His voice didn’t change, except for a thread of sarcasm on the last two words, but instinctively I knew this was where the story was going bad.

I grew edgier and fought against shifting in my seat.

“She had the time and was good at it so she looked after our bank accounts, balanced the checkbooks, paid the bills. I didn’t look at any of it. Until one day, saw a bank statement shoved in the basket where she kept that shit. The balance was nowhere near where it should be. Asked her about it, she freaked. Said she’d loaned a friend in trouble some money and didn’t want to tell me because she thought I’d say no or would get mad if I knew she did it without asking. She said they were gonna pay it back. She was so out of it with panic, I told her, if they paid it back, I didn’t give a shit. She was like that with her friends. Tight. She’d do that for any of ’em. Coupla months later, they paid it back.”

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“But she wasn’t gettin’ pregnant. My annual checkup, asked my doc about it, he said you should try for a year before you look into it. It hadn’t been a year so I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to trip her. She was actin’ moody anyway and I figured it was the same for her as for me, uneasy about why we hadn’t made a baby.”

He fell silent and I didn’t prompt him. Just took another sip of cocoa, pulling in a soft cloud of marshmallow. I swallowed and waited.

I didn’t wait long.

“Months after that, we were close to havin’ enough for a down payment on a house, work was insane so I wasn’t gettin’ home until at least nine most of the time. She still wasn’t pregnant and I was ready to approach it with her. Psyching myself up. She was wired and off and I knew why. Day I was comin’ home early to take her to dinner to have that talk, got home, my wife was gone.”

I turned my gaze to him but said nothing.

“Gone,” he told the trees. “Completely, and by that I do not mean she took her clothes and shit. She left everything, even her purse and phone. It was only Jeannie who was gone.”

Slowly, he turned his head to me.

“And I lost it.”

I would too.

Anyone would.

“Of course you did, honey,” I said gently.

“Thought she was kidnapped.”

Oh God.

“Deacon.”

“Terrified outta my mind. Nothin’ disturbed in the house and her car there, purse, phone? What woman leaves without her purse?”

“None of us,” I replied when he quit speaking.

He looked back to the trees and made no response to me. He just kept telling his story.

“By midnight, she didn’t show, had called her friends, her folks, her sisters, her boss, went to the police, told ’em she was gone. They told me she had to be gone longer before they could do anything. I thought that was fuckin’ whacked. A man knows his wife, he knows she isn’t where she’s supposed to be, with anyone she knows, they should fuckin’ look.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

He looked at me. “There’s a reason they don’t look, Cassidy.”

I pressed my lips together.

“They knew there’s a shit ton of ways a man might not know his wife. Next days, weeks, months, I’d find out I knew fuckin’ nothin’ about Jeannie.”

“What was it?” I whispered, not wanting to know, but needing him to give this to me. Not because I felt it was my right to have it anymore. Because he had to let it go.

He looked to the trees.

“Started smokin’ pot when she was twelve. Graduated to droppin’ acid and doin’ ecstasy by the time she was fourteen. Snortin’ coke before she was a junior in high school. Good family, two sisters who were solid, don’t know why the fuck she did that shit, just know she did. Also knew she could be fragile, felt deeper than other people, and seein’ things clearer now, that was not in a way that was healthy. She had three stints in rehab between age fifteen and nineteen. Last one took, they thought.” He drew in breath and finished, “They were wrong.”

“She was on drugs?” I asked inanely and he looked back at me.

“Don’t know what tripped it,” he said, not answering me because my question needed no answer. “Don’t know if it was me askin’ for a baby and her realizin’ she didn’t have that in her. But she went back to coke. That money that was missing, that was because she was using. And Cassidy, this is where it gets ugly.”

It wasn’t already ugly?

I didn’t ask that.

I urged, “Tell me.”

“She got that money back turnin’ tricks.”

I blinked.

Turning tricks? As in, sleeping with men for money?

Oh my God!

I didn’t request Deacon confirm that, but he still kept talking.

“Got deep into coke right under my nose, and seriously no fuckin’ pun intended with that shit. So I wouldn’t find out, paid for it the only way she could, suckin’ cock and fuckin’ it for money.”

Okay, it was safe to say that was seriously ugly.

“Baby,” I whispered.

“Her folks, obviously, knew she had a problem. Sisters knew. Her friends knew. Shit came out when she didn’t go to work and didn’t come home for days and finally the cops got involved. No one was surprised. They were sad. They were worried about Jeannie. They felt for me. But no one was surprised. No one but her bosses…and me.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“Nope.”

“Her parents, friends, sisters, when you called to say she was missing?”

He leaned slightly my way. “No one told me.”

“I…I can’t believe it. That’s crazy.”

“So whacked it’s jacked,” he agreed. “Cops heard her history, they went from looking into it to zero effort. Nothin’. Addict out scoring. Washed their hands of it.” He looked back to the trees. “I didn’t.”

Oh God.

“Loved her,” he said softly, his voice now melancholy, and my heart squeezed. “Loved her, didn’t give a fuck she had a problem, missed her, wanted her back. Wanted to fix her. Obsessed with doin’ it. Blinded with that need. Wanted her back in my bed. Her smile. Makin’ her laugh. Her fuckin’ cookies.”

God. I should never have offered him cookies.

“So I went searchin’ for her. Eventually quit my job. My boss, good man, put a lot into me. He was worried about me, devastated, thought I was throwin’ my life away on a woman with a problem I couldn’t fix. Told me that shit. I told him to go fuck himself. Dad did the same. He and Mom beside themselves with worry. Tried to talk me out of it. Told them they could fuck off too. Went lookin’ for her. Sunk into a world that, with where my head was at, was welcome to me, and I spent years lookin’ for my wife.”