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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CELINE

“I don’t understand. What do you mean everything is gone?” I stare at the detective, hoping with all hope that this is some sort of prank.

Tate convinced me to put our money into an investment account rather than a traditional 401k years ago because he said it would be easier to get to it if we ever needed it. But he wouldn’t have stolen it from us, would he? He wouldn’t have taken all our savings, the nest egg we built for the boys’ futures, without telling me. I have to believe that, but the longer I hold onto the version of my husband I thought I knew, the more and more I look and feel like a fool.

“The day before your husband disappeared, there was a withdrawal of the full amount made.”

My voice is breathless. “I don’t…I mean…how could he…where did it go? Where is the money?”

“We’re trying to figure that out right now, and we should have the answers within the next day or so, but I was hoping you could help us without waiting for the paper trail to turn up.”

“I have no idea. Tate never said anything. I wouldn’t…I mean, he wouldn’t…” I gather my composure, stilling the shake in my voice. “He never mentioned taking any money out of our account and definitely not all of it. I would’ve never been okay with that unless it was for an emergency, and even then, we would’ve figured out another way.”

“Were you having money problems? Had a big expense come up that would’ve caused you to need that savings?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars?” I ask, my voice skeptical. “No, I think I would’ve remembered that.”

“And it’s not in your bank account?”

“I…” I pause. “I haven’t actually checked our account since he disappeared.” I guess that’s one of the first things I should’ve done, now that I’m thinking about it. For all I know, he’s cleaned us completely out of everything we own. For all I know, I’m officially broke. I’m not one of those wives who never looks at their accounts, but for the most part things come out automatically and neither of us has to check them that often. And neither of us check the investment account except once a year when we look to make sure we haven’t lost it all. When we first invested, it became a habit to obsess over it constantly, but every time the market was down, we’d go into a panic, so we’ve learned to let it go and avoid checking it as much as possible.

And as for the main account, we look over it when we pay our bills or make a major purchase, but we’ve always been good about saving, so it’s usually not something I think about, especially with so much on my mind. I put gas in the car with a credit card earlier without a second thought.

Tate wouldn’t empty our account. Whatever is going on…he wouldn’t leave us penniless, would he? He wouldn’t leave us with nothing.

“Do you mind?” the detective asks, stepping closer.

“Yeah, sure.” I nod, returning to the car to get my phone. Once I have it, I open up my banking app and log in. Relief floods my system when I see our accounts are untouched. “Everything looks the same, but the money from our investment account wasn’t deposited into this one.” I turn the phone back around so he can see it. “Maybe it takes a few days?”

He tucks his notebook back into his pocket. “Maybe. Not typically, but tell us if you see anything suspicious on your account. In the meantime, you might want to close those accounts and transfer the money into one with only your name on it. Just in case.”

“Just in case…my husband tries to steal more from me?”

He doesn’t respond except to continue staring at me, like that’s answer enough.

“You don’t think something bad has happened to him, then? You think he’s stolen our money and left me? Skipped town? Ran away without saying goodbye?” The words wash over me as I say them, as real and painful as ever. It’s getting harder and harder to deny that’s what this looks like.

“They don’t pay me to assume or to speculate. Until we find your husband, there’s no way to know.” He presses his lips together, turning to walk away, but stops and looks back at me. “We still don’t have an explanation about the car accident, but, in looking at everything else— lying about a vacation and the missing money—well…in my experience, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, Mrs. Thompson, it’s usually a duck.” He does a sort of two-finger salute, then nods. “Take care of yourself. We’ll be in touch.” With another wave of his hand, he’s back in the car and disappearing down the drive.

I gather my things, still shaken up over all that I’ve learned and head for the house. I don’t know if I’m more furious or distraught as both emotions wage war inside of me, my stomach rumbling as if I might be sick. The back of my throat is thick with cotton, an unbearable feeling that I can’t seem to be rid of. How could he do this to me? Why would he do this to me? Through it all, I want to believe there’s a reason. That he was forced. That he did it to protect me somehow. But it doesn’t make sense. He lied over and over, about the vacation, about the money.

