Page 12 of She Didn't See It Coming
He takes a deep breath, lets it out. He doesn’t want to get angry at Angela. “I just can’t—you just don’t know who’s living around you, do you?” His voice turns into a hiss. “What if he took her? What if he’s holding her somewhere? She’s not in his apartment, they looked. They’ve got the cop on our door watching in case he goes anywhere.Christ—I want to go over there and hammer on his door, grab him by the throat!” He feels himself sweating.
“Let the police handle it,” Angela urges. “We don’t know if he ever did anything wrong at all. His wife believes he’s innocent.”
“You know her?”
“We used to be friends, but…we drifted apart.”
All at once Sam feels himself sagging. “I don’t know what to tell Clara,” he says. Angela looks back at him with watery, sympathetic eyes. “How do you tell a three-year-old that you don’t know where her mother is?”
“I don’t know.” She reaches out and hugs him. After she releases him, she says, “I gave her supper. She’s asleep now. And Sam, if there’s any way I can help, if you need anything at all, just let me know.”
“Thank you, but I’ve got Lizzie here to help. And her parents are coming in.”
She nods. “Sure. But if you don’t want Clara around when the police are there, just ask. I can take some time off.”
He nods gratefully and makes his way into the living room. He looks down at his sleeping daughter. She looks so peaceful; he takes in her round, soft cheeks, her long eyelashes. He wishes he could protect her from whatever is going to happen next.
•••
Jayne has not been ableto return home early, as she promised Michael. She calls him and apologizes, tells him not to wait up. She has her hands full here. He has recovered from hisdisappointment and tells her he loves her, not to worry about him. That’s the thing about Michael, he is inherently unselfish, doesn’t hold a grudge, and she loves him for it.
It is now after ten. She is back at the police station, heading up the missing persons team. She has Detective Kilgour, and a group of uniformed police officers to conduct inquiries and aid in the investigation.
“Right, listen up, everyone,” Jayne calls out, and the team settles and falls quiet. Behind her is a whiteboard with an enlarged photo of Bryden Frost stuck to it. Jayne turns and looks at it. Bryden Frost is an attractive woman, and clearly photogenic, with her large green eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. She smiles back at them from the photo. No one ever thinks their photo will one day be on a police station whiteboard, Jayne thinks. She turns to face her team. “We know Bryden Frost dropped her daughter off at Dandylion Day Care this morning at approximately eight forty-five. We know she returned home because her car is in her underground parking space, and her phone and purse were found in the condo. Her husband confirmed that she was working from home today. Her office didn’t call her all day, at her request, and she didn’t contact them. She appears to have had no contact with her husband, her sister, or anyone else we can find all day, at least nothing we can find on her cell phone or on her computer. Just a couple of brief work emails she sent just before ten a.m. It’s interesting that she told her office and husband not to try to reach her. Why? Did she just want to work free of interruptions? Or did she have another reason?
“For now, given those work emails she sent in the morning, we’re assuming she might have gone missing anywhere between approximately ten a.m. and five p.m., when she should have turned up at the day care to pick up her daughter. We’re looking at her phone and computer for whatever we can glean that might be of interest. There wasno sign of forced entry, and we don’t know whether the door was locked or not when her husband and daughter returned home. The husband, Sam Frost, says nothing is missing from the apartment. I took a look around myself and there were no obvious signs of a struggle, no obvious signs of foul play. She may have just walked away.
“We’ve done a thorough search and found no sign of her inside the condo building. She’s not on the property in any of the common areas, as far as we can ascertain. There is a possibility that she may be inside one of the other units, and that is a real concern, because we can’t search those without warrants, and we can’t yet show sufficient probable cause. But officers are continuing to go door-to-door in the building, asking if anyone has seen her and looking for anything suspicious. Unfortunately, the security in the building is rather lacking. There is coverage of the lobby, but not the elevators or the floors. We’ve checked the CCTV, and Bryden does not appear to have left the building via the front or back doors. But the CCTV in the underground garage hasn’t been working for a couple of weeks, so anyone who might have accessed or left the building through the underground parking garage is not on CCTV.” She adds, “The cameras don’t appear to have been tampered with; they’re just brand-new and apparently defective.
