Between Lost and Found

by Shelly Stratton

  Janelle rushed across the living room and reached the kitchen, almost stumbling into the corner of the center island. She gripped the edge of her marble counter to steady herself. Her legs felt weak.

  “What happened?” Janelle asked. “Wait! Who is this? Why do you have his phone?”

  “Uh, I can’t tell you who it is. You don’t . . . it ain’t something you need to know. He’s missing and . . . and if you’re any decent kin, you’ll . . . you’ll come looking for him. You’ll come to Mammoth Falls!”

  “Looking for him? What?”

  “Come and find your grandfather! If you’re really worried about him, you’ll come here,” the woman insisted.

  As Janelle listened, she told herself to remain calm, to not become hysterical.

  Breathe in, Breathe out.

  But it wasn’t working in the slightest.

  “Are the police searching for him? Wait . . . did you call the police? Did you tell them that he’s—”

  The caller hung up, and Janelle was left staring at her phone, dumbfounded.

  “Jay!” someone shouted from behind her, making her jump. Her phone fell from her hands and clattered to the floor.

  Janelle whipped around to find one of her old sorority sisters, Melanie, standing in the entryway, flapping her arms wildly as if she were trying to take flight right there in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing hiding with the pots and pans?” Melanie cried, rushing across the room. “Get out there, girl! He’s looking for you!” She then grabbed Janelle’s arm and pulled, running across the room with high heels click-clacking over the tiled floor.

  Janelle was too dazed to ask why she was being dragged out of the kitchen or who exactly was looking for her. She allowed herself to be pulled along like a limp ragdoll. When she entered the living room, she was greeted by more than two dozen pairs of eyes. All of them stared at her with a feverish intensity and palpable anticipation that made her anxious and even more confused.

  What the hell is going on?

  “There you are!” Mark exclaimed as he stepped away from the fireplace. His shout sounded like a thunderclap in the hushed room. The crowd parted to clear the path for him as he strode toward her.

  Brenda stood behind Mark, dabbing at her reddened eyes with one of the linen napkins from the buffet table.

  “I thought you were in here,” he said, grinning ear-to-ear. “You missed my whole buildup. I did a speech and everything!”

  “A s-s-speech about what?” she sputtered.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure someone in here got it on their phone. You can watch it later. Besides, the only part that really matters is this.” He then reached into one of the inner pockets of his suit jacket and pulled out a black velvet box. She watched as Mark slowly, almost dramatically flipped the box lid open.

  He revealed a solitaire diamond set against a simple white gold or platinum band. A collective gasp filled the living room. Someone let out a girlish squeal.

  “Janelle April Marshall, you are everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman: beauty, brains, all in a no-nonsense package. You’re my other half, my perfect fit, and I couldn’t imagine a day without you. Janelle, will you marry me?” Mark asked, holding out the ring to her. She gazed at it dumbly while everyone in the room fell silent, waiting for her reply.

  The spotlight was on her. She tore her eyes from the ring and met Mark’s dark irises.

  “Well?” Brenda said, leaning forward.

  Someone coughed.

  A myriad of thoughts jostled around in Janelle’s mind at that moment. She uttered the one that shoved the hardest, that shouted the loudest.

  “Pops is missing,” she said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Janelle sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed lotion—or “body rescue cream,” according to the bottle label—onto her hands and forearms. She raised the hem of her silk nightgown and stared down at her feet, which were now sporting reddened soles and budding calluses thanks to the dainty sling-back heels she had worn during the housewarming. She decided her feet could use some “rescuing,” too. She grabbed the bottle to squeeze more into her palm.

  Her hands moved ceaselessly, massaging the scented lotion onto her feet. It helped her stifle the urge to wring her hands.

  Pops is fine, she told herself. There’s no reason for alarm. That woman was playing some horrible prank, that’s all.

