Riptide

saw me in a fashion magazine, Sheriff. No, don't
    even consider that, I'm just joking with you. I'm not a model. I'm
    sure I would have remembered you, sir, if I'd ever met you before."
    "Well, that's likely enough," he said, nodding. "Tyler, you got any
    thoughts about this?"
    Tyler shook his head.
    Sheriff Gaffney looked as if he would say something else, then
    he shut his mouth. However, he gave Tyler another long look. "I'll
    be in touch," he said, snapped out a sharp salute, and walked to his
    car, a brown Ford with a light bar over the top. At the last moment,
    he looked back at them, and he was frowning. Then he managed to
    squeeze his bulk into the driver's side. He hadn't been interested in
    her background, a blessing. Evidently, he realized that she could

have had nothing to do with this and so who she was, where she
    was from, and what she did for a living simply did not matter.
    "He's amazing," Becca said as he drove away. "Too bad he didn't
    have a daughter to go with all those dirty boys."
    She looked to see that Tyler was staring down at his feet. She
    lightly touched her fingers to his arm. "What's wrong?You're afraid
    I really am going to be hysterical about finding that poor girl?"
    "No, it's not that. You saw the sheriff. Even though he didn't
    really say anything, it was clear enough what he was thinking."
    "I don't know what you mean. What's wrong,Tyler?"
    "I realize it occurred to him, just before he got into his car, that
    the skeleton might well be Ann."
    Becca looked at him blankly, slowly shaking her head back and
    forth.
    "My wife. She wore Calvin Klein jeans."

Chapter 8

    Becca walked into the Riptide Pharmacy in the middle of Foxglove
    Avenue the next morning and found, to her horror, that she
    was the center of attention. For someone who wanted to fade into
    the woodwork, she wasn't doing it very well. Everywhere she
    went, she was stared at, questioned, introduced to relatives. She was
    the girl who'd found the skeleton. She was even given special treatment
    at the Union 76 gas station at the end of Poison Oak Circle.
    The Food Fort manager, Mrs. Dobbs, wanted her autograph. Three
    people told her she looked familiar.
    It was too late to dye her hair black. She went home and stayed
    there. She got at least twenty phone calls that day. She didn't see
    Tyler, but he'd been right about what the sheriff had thought, because
    everybody else was thinking it, too, and was talking about it
    over coffee, to their neighbors, and not all that quietly. Tyler knew
    it, too, of course, but he didn't say anything when he came over
    later that evening. He looked stoic. She had wanted to yell at
    everyone that they were wrong, that Tyler was an excellent man,
    that no way could he have hurt anyone, much less his wife, but she
    knew she couldn't take the chance, couldn't call attention to herself
    anymore. It was too dangerous for her, and so she listened to
    everyone talk about Ann, Tyler s wife and Sam's mother, who had
    supposedly disappeared fifteen months before without a word to
    anybody, not her husband, not her son. Ann had had a mother until
    two years before, but Mildred Kendred had died and left Ann all

alone with Tyler. She'd had no other relatives to hassle Tyler about
    where his wife had supposedly gone. And just look at poor little
    Sam, so quiet, so withdrawn, he'd probably seen something,
    everyone was sure of that. That he wasn't at all afraid of his stepfather
    just meant that the poor little boy had blocked the worst of
    it out.
    Oh, yes, it all made sense now to everyone. Tyler had bashed his
    wife on the head--she probably wanted to leave him, that was it--
    and then he'd bricked her in the wall in Jacob Marley's basement.
    And little Sam knew something, because he'd changed right after
    his mother disappeared.
    Tyler remained stoic during the following days, saying nothing
    about all the speculation, ignoring the sidelong looks from people
    who were supposedly his friends. He went about his business,
    seemingly oblivious of the stares.
    He was in misery, Becca knew that, but there was nothing she
    could do except say over and over, "Tyler, I know it isn't Ann.
    They'll prove it was someone else, you'll see."
    "How?"
    "If they can't figure out who she was, then they'll check for runaways.
    There are DNA tests. They'll find out. Then there are going
    to be a whole lot of folk apologizing to you on their hands and
    knees."
    He looked at her and said nothing at all.
    Becca went