I’m scared for him. Worried he’s in danger and the police are spending so much time trying to figure out why he lied and accusing him of the things that by the time we find him, it’ll be too late. I can’t fathom the thought. I have to try harder, but I also can’t be foolish or blinded by my love for him. I have to accept that he could’ve lied, that he has lied. That he could’ve left us.

I’m so torn about everything.

Tate wouldn’t leave me.

Tate wouldn’t lie.

Except that he did. And he has.

I’m reanalyzing every interaction we’ve had lately. Did he seem unhappy? Did he seem sad? When he told me goodbye that morning, did he seem like he was saying more than goodbye for the day? Did it feel like a final goodbye? How could he kiss me so casually, hold me for such a short time, if he knew it was going to be forever? Did I really mean so little to him? And what about the boys? How could he have not taken longer with them that morning? Said more? How dare he do this to them!

I’m still vacillating between rage and sadness as I make my way toward the front door, and Mom meets me.

“What was that about?” she asks, keeping her voice low.

I don’t want to tell her. Somehow, I still want to protect Tate. If this is all, somehow, a misunderstanding, I want her to still love her son-in-law. At the same time, I hate myself for caring. For being so pathetic.

“He’s the detective on Tate’s case. Just giving me an update.”

“And he had to come by to do that?”

I nod, walking past her. “I appreciate that he did. So we know they’re still working on it and looking for him.”

“So what was the update?” she asks, following behind me as I head for the kitchen.

I stop, keeping my voice low. “There’s some money missing from our retirement account. They’re trying to find out where it went.”

“How much money?” Her eyes widen.

“Not much,” I lie. “They’ll track it down. Not a big deal.” I wave her off, turning toward the kitchen again and not stopping until I have the boys in my arms. “How was school?” I bend down between them, where they’re sitting at the kitchen table working on homework.

“Fine,” Ryker says.

“Boring,” Finley says. “Is Dad back yet?”

“Not yet,” I tell them, trying to keep my voice light. “But hopefully soon, okay? Do you need help with your homework?”

“No,” Ryker says. “We’ve got it. Mine’s just social studies. And Finley’s is science. Easy peasy.”

“Easy peasy,” I repeat, tears stinging my eyes. I look over at Finley, who has pictures of leaves cut out and scattered across the table, using a glue stick to place them with their matches on the sheet of paper in front of him. They’re working so diligently, both unbothered by my presence and the lack of Tate’s.

I stand up, patting my thighs as I do. “Okay, if you’re sure. I’m going to change.” Mom appears behind me, and I spin around. “I need to check in with my boss, too. Let me give her an update, and then I’ll get supper going.”

“Grandpa’s bringing pizza home from work,” Ryker says without looking up.

“You shouldn’t be worried about your job at a time like this. Maybe now’s the time to finally quit that place and come back to work for us. You know your dad would be thrilled to have you, and you can start once things have calmed down here.” Her eyes light up with hope.

It kills me to tell them no every time they offer this, but at this moment, I’m grateful to have the option. I have no idea when I’ll be able to go back to work, and if Margie fires me, I’m glad to have somewhere to go. “I know, Mom. Thanks, but we’ve talked about this. I’ve told you I’d love to work for you again, but The Bold Bean’s hours fit the boys’ school schedule better. I know Dad would give me the hours I need, but you guys need help on the weekends and evenings while I need to work during school hours.”

“We could have you open at ten thirty, and work until three?—”

“That’s not enough hours, though. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair of him to give me all the daytime shifts when other employees want them, too. You guys are even still there during the weekends and evenings. You deserve employees who can be there when you need them to.”

She gestures toward the boys. “They could come with you. You always loved being there with us.”

I squeeze her arm. “I appreciate the offer, always. And we can talk about it more later. Right now, they said Dad’s bringing home pizza?”

She nods, but I can tell she’s upset. “I hope that’s okay. I was going to cook, but the boys couldn’t agree on what they wanted, and pizza felt like an easy option. Your dad just went in to help with inventory, but he’s going to bring pizzas home for everyone.”

