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Leaving David alone to hold in his arms the woman he loved helplessly.
MARTHA CALLED DAVID the next night. She’d waited until all the kids had escaped to their rooms—something that was happening earlier and earlier these days. Dinner was becoming a mostly silent affair, as well.
Shelley, when she was there, was sullen. Replying with sarcasm if anyone dared speak to her. But she showed up for dinner every single time Martha told her to. Which was enough for Martha on that front for now.
Tim seemed to have forgotten all the manners he’d ever been taught. Because he sat next to Rebecca, his behavior upset her youngest daughter, who took every opportunity, including mealtimes, to tattle on her brother. Ellen sat at the opposite end of the table from Martha, eating smaller and smaller portions, apparently oblivious to everything going on around her….
David picked up on the second ring.
“Did I interrupt anything important?” Martha was in her room, ironing, the phone held between her shoulder and her ear.
She was busy. So busy. The call was only an afterthought, she told herself. It didn’t require her full attention.
“Martha, hi. No, nothing I can’t get back to. I’m reading,” he told her, recognizing her voice as though they spoke on the phone all the time.
She wondered what kinds of things he read sitting in that big house all alone.
“I wanted to apologize for last night,” she blurted. Her statement was only a shadow of the calm and detached delivery she’d rehearsed in her mind far too often that day. The words were pretty much the same, but…
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“I should never have fallen apart on you like that. It’s not something I make a habit of doing.” It was very important he understand that.
Martha picked up the shirt on the ironing board, adjusted it so she could get to something other than the sleeve she’d been pressing over and over.
“Everyone has moments when life gets a little overwhelming,” he said. “And preachers tend to be around for many of them.”
“You’re trying to tell me you’re used to that kind of thing. That you do it all the time.”
“Something like that.”
Okay. Fine. She’d worried for nothing. Let that be a lesson to her.
“Greg called this afternoon,” she said. There, she’d done the collar. Moved on to the other sleeve.
“And?”
“There’s no travel agent in Phoenix by the name that couple gave….”
A wrinkle in the second sleeve was being obstinate. Martha pushed the button for extra steam. Tried again.
“And when he called the number on the business card, he was told that James Sharp was on a month-long vacation and could not be reached. They wouldn’t give out his home phone number without a court order, and as of right now, Greg has no reason to request that order. The woman apparently works for the same company. She’s on leave, too.”
“Greg should be able to get the number,” David murmured.
“There’s no phone number for a James Sharp anywhere in the Phoenix area.”
There, she got that wrinkle. And scorched one of her favorite white shirts in the process.
“If the guy we saw is even the real James Sharp.” She paused. “Although as of now Greg thinks it is. He had other corroborating ID—and he wasn’t expecting to be stopped or questioned.”
“So what about the dealer plate?”
She stared at the basket of ironing on the bed beside her. “It was a Lincoln dealership. The car had been out on a test-drive, returned last night.”
“A test-drive to spend two days at a shabby apartment building in Shelter Valley?” David said skeptically.
“Supposedly they were driving the car to an elderly relative who was interested in purchasing it.” Unable to make a decision, she reached into the basket and came up with Shelley’s new cotton skirt. Her daughter had insisted on wearing it to church even though Martha had told her it was two inches too short. It hadn’t been worth the battle. Maybe she could scorch it too.
