by Wendy Walker
How death does not always occur. But severe illness does. Incapacitating illness. The kind that makes it impossible to move, or run. The kind that would allow someone to lock you in a room behind metal bars and then drive away.
It has a sweet taste.
Sweet, like sugar.
Sweet, like Alice. I must believe this. I must hold her close.
And then this sweet girl tells me, in a sleepy voice, “Do you know that it’s selfish to have children?”
I am very quiet now as I whisper, “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she says, “you had children so you could have someone to love. So you could have football games to watch every other Thursday.”
I am still. Perfectly still as I always am in these moments when Alice reveals something new to me. I fear if I move she will stop talking. But she stops anyway.
“I do love watching my son’s football games. Do you know where I go to see them?”
But she doesn’t bite. She doesn’t care about my desperate need to understand what is going on, how they know these things about me—so many things, like he’s been watching me. But how?
“That’s not the point!” she says. She wants to finish her story. Her theory.
“Okay, Alice. I’m sorry. You think it’s selfish to have children?”
“It’s not what I think. It’s just what is. It’s selfish to have children because they’re just going to die one day.”
I don’t know what to say to this. She is right and wrong all at the same time. But then I think she is just right, so I have nothing to say.
But this is not the end of her little story.
“You should know that better than anyone,” she says. “You got to watch it happen.”
I feel my arms release just a little, wanting to hold this child just a little less. As little as I possibly can without prolonging this night. Without undoing my work.
I wonder who put this thought in her head, and if she knows how deeply she has wounded me. I think, then, that wounding me was her intention. Now she can feel sorry for me.
The muscles in my face quiver as I fight to keep them steady.
I feel her drift off, and then I drift off too, not to sleep, but to thoughts.
Thoughts about how we are born to die. Thoughts about death, period.
And what I have hidden under my bathroom sink.
22
Day fourteen
Officer Reyes met Nic in the business center of the hotel. He was off duty and Nic sensed that she’d pulled him away from something.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He sat down next to her then slid his chair closer to see what had captured her attention on the computer.
“I really don’t know,” she said. “But you didn’t have to come here. I could have explained it on the phone.”
Reyes nodded. “I know. But I was just watching a game.” He looked up then, around the empty room. “I’ve been here plenty of times. Never knew it had an office until…”
He stopped himself from saying it. Until your mother disappeared.
Nic moved them forward.
“It’s actually a business center.”
“Ahh,” Reyes said, smiling now. “A business center. Very upscale. And clearly a big hit with the clientele.”
Nic felt her shoulders drop with an exhale. The bite of sarcasm was soothing.
She pulled up the satellite image of the property behind the inn. Reyes leaned in closer. His arm brushed hers, then pulled away.
“I’m not sure what you want me to see.”
Nic pointed to the screen—to the inn, the fence she’d seen on her run, how it turned away from Booth’s property and seemed to encircle a large parcel of land behind it. Then she traced the line of the driveway all the way up to a house.
“Okay. So there’s a property with a fence and a house on Abel Hill Lane. I don’t get why this helps figure out what happened to your mother.”
Nic sat back in her chair. “It’s a tall fence, with barbed wire. Someone cut a hole into it, making a kind of flap. And the property isn’t listed on Zillow. It isn’t listed anywhere on the internet.”
“Huh.” Reyes was curious now. He leaned in closer—again brushing her arm. This time he did not pull it away as quickly.
“It doesn’t look familiar—this driveway or fence. I’m trying to think about the houses on Abel Hill…”
“Isn’t there some way you can search for it—on the police systems or something? I’m wondering if anyone even lives there. Kurt Kent from the bar—he said maybe some neighborhood kids were looking for a cut-through to town … which means maybe it’s abandoned, and then maybe…”
“It wasn’t searched,” Reyes finished her thought.
“You tell me,” Nic said.
“I’d have to check the log of the canvas.”
“Can you run the property, see who owns it? I researched the two companies that had plants here—RC Chemical and later, Ross Pharma. One article said Ross bought the plant owned by RC. It looks like the house is on the same land with their buildings—red brick, black roofs.”
“Town Hall has all the land records. I searched those buildings myself, me and a trooper—the ones that used to be Ross Pharma. We didn’t see a house.”
“And utilities? Can we find out if they’re servicing that house?”
“Yeah—from the companies who run them. Electric, cable. Or they might have satellite or another provider for internet, if they have it. Then there’s heat—natural gas or oil. We get both around here.”
Yes, she thought. That all makes sense. That all seems possible. She finally drew a breath that filled her lungs.
“Can I show you one last thing?” she asked.
“Sure.”
Nic zoomed in on the satellite image of the property on Abel Hill Lane. She’d been staring at it on and off for over an hour, not believing her own eyes.
She pointed at a small object just beyond the house—beneath a tree, but a tree with a missing limb right in the center. From the top, she could see through it to the image hiding beneath the canopy.
