CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

C HAPTER E IGHTEEN

As soon as the kids were off to school and the house was empty, Chloe made her way upstairs. As she walked down the long hallway, the wooden boards creaked beneath her feet. A shiver raced down her spine, causing her to pause midstride. The air felt heavy, charged with an inexplicable tension that prickled her skin and set her nerves on edge. She couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling she got every time she thought of the doll with its twisted limbs.

Her mind raced, replaying memories of a time when her kids were small. Ridley had never been as artistically creative as her brothers; she’d never enjoyed drawing or coloring. But last night, Chloe had shot straight up in bed, her chest rising and falling, as it dawned on her what had been niggling at her about the stick doll. She would have searched the attic last night, but she hadn’t wanted to wake anyone.

In the middle of the hallway, dangling from the ceiling, was a cord. She reached up and grasped it, giving it a hard tug, which released compact stairs leading to the attic. Since the holiday decorations were stored in the basement, she rarely made her way to the attic. Once she climbed up to the top and inside, she had to hunch over to see what was stored there. It saddened her to see all the plastic bins where she stored her children’s keepsakes covered in dust.

Like many new moms, she had started off with good intentions. Blake and Ridley, being the oldest, had the most bins. They were well organized with folders, each grade labeled and color coded. But Rowan had only two bins, and one was only half-filled. Why? It wasn’t as if Chloe had a full-time job or any interesting hobbies other than walking the dog or planning events with some of the women on her block. She did enjoy playing pickleball and decorating for the holidays. She used to spend time baking, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d made cookies. Something curdled inside her to imagine Rosella baking cookies for Rowan. Maybe the cookies had been store bought. Still, her chest tightened at the notion of Rowan spending time with Rosella, possibly telling her his thoughts and fears. She had no idea he’d ever spoken to the woman. She needed to have a chat with Rowan at the first opportunity.

But right now, she had other problems to deal with.

She easily located the bins marked with Ridley’s name. Heart pounding, she opened the first one. It was stuffed to the brim with schoolwork, poems, and report cards. She took a giant breath as she pulled off the lid of the second bin. Inside were handmade cards and a bulky stuffed animal—a one-eyed raccoon with a ratty-looking tail. She breathed a sigh of relief, hoping her imagination had gotten the best of her as she pulled open the third and final bin. Inside, she found three thick photo albums filled with a mix of Polaroid and print pictures Ridley had taken with her friends over the years. She picked up the sequin-covered Minnie Mouse ears from their trip to Disneyland and smiled. Beneath the ears was a security blanket, soft and well worn. She pulled it out of the bin.

And there it was.

Her shoulders fell. At the bottom of the bin was the wooden stick figure made from branches. The one Ridley had made during a field trip with her class in the sixth grade. Her stomach cramped. When she had seen the evidence bag with the doll made of sticks, something about it had struck her as familiar.

Had Ridley made the stick doll left in Rosella’s house?

If so, why? And how did the doll end up inside Rosella’s home? Chloe wanted to destroy the doll staring up at her with its big walnut-shell eyes. But what if the investigators chose today to pay her a visit? She couldn’t take the chance. And besides, she had a few more things to do before Wesley returned home from a business trip. After putting everything back the way she’d found it, she headed downstairs to her husband’s office.

Sitting at Wesley’s desk, another room in the house she rarely visited, she attempted logging on to his computer using his mother’s maiden name as the password. That didn’t work, so she tried their children’s names along with the last four digits of his social security number. No such luck. Third time was a charm, she hoped. She tried the password Wesley had used when they were first married. No such luck.

Not surprising. Years ago, she had guessed the password to his cell phone and read multiple texts from a woman at his office. Wesley had been having an affair. When Chloe told him she was leaving him, he begged her forgiveness, assuring her he wasn’t in love with the woman and promising to fire her the next day. Wesley kept his promise, and for a while, the time they spent together was magical. He planned weekly events and dinners out. Just the two of them. He even sent beautiful bouquets to the house each week.

Thinking on it now, Chloe couldn’t remember the last time he’d sent flowers or taken her to dinner. Somewhere along the way, they’d both fallen into their old habits. He’d started working more and staying at the office late. Chloe went back to shopping with friends and planning events with the women in the neighborhood.

It wasn’t until Dianne accused Wesley of having Rosella on his payroll that Chloe started to wonder about her husband. Talk of blackmail got her mind working overtime. What was Wesley up to?

She shut down the computer and merely sat there, thinking, fingers tapping. Her gaze fell on the acrylic calendar hanging on the wall across from her. It was a monthly calendar, sixteen-by-sixteen-inch dry erase. From where she sat, she noticed his chiropractor appointments fell on different days of the week. She knew he went to the chiropractor because of lower back pain, but now that she thought about it, when he was home, he played basketball at the gym and took morning runs on the weekend. It didn’t add up. The Right Touch was the name of the company. She remembered because Jason Abbott had recommended the chiropractor to Wesley a few months ago.

She used her cell to look up the number and make the call. After introducing herself, since she didn’t want to look like a nosy wife, she made up a story: she was surprising her husband with a dinner out on the town and needed to cancel his next appointment. The woman who answered put her on hold. When she returned, telling Chloe they had no record of Wesley Leavitt, Chloe apologized and pretended to have called the wrong chiropractor. Her heart sank. Although there hadn’t been a spark in their marriage for a while, she had learned to trust him again. She felt like a fool.

After disconnecting the call, it didn’t take long for Chloe to figure out what she needed to do.