and played it back again.

  Gray’s words came off staggered. She was nervous, which was understandable. But I couldn’t help feeling something else was weighing her down, punctuating her sentences with a fear that went beyond Paul’s absence. Perhaps the idea of an unfaithful husband burdened her heavier than a missing one.

  “Can you list everyone you recall having contact with that evening? Paul, too?” I asked on the tape. “I’ll need to speak with each of them.”

  “Yes. Of course,” she replied. “There was Frances Miles—you know her. Obviously, Jacob Wilcox. Oh, a man at the bar I chatted with briefly. Jonas was his name, I think. We took a couple shots together.”

  “But no Annie,” I’d said.

  “No. There may have been an Annie there, but if there was, I don’t know her.”

  I stopped the tape and took a sip of tea. I’d listed Jacob Wilcox, then Frances Miles next. Then Jonas X and Annie X. The list of names on my notepad wasn’t long. I needed to speak with Charlotte, too. She could corroborate Gray’s intoxication and give me a more reliable timeline than either Gray or her mother.

  I fished my phone out of my book bag on the floor. The sooner I contacted each of these people, the better. Charlotte, Frances, and Jacob would be simple enough. It might take a few calls to find this Jonas, but Elizabeth was only so big. Annie, on the other hand, might not be easy.

  But I had a feeling she’d make another attempt at contact with Gray. The question was why’d she pause midmessage to abort without leaving a callback number? Even if she wanted to help, perhaps she viewed whatever information she had as dangerous, potentially damaging to the soon-to-be candidate Paul or Gray or both. The King family may no longer be Elizabeth’s feudal lords like they once were, but an echo of their influence remained. If Annie had ever been in town, Matthew and his damned billboard might’ve scared her off.

  The other possibility was tawdrier. And more believable. Annie was Paul’s mistress. The mistress he’d presumably run off with—at least temporarily. And mistresses tended to be territorial. My own mother had played the role more than once herself: The persistent phone calls to the man’s home. The hang ups that followed once the wife answered. The calls often continued or intensified when the husband was out of town—sometimes even when he was out of town with the mistress. Regardless of the husband’s long-term intentions, inevitably the mistress wanted him as her own. And for that to occur, the family must be destroyed. The calls acted like terrorism. They spread insecurity and fear throughout the household, predisposing it to unraveling.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Annie intended. If not terrorism, perhaps this was a victory lap?

  My phone vibrated. Sheriff Burton’s number displayed.

  “Sir,” I answered. “What’s up?”

  “Paul Godfrey,” he started.

  “Right.”

  “I know I said this earlier, but I want to make sure you get it. Paul’s case is priority number one. Folks betting on his election are getting antsy up in the District. Wanna know if they’ve still got a candidate they can count on.”

  “Understood.”

  “I’ve relaxed your budget. I want this put away fast. I’ve also phoned Charleston; they’re dispatching a forensics team to Paul Revere Highway. I’ve declared it a pending crime scene till Paul turns up. They’ll take care of everything on that front.”

  I took another sip of tea. Still hot. “Thanks for that, Sheriff. In the meantime, I want to move on my current theory.”

  “The Governor Sanford hypothesis?” Laughter hid behind his words.

  “Correct. Anything that ratchets up the heat on Paul to return to his family gets leaked to the press. We need to pull his finances, everything. Anything potentially embarrassing needs to be identified.”

  “To use as leverage in a missing persons case?” Burton’s promise to Joanna scrolled through my mind: To your liking.

  Another sip. “We need to smoke Paul out. If he’s in Bermuda with a woman named Annie, this is how we do it. Besides, forensics won’t be done in a day.”

  “I’m concerned with how this might look,” Burton replied. “Not that I don’t buy into your working theory. I’m just worried about how this might come off. Especially…”

  Returning the mug to the table with a thud, I got ahead of him. “Because of my aunt’s past with the family?”

  A pause on the other end of the line. Even if he was thinking it, he wasn’t ready to go there. Yet. “Mr. Godfrey is a VIP, and you know damn well that family is, too. At least around here. Everything we do is going to be scrutinized. This ain’t a John Doe by any stretch.”

  “Agreed.”

