by Mira Gibson
As Cody stood studying her, she avoided him and fished her flask out of her purse. If ever she needed a hard drink, it was now.
His gaze was high beams, blinding her, but she knocked back a solid nip, as she eased to the side of the bed.
“I think you should reconsider going home.”
“I know.”
As Hannah stole nips from her flask, conscious of his likely judgment, he seemed to experiment with how close to her he could sit, first setting down a ways away near the nightstand then shifting as if to get comfortable, all the while edging in.
The whiskey-burn melted any self-consciousness she’d been imprisoned in and she studied him right back. The amber glow from the lamp had him backlit, but his green eyes pierced through. How many times had they sat beside one another like this all those years ago, profile to profile, facing front in his pickup he’d let her drive even though she’d been a year shy of applying for her learner’s permit?
Ghosts indeed.
In terrible timing, Hannah hopped up to kill the overheads which had been grating on her nerves just as Cody started his hand towards her to offer her something words couldn’t. She felt the sting of her accidental rejection, but the cringe it’d caused went unnoticed as she flipped the switch. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and it wasn’t until she faced him that she realized the lighting was romantic.
Cody seemed to take an ounce of pleasure in staring up at her. His eyes turned a bit hungry, though he had enough good sense to shield it with a veil of gravity. Or maybe she was misreading. Maybe that’s how he looked at women these days so long as he had the privacy of four walls. Hannah probably wasn’t so special, but the bell to his Pavlovian response.
“I’m going to be straight with you, Hannah,” he said once she’d returned, leg tucked under her, the other hooked around the side of the bed, flask calling to her from between her hands. “I don’t want you to be alone tonight.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I am.”
“You can’t summon me to your station to have me look at butchered body parts then reap the benefit of my state.”
“That can’t be what you think I did.”
It hadn’t been, but she didn't appreciate being tempted.
“You wanted the inside track on the investigation,” he pointed out, no need to finish his statement.
“I’m not blaming you.” Knocking back another swig helped her think. “But years have gone by. You don’t get to pick up where we left off.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
He looked a bit ill to be put on the spot, but he’d made his bed and she had a perverse curiosity to see if he would lie in it or try to dance his way out.
“You’ve been through a lot in the past two days. Things could get worse. I know you’re strong. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to be.”
Mary came to mind. She’d thought the exact same thing about her half-sister. Why was it that you could easily see when someone’s burden was too great for them, but be blind to your own hardship and how it was destined to crush you?
He let his point go unaddressed, but he backed it up by placing his hand on her knee, which protruded at such an angle his effort to connect didn’t strain him. In fact, to Hannah it felt natural. And until she'd felt him, warm and firm, through her jeans, she hadn’t known how badly she needed it, human touch, his touch.
But his support was a dangerous thing. Hannah saw her mother’s hand in that box like she was back in the station, and it sent a sick feeling rushing through her.
She pushed hard against the impulse to hurl, anchored it in the pit of her stomach, then drowned it in booze.
“So when that... man...” Her stomach twisted at the thought of him. “When he recovers you’ll talk to him and find out where my mom is?”
Cody nodded, eyes glued to her, as though he were holding her together and if he blinked she’d fall apart.
She’d already fallen apart. Part of her had died seeing Kendra’s hand.
“More likely than not he’s a victim in all of this,” he started, guiding her through his logic. “Let's just say I’m confident he’ll be eager to talk, tell us what he knows, and put whoever’s behind this in prison.”
As if venturing to feed her more positive news to keep her going, Cody added, “There’s also a lot forensics will be able to tell us about the actual...” he trailed off, searched for a better word, couldn’t find one, swallowed hard on a shuddering cringe, “removal of her hand. To my untrained eye the cut looked relatively clean. If it was a surgical removal, that could greatly narrow our list of culprits.”
“Who's on the list of culprits?”
“Well, at the moment...” She could see he hated to admit it.
“No one,” she supplied. “Of course there’s no one. Kendra had no reason to be caught up in this.”
“What do you make of the message she carved in the dirt?”
It felt like he was pushing her and she wasn’t sure if she could take it.
“What do you make of the scenario where my mother would have time to carve a message in the dirt?”
Cody held her gaze and she could see the gears turning deep within, and yet there was always the hint of electricity between them, stronger than it’d been in high school, more thrilling than it’d been in the woods.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she went on, “there was blood. She might have been stabbed. At best it was a struggle. Even if her captors had gotten her to the dirt, braced her down, you think they’d let her carve some words out? A name? Or is it that you think they left her unattended?”
He thought it through and held his response.
“To me it doesn’t add up.” She let that hang in the air between them, as she debated cluing him into the rocky exchange she’d had with Mary. But seeing his kind eyes and believing in the honesty of his forthright nature, it dawned on her she’d be damned if he wasn’t the closest thing she’d ever have to a friend in all this, and realizing this tipped the scales. “I mentioned it to her.”
“And?”
“And let’s just say it didn’t go over well.” She snorted a laugh a bit surprised she had one in her then settled into drinking loosely.
