Between Lost and Found

by Shelly Stratton

  “Whatever you need, I hope you find it,” he said and he meant it.

  He then leaned forward and kissed her. She kissed him back, and he pulled her against him and held her close. A minute later, she dragged her lips away and ran her knuckles on the scruff along his chin. She gazed sadly at him.

  Here it comes, he thought, feeling the weight of resignation and acceptance crash into him like a sack of bricks.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she whispered.

  “Are you going to come back to Mammoth?” he asked, trying to keep the ache out of his voice.

  He examined her face before she answered. He knew her well enough now that he could tell when she was lying. She wasn’t a very good liar.

  “Yes,” she answered truthfully, “if by some extreme chance you have any more info about Pops. Or if Connie needs someone to clean and pack up his cabin.”

  “I’m sure she can get folks to help with that. You don’t need to come back for that unless you really want to.”

  “I don’t know . . . but I know I can’t keep lingering like this. I don’t know what purpose it would serve besides making me sad and miss Pops even more.” She rested her hand on top of his and squeezed it. “You have an open invitation to visit my neck of the woods. I can reacquaint you with our nation’s capital.”

  He shook his head. “I have too many memories of Gabby out there. It’d be like walking through a graveyard.”

  He could imagine strolling down some city street and stumbling upon an Indian bistro that reminded him of the one with the geriatric waiter where he and Gabriela had had their first date. Or maybe he would be walking in front of the Jefferson Memorial to admire the cherry blossoms and get assailed with the memory of the first time he had kissed her along the Tidal Basin. Those recollections of Gabriela would never disappear, but he’d rather not come face-to-face with them so soon after her death.

  Like Janelle, he needed to get a little stronger first.

  “I understand,” she said before kissing his cheek. “Maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle. How about New Orleans? Ever seen the French Quarter?”

  Will we meet up as close friends . . . or something more? he wondered, but didn’t voice the question aloud. Instead he said, “Too hot. How about Chicago?”

  She laughed sadly. “Too cold.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered, hoping it was true.

  She nodded and slowly eased away from him. He reluctantly let her go, feeling her absence the instant their bodies were no longer touching. She rose to her feet.

  “I should start packing. Maybe I can book a flight and head out today. The sooner I face my demons, the better.”

  “And I should get going. Gotta take that shower, and I better walk the dog before he starts filing official complaints.”

  He handed her his now empty coffee mug and she clasped it in both hands, staring down into its depths, tracing her thumb along the brim. “I’ll walk you to your car,” she said softly.

  They both made their way down the cabin stairs and driveway, moving at a glacial pace, dragging out the moment. Finally, they reached his cruiser and he paused near the driver’s-side door.

  “Oh, I forgot to give you something.”

  Sam opened the door and reached inside the vehicle. He popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the gold necklace with a diamond pendant attached that she had lost during yesterday’s skirmish. She usually wore it all the time, so he figured the necklace had to be of some significance.

  “I think this is yours,” he said, holding it out to her.

  When she saw it, she grinned. “Oh, my God! I was wondering what happened to that.”

  “I thought you might want it.”

  She nodded as she gazed down at the pendant. “It’s my grandmother’s. I always wear it because it’s hers. It’s the . . . the last thing I have of her.” She looked up at Sam. Tears were in her eyes. “Now I’ll have to go find something of Pops that I can always wear. Something I can bring home with me that I can remember him by.”

  At that, Sam felt a kick to his gut. “I’m so sorry, Janelle.”

  It frustrated him that all he could offer was his apologies.

  She shook her head and bit down hard on her bottom lip. “It’s okay. I . . . I know you guys tried your . . . your best . . . it’s just . . . it’s just . . .”

  He couldn’t take it anymore. He leaned down, cupped her face, and kissed her again and wondered if it was the last time he would ever get to do it.

  “Keep me updated about the search for Pops’s body. I guess that’s what you guys are looking for now.”

  “Of course, I will.”

