by Gregory Ashe
Evie’s bedroom was empty. Somers stared at the familiar chaos—an entire caravan of Fashionista Fillies was apparently en route to the ice castle from Frozen; the child-sized lab coat that Hazard had bought for Evie (purchased after lengthy explanations about the importance of integrating a full spectrum of career possibilities into her play, and to which, after explanation number forty-seven, Somers had finally said, “Is one of those career options a mime?” which had gone over about as well as he should have expected) was piled on the floor with princess dresses and Disney-themed plastic heels and a glittery, beaded knot of necklaces that Hazard had bought on clearance and then tried to throw away when Somers, laughing, explained they were for Mardi Gras. All the normal mess was present and accounted for. So where were his daughter and his fiancé?
A soft voice from inside the closet was followed by a bump and a giggle.
Somers leaned against the dresser. He covered his face in his hands and tried not to cry. After a moment, he had himself under control, and he slapped his cheeks a few times and cleared his throat.
“Are we playing hide-and-seek?”
“Hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek!” Evie screamed inside the closet.
“I’m pretty sure I know where they are,” Somers said, stomping a few times. “Are they under the bed?”
Laughter came from the closet, followed by an overly helpful, “No!”
Somers stomped around some more. “I bet they’re hiding under this pile of clothes.”
“No!” And then one of the closet’s sliding doors opened, and Evie tumbled out, her cheeks red, her dark hair in messy disarray. She crowed with triumph and then jumped a few times to emphasize her complete and total victory in hide-and-seek. Somers hoped she was better at soccer.
Swooping down to grab her, Somers peppered her neck with kisses and then, when she screamed to be put down, let her run over to the Fashionista Fillies caravan, where she immediately began gathering up the fillies and trying to stuff them, one by one, into the pockets of the lab coat.
While she accomplished this important mission, Somers moved to the closet and leaned in.
Hazard sat on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, his head back. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand; his breathing was unnaturally slow and controlled. His other hand was behind him, but Somers could glimpse the butt of the Blackhawk.
“Would you take your hand off the gun, please?” Somers said quietly.
Hazard slid his hand away from the revolver.
“Are you ok?” Somers asked.
Hazard nodded, his hand still pinching the bridge of his nose, his breathing still locked down. He nodded for what felt like a full minute. And then, in a broken voice, he said, “No.”
“What can I do?”
“Just—I just need a few minutes.”
“Ok. I’m going to take Evie downstairs and get her dinner.”
Hazard nodded once.
“I’m going to take the gun.”
He nodded.
Slowly, Somers bent down and picked up the revolver. He spun open the cylinder, counted six cartridges, and emptied them into his palm. Then he pocketed the rounds and stuffed the revolver into the waistband at the back of his jeans, pulling out his t-shirt to cover it. With another roar, he scooped up Evie and carried her toward the stairs.
In the kitchen, Evie worked some kind of magic, a combination of very dark eyes and babbled explanations, and convinced Somers that dinosaurs were an ok dinner. He let her pick the vaguely dinosaur-shaped patties out of a bag, and then they microwaved them. He also got out carrots, broccoli florets, and hummus. Evie played with the vegetables, getting half of the hummus in her mouth and the other half decorating her placemat—the florets worked pretty well as an improvised paintbrush. In between bites of chicken, Somers cajoled his daughter into eating a few of the carrots.
Somewhere around carrot number three, Hazard came into the kitchen. His face was slightly pink, and he smelled a little bit like soap. He filled a glass of water from the tap and stood there, drinking it, staring out at the deepening blue haze of the July evening.
“Let’s talk about some positive things,” Somers said, nudging more carrots toward his daughter. “I’m grateful you told me you weren’t ok. I’m grateful you didn’t go off by yourself after that. I’m grateful you came here, to be with us.”
Hazard nodded at his reflection in the window. Then he said, “Can we do this later?”
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t mean never. Just not when she’s here.”
Somers dabbed a floret in hummus, pretended to flick the dip at his daughter, and grinned when she squealed with a mixture of horror and laughter. At the sink, Hazard was now filling a pot, and he put the water on to boil. He got penne from the pantry, and from the refrigerator he took out a block of Parmigiano-Reggiano. At the counter, he grated the cheese by hand, which drew Evie’s attention, and then she was screaming for cheese, so Hazard brought her a slice. And, to Somers’s surprise, one for Somers as well.
“Because you’ve been good,” Hazard said, one of those almost-invisible Emery Hazard smiles at the corners of his mouth.
Somers squeezed his hand.
Evie lasted about five more minutes, and then Somers let her down and, against her instructions, turned off the TV. After a few minutes of sulking, she decided to set up her tent, which was a pink canvas confection that Hazard had purchased online somewhere—and had refused to say where, how he had found it, or how much it had cost. It had her name stitched in huge, curly letters along the back panel.
“Adult dinner is ready,” Hazard said from the kitchen, so while Evie played, Somers moved back to the dining room table. A plate of penne with Bolognese sauce and a mountain of cheese was waiting for him. “I was going to make pappardelle by hand; that’s better with a sauce like this.”
