Page 138 of Tear Me Apart

It seems everyone in the state, hell, in the nation, is looking for her. But she has disappeared.

Poof.

The suddenly famous suburban criminal is gone.

82

It is past midnight, and Zack’s phone won’t stop ringing. He wants to turn it off, but Parks won’t let him. They keep hoping Lauren will call Zack, or Jasper, or Mindy, but so far, it’s only been a bevy of reporters wanting comments.

But Park’s admonishments to suck it up and get his thumbs some exercise turns out to be the best advice of the day because as Zack is about to decline yet another call, he sees a familiar name pop up on the screen.

Bode Greer.

God, in the melee, he’s forgotten all about the kid. The cops are going to want to talk to him. Zack answers with a grateful, “Bode. I’m glad you called.”

“Dude, listen. I heard on the news they’re searching for Mrs. Wright.”

“They are, she’s disappeared and—”

“No, dude, listen to me. She’s in Denver. I’m sitting a block away from her car right now.”

* * *

The mobilization is immediate. Even Zack, a retired military man, is impressed. Woody is as good a manager as they come; he has everyone hopping in the correct directions within five minutes. Denver police are rolling up on Bode’s location—which turns out to be half a block from Juliet’s town house. It seems Lauren has gone to her sister’s place to hide out and has been stashed there during the evening’s melee.

It’s not the smartest plan. Then again, Zack reminds himself, despite her luck over the years, Lauren isn’t a criminal mastermind. She’s simply a mother whose child is being threatened.

This is what Jasper wants everyone to believe. Since Bode’s call, Jasper has been spewing messages in Lauren’s defense every ten seconds like an automaton, but no one’s really listening.

“She’s not capable of this...

“She’s the kind of woman who says thank you when a stranger sneezes, for Christ’s sake. She’s not a murderer...

“You don’t understand, she would never...

“How can you possibly believe Lauren could be responsible...

“You’ve scared her off, that’s why she’s run...”

Zack finally tells him to go for a walk and get out of the way. He isn’t unkind, but Jasper’s sudden jazzy energy is making it difficult to think. He can’t help but feel like Jasper is a part of this, that he’s responsible in some way. His rational mind tells him he’s being unfair, but the small shrieking child in his soul who’s been torn asunder since Vivian’s death wants answers.

How could Jasper not have known?

How could he have been lied to all these years?

How can he defend a woman who’s clearly dangerous as hell?

Zack knows he’s not getting anywhere with these questions. Truthfully, he wants to get Jasper up against the wall and interrogate him personally, leading with his fists, but the case is in the CBI’s hands now. Parks and Starr and Woody are in charge, not Zack.

So he gets coffee for the crew, tries to listen in on their status briefings. Stares through the glass at Mindy’s sleeping form. Thinks about Vivian in ways he hasn’t allowed himself to in more than a decade. About what she would think of all this. About her eyes. About the sweet kiss of her breath on his neck, and the gentle roundness of her belly with Mindy inside. For so long, he’s only been able to see the crime scene, her neck and stomach gashed open, her eyes milky and slitted, the black stain beneath her bloated, maggot-covered body.

Now, he lets himself see some of the good things. That picture being flashed on the screen, for one. Her smile when they first met. But without any word, he is getting more and more frustrated.

He spends fifteen minutes downstairs with Juliet. If she wakes up, if her mind isn’t permanently damaged and she’s able to understand, he intends to ask her to dinner. He is tired of not living his life. It makes him sad, the idea of everything he’s lost. But what else was he supposed to do? He’s been grieving for so long he doesn’t know how to exist any other way. It took Juliet, and Mindy, to crack through the hard shell he encased himself in. And now he might lose them both.

If she survivesbecomes the mantra that takes his feet from the second floor up the stairs to the third. He alternates between Juliet’s room and Mindy’s, the prayers different, but no less emphatic.

The idea that he’s come so far, that he’s found himself again in this mess—it is too much to bear losing anything more.