“What does that look like to you?”
Reyes squinted, stared. “I have no idea. Maybe a tractor. Piece of farm equipment?”
“Or a pickup truck. Dark color,” Nic said. She let the thought sink in.
Reyes looked closer. “I suppose—can you zoom in more? Maybe get a different angle, or a different shot from another day?”
“This is the only one I could find. But think about it, she was seen getting into a truck—heading into town, not away from town. And now there’s a property that hasn’t been searched…”
“That may not have been searched. We won’t know that until we look at the log.”
Nic’s thoughts were running wild again.
She wanted to tell him about Chief Watkins, about what she’d seen. She didn’t want to drive him away by accusing his boss of something. And what something would that even be?
She couldn’t hold back.
“Did you know Chief Watkins drives a dark gray truck?”
Reyes burst out laughing. “Wait…” He covered his mouth with his hand, stifled the laughter. “You think the chief’s truck is the truck Edith Moore saw?”
“So you do know?”
“Everyone knows. He’s had it for years.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
Reyes grew defensive. “No, I didn’t. Do you know who else has a truck? Mr. Klinger down on Mulberry Street. Henry Drumming on Maple. Let me think … oh—I know! Mrs. Urbansky! Sweet Orla Urbansky—now, hers is silver, but we already established that Edith Moore couldn’t see a fucking thing because of the storm and is just hoping to cash in when your mother finally decides to come home!”
Nic stared at him now, stunned by the abrupt change. He was just as quick to anger as he was to soften.
“Maybe Mrs. Urbansky helped your mother disappear. Hell, maybe she and the chief are in it together.”
“Okay—I get it,” Nic said. “I didn’t know. That’s all. I saw him here earlier and it just surprised me.”
“Was he with a woman?” Reyes asked.
“How did you know?”
“Jesus, were you watching? I didn’t peg you for that sort of thing.”
Nic felt her cheeks burn. “I wasn’t watching.”
Reyes stared at her, raised an eyebrow.
“Not like that. I saw him walk to the truck and I didn’t know what to do.”
Reyes was now contrite. “I’m sorry. I don’t meant to give you a hard time. Two things—first, the chief has his vices. It’s common knowledge. His wife’s death did a number on him. But second—the chief is also the man who took me in when I needed a change. Saved my life, really. And the things he does for the community—the kids in this town. You have no idea. Since he lost his wife before they could have children, he’s been a man of service. And a man of vice. Every coin has two sides, right?”
Nic ran this information through the other facts she now held back. How he’d helped Daisy Hollander leave town. The contempt Kurt Kent seemed to have for him and Reyes, contempt that Nic had yet to understand but knew was very real. And the tone of his voice when he was done with that prostitute in the parking lot. He’d been cruel and degrading, practically shoving her out the door.
“I didn’t know,” Nic said.
“It’s all right.”
She thought then about two sides to every coin. About the two sides of her father.
“I need to tell you something.”
Reyes leaned in and listened intently as she told him about her suspicions, the late nights, the car parked downtown and not at the train station.
“I’m sorry about that,” Reyes said. “You think it had something to do with your mother’s disappearance?”
“I don’t know. Except that I all but told her the morning she left. Maybe it pushed her over the edge.”
“And now you blame yourself.”
He touched her arm. She didn’t pull away. And she felt it again, the anticipation of relief that she knew would come if he held his hand there. If she let it linger just long enough to travel through her. A little bolt of electricity. And from there, another touch, and another and another until they were swept away.
“Tell you what,” Reyes said, moving his hand. “Tomorrow we’ll check the land records and utilities for the property, and the log for the search and canvass. We can even go knock on the door if you want. And I’ll do a little looking into your father. Shouldn’t be too hard. We have all the bank and credit card statements.”
That would all be fine, tomorrow. But tonight—what about tonight and right now? Exhausted, confused, the hollow spaces wanting to be filled. She couldn’t fight it.
The words flew from her mouth.
“Let me buy you a drink.”
23
Day fifteen
I wake up with two bodies beside me. Alice is lodged against my spine, under the covers. One arm over my waist, the other on the back of my neck.
But I feel another hand on my hip. Over the covers, but still heavy enough to feel its weight. The hand of a man. The hand of Mick.
I do not move a single muscle. I do not turn my head to see him, to confirm what I already know. I stare at the beams of light coming through the cracks of the boarded up window. And I wait for them to stir. His touch is repulsive, and yet I am suddenly filled with hope.
Be patient, I tell myself this morning, as the light comes in and the plan continues to form in my mind. Maybe I have more time than I thought. Maybe he is starting to like me the way Alice does.
I feel the hands touching me, the bodies stealing comfort from mine. I lie still.
Be patient.
Alice is the first to wake. She groans a bit and pulls me closer with her little arms, snuggling deeper.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
“He’s here with us,” she whispers.
“I know.”
