Page 7 of The Vanishing Wife
Attack? Right. The attack. Elyse ran her fingers against her gown to dislodge the crust. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Am I cleared to go home now?”
Detective Moore nodded, that half smile at the ready again. “I’ll let the nurse know you’re free to leave. She’ll have your discharge paperwork shortly. If you remember anything”—she pulled a business card from her pocket, handing it over—“please don’t hesitate to call.”
“I’ll do that,” she said. Because it seemed like the right thing to say.
The detective swatted the hanging sheet providing Elyse with a minuscule amount of privacy from the rest of the emergency room, revealing her husband. Head cocked back watching the ten o’clock morning news.
She caught a glimpse of the ticker across the bottom. Search for missing Gulf Shores teen continues. A headache chose that moment to spawn from behind her right eye, knocking her attention back to her husband.
And she froze.
Because behind his right ear was a scratch. Still bleeding.
FIVE
Gulf Shores, Alabama
Saturday, September 21
10:30 a.m.
Wesley Portman wasn’t looking so good. Patches of hair along his jawline said he hadn’t shaved in a few days. Wrinkles creased through his button-down. No time this morning to iron. Except there was still a hint of togetherness most spouses of missing persons couldn’t hold on to. “I’ve already given my statement to the officer downstairs.”
The office he’d invited them into for this little conversation gave Leigh a perfect view out the back of the house and to the long deck stretching out over the canal. A gazebo had been built at the end, with a porch swing that rocked back and forth with the movement of the ocean-fed water. Small ripples shimmered with the wind, revealing the pockmarked surface full of thousands of transparent jellyfish. September was breeding season, according to Elyse. There was no escaping them. They washed up into the backyard, peppered the beach, and were dragged and dropped by pelicans. A single glass door provided access onto a massive upstairs deck looking out onto the canal and allowed enough light in for Leigh to note the sweat building in Wesley Portman’s hairline.
“As I’m sure you can understand, Mr. Portman, we just want to make sure we’ve collected as much information about your wife’s disappearance as possible. Every detail aids our investigation,” Detective Moore said.
“Then what is she doing here?” Wesley Portman locked that dark gaze on Leigh.
Ice worked through her. She didn’t understand. First, what’d happened between them downstairs and now this. Leigh held up a hand to keep Detective Moore from answering. “Excuse me. Do you have some kind of problem with me being here? As far as I can remember, we’ve never met before today.”
“Are you really going to sit there and pretend you had nothing to do with this?” Pure vitriol liquified between them. “You were the one encouraging my wife to look into her own assault. You practically threw her into the deep end. Elyse is a nurse, for crying out loud. She doesn’t know anything about law enforcement. She doesn’t know how to protect herself. She asked for your help, and you threw her to the dogs.”
Elyse was investigating her own assault? Damn it. Leigh lost a heavy dose of the defensiveness burning through her. “She never told me about the attack. We missed our scheduled call on Monday. I figured she’d forgotten because she was on vacation. I tried getting a hold of her, but her phone went to voicemail every time. How could I encourage her to look into what happened if I haven’t talked to her in almost two weeks?”
“She…” Confusion warped and eroded the anger simmering on Wesley Portman’s face. “Wait. She didn’t tell you? Then how… Why would she…”
“Mr. Portman, I’ve asked Agent Brody to consult in the investigation, seeing as how she knew your wife and has experience in missing persons.” She hadn’t. At least, not officially, but Leigh wasn’t going to clarify that to Elyse’s husband. Detective Moore’s interruption was supposed to serve to deescalate the tension. In vain. “If that’s going to be a problem, I can request the FBI to send someone else.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.” Wesley motioned both Detective Moore and Leigh into the two angled seats facing the desk as he took his own. A hint of a bandage peeked out from just beneath his right earlobe. “Elyse told you she’d been attacked when you saw us in the hospital on Monday, Detective, but you didn’t believe her. She wouldn’t talk to me. She… shut me out. Now she’s missing. My wife is missing.”
The Wesley Portman Elyse had described crumbled in an instant. The accusation was clear. Gulf Shores PD had failed Elyse Portman. Just as Lebanon PD had failed Leigh all those years ago. Arresting her father for a murder he hadn’t committed, turning an entire town against her when she’d tried to make them see the truth.
“Mr. Portman, I can understand your frustration, but let me assure you, Gulf Shores PD has done everything in its power to figure out what happened to Elyse earlier this week, and we are doing everything we can to find her now.” Detective Moore leaned forward in her seat. “Officers are searching the beach as we speak. If there’s any sign of your wife, you will be the first to know, but for now, I need to know if Elyse was having any problems other than what occurred on Monday. Has she been acting differently? Expressed any fears or made complaints about someone in town?”
Attacked. The word hammered deeper into Leigh’s brain, each time releasing a fresh combination of guilt and frustration. Why hadn’t Elyse told her about this assault? Leigh could’ve done something. Could’ve helped. Maybe none of this would’ve happened. But Elyse wasn’t the kind to ask for help. No. Instead, she made sure everyone in her life was taken care of first. Sacrificing her own needs for the happiness and good of others. Betraying herself to keep the peace and earn their love. Except she’d never had to earn it from Leigh. In this case, Elyse probably hadn’t wanted to upset Leigh’s new normal after the surgery and losing the possibility of giving birth to a biological child. Leigh had just asked Elyse to help her look into adoption lawyers. But now…
She recalled the pool of blood downstairs.
Now she would have to take these first steps without Elyse’s encouragement, her advice, and her friendship.
“Like I said, she shut me out after the attack. It was like she’d become obsessed with figuring out what happened to her. She’d leave early in the morning—before Ava and I got up—and come back late. There was always food prepared for us, but we haven’t sat down for a family meal all week. It was like we were living with a ghost.” Wesley Portman’s eyes glazed as though Elyse had already been confirmed dead, and he was trying to process the news. “We should’ve gone home, but we look forward to this vacation every year. I just wanted us to be together.”
“You were injured recently.” Leigh pointed to the right side of his head. “Behind your ear. Do you mind telling us what happened?”
His hand seemed to rise automatically, brushing against the Band-Aid nearly melting into his skin. “It happened a few days ago. I was unloading the dishwasher and came up too fast. The cabinet above me was open. I caught the corner.”
Leigh made her own mental note to have one of the forensic techs swab the corners of the cabinets above the dishwasher when she got the chance. It would be easy enough to test if Wesley Portman was telling the truth. Or if he was hiding something.