At the time, I believed staying silent was the honorable thing to do.
Now it felt like I had closed a door between us.
Jackson unfolded Gwen’s letter.
It contained directions to Gwen’s house and suggested stopping at a motel if the children needed to rest.
Clara had taken Aria and Shaun on a short visit to see her sister.
Work had overwhelmed me, so they traveled without me.
When Clara hadn’t called by nine that evening, I phoned Gwen.
“Is Clara there?”
“Andrew, they never arrived.”
I jumped up so quickly my chair slammed into the wall.
“Check with the neighbors. Shaun may have gotten sick.”
“She would’ve called.”
“Check anyway.”
By midnight, the police had Clara’s planned route and the description of her car.
The following day, they found it below a river bridge. The parking brake had failed after Clara pulled onto the shoulder. Divers recovered no bodies, but years later the court legally declared all three dead.
Gwen’s letter gave us the first place Clara might have stopped.
“We’re going there,” I told Jackson.
“Not until you take your medication,” Jackson said, picking up my coat.
“I’ve already lost 40 years.”
“Then don’t collapse before you get an answer. I’ll drive.”
The motel had long since become an apartment building. An elderly woman in the lobby studied Clara’s photograph.
“I remember her. Her son had a fever, and she kept trying to call her husband.”
I showed her Gwen’s picture.
“Did this woman come?”
“Yes. They argued. Your wife wanted to go home and hear the truth from her husband.”
“I’m the husband. What did Gwen say?”
“She said you’d already left town with another woman.”
A sharp pain tightened across my chest.
“That was a lie.”
Jackson quickly pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
“I need one more answer.”
I turned back to the woman.
“Did Clara leave willingly?”
“Yes, but she looked dizzy when she got into the car.”
PART 2
After my breathing steadied, Jackson drove me to Sarah’s house.
I placed Gwen’s photographs on her table.
“Clara saw these.”
