by Mark Lukens
Before what?
Suddenly I was inside the storage room. The room had been empty for a long time, but there were still collections of trash and debris at the bottom of the walls all around the room, grime built up over the years. The block walls were painted a gray color and there was writing all over the walls. No, not writing, long strings of numbers.
I snapped awake in bed, sweating and breathing hard. I looked down at my body. The sheets weren’t on me—they were balled up at the end of the bed, half of them hanging down onto the floor. I had a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on, my sneakers on my feet, the laces tied. My heart thundered, my pulse throbbed in my ears. Why was I dressed?
Again, I thought a noise had awakened me. It felt like either someone was still inside my house or had been.
Like last night, I was up and searching the house, the aluminum baseball bat in my hands.
No one in the house.
But my computer in the office was on.
The lights in the kitchen were on.
The front door was unlocked.
I couldn’t pinpoint any particular piece of evidence, but I was sure someone had been in my house. Someone had been going through my papers. I swore I could tell someone had looked through the drawers in the desk. I had stuffed the bank receipts and notecards in there. Someone had seen them. I shouldn’t have been so careless.
Back in the bedroom, I sank down onto the edge of my bed. Why did I keep waking up fully dressed? Why was my computer on and the front door unlocked? Had I been sleepwalking?
It was almost five o’clock in the morning. I needed to leave for work in forty-five minutes. I kicked off my sneakers and tore my clothes off, heading for the shower.
*
The lawn company where I worked was housed in what looked like a warehouse. I’m sure it had been a warehouse at one time. There were a few other businesses at the other end, but our offices, storeroom, and loading bays took up most of the building. This was just one branch the company had, there were other branches throughout the state of Florida.
I parked in my usual spot and walked to the glass door of the building. All the lawn techs were already there and Amy, the office manager. Steve wasn’t there yet. He was usually a little late.
In my office, I checked emails, already delegating some of my service calls to lawn techs and to Steve. I knew he wasn’t going to like it, but I needed some time off. At least a few days. I was sure Steve would understand, but if he didn’t, I would talk to the regional manager if I had to.
“Hey, man,” Stan said, poking his head in the doorway.
“Hey, Stan.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m going to take a few days off.”
He nodded like he understood.
“I’m going to divide some of these service calls up,” I told Stan. “I need you and the other guys to do your best to get them done. Do whatever you can to solve their problems.”
“Steve will just come behind us and give them a free lawn service, anyway.”
I knew that was true.
Stan came all the way into my office, glancing back like he wanted to make sure no one was coming. “There were two detectives here on Saturday.”
I nodded, indicating that I already knew.
“What happened?” he asked, sitting down in one of the two chairs in front of my desk.
I didn’t really want to talk about it, but this was Stan—my best and probably only true friend at this place. I gave him the brief version.
Stan looked thunderstruck. “She left with some guy?”
“I don’t know if someone took her or if she left with him willingly. I don’t know why she would leave her purse behind.”
I could see the wheels turning inside of Stan’s mind. He was a conspiracy theorist, always looking for dark motives in any situation. He loved to argue about the moon landing and the JFK assassination. The other guys got tired of hearing his theories and joked about them. But it was good-natured bantering; all the guys got along great. I really didn’t mind talking about Michelle’s disappearance with Stan—maybe he would see something that I’d missed, some dark angle that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Hey, if you don’t mind—”
“I’m not going to talk about it with anyone,” Stan said, reading my thoughts before I could get the words out.
“Okay,” I breathed out.
“What are you going to do now?” Stan asked.
“I don’t know. Keep trying to find her. Keep talking to people.” I shrugged. “Something.” I was going to call Dr. Valentine and make an appointment, but I didn’t tell Stan about that. My bi-monthly visits with Dr. Valentine were something I’d kept secret with everyone except Michelle. I was also going to the bank and find out as much as I could about Michelle’s account. But I didn’t tell Stan about that, either.
