by Mira Gibson
Contradictions as tangled as a snarl of yarn had bounced around the room so Cody had isolated himself with the hand downstairs and tried not to absorb their argumentative murmurings that came in fits and starts through the ceiling.
His gut clenched then flipped in horror at the hand. Several times it’d crossed his mind to bolt for the men's room. As if desperate to believe he had no weaknesses, he’d fought to urge. Doing so centered him in a way, gave him a break from sorting through the nightmare in his head. Pain had the power to consume. Overcoming it was a real meditation.
He shouldn’t have called Hannah.
Sitting at the table, elbows braced on his knees, his right heel drilled against the linoleum, making him jitter quick as a metronome, as he stared at the cracked tabletop, the side of the cardboard box, beat and weathered like it’d been used for shipping again and again. Cody, honest to God, couldn’t fathom that a woman he’d known had endured separation from her left hand.
Jesus Christ.
A sudden clench to his gut then a hot wave rushed through his lower abdomen, liquefying his bowels, but Cody rode through it; flexed against nature, sweat beading across his hairline. When it passed Kendra came to mind. He wondered if his discomfort alleviated an ounce of hers, if it shouldered a breath of her burden. That’s how Cody viewed the world and people in it. As connected. In his mind, that’s what empathy was, compassion. When you saw a person hurt so bad you couldn’t help but hurt by extension.
Kendra had been a beast of a woman. Bosom so full he imagined God had deemed her a worthy vessel to hold His sorrow and love for all mankind, wide hips sturdy like the earth, origin of the world below as mysterious and terrifying as death itself, though most men would think it the warmest welcome. That’s what women were to Cody, how they seemed, mysterious and terrifying. Kendra used to hum at the stove when he'd come over for Hannah - she’d shove a hot plate at him, while Hannah would gape at her mother, a silent exchange that told him they’d talked about this, no distractions from their studies. But Cody had always eaten, too intimidated by Kendra to yield to Hannah's disgruntled glare.
Kendra had smelled like nail polish and fried food, but it was her physical presence that had been the most cloying. Hair in curlers tucked under a net, lips pursed but not so much she couldn’t smile at you, and those eyes, blue lasers angling on you with Old Testament judgment that made you certain you must have done something wrong. Cody had watched his step around her and had never been on the dark side of those eyes, thank God. He’d been sure no mortal would survive.
The year he’d gotten close with Hannah, Dale had long since warped the family. Inserting himself, busting it wide open, the extent of which Cody had no clue until years later when stories upon stories passed through so many gossips he couldn’t discern fact from fiction - kids and guns and screaming matches heard only by the wilderness surrounding their dark corner of the lake. Dale kept getting worse and worse. Cody had ignored the rumors, though. Hannah had stopped talking to him at that point, shut him out, treated him as though he were dead to her, which he’d deserved and never fought.
The murmuring hushed overhead, sudden silence causing him to jolt alert. He held his breath, hoped no one would come down, check on him or give him an update as to which side of the fence the Cole case was landing on, should the department heads upstairs ever come to a decision. As far as he was concerned it was already his, didn't matter which Chief ended up claiming it. In fact, his gut told him neither would.
When they started up again he let out a shuddering breath, sucked in a deep one, and let his memories carry him out of the interrogation room he’d squared himself off in, drifting into the past.
Hannah.
Sprightly, hair akimbo, eyes as discerning as her mothers, and lips he couldn’t help but lust for, Hannah had exuded wisdom, not intellect or street smarts, but the kind of wisdom that came with sensing the pain in this world and knowing only pure-hearted love could cure it. In high school she’d been reserved but aware. She'd always known where the bullies were in the hall between classes and she kept back, spying their activities. The day he’d noticed her it was because she swooped in on Timmy Baumbach. He’d been beaten silly, head slammed badly between a locker door and its frame a few times under the hand of one of the senior track stars. As soon as the coast had cleared, Hannah was upon him, arm over his shoulder, ready with a fistful of tissues. It’d cracked Cody’s heart wide open the way she brushed over Timmy's embarrassment, turning chatterbox at him about how well he’d done in debate, asking about how he did on his chemistry test, yapping on and on so Timmy wouldn’t fall into a pit of despair. And it’d worked.