“Of course it’s okay. It’s more than okay, but you didn’t have to do that.”

She waves me off. “Oh, please. Your dad misses bringing you home pizza. When you were a little girl, when you’d go to the shop with him for the day right after we opened, he was like a kid in a candy store. And bringing it home for you, seeing how excited you got, it never got old for him.” Her voice cracks, and she looks away, which just makes me tear up more.

My parents worked hard to open their pizza shop and keep it going. So much of my childhood was spent within that shop, learning more than I’d ever need to know about pizza or watching them work while I did my homework. Now it’s successful enough that they have full-time help, but Dad is still there whenever he can be. “It makes him happy to have something to do.” I suspect it makes her just as happy, but neither of us says as much. Having my parents take care of me, even as an adult, is still one of the most comforting things. I wonder if I’ll ever grow out of that.

“Besides,” she says, pulling me out of my thoughts, “Daphne and Lane will be over in an hour or so, and pizza’s easy for everyone. You just go and do whatever you need to do. I’ve got the boys.”

It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by my mom sometimes. She’s vocal and pushy when she’s made up her mind. Opinionated. She’s always been a doer and a people pleaser, but I know she’s trying her hardest to support me through an impossible situation, and right now all I want to do is cry and tell her ‘thank you’ a million times. If we make it through this, I will never complain about her to Tate again. Or even to myself.

I will never complain about her again.

“Thanks, Mom. Seriously.”

She smiles at me with her lips tucked into her mouth, a sad smile that reminds me of all that is going wrong in my life, and I hug her quickly so she doesn’t see the tears I feel stinging my eyes. “Of course. I just want to help, lovebug.”

“I’ll be back, okay?” Before she can answer, before my tears start to fall, I hurry down the hallway and into the bedroom, dusting them away as quickly as I can.

I can’t fall apart right now. I have things to do.

Before I can give in to my tears, I set to work. The whole way home, I kept thinking of the photograph on Aaron’s desk, the one with the lion tattoo on full display. I wonder if Tate has any photographs of the four of them together, anything that might help me gather insight into their friendship. I can’t believe there is no connection between the men’s friendship and what is going on today, and if I can find the connection, maybe I can find my husband.

In our closet, there’s a box of old photographs I’ve been saying for years I’m going to buy albums for, yet I still haven’t gotten around to it. On my tiptoes, I grab the box from the top of the closet and place it on the floor, dropping down to sort through them. I know there are a few from his college days, just like there are old prom photos from my high school years and pictures of me working at the pizza shop alongside Mom and Dad as my first job. Most of these pictures are from the years before Tate and I got married, before our phones became the only albums that exist.

I have so many fond memories of going through old photo albums with my mom and grandma when I was a kid, and I always promised myself I’d make sure the boys had that, that I wouldn’t let their only memories become digital, but I’ve failed at that goal.

If Tate comes home, if he’s okay, I promise to do better. I’ll buy albums immediately. I’ll print every photo on my phone. Every single one.

I sort through the photos quickly, placing mine in one pile and his in the other. Mine is much larger. There’s only a small section of photos of him, with a few guys or girls in college. Tate’s parents adopted him from foster care in high school, so there aren’t any pictures of him as a child, which is another reason I’ve always wanted to make sure our children had plenty of pictures of their childhood.

Once all the pictures are sorted, I begin going through his photos slowly. There are less than fifty total, I’d guess. I stop on a photo of him with a group of boys. It’s college; I recognize the insignia from Highland University on Tate’s shirt. Their arms are draped around each other’s shoulders, with a bonfire that’s probably too large to be safe behind them.

I recognize the face of the man I saw in the photograph at the police station, and my eyes linger on him. There’s so much life behind his eyes here, it makes me sad to think he’s gone. He’s the shortest of the group, with a thick neck and wild, dark hair. His cheeks are flushed red, but aside from having fewer wrinkles and no bruises or scrapes, he looks just as he did in those photos. There’s no doubt this is Dakota Miller.