I wait for her to giggle or feel her cheeks smile against my back. I think that this should make her happy, that we are all together in this bed. That I am being a good second mommy to her and pleasing Mick.
But her voice grows shaky.
“This is how it begins,” she says. “When he gets into the bed with us.”
“How what begins?” I ask.
She pulls my hair so my head is forced closer to her ear.
I wince but I do not complain.
Be patient, I say to myself, even as I hear the words she says next. Words that make me gasp in the cold air.
“The end,” she says. And then she gives me a kiss.
24
Day fifteen
Nic awoke with a hangover and scattered memories. It was both familiar and unnerving.
She did not linger in bed. Instead, she went straight to the bathroom and ran a shower. She stepped in while it was still cold and let the water sting her skin.
She brushed her teeth, downed four Advil.
Her head still ached from the four drinks with Officer Reyes. From going to bed drunk.
Then she remembered that she’d had to leave her mother’s car at Laguna. Reyes had driven her here, back to the inn, walked her to her room.
But that was all. She was certain. Although not for lack of trying.
Shit. What had she done, exactly? Tried to kiss him. Pull him into her room? And he’d wanted to, hadn’t he? She’d felt his body respond. Now she was grateful he’d resisted. She needed someone to help her find her mother. Not another stranger she had to kick out of her bed in the morning.
But it had been more than raw need last night. It was the story he’d told her, which she was also now remembering. A story worthy of four drinks and a new perspective on Officer Jared Reyes. It explained why he’d come to Hastings, and why he had such a strong alliance with Chief Watkins.
Reyes had been involved in a shooting when he was a rookie back in his hometown, in Worcester, three hours north of here. A lone gunman had been lurking outside a school. Stalking the grounds, waiting, as it turned out, for the police to arrive. Waiting so he could draw them close, then pull his own weapon, forcing them to shoot. Forcing them to kill him. But his gun had been a toy, a fake. Reyes had killed an unarmed man in a suicide-by-cop. She could have listened to him all night, talking about the emotional pain that was now a deep scar he’d learned to live with.
Nic looked in the bathroom mirror, stared into her own eyes to see if she was remembering all of this right.
Reyes had described his memory of the young man falling to the ground. The blood pooling around his torso. The way it entered his own body as a fantasy, a scene from a movie. And then the rush of something vile as his brain processed reality. And this vile something changed every cell in his body in an instant. Every single cell. Those had been his words. But they were also Nic’s.
Reyes had managed to describe exactly what had happened to her as she stood on that driveway and watched her mother’s car send her little sister flying through air.
Had she started to cry then? She stared into her own eyes now, trying to remember. Yes, she had cried. And Reyes had held her. Kissed her forehead. Then driven her back here, sparing her the degradation of turning their new connection into something sexual. He knew about living with hollow spaces.
I’m not going to help you make them bigger, he’d said to her as he walked away from her room.
No one else had understood why she did the things she did. It wasn’t in any textbook. But Reyes knew because he’d lived it as well.
That explained so much about him—how he exuded confidence and swagger, pulling women in. Probably sleeping his way through the county. But also why he was the only one who seemed to give a shit about finding her mother. And why he was so loyal to Chief Watkins, who had saved his life by giving him a second chance at being a cop.
* * *
A young woman was at the front d
esk.
“Can I speak to Roger?” Nic asked her.
She smiled politely. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“No.” Nic was insistent. “It’s important.”
The woman picked up the house phone. “Hold on,” she whispered. Then, into the receiver, “Our guest asked to see you…”
Then a nod and a smile as she hung it up.
“He’s in his apartment,” she said. “It’s the second door down the hallway.”
She pointed to the hallway that began just beneath the stairs.
The door was already open when she got there, Booth greeting her with a burst of surprise, and an “Oh my!”
“What?” Nic asked.
He motioned toward her face, her hair. “It’s cold out. Your hair is wet.”
“I didn’t bring a hair dryer,” Nic said.
Booth looked confused. “There’s one under the sink.”
“I didn’t know. Can I come in?”
Booth hesitated, glancing behind him as though checking to see if his home was worthy of visitors.
“Do you have company?” Nic asked. “I can come back.”
Booth looked nervously at the floor. His cheeks turned red, and when she studied them they also seemed chapped from a recent shave.
Shaved. Neatly dressed. Smelling of cologne. All just to sit in his apartment or work at the diner. He really seemed to have no idea about what this place was like, Hastings.
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
He stepped aside. “Come in. Please…”
His apartment was no bigger than her room upstairs. A bed, a small sitting area. A bathroom. The only addition was a wall of kitchen appliances near the window that faced the odd patio out back.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked.
“Do you have coffee?”
“Instant?”
“Sure,” Nic said, taking a seat at the table.
Booth put a kettle on a small gas stove. He prepared two cups on the counter—one with instant coffee grinds, and the other with a loose tea strainer.