“When Lynn started therapy as a young child, her therapist suggested that she write letters recounting her day to herself. Kind of a diary, but they had to be in letter format. She would write them and mail them all here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. “She still does that. Matter of fact, this one just arrived.” She opened the box and laid the unopened letter on the top of a huge pile of envelopes. “No one has ever read them. They arrive, and I put them in the box just like she asked.”
My fingers tingled with the need to open the letters and read their contents.
“She doesn’t want anyone to read them,” she said, her voice unyielding.
“I understand.”
I walked toward the door and let myself out of the room. We went back toward the porch, and I was stunned to find Ash asleep on the porch swing.
“Whoops,” Mrs. Punter said. “I think she might have drank your tea.”
I looked at the empty tea glass and back to Mrs. Punter. Not an ounce of remorse showed on her face.
“Ash?” I said, leaning down to check her vitals.
“She’ll probably sleep the whole way home.”
I rounded on her, my hands in fists. “What did you give her?”
“Nothing dangerous,” she said with a smile and a shrug. “Just a very mild sedative.”
“What were you planning to do to me after you knocked me out?” I couldn’t refrain from asking.
“Search your car, your pockets, get to know you a little better. You know. The usual.”
“I would have let you do all that without having to drug me.”
She shoved her hands into her pockets. “Maybe. I couldn’t be sure.”
I hoisted Ash into my arms and she didn’t move a muscle. Her head lolled back and her mouth hung open, but she was breathing.
I put her in the car, and Mrs. Punter brought me a tin of cookies. “You’ll forgive me if I decline,” I said pointedly.
She tossed them into the backseat of the car. “They’re for Ash.”
?
??Who you just drugged.”
“That was meant for you,” she said petulantly.
“And that makes it so much better,” I muttered.
“It was lovely to meet you, Mason.”
I wished I could say the same.
I pulled away from the curb and drove a little way down the street. I parked where I could see her front door, but she couldn’t see me. Finally, about an hour later, she left in her car. I walked to the back of the house, broke a window, and crawled through it. I got the box of Lynn’s letters from Shelly’s room and carried it to my car, tucking it safely into the back seat. I put the seatbelt around the box, because it was precious to me, in that moment.
Then I went home, my heart in my throat, Ash snoring softly beside me, and my wife still missing. But I’d put together a few more pieces of the puzzle today, so that made it all a little more bearable.
31
“Your precious Nana drugged you,” I explained to Ash when she finally woke up.
She snorted. “Nana wouldn’t do that.”
“You slept for five hours, Ash. Why do you think that happened?”