She supposed she could’ve stayed with Adriana…. But she couldn’t handle the complexity of their relationship right now. It was hard enough coping with the feelings Jonah had dredged up.
The unopened messages waiting in her in-box beckoned to her. Reading her e-mail brought a measure of relief because it felt normal. She could get lost in work and forget that she was sitting in an unfamiliar kitchen with cracked linoleum, secondhand furniture and a noisy dishwasher so old it hooked up to the sink. But she needed to be polite, didn’t want to ignore Heather. “Sean down for the night?” she asked, making small talk.
Heather responded while gathering up her son’s toys and piling them in a toy box shaped like a plastic turtle. “For the time being. Lately, he’s been getting up a lot. The doctor said I shouldn’t be too quick to respond when he calls out for me, so don’t worry if I let him fuss a little. I’m trying to teach him to sleep through the night so I won’t have to go through my days feeling like the walking dead.”
“No problem. Do whatever you have to. I’m not here to get in the way.” Francesca wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear Sean. Her bed was in the living room, on the lumpy sofa.
As she bent to retrieve the last toy, Heather’s shirt rose up, revealing a large tattoo on her back—Alberto, the name of Sean’s father. In prison for armed robbery, he still had nearly two years, but Heather was determined to wait for him. He’d promised to marry her when he got out, make them a family, and each square of the calendar on her wall showed a number—the days left in his term. Six hundred and thirty as of today, which sounded like an eternity to Francesca. She often wondered how Heather tolerated having the man she loved locked up. But Heather never complained. She’d had a rough childhood and didn’t seem to expect a lot out of life.
Finished with the toys, she stretched her back. “Okay, well, I know it’s early for bed, but I’m going to turn in, if you don’t mind.”
It was only ten after nine, but it felt much later than that. Francesca planned on following her example, just as soon as she’d downloaded all the information that’d been stored in the iPhone she’d lost. Fortunately, she had a copy of everything on her computer. God bless the iPhone and its syncing ability. “I don’t mind a bit. Get some sleep while you can, huh?”
“You, too. You could use it.” She headed down the hall but turned back before reaching the bedroom. “I almost forgot—we were so busy this afternoon—but you got a ton of messages today. I brought them home, just in case you weren’t coming in tomorrow.” Twisting her hair up and fanning her neck, she went to her purse, which was sitting on the counter, and eventually handed Francesca a stack of messages fastened with a paper clip.
“You might want to check your voice mail, too, if you haven’t already,” she said. “Some of the people who called wanted to be transferred. Others had me take a message.”
“Will do. ’Night.” Francesca listened to Heather’s steps recede as she started through her messages. Jillian Abbatiello’s name was at the top of the stack. No doubt she’d also left a message on voice mail. April’s disappearance was so recent, they talked every day. Jill had to be wondering where Francesca had disappeared so suddenly. Francesca hadn’t called her because she wasn’t sure whether or not to tell Jill and Vince about the body in Skull Valley. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until she knew whether or not that corpse was April?
But no word was agony, too. Which was worse for April’s family?
Deciding to hold off until tomorrow morning, she set the message aside. Investigator Finch’s name was on the next slip. The two after that came from Jonah. All three said the same thing. “Call ASAP.”
Did they have new information? If so, it might solve the dilemma of what to tell Jill and Vince.
Disregarding the rest of her messages, she called Jonah first. Finch hadn’t fully forgiven her for embarrassing him. Jonah would be more forthcoming with any details the M.E. managed to find, anyway.
“Hello?”
She felt a flutter in her stomach the moment she heard his voice—and cursed her weakness. “It’s me.”
“Jeez, it’s about time you called. You scared the shit out of me, you know that? You can’t go dropping off the face of the earth and expect me not to think the worst, Francesca.”
Covering her eyes, she tried to rub away some of her fatigue—and wished she could ignore her appreciation of his voice. They used to talk for hours on the phone, whenever they couldn’t be together in person. “Sorry. I’ve been busy putting my life back in order, as much as that’s possible in one afternoon. I’m not used to anyone keeping tabs on me, so I wasn’t aware I should check in.”
“After this morning? Are you nuts?”
“I understand why you might’ve thought the worst. But you can relax. I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
Her eyes circled the room, taking in the old wooden cupboards, which had been repainted so many times they hardly closed, the chipped enamel sink, the 1960s table and chairs covered in lime-green vinyl upholstery, the ancient toaster. Did she really want to tell him? He might wonder why she hadn’t chosen to stay with Adriana, and she’d rather he didn’t realize he still had the power to tear them apart. “How do you know I’m not home?”
“Because I’m at your house.”
She sat up straighter. “Why?”
“When I couldn’t find you anywhere else, I thought maybe you’d eventually come here.”
“But…it’s locked. How’d you get in?”
“I didn’t.” His yawn came through the phone. “I fell asleep on the porch while I was waiting for you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Why?” He’d obviously noted the sharp edge to her voice.
“Because Butch doesn’t like you any better than he does me,” she snapped. “You’re lucky he didn’t decide to stop by and bash your head in while you were taking your snooze.”
“I didn’t fall asleep on purpose, Francesca.”
Pushing out of her chair, she began to pace. “It doesn’t matter. Just leave. Get out of there now. Don’t you have a—a wife or a girlfriend or something who’d be unhappy about you taking such risks?”