After that Cody had courted her in the spirit of friendship, a pre-emptive defense tactic in case he was destined to suffer the same fate with the jocks. But for Cody, it hadn’t been just a friendship. Never was. Never would be.
And he’d fucked it up as badly as it could’ve been fucked.
Pounding at the door stirred him from his reverie and Cody sprang from his chair, clipping his knee against the leg and doubling over, riding out the smart. He shook it off, released the wince from his expression, and cracked the door, but slammed it right quick, Hannah’s narrowed eyes burning on his retina.
She pounded again, “Cody.”
“I thought you said you’d call when you got here.”
“I did,” she stated through the door. He envisioned her now, sinking into a hip not at all like her mother’s, fist planting hard against it, causing all kinds of dangerous angles to take shape. “You didn’t pick up so I followed the voices. Sandy told me you’re down here.”
He slipped from the room, the length of him meeting with Hannah who was holding her ground, and pulled the door shut with a gentle click. As dim and quiet as the homicide floor was, her soft features appeared bathed in just enough light that the girl he’d once known shined through.
“You have him in custody? You caught him?” She was eager about it, eyes pleading up at him, as he stammered, thankful only that she hadn’t demanded to see the hand.
“It’s not cut and dry,” he managed. “Thanks for coming down.”
“Don’t thank me. Tell me what’s going on. Do you know where my mom is?”
“No.”
Hannah must have realized their proximity, because she took a step back, and the tension he’d sensed between them, the flicker of her reciprocating interest, which he liked if he’d read her correctly, was extinguished.
“Want to have a seat?”
He didn’t wait for her response, but found the switch to his desk lamp and twisted it on. Apprehensive since his urgency had subsided, Hannah made her gradual way over, as Cody felt a brief stab of embarrassment at the clutter on his desk - a mess of reports, tchotchkes he’d ordered off EBay, now collecting dust, some on their sides (an optimistic elephant, a Mickey Mouse collectors item he’d soon learned was a fake) and the most mortifying of all, a framed photo of Hannah and him from his senior prom. He flipped it face down against the wood before she could notice and pulled his partner’s chair around for her to sit.
When she did, arms wrapped tight at the elbows and legs crossed as if she could fortify herself, Cody took a breath to reel in the historical longing he felt for her, push from his mind the fact she was damn easy on the eyes, and wrap his head around the best way to explain what had occurred.
“The man who came in, we don’t know his name yet-”
“How is that possible?”
“Let me explain.” Cody said, flexing his palm down before leaning in, as he stole a moment to sort through what he might be able to spare her.
“Stop filtering everything,” she insisted, gaze blazing on him like her mother’s laser eyes.
“His tongue was cut out. He couldn’t talk.”
Her breath came out like she’d been punched in the chest and her eyes, widening and misting in alarm, told him he’d most definitely need to filter himself.
Hannah’s mouth wa
s a taut line of self-induced silence, but she took to nodding, an indication he should go on.
“He stumbled into the station, drunk from pain. I won’t describe it for you, but it was shocking to the few of us here who saw. He had a box with him, like I mentioned on the phone. Right now he’s at the hospital. It looks like he was a victim, a pawn of sorts, to get Kendra’s hand here. But we’ll know more in a day or two when we talk to him. If we threaten him with charges I’m sure he’ll communicate.”
He studied Hannah as she struggled to process that much. The information seemed to stun her. Her brow knit and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing, as her pupil’s dilated, the look of someone overwhelmed and dissociating. When she spoke her tone was low, raw, but laced with hope.
“Maybe it's not my mom's."
