the house and just stood there staring up at it for a long time. And when he turned, and the streetlight caught him just right, something about him reminded me of Matthew.”
Charlotte was sitting on Claire’s front porch when she got home from work that day. Her sister wore a light gray silk suit and heels, and Claire figured she must have come straight over from the office. She had on sunglasses, but she slipped them off as Claire climbed the steps.
She rose, hands on hips. “I tried to call you I don’t know how many times last night. Where on earth were you?”
“I went for a drive.” Claire got out her keys to unlock the door.
“I was worried sick about you!”
“Why?”
“You were gone for hours.” Charlotte followed her inside and closed the door. “That’s not like you.”
“A lot’s happened lately. I just needed some time to sort things through.” Claire wasn’t about to admit to her sister that she’d spent the night with Dave. She wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done, but she didn’t feel like having to justify her actions. And besides, what she and Dave had shared was a very private thing. She wasn’t ready to have it brought out in the open and analyzed.
“Why were you trying to reach me?” Claire asked. “Was anything wrong?”
Charlotte dropped her purse on the couch and turned, but her gaze didn’t quite meet Claire’s. “I need to talk to you about Alex.”
“Oh.” Claire tossed her keys into a basket on her desk. “I already know what you’re going to say.”
Charlotte lifted her brows in surprise. “He told you?”
“Reluctantly. He didn’t want to, but he didn’t have a choice. When I went to confront him, I already knew what he’d done, but I wanted to hear it from him. And even then, I still had a hard time believing he could do such a thing. What kind of man would use a little girl’s kidnapping to cover up a murder?”
Charlotte quickly looked away. “I know, Claire. I can’t believe it, either. I’m so sorry. I keep thinking about all those times I tried to get you to reconcile with him. I thought he was the perfect guy. And now to find out what he did…” She closed her eyes. “I feel like such a fool.”
“But you didn’t know. He fooled me, too.”
Charlotte rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “He’s in a lot of trouble, Claire.”
“He should be.”
“Don’t you even want to know what kind of charges he could be facing?”
Claire walked over to the window, glanced out, then turned back to Charlotte. “Right now, I don’t really care what happens to him.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. You’ve always been the most forgiving person I know.”
“Forgiving?” She gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do. I’m capable of carrying around hate and anger for years. Just ask Dave.”
“You’ve forgiven him now, though, haven’t you?”
Claire glanced back out at the street. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I feel for Dave these days.”
Charlotte came over to stand beside her at the window. “Sometimes I think you’re still in love with him. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I always will be. But it’s not enough. Not with Dave. Being with him is too hard. It’s like waiting for a bomb to go off. You know disaster is coming and so you constantly brace yourself for it. You go through each day with your stomach in knots, expecting the worst. I don’t know why anybody would want to go back to that.”
“Maybe because he’s changed,” Charlotte said softly. “And maybe because you’ve never been happy without him.”
A little while later, Charlotte sent Claire upstairs for a long, hot shower while she went into the kitchen to see about dinner. By the time Claire came back down, she could smell spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove. She poked her head into the kitchen to see if she could help. Charlotte stood at the sink, washing greens for a salad.
“I’ve got everything under control. You just go sit down and relax.” When she didn’t hear the door close, Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. “You do remember how to relax, don’t you?”
“Vaguely.”
Claire was still standing there watching her when Charlotte turned from the sink. “What?”
She shook her head. “I still can’t figure you out. First you take up for Dave, and now this. I can’t help thinking something’s going on with you.”
“I didn’t exactly take up for Dave. I said it’s possible that he might have changed.” Charlotte wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I’m just trying to do something nice for you. Don’t make me regret it.”
Claire smiled. “Now that sounds more like you.”
She poured Claire a glass of wine, put it in her hand and gave her a little push toward the living room. “Go away, you’re making me nervous. I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.”
There was nothing for Claire to do but sit down and put her feet up. She closed her eyes and might have drifted off if the phone hadn’t rung.
“I’ll get it,” Charlotte called from the kitchen.
A moment later, she came through the doorway, palming the receiver. “Do you know someone named Savannah Sweete?”
Claire sat up, her fatigue suddenly forgotten, and reached for the phone. “This is Claire,” she said anxiously.
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad time,” the woman drawled. “But I’ve come across something that I thought you should know about.”
“What is it?”
“It may not be anything of consequence, so I don’t want you to get your hopes up. But after you left this morning, I kept thinking about that picture of your daughter. I couldn’t get her little face out of my mind, and I started to wonder if maybe I
“Is it Ruby?”
“It looks an awful lot like that picture you showed me this morning, but I can’t be certain. I think it would be best if you came out here and took a look at it yourself. I tried calling Mr. Creasy at the number he left, but there’s no answer.”
“I’m glad you called me,” Claire said. “When can I come see this picture?”
“How about tomorrow morning?”
Her grip on the phone tightened. “I don’t mean to sound pushy, but could I come this evening? I really don’t want to wait until morning.”
“Are you sure you want to make such a long drive this late in the day?”
“I’m only an hour away,” Claire said. “I really would like to come now. If I don’t, I’ll be worried about that photograph all night.”
“I understand. You just come on then. I’ll be here waiting for you.”
“Thanks. And thank you so much for going through those files so quickly. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“Oh, it was nothing. I was happy to do it,” she said. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
Charlotte had stood there listening the whole time, and as Claire set the phone aside, she said curiously, “Who on earth is Savannah Sweete?”
“You’ve never heard Mama mention her? She’s a doll maker who lives over in Terrebonne Parish. It’s possible she may have made the doll I saw in the shop window last week. She’s gone through some of her files, and she thinks she may have found a picture of Ruby.”
“That’s great, I guess. But why not wait until morning to drive down there?”
“Because I waited to go back to the collectibles shop after I saw the doll, remember? It was gone by the
