by David Bell
“My name’s Morgan.” She paused. “Morgan Reynolds.”
And then her mouth brushed across my cheek and pressed, soft and smooth, against my lips. But it wasn’t just a quick peck. She increased the pressure, our lips sliding and working against each other, and then she gently but firmly darted her tongue into my mouth.
I lost myself in the kiss. I gave in, slipping away from the airport as everything around us disappeared.
Long seconds passed, and I placed my hands on her hips and started to slide them around, feeling the Lycra against my skin. My hands started to move up—
But then she abruptly pulled back.
She wasn’t angry. She was smiling, and I didn’t want to let her go.
She stayed close.
“I like you. I really do. And I loved that kiss.”
“You know, you don’t have to—”
But she was shaking her head, her eyes weary again.
“I do,” she said. “I really, really have to go. And I mean I have to.” She pulled away from me and picked up her bags and her sunglasses, which she slid back onto her face. “And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’re never going to see each other again.”
6
Kimberly Givens was running late.
As always.
She ran from her bedroom down the steps of her town house, carrying her laptop bag in one hand, her gun and badge in the other. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she looked down quickly just to make sure her shoes matched. She’d gone to work once wearing one black and one brown and didn’t feel like making that mistake again. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw they were the same color.
Kimberly had no time to waste that Tuesday since her daughter, Maria, was already waiting just inside the back door, her soccer gear in her hand, her face scrunched by the kind of searing impatience and irritation only a twelve-year-old could muster. The Laurel Falls, Kentucky, city sedan with municipal plates sat right outside in the carport, and as Maria opened the back door, Kimberly deftly found the key fob, hitting the button without dropping her gun or her computer.
“There, it’s open,” she said to Maria. “Go on.”
She checked the clock above the stove: 9:55. Nope. She wouldn’t have time to eat anything. She couldn’t be late. She was meeting with the mayor of Laurel Falls at eleven. She had to deliver an update on the case.
The case. The case.
If only she had something good to tell her . . . But it had landed in Kimberly’s lap just the day before, Monday, when a prominent local businessman named Giles Caldwell hadn’t shown up for work after not being seen or heard from all weekend. She’d had less than twenty-four hours to make any progress.
Maria stepped outside and tossed her things—cleats, shin guards, goalie gloves, backpack—into the backseat of the car and then slid into the passenger seat.
Kimberly locked the town house and put her things in the back of the car, then climbed in and jabbed the “Start” button with her index finger. The vehicle hummed to life.
“We’re going to be late,” Maria said, the first words she’d spoken that morning.
“We’ll be fine,” Kimberly said. “It’s practice, not a game. And it’s fall break. Plus, I’m allowed to speed.”
“Don’t,” Maria said in her best sullen-preteen voice. “Everyone will look at us.”
“I was kidding,” Kimberly said as she backed out of the driveway and into the street, heading toward the soccer field. She rolled her window down, hoping to let the pleasant October air dry her hair naturally. “I’ll get you there in time. I was up late last night reading some reports for a big meeting I have today, so I was slow to get moving. Unfortunately, I just happen to have given birth to the most punctual tween in America.”
They rode in silence for several blocks. Maria tapped her fingers against the passenger-side door, her breath going in and out through her nostrils like a cartoon bull’s. Kimberly rolled her eyes internally, recognizing behavior her daughter had gotten from her ex-husband and Maria’s father, Peter. Maria had always fumed and stomped when things didn’t go her way, even as a toddler, and when Kimberly and Peter were married, Kimberly called her “Peter Junior,” jokingly hoping to establish the narrative that the girl had inherited her negative qualities from her dad. Kimberly knew it wasn’t true, knew nothing was ever that black-and-white, but she allowed herself to think it was on certain occasions when she grew most frazzled by work and co-parenting.
“You’ve got all your stuff?” Kimberly asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you make eggs?”
“Yes. And toast.” She paused. “I would have made you some, but you were still in the shower.”
“That’s fine. I’ll get something later. After my meeting with the mayor.”
“Okay.”
Maria showed no interest in her mother’s meeting with the highest elected official in Laurel Falls. Tough crowd.
“Are you going to miss me all day?” Kimberly asked.
“Mom.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll stop. But I’m not going to see you tonight, so I want to know how you’re doing.”
Maria’s head snapped toward her mother. “What do you mean you won’t see me tonight? It’s fall break. We were going to . . . Oh, forget it.”
“I’m working late,” Kimberly said, feeling the guilt rising like high tide in her chest. “I told you that could happen this week. Dad’s picking you up after soccer and bringing you to his place. He works for himself, so he can do that.”
“So we’re not . . .”
“Shit, yes. I mean, no. We’ll watch the movie another night. I promise.”
Maria let out a sigh to end all sighs.
“We still have the rest of the week.”
“Is it the same stupid case you got yesterday messing up fall break?”
“Yes, it is. We don’t usually solve them in a day. If you think we can, you should run for mayor.”
