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His tone was serious.
“Sure.” I called after Grace, “No cereal, okay? There’s lasagna in the fridge. Warm it up.”
Grace waved a hand at me over her shoulder. She took out her phone and started to play music through the kitchen speaker. Dua Lipa. “Levitating.”
Andy pulled me back into the living room and closed the door quietly.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I had to go down there to the gas station to fill up before I picked up Grace. I got talking to Patrick.”
Patrick worked at the gas station, and he was a talker. He saw it as his duty to gather up every bit of information about everyone who lived nearby, from Waitsfield to Warren, and pass it on.
“Patrick says that Simon came back from Stowe on Friday night. He’s been home for two days. Patrick says that Simon came home alone.”
“Simon came home alone. What does that mean?”
Andy shook his head.
“What are you thinking? That she’s gone off somewhere else? With friends?” My anger, which had pretty much dissipated, bloomed again. My phone was on the coffee table. Andy leaned down, picked it up, and offered it to me.
“Call her,” he said.
“I’ve called her twice already. And messaged her.”
“Try her again.”
I dialed the number. It went straight to voice mail. I held the phone up so that Andy could hear Nina’s bright, breezy voice telling me to leave a message, then I brought the phone back to my ear.
“Nina, call me.” My voice was sharp. I tried to think of something else to say but everything that came to mind was angry. Andy was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, watching me with serious eyes. I ended the call.
“What?” I said.
“I don’t like this.”
“I’m hardly ecstatic about it myself. You’ve got to be kidding me. Where did she go now? New York City, for a shopping trip? Or no, Paris, perhaps.”
“Leanne.”
“What?”
“Maybe we should go over there, to the Jordans’ place,” Andy said. “Drop by and make sure she’s okay.”
The tone of his voice slowed me down. It was calm, steady, and sensible, because that was Andy. But there was something else that was less normal for him—a small hint of worry.
“Don’t you think that’s a little over the top?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. They’re only ten minutes away.”
“I could just call her. Jamie, I mean.” I didn’t want to call her. Jamie Jordan didn’t like me, and she seemed to enjoy making that very clear. I didn’t care what other people thought about me. I wasn’t a particularly social person. I had my home, my family, and my business, and I didn’t need anything else. But Jamie had finely honed the art of making people feel off balance, and I wasn’t completely immune. I called her number. It went through to voice mail.
“Jamie. Hi. It’s... uh... It’s Leanne Fraser here. I’m just calling because we haven’t heard from Nina.” I laughed, and hated that I sounded nervous. Ingratiating. “I just wondered if she’s with you, by any chance. Or if you’ve heard from Simon. I’m sure everything’s fine, but if you could give me a call and fill me in, I’d feel a lot better. Thanks, Jamie. I owe you one!” I finished brightly, like she and I were just the best of buddies. I ended the call and looked at Andy.
“Let’s go over there,” he said.
We left Grace at home. Andy drove, and we didn’t talk much. I wasn’t worried about Nina, not really, but I could feel his tension, and it bothered me. I shifted in my seat. The Jordans’ house was on Sharpshooter Road. Simon’s father, Rory, owned a precision-tool-machining company that supplied pharmaceutical companies and other high-tech businesses. He’d had help getting started. His own father had had a small custom-tool-machining business. Then Rory had gone to college to study industrial engineering, and he’d come home with ideas. Brilliant ideas, which he’d turned into profit-churning machines. These days the company was worth fifty or sixty million, if you believed the rumors. I’d met Rory many times over the years, at school events, but I’d never warmed to him. He was clever but cold. He could also be ostentatious. The Jordans’ house was very large, easily four times the size of the inn. It was set well back from the road and protected by a wall and a cast-iron gate, neither of which are remotely necessary in this part of Vermont, where most people still leave their doors unlocked and wouldn’t think twice about leaving their keys in their car.
Andy pressed the intercom button on the gatepost. After a moment, the gate swung open. We drove slowly up to the house. It was a modern building, low slung and vast, with contemporary timber and concrete sidings and minimalist landscaping. From the front, it was like a fortress. The entrance door was solid timber and oversized, and the windows to the front were slim, almost like arrow slits in an old castle. I’d been in the house only once, for a party the Jordans threw for Simon’s high school graduation. I knew that inside the house the fortress feeling fell away quickly and the low-slung look was misleading. From the front door you stepped down into the building, through a series of terrace-like entrance spaces. The ceilings in the main living areas were so high that the house felt light and airy, and there were vast floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the rear of the property, offering incredible views of Camel’s Hump. A lot of wealthy people build second homes in this part of Vermont, so we have more than our share of luxury properties, but the Jordans’ place was on another level.
