Joseph Finder - Vanished

“Not often enough. We used to go out every week, but recently that’s sort of… Well, it’s been months, probably.”

“Did your husband have any enemies that you know of?”

“Enemies? He’s a businessman.”

“Mrs. Heller, are you and your husband wealthy?”

Lauren hesitated. What a question. She didn’t know how to begin to answer that. Wealthy compared to whom? To a police detective? She made a good salary, but it was still a secretary’s salary. Roger made a lot more than she, as a senior vice president, but in the six figures. Not the million-plus that the top corporate officers earned. They lived in a nice house in Chevy Chase. Compared to the house where she and Maura had grown up in Charlottesville-a tiny split-level ranch-it was Versailles.

On the other hand, compared to the kind of money Roger’s family once had, they were paupers.

“We’re well-off,” she finally said. She hesitated. “My husband’s family used to be quite rich, but not anymore.”

Garvin blinked. “Oh?”

“You might have heard of his father, Victor Heller.”

A pause. “Sure.” A blank look clouded his eyes. Not an uncommon reaction, she’d found. Victor Heller was famous, and not in a good way. “You think people might assume the family still has money?”

“How would I know? Anyway, if someone thought he was rich, wouldn’t there be a ransom demand? Wouldn’t they kidnap me instead of him? Or my son?”

“Just exploring every possibility, that’s all. Did you notice any change in your husband’s behavior recently? Did he start to act differently toward you?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

“Let me ask you something, and please don’t take this the wrong way: You and your husband-how was your relationship?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Was there any talk of divorce? Do you think he might have been having an affair?”

“You’re really clutching at straws, Detective.”

“Not at all. It’s standard procedure-we never want to leave any stone unturned.”

“Our relationship was-fine.”

“Not great? Just fine?”

“We had our ups and down like any married couple. But no, he wasn’t cheating on me. And we never talked about divorce.”

“Did he ever threaten you, Mrs. Heller?”

“Oh, this is ridiculous.”

“Look, Mrs. Heller, we all want to find out what happened to him, too, but we can’t do that without your help. We really can’t. I know this is a stressful time for you, and I know you’re in a lot of pain, but time is really crucial here. The faster we move, the more likely we are to solve this thing.”

“Isn’t it possible that my husband was attacked, too, and he’s wandering around in a state of amnesia or something? Or maybe he’s been badly hurt. Or… or worse. And meanwhile you two are sitting here spinning out all sorts of wacky scenarios. You’re guessing, that’s all. Guessing.”

“Yeah, well, guessing is a lot of what we do. I get good at guessing. And yeah, maybe we’re clutching at straws. But that’s all we got at this point, Mrs. Heller. All we know is that you were the victim of a random-seeming attack in a part of the city where that doesn’t happen very often. You weren’t mugged, and apparently they didn’t try to rape you. We have no reason to believe your husband was killed. He’s gone, and we don’t know more than that. Without evidence, without a motive, we’re not going to get anywhere, do you understand?”

“You don’t sound very optimistic.”

“I don’t want to give you false hope, is all.”

Someone made a throat-clearing sound, and they all turned around.

Gabe was standing there. His dark ringlets wild and scraggly. He was staring at her, an expression of grave concern in his liquid brown eyes. Black jeans and a black hoodie sweatshirt with a weird cartoon character on the front: Invader Zim, she remembered. He looked even scrawnier than usual.

“Gabe,” she called out.

“Excuse me, Officers,” he said sternly. “My mother needs to rest. You need to leave now.”

The younger cop grinned until he caught the sharp edge of Gabe’s adolescent glower, then the two detectives began to gather their things.

Hey,” she said hoarsely, when the cops had left.

“Hey.”

Tears in his eyes, she saw. In the last year her sweet boy had become a remote and often surly teenager. But once in a while there were flashes of the adoring son he’d once been and would, she hoped, be again. Her love for him swelled in her chest, like a physical object, expanding her ribs, her collarbones.

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious. They shouldn’t be here.”

She noticed the dark circles under his eyes. They appeared whenever he was sick or overtired or just worried. Which was often. More than a few pimples on his cheeks, which hadn’t been there two months ago.

In his right hand he was clutching his beat-up school notebook, spiral-bound, ST. GREGORY’S on the cover. The notebook had nothing to do with school, though. She wasn’t allowed to look at it, which made it all the more tempting, though she never had. All she knew was that it contained some epic-length comic book he’d been working on for a year or more. She’d caught a glimpse once before he snatched it away and was astonished at the quality of the drawings.

“Thanks for lending me Jaffee,” she said. She reached out a hand, held his. He squeezed her hand back. That was about as much affection as he ever showed her anymore. He hated being kissed or hugged, tended to shrink from her caresses as if she had some grotesque infectious disease.

“Your blood pressure is really bad,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“That machine keeps beeping.”

“It’s supposed to do that. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I look worse than I feel.”

“Lot of flowers,” Gabe said.

“From Lee.”

She meant Leland Gifford, the CEO and son of the founder of Gifford Industries. He’d find someone to cover for her, of course-likely Noreen, who worked in the same executive suite as Lauren but was underemployed as the admin to the CFO and lusted after Lauren’s job. She was a disaster, though: not too bright, not very detail-oriented, not half as competent as she thought she was. Now Lauren had something else to worry about. Leland ran a multibillion-dollar corporation, but he barely knew how to send e-mail.

Half to herself, she added, “Somebody must have told him what happened.”

Gabe shrugged. “I e-mailed him from your computer at home.”

“You e-mailed him?”

“What, I’m not supposed to e-mail your boss?”

“No, it’s-I’m impressed, that’s all. Thank you.” She fumbled with the bed’s controls, raised the head of the bed so she was finally upright. She murmured, mostly to herself, “I’ve got to get myself released from this place. I’ve got to get back there.”

“Mom, you have a serious concussion, and you just woke up from being unconscious for twenty-four hours. Leland Gifford will be fine for a while without you.” Abruptly, he added: “Okay, Mom. Where is he?”

“Who?”

“You know who I mean. Where’s Dad?”

She hesitated for a few seconds while she tried to think. Her brain was operating at half speed. She blinked, silent for a beat too long. What had they told him? She tried never to lie to him. Even if she wanted to, he was too smart to lie to.

The kid scared her sometimes, he was so smart. She wondered where he inherited it. Not from her gene pool, that was for sure. Richard, her first husband and Gabe’s father, was smart enough but no genius. She also wondered from time to time whether being so precocious made him an outcast at his private boys’ school. It couldn’t be easy.