by P J Stanley
“So, you never told Cole?”
“No, not ever,” Zoey said, shaking her head as she hugged the pillow tighter and tighter. “I wasn’t going to sink down to her level. I’m not trying to make you angry. I’m not trying to sit here and talk shit about Blair. Yes, we were good friends at one point; hell, we were best friends. But something changed in her, Miss Keller. She wasn’t the same person I knew all these years. She was cold and manipulative and so secretive.”
“Professor Alden, you said?”
“Yeah, he teaches American Studies,” Zoey said.
“Is he teaching today?”
“Yes, but please, please don’t say anything to him, Miss Keller!” Zoey begged as she turned toward Emily.
“I won’t,” Emily lied as she stood up. She wouldn’t say anything about Zoey, sure.
But Blair, that was a different story.
***
Professor Johnathan Alden ran a black eraser across the large chalkboard that stretched along the north wall of the large lecture hall. Emily stood at the far-right corner of the room, watching the last remaining college students walk through the exit door to her left. How could Blair never tell her about this? How could she not tell her she cheated on Cole? She thought she knew everything about her daughter, but now, she didn’t know what was true and what was a lie.
“Professor Alden?” Emily called out, her voice echoing through the empty room as she made her way down the center aisle, passing the rows of seats that lined both sides.
“Guilty,” Jonathan said with a smirk as he turned from the board, slamming the eraser on the bottom edge of the chalkboard and rubbing his hands together. Emily stepped forward, stopping at the large desk that separated them as her eyes studied the tall, muscular man standing before her. His long, brown, wavy hair was slicked back. His jawline, strong and powerful, covered in a five-o’clock shadow as a big grin spread across his face, revealing a set of pearly whites. “And you are?”
“I’m Emily Keller, Blair Bradley’s mother,” Emily said, clearing her throat as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Can we make this quick?” Jonathan asked as he lifted his left wrist, eying his Rolex. “I’ve got another class to teach on the other side of the campus.”
“That depends on you,” Emily said.
“What can I do for you?” Jonathan asked as he rolled up the sleeves of his red sweater, his chiseled pecs pressing against the sewn fabric. He couldn’t have been much younger than Emily based on the crow’s-feet and wrinkles forming along his forehead.
“I wanted to talk to you about Blair.”
“She’s a good student,” Jonathan said. “She hasn’t been in class since she got back from Greece, though. I’m starting to worry about her. Is she okay?”
“No, she’s not okay. She’s missing,” Emily growled, resting her hands on the edge of the desk in front of her, her eyes burning into Jonathan.
“What?” Johnathan gasped, his eyes widening as he stepped around the desk, making his way toward Emily.
“She’s been missing for two days. Have you heard from her? Has she spoken to you?”
“No, not at all,” Johnathan said, shaking his head.
“I know about the two of you.”
“I’m sorry?” Johnathan laughed nervously, inching away from Emily, preparing for her to pounce at any given second.
“I know you were sleeping with my daughter.”
“Well, this isn’t exactly the way I thought we’d meet,” Johnathan said as he bit his bottom lip.
“Me either. First of all, what the hell are you doing sleeping with a student?” Emily snarled in disgust.
“She’s of age; it’s not like I’m doing anything illegal, here. We like each other,” Johnathan spat over his shoulder as he moved back around the desk, grabbing at the papers spread out on top.
“Well, I bet the dean and the board would love to hear all about your little fling,” Emily snapped.
“Go ahead and tell them. They’ve been wanting my ass out of here for two years now. I told Blair I didn’t care. I told her she was worth it. She knows how I feel about her, and it’s not my problem if you don’t like it.”
“I DON’T like it!” Emily yelled. “But the fact of the matter is that she’s missing! She’s gone, Professor! She hasn’t called or anything. It’s like she just vanished. What the hell are you doing with her anyway? God, you have got to be thirty-five, forty?”
“All I’m going to say is that I treat her better than that frat boy piece of trash she calls a boyfriend,” Jonathan scoffed as he stacked the papers into a pile in front of him.
“Do you know where she might be?”
“No!” Johnathan snarled. “I didn’t even know she was missing until now!”
“So, she never said anything to you? About maybe running away or leaving town?”
“Not a damn thing.” Johnathan sighed as he set the stack of papers down and leaned on the edge of the desk, staring back at Emily across from him. “What did the police say?”
“They checked her apartment and her car. They looked all around town and filed a report. They don’t know where she is,” Emily said, shaking her head.
“What do you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to tell me the God damn truth, that’s what! Tell me what you know!” Emily yelled, slamming her palms on the edge of the desk.
“All I know is she and Cole got into a fight. She called me and asked if she could stay with me and I said yes. I waited up all night for her, but she never showed. I just figured they made up.” Johnathan shrugged as he shoved the stack of papers into an open briefcase beside him.
“If you’re lying to me, I will find out. You better believe that,” Emily said.
“I’m not lying about anything. I don’t know where she is.”
