by David Bell
“Joshua Fields?” He frowned in concentration. “I don’t know him.”
“Did Morgan ever mention that name?” she asked.
“Morgan? I said I don’t know anything about her personal life.”
“Fair enough.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to ask him, so she stood up and told Hatfield she’d be in touch if she needed to know anything else.
When she stepped outside his office, a few heads turned her way. When she noticed, they looked down, pretending to be back at work. But Kimberly saw something on the desk closest to where she stood.
“Landlines?” she asked Hatfield. “Is there one on every desk?”
“Pretty much.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s silly, but Giles insisted. He wanted to have phones that would work all the time. He only used a flip phone. After all these years running a tech company.”
“Where did Morgan Reynolds sit?” Kimberly asked.
Hatfield looked perplexed. He leaned down and asked the woman at the desk closest to them the same question.
She pointed across the room. “Where Sasha sits now.”
“Do you mind?” Kimberly asked but started walking that way before Hatfield could answer. He hustled along behind her as she moved among the desks, eyes lifting to her as she passed each workspace. Conversation slowed at last. She heard mostly the clacking of keyboards, the sound of unfamiliar music playing. Somewhere a Ping-Pong ball thwacked against a paddle.
She came alongside Sasha’s space. “Excuse me.”
Sasha looked up. She was young. Very young. She wore a tank top, and a butterfly tattoo ran up onto her neck. An image of Maria with a tattoo like that on her neck ran through Kimberly’s mind. Please don’t. Please. Sasha’s dark eyes were pretty and clear, and the tips of her hair were dyed purple. “Hi.”
Kimberly didn’t remember her from the first round of interviews. “Did you know Morgan Reynolds?”
“No, I sure didn’t.” She spoke like some of Maria’s friends, who turned even statements of fact into questions by letting their voices rise at the ends of sentences. “I started here after she left. That’s how I got this desk.”
“Does the phone number change when a new employee takes over the space?” Kimberly shifted her gaze from Sasha to Steven Hatfield. “See, where I work, if you change desks or offices, like if you get a promotion, you can take the number with you. They just reroute it. But if someone new starts, if you replace someone who leaves, then you get their old number. What happens here?”
“We do the same thing,” Steven said. “Most of our employees don’t even use the landlines. They text, e-mail, use cells.”
Kimberly turned to Sasha. “Did you ever get any calls for Morgan Reynolds on this line? Anybody looking for her?”
Sasha reached up and started twirling her purple tips. She wore black everywhere else. Leggings, socks, shoes. Lipstick.
“A few calls came in for a while. People who didn’t know she’d quit. I’d just tell them she didn’t work here anymore. If it was about a project Morgan had started, I’d refer them to the right person. You know, other people here took over her work.”
“Sure. And that’s it? Anything lately?”
“No.” Sasha continued to twirl. She looked past Kimberly, staring into her own memory banks. “Well, nothing about work. There was a wrong number a week or so ago.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, somebody called and asked for Morgan, but they gave a different last name. Morgan . . . I don’t remember. Woodward? Woodhead? Something like that.”
“And?”
“I told them they had the wrong number. I know Morgan’s last name is Reynolds. And anyway it had been so long since she’d quit.”
“Why would you remember a random call like that?” Kimberly asked, hoping there was more. Begging inside for more.
“Well, I’m supposed to take this trip, with my boyfriend? We’re supposed to go to Ireland? And I need to get a passport.”
“So?” Hatfield said.
“It was the passport office calling. That’s why I remember. The passport office was calling looking for this Morgan . . . whatever her name was.”
38
I stood under the shower for as long as I could.
Twenty minutes.
I still felt the impact of Simon’s index finger on my chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up with a dime-size bruise right there.
Twenty minutes.
He seemed like a man who meant what he said. He’d tried to be affable, tried to be friendly, almost fatherly. But I didn’t believe it. I’d seen his type before, mostly at work. A middle-aged man who appeared as normal as anyone else . . . until you tried to veer away from what he wanted.
I stepped out of the shower, glad to finally be clean. I wiped steam off the mirror with my hand, thought my skin looked pale and drawn.
While I combed my hair and brushed my teeth, I tried to sort through what Simon had told me. I knew only one thing for certain—Morgan was involved in something. She’d admitted to stealing the ring. Had she done more?
I almost couldn’t contemplate it. . . . Had she killed a man?
Then I ran through the past twenty-four hours. If that was true, it meant I’d met, fallen for, pursued, and slept with a murderer.
That low humming, the white noise of mental overload, started buzzing through my brain again. And it grew louder and louder.
I left the bathroom and started getting dressed, pulling clean clothes out of my bag. I felt like I was washing and putting away the last remnants of Morgan as I did.
Simon made it all seem so easy. So certain. He’d laid out his case, and everything Morgan had done backed it up. But if it was all so easy, why not go to the local police? Simon knew Morgan had just been in Wyckoff. I’d seen her. If he simply wanted justice, then he should just let the authorities handle it.
