The Baker's Wife (16 page)

“I've never been
inside
your house. And I didn't write whatever you found on your computer. But I was there one day, outside—March I think it was. I heard someone crying—Miralee was upset. But she sent me away.”

He lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. The story sounded improbable even to her.

Her hands were shaking. She folded them in her lap where he couldn't see them. “I must have lost the earring then. I didn't notice until later.”

Jack didn't say anything.

“I didn't hurt Julie,” she said. “I would
never
.”

He leaned across his plate and lowered his voice. “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.”

“Stop it, Jack. You're twisting everything.”

“You viper, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Tears gathered behind Audrey's lids. There was fear swimming in them, to be sure, but also something else. “Why would you do this to us? You got everything from us that you asked for. Geoff left the ministry, not just your church. Our son's not going to any college for the time being, let alone the one Miralee attends. We've paid your price. It's time to let us go so that
all
of us can get back to doing God's work.”

“Not until justice has been served.”

Audrey recognized the emotion that was mingling with her fear then. It was pity for this man who might be, if he was as innocent of crime as she was, even more frightened for the fate of his loved ones.

“Then I will continue to rejoice,” she said, quoting one of her own favorite scriptures as she rose from the table. She stopped by his side of the booth and leaned over him. “For I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted.”

Jack wiped his mouth and threw his napkin down on the tabletop. Audrey left the restaurant, realizing that she felt, for the first time in twenty-four hours, physically well.

On her return to the bakery, she glanced at Jack as she passed by his window. He watched her, expressionless, toying with his table knife.

CHAPTER 14

Rise and Shine did neither on Mondays. Restless and disturbed by her encounter with Jack, Audrey woke before dawn and shuffled out to her kitchen. She considered making six loaves of bread, something she and Geoff hadn't done since the family took over the “real” bakery.

She had no idea who she'd give them to. Geoff was still sleeping, exhausted. Audrey stood in front of her cookbooks without cracking a single spine. Her thoughts drifted to the bakery, and to the wreck at the intersection, and finally to Julie Mansfield, the woman she ought to have known better—would have known better if Audrey had been a more involved parent at Ed's school. She wondered what might have happened if she had insisted on taking a loaf of bread into the house that day when Miralee was sobbing. Why hadn't she acted? Where had her nerve gone? Audrey hated the missed opportunity to make a bad situation better.

Miralee had never . . .

Wait.

Audrey had always believed the cries she heard in March were Miralee's, but in that particular second on that particular morning in November, she stared at cookbook titles without reading them and wondered if the shattered heart and tears had belonged to Julie.

She lifted her hands to rub sleep out of her eyes, and her knuckles came away wet. The apples of her cheeks were slick. Water dripped off her chin and soaked her cotton T-shirt just above her heart.

Audrey stared at her damp hands. She felt a tickle trace her lip. Her nose was running. The even clicks of the old grandfather clock drew her attention, announcing that she'd been zoning for a full ten minutes, crying without knowing it.

Baking wouldn't bring her the peace she needed today—that much was clear. She needed something more vigorous to settle the distress mounting within her. She needed answers to the questions collecting like snow in a blizzard.

Audrey wiped her face dry with a wad of tissues, booted up the family computer, checked the weather, and decided to drive up to the national park, into King's Riches, for one last day hike before access to the area closed for winter. The forecast looked decent, with rain not rolling in until evening, then turning into snow in the higher elevations overnight. If it snowed hard enough, the Old Gauntlet Road that took hikers to the trailheads would soon be impassable.

She opened the cavernous hall closet and started dragging her hiking boots and winter jackets out of moving boxes that she hadn't bothered to unpack since relocating from the parsonage.

“You want company?” Ed asked. She jumped, then rolled her eyes. He ran a hand over his bed-head and then across his yawn. “Shouldn't hike alone, especially this time of year.”

“I don't know if you'll be able to keep up with me, Mr. Athlete,” she teased. “I'm pretty energized.”

“So that means Dad's not going.”

Audrey laughed. Geoff did prefer more lazy weekend walks. When the family went into the park, he preferred to sleep at a cabin or sit in the sun with a book while Audrey tore up the mountainsides. She missed walking with him on Tuesday mornings.

“He's got plans today with Cesar and Estrella. Something about getting a grinding lesson at the wheat mill. Would you not go with me if he was?”

“I didn't say that.” Ed pulled a dusty backpack out of the gear box.

Audrey dragged out several lightweight jackets that were good for layering. “Let's go to Diamond Lake.”

“You planning to spend the week up there?”

“It's not even ten miles round trip. One long day, not three.

Although it has been awhile since I've been up at that altitude.”

A yawn stalled Ed's reply. “The memory of my warm bed is really, really vivid right now.”

