Chapter 36
Dead End
Chapter 34: Dead End
Logan’s POV
“She’s good,” he’d said, in speaking in a tone that was reluctantly showing his awe in her
persistence to remain not found.
“I did the basics and found out that there has been no credit card activity since the day she left your house. The phone was completely dead, the number had been deactivated and reassigned to a new person, and there was no forwarding information, to where we could reach her. No hotel registrations under her name. No airline bookings. No rental car agreements that we could track down.” A pause.
“Whoever helped her leave did it thoroughly. This wasn’t improvised p>
Cameron. Whoever he was, whatever his relationship to Sedona, he’d helped her disappear out of
his life entirely without leaving any crumbs.
I thanked Reeve for the ones that he had done, even no news was still news. I told him to keep looking, and sat in my office staring at the wall until Mrs. Peterson knocked to say Nick was home
from school.
My son came in looking the way he’d looked every day for the past week-smaller, somehow, as though the uncertainty was physically compressing him. He dropped his backpack by the door, which he wasn’t supposed to do, and I didn’t say anything about it.
“Is Mom home p>
“Not yet p>
He nodded, like he’d expected that answer, and went to watch television. He didn’t ask why
anymore. He’d stopped asking why four days ago, which was worse. But confronting that was just
me poking the sleeping bear, I had no reason to give him, even if he asked why, so I allowed myself not to feel guilty, having this easy way out.
I was still sitting there, achieving nothing, when I heard voices from the front hallway. My mother’s voice, was loud enough to be heard from the foyer, demanding something from the nanny, and I could hear Mrs Peterson quiet responses. Whatever she had told her, my mum was not satisfied with it, as I heard her heels making a noise as she walked towards me, the heel noise getting louder with every step she took p>
Sherry appeared in my office doorway a moment later, wearing the expression she used for
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situations she’d already decided the outcome of. And now just informing the person of what was
going to happen.
“Logan, we need to talk.” She said without preamble as I shook my head breathing heavily, not in the mood to hear anything she had to say at the moment, I had far important things to focus on But my mum, being who she is, refused to hear no for an answer.
“Not now, Mom p>
“Now.” She came in and sat across from my desk without being invited, setting her handbag precisely on her knee. “This has gone on long enough. You’re neglecting your work, you’re distressing Nick, and you’ve hired some private detective to chase a woman who clearly does not
want to be found. This needs to stop p>
“I’m not discussing this with you p>
“You are going to discuss it because someone needs to speak sense to you.” She folded her hands “Sedona left the marriage. She signed divorce papers and she left. That’s a message, Logan. A clear message. The gracious thing to do is accept it. You gave her a good life here, she lacked nothing, you were not abusive to her, but it still wasn’t enough for her and she chose to travel; with her boy toy. You staying here, searching for her, gives the explanation that you are pathetic and begging for scraps, and i will not let my son get to this point p>
“She’s sick.” My voice came out flat, controlled, hiding the thing underneath it that wanted to destroy the room, that wanted me to lose my cool on my mume, because she was still certain that Sedona was someone who shouldn’t be given a second of my time p>
“She has cancer. Did you know that? She was diagnosed the day we were in Disneyland. Stage three gastric cancer, three months to live, and she called me to tell me and I hung up on her
because I was busy p>
Something moved across my mother’s face. Not guilt-Sherry didn’t do guilt easily-but something adjacent to it, something uneasy. “I didn’t know that p>
“No. Because none of us were paying attention.” I pushed back from my desk and stood, needing to move. “She came home that day to an empty house. You were there, weren’t you? You were
there when she got home from the hospital p>
Sherry’s expression shifted, became guarded.
“What did you say to her?” I asked. “That day, when she came home with her diagnosis. What did
you say to her p>
“Logan p>
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“What did you say to her, Mom p>
The silence stretched long enough to be its own answer.
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“You told her why I married her, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. I’d been turning it over in my mind for days, trying to find another explanation for why Sedona had seemed so profoundly resigned when I’d seen her at the hospital. Not angry-resigned. Like someone who’d had their worst suspicions confirmed. “You told her she was a Katherine replacement. That she was nobody without me p>
“I told her the truth,” Sherry said, her voice stiffening. “She had unrealistic expectations p>
“She was a woman with a death sentence who’d just been told she had three months to live, and
you were in our house telling her she’d never been wanted.” The control I’d been maintaining
cracked, just slightly, just enough for the thing underneath to show. “And then she went upstairs
alone and stayed there alone and I didn’t call back, and Nick called her pathetic, and she spent the
night alone in our house with a cancer diagnosis and nothing else p>
“You’re being dramatic, I did not say any lie to her, besides she knew about it, she just needed the
coinfirmation p>
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