Beautiful Lie the Dead by Barbara Fradkin Page A

well did he actually know her? The sense of connection had been instantaneous, the romance and passion breathtaking, but his long hours at the hospital kept them from actually spending as much time together as they wished. He still didn’t know much of her past, nor of her friendships beyond their shared circle.
    But Montreal? What did Montreal have to do with anything? What was so urgent in Montreal that she would drop her entire to-do list and travel four hours through a snowstorm on a cramped, noisy bus to deal with it?
    â€œI don’t know,” he said, trying to control the alarm in his voice. “She has some family there, and friends from her Haiti posting.”
    â€œAnyone she might visit? Anyone she stayed close to?”
    â€œJust a few work colleagues and some obscure cousins.”
    â€œCan I have names and contact numbers?”
    â€œWe’ve called them all. No one’s seen or heard from her.”
    â€œAll the same, we have to follow up. They may know things.”
    â€œI only have a few names, from the wedding guest list.” He rose to fetch the list from the kitchen and waited in silence as she laboriously copied the names down. She seemed to do everything in slow motion. He toyed briefly with a diagnosis of MS before noticing the fine scars at her hairline and another just above her brow, camouflaged by hair. The woman was fighting back from a catastrophic head trauma. He felt a wave of respect and sympathy. It was on the tip of his tongue to comment when she raised her head.
    â€œNo one else?” she demanded, as if daring him to say a word. He shook his head. “Her parents would know more of the relatives down there.”
    â€œWhat about grandparents? Any in Montreal?”
    â€œHer grandmother’s alive, but she’s in a nursing home.
    Advanced Alzheimer’s. In the past couple of years she’s barely recognized Meredith. Meredith used to visit often but recently she’s found it hard.”
    The detective stopped taking notes and leaned forward, her eyes drilling his. “But she could have gone to see her. With her wedding coming up, maybe she felt sentimental. Did the grandmother come up in conversation recently?”
    Brandon shook his head. He felt the detective pressing against the secret fault lines of their relationship and felt himself resisting. But the grandmother hadn’t come up. Not really. “We discussed whether she should come to the wedding or not, and everyone else—especially Meredith’s mother—thought it would be a bad idea. She can’t really travel. She gets confused and agitated, she wouldn’t know what’s going on.”
    â€œMaybe Meredith got to feeling guilty?”
    Brandon tried to fit that idea with Meredith’s mood on Sunday night. She had struggled, but maybe more with regret than guilt. Was it possible she went to Montreal to visit Nan?
    Nan had been a force when Meredith was growing up, always ready with a big hug, a plate of oat cakes, and a listening ear. He knew it hurt Meredith to see the old lady so diminished.
    He felt uneasy. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d misread the depths of her distress. Maybe she was feeling the absence of her grandmother at her wedding and the overwhelming force of two dozen Longstreet guests while a key person from her side was missing. Maybe that, along with his stupid blunder about the head table, had made her second-guess her desire to join her life to his.
    The detective was waiting for an answer, with that challenging look in her eyes again. He forced a shrug. “It’s possible. But you said she came back to Ottawa afterwards, so I don’t see what difference it makes?”
    â€œBecause she disappeared almost immediately afterwards, as if something happened on that trip to make her take off. That’s more than some simple family visit.”
    He turned the idea over slowly. None of this made any sense. It