Roxy looked down at her plate.
“Please don’t think I’m complaining,” I said. “I’m certainly not. That’s just how our marriage is, and most of the time I’m fine with it. In fact, I would have never come back here—ever—if William hadn’t gone missing. Can you imagine if I revealed that I used to investigate missing people who we believed were abducted? Everyone would have thought I was having a nervous breakdown. No one would have believed me. And I would have created another problem for my family during the worst crisis of our lives. So I tried to push it aside. Now I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.”
“How could you have ever not thought of it?”
“I had to bury those years. That’s the best way I can describe it. I had to smother them to make my marriage work, first of all. And when the girls came and Tom’s career took off, I had to close the door on that feeling of… purpose? Is that the right word? First, I became a mother. Then a lawyer’s wife. Then a state representative’s wife, then a US senator’s wife, and any ambitions I ever had to do something with my own life were gone. And once you’ve been given that taste of… professional acceptance, it’s hard to douse. It took me years, Roxy, to get past it. But like all things, in time, I did.”
Roxy took off her glasses. “I never knew. Here I am, your best friend, and I assumed you loved the whole mom-and-wife thing. That is, until we opened the shop.”
“I do love it, don’t get me wrong. But I got lost all those years ago, and it’s reminded me that sometimes only by being lost do we find the path to who we are supposed to be. But… instead of staying on that path, I ran. I ran back home and away from everything here. So I never knew… what, or who, I could have been.”
“Why did you run?” she asked quietly.
I looked out the window. “I was scared. I stood on the edge of a cliff to a wild and uncertain life and opted not to jump.”
“And yet, here we are. Are you hoping to find out where this professor is, so you can track him down and make sure he’s not involved with William’s disappearance? Ask him why he had those maps of your property? Or do you honestly think… you’ll find out something to explain where William has gone? If he has been… abducted… that these people will know how to call back the mother ship that took him?”
“I know sitting around Nashville putting Band-Aids on widely gaping wounds wasn’t working. Maybe I’m doing it to convince myself I’m not useless. I can only explain what it feels like to have William missing…. It’s like there’s an elephant on my chest, and I can’t breathe when I think about him being somewhere away from us. And being here, doing this, it’s easier to breathe.”
Roxy reached across the table and took my hand. “I promise to keep my mouth shut. Well, scratch that, we know that’s not going to happen.”
We took our leftovers, uncertain if they would ever be eaten, but knowing it was cold enough for them to remain in the backseat without going bad.
“So where are we having this Tupperware party?” Roxy asked as we slid into the truck.
I exhaled. “Steven’s house.”
“What? But he’s not there and clearly hasn’t been for a while. This is weird, Lynn.”
“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe he actually lives somewhere else and he’ll be there when we arrive. Maybe that’s who Doug intended to be there all along.”
“I’m biting my tongue, I’m biting my tongue,” Roxy said, putting the truck in drive.
The old Victorian looked even drearier at night. No lights were on, but there were several cars parked outside.
“This is the part in the horror movie when the best friend advises the beautiful heroine not to go inside the haunted house. And do you know what happens to the friend in all those movies? She’s the first to get her head cut off,” Roxy said.
“Should we go around to the back again?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“Nope. If no one answers at the front, we’re not going in.”
We approached the dark house and I knocked on the door. Within seconds, Doug opened the door, his cell phone illuminating his face.
“Come on in.”
“Maybe you should turn on a few lights first,” Roxy said, holding fast to the back of the sleeve of my coat.
“Everyone is downstairs,” he said.
Roxy grunted. “There is no downstairs.”
She rubbed her own forehead head as I turned to her in incredulity.
“I already knew you’d been here, I saw you on the security cameras.” Doug motioned us in.
“You leave the back door open and you have hidden security cameras?” Roxy asked, still clinging to my sleeve. “And FYI, sir. I have 911 on speed dial.”
“Just because a house looks like it has lousy security doesn’t mean it actually does. Steven had to make it look like he left and never intended to return. And when he’s out of town, he turns over the monitoring of his security to me.”
“Is he here?” I asked.
Doug shook his head. “I wish he was, it would make this easier. Come on, I’ll show you how to get downstairs.”
He used the flashlight on his phone to lead us once more through the weary furniture towards the television. His light flashed over the monitor and then settled on the horizontal silver handle of the retro Coke-bottle refrigerator that had screamed bachelor pad to us when we first snuck in.
He pulled out his wallet and flashed what looked like a white credit card in front of the handle. We heard a soft beep, and he opened the door.
Instead of rows of Coke, there was nothing but faint light. Through the hollowed-out fridge was a staircase leading down.
“Clever. Creepy, but clever,” Roxy noted.
“Steven had it custom built and the keyless entry added. We needed to have our meetings in private. I’d say ladies first, but I assume you want me to go down first.”
“Sounds good to me,” Roxy said, waving him on.
We followed him through the repurposed refrigerator and down the stairs that had clearly been reinforced over the years, for they failed to creak as we passed wood paneling dating back to the seventies.
We descended into an unfinished basement with enough patchwork to allow for gatherings for those unconcerned with comfort. Roxy said she felt like she was attending an AA meeting, but the looks on the faces of the people milling below kept her from saying anything more.
We slowed our descent as all the conversations stopped. Most of the people wore glasses and appeared to be roughly around our age. Several were in suits. Doug certainly stood out, and he beckoned for us to come all the way down.
“Let’s everyone find a seat.” He motioned to the scattered chairs and a battered couch, but everyone remained standing, staring at me.
“It really is you,” one man said, taking a handkerchief out of his tweed jacket to clean his glasses. “I guess it’s true: You believe in the little green men just like the rest of us. You look just like you do on TV.”