Next to him is the man I now know to be Aaron Bond. He has decidedly more hair and less pudge around his waist, but he’s still completely recognizable. Tate is at the end, his gangly arm draped over the shoulder of Bradley Jennings. I recognize his face from the photos in the obituary I found.

But there is a fifth boy I don’t recognize in the center of the photo, and it’s him my eyes go to instantly. He’s attractive, almost painfully so, even in the blurry photograph. Dark hair and eyes, and the only one in the photo not smiling.

I flip the photo over, hoping to find writing that might tell me who the boy is, but there’s nothing. He was probably just one of the kids at the party that night, but I make a mental note to keep an eye out for his face in any other photos. If he comes up again, he could be in danger just as much as the others. Or—a worse thought crosses my mind—he could be the one causing the danger in the first place.

I could see it, now that the thought is there. There’s a darkness lurking behind his eyes that makes me uncomfortable.

I scan the rest of the stack. There are a few photos of Tate at his dad’s company during his summer internship, and a few of him in class or in his dorms. I search the photos, desperately looking for the face of that boy, but I don’t find any others.

When I’ve gone through all the photos that belong to Tate, I tuck them back inside the photo box, keeping the one group photo out in hopes of asking my in-laws if they remember the boy in the middle, and make my way back into the kitchen. To my relief, my dad has just arrived with dinner. I didn’t realize until right this moment that I can’t remember the last time I ate, but it certainly wasn’t today.

Grief has replaced my hunger, but I can’t let that happen. I have to take care of myself, stay healthy for the boys’ sake if nothing else.

The dinner table is full of chatter, with the boys each telling us about their day and asking about Tate, and my parents trying their hardest to keep the conversation in positive, safe territory. It feels like a betrayal of Tate to be sitting here having a meal together, as if we aren’t missing him. As if every time I look toward his empty chair, my heart doesn’t squeeze.

But it does.

Of course it does.

We aren’t whole without him, and I’m not sure how I’ll ever recover if he chose this. If he left us without answers on purpose.

When the door opens later, and Daphne and Lane arrive, they join us at the table, though their moods are decidedly more somber. When dinner is done, my parents put the boys to bed so we can catch up.

“What did you find out at the police station?” I ask, gathering the plates and carrying them across the room to the sink.

Daphne sighs. “Nothing, really. Just more of the same. They’re working through several leads, but there’s nothing concrete to tell us. We told them about the boys and gave them their names, but I’m not sure what they’re doing with that information or if they’ll try to contact Aaron. They didn’t say.”

“Did you ask about a search party?”

“We did. Right now, they don’t seem to think it’s a good idea,” Lane says. “Apparently there isn’t enough evidence of where he might be for there to be a good enough cause to use resources on a search party.”

“Well, we could go look on our own,” I suggest, though it feels strange. The police are right. He could be anywhere. “We don’t need permission to do that. Maybe we could search around where the accident happened. Just in case he was in the car.”

Daphne pinches her lips together, looking down. She sniffles, wiping her fingers under both eyes. “Oh, I think they’re giving up on him, Celine.”

“They’re not,” I promise her, reaching across and taking her hand. I want to tell them about the missing money, but I don’t know how to without making it seem like I’m accusing Tate of something. “I promise they’re not. We won’t let them.”

She nods, drying her eyes. “Thank you. Tate is so lucky to have you.”

“I love him so much,” I tell her.

“We know you do.” She squeezes my hand.

“I actually have a question for you,” I tell her, pulling the photo from my pocket. It’s slightly crinkled now.

“What’s this?” She takes the photo, staring down at it, then chokes back a sudden, unexpected sob and runs her finger across the paper. “Oh. Oh.”

“I found it in Tate’s things. These were the boys you said he was close with in college, right? Bradley, Dakota, and Aaron.”

She nods with fat tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know Tate still had this picture. They were all like sons to us. They were at our house all the time. Holidays, school breaks. Oh my gosh, they were all such pains, but…it was the closest thing we ever had to feeling like a complete family. I lived for times they were all there.” She sniffles again, lost in thought as she stares down at the photo.

“What about this boy?” I point to the unnamed boy in the center of the picture. “Do you know who he is?”