  Burton hesitated, said, “There’s already a snafu in the timeline.” Papers rustled. “A delay with regards to a rental car.”

  “I checked reports, kept you looped in.”

  “I recall, Nina. But you’ve got to be careful. Do this really right.”

  “We’re on the same page here, sir.” I drew a deep breath. “Look, as far as we know, Paul’s run off. And as far as I’m concerned, the less I have to do with the Kings, the better. Believe me. But this is my job, and I’m taking it seriously.”

  “See that you do.” He redirected Joanna’s instruction to him to me, verbatim. With a muffled click, he hung up.

  I paused as his words replayed in my mind. Leverage in a missing persons case. When you said it like that, of course it came off sounding sour. But likely, that’s what had happened. Paul had run off with Annie. This was how you brought someone like him back. You give him something to lose.

  This had nothing to do with damaging the King family. Nothing to do with Joanna’s checks to Auntie, either.

  I stood and paced to the junk drawer by the fridge. I’d tucked Auntie’s last few bank statements in it. Word had spread around town that I stayed here to look after her so the probate office hadn’t hesitated to grant me executorship. They happily looked the other way when I forged her signature next to mine. Funny how well “cancer” served as an explanation for nearly anything. After that, the bank hadn’t given a second thought to giving me access to her single checking account.

  As I expected, Mrs. King’s severance check had been the latest in a long line of them. Always issued towards the end of the quarter. Always one thousand dollars.

  It read like a payoff. But why? The damage from Auntie’s tape had already been done. In a huge, nasty way. The late Seamus King had left the campaign trail in disgrace. It had been bad, but long forgotten. At least, by most folks.

  Having something to lose motivates folks to behave unusually. I was counting on the idea to force Paul to surface. But what did Joanna have to lose?

  12

  Gray

  Exactly one television existed at Piper Point. An older model in a wooden box stood in the cramped den off the kitchen. The same green loveseat sat before it, broken in from years of service to Daddy.

  At 5:58 PM, I sat there with Charlotte by my side. Mamma hovered behind us. Cora was baking cookies, chocolate chip by the smell, with Joseph and David. We waited for the six o’clock ne
ws. For the iron shoe that promised to drop with it.

  I’d never needed a drink so badly.

  Not once had I been left alone today. There’d been no chance to slip into the liquor store, and I’d taken the rest of the pills I’d pilfered the night before.

  “You better call Paul’s mother. She’s the only living family Paul has, and she deserves to hear this from you. Not the news,” Mamma declared.

  The grandfather clock in the foyer chimed, cutting her off. Too late. The screen turned to Channel Thirteen’s logo along with the station’s trumpeting soundtrack.

  “Missing,” a voiceover boldly announced. “Prominent Washington lobbyist Paul Godfrey’s whereabouts unknown. This is a special report.”

  The shot opened to a woman behind a simple news anchor desk. I recognized her face. She cheered for Pickens High, if I remembered correctly.

  “Good evening,” she began. “I’m Bethany Douglas, and tonight, I come to you with news of a missing persons report. Paul Godfrey, husband of Charleston shipping heiress Gray King Godfrey and Democratic candidate for congress, was reported missing earlier today.”

  I couldn’t see Mamma’s grimace, but it was plain in her voice behind me. “The run hadn’t been announced. That Palmer woman leaked it.”

  “It’ll put more pressure on Paul,” Charlotte said, taking my hand in a tight squeeze. “It was the right thing to do.” I clasped hers mostly to stop my own from shaking.

  Bethany continued, “Mr. Godfrey was last seen patronizing Ruby’s Pub in the early hours of Christmas morning with his wife and several family members.”

  “Several family members?” Mamma interrupted again. “They make it sound like we were all there. Celebrating Jesus’ birth with hard liquor. Channel Thirteen never bothered with facts before, why start now?”

  “His vehicle was discovered abandoned on Paul Revere Highway hours later by county law enforcement in a spot not far from the King property. Police are asking anyone with information regarding his whereabouts to phone the sheriff’s office tip line immediately.”

  The screen showed a photo of Paul, smiling in a tuxedo. I recognized it as a shot from the black-tie gala at the Jefferson Hotel early last spring. Cooper and Waters had just secured the government of Saudi Arabia as a client.