It seemed like he could tell I was holding some things back.
“Steve’s on a rampage about the stolen spreader and the bags of fertilizer,” Stan said.
“Yeah,” I said, sighing. As if I didn’t have enough problems. The district manager was breathing down Steve’s neck about this and Steve always said shit rolled downhill; he was making everyone’s life miserable until he found out who had stolen the spreader (this wasn’t a cheap spreader you bought at Home Depot, but a five-hundred dollar spreader with inflatable tires), the bags of fertilizer, a few cans of organophosphates, and a few other odds and ends that had turned up missing. I found it hard to believe any of my five lawn techs would risk their job to steal equipment and products. My only suspect would be Ron, but my money was on one of the salesmen.
“Look,” Stan said, getting up from the chair. “You need anything, man, don’t hesitate to ask me. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Stan got to the doorway and peeked out, then looked back at me. “Steve’s here. He brought some donuts. Are you going to check us in with chemicals, or is Steve?”
“Steve,” I said.
“Great.”
“Sorry. But I need to talk to Steve real quick, and then I really need to get going.”
“Remember what I said, man. You need anything, just let me know.”
*
It had taken longer to get out of there than I thought it would. Steve held me up for almost thirty minutes, which held the lawn techs up for thirty minutes. Steve talked about the stolen stuff, a few of the worst customer complaints; one of our customers wanted their entire lawn replaced. He talked about a former lawn tech who was suing because he said he’d gotten cancer and nerve damage from the weed killers we used. I hoped it wasn’t true, and it made my skin crawl when I thought about the contact I’d had with chemicals over the years. One perk of being a manager was that I wasn’t around the lawn sprays all day. Steve just wanted to bitch and complain, let me know how much I was inconveniencing him by taking a few days off.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let him guilt me into working today. Or even tomorrow. I didn’t care if I lost my job. Now that Michelle was gone, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Maybe it was weak for me to feel that way, but I couldn’t help it. And with the newfound money in the bank account, maybe I didn’t need this job as badly as I used to. The money (assuming it was legal) emboldened me a little. I wasn’t backing down from Steve. Not this time.
Steve said again that the detectives seemed intense, asking all kinds of questions about my relationship with Michelle, and with others at work. He seemed convinced that they suspected me of something. But when a wife disappeared, the husband was usually the first suspect. I hoped that once the detectives realized that I had nothing to do with Michelle’s disappearance, they would move on and do their job.
It was still a little early when I finally left the office, so I stopped at a McDonald’s and ate some breakfast. I went inside and ate at a corner booth in the back. It wasn’t too crowded inside, but the drive-thru was nonstop. I ate slowly, not really tasting the food, just needing someth
ing in my stomach. I waited until it was a little after nine o’clock and then went out to my pickup truck. I hadn’t driven my work truck in today because I didn’t want Steve telling me that I had to leave it there.
I called Dr. Valentine’s office from the truck with the engine running. I turned the A/C on low—the morning was already sticky with the heat.
“Dr. Valentine’s office,” a woman said.
“Hi, this is Zach Hughes. I wanted to see if I could schedule an appointment with Dr. Valentine.”
“And you’ve seen her before?” the receptionist asked, but I could tell she was already looking my name up on her computer.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Is this an emergency?”
Was it?
“Kind of,” I said. “I don’t know. I just need to talk to her about some things.”
The receptionist was quiet for just a moment, but I could hear the rapid clicking of keys on a keyboard. “There’s an opening next Tuesday.”
Next Tuesday seemed so far away. “I think that could work.”
“I’ll have to double-check with Dr. Valentine, but I could put you down for next Tuesday at eleven thirty.”
“Yes, please.”
More clicking of the keys.
“Same insurance?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Same medications?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. It’s set. If there are any changes, I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you.”
Click.
She hung up.
I put my truck in gear and drove to the bank.
