AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"What can I do?" he said in a low voice. "I’ve already told them everything down at the station."
"We know this, Mr. Baker, but we're here with some follow-up questions if that's okay with you."
He nodded. "Of course."
Matt stepped forward. "We were told that you had almost an hour unaccounted for on the morning when she disappeared between eight and nine a.m. You dropped off the children together at the daycare center at eight but didn't show up at work until nine o'clock. Where were you?"
John paused again before answering as if carefully considering his words. "I was just… walking," he said, averting his gaze and picking up another tool. "Just clearing my head, you know? I've had a lot going on lately."
I glanced at Matt, who gave me a subtle nod. We both knew what the other was thinking… that John was hiding something. It didn't take an expert to know this.
"Did you take a walk with someone who can confirm that's what you did?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Okay, were you with anyone who can confirm where you were? Did you meet anyone on your way? Where did you go?"
He shrugged. “I just went down to the beach. I didn't have any meetings until ten, so I thought I had some time to wind down, you know? Having toddlers is a lot, and sometimes, I need to go down to the ocean and just breathe."
Having four children myself, I knew what he was saying. I couldn't hold that against him. Heck, I still needed a break now and then, especially from the teenagers and all their breakdowns. They were often worse than the toddlers.
"So, you didn't talk to anyone or…?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Have you seen any cars around here, any suspicious activity, or maybe someone keeping an eye on the house? Anyone new calling you?"
"Nope."
He paused, then looked at me. "Come to think of it, yes. Rachel often got these calls—sometimes, in the middle of the night. It said no caller ID on them, and no one was there the few times she picked up. We thought it was just the usual scam, you know?"
"I've been getting a lot of that, too," Matt said.
"But not in the middle of the night. We should try and get her phone records from the provider," I told him.
"Of course."
"Is it possible she could have left?" I asked.
John closed the truck's hood, then wiped sweat off his forehead. "That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "We haven't been doing great lately, and I’m afraid she just took off."
"Would that be something she might do?" I asked.
He mulled it over for a few seconds. "I… I don't know if I'm being honest. She loved her children so much, but still. She was sick of us and of this whole situation. Especially of me. Maybe."
"Her family, her mother and sister in particular, seem to believe a crime has been committed. Do you agree?"
He shrugged. "Not really. At first, yes. But then I came back home, and I went on her computer and found out she had been searching for plane tickets, so if I'm honest, I fear she just left me. It pisses me off, of course, because we have children together, and I love her, even if I haven’t been the best at showing it to her. We're still married; you don't just run off from that. It’s supposed to be till death do you part and all that. You don’t just take off and leave just because it gets a little hard, you know?"
I nodded in agreement. "You said she searched for plane tickets? Where to?”
“New York,” he said. “She used to live up there before we were married.”
I wrote it down.
“Was she looking to fly out of Orlando?”
“Yes.”