There should’ve been more to the conversation, but Cody fell silent, his fast working mind at it just the same, but he didn't share his insights.
Whether he’d worked the matter through or abandoned it, he asked, “Why’d you lose touch with me?”
The booze zinging through her veins trumped her composure and Hannah let out a cocky response. “Two way street, my friend.”
“I thought you hated me.”
She lolled an easy shrug, brows floating up in agreement, then decided to find something interesting about her flask, took to eyeing it.
“For the record," he started, "I was a dumb kid. I was on cloud nine you went to prom with me, and not just because I had no chance of going with anyone else. I mean I was actually thrilled. I was a nervous wreck. I had to keep balled tissues in my slacks I was sweating so much at the thought of walking up to your door, and not just because I was scared shitless of Dale. That night meant a lot to me.”
“You’ve been keeping record?”
Now it was Cody’s turn to brush it off, but his responding shrug was halfhearted. This was serious to him. “Guess I have.”
She’d been keeping record, too. And everything that happened to her after he’d set off that night, satisfied to have scored, was so knotted up in her memory of him she couldn’t help but blame him. Then when he’d blabbed and she was branded a slut, she couldn’t take it.
And time hadn’t changed much - her animosity nor her desire for him. That was the trouble. She still felt a pang to lean towards him, even now. Nothing she’d ever done in all the years since that night had succeeded at cutting him clean from her heart.
“I need you to go now,” she softly announced.
> Wind over reeds. “Okay.”
He remained, let in a sharp inhale like he might say or ask something. Then he found her hand, laced his fingers through hers like before, and Hannah lost sight of why she was fighting whatever this was.
After strengthening his grasp to convey all he might have to offer, Cody slipped away and unlocked the door. In that brief moment alone on the bed before getting to her feet, Hannah had never felt more at odds. She was screaming inside for him to stay, hold her, prove to her that the world wasn’t a cruel place if only for a night. But part of her felt as though she didn’t deserve it. There’d be no solace until Kendra was found.
***
If Hannah hated anything, it was her own head-to-toe reflection in a dressing room mirror. Her system of buying clothes generally amounted to throwing a hanger over her head so the garment would drape down her front as she eyeballed it to assess if it’d do, flatter her shape, fit well enough, serve its purpose. Jeans were easy. Just hunt through the stack and pull her size. Coats and shoes were her favorite. Throw them on and they’d be the ones who told her if they fit. Hannah had employed her system at the K-Mart off Route 12, but driving back to the Super-8 to change didn’t make a lick of sense, so here she was, juggling tops and bottoms and angling her naked body away from her reflection, though peaks slapped at the corner of her eye.
To ensure she wouldn’t get sucked into the sight of herself, she clamped her cell between her ear and shoulder, listening to a blaring ring tone and hoping someone at the station would pick up.
“Holder?” She startled herself at how surprised she sounded to hear the Chief come through the line. “It’s Hannah Cole.”
There was his heavy sigh like she’d done something foolish.
“What is it?” he barked through the line. Her fault, she supposed. She should've been handing him his coffee by now, black with one Sweet & Low.
She felt like Mary launching into the twisted tale. “I headed over to Sanbornton for the weekend. Family emergency, to be honest. And, well, to refresh your memory, I never took my five days this past summer.”
Silence, whether bored or aggravated she couldn’t tell, but aggravated seemed his median mood so she had to figure.
“I have to ask for those days now.”
Another sigh. Hannah pictured him reclining hard against his squeaky chair, the poor thing straining to support his girth, as he worked displeasure from his jaw and narrowed his mean gaze on the ceiling tiles, considering the most brutal way to rip her a new one.
“You have to call human resources,” he grumbled.
Right. She knew that. It was the blouse all over again.
“Will do,” she quipped, but something kept her on the line, perhaps a need for his approval. “It’s my family-”
“Call it in to Jenny.”
“My mom’s gone missing-”
“If you don’t have the extension you can find it on the website.” Cold of him then the line went dead.
Hannah caught sight of herself in the mirror. Pale flat flesh hugged in a nude bra which fit her loose and crooked, underwear that’d lost elasticity from too many washes and yet still wasn’t broad enough to cover the downy dusting of pubic hair that had no concept of where her privates ended and her thighs began. No one wanted to see her like this, least of all Hannah.
She maneuvered to sit on the sorry excuse for a bench, being sure to keep her back to the mirror, and gnawed on her lip as she thumbed through her cell to pull up the precinct website, Jenny’s extension, and make her damned call.
Jenny was nice enough about it, even went the extra mile to allocate remaining sick days to apply towards her impromptu vacation. After Holder, Hannah hadn’t bothered to wade into the real reason behind her time off, and Jenny didn’t ask. By the time she hung up Hannah was looking at eight days permitted, not including Saturday and Sunday of course, which were hers in the first place. Counting on her fingers, she worked out she’d return to work next Thursday. She’d have to do a little math to see if she could swing the Super-8 for as long, but all told it had been a productive phone call.
Then it hit her.