“Okay, okay. If you want to stick to the nature trail—”

“We're not going to drive all the way to King's Riches for a one-mile walk. We can do that here.”

“Well, I really don't care how far we go, as long as it's
away
from here.”

Ed crossed his arms and struck his favorite cool-as-a-cucumber, FBI-man pose. “Energized, flying solo. You're running from the police, are you?”

“Exactly.”

“They've been hovering. What's up with that?”

“They don't tell me anything. You know that.”

“You're still a suspect? Don't they have anyone else?”

Audrey tossed a pair of thick wool socks at his chest. “It'll be cold up there. Bring your gloves.”

Ed sighed.

“None of this is your fault,” Audrey said.

“Some of it is.”

“Let's go. Be ready in ten.”

“Let me drive?”

“Sure.”

Ed made a move to go, then took a closer look at his mom's face.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. I'm gonna get dressed.”

Audrey watched him go, then realized that tears were dripping off her chin again, and her nose had started to leak.

“I'm fine,” she muttered. “Really, totally fine.”

Jack slammed his rolling chair into the space under his metal desk. A paper cup fell off the edge and tumbled away, making a hollow popping sound on the shiny floor.

“How can we be at the end of our leads?” His voice was controlled even though his body language wasn't. “No one's heard from my wife for six days, and we're still acting like it's day one.”

Captain Wilson sat on one ham slung over the lip of Jack's desk. He was a foreboding man, a lifelong resident of Cornucopia who was respected first for his unapologetic efficiency and second for his physical size. They were nearly eye to eye as Jack stood and Wilson leaned.

“If you can name a trail we haven't chased, you say the word, Jack, and I'll check it out myself.”

“Now I'm a consultant? Are you telling me they're not doing their jobs?” He gestured to the other desks in the precinct.

“Until we uncover something new, we don't have anywhere to go. It's a temporary holdup. You've seen it happen. Eventually, the tree will drop more fruit.”

“If she dies, it's on your hands, Wilson.”

There were two other detectives in the open office. One of them, a woman, had the courtesy to leave the room. Rutgers eavesdropped over busywork.

“How many heads do you have on this case?” Jack demanded.

Wilson kept his volume low and even.

“Everyone we've got. Even the ones not officially holding Julie's file are working overtime for the two of you. A little respect wouldn't hurt your cause.”

“I respect results.”

“No one here wants to be in your shoes. These people would go to Atlantis and back to get Julie if that's where she was, you know that. They're not dumping the case, right? I'm just saying that we don't have much to go on right now.”

“Not true. Her phone, the fingerprints, the computer—”

“We all wish it was more clearly connected.”

“You can't get more clear, Wilson. That Bofinger woman is guilty as Judas. She had motive and opportunity. She had two men who are looking to me like really nice accessories—two men who blame me for the sorry state of their lives.”

“So far, Mrs. Bofinger isn't guilty of anything but a traffic violation.”

“Says who? The DA?”

“You know how this works, Jack.”

“She's good for it. I swear it. I'll find out what she did. She was
covered
in Julie's blood.”

Wilson held up a hand. “Everything we have on her is circumstantial.”

“I want the FBI in on this.”

“Can't get it approved for you right now. I'm sorry.”

“What? Why not?”

“What do we call them in for? No contact, no demands, no ransom—it doesn't look like a kidnapping. We've got no indication anyone's crossed any state lines. We don't even have enough evidence to prove a crime was committed.”

“Unbelievable. We have at least two quarts of blood poured out on the middle of the street.”

“But no body. And not a drop of blood outside the impact zone.”

“And yet everyone here is asking me to prepare myself for the possibility that she's dead, saying no one could have survived that kind of hemorrhage.”

Wilson nodded, somber. “It's a high possibility, Jack.”

“If it's not an abduction, it's murder.”

“There are . . . other possibilities.”

“Like?”

“Julie's credit cards are silent. No purchases, no cash withdrawals from your bank, no checks written on your account.”

“Which would align with her being dead. I'm not following you.”

“She left her car in town.”

“I
know
that.” He had discovered Julie's Honda when he went to pick up his Jeep at the tardy mechanic's. She had dropped off the sedan Tuesday afternoon and asked them to give it priority over the Jeep. She insisted she needed a new fuel injection system. They thought nothing was wrong with it but did the work anyway and slapped Jack with an overpriced invoice. Rather than pay the bill, Jack left the Honda behind. Julie would clear it up when she returned.

The captain got off the desk and smoothed his pants. “What are the chances someone else is taking care of her?”

Anger like a beast behind bars rattled Jack's ribs.

“Is it possible that your wife was going behind your back?”

“No.” His reaction was visceral even though the same question had run through his own mind. He grabbed a jacket off the back of his chair and moved swiftly toward the exit. Wilson followed.