“I like penne,” Somers said, distributing the cheese with his fork. “Thank you for making dinner. Thank you for waiting.”
“Evie had a pretty substantial snack when we got home from school. She wasn’t hungry.”
Somers smiled as he speared penne. “I was pretty sure you weren’t starving her.”
“We read a book this afternoon. She played for forty-five minutes outside with Rocio and Raquel, and then I made them come inside and drink some water.”
Chewing the pasta and the rich meat sauce, Somers nodded. He had started a mental timer.
“Then I let them watch two episodes of Nella Knight.”
“That’s two shows about a knight in one day,” Somers said through a mouthful of pasta. After swallowing, he added, “She had The Bravest Knight on when I got home.”
“And then she wanted to help with dinner; we were supposed to have a salad too, so I let her wash the lettuce.”
As Somers raised the next bite of food, he caught Hazard’s eye. “This is a very thorough account of everything connected to Evie.”
A moment passed, and Hazard dropped his head, scrambling the food on his plate. “I don’t want you to think that I wasn’t able to take care of her because . . .”
“I don’t think that,” Somers said. “I almost said obviously, but I guess it’s not obvious.”
After dragging the fork through his food a few more times, Hazard pushed the plate away. “It was the window breaking.”
“Ok.”
“I heard it, and I thought someone was shooting at me . . . like, you know. The Haverford.”
Somers nodded, chewed, swallowed, reached for his water.
“She wasn’t scared,” Hazard said. “I held it together enough that I told her we were playing a game.”
“Ree—”
“And I never would have let her get hurt, John.” Hazard sat forward now, his eyes finally coming up. “Never. I had the gun because . . . because it was automatic, I guess. But I never would have let her get hurt.”
“I wasn’t
worried about her right then.”
“I’m not thinking about . . . this isn’t like that.”
Somers ate for a while in silence. The meal really was delicious, and although Somers probably would have pretended that a salad was a great addition, he was perfectly content with meat, carbs, and cheese. From the other room, Evie took both sides in a conversation; apparently her parents were dead, and she was explaining that she was really a princess, although there was enough garbled language in there that Somers hoped he might have gotten some of that wrong.
“I know I need to do something about this.” Hazard clasped both big hands together and rested his head against them. “I know I agreed to find someone new.”
“We were both going to start looking,” Somers said. “I dropped the ball. We got that call about Susan, and then things have just been crazy. Tomorrow. We’ll start looking tomorrow, and we’ll really get started on this.”
Hazard nodded.
“Why don’t you go stretch out in the living room?” Somers said. “Keep Evie company. I’m going to wash the dishes.”
“No, after what I put you through, I should be—”
“Hey, we’ve been doing really good tonight, right? We’re handling this like adults. Let’s not ruin it.”
This was the part, Somers knew, that was very hard for Emery Hazard. Some of it was nature; some of it was nurture. Some of it was having every man in his life fuck him up in some way. Whatever the reason, when things got bad, Hazard wanted to handle it like this, the self-effacement, the penance. They’d been working on it; it’d been getting better.
Tonight, Hazard just blew out a breath and said, “Ok. I mean, thank you.”
He moved into the living room, and Somers put away the leftovers and went to work on the dishes. Halfway through the saucepan, which had crusted-on tomato from being left on the heat too long, Somers decided he might need to let it soak. Just for a few minutes. He filled it with soap and hot water, dried his hands, and tried not to fall asleep on his feet. As he ran the terrycloth between his fingers, he realized, with a dull kind of shock, that in the excitement of finding that cache of evidence in the Sexten Motors building, he hadn’t even noticed that he’d never heard back from Dulac.
Drawing out his phone, he placed the call and listened while it rang and then went to voicemail. He called again. Voicemail again. This time, he said, “Whatever you’re doing, take two minutes right now to call and tell me you’re ok.” He waited for the screen to time out, and then he unlocked the phone and called again.
“Dulac?” Hazard asked from the other room.
Turning the phone in his hand, Somers moved into the living room; Hazard was sprawled on the coach, his shirt rucked up a few inches, one hand scratching lightly at the dark hairs on his muscled abdomen. In his other hand, he held a paperback. Montaigne, Somers guessed.
“I know this is on me,” Somers said, “but after Darnell, things really got moving.” He told Hazard about the search, about dealing with the pettiness in the ranks, and about the discovery at Sexten.
“Holy shi—” Hazard sat up, glanced at their daughter, and shook his head. “I mean, why didn’t you tell me? Never mind. I know. But that’s incredible.”
“Well, it’s not so incredible having Park take the whole thing out of my hands and treat me like a criminal. I’ll probably find out if any of it’s significant in six months when the Courier writes an article about it. Or when Park arrests me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
Hazard nodded, but his expression was distant. “Nico was supposed to be helping Dulac move. He was supposed to pick up Marcus, pick up the truck, and meet Dulac at the apartment.” Then Hazard talked through his afternoon, his search of Nico’s apartment, and the conclusion that Nico was missing.
