She's Not There by Joy Fielding Page B

He was wearing a lightweight navy suit and a blue-and-yellow-striped tie, having come straight from the office. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, grabbing their overnight bags as he led them toward the parking lot.
    “Oh, just feel that glorious warm air,” Michelle said, doffing her heavy jacket.
    “You don’t have to carry my bag,” Caroline told her former husband. “I can manage.”
    “I’ve got it, Caroline. Just answer the question.”
    “We’re not in court. I’m not on the witness stand. And you already know what I was doing.”
    “Some girl phones, tells you she’s Samantha, and you go running? You honestly thought there was a chance this girl was our daughter?”
    “I guess I did.”
    “She didn’t show up, did she? She didn’t even call.”
    “You know she didn’t,” Caroline said. Michelle had obviously phoned her father from the Calgary airport, relayed the depressing details of their trip, and told him what flight they’d be on.
    “How much did that little escapade cost you anyway?”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “Last-minute tickets don’t come cheap, as we know from past experience. They had to set you back a pretty penny.”
    “A pretty penny? Who says things like that anymore?” Caroline said, annoyed at Hunter’s proprietary attitude. They were no longer husband and wife, a decision he’d made for the two of them a dozen years ago. What right did he have to question her expenses? They reached his cream-colored BMW. “Anyway, I’m sure the pennies aren’t nearly as pretty as the ones you spend on a new car every year.”
    “I lease,” he reminded her. “And I’m still paying alimony, if I’m not mistaken…”
    “Have you ever been?” Caroline interrupted.
    “…which gives me some rights…”
    “Please,” Michelle said. “Do you have to argue about this now?”
    “No,” Caroline said. “I’d be more than happy to take a cab.”
    “Get in the car,” her ex-husband directed, throwing the two overnight bags into the trunk and climbing behind the wheel as Michelle crawled into the backseat, leaving the front seat empty for her mother.
    Reluctantly, Caroline took her place beside her former husband, trying not to notice how handsome he looked. As good as ever. Maybe even better. His hair had yet to turn gray or thin out, and his waistline was as trim as it had always been. If anything, the years had sharpened his features, emphasizing the prominence of his cheekbones, which in turn emphasized the fullness of his lips. “How’s the baby?” Caroline asked in an effort to clear her head of such disconcerting thoughts.
    “She’s fine,” Hunter said, paying the attendant and pulling out of the parking lot. “Don’t change the subject.”
    “I wasn’t aware we had a subject.”
    “Just tell me what happened. Everything. From the beginning.”
    Caroline wasn’t sure what beginning he was referring to exactly, but the one thing she
was
sure of was that it was pointless to protest further. Hunter was a good lawyer, maybe even a great one. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to argue. And if he couldn’t win outright, he’d wear you down over time. Might as well get it over with, she decided, starting with Lili’s phone call. She watched his face as he listened, his expression changing from curiosity to disbelief to flat-out anger. When she reached the part about leaving a note for Lili with the reception desk when they checked out of the hotel, he was already halfway out of his seat, his entire body swiveled toward her.
    “Watch where you’re going,” she cautioned.
    Hunter returned his attention to the road. But even in profile his outrage was formidable. “And you didn’t even think to call me about this?”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe because Samantha was my daughter, too.”
    Caroline blanched at Hunter’s use of the past tense. “What are you saying? That you would have come with