Brian Freeman - Immoral

"I suppose so." Tenby wiped his face, which was moist. "Well, you see, after they had been dating a few weeks, Emily found out she was pregnant. That was what really led to the marriage."

"I'm sure Graeme was thrilled," Stride murmured.

"Hardly," Tenby said. "He wanted her to have an abortion. She refused. I think he would have liked the whole thing to go away, but in a town like Duluth, in a position like his, you can't have a scandal coming out in public. So he married her."

"And the baby?" Maggie asked.

"Miscarriage at six months. Emily nearly died."

"Graeme didn't try to work out an amicable divorce?" Stride asked.

"No, he didn't," Tenby said. "He seemed to have resigned himself to the marriage. And I suppose he thought a divorce would have been extremely expensive. So he held up his end. But make no mistake, he didn't pretend to have his heart in it. It was simply a convenience to be married. For a while, that was okay for Emily, too. Love doesn't seem so important when you've struggled for years just to get by."

"For a while?" Maggie asked.

"Well, money is no cure for loneliness," Tenby said.

"So how do they deal with it now?" Stride asked.

"I think you'd better talk to each of them about that, Detective."

"Meanwhile, Rachel was in the middle of this happy scene?" Maggie asked.

Tenby sighed. "All three of them in that house," he said. "And not very much happiness among them. It's a terrible thing. That's why I was so convinced that Rachel ran away. She had a lot to run away from."

"Did she ever talk to you about running away?" Stride asked.

"No, she never confided in me. I think she saw me as being on Emily's side, so that made me the enemy."

"And there's nothing else you can think of that might shed light on her disappearance? Anything you observed or overheard?"

"I'm afraid not," Tenby said. "I wish there was."

They all stood up. They shook hands awkwardly, and Stride felt that the minister was now anxious for them to be gone. He guided them back down the corridor into the cold lobby of the church. When the door closed behind them, Stride and Maggie paused on the porch, buttoning their coats and swinging scarves across their faces. The wind had blown away their footprints in the snow.

"What do you think?" Maggie said.

Stride squinted at the cold sun. "I think we could use a break."

Heather took a sip of tea from a chipped china cup and replaced it on the end table at a safe distance, where a spill would not be disastrous. Then she gingerly picked up the prints she had developed in the cold basement a few hours earlier.

First snowfall always made for beautiful work. She had found a giant, perfect spiderweb stretched between two trees in the woods behind the cottage. The snow crystals coated each diaphanous strand, just enough to make a patchwork, like lace. She had caught the image quickly, and even as she snapped the pictures, a puff of wind splintered the ice and sent the web fluttering away. One of the prints showed the web just as it separated, the snow gently tearing it apart.

Heather took off her half-glasses and laid them beside her. A Brahms concerto was in its final notes on the stereo. She closed her eyes, enjoying the lilt of the piano. As it faded away into silence, she realized how tired she was. She had spent most of the day tramping about in the cold and snow with her camera, until her feet were wet and her fingers were numb. Lissa had been with her the whole time, but the cold didn't bother the girl at all. Heather kept telling her to wrap her face up in her scarf, and Lissa kept pulling it off when Heather wasn't looking. They had taken a hot bath together when they got home, but Heather could still feel some of the coldness of the day inside her. She was ready to tuck her body into a long flannel nightgown and bury herself in a mound of blankets.

She clicked the lamp off and eased out of the recliner. She turned the overhead light off, and the house was dark, but the living room kept a reflected glow from the moon shining on a fresh white bed of snow outside. Heather tip-toed down the hallway, not wanting to awaken Lissa. As was her custom, she edged the girl's door open and peeked inside. Lissa always slept with a night-light. The room was filled with shadows. Her daughter was sleeping soundly on her stomach, her face lost in the pillow. She had thrashed out of the blankets, leaving half her body exposed.

Heather approached her, wanting to pull the blankets up around her again. The night was going to get even colder. She lingered at Lissa's bedside, studying the girl's tranquil face and smiling at the occasional murmurs she made in her sleep. Heather bent over and brushed her lips against her daughter's forehead.

She tugged the blanket up and fitted it around Lissa's shoulders. As she did, something tumbled out of bed and landed softly on the carpet. Heather looked down, seeing something glint in the shadows. She bent over, confused, and picked it up. It was a gold bracelet.

Heather hadn't purchased it for Lissa and didn't remember seeing it before. She wrinkled her brow, wondering where Lissa had found it and surprised that her daughter hadn't mentioned it. Knowing Lissa, that probably meant it had come from some illicit source.

She left the girl's room, taking the bracelet with her.

Heather continued to her own bedroom. She put the bracelet on top of a rickety five-drawer bureau and studied it thoughtfully for a moment. Then she shrugged and turned away. She unbuttoned her red plaid shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket. She wasn't wearing a bra. She yanked off her jeans, left her panties and socks on, and quickly pulled a nightgown over her head.

She tugged her six blankets down and crawled under them. She clicked on the radio, looking for music. Instead, the hourly headlines were winding down. She paid little attention to the stories, which were too depressing. A farm house south of town had burned, killing an elderly woman. The girl from Duluth, Rachel, was still missing. The Trojans had lost a big game.

Heather reviewed the wall of framed photographs beside her bed. She had just added one of the prints from her photo shoot at the barn. The waning sun that had lingered behind her on the edge of the treetops cast shadows in the barn's sagging crevices. Dead leaves scattered over the earth like a carpet. The sky on the horizon was steel gray. She had been aiming for an image filled with decay, and she had achieved it.

As Heather stared at the photograph, she finally remembered.

In her mind, she saw Lissa running around the corner of the barn toward her, shouting about something she had found. Heather had been distracted, concentrating on her camera, but she remembered Lissa showing her a gold bracelet, and she remembered telling the girl to put it right back where she found it. Now a few weeks later, here was Lissa with a secret gold bracelet hidden in her bed.

"That little sneak," Heather said aloud, peeved.

She got out of bed with a sigh and retrieved the bracelet from the bureau. It was not particularly heavy or expensive. She guessed that a high school girl had lost it in the middle of a tryst behind the barn.

Heather looked at the bracelet and saw letters inside.

T loves R, she thought to herself. Right . She suspected R was a pretty sophomore, and T was a football player who figured jewelry was a great way to get into the girl's jeans. Heather laughed. She put the bracelet on her nightstand and clicked off the light.

In the darkness, she tried to sleep, but instead she tossed and turned. A few minutes ago, she had barely been able to keep her eyes open. Now she was awake. A jumble of thoughts flitted idly through her brain. High school. Pretty girls making out behind the barn. An old woman dying in a fire. Football games. Gifts of gold bracelets. Young love. Young lust.