  She nodded and lingered in the driveway a minute longer, not saying anything. The wind picked up. An airplane flew overhead. A dog barked in the distance.

  “I’m standing here trying to work up the nerve to actually say good-bye but . . . it’s not coming out.” Her voice cracked. Her gaze dropped to the necklace in her clenched fist. “So I’m just . . . I’m just gonna . . .”

  She didn’t finish. She abruptly turned. He watched her until she walked swiftly, at a near run, back up the porch steps and disappeared into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind her.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tyler was really starting to worry about Yvette. She had been crying since last night. She hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t slept.

  “That bitch. That fucking bitch,” she had kept muttering after they arrived back from the festival. “I hate her, Ty. I fucking hate her!”

  “You don’t hate her,” he had countered, holding a pack of ice over his bruised knuckles. They were swollen thanks to connecting with some fat old guy’s jaw. He had hoped to knock out a few of the guy’s teeth, but only managed to make him bite his tongue and scream like a baby.

  “Yes, I do! I hate her!” Yvette had screeched before disappearing into his bedroom and slamming the door behind her.

  Yvette had had dust-ups with her mother before, but this one was different. He would like to believe it was moral outrage at her mother accusing him—her boyfriend—of murder, but he knew it was more than that. The rift between mother and daughter had little to do with Tyler, though it still shocked him that Connie believed he had killed Bill. How could she think he was capable of such a thing? Tyler Macy committing murder? He’d laugh if her accusation hadn’t almost gotten him killed—or thrown in the back of a police cruiser.

  Yvette knew the truth about him, even if no one else in town did. She knew that though he may look tough and he could brawl with the best of them, he didn’t have the stomach to inflict permanent damage; he didn’t have the appetite for murder.

  Tyler was also in awe that Yvette loved him so much and trusted him without question. He often wondered what he had done to deserve a girl like her.

  When he saw her stripping at the Silver Dollar Bar seven years ago, wearing a hot pink G-string and glitter pasties, he may as well have been staring at that Sandro Botticelli painting of Venus de Milo. While the other men in the bar had hooted and hollered, pounding on the tables, Tyler had sat in almost reverent awe as he watched her dance on the stage and swing around a pole—her then purple hair whipping around her face and shoulders. She must have noticed him staring because at the end of her set, she had descended the stage stairs and walked toward him. He had felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

  “You want a lap dance?” she had asked him with a smile, and he had eagerly said yes, giving her the last twenty in his pocket.

  But Tyler would gladly give her that twenty again. He’d pay a million, maybe even a billion dollars for Yvette if he had it. He’d do anything for her, including violating his parole and running the risk of some serious jail time if he was caught buying weed. But she needed it. She needed something to help her chill out, to stop the tears from flowing. Coke was usually her drug of choice, though neither of them had snorted the stuff in more than a year. But today they were both falling off the wa
gon. Today would be a “Screw moms! Screw Mammoth Falls! Screw all of you!” bash at Macy’s trailer and he was bringing the balloons and party hats.

  “I’ll be back. All right?” Tyler called over his shoulder, yelling to be heard over the sound of the slasher flick on the dusty eighteen-inch JVC TV perched on his dresser. He shoved his arms into his beat-up leather jacket and held open the metal door to the trailer.

  Yvette nodded, though she barely looked at him or at the TV screen as she did it. Instead she kept her head bowed as she sipped from her beer bottle. She picked at pretzels he had left for her in an oversize plastic bowl, twirling one around and around on her finger. She sat on his mattress with her legs tucked beneath her bottom and her head resting on the side of the trailer wall, near one of his older brother’s old Insane Clown Posse band posters. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  He gave one last glance at her down the hall and let the trailer door slam shut behind him. He jogged down the cinderblock steps to the parched yard below.