“We have one person of interest, Henry Kemp, in unit 811. He says he was at work all day, at his car dealership. But the employees that have been spoken to so far can’t confirm that he was on the work premisesallday. It’s possible that he might have stepped out for a time. The dealership is only ten minutes from the condo. If he’d used his pass to get into the garage we would know. He didn’t. But it’s possible he buzzed Bryden to let him in, saying he lived in a neighboring unit and lost his card. Maybe he’s been watching her. Maybe he knew somehow that she was working from home that day. Maybe he saw her this morning in yoga pants instead of work clothes and deducedit. So we’re keeping a close eye on him. If he—or his wife—leaves his apartment, we will have someone tail him.”
“Would he try something like this so close to where he lives?” an officer asks.
“It seems unlikely,” Jayne answers, “but you never know. Kilgour will follow up on his alibi. Meanwhile, we’re conducting background checks on everyone living and working in the building. We’re looking at Bryden’s banking info for any suspicious activity, checking all the hospitals and hotels in Albany and the surrounding area, following up with cabs. It seems unlikely she could have taken an Uber without her phone.
“You’ve all got your jobs to do. Bryden’s description and photo have gone out over all the usual channels, and I’ll be making a statement to the press at nine o’clock tomorrow morning with a full description and a plea for public assistance if we haven’t found her by then. The search team continues to cover a widening area outside the condo, and I’ve got a request in to the K-9 unit.” Jayne takes a breath. “She seems like a stable woman, a mother who dotes on her three-year-old child, who works a steady job as an accountant. No physical or mental health problems.” She pauses, lets her voice drop. “Foul play seems likely. I don’t need to tell you that time is of the essence. Let’s find her.”
7
Tracy Kemp rises from the bed, careful not to wake her slumbering husband. The anxiety she’s felt ever since the detective knocked on their door earlier that evening has not abated. Instead, she feels an escalating hysteria. She goes into the kitchen and makes herself a cup of chamomile tea, careful to stop the kettle before it screams. She takes her tea into the living room and stands staring out the windows at the darkness outside, unseeing.
Her husband is a cipher. She wishes she could get inside his mind. She wishes she knew if he was telling the truth. She’d loved him once. She’d trusted him. And then that woman happened, and everything went to shit. She told everyone she believed him.
And she did. She believed him 90 percent. But not 100 percent. There is that small part of her that has doubts. Because she’s a woman, and she’s always felt that women should be believed when they make a claim of assault. She’s a feminist, or at least she was. Is she anymore? Her former friends don’t think so. They believed the woman. As shewould have done, automatically, if she hadn’t been married to the man accused of abducting and raping her.
The thing is, even though Henry is a good husband, and loves her, she thinks it’s unlikely that the woman was deliberately lying. Tracy tells herself that she was more likely mistaken. That she’d pointed out the wrong man, that’s all. But what niggles is that she can’t deny that she was relieved when it became clear that his accuser had waited too long to collect the evidence a rape kit would have provided. Tracy herself had pointed out to the investigating officers that it was highly suspicious that the woman hadn’t gone to the police immediately. She’d had to listen while a female officer gently explained that there are many reasons why a woman might not come forward right away—which Tracy knew perfectly well. She’d felt like such a fraud.
If only she knew the truth. Without knowing, she’s trapped. Trapped in a life of constant anxiety. She remembers her instinctive terror when the detective arrived at their door. If she knew the truth, then she could make a choice. And what would that choice be? If he did abduct and rape that woman, if sheknew, then she would leave him. But as long as she doesn’t know, as long as he might be innocent, she feels honor bound to stand by him.
The detective’s visit has made this clear to her. For the last two years she has lived in a state of outrage, denial—and doubt. Now it’s all coming into focus. She must learn the truth, one way or another. But how?
Maybe it will all be made clear for her. Maybe her husband has abducted Bryden Frost. And maybe this time he won’t get away with it.
•••
The night seems endlessto Sam. He barely sleeps at all, getting up every time Clara starts to cry. He and Lizzie have told her that they don’t know where her mother is, but they’re sure she’ll be back soon. Clara isn’t soothed; she doesn’t believe them. She’s terrified, andSam doesn’t blame her—he’s terrified too. Lizzie has stayed at the condo overnight, sleeping in the den on the pullout sofa, and she also gets up every time the child cries. They take turns lying in bed beside her until she goes back to sleep.
The last time Sam rises quietly from Clara’s bed, the sun is already coming through the windows. He gives up on trying to sleep and makes his way to the kitchen to find Lizzie already there, in Bryden’s borrowed pajamas, sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. She looks awful. She hasn’t had any sleep either. She must be as scared as he is, he thinks.