“Well, you better pray she’s all right. Because if something happened to her because of you, you’ll go missing next. I promise you that,” Emily growled as she spun around and stomped toward the exit door.
drowning
A week. An entire week had dragged by, and there was still not a single sighting of Blair. There had been search parties. There had been fliers stapled to every telephone pole in town. There had been a nightly reminder on the evening news.
But still.
Nothing.
Emily knew with every second that ticked by, the odds of finding her daughter alive and well grew smaller and smaller. There was no activity on her credit cards. There was no activity on her cellphone. It was as if she vanished, evaporated into thin air, leaving no heartstring of Emily’s uncut. Emily tried to be positive. She tried to push the darkest thoughts in her racing mind into the corner, but deep down, she knew…
That something was terribly, terribly wrong.
She felt everyone’s eyes on her when she went to the store or pumped her gas. She knew what they were thinking. How could she ever let her child disappear? How could she ever let this happen to her daughter? She had spent the entire weekend inside her house, the bottle in her hand, drowning every piece of regret and blame she felt. She was terrified to go outside. She knew that at any given second, she would break again, the tears running down her red cheeks in tiny rivers. Every time her phone rang was like a bomb sounding off in her hands, her heart racing with every answer, praying she wouldn’t hear the worst.
But no call ever came.
Emily’s boots shuffled up the slick, concrete steps of her ex-husband’s brick-front townhouse as she shoved her trembling hands into the pockets of her black peacoat. He promised her she would be found. Mitch promised her that he would do everything and anything to bring her back. It was time for him to keep that promise. Emily stepped on the small front porch of Mitch’s apartment and reached forward, pressing her finger against the glowing, oval doorbell. The chimes sounded off inside as Emily heard the soft footsteps inching toward the door. The door opened as Emily stared back at Callie Bradley, Mitch’s barely legal wife.
“Is he here?” Emily asked as Callie adjusted Lexi Bradley, their four-month-old baby, on her right hip.
“You couldn’t have called first?” Callie sighed as her eyebrows arched, the soft, cool breeze dancing through her long, platinum blonde hair.
“Is he here or not?” Emily snapped, her jaw tight as her fists clenched at her sides.
“He’s upstairs.” Callie sighed as she stepped back, clearing the doorway for Emily to enter. Emily stepped into the large foyer, rubbing her hands together as the heat inside warmed her rosy cheeks. Emily turned to her right, eying the spiral staircase in the corner of their industrial apartment. Emily hated this place. It was so cold with the white walls and modern décor. It didn’t feel like a home. It felt vacant and empty. Emily rushed up the staircase, stepping into a large office area. Emily stared forward to see Mitch sitting at his desk, his glasses barely hanging on the tip of his nose.
“Have you heard anything?” Emily asked, cutting the silence as Mitch turned in his black computer chair.
“No, have you?” Mitch asked, clearing his throat as he took his glasses off and dropped them on the paperwork scattered along the top of his L-shaped desk.
“I don’t even know what else to do, Mitch,” Emily said, pacing back and forth slowly. “I feel so helpless.”
“There is nothing else we can do, Emily. We’ve checked everywhere. We’ve called everyone,” Mitch said as he stood up, inching toward Emily.
“Then what are we supposed to do, huh?” Emily snapped, turning toward Mitch beside her. “Just sit around and wait? Just wait for them to find her body? Just sit around and twiddle our thumbs? We are her parents, Mitch. We can’t just give up.”
“Give up? Is that what you think I’m doing?” Mitch snarled, his eyes narrowing on Emily.
“You promised me you’d find her! You promised me she would be safe!”
“Oh, give me a God damn break, Emily! I’ve done every single thing I can think of! I got the news involved! I got the town together for the search! I’ve done it all while you sit on your fucking pedestal with a God damn liquor bottle in your hand!” Mitch yelled, the veins in his throat pulsating.
“God, here we go again with that!” Emily snarled, tossing her head back and staring up at the ceiling.
“Why are you here, huh? Are you here to bust my balls and tell me again what a terrible father I was? Are you here to just tear me down because you did a damn good job at that for the majority of our entire marriage!” Mitch screamed.
“No, Mitch! I am here because I’m tired of feeling like this! I feel so lost and so broken! I feel like everything is just crashing down and I can’t catch my breath. I’m drowning and as much as I hate to admit it, you’re the only one who understands, because she is your daughter, too! You’ve ignored my calls and my texts! You don’t keep me in the loop with what’s going on with the investigation,” Emily cried, tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Because I know you can’t handle it, Emily! If something even remotely pushes you over the edge, you snap; you break, and I’m left to pick up every single piece. Do you not think this is hard for me, too? Seeing her picture all over town and seeing her face on the news. It makes me sick, Emily! It makes me think of all the shit I pulled during our marriage. It makes me think of all the mistakes I made raising Blair. The reason I haven’t been around is because it hurts me to be around you,” Mitch said, his voice quivering as tears filled his eyes. “Because I sit there and think about what I could have done differently, and that if I had done things differently, then maybe this never would have happened. Maybe she’d still be here. Maybe, somehow, this is my fault.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me all of this?” Emily sighed, shrugging.
“I don’t know,” Mitch said, hanging his head down as he plopped back down into his computer chair.