CHAPTER TEN
I felt suddenly queasy as I parked at the bank. It had taken twenty-five minutes to drive up into Daytona Beach, and anxiety had built up inside of me along with each mile I drove. I could feel my armpits sweating, my fingers trembling, a film of perspiration on my upper lip. I felt jittery, a little lightheaded. I felt like I was doing something wrong, that I was about to check on something that wasn’t really mine—something that was never meant to be mine.
“Just relax,” I told myself, trying to calm myself down, trying to use the relaxation techniques Dr. Valentine had taught me. Well, she hadn’t really taught them to me, she’d given me a few pamphlets and a list of websites to look up.
The slow-breathing drills helped a little.
I got out of my truck and went into the bank. There was only one person in front of me in line. I eyed each of the tellers, trying to guess which one would be mine.
“Next, please.”
I walked up to the counter and a young, dark-haired woman smiled back at me with perfect teeth. She had a wedding ring with a diamond the size of an M&M on it.
“How can we help you today?”
My hands were shaking just a little as I produced the bank statements and slid them to her. I also fumbled with my wallet and pulled out my driver’s license, ready to identify myself.
The teller sifted through the receipts like a machine, clicking on her keys with her polished fingernails. She smiled at me. “Account number.”
Here we go.
“Uh, I don’t have it with me. Is there any way you could look it up?” I slid my driver’s license to her. “My wife has the account number,” I said, and then realized that I should just shut the hell up before I accidentally revealed something I shouldn’t.
The teller smiled and checked my license. “Last four digits of your social?”
I gave them to her.
“Okay,” she said, obviously satisfied with whatever window had opened up on her computer screen. “How can we help you today, Mr. Hughes?”
I was stumped for a moment, not sure what to do next. I hadn’t really thought this through. I knew there were some questions I wanted to ask. “Uh, I’d like to take some money out of the account.”
She plucked a deposit slip out of a plastic tray and slid it to me. “Just fill this out.”
My fingers were shaking as I jotted down two thousand dollars. I had intended to clean the account out, but I didn’t want to drain it all at one time. I was fairly sure that taking out sixty thousand dollars in cash would raise some eyebrows. I wasn’t even sure if you were allowed to do that, or if the bank had that kind of cash on hand. Two thousand seemed good for now.
I slid the deposit slip back to her, still bracing myself for some kind of alarm to go off, or for the teller to ask me more questions. I felt like I was trying to escape through a Soviet checkpoint.
The teller entered a few more things into the computer, ran the deposit slip through some kind of machine. A drawer opened. “Any particular way you’d like the money?”
Shaking my head, I said: “No. Anything’s fine.”
She counted out mostly one-hundred-dollar bills and then a few fifties and twenties. She counted them out for me with the speed of a blackjack dealer. “Anything else we can do for you today?”
I smiled. “Sorry. Is there any way I could get the account number?”
The teller turned my transaction receipt over and wrote down the series of numbers.
“Could you tell me when this account was opened?” I asked.
The teller frowned, but turned back to her computer, clicking a few more keys. “You’ve been banking with us for seven years now.”
I nodded. “Sorry.” I felt like I was beginning to push my luck with her. I wanted to ask if I could close the account, but I was afraid I was going to raise a few red flags somehow. I wanted to ask how to change my password online, but I didn’t even know the username. I would check on it again at home. Maybe I could change it from the computer.
“Anything else we can help you with, Mr. Hughes?”
“No, thanks,” I said and left the bank.
*
Before going back home I stopped at an electronics store and bought a digital video camera. We didn’t have one because if we taped anything we usually used our phones. But I didn’t want to use my phone for what I was going to do.
The guy at the store was friendly, helping me select a camera that was easy to use and easy to download onto my computer. I’m sure he was showing me the more expensive brands, but I didn’t really care—I had two grand burning a hole in my pocket.
Next, I stopped at a supermarket and bought a few groceries, mostly frozen stuff so I didn’t have to cook anything, and then I waited in line for what seemed like an hour.
