12
MRS. SPECTER RETURNED TO HER
I took advantage of everything my toilet kit had to offer. Chamomile shampoo and conditioner, citrus bath gel, honey and almond body cream, green tea and cypress mousse.
As I dressed, I looked longingly at my bed. What I wanted was sleep. What I didn’t want was an intense, prolonged conversation with a wounded and suffering mother. But I was caught by what-ifs. What if Mrs. Specter had held back and was now willing to bare herself? What if she was about to make revelations that might unlock one or more cases?
What if she knew where Chantale was?
Dream on, Brennan.
I rejoined Mrs. Specter, smelling like a Caswell-Massey shop. She suggested a park two blocks north of the hotel. I agreed.
Parque de las Flores was a small square framed by rosebushes and divided by paths cutting diagonally from corner to corner. Trees and wooden benches occupied the four triangles formed by the gravel X.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” said Mrs. Specter, removing a newspaper and settling onto a bench.
It’s eleven o’clock, I thought.
“It reminds me of a summer night in Charlevoix. Were you aware that that’s my home?”
“No, ma’am. I wasn’t.”
“Have you ever visited that part of Quebec?”
“It’s very scenic.”
“My husband and I keep a little place in Montreal, but I try to visit Charlevoix as often as I can.”
A couple passed in front of us. The woman pushed a stroller, its wheels crunching softly on the gravel. The man’s arm was draped around her shoulder.
I thought of Galiano. My left cheek burned where his fingers had touched me. I thought of Ryan. Both cheeks burned.
“It’s Chantale’s birthday.” Mrs. Specter’s words brought me back. “She’s seventeen today.”
Present tense?
“She’s been gone more than four months now.”
It was too dark to read her expression.
“Chantale would not have allowed me to suffer as I am. If she was anywhere from where she could communicate, she would have done so.”
She fidgeted with the tab on her purse. I let her go on.
“This past year has been so terribly difficult. What did Detective Galiano call it? A rough patch?
“Ran away.”
“Even when she ran away, Chantale always let me know that she was well. She might refuse to come home, refuse to tell me her whereabouts, but she’d call.”
She paused, watched an old woman rummage though trash one triangle over.
“I know something dreadful has happened to her.”
Her features were lit by a passing car, then receded into darkness once more. Moments later she spoke again.
“I fear it was Chantale in that septic tank.”
I started to say something, but she cut me off.
“Things are not always as they seem, Dr. Brennan.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“My husband is a wonderful man. I was very young when we married.” Choppy. Throwing out thoughts as they came to her. “He is a decade older than I. In the early years there were times—”
She paused, fearful of the telling but needing to dig something out of her heart.
“I was not ready to settle down. I had an affair.”
“When?” I had my first inkling why I was here.
“In 1983. My husband was posted to Mexico City, but traveled incessantly. I was alone most of the time, started going out in the evenings. I wasn’t looking for anyone, or anything, I just wanted to fill the hours.” She drew a deep breath, let it out. “I met a man. We began seeing each other. Eventually, I considered leaving Andre to marry him.”
Another pause, sorting through what to say, what to hold back.
