The Baker's Wife (28 page)

A memory came to Audrey: the ghostly image of a figure floating on the periphery of the intersection of Sunflower and Main. Had Julie stumbled away from the accident, delirious, on the brink of something awful?

But no—Audrey had seen that shadow before striking the scooter. Wasn't it before? Now that she thought of it, she couldn't remember, and she supposed it didn't really matter. Audrey needed more than illness to guide her. She needed that strong arm.

C'mon, c'mon
.

What time was it? She couldn't just stand here.
Move, Audrey. Make a plan. Your family needs this
.

She took a deep breath. She swallowed the nausea. She leaned over the basin and ran cold water from the tap and splashed her cheeks. She straightened and looked up into the mirror.

Instead of her own reflection, she saw the angry face of Julie Mansfield, cheeks flushed red and brows drawn together. She clutched the books, the tote bag, the wedding photo, the pill bottles that Audrey had been hauling around the house.

“You have
no
idea.” Julie spat the words, and Audrey took a step backward. Her backside hit the closed door of the bathroom. Julie flung her arm, hurling the papers and picture at Audrey.

She raised her arm and closed her eyes as she ducked.

Nothing but the sound of fluttering papers came down on her.

Audrey opened her eyes. There were no papers on this side of the mirror, and Julie's hands were free of them. She caught Julie's furious eyes. This time Julie launched the tote bag at her. Audrey twisted into the corner as the bag crashed into the door. The noise was real enough, but when Audrey glanced downward, there was nothing on the floor.

“Audrey?” The worried voice was Diane's, out in the bedroom.

“It's okay,” Audrey croaked, wondering if anything she was sensing in the moment truly existed. “Out in a minute.”

Julie was yelling again. Could Diane and Miralee hear it? “You think you can wear my clothes and go through my things and
be me
? You can sit in my chair and stand in my yard and say you know how I feel?”

Pill bottles like missiles were launched from Julie's hands. This time Audrey didn't duck. She flinched but managed to watch them. They never escaped the plane of the mirror, though the little bathroom filled with the sound of plastic lids popping open and raining tablets and capsules like hail on the tile.

“What do you want me to do?” Audrey whispered.

Julie was wrenching her wedding ring from her finger, tugging against years of increasing snugness. “You smug woman, with your perfect marriage and your happy little family, don't think you can waltz into my world with sweetness and light! Don't sic your trite perspective on me. Don't condescend to my pain.” The ring came off in Julie's right hand, and she lifted it like a baseball over her shoulder.

Audrey raised her voice to match Julie's. “What do you want me to do!”

“Dare to own it,” Julie said, and she sent the wedding band toward Audrey's face.

When it hit Audrey square between the eyes and glanced off, Audrey gasped and felt smarting tears swell near the bridge of her nose. The jewelry sounded a sorrowful note when it hit the countertop and bounced once, then landed in the sink. The ring rolled around the circumference of the bowl, collecting water droplets, swirling downward toward the stopper in the drain.

It collapsed against the plug.

Audrey picked it up. Her fingers were trembling. This wedding ring was solid and heavy. It was a gold band without a diamond, its only embellishment a swirling scroll pattern stamped into the metal. The grooves were slightly blackened with grime.

“Are you really okay?” Diane was pounding on the door.

Audrey looked up into the mirror and saw her own reflection, haggard and drained. Julie was gone.

Maybe Audrey had knocked the ring off the edge of the sink when she'd splashed cold water on her face.

She didn't believe that herself.

The bathroom door opened.

“Audrey!”

“I'm okay.” She turned around and held up the gold band so Miralee could see it. “Is this your mother's?”

Miralee, still sprawled on the bed, nodded.

Audrey realized she was feeling entirely well again.

And then she remembered where she'd seen Julie's truck.

The plastic bucket was the reason he could not get comfortable, Jack decided. His age was showing in his back's intolerance for hard seats.

Geoff was on the phone with Audrey. Ed rose to go stand by his father and listen in on the call. The coach's bleeding seemed under control. The Mexican woman hovered over him. Jack had a brief vision of Audrey sitting on the curb covered in his wife's blood. The smart girl was crouched over her notebooks like a person who needed a mental hospital. Jack hoped she'd be of sound mind by the time Audrey's court date rolled around.

“Turn on the speakerphone,” Jack said to Geoff. He was curious.

Geoff complied.

Audrey was saying, “. . . the captain's looking into it.”

“Looking into what?” Jack said.

“Your wife bought your neighbor's truck,” Geoff told him.

“According to whom?” Jack said. “I would have known.”

Audrey said, “It's what your neighbor says. Harlan Hall?”

He pursed his lips and filed away the information in a mental drawer of claims that might be either fact or fiction.
To be determined
. Julie had a close connection to the couple, but she never made a purchase without consulting him.

Harlan Hall. Hall. Hall.

He connected the name to the fat woman he'd sent to Audrey's house. The woman with the record. The sister killer. He chewed on that for a second.

“Ed,” Audrey was saying, “do you remember seeing a gray truck yesterday, when we parked?”