Ten calendar days in Sanbornton. Ten days with Dale in her life. Ten days praying for her mother’s return and choking down the past and wrestling with her feelings towards Cody, would she make it out of this?
Suddenly, the bench felt too hard. She let the garments go. They cascaded to the floor, which she knew was dusty but couldn’t be worse than how she kept her clothes anyhow. She kneeled over them; riffled through, mindful that tight wouldn’t work unless paired with flowing.
Eager to get the hell out of the K-Mart, she bit the tags off fast, dressed even faster, and got to her Taurus, which she’d intentionally parked as far away from the entrance as possible.
The cold sting of the air hit her lungs and pulled the hot flush from her cheeks by the time she slid in behind the wheel. There, she dialed up Cranston, hoping he’d had time since sitting down that morning with her voice message to actually be able to do something about it.
When the ring tone opened up into heavy exhaling followed by slurping, a surge of hope filled her heart.
“Cranston?”
Loud swallowing then she heard him say, “Yeah?”
“It’s Hannah. Did you get my message?”
“Hannah.” His tone was warm, concerned. She almost lost it behind the wheel, but trained her gaze on the red and orange leaves fluttering down across the hood of her car. “Kills me we haven’t heard a thing. Damned WMUR reporting on one hundred year old twins blowing out birthday candles and people are getting snatched off in the forest in this county, no one the wiser.”
And that did it. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back.
“How the hell are you holding up over there?”
“Good,” she managed through her cracking voice then tried again in a deeper register. “Good. Got some time off from the department. Got some leads over here. You get around to looking into anything?”
Papers rustled through the line then something clattered and Cranston muttered shit under his breath, but masked it with, “Did. I did. Give me a second.”
More rustling then Cranston tapped angrily, probably his mouse against the desk.
“Kendra Cole.” It sounded like he was reading. “I’m going to give it to you straight, kid.” Never a good preface, but she held on. “Cole’s been arrested. Let’s see,” counting under his breath, “four times in the last year.”
“What?”
“Looks like,” more scrolling, his computer she figured. “Methamphetamine possession on all counts. Never did time. Third strike and she got community service, but the judge agreed to hours served at her church.”
Hannah literally could not believe what she was hearing and in the same breath Cody’s conviction that the hand was undoubtedly Kendra’s now made sense. She was in the system.
“That’s all I got,” said Cranston, breathing heavily into the receiver.
She mustered a thank you, but it was small.
“You just let me know anything else you need, you hear me?”
“Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“Hey,” he started before she could get off the line and lose herself in the simplistic foliage that fell around her vehicle as though everything she’d known about her mother wasn’t coming apart at the seams. “You okay?”
No, no she wasn't, she thought, but the words didn’t come.
“Focus on finding your mother. Have faith, Hannah. That’s what it’s there for.”
***
Having faith, as a mode to endure or a strategy to overcome, never sat right with Hannah. She spent the day in her motel room, trying to make sense of things, of herself, of her compulsive reapplication of eyeliner that couldn’t mask what she’d seen, her mother’s hand in a box. Drinking helped, but only by a slight margin which held too much room for error. Knowing this or despite it, she kept at it, ingesting her supply, though
it felt forced at times like her body had had enough but her mind couldn’t be satisfied, not until it was completely shut down.
Daddy soda.
It wasn’t lost on her that she was attempting to dig herself out of the hole he’d put her in using the tool he’d introduced. But as it stood she had to admit the ruin she found herself in, the catastrophe the whole family was suffering wasn’t his doing, not in a way she could prove, unless anyone cared to believe her gut.
Those locks.
Something wasn’t right about them.
Hannah eased into her nest of blankets on the floor, her eyelids heavy. And soon she was swept up in sleep’s warm bath.
Hours later she woke with a start. The room was cold, not drafty, not as if the heaters were losing a battle against the elements outside. Instinct told her the boiler had broken, wisdom earned from an unrelenting upbringing in the shack.
Keep fighting was the mantra that got her to her feet, got her coat on right quick, and gave her the strength to haul herself out to her Taurus, drive a shy mile into the woods, darkness and shadows threatening to swallow dusk even before it touched down.
She was close enough to on time when she hooked right, veering off the main road for the dirt one that led to Mary and Candice.
When she pulled to a stop, she knocked back the dregs from her flask, not a craving but a precaution to ward off the dull headache she knew would swell.
Mary was lingering around the porch and Hannah realized she was scrutinizing the hole she’d created when her foot had cracked through. Hammer in her right hand, grill of nails poking out of her mouth, she kicked at a fresh two by four lain on the highest step. Damned if the girl wasn’t a Boss, capital B no question.
She started for her then slowed up when she reached the bottom step. Mary didn’t so much acknowledge her as perform her pride at keeping house. Hannah had to take it as a bit of a dig. She’d created a chore for her sister, which Dale should’ve been handling.
Mary pinched the line of nails out of her mouth like a fistful of cigarettes, brushed her bleached hair off her forehead with her woolen sweater sleeve, an item from the local army-navy store no doubt, and said, “Hand me that board, would you?”