* * *
CHANTEL WAS WORKING second shift on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and then would have three days off before going back on days for two weeks. Las Sendas police schedules changed on a regular basis to keep officers from seeing the same people on the same streets at the same time every day—an attempt to prevent complacency.
The changing schedule had once ruled Max’s life, as he never knew when to expect his wife to be home. When to plan dinners with his folks. Or a night out with fellow residents from the hospital.
Jill had never seemed to mind the unknown when it came to her working hours. She lived to work. Any time she was on was fine with her. It was the off time that she seemed to find more challenging.
But then, her family was all in upstate New York. Max had only met her immediate family once before the funeral—when they’d flown out for their wedding. He’d never met the myriad aunts and uncles and cousins she’d left behind at eighteen when she moved to California. And her only friends, other than Max, whom she’d met while on a call in a hospital emergency room, had been work associates.
Waiting up for Chantel’s call Thursday night brought back memories of other nights he’d waited up for Jill to be off duty and safe.
His full day of appointments on Friday loomed just as they’d done back then.
He was lying in bed when his cell phone, set on vibrate so as not to disturb the sleeping toddler in the next room, started to buzz.
He greeted Chantel, hand over his eyes, as though he could somehow hide his desperate wish that it was Meri’s call he’d been awaiting. “How was your day?” he asked. Because it was the decent thing to do.
And for the same reason, he listened as she gave him a briefing on the meth lab she and her partner had stumbled upon that afternoon. She’d taken an attempted rape call, too, near the college campus.
“Did you hear from Diane?” he asked as soon as Chantel fell silent.
“No, but don’t get discouraged, Max. You heard her say it could take a few days.”
How could he not be discouraged, every single night that he slept alone, wondering where Meri was sleeping—and with whom?
Wondering if, while he lay in the big soft bed he and Meri had purchased together, on sheets she’d washed and put there, she lay somewhere frightened for her life.
And wished for the thousandth time in a week that he’d made her talk more about her years with Steve Smith. Wished he’d been able to listen to the horrors without getting upset for her, and thus shutting her down.
“How are you holding up?” Chantel’s tone had softened. Become more intimate than friendly.
“Fine.”
“What did you do with the rest of your day?”
It was a Meri question. A wife question. “Drove every street in this city looking for my wife,” he answered honestly. Because he needed both of them to remember that Meri was the light of his life.
And if she was gone, his heart would be in permanent darkness.
He wasn’t going to be in the market for another woman. Though he was starting to strongly suspect that Chantel was in the market for him.
“She’s safe, Max.” The tone of voice didn’t change. And he didn’t want to like it.
“She was two nights ago.”
“She’s safe tonight. Wayne’s...in touch. He called earlier this evening to let me know that she’s in for the night.”
“He’s got a watch on her?”
“Not exactly.”
“But she’s keeping in touch with him?”
“No.”
“Then...”
“Don’t, Max. Don’t ask. Please. Just trust me and know that you can get some rest. Meredith is where she chose to be and she’s sleeping in a nice bed in a nice place.”