Anahera felt her lips twist. “I haven’t told anyone. I only found out after my husband died and she turned up at my front door.”
China rattled against china as Jemima nearly dropped both cup and saucer. Putting them down, she stared at Anahera with horrified eyes. “I am so sorry.” Her next words trembled, white lines bracketing her mouth. “My God, why couldn’t she have waited?”
“She loved him, too.” Anahera had never blamed the woman—it was Edward who’d been married, Edward who’d broken vows, Edward who’d made his lover promises of forever. “She couldn’t stop crying.”
Smoothing back her flawless hair with an unsteady hand, Jemima looked over at her two small children. “Let’s go onto the balcony. It’s so lovely out.”
Only once they were outside, the sliding door mostly shut behind them, did the other woman say, “I haven’t told anyone, either.” A rough whisper. “No one suspects. We have such a perfect life.”
Anahera leaned her forearms against the wooden railing, drinking in the landscape as she inhaled the crisp air. “Is it a woman connected to his business?” She had to know if Vincent’s wife had identified a stunning nineteen-and-a-half-year-old girl as his lover.
“I don’t know.” Jemima’s fingers clenched tight around the railing. “I thought about hiring a private investigator to follow Vincent, but then I’d actually know and have to do something about it.” Releasing a shuddering breath, she said, “Right now, I can pretend that it’s all in my imagination. And we can keep on living this perfect life.”
Anahera turned her gaze from the view to the elegant lines of Jemima’s face. “You love him.” It was written in every tormented inch of her. Whatever Vincent’s reasons for marrying her, Jemima had done it out of love.
“From the moment I first met him,” Jemima whispered. “I always knew he didn’t feel the same way about me, but I thought it would grow. And we were doing okay, were building a strong friendship around our shared determination to get Vincent to the top of the political ladder, and then…”
Jemima looked back through the sliding door, making sure her children remained involved in their game and out of earshot. “Then he found a woman who made him feel alive in a way I’ve never managed.”
“That doesn’t give him the right to hurt you.”
“The thing is”—Jemima dropped her head—“even if he came to me today and confessed each and every detail, I’d tell him I’d be willing to look the other way as long as he came back to me. That’s how pathetic I am, that’s how much I love him.”
Anahera closed a hand over the other woman’s, squeezed, but part of her couldn’t help but think that a wife who was willing to put up with that much from her husband might not take it well if she believed her husband’s affair had a chance of becoming real—of coming out of the shadows to disrupt her perfect life. Maybe Vincent had slipped up, or maybe Jemima had hired that private investigator.
Was it possible Vincent had tried to win Miriama back by offering marriage?
“Are you worried that Vincent’s considering divorce?” Anahera pushed off the railing, angling her body to face Jemima. “And again, you can tell me to shove it if that’s going too far.”
“I think you might be the first real friend I’ve made since I walked down the aisle.” A tendril of golden hair whispered against her cheek. “I don’t want to lie to you. The truth is, I used to worry about divorce, but he’s never once mentioned it as a possibility. I keep hoping it’s just a madness that’ll pass and then I’ll have my husband back.” Words raw with hope.
Jemima truly seemed to believe the affair was ongoing.
So either Vincent had already found someone else… or he remained obsessed with Miriama despite their breakup.
44
Will fought the urge to slam his fist down on the steering wheel. He’d spoken to everybody he could, run down every possible lead, even quietly checked the whereabouts of a number of different men at the time of Miriama’s disappearance—men who’d looked at her as Nikau had looked at her—and still he had nothing.
Nikau himself, it turned out, had been hanging in the garage with Peter Jacobs. Peter Jacobs, who had no record, but who’d been a “person of interest” in an American rape investigation. Will had discovered that piece of well-buried background earlier today, his blood running cold, but Jacobs’s alibi was solid.
Evelyn Triskell, of all people, had confirmed that she’d walked in on Peter and Nikau “stinking up” the garage with “awful cheap cigars.” She’d been certain of the date and time because she’d come in to have an oil check before she and Wayne left to see a movie in a neighboring town. She’d even had the ticket stubs to confirm the timing.
Another dead end.
The same as the information that had finally come in from Miriama’s cell phone carrier: her phone had last pinged off towers that placed her in Golden Cove—near the time of her disappearance.
Will’s superiors had more than once pointed out that his strongest trait was also his worst weakness: Sometimes, Will, they’d said, you have to give up. Sometimes you can’t save people.
He knew that, had lived the cruel truth as he fought to get inside the blazing funeral pyre of a “safe house” that held a bright-eyed little boy and his mother. But still he couldn’t stop himself, still he couldn’t give up.
Miriama deserved better than that. Golden Cove deserved better than that.
Because he’d also been chasing down the rumors about the three missing hikers from fifteen years ago. Everyone had a theory about what may have happened to the young women. Will had even received an anonymous tip in the form of a note shoved under the station door while he was out. A note full of vague innuendo and speculation. No one had facts.
He’d sent off a query to check the allegations in the note, but right now he wanted to talk to Matthew Teka. The man had been around a long time. If anyone knew the secrets of this town, it’d be Matthew. Which was why Will was driving to the man’s cabin out in the bush.
The hunter called out a hearty “Tēnā koe!” and invited him in for a cup of “gumboot tea.” While it brewed, he regaled Will with a story about the tahr bull he’d been tracking recently. “Sly bugger. I could almost see him laughing as he scrambled up a mountainside like he had crampons on his feet.” He checked the tea he had going on the stove in a heavy teakettle even older than Anahera’s. “You ever tasted their meat? Bloody good kai.”
“Can’t say I have.” Though, having grown up in the south, he was familiar with the goat-like animals. Endangered elsewhere in the world, the introduced species was considered a pest in New Zealand.
“I’ll get you a steak after I bag this bull.” Matthew picked up the kettle and began to pour.
“You supply one of the wild-game restaurants?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry about paying city prices. Your feed’s on me—I always keep aside a bit of meat.”