But Simon seemed unable to wait for the slow grind of the wheels of justice. Was he just impatient? Or was there something else?
I wasn’t sure, so I did what I sometimes do when I’m confused. I picked up my phone to call my dad. I ignored the seven missed calls for the moment and called Dad.
“Thank God,” Dad said, sounding relieved. “Are you calling to tell me you got everything out of your system? You met your girl and . . . Well, you don’t have to tell your old man about all of that.”
“Dad, I need your help.”
“Crap. What is it? Are you in more trouble?”
“Not exactly. I need you to look someone up for me.”
“You mean on the Internet?”
“No. And I was hoping . . . I was kind of hoping you could ask your friend Jim Tuttle to do it.”
A long pause. I knew Dad wouldn’t like where I was going. “Jim Tuttle? Are you for real? You can’t just ask a retired cop to use his connections to look somebody up for kicks, Joshua. What is going on?”
I checked the clock. I’d used thirteen of my allotted twenty minutes. If I didn’t make it in twenty, I might get another poke in the chest, one that would leave me with a broken sternum.
“I can’t explain,” I said. “But I’m not in danger. I’m just working something out. For that friend of mine I mentioned. And Jim owes us a favor or two. You helped him find the location for his pet store when he retired, right? So he can do a little favor in return.”
“Are you still in Kentucky?” he asked.
“I am. A little college town called Wyckoff, at the Best Western. I’ll be here for a little while.” I gave him Simon’s name and a brief description. “Call me when you hear anything.”
“Maybe I’ll just call Tuttle and get him to have the cops come to that hotel and check on you.” He cleared his throat. “You know . . . you’re my only kid. If you’re in deep here . . .”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
I tried to sound more certain than I really was. “Look, if you don’t hear from me in an hour, you can ask Tuttle to do that.”
“How about thirty minutes?” he asked.
“Okay, thirty. Fine. So you’ll give the name to Tuttle?”
“I’ll call him. And you’re right. He does owe me one. Or two. And I think opening that pet store was a dumb idea.”
Before we hung up, I asked him to do one more thing.
“Can you have Jim look up someone else, Dad? Morgan Reynolds. Nashville. Formerly of Laurel Falls, Kentucky, formerly of Wyckoff, Kentucky.”
39
Once I was off the phone, I gathered my things, zipping my carry-on and my computer bag. My movements remained precise despite the situation. I impressed myself by managing to maintain a semblance of calm.
I took a last look around the room to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and that’s when I saw something on the floor, something that had fallen between the bed and the nightstand. In the process of getting undressed—or I should say being undressed by Morgan—the night before, my T-shirt ended up getting flung into that narrow space. I bent over and picked it up, and when I did, I saw something beneath it.
A receipt? A napkin? No. It was a photograph, a snapshot, the kind I almost never saw anymore. It felt funny in my hand, the corners sharp, the paper slick and flat. My dad kept boxes and boxes of old pictures in our attic, and after my mom left, I’d go up there from time to time, maybe once or twice a year, and look through them, fascinated by the images of my parents as young people.
The photos in our house showed my dad with longer hair, frequently running around without a shirt or shoes on. My mother was thin and lithe, her hair long and straight and parted down the middle with an exacting precision. Some of the photos were fading, yellowing due to the stuffy air in the attic and the passage of time. I never mentioned them to Dad, never told him I went up there. I suspected he knew—it would be natural for me to be curious—but he never brought it up. And I left the many questions I had about my mother unspoken, assuming that the subject was better left unopened.
The light through the curtains had grown brighter, and I used it to study the photograph Morgan had left behind. It showed a child, unmistakably her, probably about eight or nine years old. Her hair reached her shoulders, the bangs cut straight across her forehead. She wore a red top and denim shorts, white sneakers with Velcro straps. She looked at the camera, her eyes squinted against the sunlight.
Behind her stood a woman who looked to be about thirty. She had limp, overprocessed blond hair. She wore sunglasses and held a cigarette in one hand, a purse in the other. She looked almost as skinny as the child, her skin sallow. She appeared unhealthy, sickly even. In the corner of the image, on the lower right-hand side, I saw something else.
It took me a moment to understand what it was. It was ghostly white and slightly blurry, as though whatever it was had been moving when the shot was taken. In the middle of the splash of white was a small black object, almost like a marble amid the light background. I scratched my head, and then the image became clear. A goat. The young version of Morgan, her hand clutched into a fist, reached out toward the animal. I remembered the story she’d told me, brief though it was, as she cried during the night. The petting zoo in the amusement park, the place her mother used to take her.
I flipped the picture over. On the back, in a feminine script, someone had written Morgan (7) and me at Fantasy Farm. 7/13/01.
Her mother. Her dying mother, the one she’d moved near when her job in Laurel Falls went south. The photo had likely fallen out of her bag the night before, probably before I arrived, and she’d been in such a rush to leave that morning—to leave me—she hadn’t bothered to look under my discarded T-shirt. Who would? Even something so precious—a photo of her dying mother she’d taken the time to carry with her all the way to Wyckoff—could get left behind in a hotel room.
