Page 66 of To Have and to Hold

“Oh, son, I’m aware of that now,” Jack said with his voice catching on a sigh. It might’ve realized his error—Emme doesn’t know those kinds of things—because now, wherever she was, she did. And Jack couldn’t protect her from it.

Jack changed tactics. “I was about to try to end it, right there. As soon as you stepped over my threshold. I didn’t want that kind of darkness around Emme, a girl who’d done nothing but bring me and my wife sunshine. But it was only when you looked elsewhere, you know, when that flint would get into your stare. As soon as you cast over to her, all coldness would disappear. See, I realized something. She was your sunshine, too.”

Jack’s words hit home, but the only thing that would give me away was my swallow.

“You’re a bright boy,” Jack continued. “And just as you don’t waste time with words, nor do you pass the time by idly sitting in a room with Perry and me while Emme is…” For the first time, Jack faltered. “Sitting here with us for hours would drive you bonkers. Hell, it drives me to punching walls.” He gestured to where there was the tiniest smear in the concrete beside us. “Turns out, these buggers are reinforced to Dante’s circles and back.”

I met his sad smile with my own. “Been there.”

He sobered. “What is it you’d like to know?”

I aimed for a shot. “You were a lawyer before all this.”

Jack sat back in his chair, then leaned forward again. His cup had multiple crescent indentations in it, like he’d been digging his nails into the material, and his nail beds weren’t all that sharp to begin with.

Without diverting his attention from his drink, Jack nodded.

“How come you never mentioned it?” I asked. “Back when Emme and I were dating and we came to visit, I told you about going to law school. Your career never came up.”

Jack reacted with a one-shouldered shrug, but the action seemed to pain him. “It wasn’t anything Emme was keeping from you. She had no idea I used to work as an attorney.”

“Here, in New York City.”

Jack took his time drinking his cold coffee. “That was a long time ago.”

“Maybe so, but why did you keep it from your daughter?”

Jack went back to resting against his chair, but his fingers remained curled over the table. I tried again. “Did you really leave a lucrative law career for Perry?”

Jack said, without looking up, “I did.”

Something wasn’t right. If Jack left his city career for his wife, there was no reason to keep it from Emme. Then again, if they were happy in Wyoming and saw the benefits of a country life for their daughter, what was the point of waxing on about where your dad used to be in his twenties and thirties? Maybe Emme just wasn’t interested.

There were a thousand reasons why Jack’s past career wasn’t advertised, but the crucial question was, did it have anything to do with Emme’s disappearance, or was this a Beauregard family secret better left alone?

Knox was out chasing the Ed Carver angle. If that was the end game—if Ed Carver was it—my digging into Jack’s past was nothing but pointless gossip. Ed’s car being near the vicinity of her abduction was important, but it could also be coincidence. He lived in the area. The bodega could be his regular one-stop shop. Right now, there were still too many variables up in the air to pin all the confidence on Knox’s collaring Ed.

“Is David getting these same questions?” Jack asked, as if trying for a joke that could diffuse the sudden pressure on his shoulders. “Are we all under the microscope here?”

I splayed my hands. “Emme and I were together two years ago and I’m pretty sure Knox has an entire folder with stuff about me that even I probably don’t know I did.”

“He’s a nice boy, you know,” Jack said. I figured he meant Dave. “Not quite what I expected, but he treats Emme well.” At last, Jack met my eye. “What went on with you and her, Spencer? I stayed out of it, but I can tell you, it boggled the brain when you two split.”

I looked off in another direction. I recognized Jack’s tactic for what it was, but that didn’t mean his diversionary arrows weren’t hitting true. “We were young.”

“Too young to get married?” Jack’s mouth tipped. “If that wasn’t love that I saw between you two, then a definition for that feeling doesn’t exist. Try again, son.”

Feelings were not things I was good at expressing. Especially the whys of them.

“It was never about how we felt,” I said. “Even now, I feel it. Her.” I blurted what had been eating me for days. “Ever since she was taken. Jack, it’s like we broke up yesterday.”

This time, Jack’s focus became a decade. “I know it, Spencer.”

I allowed myself a single exhale. Then: “It’s how you feel about Perry, isn’t it? You’d do anything for her.”

Jack notched his chin. “Without thought.”

We sat in silence for a while, my mind ticking through the minutes of our conversation, searching for anything of relevance. Instead, I kept going back to the scene we made: two hunched over men in a silent interrogation room, back together only because Emme connected us again, both our minds more opaque than the cooling cup of coffee between us.

Jack stirred. “Emme is in darkness now,” he said. He sure he had my attention when he continued, “I need you to use yours to find her.”

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