where we lived then in San Diego at nine.”
“And Hope rarely got herself moving to go anywhere before nine,” Cara agreed.
This third dig was too much for Gabe to ignore. “I always had the idea Hope could do no wrong in your book.”
Cara shrugged. “Time was,” she said. “But a funny thing happened. I grew up.”
Gabe’s breath caught as she put her finger on the very thing that had always bothered him; Hope hadn’t seemed inclined to do that at all. She’d wanted the carefree life she’d always had, and hadn’t been happy with one reality had presented her. But she’d been so alive and vibrant that everyone had accepted it as just part of her unique charm.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Cara hastened to add, “I love her. She was the sister I never had, and I’ll always feel that way about her.”
Gabe noticed the confusion of present and past tense, but didn’t comment; he’d felt that way too often himself to make an issue of it. And more than once, in the dark of night, he had faced his innermost thoughts, admitted to the silence that it would be easier to know she’d left him. That she’d met someone who could give her the full-time attention she wanted. At least then he could be angry, or hurt, or stir up some righteous indignation. Something. Anything.
Hell, it would even be easier to know she was dead than to live forever in this limbo.
“What about you, Gabe?”
The question startled him out of the grim reverie. “What?”
“I was surprised when I talked to Hope’s parents. I’d assumed you’d have taken the legal steps by now. To have her declared dead, I mean. It’s been long enough, hasn’t it?”
“Death in absentia?” Gabe said, his mouth twisting into a humorless smile. “A very inconclusive ending.”
“But necessary, for you to go on with your life.”
“I’m here and alive, aren’t I?”
There was pure curiosity in her look then. “But…haven’t you ever wanted…I mean, hasn’t there been someone, in all this time, that made you want to—”
“No.”
There had been, in fact, women in his life. Briefly. But when the subject of his status arose, that usually brought things to a quick end. He wondered how many of those women suspected he’d had something to do with his wife’s disappearance and had run for their lives. He couldn’t blame them, not really; too often it was the truth, and none of them had gotten to know him well enough to trust in his innocence. The fact that he’d been half a world away aboard an amphibious assault ship had been a pretty unassailable personal alibi, but there were conspiracy theorists everywhere, too many of them writing the news, it seemed.
And in the end, he hadn’t cared enough to pursue it. That part of him seemed numb, and he wasn’t sure he didn’t like it that way.
“Do you think it would be worth looking into?”
Again her question snapped him out of the unpleasant thoughts. He wasn’t usually one to get lost in his head like this, and it bothered him that he was now. It had to be Cara, he thought. Just her presence, so familiar and yet so changed, that had his mind spinning into all these old, dark places.
“Do you even want to?” Cara asked after a moment when he didn’t speak.
Her tone was even, non-judgmental, and he had the feeling that if he said no, she’d accept it. And if she thought less of him for it, she would never let it show. Not just because she’d always kept her thoughts to herself, although she had, but because he sensed the classy demeanor was real, not just a facade.
“Is it worth it?” He echoed her words, running them through his head.
“I don’t know. My first thought was to call the police. But I couldn’t drag it all up again, if it’s going to come to nothing. Hope’s parents…”
Her voice trailed off. He knew exactly what she meant, and slowly shook his head. The memory of the pain in those much-loved, worn faces made his chest tighten.
“They’ve been through enough,” he said.
She nodded. “Calling them, telling them, was so hard. They took it so hard…I didn’t know what to do. So instead of calling the police, I came to you.”
Something in her voice made his chest tighten even more. “Why?”
It was out before he thought, and he wondered why he’d asked, when in fact it didn’t really matter why she’d come here. She had, and it was in his lap now.
“Because no one has a bigger stake in this than you,” she said simply.
“Yours is pretty big,” he pointed out. “She was your best friend for most of your life.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But she was your wife. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”
Oddly, it was her assessment of the marriage relationship that he focused on, rather than the old ache of speaking of Hope in the past tense. Interesting, he thought. And wondered again if she’d married somewhere along the line. And then, suddenly, he was asking her.
“Did you marry someone, Cara?”
She looked startled at the sudden shift. But she answered, with the direct honesty he’d always remembered, the honesty he was glad hadn’t been glossed over by the more sophisticated appearance.
“No. I was engaged. He was killed.”
In seven short words she made him regret he’d ever asked, wish he’d smothered his curiosity.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. He was a nice guy.”
He wondered if he should ask what had happened, now that he’d lifted the lid on that box of troubles.
“It’s all right,” she said, her voice still even. “It was six years ago. It’s not…raw, anymore.”
Six years. Fairly soon after Hope had vanished. Connection? he wondered. Had she gone looking for comfort and found it in some…nice guy’s arms?
None of your business, he told himself. And gestured abruptly with the card.
“I’m not sure this is enough to go to the police with, not after all this time.”
“I wasn’t sure, either,” she said. “But it seemed as if I should do…something.”
He looked again at the postmark, at the date and time that would be a marker in his life for as long as he lived. Could he really pass up the chance to get answers? Perhaps too much time had passed, perhaps nothing would come of it, but could he really just walk away, hand this card to Cara and pretend he’d never seen it, that this message from the past had never arrived at all?
He knew he couldn’t. His gaze flicked back to Cara’s face, and he suddenly knew she couldn’t,
