They ask the routine questions who, what, where, when, and why. We offer our sparse answers, Reagan, missing, two weeks and counting, and we do not know why. That is the million-dollar question.
“As you’re aware, we have Dolla Chetney here, world-famous psychic who claims she does have news regarding your daughter.” Blonde number one looks into the camera. “We’ll be right back to hear just what that is.”
Allison lets out a sigh as if she’s been holding her breath and gives my hand a quick squeeze. “How did we do?”
“We did good,” I assure her. “We’re likable, normal people. This ends well for us.” I hope to God it’s true.
The makeup brigade stomps onto the set. Allison gets a quick swath of lip gloss applied while Monica slaps my forehead with a brush, the powder pluming from it like fog.
An older woman with gray hair yellowing at the tips, deep lines cut into her upper lip, a testament to the tobacco industry, takes a seat next to us. She offers a somber hello, and for once it feels as if we’re being paid the due respect we deserve after having our child vacuumed out of our lives by the devil himself.
Allison gives a tired huff her way. Neither of us believes in psychics, fortune-tellers, or any other charlatan who claims to have a third eye into the unknown. We certainly don’t look to the stars to determine whether or not we should leave the house or take a crap. This is simply a formality. A means to an end. We have to pander to the American public in an effort to get off the naughty list, and to do so we listen to this monster spin a yarn about our baby girl. She should be arrested right along with whoever the hell did this. On second thought, whoever gave this nutcase the green light to be here should be convicted. That’s the real nutcase. I’m betting it was Monica.
Lights, camera, action. Blonde One introduces Ms. Chetney. “The world is waiting to hear what you have to say, but before that”—the blonde squints a tight smile my way—“do you have any words you’d like to share with Mr. and Mrs. Price?”
Blonde Two leans in. “A reading! Something that might shed light on the case, of course.”
I cringe at how convenient it was for her to use my daughter to backpedal.
“Yes, I would love to.” Ms. Chetney sheds a matronly smile, dull, no joy in her eyes to support it. “First, let me preface this by saying I am so sorry for the hell the two of you are in. Nobody on this planet should have to face what the two of you are going through.” Those milk-coated eyes settle over mine. “Mr. Price, you are a very affable fellow—usually. But, unfortunately, this season of your life has been very trying for you—and I’m talking about before the abduction.”
My stomach clenches for two reasons: one, she’s right, and two, the word abduction sounds like a grenade going off in my ear each time I hear it. But there’s something about those pale soulless pits staring me down that unnerves me. Whatever the hell she thinks she knows about me, she’s wrong. I glare at her a moment before softening.
“You”—she squints into me as if she were a voyeur into parts unknown—“have some unsettled issues in your past.” I swallow hard. She doesn’t know anything real. She’s a charlatan, a fake, nothing but a wrinkled up fraud. She squints hard. “Something that you’ve done has yet to come to light.” She holds a hand out to the two blondes seated at the edge of their seats. I offer a quick glance to Allison who looks less than fazed. “Again, this is prior to the event. But I really do see this coming to a head very soon in your life. There is something you’re either hiding from yourself or you’re working very hard to hide from somebody else. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s something very good. A blessing.”
A blessing. My body heat spikes unnaturally. They say a baby is a blessing—only in my case it will amount to a death sentence. The women in Ally’s family are known to be historically brutal. My wife may smell like roses, but she’s a briar patch under that smile.
I take a deep breath.
“And you.” Dolla Chetney sags contently toward Ally as if she were her favorite niece. “There is something from your past as well.” Her brows hike as she doles out a knowing look.
My antennae go up, but I know for a fact Ally isn’t running around knocking anybody up. I’m the only douchebag doing that.
Our very own psychic network friend raises a finger at my wife. “You be careful. You are treading into unchartered territory, and you know it. The better part of you wants to steer clear, but your curiosity will lead you down a thorny road. You can avoid this. Just stay strong. You’re above it all. Sometimes taking the high road is exactly what keeps us safe and sane.”
