Page 26 of The Vanishing Wife

She didn’t wait for an answer. Elyse charged past him into the hallway and retreated into his office. The door slammed closed behind her, and she couldn’t help but collapse against it. Sliding to the floor, she let the burst of betrayal and anger and disbelief consume her in a muted scream. Heavy footsteps paused on the other side of the door, and she prayed to every deity she knew of he wouldn’t knock. That he wouldn’t try to get her to face him as this raw, exposed thing he’d created. She sat there for what felt like hours but must’ve only been minutes before getting to her feet and regaining some semblance of control.

The laptop sat open where she’d abandoned it this morning. Rounding the desk, she realized more than an hour had passed. Ava would be asking about lunch soon. What was Elyse supposed to tell her when she asked why they weren’t waiting for Wesley to join them? Was she supposed to lie? How much truth was a fourteen-year-old supposed to handle in the span of mere days?

She sank into the office chair, wanting more than anything to forget everything outside of this room, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to her daughter. She couldn’t stop now. Elyse ran her middle finger over the laptop’s track pad to wake it up and scrolled to the message app. Without her phone, she hadn’t been able to keep in touch through usual means. She’d had to resort to using Wesley’s account.

Where are you?—Mom

The bubble rose midway up the screen, attaching to hers and Ava’s previous conversation.

Three bubbles lit up sequentially. Then:

Eating at Saige’s. Be back around 9.

A grating sense of loneliness combined with relief and flooded through her veins. She was on her own for the day, but her response was a simple thumbs-up emoji. Elyse stared at the screen. Not really sure what she was supposed to do now.

A minute later, she automatically found herself scrolling through Ruby Davis’s Instagram profile. Hundreds of photos of a smiling young woman with friends on sunny beaches, showing off a white piece of paper beside a sedan—presumably her learner’s permit—posing in a mirror with a peace sign and her tongue sticking out nearly to the tip of her chin. Elyse made notes of the people tagged in the description of each photo. Deciphering their handles would take a bit more work. Some male, mostly female. A football player, one of the dancers from the drill team. Ruby was popular. That much was clear. Elyse lost herself in years of photos, going all the way back to middle school. Most likely when Ruby had first been allowed to have a phone.

Recognition flared at the sight of a blonde woman smiling alongside Ruby, her mouth planted against the girl’s cheek in a forced platonic kiss. Their features were so striking, Elyse wasn’t sure why she hadn’t connected the dots before now. Same smile, slightly different. Same color hair. Even their noses were shaped similarly. Detective Henrietta Moore had slung a tight hold around Ruby’s neck and dragged her in close, but it was the caption that drew Elyse’s attention. Here’s to ten more years with Aunt Etta. Rest in peace, Mom and Dad.

The photo had garnered well over two hundred likes from three hundred of Ruby’s followers. Elyse’s heart skipped a beat. Detective Moore was related to a missing fifteen-year-old girl. She backed away from the laptop and paced the small space surrounding Wesley’s oversized desk. This could change everything. This could get Detective Moore to listen to her. To believe her.

Except she’d just threatened Wesley with divorce. And bringing the evidence to Detective Moore would expose Elyse’s crime of breaking and entering into Samuel Thornton’s house. She’d be arrested, and Ava would be relegated to living with a father who’d keep choosing unstable, secret relationships over her. She had to find another way.

Elyse skidded back into the office chair, continuing her scrolling. After more than thirty minutes, every photo began to resemble the one that came before it. A smiling Ruby posing with duck face, friends, and coffees. At school, in parking lots, on the beach, poolside. She wrote down every handle tagged in the photos and lost several hours trying to keep track of them all, but exhaustion was winning out. She’d scratched over a dozen on the pad beside the laptop already, all of which would require her to search. But she wouldn’t give up. There was something she wasn’t seeing. She was sure of it. Some clue that would tell her how a man like Samuel Thornton would come into contact with the fifteen-year-old niece of a police detective.

And she saw it.

In one of the earlier photos.

A single picture that Elyse couldn’t seem to tear herself away from. Of Ruby and another girl. A girl wearing a necklace with a gold-plated disk engraved with the letter P. She could see it as clear as day. Right there in the palm of her hand as she’d picked it from the mess of Samuel Thornton’s toiletry bag.

Elyse knocked her pen off the desk in a rush to click on the caption and take down the tagged handle. @Poppyseeds. Another profile filled the screen with a single click. The last post had been dated more than a year prior. Of Ruby and the girl with the necklace. She wrote down the name posted at the top with three underlines. “Who are you, Poppy Slater?”

The answer came all too easily with a Google search in a new tab.

Missing Gulf Shores teenager found strangled in marsh.

Parents of missing teen offer reward for information.

Then further back. Gulf Shores teen suspected of running away with boyfriend.

“But you didn’t run away, did you?” Her throat threatened to close as Elyse enlarged a grainy photo of Poppy Slater posted to the news site. Smiling, without a care in the world or an idea of what would happen next.

The realization hurt more than it should have.

Ruby Davis hadn’t been the only girl taken.

NINETEEN

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Sunday, September 22

8:14 a.m.

“You lied to us, Mr. Portman.” Detective Moore slid the forensic results she’d presented to Leigh across the table.

The Gulf Shores PD station held its own against the constant humidity with layers of brick and sharp angles. The building itself wasn’t entirely rectangular, but more of a trapezoid. Modern and sturdy with tinted glass doors and maintained landscaping. Leigh watched Wesley Portman read the paper set in front of him from a comfortable chair. She used to be terrified of police stations. The hours of waiting for information, the constant questions from the investigating detective, not knowing what would happen next or if she’d see her father again. Now, the mailbox-like receptacle for unused medications in the lobby and posters hung everywhere detailing officer deaths in the line of duty were almost daily encounters.

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