Instead, I knelt and started to pick up the glass. What would happen if Chris came back out here and wondered why the glass was everywhere? He might call the police—
The police.
I ran then to the house, not caring at that moment if anyone found the glass. I rushed into house, rummaging through the utility drawer to find the business card.
I dialed, brought my cell to my ear, and listened to four rings before Detective Strombino answered.
“Mrs. Roseworth? Is everything all right?” he asked in his thick Boston accent.
“I’m really sorry to bother you. I have a quick question.”
“Of course. I wish I had some new news for you.“
I took a deep breath. “Detective, do you know if anything was found in the woods where William went missing?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing. As I’ve told you, there is no trace of who took him.”
“I’m not talking about something someone left behind. I mean something on the ground.”
His silence told me everything I suspected. “I’m not sure—”
“I want to know if you found a gravestone. A small marker for a girl named Amelia Shrank.”
More silence until he cleared his throat. “Yes, Mrs. Roseworth, we did find that, but it was of no consequence—”
“Then why was it taken into evidence?” I asked.
“Ma’am, I would have certainly shared it with you if it had pertained at all to your grandson’s disappearance—”
“A child’s gravestone was found in the same location where my grandson went missing and you don’t find that strange?”
“That girl disappeared almost eighty years ago, Mrs. Roseworth. There is no connection—”
“Thank you, Detective, that’s all I needed to know,” I managed to say before sinking down into a chair at the table as I disconnected the call. I could picture them, the detectives or police or even the FBI, finding the grave marker, wrapping it in protective plastic, and thinking they had been to first to find some bizarre remnant of history, like an ancient piece of crockery. They’d done the research into Amelia, of course, and dismissed it. A weird coincidence, nothing more.
They didn’t know a grown man had vanished there as well.
The headlights from my Volvo flashed over the Honda Accord parked in the corner of the Chevron. Barbara’s hair was momentarily illuminated, and she squinted. I pulled up next to her and lowered my passenger-side window.
“You’re welcome to ride with me,” Barbara offered.
“My friends and family use this gas station all the time, and if my car was left here unattended, it would raise some eyebrows.”
Barbara nodded. “I’m not a fast driver, and I’m unfamiliar with these roads, so stay with me. We’re going to the Holiday Inn in a town named Murfreesboro. Sound familiar?”
“It’s right off the interstate not far from the square. I know where it is.”
“If we get separated, I’ll wait for you in the parking lot, and we can go in together.”
“I won’t lose you. In fact, why don’t you follow me? The interstate’s the quickest way, and we can pick it up a few miles down Harding.”
Barbara appeared grateful. I took a deep breath and turned the wheel.
Anne seemed fine to watch the boys tonight, even if it meant she slouched with Greg on the couch while Brian sat in his room alone and Chris was in his study. No one would think it was strange I’d chosen to stay home alone on Saturday night. Tom would be in on the eleven o’clock flight, and a car would bring him home. As long as I was home by then, no questions would be asked.
It would take thirty minutes to get to the hotel, and thirty minutes to get back. I wouldn’t have long to spend with Steven.
This is stupid to do alone. Roxy would throw a fit if she found out. But I’d already dragged her six hours away on a fruitless endeavor and then refused to even discuss what happened.
My cell rang as I got onto the interstate. I briefly looked to see that it was Tom calling, and I silenced the phone. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure Barbara was still behind. The Accord was keeping up.
I thought of picking up the phone to call him back. What would you say if you knew? I pictured his jawline jutting out when he paced while on the phone with his staff, dealing with either a domestic or foreign crisis. Or would you walk around for hours with your hands behind your head, as you did when Stella left for college or when Anne nearly married that set designer? Or, worse, would you stare off out the window with tears in your eyes that you could somehow keep from running down your cheeks, as you did all those nights when William first disappeared? What version of your heartbreak, your anger, would surface if you knew what I did then?
The first time Steven kissed me, after I’d returned from the cornfield and the encounter with the men in the black suits, I was surprised at his intensity. Given that he often seemed nervous when we came in close physical contact, I expected soft brushes of lips. Instead, he was unbuttoning my shirt within seconds of our lips touching for the first time. Our clothes were soon tossed onto the floor of his office.
I should have felt incredible guilt afterwards. Instead, I lay in his arms on the couch and smiled as he pointed out the star on the map above us that he had secretly named after me.
From then on, he didn’t give me assignments. The calls that came in often asked for me first, because I’d become the point person. Lynn Roseworth, please, they said.
Steven began to introduce me to the other Researchers who visited from universities in Illinois and other states such as Indiana and Missouri. The Researchers had potlucks, and some expected me to stay in the kitchen. Instead, I would sit next to them on the couch and point out there was no common shape of the ships as described, and that even though the descriptions of the beings were similar, that could just be the brain’s reaction to such a traumatic experience.
I remembered how they cocked their heads at me, cleaning off their glasses, wondering how the young woman in the floral swing dress knew so much about the reported height differences in the aliens known as the Greys.
When Steven led their meetings, I didn’t sit at his side and certainly didn’t serve appetizers. Instead, I often leaned on the doorframe, clarifying the data. He would gesture to me in those rare moments of emotional expression. “That’s right! Listen to her, fellas. Listen to her,” he would say.
Sometimes I found them staring at me, and I chalked that up to the lack of exposure to the opposite sex. In time, they didn’t just ask for my input—they bombarded me with questions. Did I think the aliens could communicate telepathically? What about inbreeding with humans? Did the creatures even have genders?
“OK, boys, that’s enough,” Steven would say, placing his hand on the small of my back. He was always touching me. At the end of the day, he rubbed my shoulders. As we sat at his desk in the office, with the door firmly locked, one hand would be writing and the other would rest on my knee. When we went to his apartment to make love on our lunch break, he wrapped his arms around me until the very last moment before we had to get dressed. I could see the pride in his eyes when he introduced me. My wedding ring felt heavy on my finger.
I awoke one fall afternoon in his bed and found Steven looking at me from where he lay on his pillow. I scrambled to get dressed, fumbling with the clock to see the time.
“It’s only two-thirty,” he said. “You fell asleep at one. It’s OK. I have no classes, and it’s Friday, so no one’s in the office. Come back to bed.”
I snuggled up to him, and he brushed a curl from my forehead.
“I’ve been thinking about something. Do you remember that once you told me that the missing come back?” I said. “I have yet to find a single case of that happening.”