Or had it even been an accident?
She’d spoken about the amusement park in the middle of the night, telling me some precise details about it and sharing the pain of the memories associated with her mother. And then she just happened to leave the photograph behind when she took off?
Someone thumped on the door. It was so loud it sounded like the police.
I checked the clock. My time was up with Simon, but I clung to the faint hope that it was the housekeeping staff. As far as I knew, the “Do Not Disturb” sign remained on the door, and I suspected they were unlikely to violate that sacred symbol unless it was right at checkout time.
And no housekeeper knocked like that.
It must be Simon, and he appeared to take punctuality very seriously. Had he even gone down to the lobby? Had he waited in the hallway to see how quickly I left the room?
Or if I would try to slip away? And suddenly that sounded like a good idea.
“Come on,” he said, his voice muffled by the heavy door. “Joshua?”
He knocked again, even louder. And then he knocked again.
I went over and looked through the peephole. Simon’s frame filled the space, distorted and warped by the fish-eye view. He moved closer, pressing his head against the wood.
“Joshua?”
“I need another minute.”
“Come on. You’re not helping her. Or anybody. Certainly not me or my brother.”
“Can you just hold on? I’m packing.”
I stepped back, holding my phone. But before I could make a decision about calling for help, it rang.
I almost jumped.
It was my dad. I moved farther away from the door and answered.
“What the hell is going on up there?” Dad asked.
“Did you get that information from Jim already?”
“Jim? No, I haven’t called him yet. Hell, I didn’t have to.”
“You didn’t have to?”
“No. The cops called me right after I hung up with you. A cop named Reichert from some place called Laurel Falls, Kentucky. He’s looking to talk to you. They’ve been trying to call you. Why haven’t you answered them? Joshua, this woman you’ve been spending time with is a missing person. And she’s wanted for questioning in another case. They wouldn’t give me a lot of details. But reading between the lines of what they said, it seems like you’re in hot water here. Really. This isn’t like you. What’s going on?”
Simon banged on the door again.
“Dad, what did you tell them?”
“I told them all I knew. You’re in Wyckoff, Kentucky. Apparently with a young lady named Morgan Reynolds.”
“You told them that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? And let me tell you, that piece of news sure got their attention. I’d say you should be expecting a visit from the police soon. Now, I’m going to call Rich Baxter. You know, that lawyer with an office down the block from the grocery store. He’s supposed to be good—”
“Dad, I’m going to have to call you back.” I hung up.
Simon pounded on the door again, even louder.
When he stopped, he called my name.
“Joshua?”
40
Kimberly inhaled the familiar scent of burning coffee, which hovered over the squad room like the odor of overheated tar. She glanced in the direction of Brandon’s desk, which was empty. He’d said something about going to court, so she went to talk to her boss, Lieutenant Larry Willard.
Before she got there, Brandon stuck his head out of Willard’s door and waved her over.
“I was just about to call you,” he said.
“I thought you were in court.”
“Continuance. Again. Come on. You need to hear this.”
She followed him in, happy to be able to shut the door and staunch the oppressive odor of the seared coffee.
Willard sat behind his desk, his big gut squeezed against its
wooden edge. His broad shoulders and wide chest seemed too big for the space. Kimberly had never said it out loud, but she thought of him as the Buddha of the Laurel Falls Police Department, dispensing wisdom without ever showing much emotion. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and a navy blue tie, and Kimberly knew he was counting the days until his retirement in a few months. And Kimberly wanted his job.
She very much wanted it.
Three years earlier, they both—she and Willard—had gone up for that same job, and he’d beat her out. She hated to admit he’d been the right choice, but it was her turn now. She tried not to be greedy and demanding, but she really believed she’d earned it.
“Kimberly, Brandon was just about to share some good news,” he said, pointing to the two empty chairs across the desk from him. “He promises me we’ll all be happy for a change.”
They sat like obedient children. She noticed Brandon’s grip tightening on the armrests and knew he grew nervous around Willard. Poor Brandon, she thought. Such a good boy.
“So?” Willard asked when Brandon was slow to speak. Even Buddha had a limit. “What did you want to share with the class?”
“Well, we’ve got a really good lead on Morgan Reynolds,” he said. “This guy Joshua Fields, the one who saw her on the plane and followed her? We’ve been trying to reach him on his cell because he’s traveling, but he hasn’t answered. This morning he called his father and told him he was in a hotel over in Wyckoff with Morgan, that they’d spent the night together.”
“I never told my dad anything like that,” Kimberly said.
“They work together,” Brandon said. “Him and his dad. They’re close, I suppose. And he didn’t want his dad to worry. I guess Fields skipped out on a big meeting and changed all his plans to run off with Morgan Reynolds.”
“And this guy, this Fields, decided to do all that after meeting her in the airport?” Willard asked.
“That’s right,” Brandon said.
“So, he’s there. And she’s there,” Kimberly said. “Did we—?”