Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [46]
13
Once in the rental car, I made a distress call to Amy and fired a million directions at her about the McKnight trial. Next, I reached two associates who were free and asked them if they could drop everything in favor of some initial research into Kingston’s technology. When I got back, I would decide who to officially appoint to the case.
It began to rain. Sparkling droplets cut through the sheet-gray sky to splash on the windshield. Instead of depressing me, as rain often did, I found it soothing, so I didn’t close the window. I let the mist inside the car. It sprayed my face; it cleansed me. Every lawn I passed, every landscaped park, was lushly green with soaring trees and bursting shrubs.
I drove for twenty minutes, following the directions that Matt had given me. Finally, I found Northeast Jarrett Street, where Caroline and Matt lived. It was a residential street lined with small, trim houses. I slowed and craned my neck to see the addresses, wondering if this had been a good idea. For all I knew, Matt was lying. He could have harmed my sister or pulled a cruel trick as part of a divorce. What did I know about their marriage or their lives? Nothing. I knew nothing about my own sister and that was exactly why I was here.
Fear wouldn’t make me turn a blind eye anymore.
I pulled into Caroline’s short driveway, which led to a brick bungalow with a white roof. The wind caused blossoms to drop from an apple tree onto the front lawn. A row of bushes protected the house, and a wind chime hung from the front door, tinkling softly. The chime made the house seem calm, a place friends would want to visit, but I knew from talking to Matt that this spot had been anything but calm for the last few weeks.
A pang of nervousness hit my stomach as I made my way up the curved concrete walk to the door. I hadn’t gotten over my fantasies that this search would lead to a happy ending. We would all be a family again. In the future, Matt and I would drink too much eggnog on Christmas Eve, exchange funny e-mails from work.
I rapped on the door with my fist. It opened immediately.
Matt Ramsey looked like the picture he had taken with Caroline on their wedding day—slightly long brown hair, bronzed-wire glasses—but beneath the glasses his eyes appeared red, the skin below them bruised.
“You look like her,” he said without introducing himself. “Your eyes are different, but the hair…” He trailed off.
I nodded. “Can I come in?”
“Oh yeah, sure. Sorry.” He raised his hands, a helpless gesture, before he backed away from the door.
This is where she lives, I thought. Caroline must have picked out that tan-and-white-striped couch, and she probably made the quilt thrown over it. She might have painted the bricks of the fireplace yellow, and those daisies long dead in a vase—she bought those, or maybe she’d gone out in her backyard and picked them.
“Sorry about the mess,” I heard Matt say behind me, and it was then I noticed the layer of dust over everything in the room and the restaurant carryout boxes stacked on the coffee table.
“No problem.”
“Sit down, please. Can I get you something to drink? I really only have water, but I could make some tea. Or if you’re hungry I could make you soup, something.”
I sat on the couch and shook my head no, smiling a little at Matt’s sweetness, at his desire to make me feel comfortable when his wife was missing.
“This is a great house,” I said.
He looked around. “Yeah. It’s small, but we love it. We bought it right after we got married. As soon as we saw it, we knew it was home. You know what I mean?”
“Sure,” I said, but I didn’t know.
There had never been a place in my life that was home. Well, maybe the house in Woodland Dunes had felt like that once, but I had only been a child, and I had tried for so long to forget that part of my life that it didn’t resonate anymore. My father was the only symbol of home for me.
“I saw your wedding picture,” I said, desperate for safe conversation. “You both looked so happy.”
“That one?” Matt gestured to a wood-framed photo on the mantel, the same photo