The Next Wife by Kaira Rouda (speld decodable readers txt) 📕

Tish has told me, she left home in high school and never looked back. And then she was married to a dentist until he left her, and she also worked in Cincinnati for a bit. She’s like a ghost, though. No electronic footprint until she became Mrs. Nelson.

I hit the steering wheel with my hand. I don’t know of one single friend she has, not one other family member. It’s like she just appeared. We don’t know anything about her.

I type in “Crawford” and “Pineville.” I find a forty-seven-year-old Betty Jo Crawford Roscoe listed. I smile. She could be Terry Jane’s mom. She could shed a light on her daughter.

I punch in the number listed.

“Hello?” A smoker’s voice answers.

I haven’t thought this through, but oh well. “Hello, Mrs. Crawford?”

“Mrs. Roscoe. Who is this?”

“A friend of Terry Jane’s,” I say.

“Where is she?”

“I’ll tell you if you help me with a few things. Has your daughter ever been violent?”

“What kind of dumbass question is that? Everyone is violent. Sure, Terry Jane can take care of herself. I taught her that much. She’s not smart, but she can throw a mean punch,” Mrs. Roscoe says. “Is she in trouble? Did she hurt anyone?”

“I think she hurt my dad,” I say, and tears fill my eyes.

“Wouldn’t put it past her, the ungrateful brat,” she says. “Where the hell is she? She owes me. What did she do to your dad? Same thing she did to her stepdaddy?”

“What do you mean?” I swallow and lean forward. “Tell me.”

“Well, it was funny, that’s all. My second husband, rest his soul, dropped dead. Police came after me about it, but I knew who’d done it. Tish, that’s who. The two of them hated each other, so I know she did something to him. They never did prove nothing. He died, and she was gone the next day.” I hear her take a pull on a cigarette as my stomach lurches.

“What was your second husband’s name?” I ask while I have her talking.

“Ralph, Ralph Dunlop.” I can hear the sadness in her voice, the pain. “I think Tish left just to make me look guilty, the little bitch. She tried to get me busted,” Mrs. Roscoe says as I write her dead husband’s name on a note in my phone.

“Has your daughter ever been married to a dentist?” I ask, searching my brain for things Tish has said, trying to find out what’s true.

“Yeah. I heard about that, too. Ron Pleasant. Funny name. I didn’t even know about it. He called once, looking for her after she split.”

I type more notes into my phone. Tish acted so distraught when she told me the story. She said he left her. All lies.

“Look, hon, I need you to tell me where she is, or I’m not saying another word,” Mrs. Roscoe says.

“I’m trying to figure that out. As soon as I find her, I’ll be in touch,” I say, and hang up. I’m not going to tell her where her daughter is. Not yet. I realize Mrs. Roscoe has my number now, but I’ll block her unless I need her. My hands shake as I open my dad’s phone. I fine-tune a few of the apps and close it again. It feels good to get a little revenge by talking to Tish’s mom. There’s a lot more to this mother and daughter story, that’s for sure.

I type “Ralph Dunlop death suspicious Pineville” and instantly have news results. The first headline: Pineville Man Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances. The article from the Pineville Union goes on to report that Mr. Dunlop, age forty-five, had no known history of heart problems and dropped dead in his kitchen while drinking a cup of his morning coffee. According to his wife, Betty Jo, her daughter ran away the next day after they had what she called a small disagreement. The daughter has not been located. Authorities are investigating, but police sources tell this reporter the death will be ruled a cardiac arrest. My source says officers have been called to the residence regularly for domestic disturbances.

Sounds like Tish may indeed have had something to do with her stepdad’s death, but this old news doesn’t get me anywhere.

I type in a search: “How did Ralph Dunlop Pineville Kentucky die?”

All that appears is a link to his grave site. But a shiver of dread tells me more. I’m not giving up. One way or another, I will find out what happened in Telluride. My mom was right all along. She told me not to get close to her, told me not to trust her. I was an idiot.

But I’m not anymore. I don’t believe a word of what Tish told me.

I don’t even know who she really is. I do another Google search: “Ron Pleasant Dentist Cincinnati.” He is quite easy to find. I’ll call his office in the morning.

Before I drive away, I find the Sonos app on Dad’s phone, pick his Favorites playlist. And then I decide to go for something a little different. Metallica will do.

I can’t prove Tish did anything yet, but I can dig into her past, among other things.

CHAPTER 26

TISH

I’ve picked out my outfit for John’s funeral tomorrow, a simple, designer-label chocolate-colored dress. Sure, most people wear black, but I wear black almost every day. This little number is one of John’s favorites. It’s skintight, showing off my perfect figure. I’m also bringing photos of the two of us: our engagement in Telluride, our honeymoon in Rome, and a favorite selfie taken at the office with John leaning over my desk, just about to kiss me. So good.

That was the moment I got him. The precise moment I had won. He’d asked me to stay late at the office, to help him with a project. Sure, I thought he might have something else on his mind, but I was fine with that as long as there was an endgame. He was going to have to put a ring on it.

I’d locked the front door of