Ambiguous enough. Both Ally and I nod into her bullshit as if to say let’s move it along.
Blonde One gives a solemn sigh. “And now for the moment everyone has been waiting for.” For a second I expect to hear a drum roll. My entire life has been upturned, and here they’ve turned us into something equivalent of a game show. “Tell us what you know about Reagan.”
A spear of heat slices through my gut at the mention of my daughter’s name. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s painful for me to hear it. It hurts like hell. So, in a move that I could have never seen coming, I stopped using it. Allison doesn’t use it anymore either.
“I’m sorry to have to say this.” The charlatan bows her head a moment. “But I’m not feeling very good about this.” She takes up Allison’s hand and Ally is quick to retract. I almost want to laugh. Take away our hope and you don’t get to touch us, lady. My wife will knife your balls off in your sleep. It’s what, deep down, I expect to happen to me one day.
“I do feel very strongly the child has left us.” She nods to Blonde One and Blonde Two who both groan as if they felt an ounce of genuine sorrow. “She has. She’s crossed over. She’s safe now.” She looks to me with those tired eyes. “She was taken away far too soon. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” A long pause ensues. You could hear a mouse fart in the studio, and right about now I’d welcome it. “She wants me to tell you that she’s okay. You can move on with your lives.” She pretends to listen to some nebulous voice. “She likes that you’ve kept her room the same, but she wants you to donate her toys. There’s something big in there. Something that was special to her. Did she have a dollhouse?”
My stomach bottoms out. Do not buy this bullshit. Every little girl in the world has some sort of housing for their cache of Barbies. This isn’t true. This is insanity. My chest bucks as I try to hold it together.
“She did.” Allison blinks through tears. “She has a big one.”
“She wants you to donate it. There’s a children’s hospital nearby and she wants you to give it to them. She doesn’t want any child to suffer.” Another lengthy pause. Allison is bawling. My chest bucks like a seizure. “She wants you to dedicate your life to helping children who are suffering. You’ll know what it is when the time is right.”
Blonde One leans in. “And the whereabouts of the child, or the mystery girl that was with her?”
“You know”—the Queen of Lies cocks her head to the side—“I can’t quite get a read on the other girl. It’s strange. That doesn’t happen very often. But I do feel like the authorities will find little Reagan soon. Actually, it will be an ordinary citizen who will bring you to her.” She offers a sorrowful nod. “She’s in a river. Her coat or shirt caught on a branch and she’s waiting there for you to find her.”
“Oh God.” Allison buries her head in my chest and I lose it.
Dammit. Damn Dolla Chetney and her ridiculous claims to the darkest, deepest pit of hell.
Allison and I sob convulsively as the cameras stop rolling, long after they pluck the mics from our bodies.
I hope Rich and McCafferty are happy.
They got their money shot.
* * *
Back at the house Allison takes a heavy nap that spans the afternoon straight through evening. She probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, but I don’t have the heart to wake her. That meet and greet with the Witch of the West really s
hook her up. Dolla Chetney is a lying bitch that will burn in hell one day for making miserable people like Allison and me that much more agonizingly miserable. I spent the entire drive home trying to convince my wife that our daughter was not facedown in some fucking river having her flesh nibbled off by errant fish. We should sue. In fact, once Reagan comes home, we will. And Reagan is coming home. Every ounce of me insists on believing it.
When the sun takes its final bow, I head into the dark living room with Dad where the television flickers in spastic seizures.
“Want some?” I offer him a slice of pizza. I ordered two large—our sole sustenance as of late. Neither Allison nor I have fired up the stove since Reagan disappeared, so our eating habits have reverted to the ones we had in college. Not that either of us is scarfing anything down. Ally’s face has thinned out, her cheeks drawn in, her eyes, bulging and red, and I’ve had to cinch up my belt a few extra notches. We’ve become a skeleton crew without Reagan, literally. The nightshift that doesn’t sleep.
