o’clock in her place, but Yolanda was already tied up midday, and Kaye’s own one o’clock was too close to Mia’s eleven-fifteen to guarantee that they wouldn’t overlap. So Mia conveyed her regrets to the title company via Bev, then called the buyer and spent twenty minutes calming his fears and convincing him that everything was in place, just as it should be, and that he’d make it through the closing just fine without his Realtor by his side.
The closings were the only piece of Kaye’s schedule that Mia was privy to. Because they worked in a small office with only three agents, she knew many of Kaye’s clients, just as Kaye knew quite a few of hers. But without access to the woman’s electronic date book, she had no way of knowing where Kaye was expected to be or when, not until a disgruntled client phoned to complain, or a stranger walked through the door to announce that he had an appointment with her.
Mia forwarded Kaye’s calls to her own phone and left a message on her partner’s voice mail saying that she was away from the office until further notice. This thing would probably blow over, or at least that was what she tried to tell herself. Kaye would come home, everything would be explained satisfactorily and her disappearance would turn out to be just a simple misunderstanding.
Kevin called from school around ten o’clock. “You didn’t give me an answer about Tampa,” he said.
With all the chaos surrounding Kaye’s disappearance, Mia had completely forgotten about Tampa. Or maybe it was just unconscious avoidance. She glanced at her watch and said sharply, “Why aren’t you in school?”
“Relax, Mom, I have a free period. I’m sitting in the cafeteria right now, drinking an orange juice. You should be proud of me. It’s not even carbonated.”
It was a not-so-subtle dig at her determination to save her son from the self-imposed junk food diet he was equally determined to live on. They’d had a number of go-rounds on the topic. She’d lectured him on good nutrition and he’d pointed out that he was a teenager and that junk food went with the territory. They’d finally reached a compromise. He agreed to eat the healthy, nutritious meals she prepared for him at home, and she agreed not to ask what he was eating when he walked out the door. What else could she do? Soon he would be eighteen, and her flimsy parental control, such as it was, would be ended for good. She might as well start getting used to it. Once he went off to college, she’d be an empty nester, rattling around that big old house all by herself. She might as well start getting used to that, too.
“Well?” he said. “Can I go or not? They need an answer today.”
She’d loved him since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. It seemed only yesterday. Hard to believe that seventeen years had passed, harder to believe that it was time she started loosening the apron strings. She knew she was an overprotective mother, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Fine,” she said. “You can go. But I’ll want to talk to Mrs. Olson before you leave. And you’ll have to promise to call me while you’re gone.”
“Mom, it’s only four days.”
“And you’re the only kid I have. Humor me.”
“Thanks, Mom. Listen, I gotta run, the bell just rang. If I’m late for English class, Miss Crandall will have a bird. See you tonight.”
And he was gone, the connection broken, leaving Mia holding a dead telephone receiver. She should be glad he was growing up, should be proud of the man he was turning into. And she was. It was just happening so soon. She wasn’t ready. Maybe she never would be.
She’d just hung up the phone when her brother burst into her office, looking like a wild man, his hair awry, his shirt wrinkled and blind fury in his eyes. He flung a sheaf of papers on her desk and demanded, “Did you know about this?”
“What’s going on?” she said. “Have they found Kaye?”
Her brother planted both fists on the edge of her desk and loomed over her, his face dark with fury. “You heard me, damn it! Did you or did you not know about this?”
She’d never seen Sam like this, not even when they were kids and he’d had one of his weekly go-rounds with their dad. Fury didn’t set well on her brother’s handsome features. His complexion was mottled with rage, his eyes bloodshot and wild. Like some kind of caged animal.
“I don’t know,” she said, reining in her own too-short fuse. “Maybe it would help if I knew what ‘this’ refers to.” She fumbled for her reading glasses, slid them onto her face and peered through them at the paperwork he’d so unceremoniously deposited amid the sales contracts and the flyers and the gazillion notes that littered her desk. “‘Petition for Divorce,’” she read. “‘Katherine Bradford Winslow, plaintiff.’” Mia raised startled eyes to his, then continued reading. “‘Samuel L. Winslow, defendant…’ Christ, Sam. I had no idea.”
He continued to sway over her desk, so close she could smell the coffee on his breath. And something else, something slightly medicinal. Had he been drinking? At ten-fifteen in the morning?
“No idea,” he said. “You’re her business partner. Her sister-in-law. You see her, you talk to her, every blessed day of your life. And you want me to believe she decided to file for divorce and didn’t bother to mention it to you?”
Mia’s anger caught up to her. “Believe what you want,” she snapped, removing the reading glasses and tossing them down on the desk. “But you might want to take a look in the mirror before you attack me. Because it seems she didn’t bother to share her plans with you, either.”
“Jesus Christ.” He wheeled away from the desk, raked his fingers through his hair as he paced to the window and back to Mia’s desk. Through the open doorway, she saw Bev watching, her hand on the phone and her face etched with concern.
Behind Sam’s back, Mia frowned and shook her head. Bev took the hint, discreetly moving to another corner of the office, where she pulled out a file drawer and focused intently on her filing.
“Shut the door,” Mia ordered him.
His mouth set in a grim line, Sam closed the door with a little more force than was called for. “This is a place of business,” she snapped. “You can’t just come storming in here, roaring like a lion and sending people running for cover. Around here, we act civilized.”
“How could she do this to me? After all the shit I’ve gone through with that woman, how could she do this now? I’m on the verge of getting tenure. The least little thing rocking the boat could end it all. I could strangle her.”
Mia just stared at this wild-eyed stranger who looked like her brother, walked like her brother, even sounded like her brother. Except that the words coming from his mouth made no sense. “Under the circumstances,” she said, “that’s a pretty unfortunate choice of words.”
“If I don’t get tenure, my career is over!”
“Your wife is missing,” Mia said. “Maybe dead. And all you can think about is your career? I don’t think I know you anymore, Sam. I don’t think I want to know you anymore.”
He deflated abruptly, like a balloon stuck with a hatpin. “Shit,” he said.
“Will you please sit down? Have you called Detective Abrams yet?”
He slumped onto the chrome-and-tweed chair opposite her desk. “I’ll get to it.”
“You’ll
