Читать книгу Three Days Missing: A nail-biting psychological thriller with a killer twist! - Kimberly Belle - Страница 15

STEF

5 hours, 13 minutes missing

I pause on the top step, listening to the voices drifting across the foyer downstairs, trying to identify them. My husband’s, deep and powerful. A male voice I don’t recognize. A softer, higher tone that can only belong to a female.

I turn around and head back up.

People who don’t know me, those who see me trailing Sam around town to openings and fancy fund-raisers, assume that Sam chose me because I’m arm candy. A pretty little wife selected for her sample-sized figure and red-carpet smile, curated with the sole purpose of elevating the mayor’s standing. I’m supposed to cheer him on, champion his causes, boost his popularity, hike up his poll numbers.

Yes, I look good on his arm, but most people don’t know I once had dreams and plans that had nothing to do with Sam. A master’s in Art History from Columbia, a love of all things French, a holy grail goal of one day working at the Louvre. People don’t know this about me because they don’t ask, and sometimes, I get so caught up in this life as the mayor’s wife that I forget it myself. Dreams don’t die as much as they fade into the background.

Sam and I met at the tail end of grad school, when I was here for a monthlong internship at the High Museum. My mother had just moved to town, and I was staying with her, sleeping on her pullout couch and pounding away at my thesis, the visual hagiography of St. Margaret of Antioch in thirteenth-century stained glass. I was biding my time here, a quick pit stop on my road to Paris.

And then I met Sam.

It happened at a Falcons game, where my father had dragged me to a VIP suite high above the field. Dad was a busy, busy man. If he could knock out a business deal while also celebrating his daughter’s thirtieth year on the planet, the night was a win-win for everybody—except me.

Just after halftime, I felt someone sink into the seat behind me.

“It’d sure be nice if the D could get some stops during garbage time instead of letting the other team run their asses ragged.” He leaned forward in the plush chair, pointing over my shoulder with his long arm. “We thought we had a blowout on our hands, see, so the Falcons sent in the second-string team. But being too cocky is never a good thing. Makes you sloppy. The defense is paying for it now.”

My answer was an uninterested hum. I’m not a football fan, have never understood the appeal of grown men fighting over a piece of leather and air.

He didn’t take the hint. He reached his arm around to offer a hand. “Sam Huntington.”

I hadn’t been in Atlanta long, but even I knew who Sam Huntington was. Old Atlanta royalty and rising political star, the youngest deputy attorney general ever appointed in Atlanta, a city that bore his last name on more than one street sign. Sam’s great-great-grandfather thought Atlanta might be a good spot for a railway terminus, and the long line of Huntingtons have been profiting from his vision ever since.

But there was his hand and I had no other choice but to shake it. He had a warm, firm grip. A politician’s grip. The grip of a guy who would go far.

“Stefanie Lawrence.”

“Nice to meet you, Stefanie Lawrence. I take it you’re not a fan.”

“I couldn’t care less about football,” I said, turning back to the field.

“I meant of me.” I looked at him in surprise, and he grinned. “Reading people is my superpower. A necessary one in my line of work, but still. People tell me I’m pretty good at it. Right now, it’s telling me you wish I’d go away so you can finish pretending to watch the game.” He reclined in his chair, sweeping an arm over the back of the empty seat next to him. “So? How’d I do?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Who’s cocky now?”

Sam laughed.

“And for the record, I’m not not a fan. I’m just...I don’t know, trying to make it through the game, I guess.”

“Still. I’d prefer you were a fan.”

“Surely you don’t need another.” My tone was teasing but firm. Looks and money and the Huntington name—of course I could see the appeal. But the combination was too heady, too dangerous for someone on her way out of town. With a polite smile, I turned back to the game.

“All right, fine. I can take a hint. I’ll leave you alone, but only if you tell me something about you.” He leaned far forward, his head coming flush to mine. “I don’t care what.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “One thing?”

He lifted a single finger. “Just one. And then I’ll clear out, I promise.”

I could have told him about the discovery I’d uncovered in my research, that the depictions of Margaret in the cathedral of Chartres were tailored to each window’s location in the church and the surrounding imagery. I could have told him I missed my friends, my Manhattan apartment, that sidewalk café on Columbus Avenue where they make the most perfect macchiato. What came out surprised even me: “Today’s my birthday.”

Sam looked disappointed. “I guess I should have qualified that with the word truth. Tell me something about you that’s true.”

“It is true.” His frown didn’t clear, so I added, “Do you want to see my driver’s license?”

“Why would you spend your birthday watching a sport you just told me you hated?”

“I do hate it. My father, however—” I pointed over his shoulder, to where my father was talking to a man so tall he could only have been a basketball player “—does not.”

Sam smiled, but the gesture looked a little sad. “Well, now, that is a goddamn shame.” He unfolded his long body from the chair, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “Happy birthday, Steffi. I hope you get everything you could ever wish for.”