  Tyler looked up at the sky and winced at the morning light, not just because he and Yvette had been sitting in the dark for the past several hours watching a horror movie marathon. His black eye was still tender, and looking at bright light seemed to only make the ache worse. The cut on his upper lip didn’t feel too hot, either, but he would ignore it for now. It was Yvette’s pain he was more concerned with, and he had to get her some badly needed “medicine” to make that pain go away.

  The Macys’ Rottweiler, Missy, growled as Tyler passed her. She then let out a sharp bark that sent threads of spit flying a foot in front of her. He reluctantly dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the Milk-Bones he kept for Missy. He tossed it at her feet.

  The growling stopped. She licked his hand in thanks, then turned her attention to the Milk-Bone.

  “Just ask nicely next time,” he said to her before strolling to his Harley. He then threw on his sunglasses and tugged on his helmet. A minute later, his motorcycle pulled off with a growl that could rival Missy’s.

  * * *

  After traveling several miles on the highway and along an isolated back road, Tyler pulled to a stop in a front yard that managed, miraculously, to be even more junky than his own. He bypassed a stack of strewn tires, a wooden trough filled with manure, several chipped ceramic pots with wilted flowers and rocks, and random boards of plywood. He made his way to the trailer’s door and pounded his fist against it. He waited a minute, then pounded again. The door slowly opened.

  “Hey, man!” Doc gushed. “Haven’t seen you in a while! How’ve you been?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Eh, all right.”

  “All right? What happened to your face?” Doc said, cringing at Tyler’s black eye and swollen lip as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “It’s nothin’.” Tyler waved his hand dismissively. “It looks worse than it feels.”

  “Hey, I’ve got an herbal salve for that. Fix you right up.” He grinned and waved Tyler into the darkened trailer. “Come on in! Say hi to Snow. Hey, Snow!” Doc shouted, tugging up his sagging pants as he turned. “Snow, Ty’s here!”

  “I don’t need any salve, Doc,” Tyler said as he climbed inside and let the door slam shut behind him. “Just some weed if you’ve got it?”

  That was a rhetorical question. Tyler could smell the heavy musk of weed as soon as Doc had opened the door.

  Tyler glanced around him, examining the space that he hadn’t seen in months. The living room of the ramshackle trailer was filled wall-to-wall with potted houseplants, making it resemble a greenhouse owned by a deranged horticulturalist. Snow’s overweight gray Persian, Mikey, sat atop an ancient recliner that was parked in the center of the room. It had several rip marks in the twill fabric, exposing the chair’s cotton stuffing, like the cat had been using the chair as its personal scratching post. Mikey opened his yellow eyes, stared in boredom at Tyler, then closed his eyes again.

  “Ty!” Snow gushed, sauntering into the room. The skinny woman smiled as she opened her arms to him for a hug. “I haven’t seen in you in ages. How are you?”

  “Uh, good,” he mumbled as he awkwardly accepted her embrace.

  Doc and Snow had some good stuff, but they certainly made you work for it.

  One of the doors toward the back of the trailer suddenly opened. Tyler heard a toilet flush and then running water. He glanced over Snow’s shoulder and noticed as an old black man stepped out of the bathroom, limping slightly. A dog, who had been waiting patiently for him at the door, popped up and stretched.

  “Come on, boy,” the old man murmured before slowly making his way toward the back room, holding onto the wall for balance.

  Tyler’s eyes widened in amazement. “Bill?”

  The old man paused midstep and seemed to teeter slightly.

  Tyler roughly shoved Snow aside and ran down the hall. “Bill, is that you?”

  The man continued to hold onto the wall as he slowly turned. Tyler stopped a foot away from him. The two men gaped at each other.

  “Will you tell these fools to let me go home?” Bill snapped.

  CHAPTER 29

  A little after noon, Connie heard a knock at her front door. At first she thought it was the rattling heating and air-conditioning unit in the upstairs hall. She muttered vaguely to herself that she had to finally call the repairman to have a look at it, until she heard the knock again. It was distinct the second time around: three quick raps on solid maple.

