Adam’s office space was very nice, very stately. The high-ceilinged front reception room was done up in white and deep maroon, with lots of dark wood. It was also currently empty. I knew Adam employed a secretary who greeted clients—I’d talked to her a few times on the phone—but she was apparently gone for the day. Her computer was dark and her desk was tidied.
There was a long hallway with a few conference-style rooms on the sides. I started back that way. The doors to the rooms were all open, and the rooms themselves empty, except for the one in the very back. The door to that particular room was closed, but I could hear hushed voices speaking from behind it.
I assumed that room was Adam’s office. Despite the low volume of the quiet conversation going on inside, I recognized Adam’s deep tenor. As I slowly continued down the hall, I heard Helena’s voice join his, as well as Nate’s melodic bass. The three of them appeared to be having a closed-door meeting. I debated whether to go back to the front reception area to wait for them to finish, or to just knock on the door so they’d know I had arrived.
From the cadence and the quiet tones, I sensed that whatever the three of them were discussing, it was definitely something private. I had every intention of turning back and giving them their privacy, but then I heard Nate say, “You have to let this go, babe. We’ve been over this a dozen times these past three months. It wasn’t his ring, okay? It just looked like it. Your mother said as much.”
“She said she couldn’t be sure,” Helena corrected.
“It just looked the same,” Nate insisted. “You can buy one like that just about anywhere.”
Helena mumbled something I couldn’t decipher, and Nate replied exasperatedly, “Why does this keep coming up? I thought we all agreed it was Ami who mailed it to your mom. She’s the only one disturbed enough to do something like that.”
“But why would she wait all these years?” Helena asked, sounding somewhat desperate. “What would be her purpose?”
“I don’t know, hon,” her husband responded. “She’s crazy, remember?”
Helena wasn’t giving up. “It just worries me. What if it wasn’t Ami who sent the ring? We still don’t know who the guy was that…that…he dropped off in town. That guy could have followed them, followed us even.”
Adam chimed in, his tone calm, reassuring. “That’s highly unlikely, Helena. Why would that guy follow anyone? He was just a student, someone who needed a ride into Bangor.”
Helena again: “But even if he was a student, maybe he got curious. What if he did follow? What if he saw what we did? This could be his way of letting us know that he knows.”
“That’d be pretty sick,” Nate scoffed. “I mean, why? What could he even want? And why wait all these years to break your silence by sending your mom some generic gold band that ends up scaring the shit out of her?” Nate paused. “The whole concept is ridiculous. Adam’s right, that guy just needed a ride into town. He’s not even a factor. It was Ami who sent the ring.”
Before Helena could respond, Adam jumped in. “Your mom received that ring in October, right? We know Ami was spiraling at the time. The timing fits. It just makes sense.”
Helena said something in response, but her voice was too low for me to catch what her words were.
I crept closer and heard Adam say, “Look, nothing has happened for three months. I think it’s time to let this go.”
Helena sounded as if she was choking back tears, Nate was soothing her. Adam said in a hushed tone, “It’s almost five. Maddy will be here soon. We better wrap up.”
I didn’t wait around for someone to open the door and catch me. I hurried back out to the car. There was no way I was going to linger in the hallway, or even the reception area, and have Adam suspect I’d heard their discussion.
So I waited in my parked car while Helena and Nate came out the front door. To my relief, they walked in the opposite direction from where I sat. They turned at the corner, their car apparently on the cross street. Thank God. Now I had to go back into the office and pretend I’d heard nothing. Their conversation and the things they’d discussed had something to do with the secret—I had no doubt.
I mean, October? Come on. That was when Adam had planted the phony news story for me to find. That was when Helena had cut her visit to Boston short. And now I knew why—someone had frightened her mother by sending the woman a gold wedding band.
Did Ami send the ring, as they all seemed to think? Well, except for Helena. She sounded as if she believed the culprit could have been some student who’d hitched a ride into town, into Bangor. Bangor and a student. I thought it over. Helena had attended the University of Maine for one year, back as a freshman, and so had Ami. The campus was a little north of Bangor.
I thought it over some more…
If it was a wedding band that had frightened Helena’s mom, maybe Ron Mifflin—Helena’s horrible, abusive stepfather—had sent it. Did he send his former wife his old ring as some kind of a warning? That would explain why Helena had been so worried, so troubled.
But why would Ron Mifflin do such a thing…why now? Helena’s stepdad had left town nearly nine years ago. It seemed odd for him to return after so much time had passed. And what was all the talk of some “other guy”? What did it matter if some student had needed a ride into town? Who’d been driving the supposed student? Ron? Why would this student follow the man who’d given him a ride? Or
