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wondered.
                  “Unless Jessup makes it clear he believes a crime has been committed they’re not gonna get involved. And he’s been makin’ out like---”
                  “She’s a runaway, a bored housewife,” I interjected.
                  “That’s about it,” Miles confirmed.
                  “Isn’t it possible he’s right?”
                  “Sure, I suppose it is. Who knows.”
                  “Failing a kidnapping scenario or something like that, what do you think might be Callie’s motivation to disappear?”
                  Miles’ facial expression indicated a reluctance to say whatever it was that was on his mind. “She’s a much different woman from the one you married, Jack,” he said. “Her mind don’t work the way it used to. It’s possible … just possible, mind ya, that she ran because she couldn’t face up ta seein’ ya again.”
                  “Has she talked about me much over the years?”
                  “Not a lot, no. She never seemed ta want ta talk about you or Tanya. Just too painful for her. But the thing that worried us the most was this edge she has now that was never there before the poison that put her in that coma.”
                  “The doctors warned me when she came out of it that her mental functioning would be impaired to some degree,” I said.
                  “Yeah, that’s obvious enough at times. She often gets frustrated when she’s faced with situations that require her ta make immediate choices, that kind a thing. She don’t deal well with stress.”
                  “Still, disappearing like this doesn’t make sense to me.”
                  “I agree. Leavin’ the truck out there, that don’t make no sense at all. She had ta have left with somebody . But who, and why from there?”
                  “You can’t think of anything she said in the days leading up to this that might shed some light on her actions?”
                  He went into a thoughtful mode, staring off at nothing. “Now that I think about it,” he said after some time, “she was gettin’ more phone calls than usual for the past couple weeks or so. She never said who it was or what the calls were about. Seemed ta upset her, though. Lookin’ back now I wish I had a been a little more inquisitive.”
                  I wished the same thing.
                  Just then we heard the phone ring in the house. A few seconds later Betty came hurrying down the hall and out to the porch. Her breathing was labored, like she couldn’t quite get enough air into her lungs. Miles and I both stood, not sure what her problem might be. My first thought was that she might be having a heart attack – she was, after all, nearly as overweight as Miles.
                  Miles took her arm and steered her to a chair. “What is it, darlin’?”
                  “Chief Jessup,” she said in a choking whisper, looking at me. “He says you’re to come to his office right away. He’s got news about Callie.”

 
     
     
     
                                                                                                      5
     
                  One day earlier …
     
                                Callie woke with the conviction that today she would deal, once and for all, with John Croop. She had known from the very first moment of their brief affair - could she really call it that? – what a terrible mistake it had been. How she could have let things get so out of hand was beyond her. She only wished she could go back in time - relive her initial encounter with the man who, at first, had seemed so considerate and