It was then Cody knew his duties to his department would pit him against her. There were some things he couldn’t say. Other’s he could, but if she pressed him for the reasoning, the logic, how he and his department had arrived at a conclusion, he’d have to lie. So he focused her on what he was authorized to discuss.
“It was Kendra,” he said definitively. Before she could ask why he was so certain or demand how he knew, he cut in with, “According to our medical examiner Kendra was alive at the time her hand was removed.”
Hannah’s expression lifted optimistically then a fresh wave of anguish took hold. He could see her attempting to work through the torture from her mother’s perspective, which was a very dark road to travel, so again he focused her.
“She’s a hell of a fighter.” He searched her eyes to see if his encouragement had landed. “She’s alive, Hannah. After a month. That’s incredible.” Vacancy and stunned silence sat in front of him. “We’re going to find her.”
“Ok,” she said as if she were trapped inside her mind - soft, thin, floating away.
“Hannah?”
He wasn't sure if she was still processing or maybe the effort to do so had rendered her incapacitated. Cody rolled his chair close, fitting his legs around hers and planting his elbow against the edge of his desk so he could offer her a shred of human connection. One palm lay softly over her knee. The other hand curved to her shoulder. No response, but she was warm.
With an edge to her tone so cold if felt like an accusation, she demanded, “How do you know it’s Kendra?”
It was hitting her. An explosion would follow. He rolled in closer, but their chairs fit awkwardly. He couldn’t feel enough of her through her bulky coat, the thick jeans that held the scent of autumn, cold and damp.
Reaching across his desk, Cody flipped off the light, gave her the privacy of darkness. No one would see if she let go. When his hand returned to her shoulder, her face pulled into a strained grimace, lips flexing downward, cheeks pinching up into a quaking sob. But she was quiet about it just as she’d been in the woods. He’d never seen it, never seen anyone riveted by grief without making a sound. As he urged her near and held her as much as their damned chairs would allow, it crossed his mind that maybe she’d learned this. Maybe she’d trained herself to cry without the world knowing.
He eased back when he felt her palm at his chest, and as he obeyed he felt the impulse to kiss her and hated himself for it. Hated that he was poised, skin electric, movements slow and eager to receive any sign he was what she needed.
Voice a thread, she uttered, “I have to see it.”
“No.”
“I have to.”
“No, Hannah.” Fingers in her hair, his whole hand massaging the nape of her neck, he set his forehead against hers. “No please, Hannah. I should’ve have called you.”
“But you did.”
She turned to stone.
“She’s alive out there and as soon as you see it you’re going to feel like she’s dead.”
“It’s not you’re call, Cody.”
Hannah sniffled and was rough getting the tears out of her eyes. She stood, exhaling, which Cody guessed was meant to pull her together, then she started for the interrogation room door, intuitive enough to know that if he’d kept her out surely that’s where her mother’s hand was.
Quick strides and he opened the door for her. The fluorescents stung his eyes, which adjusted by the time he stood over the box. Hannah lingered midway between the door and the table.
“You don’t have to do this.”
As if her soul had been fractured, she asked, “Why is she in here?”
Cody shifted his gaze to the box then back to her and blinked.
Tone strained, punching, “Why is she still in a box like a piece of trash?”
“She’s not,” he tried to assert, but he couldn’t deny she was still in a box. “Don’t think of her as dead. I told you. Christ, Hannah. This is evidence and what my department chooses to do with it is our business.”
He’d hit in too hard and immediately regretted it, but she didn’t fly into offence or explode at him. In fact, she quieted, getting still in a way that caused him concern, then stepped slowly, boots tapping on linoleum, until she was able to gaze down at it.
The moment her eyes landed she turned suddenly hollow like her spirit had been flushed out. Cody stood ready to catch her if she fell, but she didn’t waver or collapse. The effect of seeing her mother’s hand lain out on torn newspaper in a ratty old box didn’t liquefy her like it had Cody or make her crumble like it would any other woman. Hannah just seemed empty.
“So Homicide has her case now?” she asked. Remarkable strength came clear as a bell through her voice.