  Janelle then glanced at her cell phone. It sat on her ebony night table between her alarm clock and a box of Kleenex. She wanted to keep it within arm’s reach because even though she had left messages on both Pops’s cell and home phone, he still hadn’t called her back, which wasn’t like him.

  He’s just busy.

  The sound of the evening news droned in the background on the wall-mounted flat-screen television. Through the closed door, she could hear Mark shuffling around in their master bath—opening and closing cabinets, turning on the faucet, and banging his toothbrush against the rim of one of the vanity’s double sinks.

  Pops hasn’t disappeared. Don’t leap to any irrational conclusions. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this. You know . . . Occam’s razor and all that.

  But with each passing minute, her anxiety ratcheted up higher and higher. She felt jittery, like a soda bottle that had been shaken too hard and all it would take was one twist of the lid and she would explode in a frothy mess.

  Janelle nearly jumped when she heard the toilet flush. She heard Mark turn the water on and then off before opening the door and striding into their bedroom wearing only his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He yanked back the gray silk duvet and climbed in bed beside her.

  “Well, tonight was interesting,” he muttered.

  “Huh?” she asked absently, still rubbing on lotion.

  “The housewarming party that I thought was going to turn into an engagement party but didn’t.” He punched the stack of pillows behind him, leaving an indentation in the down feathers. He then braced his pillows against their leather headboard and leaned back. “I said it was interesting.”

  She winced and lowered her foot back to the floor. “I’m sorry, honey. You just caught me off guard. It was the worst case of bad timing.”

  “I didn’t know me choosing to ask you to marry me in front of all of our family, friends, and neighbors was bad timing.”

  She loudly sighed as Mark grabbed the remote from his night table. He pointed it at the television across the room and started flipping channels, refusing to look at her.

  The two fell into strained silence.

  She knew she probably should feel bad that his proposal had gone so horribly. Instead of gushing over the ring and shouting, “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you,” followed by applause worthy of any stellar Broadway performance, she had railed about the mysterious phone call and her grandfather disappearing somewhere in the Black Hills. Mark had had to ask her to repeat herself three times before he finally figured out what she was saying.

  All of the guests left soon after, whispering among themselves or exchanging bemused expressions. Janelle Marshall . . . raving like some lunatic? Her of all people?

  “Shana, let’s go,” Brenda had barked before glaring at Janelle almost with disgust, as if she blamed her for ruining Mark’s proposal. She had then stomped out the front door and down the walkway to her Jag.

  “’Night!” Shana had shouted over her shoulder before scuttling after Brenda.

  But what was I supposed to do? Janelle thought.

  This could be a serious emergency—an elderly man may have disappeared in the cold, lonely terrain of the Black Hills. That took precedence over anything else, including an elaborate proposal. But she realized Mark had put a lot of effort into this. She knew he must be disappointed in how it had all turned out.

  “Mark, honey,” she began tentatively, turning toward him, “I really am sorry about what happened. You know I don’t normally act like this. I mean it . . . if I could do it all over again, I would—”

 
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t say yes. You just left me standing there, holding the ring like some . . . some jackass!”

  “I couldn’t say yes because I was shell-shocked! I went from being stunned to being worried about Pops. I’m still worried about him!”

  He furrowed his brows. “Why? You said yourself that that woman who called was probably playing a joke on you.”

  “Yes, but . . . I don’t know that for sure. I mean he still hasn’t—”

  “She was probably one of his drinking buddies or something,” Mark said, not hearing her. He finally landed on MSNBC, where Lawrence O’Donnell sat in front of a fake backdrop of the New York City skyline while talking about the auto industry. “They got sauced off their asses and thought it would be great to steal his phone and tell his granddaughter he got lost somewhere,” Mark continued. “I would imagine that for people in the sticks, you find your entertainment wherever you can get it.”