“This is the missing old guy?”
“He’s not that old. He’s fifty.” Then she felt the need to provide reassurance. “You know, this is unusual. It’s safe here in Laurel Falls. People don’t just disappear.”
“This old guy did. What’s his name? Miles?”
“Giles.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“We found out yesterday. But it’s possible no one’s seen him since Thursday afternoon. That’s when he last showed up at work. We don’t know.”
“So he’s dead,” Maria said.
“Why would you say that?”
“I know the first forty-eight hours matter the most. You always say that.”
“Just to make myself feel better, I’m going to revise that and say the first forty-eight hours since I found out matter the most. And we’re at about eighteen right now.” She hoped Maria wouldn’t be afraid, hoped her friends and her friends’ parents wouldn’t overreact and worry. After all, it wasn’t a kid who’d gone missing, not even a teenager. She tried to change the subject. For Maria’s sake, yes, but also for her own. She didn’t want to dwell on how little she knew about what had happened to Giles Caldwell. “You’ll have plenty of things to do with Dad, I’m sure. He has Netflix and HBO.”
“Ugh. Who cares? Jennifer will be there.”
“Oh, her.” Thanks to the new case, Kimberly had managed not to think about Peter’s new girlfriend, Jennifer, but Maria’s words conjured the younger, more attractive woman in her mind. She felt angry with herself more than anything else. She and Peter had been divorced for three years, and she didn’t want him back, so why did she care that he’d started living with someone? Because Maria would see them cohabiting before marriage? No, she didn’t worry about that. Because Jennifer was younger and pr
ettier than she was? You’re getting warm. . . . “I thought she seemed . . . nice. I thought you liked her okay.”
“She has a stupid laugh.”
“Do you want me to run her in? I think there’s a state law against stupid laughs.”
“Mom, you’re not helping.”
“You know my job can be unpredictable. But Dad and I will switch a day next week to make up for it. You’ll be back in school then, but we’ll manage.”
No response. Maria was looking out the window, apparently fascinated by the passing trees, the other cars, the buildings and houses of Laurel Falls, Kentucky. Anything but actual conversation with her mother.
“You know,” Kimberly said, as if she were just thinking out loud and not expecting any response, “if I get promoted, my work hours will be more regular.”
“You said you were going to get promoted a couple of years ago, and they gave it to that other guy. The really old one.”
“I know. But that job is available again.”
“Did the old guy die?”
“He’s retiring. And he’s my boss, not some old guy. Show some respect. He’s a police lieutenant. And he’s a good man.”
And I have to see him this morning and tell him we don’t have any solid leads almost a day into the town’s biggest case in years. He’ll be thrilled.
“You said they don’t promote women,” Maria said.
“I might have said that, yes. But I don’t want you to worry about that. You can do anything you want, anything a man can do.”
“I know, Mom. You tell me this all the time. So does Dad.”
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
Kimberly placed a mental check in Peter’s “good” column. His encouragement of Maria more than canceled out the effects of Jennifer. Her unnaturally bright hair, her yoga-toned body. Even, yes, her stupid laugh.
“Well, I’m going to go for the promotion again. This case I’m working on now might make it happen.” If I can solve it . . . She gripped the wheel tighter as the field came into view. She saw Maria’s friends milling around in their shorts and cleats, their smiles vivid, their gestures exaggerated. They all ran so hot and cold, so bright and dark. The sharp voices of the girls reached her through the open window, but she ignored them. “We’re waiting on a detailed crime scene report. I’m hoping there’s something in there since the mayor is breathing down my neck. It looks like this guy just disappeared into thin air. Or maybe he ran away. None of it makes sense yet. We need to catch a break.”
“You know you’re just talking to yourself,” Maria said.
“I thought I was talking to you.”
“Kind of.” Then Maria sat up straighter. “Pull over. Right here.”
“I know the drill,” Kimberly said. “You don’t want me to get too close. I’d think most of these kids would find it fascinating that your mom is a detective working on a big case. It’s going to be all over the local news today. And I got interviewed for TV and the paper.” She stopped the car and waited patiently while Maria went around to the back and dragged her things out. Her task complete, she came by Kimberly’s window.
“So Dad’s picking me up after practice?” she asked.
“He is. I texted him last night.”
She sighed again. “How long before you find out what happened with this missing man?”
Kimberly didn’t believe in lying to her daughter or giving her false hope. Those things accomplished nothing, either at home or at work.
“I don’t know, pumpkin. When people disappear like this . . . I just don’t know. We’re only now starting to piece things together. It’s slow work.”
Maria shivered, and the corner of her mouth lifted in discomfort. “A man really disappeared? A grown man?”
“He did.”
“But grown men don’t disappear, do they?” she asked, suddenly interested. “You always say women are vulnerable. And kids. But a man. Someone that old. I mean . . . who would want to take him?”