It had him thrown for a beat. “We’re figuring that out. Like I said she isn’t dead.”
“So Missing Person's is working this?”
Cody had bowed out of the debate an hour ago. He couldn’t say one way or the other but in his mind he'd taken it on, whether or not that’d end up being the reality.
“I’m not doing anything but finding Kendra.”
“Good.”
When he dared look at her, Hannah struck him as stoic. Her forehead and eyes were slack, lips parted, breath a feather rising and falling on the gentlest breeze. Seeing her like that was a knife twisting in his heart.
He found her hand, first a brush - back of his hand against hers. Then he ventured to graze his palm around, sensing if she’d spread her fingers for him. He lingered, hoping or needing her to let him offer comfort by way of this small gesture, admittedly less than a token, but he was dying to give it all the same. He felt her move. Her hand straightened a touch and, seizing the moment with a burst of urgency, which he managed to reel in enough to move slowly, Cody slipped his fingers between hers, slid his hand in, and held hers. Gently. Firmly. With purpose.
He didn’t trust his voice to come through so he cleared it, but quietly.
“Remember...” he swallowed hard, taking a beat to get the memory right. “Remember the rainstorm? November? It was the weekend before thanksgiving and everyone was planning on going to Mitchell’s party on the field?”
She squeezed a bit tighter, which told him she did.
“So dumb of him to think he could throw a party on the track field, but the whole school bought it. It was going to be the biggest deal.”
“And we knew we couldn’t go,” she supplied. Her gaze vacant, though it lain over the box.
“Because we weren’t cool enough.” Cody wanted to laugh at his remark.
“But we showed up out of sheer defiance,” she said for him, merging into the same memory.
“Then the rain came. It poured. I was waiting for you on the field, not a soul in sight. And you came running. Hair soaked. Couldn’t even see, you were squinting through the rain so hard. And those big stadium lights were blaring over us, bright as hell as if they were money well spent for the school district. It was our party, Hannah. No one there. Rain pouring down. But we didn’t care. We started singing loud, some terrible song.” Cody fell silent, stole a glance at her and his heart sighed when he saw the faintest of smiles on her face. He whispered, “I’m
here.”
Hannah took her time, but told him, “Yeah.”
Chapter Five
The overhead light buzzed like it was designed to unnerve and its periodic flicker wasn't helping.
Hannah ignored the justifiable twinge of embarrassment that came with letting Cody step inside her motel room, in favor of turning on the nearest nightstand lamp. Its tungsten glow lent a soft, amber cast to the room, making it less bleak. The only downside was that it brightened the mess she’d managed in just two days - toiletries strewn across a dresser, the drawers of which were ajar to varying degrees though empty, her suitcase lain open like the spoils of a small explosion, tees and panties and mismatched socks sprouting out. She hadn’t gotten so far in her organization to fill the dresser, tidy up nicely and tuck the case under the bed, its bedding stripped off and lain bunched in a nest on the floor. Hannah had a thing about beds, didn’t trust them, wouldn’t sleep in one.
Cody inched in as though canvassing damage in a war-torn country - alert, pained, brave.
“Sorry about the mess.”
Perhaps sensitive to her sudden insecurity, he turned for the door and took his slow time fixing the locks in place so Hannah could quickly stuff her undergarments into her suitcase and muscle it under the bed. She managed to sweep her toiletries into the top dresser drawer and shove it closed as well as the lower ones by the time he turned back. And it seemed to relieve him, though the state of the bed remained a mystery he’d never solve.
“You going to be okay here?”
“It’s just one more night.”
Though he remained reserved in his shock, his brows lifted. “You’re still planning on heading out?”
On a clipped sigh, Hannah indicated she had to. “Got a department to run.” The shrug she’d offered alongside it felt dishonest. She was torn up over seeing Kendra’s hand, chilled to her very core, though she wondered if the windows were contributing. She went to them and inspected signs of a draft then pulled the tattered curtains across figuring that’d do it.