Page 86 of The Banned Books Club

“Wait a minute! You happen to be having an affair. That could have something to do with it, right?”

“Oh, my God. For the last time, I’mnothaving an affair!”

“Even if that was true—and with the rumors that are going around I highly doubt it—you were going out of town for a week, which gave her the perfect opportunity to gather whatever she needed without you knowing a thing. I bet she made her plans around your hunting trip more than my return, although I do believe I played a role, since she needed me to come home to take care of Mom.”

“You’re saying you didn’t know this was going to happen? That you didn’t encourage it, didn’t help with it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying! There’s no way I’d suggest she run off, not considering what’s going on with my mother!” When she passed the window, she couldn’t help but stop to look out at Cormac’s house. It’d become a terrible habit. “I’m not going to lie, though,” she said when she didn’t see any evidence that her backyard neighbor was home. “If shehadcome to me and told me she was unhappy, I would’ve encouraged her to leave you. I knew she was making a mistake marrying you in the first place.”

There was a brief silence. Then he said, “No way...”

She’d just insulted him. Gia had expected him to come right back at her with something even more scathing, so this two-word, somewhat restrained reply took her off guard. “No way...what?” she asked uncertainly.

“I believe you. Somehow, I thought for sure you’d engineered this, but I think she knew I’d assume you were involved, which is why she left you out of it.”

“From what I can tell, she lefteveryoneout of it. Took no chances.” Margot had even abandoned her phone, but Gia was never going to volunteer that piece of information. Sheldon would just demand she give it to him, and she wasn’t about to do that in case he could do what she hadn’t been able to and get inside it. “So...what are you going to do?”

“I’m on my way back right now to figure out what the hell’s going on. She won’t get away with this, I’ll tell you that much.”

Gia wanted to ask what he thought he could do about it, but she knew they’d end up in a fight if she did. Trying to keep calm long enough to pump him for as much as he could tell her, she asked, “Do you know where she might’ve gone?”

“I have no clue.”

“In the past few months, you haven’t heard her mention a certain place she’d like to visit? She hasn’t been looking at travel brochures or surfing other towns or cities on the internet?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

He’d probably been too busy with Cece to notice what his wife was doing. “Could she be involved with another man?”

“She’d better not be,” he snapped.

An ironic response, considering Gia was almost certain he was lying about his ex-girlfriend. But for the time being, she let that go. “So what do you think’s going on?”

“I think people have been sticking their noses into my business and gossiping about me all over town, and it has her freaked out. If I could just speak to her, everything will be fine.”

“You think she’d come back?”

“I know she would. She has no way to survive. Shehasto come back.”

Gia passed the window again—and checked to see if Cormac might be home from work even though it’d only been a minute or two since she’d done it last time. “I don’t think so, Sheldon.”

“You don’t know that,” he said.

She resumed her pacing. “Except... I do.”

“What do you mean?”

Should she tell him? He was going to find out anyway, so she didn’t see where it would make any difference. And maybe it was mean-spirited, but she was sort of eager to be the one to deliver the news that Margot had taken all their money. “She called here once.”

“You lied to me, after all?”

“No. I said I don’t know where she is, and I don’t. I also said I didn’t know she was going to do it, and I didn’t.”

“So...what’d she say? She didn’t tell you where she was?”

“No, she wouldn’t. She just wanted me to give my mom and dad her love.”

“What about the number she called from. Maybe that will tell us something.”

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