  “Go away!” she wanted to shout. “Leave me alone!”

  Instead, she sighed gruffly and slowly unfurled her body from the fetal position on her bed as the person knocked a third time.

  She had fallen asleep on top of the sheets last night, exhausted by yesterday’s events and by her own self-loathing. She was still wearing her clothes from the day before—even her soiled Uggs. Her clothes smelled of soot and sweat.

  She had gotten up a few times to use the bathroom, but that was it. Her phone had rung off and on throughout the night and morning, but she hadn’t answered it. Who would call her? Janelle? Her friend Linda?

  “You didn’t slit your wrists, did you, Connie?”

  No, I didn’t slit my wrists or down a bottle of pills.

  She just didn’t want to talk to anybody or see anyone. She would tell whoever was banging at her door as much.

  Connie slowly made her way past her dresser mirror and glanced at her reflection. She looked horrid, but she wasn’t surprised. The bridge of her nose now had a light purple hue thanks to Yvette’s punch. Her cheek was swollen. She probably should put some peroxide or alcohol on that cut or the swelling would only get worse. She should start wearing makeup again if she didn’t want to scare off small children. She picked absently at a twig that was tangled in her hair.

  “How did that get there?” she murmured before plucking it out, tossing it onto her bedroom floor, and heading toward the stairs. She walked down the hall and slowly descended to the first floor, holding the railing for balance.

  I’ll close the shop. I’ll move away, she resolved as she took one step, then the next. There was no reason to stay in Mammoth. Bill was gone, and Yvette obviously hated her. Only hate could make Yvette lash out like that, could make her want to pummel her own mother and call her a whore.

  Not only did I fail Bill, but I’ve failed Evie, too, she thought as a feeling of self-loathing overwhelmed her.

  She walked through her kitchen with her head bowed and rolled her eyes when the person knocked the fourth time.

  Four knocks. This better be good.

  Either it was the Mammoth Falls Police Department coming to arrest her for inciting a riot or an overeager Girl Scout who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Connie removed the deadbolt then the bottom lock, not bothering to check her peephole before she opened it with a swift yank. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not—”

  Her words faded and her mouth fell open.

  Bill stood in her door
way with one arm thrown around Tyler Macy’s shoulder and with Tyler’s arm wrapped around his waist. The two men resembled fond old buddies who had just come back from an overnight drinking binge. Bill was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that were too big for him. He had to hold the pants up with his free hand to keep them from falling down. A mangy mutt that looked to be a mix between a border collie and a few other indecipherable breeds sat at Bill’s feet, wagging its tail merrily. It peered up at her and barked as if to say hello.

  “Hiya, Connie,” Bill said with a smile. “Tyler tells me a lot has happened since I’ve been gone. What I miss?” he asked jovially.

  Connie opened her mouth again, then promptly fainted to the tiled kitchen floor.

  CHAPTER 30

  Janelle looked up as the seat belt sign went dark.

  “You may now turn on all electronic devices,” a pleasant voice intoned overhead as people began to stand from their seats all around her, filling the compartment with a chorus of clicks as they unbuckled their seat belts.

  “Oh, thank God!” the woman beside Janelle shouted. She shot to her feet, wiping peanut debris from her lap. “Now I can stretch!”

  Unlike the other passengers, who scrambled to remove their bags from the overhead compartment, Janelle continued to sit, unable to work up the urge to fight her way off the plane. She slowly removed her iPhone from her purse and stared at the black screen. She started to press the button to turn it on. She should call Mark and tell him that her flight had touched down, that she was back home—but she held off on doing that. She hadn’t called him before she left Mammoth Falls, worried that if she told him she was returning home, she’d blurt out all the reasons why she was coming back. She would share everything that had happened to her, what was eating at her. She’d tell him that she didn’t think they could be together anymore.

  “You don’t think you can stay with him?” she could hear Sam’s voice repeat back to her. “It still doesn’t sound like you’re sure what you want.”