Widow Town by Joe Hart

when Joslyn and I were trying to make sense of our worlds being flipped upside down, and I wanted to scream at them. I knew what they were thinking, that Ken was in charge of the blasting and that’s what caused the accident, but there must’ve been something else wrong because he was excellent at his job, so careful.” Rachel rubbed the table with a fingertip. “Mostly we just didn’t want to see their faces, the pity in their eyes.”
    “But you and Joslyn decided to stay.”
    She looked up at him and for the first time Gray realized how young the woman truly was. “We didn’t have anywhere to go. Transom signed over the mortgages as part of the settlement and at the time Joslyn and I had no jobs, so yes, we stayed. And don’t think that I don’t know what they call this place. There was thirty-two families here before the explosion and seventeen widows afterward, eight of them had infants or were expecting. All eight stayed because as sick as it was to stay at the site where our husbands died, it was the most financially secure for us.”
    “I don’t think anyone blames you for staying,” Gray said.
    “I don’t think anyone has an idea what we lost.” The venom in Rachel’s voice cut the air but Gray held her gaze until she dropped i t to the tabletop. “I’m sorry.”
    “You don’t need to be.” He let her have a moment of silence before asking, “When did Joslyn disappear?”
    “Two months after the accident. She was fit to burst, her due date was in a week. We had a get together the evening before, the remaining women of the neighborhood try to gather once a week, let our kids play, catch up with one another. Joslyn left the little park at the end of the block where we were all sitting around nine in the evening and waddled home. I remember someone saying she looked like a penguin walking away.” Rachel smiled her sad smile again. The expression fell from her face like a mask being drawn away. “In the morning I went next door to ask her if she wanted to go into town to grocery shop and she didn’t answer. I knocked and knocked and then I called her cell before I took the key out of her hiding place under the first patio block and let myself in.”
    “The door was definitely locked?” Gray said.
    “Definitely, I remember trying it.”
    “And what did you see when you went inside?”
    “Nothing out of the ordinary. There were no windows broken and nothing spilled on the floor. Most of her clothes were gone along with her jewelry and a suitcase. Some of the kitchen stuff was taken too like the toaster and microwave.”
    Gray nodded. “But you called in a missing-person report anyway.”
    “Of course. Sheriff, Joslyn was almost ready to give birth. You don’t run off in the middle of the night when you’re that close.”
    “You don’t think that’s why she left? To go to a different town to give birth, start a new life?”
    Rachel leveled her eyes on his and shook her head. “She would’ve told me, I was her best friend and she was mine. We talked about everything. If she was going to leave, she would’ve wanted me to come with. Besides, she had nowhere to go. She was an orphan and Tony’s parents wanted nothing to do with her after he died, kind of broke her heart.” Rachel glanced away from him to the window. “That little oak that’s dead or dying in the backyard? Tony planted that for his son before the cave-in. Said he would be able to hang a swing from it when he was old enough. Joslyn went out and watered that tree every day after he died, she was determined to keep it alive for her child. She wouldn’t have left that tree behind.” Rachel sniffed once and shook her head. “I told all this to that other sheriff and he assured me he’d look into it.”
    “Do you feel that he did?”
    “Hell no. He walked around her house for a while, had a guy come scan for prints but I heard them talking through an open window. They thought she split town, finally had enough of the