Page 90 of Husband Missing

Alec barked a laugh. “You knew that already, didn’t you?”

“It was just a theory,” said Josie. “It wasn’t my place to tell you.”

“I figured it out—between all the stuff you told me and Erica confirming her mom wasn’t dead when we adopted her. I confronted her tonight and she told me the truth about that, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The only person who should be sorry is that evil woman.”

“Did Erica say why Lila left her behind?” Josie asked.

Alec shifted, digging inside one of his pockets. “She wouldn’t tell me that, but she did say that a few years later when her mom got back in touch and needed help with this whole blackmail scheme, it was because she was sick. Dying. She told Erica she needed the money for treatment. That probably wasn’t even true.”

“I don’t know if that’s what she used the money for but she did have cancer.”

He found what he was looking for in his pants pocket, curling a fist around it. “Imagine using an eleven-year-old kid like that. Manipulating her into taking those photos. Makes me sick. Erica held onto the secret for so long. Until now I had no idea the guilt was eating away at her. She thought if I found out, I’d hate her. I never saw her so scared, so upset as I did tonight when she told me that she thought I’d stop loving her, stop being her dad.”

Josie looked over at him. “It’s because of the way Lila raised her. Unconditional love is a myth to someone like Erica. You always worry that you’ll do something wrong or that the person who loves you will find out that you’re broken and leave.”

“I tried to tell her that’s not how this works.” Alec opened his fist and let a thin chain fall through his fingers. A necklace. He rolled the charm around in his palm. “You know, I never thoughtabout kids before my brother showed up with Erica. My life seemed fine. Wife, career, nice house. It was boring but I figured that’s what adulthood was supposed to be like. Then this little person showed up and sure, she was fragile and damaged and shut down, but she was also smart and funny and kind and just a really cool kid. She needed us. Needed me. All of a sudden, I had a purpose. It was so clear. My job was to be her dad. Iwantedto be her dad. It was easy. Even the hard shit was easy because I loved her in this completely selfless way that I didn’t even know was possible.”

Now emotion battered against Josie’s shield. What Alec described was exactly what she and Noah hoped to give a child one day. Listening to him, she liked the idea of giving that kind of love to a child who might not have grown up with it otherwise. But that dream was dead, and her husband might be as well.

Seventy-nine hours.

“I don’t regret it,” Alec said, his voice low and throaty. “Not one fucking thing. Not the embezzling or the way people treated me when I got caught. Not losing my career, my marriage, my house. I’d do it again and again. I tried to tell her that. You wanna know the worst part?”

SIXTY-ONE

When the barrel touched her skin, Erica felt its heat. She expected it to be cold. Cold metal. Instead, it was hot. Probably because it had just been fired. The singe, the pressure of it against her flesh was just a reminder that she was out of time, out of ways to stall. There were no more tricks up her sleeve. No more lies or fast-talking that might buy her more time or get her out of this. Her fingers scrabbled against her chest, searching for her necklace, but it wasn’t there.

Maybe it was foolish to believe that it would protect her. It hadn’t so far. Her brilliant plan had gone horribly wrong. Every time she thought things couldn’t get worse, some fresh new hell was unleashed, and she realized that her worst mistake was a failure of imagination. Never did she think that things could get so bad. She wasn’t as savvy as she liked to believe. Wasn’t as cunning or calculating as her mother.

An irritated voice broke through the ringing in Erica’s ears. It was faint, as if it came from another room, but she knew it was the other man, standing near the door. “Come on, man. I’m tired of this shit. Shut her up, once and for all.”

Erica closed her eyes and touched the little frog foot tattoo under her ear, conjuring an image of her dad. Even though she’dlet him down time and again and ruined his life, he still loved her. He’d told her as much at the hotel, after she came clean about her part in the blackmail scheme. She wanted her last thoughts to be of him.

SIXTY-TWO

Josie nodded in answer to Alec’s question because she couldn’t speak just then.

He bounced the charm in his hand, and she got a better look at it. Her scar tingled. A jolt of realization cut through the emotion of the moment, making her heart pound.

“Erica still loves her mother,” Alec said. “Even after all the bad stuff she did, Erica’s still trying to gain her approval. Trying to get acceptance from a ghost.”

Josie considered explaining how the whole toxic mother thing worked. Every little girl yearned for her mother’s love. When that mother was too toxic or evil to give it, a void formed in the little girl’s soul, leaving her incomplete and desperate to fill it because if she didn’t—if she couldn’t—that meant she was irreparably broken. Damaged. Worthless. Even when the little girl grew up and understood that the failing was with her mother and not her, the longing for something that never existed in the first place never went away. Neither did the void, and from time to time—against all logic—attempts to fill it had to be made.

Except Josie couldn’t tear her attention away from the necklace. “That’s Erica’s.”

“Yeah. She rarely takes it off, but she got into the shower as soon as we settled in the room. Left it on the bathroom counter.” He pinched the charm between his thumb and forefinger. “This was the only thing she had from her mother when she came to us. Not the chain or even the setting, just this weird-ass thing. Her mom gave it to her before she left. Erica doesn’t even know what the hell it is or what it means but she’s always been obsessed with it. I don’t know what it is either, except weird. When she was about fourteen, she got this idea to make it into a necklace. Got all this fancy wire and tiny beads from the craft store and she made it into this.”

It was almost as if the object generated its own energy, drawing Josie toward it, urging her to touch it. “May I?”

Alec shrugged and dumped the necklace into Josie’s open palm. Then he fished his lighter and another cigarette from a back pocket. He lit up, mumbled something, but Josie wasn’t listening anymore. She used the flashlight app on her phone to get a closer look at the small, black, cylindrical object. A half-dozen tiny red beads sparkled from the ornately patterned copper wire that hugged its smooth surface. It was metal, about an inch long, and surprisingly heavy. Solid. Its circumference was no bigger than that of a pencil. One end was flat. The other flared out slightly, a bit thicker than the rest of the shaft. Its surface was concave enough that she could fit the tip of her pinky finger into it.

It wasn’t a spanner bit. Not a tool or part of a tool, either. Deep in the recesses of Josie’s brain, something fought to break free from the shadows but failed. She didn’t know what the object was but she knew there were five others exactly like it in Lila’s twisted trophy box.

SIXTY-THREE

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