The tears were pretty much instant, though I didn’t let Sam see. At the time, I blamed them on homesickness and hormones and hearing the sound of my nickname in a strange city, rolling off a stranger’s tongue, but the truth was, it had been a shitty birthday. My best friends were thousands of miles away. My mother was pissed I was spending the day with my father, whom I rarely saw and who had flown in for the occasion. My father had brought me to the last place on earth I wanted to be, and was now too busy schmoozing the bigwigs to pay me much attention. So far that day, neither of my parents had wished me a happy birthday. Sam’s words hit me like an unexpected gift.

He surprised me again two days later, when he showed up at the High with a slice of cake and two forks. He lit the birthday candle with a silver lighter that looked like it belonged in the case of antiquities on the museum’s bottom floor. Our first kiss tasted of sugar and vanilla.

Sam was easy to fall in love with. I did it that very day.

* * *

Muffled voices make their way up the stairs, prodding me across the bedroom to the closet, where I peel off my T-shirt and slip into a silky tank. I pull a pair of hot-pink pumps from the shelf, step into them one by one. At the bathroom mirror, I take down my ponytail, run my fingers through my hair, dab on some under-eye concealer and lip gloss. When measuring yourself against anyone, even if it’s only your former self, high heels and makeup always help.

I find Sam seated behind the Italian desk in his study downstairs, a masterpiece of walnut and smoky glass. This room is Sam’s domain, with modern furniture and leather wall paneling and burgundy velvet curtains that pool like blood on the black oak floor. All dark and sleek and masculine like him, all but the silver bowl on the corner of his desk, which I filled with gardenias from the backyard. They scent the air with a sweet perfume that sticks out like an escort in a boardroom.

Across from Sam, in one of the matching blue swivel chairs, sits Brittany, his director of communications. A police officer stands to her left.

None of them look happy.

“What’s wrong?” I say from the doorway.

Brittany twists in her chair, giving me a perfunctory smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Huntington. Sorry to disturb so early on a Saturday.”

For some reason I can’t quite explain, her formal greeting makes me hate her just a little. Maybe it’s because she’s still clinging to her twenties, and the further I get from that decade, the more I resent girls as pretty and smart as Brittany. The entire world is her oyster—what is she thinking, wasting her youth here in Atlanta?

Sam gestures across the desk to the empty chair next to Brittany. “Come sit down.”

Something about the way he says it makes my heart beat faster, and not in a good way. I glance at the cop, then Brittany, whose all-business expression doesn’t match her outfit. Salmon-colored shirt; purple running shorts; long, bare legs with just the right amount of muscle. This was supposed to be her day off, too, and she looks like she came straight from the gym.

I move to the chair, but I don’t sink into it. “Just tell me. What’s going on?”

“One of the kids from Sammy’s class went missing last night,” Sam says. “A little boy named Ethan Maddox. The police are working on the assumption he was taken.”

My eyes go wide, and I press a hand to my stomach. Poor Ethan. Poor Ethan’s parents. “Taken as in kidnapped?”

Sam defers to the police officer, who nods.

My legs give out, and I fall into the chair. “Oh my God. Do they have any idea who?”

I have an idea who: Ethan’s wife-beater felon father. I’ve heard the schoolyard rumors about their divorce, have watched the video some eyewitness uploaded to YouTube. Any man capable of assaulting his wife in a CVS parking lot in broad daylight, with dozens of iPhones pointed at his face capturing every blow in full-color, high-definition, is capable of kidnapping his own child.

“The Lumpkin County Sheriff’s team is looking at a number of possibilities,” the officer says carefully. “Folks connected to the school, to the child’s family, as well as any locals listed on the offender registries.”

My gaze zips to Sam, whose expression turns to stone. He’s thinking the same thing I am: a sexual predator lurking at the edge of the camp, surveying the kids like a starving man at a farmer’s market, selecting the ripest fruit. It could have been any kid. It could have been Sammy.

I am suddenly thinking about where I left my car keys. Thinking about navigating morning traffic to hightail it to Dahlonega. I am desperate to see my child.

“Call Josh,” Sam says to Brittany. “I know he’s visiting his sister but haul his ass back up to the city. I need his input on how we can best respond to this. The school hasn’t finished alerting the parents yet, and we’ve got to be careful how we approach things. We don’t want to incite panic or step on the sheriff’s toes, but I want to have a statement ready as soon as he gives us the go.”

Brittany swivels back and forth in her chair. “I’ve left Josh like a hundred messages already. Apparently, they don’t have reception wherever his sister lives.”

Probably not far from the truth. I don’t remember the name of the town, but Josh’s sister lives in the backwoods of southern Georgia, a tiny blip on a bright red map. No streetlights, no Walmart, just a couple of neighbors sitting on lawn chairs, waving Confederate flags.

“Keep trying, will you?” Sam says. “In the meantime, let’s you and I put our heads together and come up with a plan.”

She slides a laptop from the bag at her feet and begins clacking away. The police officer stands pressed against the bookshelves, his hat clutched in his hands, awaiting orders.

Sam turns to me with a pained look, and I stop him with a shake of my head. An Atlanta child is missing. There’s no need to apologize.

I turn to the police officer and Brittany. “How do you two take your coffee?”

The last thing Sam needs to worry about is me.