“We don’t know that anyone took him. He might just be . . . out of town or on a trip. Or something. Maybe he went away and forgot to tell anyone. He might have other problems. He’s a businessman, so you never know what he could be tied up in.”
“Like, he owes money to the mob?” Maria asked in a dramatic voice.
“We don’t have that here.”
“Yes, we do. I read about it online. The Dixie Mafia. They’re all over Kentucky.”
“I don’t think he’s mixed up with the Dixie Mafia, honey.” But then Kimberly wondered. . . . How did she know what he was mixed up with? “Whatever it is, you don’t have to worry about it. Your school is safe. The soccer field is safe. The coaches are here.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Maria asked, clearly curious but trying to sound casual.
“I have no evidence of that. I just know that he’s missing, and his brother is worried.”
“Will you have to see a dead body or something? What if it’s decaying and smells? You know, on True Detective—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Kimberly said. “Wait a minute. When did you watch True Detective?”
“At Dad’s house. With Jennifer. You just said I should watch HBO there.”
“That’s a TV show, not reality,” Kimberly said, grunting. “We’ll talk about this later. Remember, Dad is picking you up.”
“You are coming to my match tomorrow night, right? It’s the first time I’m starting in goal.”
“I wouldn’t miss it. My calendar’s highlighted. In bold letters.”
“Okay.” Maria sighed again. “Bye.”
She walked away, cutting off Kimberly’s farewell.
“Bye-bye. I love you.”
7
After Morgan was gone, I finished my drink.
The taste of her mouth, the feel of her lips against mine, the touch of my hands running over her hips—all of those sensations lingered, like waking up from a vivid dream. The desire she’d stirred was both an ache that stabbed at the center of my body and an emptiness, something I feared would never be filled.
The drink didn’t help. I finished it, but it just made me wish she were there even more. Hunger, real hunger, gnawed in my gut as well. My head swirled with the effects of the alcohol and the intoxication of being so close to Morgan, of holding her and kissing her so intensely for those brief moments. Except for her abandoned drink on the bar next to me and the taste of her on my lips, I might have believed she’d never been there at all, that my mind had conjured her like a vision caused by a fever.
The bartender came my way, a slender, middle-aged woman with long braids. She acted nonchalant, wiping up an invisible spill nearby, but she looked over at me from the corner of her eye.
“Did you want another one?” she asked.
“I have to stop,” I said.
“What about your . . . friend?”
I looked at the half-finished Bloody Mary, saw a faint mark left on the tip of the straw by Morgan’s mouth. Lipstick.
“She left,” I said. “She had to get to her flight.”
I read the bartender’s name tag: JANICE. She took our glasses away, and then she handed me an ice water. She lingered, still holding the rag and searching for another spill to clean. I felt the curiosity coming off of her body in waves.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You two seemed to be having an intense conversation,” Janice said, her voice free of judgment. She must have seen and heard a fair amount in the bland anonymity of the Keg ’n Craft.
“That was one of the strangest things that’s ever happened to me,” I said, figuring I could at least spill my guts to a bartender. Janice served as the secular priest of the anonymous airport, possibly offering advice or even benediction as the case called for. “I just met her in the gift shop. We started
talking about our lives, and then she just kissed me like that.”
Janice nodded, her eyes large and sympathetic. “Not your average Tuesday morning, is it?”
“No. Not even close.”
“Hell, I wish someone would talk to me like she did. Or kiss me that way.”
“I’m a little shocked myself.”
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you want something to eat? You look a little pale.”
I knew I needed to eat. I needed to slow the swirling in my head, even if I wasn’t sure it was caused only by the two drinks on an empty stomach. I asked Janice if she could bring me a club sandwich, and she winked at me before wandering off to place the order.
I checked my phone again. My dad had written two more times, his messages growing increasingly prescriptive. He told me what to wear, even though I always wore the same clothes to these meetings, the clothes he’d told me to wear when I started working for him five years earlier. And then he reminded me not to have a drink before I boarded my flight, to make sure I didn’t show up smelling like alcohol.
I know you insist on doing that before you fly. Take the pills if you must but forget the booze.
Too late.
My dad could summon little sympathy for weaknesses or phobias of any kind. He thought I let my fear of flying control my life more than it should. Control it? I flew all the time despite it, but I couldn’t tell the old man that. Close to the vest. Keep it close to the vest.
I started thinking of what was to come. A series of images paraded through my brain. The long, tense flight to Florida. The cramped seat, the enclosed space. The rental car pickup, the bored, indifferent clerk. The sterility of the highways, the never-ending stream of fast food restaurants, gas stations, and toll plazas. All of it leading to a meeting with my dad and a few strangers, men in clothes just like mine who wanted to talk about zoning ordinances and profit and loss.
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I felt like a guy staring down a long, narrow tunnel with the light at the end flickering.
Nashville . . .
Janice was out of sight. I reached for my wallet and found a fifty. For good measure, I threw another twenty down with it. I figured that should cover the four drinks as well as the sandwich that hadn’t yet come.