“Caroline met someone who claims to be Mara,” I said.
Jessica looked stricken.
“I saw a photograph of a girl in his desk once,” she whispered.
“He told me it was his sister.”
We sat in silence, each newly aware that Richard might have been lying to us in entirely different ways.
I was not ready to forgive Jessica.
I also knew that her mistakes did not give me permission to ignore a possible missing person.
“If you have anything relevant, save it,” I told her.
“Do not delete messages or ask Richard what you should say.”
Jessica nodded.
Then she began crying in a way that sounded exhausted rather than theatrical.
I carried my overnight bag to the front door and left her alone in the kitchen.
CHAPTER 4: The First Wife
At my brother Aaron’s apartment, sleep came in short bursts interrupted by the image of Richard leaning against my headboard.
Aaron did not ask for details when I arrived.
He moved a stack of newspapers from the couch and handed me a spare blanket.
“You can tell me tomorrow,” he said.
In the morning, I called Caroline from the parking lot of a diner.
She answered before the second ring.
“He knows,” she said.
I asked how she could tell.
“He came home after midnight and started demanding names,” Caroline replied.
“He wanted to know who had spoken to Mara.”
She sounded more angry than afraid.
I told her that my marriage was unraveling and that I needed to keep the two matters separate.
“I understand,” she said.
“I should have warned you that my husband has a habit of pulling other people into his disasters.”
I reminded her that she had contacted me before I discovered the affair.
“There is a reason for that,” she said.
We arranged to meet at the library again with a retired social worker named Lillian Ford.
Lillian had worked at Alder House during its final year.
She had insisted on speaking face-to-face because someone had already tried to obtain the same records under a false name.
I arrived with a notebook and no expectation that the day could improve.
Caroline sat beside an older woman wearing a green raincoat.
Lillian’s hands were steady when she opened a cardboard file box.
She laid out photographs of students, a building diagram, and a typed incident report.
“The school did not close because of a fire,” she said.
“It closed after three students disappeared over one winter.”