“Uh, no. You were sick. I was distracted.”

“There was a truck parked in the lot at the Silver Gap trail-head. I'm sure it's the same one in this picture that I found at Julie's house.”

Jack didn't know the picture. He'd never paid the Halls much attention, except as was required to be a good Christian, because he'd never paid Julie's friends much attention. They tended not to share his interests, professional or spiritual.

“I'm headed back up there now with Diane and Miralee.”

Jack abandoned all thought of the Halls at the sound of his daughter's name.

“Miri's there?” Ed asked, voicing Jack's own surprise.

Jack jumped up from the bucket and grabbed the phone out of Geoff's hands. His child was too close to home for him to lose again, especially not to a woman like Audrey.

“What are you doing in my house?” Jack said.

“Jack, it's a two-hour drive back to that trailhead, and Julie might not even be there today. We need more time.”

“No more time. Two hours puts you there by ten fifteen, if you honestly have to go that far. You know where she is. Get her, get out of King's Riches, and then call me and let me talk to her. And get out of my house!”

“Jack—”

“Where's my daughter?”

“There's no phone reception up there. You know that.”

“You should have thought of that before all this happened, woman!”

“I didn't take her! Get it through your head, Jack!”

“You're a tool of the devil.”

Geoff held up his hand. “Audrey, we're thinking someone might have killed Julie and then set up the accident on purpose. Can Miralee tell you if—”

“Where is my child?” Jack shouted.

“She's right here,” Audrey said.

“Put her on.”

There was a muffled exchange on the end of the line, then Audrey returned. “She said she doesn't want to talk to you.”

The woman's voice was strong, confident. Supremely arrogant.

“Does it matter what a child wants? Is there no respect for authority in this generation?”

No one answered him.

“Miralee!” he yelled.

The line was quiet, the sound of disdain.

“Miralee Wendy Mansfield! Don't you go with this woman! She's a lying serpent. She's murdered your mother. Don't you leave that house!”

“Dad, you're mental.”

“If you have any respect for me—”

“I don't.”

“Your mother then. You respect her.”

“Not really.”

“In the name of everything that is holy, girl, then do it for yourself! Don't trust Audrey Bofinger. Or that other woman. They're killers, both of them!”

“No one's killed anyone, Dad. Unlike you.”

What did she mean by that? Jack had never killed anyone, not even in the line of duty. Miralee was well aware of it, even if no one else in this gray bakery was.

“If you disobey me—”

“I'm an adult, Dad. Of course, I realize you don't see me that way, and that's part of the problem.”

Miralee wasn't an adult by any stretch of the imagination. She was still, despite his raising her to physical maturity, an intellectual adolescent, an emotional toddler, a spiritual infant.

It wasn't his fault she had turned out this way. He had done everything right.

“For the love of God, Miri, please don't leave us again.” His words caught in a dry spot in his throat. He swallowed. “I'm begging you. Stay here in Cornucopia. I'll talk to them at The Word. They'd have you back in a heartbeat. It was a good job.”

“In your dreams and my nightmares,” Miralee said. “You can't go back to your old life after this, you know? You've lost your mind. So while you sit around waiting for someone else to do
your
job, I'm going to go look for Mom, okay?”

This was all Julie's fault. If they'd been united in every way that mattered, this never would have happened.

Jack decided to take the high road. He refused to give her insults any further response. He turned his back on the phone and returned to the bucket.

The Mexican, still gripping the coach's bloody foot, glared at him like a furious maternal bird of prey. Self-righteous Catholic mama. What did she know? She'd find out soon enough. Every generation got worse and worse. God's wrath would fall on them all.

CHAPTER 27

Ed's eyes were on Jack. The policeman sat on that bucket, stupefied. Ed wavered—lunge, take him now, when he wasn't paying attention? As if sensing Ed's thoughts, Jack's eyes snapped to his and the grip on his gun tightened. His eyes contained an emotion that Ed didn't recognize, something deep and cold and pained. But the weapon remained steady on the detective's knee.

“Do what Wilson tells you to do,” Ed's dad was telling his mom. “You're amazing, Audrey, but don't try to fix this alone . . . I know that's what Jack wants, but it's not wise. We have to entrust this to God . . . We're fine, everything's fine. Jack just wants to see Julie again . . . Let me pray for you.”

Ed spoke to Jack. “I forgot Miri worked at The Word.”

Miralee had taken the job at the Christian bookstore after breaking up with him and held the position only until they graduated, when she fled for college. Ed thought the store was an odd choice for her, even a bad fit, but racked it up to her dad's influence. Pressure. Expectations, whatever. Ed had avoided shopping there during those months.

“My dad shops at that store a lot.” He said it at the same time that he realized how much that fact bothered him. Something about the timing of events that had tipped over like dominoes from the spring through the summer and into fall—something was off.

“I'm sure he does,” Jack said. “As do I, and most of the Christian citizens of this town.”

Ed heard his dad say, “I love you too,” and hang up the phone.

“Miri must have hated it there,” Ed said.