“No, thanks.” He lifts a hand, his gaze never wandering from the screen, some shoot ’em up flick that sends grenades exploding all over the living room.
A light knock comes from the door and I head over, spotting Rich from the window before I open it.
“What’s up?” I extend a hand to him, but he refuses the offer, taking his hat off instead. For a second I fear the worst. Reagan has been spotted by some ordinary citizen facedown in the river.
“Just driving by the neighborhood and wanted to see how the two of you were holding up. That was pretty rough to hear this morning.”
I cast a quick glance at my father before jumping onto the porch with Rich. A herd of trick-or-treaters bounces by in a mob, and I can’t help but look away. “We’re fine. We’re well aware of the fact it was pure bullshit. It’s a miracle someone hasn’t stoned the hag yet. We’re going to find Reagan.”
Rich solidifies those steadfast citrine eyes over mine. Rich has always been awash in the color orange to me, the hair, the freckled skin, even his eyes had adopted that curious hue—a tangerine aura that consumes him. But in the night without the right amount of light to expose that Halloween coloring all I see is my mother, the look of horror and concern etched on her face.
“I’m glad you’re hanging in there.” He slaps his hand over my arm and pulls me out of my trance. “We’re going to bring her home for you. Don’t you think otherwise.” He nods toward the house. “Good thing they didn’t pull open the old man’s closet.” He gives a wistful shake of the head. “The judge has more skeletons than the cemetery.”
My chest bucks with a silent laugh as I look into the living room. My father is a tomb, all right.
“He sure was happy the three of you were moving out this way.” Rich moves in close. “He confided in me that you and the Mrs. were having some trouble.”
“Oh?” My chest cinches into a knot that’s become all too familiar. The one in which my own heart turns into an arrow of regret and tries to stab its way out.
“He was pretty broken up at the prospect of a divorce. If it’s one thing your father is famous for it’s—”
“Living by the rules.” I can’t take my eyes off the old man as he sits mesmerized by the blinking screen, hypnotized like a child.
“You know it.” He sinks that cowboy hat back over his head. “He sure loves that little girl of yours.” Rich winces in my father’s direction. “He went on and on about the effects a divorce might have on a child. He was downright terrified for her. My mother always did say he has the ability to love to a fault—and that the fault was usually his.” Rich gives a quick wink. “Let’s get together when it’s good for you and Ally, and we’ll look at putting together a new game plan.”
“Sounds good.” I watch as his patrol car rolls out into the night, silently swallowed by the darkness just like Reagan.
I head back in and take a seat on the couch, unsettled, prickled by his words, or more to the point, those of my aunt’s.
My father loves people to a fault. He loved Wilson up until he became the embodiment of a stoner, and then unfortunately much harder things that eventually sucked him down to the grave. My mind rewinds time right up until a week before Wilson was gone. He and my father argued over everything. You couldn’t hear your own damn thoughts over their nightly howls. My father loved him to a fault, but not through it.
Rachel bounces through my mind—the last week of her life was quite different, wrapped up in murmurs, in heated closed door arguments between my parents. My father was highly disappointed in something she had done. Those were the only words I was able to decipher, the only ones that time has never erased. My father didn’t shed a tear at either of their funerals. He was stoic, strong, looking straight ahead, nose to the wind. When one of my uncles suggested he was a pillar of strength for the family, my mother scoffed. I never forgot that. But he shed rivers at Aston’s funeral. Gone too soon, my son, my son, he cried out in agony late into the night. I was the stoic one then, the one in shock, the one numb from the world and everything going on in it because I had inadvertently removed my only remaining sibling from the planet.
