Lisa Gardner - Gone

“I’ll be a good boy,” Quincy assured him. “Where are we going?”

“To find the gun, of course. With your permission, we’re gonna search your house.”

Tuesday, 7:32 a.m. PST

AS QUINCY AND KINCAID PILED into Kincaid’s vehicle, the sun was struggling to break through a cloud cover so thick, day was only a paler version of night. It felt as if the entire month of November had been this way, one endlessly long day of drizzle, interrupted by periods of torrential downpour.

Quincy hadn’t quite gotten used to the Oregon climate yet. He was a New Englander, a man who could take the bracing cold as long as it was partnered with a bright winter sun. Frankly, he didn’t know how Oregonians could go so long with rain clouds pressed against the tops of their heads. Rainie always said the gray days made her feel cozy, snuggled up in the refuge of their home. Lately, they had been making him feel like beating his head against a brick wall.

“So when did you and Rainie split?” Kincaid asked from the driver’s seat. Apparently, he wasn’t one for small talk.

“I moved out a week ago,” Quincy said tersely.

“You or her?”

“Officially speaking, I’m the one who left.”

“File for divorce?”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”

Kincaid grunted, already sounding skeptical. “Counseling?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Mmm-hmmm. Federal pension, right?”

“I have one, yes.” Quincy already knew where Kincaid’s thoughts were going. As an FBI agent who’d served the required twenty years, Quincy had retired with full base pay. Not many pension programs like that around anymore. Particularly since most of the FBI retirees were still young enough to keep working in the private sector, garnering an additional revenue stream while building a second retirement program. Double-dipping it was called. And yes, it had worked out well for Quincy. Hence the car, his clothes, his house.

“Divorce would be expensive,” Quincy agreed.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Kincaid said again.

“You’re still not asking the right question, Sergeant.”

“And what’s that?”

“Do I love her?”

“Love her? You left her.”

“Of course I left her, Sergeant. It was the only way I could think of to get her to stop drinking.”

They’d arrived at the graveled drive. Kincaid made the hard right turn, tires crunching on the ground stone as they fought for purchase. The driveway was impractical. An absolute bitch during bad weather. Last winter, Rainie and Quincy swore they’d do something about it as soon as it got warm. Have it regraded, have it paved.

They never did. They loved their little wooden castle perched at its top. And without ever saying as much in words, they appreciated the driveway as their own version of a rampart. Not just any vehicle could make it up. And absolutely no one approached their house without being heard.

Kincaid dropped his car into a lower gear and gunned the engine. The Chevy crested the hill just in time to startle a deer feeding on a salt lick Rainie had placed in the garden. The deer crashed back into the forest. Kincaid parked next to a bank of drenched ferns.

He climbed out, already giving Quincy an arched stare.

Quincy and Rainie had found the house just a year ago. It wasn’t large, but the custom-built Craftsman-style home presented the best of everything. A towering picture window that offered a panoramic view of the mountains. A crested roofline of alternating peaks and valleys. A sweeping front porch, complete with matching Adirondack rockers.

Rainie had loved the open floor plan, exposed beams, and enormous stone fireplace. Quincy had appreciated the large windows and multitude of skylights, which maximized what little light one could eke out of such gray days. The house was expensive, more than they probably should’ve spent. But they’d taken one look and seen their future. Rainie curled up in front of the fireplace with a book. Quincy sequestered in the den writing his memoirs. And a child, nationality still unknown, sitting in the middle of the great room, stacking toys.

They had purchased this home with hope in their hearts.

Quincy didn’t know what Rainie thought when she looked at their home now.

He led the way up the steps, then stopped in front of the door. He let Kincaid tug at the knob. The door was locked; Rainie never would’ve left the house any other way.

Wordlessly, Quincy produced his key. Kincaid worked the bolt lock.

The heavy door swept open to a shadowed foyer, light slowly seeping across the stone-inlaid floor. The wooden staircase, with its rough-hewn railing, was immediately to the left. The great room swept open to the right. At a glance, both men could see the vaulted family room with its massive stone fireplace, then, deeper in, the dining area and kitchen.

Quincy processed many things at once: the plaid flannel blanket tossed in a puddle in front of the fireplace; the half-read paperback, lying print-side-down on the ottoman. He saw an empty water glass, Rainie’s running shoes, a gray cardigan slung over the back of the hunter green sofa.

The room was disturbed, but nothing that suggested violence. It was more like a scene interrupted-Quincy half expected to spy Rainie walking in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hand and a perplexed look on her face.

“What are you doing here?” she would ask.

“Missing you,” he would answer.

Except maybe Rainie wasn’t carrying a cup of coffee. Maybe it was a beer instead.

Kincaid finally walked into the room. Quincy drifted in his wake, glad the sergeant was studying the room and not registering the raw look that had to be on Quincy’s face.

Kincaid made quick work of the family room. He seemed to register the book, the glass, the running shoes. Then he was in the breakfast nook. The note was still on the table.

Kincaid read it, glanced at Quincy, then read the note again. The investigator didn’t say anything, just walked into the kitchen. Quincy wasn’t sure if that made the invasion of privacy better or worse.

The OSP sergeant opened the fridge. He caught Quincy’s eye, then opened the door wider, until Quincy could see the six-pack. Quincy nodded, and the other man moved on. Not much food in the fridge, but the kitchen was neat. A mug and bowl in the sink. Counters wiped down.

Rainie had never been the best housekeeper in the world, but she was clearly keeping up with things. Not the kitchen of a woman totally lost to despondency. Then again, Quincy had once worked a case of a forty-year-old mom who’d cleaned the house from top to bottom before hanging herself in the bathroom. In her suicide note, she’d included instructions to her husband on how to reheat all the meals she’d left for him and their three kids. The woman-who’d gone off her antidepressants-didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. She just hadn’t wanted to live.

Kincaid traveled down the back hallway to the study. This was one of the few rooms with carpeting, a thick wool pile that Quincy liked to pace when trying to come up with the right turn of phrase. This was his domain, and walking into it a week later, he caught the faint smell of his own aftershave. He wondered if Rainie had entered this room in the past week. If she had caught that fragrance and thought of him.

The desk was cleared off, the black leather chair neatly pushed in. The room already had a slightly abandoned feel about it. Maybe not a room for remembrance at all, but an omen of things to come.

Kincaid wandered back out and hit the last room of the downstairs: the master bedroom.

This room was more chaotic. The down comforter, covered in a duvet of greens, gold, and burgundy, had been kicked to the foot of the bed. The cream-colored sheets were twisted into a pile, the corner of the room lost to a mound of clothes. The room carried the musty odors of stale linens and recent sweat.