  She set down her lotion bottle. “I know, honey! But that still doesn’t keep me from worrying about him.” She glanced again at her silent cell phone. “I hate that he hasn’t called me back. It’s just letting all these paranoid fantasies run wild in my head. What if he really is missing? What if that lady and her friends kidnapped him and are holding him for ransom in some—”

  “Are you serious? Kidnapping?”

  “I know it sounds crazy!” She shrugged helplessly, feeling very worn and very tired. “But I told you, until I talk to Pops, I don’t know anything for sure.”

  “Yeah, well, I know a few things for sure,” he said with widened eyes. “I know that I now have an engagement ring in my drawer that I thought would be on your finger. I know a random stranger halfway across the country completely ruined our evening with some dumb joke!”

  “But it might not be a joke! It could really be something serious. Pops could be—”

  “I also know I’m tired of talking about this!” he shouted.

  Janelle’s cheeks flushed with heat. She bit down hard on her bottom lip.

  “Fine,” she said, making Mark roll his eyes in exasperation. “Then we won’t talk about it anymore.”

  “Jay, come on . . .”

  She reached over and turned off her night table lamp, dropping her side of their bedroom into darkness. She pulled back the duvet and climbed beneath it. She turned her back to him and burrowed under the sheets until they were up to her shoulders.

  The drone of O’Donnell’s voice filled the gap that the couple’s silence left behind. Mark slowly exhaled then placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  She didn’t answer him and raised the sheets to her chin.

  “I know you’re worried about your grandfather. I just don’t think you have anything to worry about, baby. I spoke to him today. I called to ask him for permission to marry you, and he . . .” Mark paused. “Well, anyway, I’m sure not that much has changed between this morning and this evening. It’s not even twenty-four hours. How would they even know he’s missing? He doesn’t need your help. He’ll call you back tomorrow. Just . . . just get some sleep, okay? Stop worrying.”

  Mark’s hand disappeared, and all she could feel was the warmth his imprint left behind on her skin. Janelle listened as he turned off the television then flicked a switch, making the entire room go black save for the blue, ghostly glow from both of their alarm clocks. She heard the soft clatter of his glasses landing on his night table. The bed dipped as he shifted, adjusted his pillows, and lay on his side.

  “Good night,” he whispered before leaning over to sweep a kiss as dry as crepe paper across her cheek. It was so quick that she barely registered it.

  Within fifteen minutes, she could hear Mark’s rhythmic snores.

  She groped in the darkness for the edge of her night table, then felt along the surface until she found her cell phone. She shoved down the sheets and checked her screen. She still hadn’t gotten a call from Pops. She checked the volume on her ringer. It was at the highest setting. If her grandfather called, she would hear it. She slid the phone back onto her night table.

  Janelle closed her eyes. She raised her wrist to her nose and sniffed, inhaling the “body rescue cream.” It smelled like lavender and vanilla—a scent that was supposed to be calming but seemed to have no effect on her. She couldn’t be calm. She couldn’t quiet her thoughts. They were like wailing infants, screaming for her attention.

  Pops is missing!

  You need to go to Mammoth Falls to find him!

  Pops hasn’t called you back!

  Maybe something is wrong!

  Waaaaaaaaa!

  She opened her eyes, pulled back the covers, and eased out of bed so as to not wake Mark, though disturbing him wasn’t likely. Mark’s snores were louder now. They sounded like a buzz saw, like a hog with nasal congestion. His snoring, which she usually ignored, annoyed her tonight. At least the noise would drown out any sound she could possibly make.

  She found her phone in the dark and used the glowing screen to guide her way across their expansive bedroom. She was careful not to bump into the armchair on her side of the bed or trip over the Brooks running shoes that Mark had left in the middle of the floor yesterday and still hadn’t put in his closet, even though she had asked him twice to do so. She slowly opened the door and stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.

  As she walked down the hall to their home office, she speed-dialed the number to her grandfather’s cabin, the cabin she had seen only in pictures because she had never set foot in Mammoth Falls.

