The Daylight Marriage Read Online Free Page B

about himself.
    If nothing else, he reminded himself, he had his alibi.
    Southie. Carson Beach. It was not a place where Hannah would have gone. She would have driven to Gloucester or Rockport, where she and Sophie used to go in college, if she wanted a walk on the beach. He finally rose and went to the kitchen. Had she ever gone to Carson while at BU? He estimated the distance from her parents’ old town house to the beach.
    He scrubbed spots of Janine’s yogurt off the kitchen counter and then swept the tile floor. He made his way to the front hall and paced back and forth, his head down, his eyes on his feet.
    When he looked up, a beam of light poured through the window by the door. A woman with a microphone was standing on the sidewalk, a cameraman next to her. Was that Susan Sperck from the local news? Strange. He remembered that a house a few blocks away had burned down just the other week. Maybe there was another fire in the neighborhood. He switched on the porch light and moved closer to the window.
    She met his eyes and moved down his front walk toward him.
    â€œWhat is this?” he said.
    She was shorter in person than he might have thought. Stout and pink-faced, her fine tan hair cut in a severe bob, she lifted the microphone up and beside her head. The man who carried the cumbersome black camera scrambled to catch up with her.
    Lovell stepped outside.
    â€œLovell Hall?” she said into her microphone. She introduced herself briefly. “What do you think happened to your wife?” She held the top of the microphone toward him. The man behind her hefted the camera onto his shoulder and began to film.
    Had Bob Duncan or someone else at the police station told her about Hannah? “Hold on,” Lovell finally said. He closed the door behind him before the kids could see or hear any more and turned back to her. “I wish I knew.”
    â€œWhat have the police told you?”
    â€œI don’t think—I mean, I probably shouldn’t—” he said. “What do you know?”
    The cameraman shifted on his feet.
    â€œWhere were you when she went missing?” Susan Sperck continued.
    â€œWhat?” he managed.
    â€œCan you tell me where you were that day?”
    â€œI don’t believe I am required to tell you that,” he said. He added, “But I was at work. At my office in Cambridge. You can call the police if you’d like to confirm it.”
    â€œWe’ll do that. Do the police have any leads?”
    â€œI don’t know—I mean, not that I know of.”
    â€œWell, what do you know?”
    The kids would be wondering where he was. For all he knew, they were standing in the front hallway, watching this through the window beside the door. “I have to get back to my family,” he finally said. “The police can answer any other questions. Good night.”
    He moved back inside and closed the door behind him, thoroughly rattled, trying to understand exactly what had just happened and what this entailed. If only he could know that Hannah was at least, if nothing else, safe.
    Janine appeared at the other end of the hallway, peering past him to see what was outside.
    â€œIt was someone from Channel Six,” he said slowly.
    â€œWhat did they want?”
    â€œOh, just, well, they somehow heard about Mom and just wanted to make sure we were doing OK,” he said. “No big deal.”
    â€œWere you actually on TV?”
    â€œThey did ask me a couple questions.”
    â€œHow did they know about this? Did something happen to Mom? What the fuck, Dad?”
    He took a few steps toward her. “News reporters try to turn everything into a story. Their showing up here doesn’t mean a thing. Listen, Mom will be fine. She’ll come back soon.”
    â€œI really hope so,” she said. She drew a lock of her hair through and out the side of her mouth. “You didn’t tell me if you were on