“This isn’t about us, Mitch. This isn’t about the mistakes we made or about the things we could have done differently. We can’t change what happened, but we can change what happens to Blair,” Emily said. “This isn’t about what we did wrong; it’s about the things that we can do right this time around. We both made mistakes and I know that. All that matters is that we find her and we bring her home.”
deception
Emily’s eyes scanned the messy living room of Blair and Cole’s apartment, the coffee table littered with empty bags of chips and dirty plates. Empty beer bottles rested on the side table beside the sofa as she watched Cole rush forward, grabbing at the trash. It was as if a tornado had spun through the room since the last time she had been there…
“I’m sorry,” Emily said, clearing her throat as she watched Cole struggle with the beer bottles in his arms. “I should have called, given you time to clean up.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just been rough lately with all of this going on,” Cole said, swallowing, as he rushed around Emily and darted into the tiny kitchenette behind her. Emily nodded as she walked around the sofa and to the window, pulling the black curtains open as the soft, gray daylight crept through the room. The smell of body odor and liquor circled through Emily’s nostrils as she turned, watched the specks of dust dance through the light in front of her.
“Yeah, things have been pretty hard the last couple of days,” Emily said as she pushed a black knitted blanket to the right and sat down on the couch.
“That’s a bit of an understatement.” Cole sighed as he walked into the living area and sat down in the black recliner across from the sofa. “What were you wanting to talk to me about? Have they found anything? Do they know where she is?” Cole asked as he ran his hands through his greasy, matted hair.
“No, nothing, yet,” Emily said, staring down at her lap as she picked nervously at the side seams of her black jeans. She didn’t even know where to begin. She didn’t even know how to tell him. But she had to. If she wanted to get to the truth, she had to get through the lies first. “I wanted to ask you something about Blair.”
“I told you and the police everything I know, Miss Keller. I don’t know where she is and if I did, I would say something,” Cole said as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Do you know Professor Alden?” Emily blurted out. She couldn’t skip around the truth. She had to come out and say it. There was no more time for games.
“Yeah, he teaches at Basler. Why? Do they think he has something to do with this?” Cole asked, his eyes widening.
“They don’t know.” Emily nodded, swallowing as she bit her bottom lip nervously. “Did you know about them, about their relationship?” Emily asked. Cole sighed heavily as he hung his head forward, his eyes closed.
“Yeah, I did,” Cole said, lifting his head as his jaw tightened. Emily felt her stomach turn as she shifted on the sofa. He knew, and stayed with her? He had known this the whole time and never even thought to bring it up?
“When did it start?”
“I don’t even know,” Cole said, leaning back into the recliner as he stared at the window in the corner. “That was what our fight was about before she took off. I heard it from a few of my buddies that they saw her running around with him a while back. She got back from Greece and I tried to forget about it, but I couldn’t. So, I asked her, and she denied it. She said that I was pathetic for even thinking that, and she told me she’d never do anything to hurt me.”
“And did you believe her?”
“I know I may seem like the dumb jock type, Miss Keller, but I’m not. When you sit there and you start putting the pieces together, you realize that some just don’t fit. You never see the signs until it’s too late, until you have no other choice.”
“It’s understandable that you were angry. I mean, anybody would be, Cole.” Emily nodded as her tongue stuck to the roof of her arid mouth.
“Hurt is more like it.” Cole nodded as Emily watched the tears fill his tired, red eyes.
“You didn’t hurt her, did you?” Emily asked as her lips trembled.
; “What?” Cole asked, his eyes darting to Emily across from him.
“Cole, please don’t get mad. I just—”
“You just what, huh?” Cole snapped. “You think I’d hurt her? You think I’d do something to her?”
“Well, like you said, Cole, sometimes the pieces don’t fit. But with this argument and her cheating on you, the pieces seem to be falling right into place!” Emily snapped.
“I can’t believe you have the nerve to come in here and accuse me of this! I would NEVER hurt Blair! EVER!” Cole spat as his fists tightened at his sides, the veins in his arms rising to the surface as his cheeks grew redder and redder.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t have! You shouldn’t have come here! You shouldn’t have ever butted into her life! You shouldn’t have ever gotten involved!” Cole yelled as he marched toward the front door, reached forward, and pulled it open. “Now, get out.”
“Cole, can we just please—”
“I said get out!” Cole snarled. Emily stood, her legs trembling beneath her, ready to give out at any second. She pushed him too far. Any chance she had at getting the truth from Cole was now up in flames. Emily stepped through the doorway and into the hallway of the apartment complex. She turned, staring back at Cole as his eyes burned into her.
“I’m sorry.” Emily nodded, combing her hair behind her ears.
“Me, too,” Cole said as he grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it shut.
***
Emily twirled her fork through the alfredo sauce on her plate as she listened to the rain pound against the roof high above. She played the conversation she had with the sheriff over and over again, how Blair was sleeping with Professor Alden and that he might be a viable suspect. He said he’d follow up with the lead, but there was only so much they could do.
“Are you not hungry?” Hank asked as his deep voice smashed through Emily’s trance.