  “I am not going to Mammoth, Pops! I don’t fish. I don’t hunt,” she could remember proclaiming once as she counted the “don’ts” off on her fingers. “You really expect me to go to a place with moose and geese and mountain people? What in the world is a person like me supposed to do in Mammoth Falls, South Dakota?”

  Once she got Pops on the phone, her worry would disappear. She told herself this as she walked into the twelve-by-twelve-foot room that was filled with two matching desks facing opposite walls. Opened laptops sat on both desks, and in front of each were identical leather rolling chairs. More unopened cardboard boxes sat near the room’s only window, waiting to be unpacked.

  Janelle sat in one of the chairs and listened to the phone ring in Pops’s cabin. The phone rang . . . and rang . . . and rang.

  “Hey! This here is Little Bill,” her grandfather answered jovially in his voice mail greeting in the raspy voice she knew all too well. “I can’t come to the phone right now! So you go on and leave your name and phone number after the—”

  Janelle hung up. She then quickly dialed his cell phone—the one she had bought him for Christmas, along with a charger. She had made him swear to keep his cell on him at all times, though considering that woman had called from his phone hours ago, it didn’t seem like Pops had kept his promise. Janelle leaned forward with her elbows on her knees as she listened to it ring over and over.

  “Pops, where are you?” she whispered desperately. Again, she hung up before the voice mail greeting ended. She set her cell phone on the desk beside her and slumped back into her chair.

  Janelle sat in her office for several minutes, staring at nothing in particular, not moving. She listened to the soft hum of the AC unit and the tick-tock of the vintage grandfather clock in the hallway. Finally, she turned around and booted up her laptop. She told herself that she would get some work done for an hour or two if she wasn’t going back to sleep immediately. Work was drudgery to some, but it was always calming to her. There were emails she could draft, staff evaluations to review. She didn’t realize what she was really doing until she closed the screen on one of the HR documents she had opened and pulled up a travel web site. She started researching flights from Reagan National, BWI, and Dulles International to see what carrier had the cheapest and earliest flights to airports in western South Dakota.

  “What are you doing?” a little voice in her h
ead asked. It sounded a lot like Mark’s. “You aren’t really considering going out there, are you?”

  She dragged her finger across the keypad and scrolled down the page. There was a flight leaving BWI at noon tomorrow. There was another leaving Reagan at 10:35 a.m.

  “Oh, Jesus, you really are considering going there!” the voice in her head lamented. “He isn’t missing! This was just some asinine prank and now you’re going to travel hundreds of miles across the country because of it?”

  “One seat left!” the screen taunted in bright red letters next to the Reagan flight listing. Janelle gnawed her bottom lip as her finger hovered over the keypad.

  “Are you insane? You can’t disappear to Mammoth Falls on a wild goose chase!” Mark’s voice yelled frantically in her head. “You have to go to work tomorrow! You have that PowerPoint presentation on sexual harassment to review, and the two new hires are starting their orientation. You have a mountain full of boxes to still unpack. You were supposed to meet Allison for dinner Thursday so that you guys can plan Crystal’s baby shower. You made a whole color-coded binder of Pinterest baby shower photos! Those are your priorities! Not some silly phone call from a woman who wouldn’t even give you her name. Just go back to bed, go to sleep, and give up this ludicrous idea!”

  Janelle glanced at her silent phone yet again. She had now called her grandfather more than a half dozen times and left messages, but he still hadn’t called her back.

  The last time something like this had happened, it had been her father, not her grandfather who had gone missing, and she had continued to wait for him—letting one day turn into two, and two into three, and three had finally stretched into a full week.

  “I still haven’t heard from him, Mom,” she’d told her mother all those years ago while sitting on her college dorm room bed, dangling her feet over the bottom bunk. “I know Dad’s gone MIA before—”

  “You mean like the time he didn’t show up to your high school graduation and didn’t call you back until two days later?”