Page 28 of The Vanishing Wife

“No.” Their main suspect tried to keep his voice even, but it was getting much harder when the attack came from two sources. “That’s not what happened.”

“Maybe she was angry about the affair and the fact that you destroyed everything you two had worked for because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.” Leigh pushed to her feet, careful not to jerk the surgical sites across her low belly, and leaned over the table. She’d done this enough times to know when a suspect was about to break. She could see it in the frantic back and forth of Wesley Portman’s gaze as he attempted to read the bank statement breakdown. Hundreds of thousands of dollars out. No money coming in. It was a skill to bring a suspect right to the edge, convincing them they were safe for the time being. Just before shoving them over. And she’d honed it into an art form. “Maybe things got out of hand then. You might not have meant to hurt her, just like you didn’t mean to sleep with Helen at the conference, but before you had a chance to stop yourself, there Elyse was. Dead on the floor. Bleeding out.”

“No!” Wesley Portman shoved away from the table. His chair skidded back into the wall. He tried to put distance between himself and the two women still at the table, but there was nowhere to go. “I didn’t hurt Elyse. I would never hurt Elyse. I wasn’t even in the house when she disappeared.” He pointed at the floor. “I can prove it.”

This was new information. According to the incident report, Wesley Portman had been the one to call police when instead of finding his wife, he discovered nothing but a pool of blood in the living room of the vacation house. Leigh couldn’t help but glance at Detective Moore.

The detective straightened. “Prove it how?”

“Check the GPS on my phone.” Wesley Portman’s desperation was showing, and it kicked Leigh’s heart rate up a notch. Contagious and frustrating at the same time. “I wasn’t anywhere near the house. Elyse kicked me out after telling me she wanted a divorce. I packed my bag and slept in the car in a nearby parking lot. I didn’t step foot back in the house until yesterday morning after Ava called me crying that she couldn’t find Elyse and there was a pool of blood in the living room. Check my phone! It’ll show you I’m telling the truth.”

“We’ll do that. We’re also going to need to talk with your daughter to confirm.” Detective Moore thrust her chin toward the door, inviting Leigh to follow. In a matter of moments, they were in the corridor, securing the door behind them. Wesley Portman wasn’t going anywhere. For now. “Do you believe he wasn’t near the crime scene when Elyse went missing?”

“I believe men like Wesley Portman will do whatever it takes to keep up appearances.” Leigh thought over everything they’d learned in the past few minutes. “But yes. I believe him. Because it’s easy enough to find out if he’s telling the truth.”

“Then I’ll get the geofence warrant request submitted.” Detective Moore expertly navigated through the station to an open floor of desks all facing toward the captain’s office then to one stashed in the far corner of the room. The desk phone was already ringing by the time they got there, and she answered as she tossed her notebook and pen to the surface. “Moore.”

Tension bled into the detective’s face. “Okay. Thank you.”

Detective Moore hung up, then grabbed for her Gulf Shores PD badge and weapon from the locked drawer in her desk. “I have to go. I’ll submit the warrant request for Wesley Portman’s GPS when I get back.”

A pit hardened in Leigh’s gut. Something had happened. “What is it?”

“A call just came in.” Moore maneuvered around Leigh to grab her uniform jacket hanging from the back of the chair and shoved both arms inside. Hurried. Frantic. “Another girl has been reported missing.”

TWENTY

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Wednesday, September 18

6:19 p.m.

It’d taken her more than two hours to work up the courage.

Elyse stood at the front door of the brick rambler on Augusta Drive, knuckles raised to knock. The lawn had retained a crisp green despite soaring temperatures in the past couple of weeks, with baby palm trees planted in a linear pattern near the sidewalk. The property itself was larger than the ones along the beach. Larger than hers, for sure. Here, farther north in town, houses sprawled out with black iron fences, lengthy driveways, and maintained landscaping. So different from the constant sand and beach weeds she’d become used to. Brown shutters framed exceptionally oversized windows—four of them—along the front of the house. Whoever was inside would’ve surely seen her cross to the front door.

She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to lie to the people inside. They’d already been through too much, but she had to know. She had to know the truth.

“Okay.” The word left her mouth as little more than a sigh. And she knocked.

There wasn’t an answer for a series of breaths. She’d gotten into the habit of knocking first in case there were any napping babies in the house because there’d been too many times visitors had woken up Ava as a toddler. Elyse reached for the doorbell.

Just as the front door opened.

“Yes?” A sliver of a face angled into the mere inch between the door and the doorframe. The man’s voice was deeper than she expected, the lines across his forehead much more engraved than the photos she’d seen online from a year ago. “Can I help you?”

“Hi. My name is…” For crying out loud, was she really going to give these people her real name? She didn’t know them. Didn’t know if she was leaving a trail for Samuel Thornton to use against her. Elyse scrambled for an alias—any alias—in case this backfired in her face. “Leigh. Leigh Brody. Are you John Slater?”

Regret instantly exploded through her. Dragging her best friend into this wasn’t the way to go, but it’d been the only name that’d come to mind. One she trusted with her whole heart.

“What do you want?” He had yet to open the door entirely, as though he expected her to push inside and disrupt his perfectly sealed-off world.

Her nerves interpreted his standoffishness as a threat, very real and very imminent, but Elyse wasn’t going to get answers solely from the internet. She needed more. “I’d love to ask you some questions about your daughter. Poppy. I’m a journalist?—”

The door closed in her face.

It took her a moment to realize she’d gone about this all wrong. Lying to a family who’d lost their daughter, about who she was and what she wanted… This wasn’t her. Elyse attempted another knock. And waited.

---