Page 98 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“That doesn’t sound like Alex,” I said. “Now I’m worried.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you. He’s been so busy he could be looking at the wrong day on his calendar, and?—”

“How long have you known him, Regina? Alex doesn’t get his days confused, and he doesn’t blow off meetings with his two top guys.”

“Well, nowI’mworried,” Regina said. “What should I do?”

“I have no idea. Let me think about it and call you back.”

I hung up. Normally, when someone goes missing you call the hospital, but that’s the one place I knew he wasn’t. I called Chief Vanderbergen.

“Chief, this is Maggie Dunn. I’m sure this is nothing, but my husband didn’t come home last night, and his office doesn’t know where he is, and I’m a little nervous—no, I’m a lot nervous. I know it’s only been about twelve hours since I heard from him, but it’s not like him, and I need your help.”

“Give me his cell phone number,” the chief said. “I’ll call you right back.”

Seven minutes later my phone rang.

“Madam Mayor, we pinged Dr. Dunn’s phone, and we’re picking up a signal from somewhere in the middle of the Hudson River.”

“Chief, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, maybe he just decided to take an early morning sail.”

“Then why the hell doesn’t he answer his fucking phone?” I screamed.

FIFTY-NINE

“Try to stay calm,” the chief said. “I’m heading out to the location where they picked up the cell signal.”

“Where? I’ll meet you.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want you driving. I’ll pick you up. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Five minutes,” he said. “One more thing—where do you dock the boat, and what’s the make and model of the car Dr. Dunn drives?”

I told him, hung up, and immediately called my sister. “Alex is missing,” I said, my voice shrill, my panic on point.

“What do you meanmissing?” she said, and I vomited out a semicoherent, condensed version of the emergency, all my fears coming to the forefront.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” she said. “Pull yourself together. I’ll be right over.”

“No. The chief is on the way. Stay where you are. We’ll pick you up.”

“I’ll be in front of the hospital. Are the kids okay?”

“They’re fine. I’m not telling them anything. As far as they know, Alex and I are at work, and as long as I leave money on the table for food, they won’t even miss us.”

“Does Dad know?”

“God, no. If I tell him, he’ll round up every biker in the county and organize a full-scale manhunt. Right now, nobody knows except you, me, Regina, and the chief.”

I was wrong. I had grossly underestimated the resources of Chief Horace Vanderbergen Jr. By the time he got to my house, he had alerted police agencies across the state, and within minutes, a cadre of cops on land, air, and sea had been mobilized to find the missing husband of the mayor of Heartstone, New York.

We picked up Lizzie, and we were driving along Station Hill Road when the state police radioed that they had located the boat.

“What about Alex?” I said.

---