Chapter 26

Early the next morning, Joshua prepared to leave his parents’ house. He had a lot of work ahead of him, and he could only do it in his own home.

“Leavin’ already?” Mom asked. She sat at the kitchen table in her house robe, hair curlers, and slippers, drinking coffee and reading Scripture. “Sit down and I’ll fix you some breakfast.” She started to rise out of her chair.

“Thanks, Mom, but I’ve gotta go.” He had his overnight bag in one hand, and Coco’s pet carrier in the other. Coco peered nervously from the kennel at his mother.

Mom waved away his words. “You ain’t gotta go nowhere this early in the mornin’. Sit your big tail down.”

“But I have a meeting.” It was a lie, and he wondered why he lied to her in these situations. He was a grown man. If he said he was leaving, he didn’t have to give her an explanation for why. He hadn’t been accountable to her for his whereabouts or choices in well over a decade.

But old habits died hard. Standing up to his mother was unthinkable. It was easier to get away from her with a lie than it was to tell her the truth and risk incurring her wrath.

She eased back into her chair. “Go on to your meetin’, then. Shoot, it betta be a meetin’ with a divorce lawyer. You’ll divorce that heifer if you smart, boy. She ain’t worth all your heartache.”

Didn’t she ever let up? “I’ll call you later.”

It was an overcast morning, with a knife-sharp wind that reminded Joshua that it was the middle of December. Christmas was less than a week away. This would have been his and Rachel’s first Christmas together as a married couple.

Anguish pierced his heart. He had to put the thoughts out of his mind.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled into his garage. Rachel’s spot was vacant. He’d imagined that her Acura would be sitting there, that everything would be back to normal and yesterday would prove to have been only a bad dream.

He walked Coco around the yard for a couple of minutes to let her potty, and then he went inside.

The house was as he had left it last night. Although everything looked the same, it all seemed vacant and cold to him, as if it were a museum displaying relics of a life that he had once lived.

He checked voice mail on the landline, and email on his computer. There were no messages from anyone, not even potential or current clients. Business was probably beginning to wind down as people geared up for the holidays.

He was in no shape to work, anyway. Graphic design demanded concentration and imagination, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rachel’s face and felt a nauseating fluttering in his stomach.

In Rachel’s study, he sat in the spring-backed chair, adjusting the height to keep his knees from bumping against the edge of the desk. He sat still, breathed deeply. The room smelled of her: sweet, clean, feminine.

He looked around, to view the room as if he were seeing it for the first time, in the hope that a clue would jump out at him. Looked at the colorful wall hanging that read, Too Anointed to be Disappointed. Her collection of novels shelved in the bookcase: Alice Walker was a favorite author of hers. Her assortment of ceramic dog figurines. Photos from their wedding. A picture of an unnamed, white-sand beach.

The beach photograph brought to mind last night’s dream. He felt a new flood of yearning, and a sense of determination that tightened his lips and turned him around in the chair.

Back to square one: the computer. Nothing in the room had sparked any inspiration.

He raised the lid of the laptop and powered up the machine.

An inch-long strand of hair lay on the keyboard, atop the space bar. He plucked it off the key, held it between his thumb and forefinger.

Ever since he’d known her, Rachel had had dark hair. This strand was lighter, closer to auburn.

In his dream, Rachel’s hair had been auburn, too.

Did she dye her hair? He’d never seen her color it. But she owned a hair salon, and it would have been easy for her to dye her hair at work, and keep her true hair color a secret.

Weird. He didn’t know what to make of it. He pulled a Kleenex from a box on the desk, and set the strand of hair on the tissue.

The laptop had progressed through its boot-up cycle and brought him to the sign-on screen, where he’d been flummoxed yesterday. He stared at the screen, big hands resting on the keyboard.

Combing through the files on Rachel’s computer seemed a logical step to learning more about what she’d hidden from him. But again, a password eluded him.

Thinking of what he knew about her background, he typed in a few Chicago-related words—Chicago, the windy city, the sears tower—and all of them proved fruitless.

There had to be a better way to gain access. He could spend days doing this.

He leaned back in the chair, hands laced behind his head. He looked around the study again. He found his attention drawn to the wedding photos. Eddie, Joshua’s best man, was in a couple of the shots.

Eddie. Why didn’t I think about him earlier?

Joshua unclipped his Blackberry from his belt holster and sent Eddie a text message. Text, or cell, was the most reliable way to reach Eddie—the guy was always connected.

NEED 2 C U. U BUSY?

Joshua waited, tapping his fingers on the desk and staring out the window at the woods beyond their house. Two squirrels were racing across the boughs and trunk of a leafless elm tree, one of them in pursuit of the other.

Joshua felt like the squirrel doing the chasing—but the object of his pursuit was truth. The pursued squirrel leapt into the skeletal arms of another elm, and the other squirrel followed, doggedly.

Joshua’s Blackberry beeped, signaling a reply. He turned away from the drama unfolding outside and read the small display.

CAN MEET U 4 LUNCH. EATS. 12. C U.

OK, Joshua responded.

He turned off the computer, unplugged it, and wrapped the power cord around the plastic casing. He carried the machine downstairs and slid it inside a canvas satchel.

He remembered Rachel’s cell phone. Her address book or call history might also yield some valuable information. He took the phone out of its charger on the kitchen counter, and pressed the ON button.

The first screen on the tiny LCD display requested a pass code to proceed.

The security precautions seemed extreme. This was her personal cell, and she only used the laptop at home, for the most part.

What have you been hiding from me, Rachel?

He switched off the phone, and dropped it into his bag, too.