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Still, there was another way to escape the horror of their lives,
though in all his years he’d come across only one who actually did
it. He’d interviewed the woman once and she’d taken the usual
route of denial and self-blame. But a couple of months later, he’d
learned that she’d fled. Not to her family and not to her friends,
but somewhere else, a place where even her husband couldn’t
find her. Her husband, lost in his fury that his wife had left, had
exploded after a long night of drinking and had bloodied an MP.
He ended up in Leavenworth, and Alex remembered grinning in
satisfaction when he’d heard the news. And when thinking of the
man’s wife, he smiled, thinking, Good for you.
Now, as he watched Katie toying with a ring that wasn’t there, he
felt his old investigative instincts kick in. There’d been a husband,
he thought; her husband was the missing element. Either she was
still married or she wasn’t, but he had an undeniable hunch that
Katie was still afraid of him.
The sky exploded while she was reaching for a box of crackers.
Lightning flashed, and a few seconds later thunder crackled
before finally settling into a loud, angry rumble. Josh dashed
inside right before the downpour started, clutching his tackle box
and fishing reel as he entered the store. His face was red and he
was panting like a runner crossing the finish line.
“Hey, Dad.”
Alex looked up. “Catch anything?”
“Just the catfish again. The same one I catch every time.”
“I’ll see you in a little bit for lunch, okay?”
Josh vanished back into the storeroom and Alex heard him
padding up the steps to the house.
Outside, the rain came down hard and the wind whipped sheets
of water against the glass. Branches bent in the wind, bowing to a
higher power. The dark sky flashed bright with lightning, and