Julia squinted at him. “Why would Fiona come here?” she asked.
“Just to be friendly or maybe to apologize,” David suggested. “She was a wreck last night.”
Julia thought:That’s putting it lightly. And David hasn’t exactly been a shining star, either. Fiona wasn’t fighting loudly with herself.
Julia asked the obvious. “If she’s not home and not here, where could she be?”
Nobody answered. Julia entertained a dark thought. “What if she took an early morning swim to clear her head… anddrowned.” She elongated the word, giving it the gravity it deserved.
Erika rubbed her hands up and down her legs, discharging nervous energy. “Did she take anything with her? Any luggage? Is her car still here? It would be a relief if she just left you, David. And understandable. You were a blue-ribbon ass last night. But what if…what if she did drown?” Worry lines creased Erika’s face. “Have you tried her phone?”
“Of course I’ve tried her phone,” David snapped. “It goes straight to voicemail.”
“Maybe it’s powered down or the battery died,” Julia suggested.
David shrugged at the possibility. “All I know is the Porsche is still here and so is all her stuff. And she didn’t go for a swim in the lake. It’s not her thing,” he insisted. “I can’t count how many times she’s told me lake water grosses her out—the mucky bottom, the fish, algae, all that. She’d never go in the water.”
“Could she have gone for a hike?” asked Erika.
David answered so quickly it sounded rehearsed. “She doesn’t like to hike. She hates bugs,” he said.
“She doesn’t like lakes, hiking, or bugs. Why on earth did she even come here?” Julia wanted to know.
“Nobody likes bugs, Jules, and just so you know, I had to talk her into coming,” said David. “It’s a lot of time with the kids in a setting she doesn’t particularly care for. But I thought it might grow on her.”
“Maybe she went home,” Julia suggested.
“Without her car?” Erika reminded everyone.
“Hitchhiked?”
Erika turned her nose up at that one.
“So what then?” asked Julia.
“I don’t know.” David sounded rattled. “I went out for an early morning run and did my usual six miles.”
Of course, he was out running and has to announce it to all,thought Julia. She was surprised he hadn’t already posted his workout to IG.#girlfriendismissingbutdamnIlookfit
“The nanny was up early as well,” David continued, adding details as if he were concocting an alibi. “And she didn’t see or hear Fiona leave.”
“Are yousureshe was in bed when you went for your run?”
Julia’s question hung in the air. She couldn’t purge the image of Fiona twirling around the bonfire like a music box ballerina in risqué attire. Now she had a vision of her quietly sneaking out ofthe bedroom, to go where? Perhaps off on a rendezvous, but with whom?
David did one of those rom-com double takes, looking like a man with rapid-onset indigestion. “Are you thinking she snuck out on me while I was sleeping?” he asked.
The deer heads gazed down with knowing eyes, as if they had the answer but weren’t telling.
David rolled his neck. He was obviously stressed. Or was it all an act?
“She sleepwalks,” he said, clearly relieved to have an explanation for Fiona leaving his bed that didn’t involve an illicit tryst. David’s self-image couldn’t withstand such a blow. “I’m not sure how alcohol and Ambien mix, but it can’t be a good combination,” he added. “Either way, I bet she’s sleeping it off somewhere and she’s going to wake up confused, maybe with a few mosquito bites, but no worse for the wear.”
“Or she sleepwalked right into the lake.” Julia’s voice broke slightly as she sent Erika a worried look.
“That settles it,” said Erika definitively. “We’re calling the police.”
But David pooh-poohed the idea with a grimace. “She’s quite touchy about her sleepwalking. She’d never forgive me if I made a fuss about it. The nanny’s watching the kids. Let me keep looking. I’m sure I’ll find her.”