When I turned onto my street, driving down toward my house, I saw a black SUV parked across the street from my house, right in front of the empty house. As I got closer to the SUV, its brake lights flashed for a millisecond, like it was shifting into drive, and then it sped away. I knew the only way out of our subdivision was to turn left at the end of my road, from there it would loop back toward the entrance. For just a moment I thought about following the vehicle.
But I didn’t.
What was that truck doing there?
Had it been a cop staking my place out? It wasn’t the vehicle that the detectives drove—they drove a dark sedan. Could it be another detective? Someone from the FBI?
I was letting my imagination run away with me. I wished I would have had time to take a picture of the license plate with my phone (or my newly-acquired digital video camera if I would have had it charged up and working). But the moment was lost. I remembered a conversation I’d had with Stan. He was defending the idea that there should be more UFO and Bigfoot footage now that everybody carried cell phones with cameras in them. But Stan argued that when most people saw a strange phenomenon, they didn’t have time to pull their phones out. Or even if they did manage to film something, often the footage was either too grainy, blurry, or too dark if taken at night. And at this moment, I agreed with Stan. Maybe if I would have thought about taking my phone out the instant I saw the SUV, I could have started filming, but I’d been too surprised and I hadn’t reacted quickly enough.
I parked my pickup truck next to my wife’s car and turned the engine off. I got out and gr
abbed the video camera in one bag and a bag of groceries. I left the passenger door open because I needed to make a few more trips to get all the groceries inside. Instead of walking to the front porch, I walked to the edge of my front yard where it met the street. I looked up and down the street, thinking I might spot the SUV coming back down the street.
The street was empty.
I stared at the house across the street for a moment, focusing on the front windows. In my dreams I’d seen a golden light coming from between the blinds of the front windows. I’d never gone across the street to look more closely at the house—this was the closest I’d ever been to it. The lawn in front of the home needed to be mowed. Once every two weeks a lawn service came and mowed the lawn. There was no lock on the large wooden gate that led to the back yard, and the lawn crew rode their lawnmowers into the back. It usually only took them about twenty minutes to do the whole lawn. They didn’t really do a good job. There were a few old newspapers on the carport underneath the awning that was part of the roof. Beyond the carport was a block structure connected to the house. It was the storage area with a back door, and there was a door inside that led into the house. That’s what I’d seen in my dreams.
I shook my head, bringing myself back into the real world. I went inside and set the groceries on the kitchen counter and the smaller bag with the video camera on the kitchen table.
The person in the SUV might have been a real estate agent, or some kind of developer or house flipper, jotting down an address, trying to locate the owner (most likely a bank) so they could buy the house. That’s probably all it was. And good. If someone came and fixed that house up, it would definitely help my property value.
A few minutes later, after bringing all the groceries into the house, I locked the front door and then went throughout the house, checking the sliding glass doors that led out to our back yard, and then checking all the windows. I looked everything over, trying to see if anything had been disturbed. But everything looked the way I had left it at five-thirty this morning.
*
I had wasted the hours away through the afternoon and into the evening. I had checked my account number at the bank with the numbers on the notecards, but none of them matched the account number. Then I successfully changed the password and username on the bank account online, using a text sent to my wife’s phone. At least now I could see if anyone (Michelle) came along and took money out. I scrolled back through the transaction history and saw that Michelle had been depositing money every month or so for the last few years. The years before that there had been no activity. She deposited six thousand here, four thousand there, seven thousand the next time. But never round numbers, always something like: $6,349.89. And there was no way to tell how she had deposited the money, via cash or from a check. I clicked on the deposits, but it would only bring up the amount deposited and the time and date. I’d read somewhere that if you deposited more than nine thousand nine hundred dollars that the bank was obligated to notify the government, including the IRS. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it seemed like Michelle was keeping the deposits well below the ten thousand mark.