A conversation we had weeks before the move comes crashing back to me. “I won’t tolerate any misgivings from anyone in this family, including you. Straighten up or I’ll straighten you out. Excise the sin from your body, son. The wages of sin is death.” It’s true. My father holds me to a higher standard because all of his other perfect children are dead. Perfect. That word circles around in my mind like a boomerang. Wilson was captain of the debate team, had his acceptance letter from Harvard. He was perfect until he wasn’t. Rachel. She seemed perfect to me. Liked the boys a little too much, but she was beautiful and they gave her all the attention she craved—the attention my father was never able to give her.
And then there was Mom. She wasn’t his biggest fan, but she was tolerant. I miss her. I miss that cheap honeysuckle perfume she used to douse herself with. I miss that silk scarf she pinched around the neck a little too tight. I miss that orange lipstick, her Irish heritage that she wore like a badge for the world to see. I miss every damn thing about her.
“You know what?” I pull myself off the sofa. “I think I’m going to head out and take a little drive.”
“You want company?”
“No. Allison is sleeping. Stay here in the event we need you. I won’t be gone long.” I head into the kitchen and pluck both my keys and my father’s off the counter.
I’m going to see my mother, touch her things, bury my face in that silk scarf of hers, and weep like a pussy.
I speed out into the dark and the fog retracts with each step I take, revealing the hardness of nature lying underneath.
When is this cruel world going to open up and reveal where in the hell my daughter is?
* * *
Kemp Drive is situated on the border between the proverbial right and wrong side of the tracks. If you had any sort of wealth at all, you would consider this an unfortunate neighborhood to have grown up in. If you were enmeshed in generations of poverty, you would think this was a step up in the world.
My father’s house, the house I spent my childhood scheming to get out of, sits back from the road, distant enough from the neighbors to let you feel as if you’re in your own little hemisphere. I park far enough away so that I can admire it in its haunting entirety once I get out of the car. A two-story bungalow with clapboard siding painted army green, brown trim that my mother hated and wanted badly to paint white. It looks gapingly large, enormous even in this strangled light. It crops up like a shadowed demon expanding its wings against the velvet background, the fog licking at its crevices.
I head up the porch as the wood groans and creaks beneath my feet like a greeting from a decrepit old friend.
“Long time no see,” I mutter, fumbling for the key. The door glides open without too much assistance as if the house itself were welcoming me inside. I flick on the lights, and just like that, I’m transpo
rted back fifteen years into my childhood. Same no-nonsense Shaker furniture, matching plaid sofas, an oval mirror hanging over the fireplace—the watchful eye of the Price home.
My father handed me my rifle with a grunt. “Don’t look down the barrel.” He winked at me as if it were a dare, but I took it with glee and bolted for Aston. Of course, I glanced down into the dark hole of the barrel when neither one of them was looking. It was practically command once you asked me not to do it.
“Let’s get out the damn door!” I circled my older brother like a gnat he couldn’t get rid of. Our father was the true barrier that day, insisting we take a pipe cleaner to those old shotguns we were hauling around.
“Watch that mouth of yours or the old man will take it right off your face.” Aston shoved a bristled brush into the barrel of his gun, which sat in various stages of deconstruction across the dining room table. He shot a frown up at our father before reverting to me. “Clean your damn gun, would you?” He gave a little wink my way. Aston was three years older than me, already well past puberty, headed into that man body my mother promised us we’d own one day.
It was deer season and my mother loved it when we brought home a kill. We ate venison through every winter I can remember, or at least up until that one.
“Will do!” I cocked the rifle to check the barrel and Aston stepped right in front of me. I can still see that final moment in my mind like some well-choreographed ballet, a comedy of horrific errors.
One powerful blast, the unexpected blowback knocking me to the floor. I glanced up and thought what the hell is that mess on the wall. Dad is going to kill us.
“Dad is going to kill us,” I whisper as I make my way slowly to the dining room. The wall is pristine, covered in wallpaper, a repeating pattern of birds, blues and greens. What was once a den of horror has since been transformed into a Zen-like station.
My mother hated this room after it was done. We never ate dinner in there again.
Psychological Thriller Boxed Set Page 42