She looks closer at the picture, lifting it toward the light and her face. “I don’t think so.” She hands the photo to Lane. “Do you recognize him?”

Lane hardly looks at the photo before shaking his head, hiding tears in his own eyes. He can’t seem to look at the photo of his son.

“We aren’t giving up on him,” I promise them. “We’re going to find Tate. He’s going to be okay.” I want that more than anything, for their sakes as much as mine. Even if he has stolen from me, even if he’s leaving me, I just want to know he’s okay.

A somber thought occurs to me then. If I lose him, if he’s leaving me, will I lose his parents, too? Will they stop coming around as much? Will the boys lose them?

“Where did you find this anyway?” Daphne asks, tapping the photo in her hand.

“It was in a box of old photos we keep around. I figured out who the other boys were, but I couldn’t place the fifth one.”

“The three other boys were the friends we knew. The ones Tate was always hanging around with. But it doesn’t surprise me that he included someone else in this photo. He was always so kind.” She sniffles. “You know how he is. Makes friends everywhere he goes.” She grabs a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and dabs her eyes, then her nose.

That does sound like Tate. He can make friends in line at the grocery store. I’ve literally seen it happen. As in, ‘let’s go out to dinner, come to our house for a cookout Saturday’ kind of friends.

“Do you mind if I keep it?” she asks, holding her hand out. “I would—I mean, if you don’t need it, I would really like to have it.”

I hesitate, not wanting to give up even a tiny piece of my husband, but at the end of the day, I have no real attachment to the photograph, and it’s clear my in-laws do. “Of course,” I assure her. “It’s yours.”

Her chin quivers again as she looks down and dabs her eyes. “Thank you. I can’t believe they’re gone. My boys. My sweet boys.”

She clutches the photo to her chest just as my father-in-law says, “We should get going, I think. Let the kids get some rest.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he hesitates in his movements, as if he has glitched, and I know exactly what happened. Usually, when he says anything about ‘the kids,’ he’s referring to Tate and me, and that weight sits in between us, heavy on his expression before he continues to stand up.

Losing one person is hard enough. Losing an entire photograph’s worth of people, an entire group of people you love without having any answers—I don’t even want to imagine.

Once we’ve said our goodbyes and they’ve left for the night, I find my dad in Ryker’s room, reading to him, while my mom rocks Finley to sleep across the hall in the rocking chair we’ve had in his bedroom since before he was born.

I wave to them, letting them know I’ll be right back, then head to my room to brush my teeth and change into my pajamas. It’s weird here without Tate. I feel his absence in every part of the house and every moment of my life.

If he was here, he’d be stretched out on the bed, telling me about his day. Or staring at me in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, trying to make me laugh.

If he was here, it wouldn’t hurt like this.

When I’m done, I grab the box of photos from the bed—still waiting for me to slip the photo I no longer have back inside of it—and move to put the lid back on, but something stops me.

It’s a photograph I looked at earlier, one I assume was taken on the same night as the photo I gave Daphne. I’m only just noticing the jackets slung across chairs in the background, and the fact that three of them are letterman jackets.

My eyes scan the familiar names. Thompson. Jennings. And then the final name, one I don’t recognize: Acri.

My heart stutters, and I grab my laptop, typing in his last name and the name of their school: Highland University.

The first few results don’t give me much, but finally, I see an article that catches my attention. The coverage is small, just a paragraph, but it’s enough to make my chest tight.

Local Boy Reported Missing From Campus

Late Saturday night, police responded to reports from students that they believed their classmate was missing from his dorm. It is now confirmed police are looking for senior Matteo Acri. No word yet on what police believe to have happened or if they believe Acri may be in danger. This is a developing story. Anyone with any information is encouraged to call the Dublin County Police Department.

I read the article two more times, trying to make sense of it, then search Matteo Acri’s name on its own, hoping to discover a report that he was found alive and well, but the search turns up nothing. No updates were ever posted, which likely means he was never found.

I close my laptop with a heavy sigh.

Five friends. Two are dead. Two are missing. It can’t be a coincidence any longer…can it?