“But he could have just flaked, right?” Somers said. “You didn’t actually see anything in the apartment that made you think he’d skipped. Maybe he just didn’t want to help Dulac move; he kind of got maneuvered into it anyway.”
“It wasn’t anything definite,” Hazard said. “But he’s not in classes right now, and he’s not doing any jobs in New York this summer. He likes Marcus, for whatever reason, even if they aren’t dating. I think if Nico were going to skip out on helping Dulac move, he’d do it with Marcus. They’d go get brunch and be super bitchy or something.”
“But it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s missing.” Somers turned the phone in his hands again. “So why does this feel messed up?”
“Because it’s a very unlikely coincidence,” Hazard said. “Even if Nico had flaked, Dulac is responsible, although I’m stretching the definition. He wouldn’t have skipped out on a day of work; bare minimum, he would have called in sick.”
Nodding, Somers said, “I think I should swing by his apartment.”
“Let me run over and see if Noah and Rebeca can—”
“Maybe,” Somers said and then stopped. Hazard was already looking at him, the pain already in his face, and then snuffed out as quickly as it had come. “Maybe you should stay here,” Somers said.
Rolling one shoulder, Hazard dropped back onto the couch.
“To get Evie to bed,” Somers added. “It’s already late.”
“Sure.”
“I think it would be better this time.”
“I understand.”
“It’s not that I don’t—”
“Jesus, John. I said ok.”
“I’ll be really quick.”
Hazard nodded. He grabbed the paperback, and Somers saw the cover; Montaigne, the Essays. “Be careful,” the big man said.
“Yeah, of course. I’ll just knock on his door. He might be on a bender or something.”
“Right.”
Somers returned the Blackhawk and the cartridges to the gun safe upstairs, and then he let himself out through the garage; he drove across town in the Mustang, and tonight, the streets seemed full: an old couple sitting on their front porch, a pitcher of sangria between them; a woman in a hijab, talking on her phone and power walking; a pair of girls strolling together, swinging their clasped hands with excessive force until one of them stopped and turned and kissed the other. How could the world seem so full? It was past nine; why hadn’t everyone gone to bed? Everybody with somebody else, everybody except Somers, driving alone through the darkness.
When he got to Dulac’s apartment, he knocked, and the door swung open.
Somers hesitated; his Glock was in the car.
The inside of the apartment was dark.
The door was still swinging open.
“Gray?” he called, catching the door with one hand to stop it, and then pushing it open the rest of the way. He stepped into the apartment. “Gray? Are you home?”
One by one, he turned on the lights and moved through the rooms. He found stacks of boxes, some of them with their flaps still open. He found the couch cushions bundled, the lamp shades neatly stacked together, a grocery sack full of canned soups on the kitchen table. Dulac might not have been a hundred percent ready for the move, but he’d definitely been getting there.
“Gray, are you sleeping?”
In the bedroom at the back, the twin mattress and box spring leaned against the wall, and the frame had been broken down and taped together. The window blinds were up, and the glow of the streetlights below gave depth to the darkness.
Somers walked through the apartment once more. He came up with Dulac’s laptop and, bundled inside a Savers bag, a stack of mail. But no sign of where Dulac might be. Or what might have happened to him.
When he came outside, a black sedan was waiting halfway down the block. The car had its lights off, but it was idling, and the sound of the engine carried clearly in the quiet night. Through the windshield, he could make out the driver’s face—Somers didn’t know her name, but he recognized the woman as one of Park’s agents. He waved; he got no response.
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The sedan followed him all the way home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JULY 4
THURSDAY
7:21 AM
HAZARD WAS TRYING to shave.
“Anyway, I have no idea where he could be, and I’m freaking out.” Somers poked his head into the bathroom long enough to check himself in his mirror. He yanked on his tie a few times, and after a moment, Hazard grunted and beckoned. He set down the razor, beckoned again, and undid the tie. He knotted it again, slid the knot tight, and flattened the back of Somers’s collar. The blond man observed all this with a wry smile.
When Hazard picked up the razor again, Somers kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re not mad? About last night, I mean.”
Hazard grunted again and stiff-armed his boyfriend out of the bathroom.
“Ree?” Somers said, poking his head back into the bathroom.
Hazard facepalmed him out again.
“It’s just,” Somers said, finger combing his hair as he slid into the bathroom again. “If you’re mad—”
“For the love of Christ, I am not mad, I am not upset, I am not passive aggressively ignoring you. Now can I please just shave in peace?”
For some reason, that made Somers get a huge grin, and the blond man barely made it out of the bathroom before he started to laugh.
Hazard paid careful attention to get the spot under his chin and, at the edge of conscious thought, decided he would never understand his fiancé.
“If you have time,” Somers said, “could you take the laptop to Darnell?”
Clicking off the razor, Hazard said, “Where do you think Dulac is?”
“I don’t know. That’s kind of the whole problem.”
“I’m asking where you think he is.” Hazard moved into their bedroom, discovered that the Baby Shark tee Somers had bought him was the only clean thing he had left, and dragged it on. When his head popped through the collar, Somers had a hand on his chin and was watching. “Don’t ogle me,” Hazard said.