The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

just to get this far. I pull over in front of the black-metal mailbox at the entrance to the drive. The faded, weatherworn family name is displayed in a series of gold-and-black adhesive letters, one of them missing.

BEN ER

James and Maggie Benner live here, or so a search of the county records told me. Both their names are on the title, and they moved out here three years after Caleb, their only son, went missing.

A strange thing. Parents of missing kids tend not to move, keeping hope their child will one day walk back through the front door. But the Benners did move, and in relatively short order. They must have had a sense Caleb was never coming home, and I don’t know if that gave them any relief or not.

Relief.

Is that why I’m here? To tell them I know their son is dead because I watched it happen?

I can’t imagine those words coming out of my mouth, and certainly not in front of Max. Truth is, I don’t have a plan at all. I thought maybe I’d come here and then know what to do. But I don’t. I’m as lost as ever.

“What are we doing?” Max asks.

“Climb into the back seat,” I tell him. “There’s some fresh clothes in a grocery bag. Get changed.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

He unbuckles his belt and scampers over the second row and all the way back into the third.

“Why are our suitcases here?” he asks.

“Because we’re leaving.”

“Leaving Bury?”

“Yes.”

“For good?”

“For good.”

I expect either a scream of happiness or an angry protest. But he remains silent, and as I flick my gaze to the rearview mirror, I see him processing the information.

“No more school here?” he asks.

“No, sweetie.”

“Are we ever coming back?”

I start to lie but force myself away from old habits.

“No.”

A little more silent processing followed by a simple “Okay.”

And the world spins on.

I just stare up the driveway as Max changes. No fresh tracks. A Ford truck is parked near the garage, but there’s enough snow piled on it to tell me it hasn’t been moved anytime in the recent past.

I wonder if they’re inside. If so, I wonder what they’re doing. Are they retired? What do they do with their time? What did they do with all Caleb’s things? Did they give him his own room in a house he’s never seen, or are all his things in boxes, cardboard time capsules that will likely be thrown away before ever being reopened?

I could spend my life wondering. Just, I suppose, as they have.

Max makes his way into the second row and sits directly behind me.

“Who lives here?”

“Some people I don’t know. I knew their son, though. A long time ago.”

“Was he nice?”

I never thought about Caleb as being nice or not. I can only picture him scared. Scared and desperate.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess so.”

“So how come we—”

“Their son disappeared,” I interrupt, needing the words to come out before I get into a back-and-forth with Max. “Back when I was in high school. He was around my age, maybe a year or two older.”

“What happened to him?”

This is a question I would normally answer by saying He disappeared, so no one knows. But I can’t say that, because I do know.

“He died,” I say.

“What happened to him?”

“He died, Max. That’s all I want to say about it.”

“Did they find him?”

“No.”

“So how do you know?”

I unbuckle my belt and turn to look at him, and as my eyes connect with his, tears fill mine. “I just can’t imagine,” I tell him. “These people. What they’ve been through. What they’re still going through. I just… It’s just so sad, Max. Do you understand that?”

“Not really,” he says.

“You lost Dad,” I say.

“I know.” His tone is so normal. So matter-of-fact. “But that’s different.”

I reach back and touch his cheek, having to fully stretch to do so. “Yes. It’s true. It’s different.”

I turn back around and look at the house, thinking how I could put to rest two decades of wondering in three minutes. Isn’t that what I want?

The practicality of it all is unnerving. What am I going to do, leave Max in the car while I have the most painful conversation of my life?

I’m itching to do something. The fear slips away, the adrenaline kicks in, the thirst to do something right overwhelms me.

My hands start to shake. I place them on the steering wheel; the shake travels up my arms to my shoulders. That, in turn, starts my teeth chattering.

I’m going to do it.

I have to. It’s the right thing.

They need to know the truth.

I’ll tell them, then I’ll drive away. Drive west to Wisconsin. Not running away, just driving toward my future. And whatever happens after that, happens.

Everything will be okay.

I’m just about to tell Max to stay in the car when something catches my eyes. Movement in the mirror.

A Jeep. White, coming up the lane behind me. Lights on.

It slows as it reaches me, then finally comes to a halt right next to my car.

Is it them?

It has to be them.

The Jeep’s tinted front passenger window is streaked with melted snow, allowing me only the faintest definition of a shape inside.

My heart races, my throat clogged to the point of asphyxia, wondering if their window is going to roll down.

And then, it does.

There’s only one person in the car, and it’s the last person I expect to see.

He looks right at me, his gaze soul-searching, as if we’ve known each other in so many different lives that there’s nothing I can do to hide from him. Not his presence, his thoughts, his accusations, his truth. In his look, he knows everything.

Detective Colin Pearson.

Sixty-Five

10:42 a.m.

Colin had thought about visiting James and Maggie Benner ever since Chief Sike told him about Caleb’s disappearance twenty-two years ago, but he knew the pain he’d cause would outweigh any good. You never wanted to rip open old wounds if you weren’t bringing any recent developments on the cold case.

And Colin knew better. There