Something Missing: A Novel

by Matthew Dicks

  Before Martin had a chance to reply, the passenger-side window had returned to its closed position and his father was gone.

  The phone woke Martin at nine the following morning. As he rose to answer it, his knee and ribs flashed brutal reminders of their current condition, causing him to cry out in pain. Moving more gingerly, Martin reached out and plucked the phone off the receiver on the bedside table on the third ring despite his difficulty in getting to it.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. Are you excited about tonight?”

  It took a moment for Martin to process the voice and the question that had been asked. After a few seconds, he managed to respond. “Laura, how are you?”

  In order to combat her tendency to launch herself into a conversation absent pleasantries, Martin had been using the strategy of answering Laura’s questions with questions of his own, thus providing him with the time to formulate an answer to her original question in the event Laura returned to it, which she usually did.

  “I’m fine,” she answered, not missing a beat. “I’m excited about tonight. You?”

  Martin had no idea what to say. Though he wanted to be excited about a party that he should have never planned on attending, he doubted that he could go in his current condition. “Can I call you back in a minute?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Martin lied. “Just let me call you back. Okay?”

  “All right,” Laura answered. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Martin clicked off the phone and assessed his current condition. He had a headache that seemed to be awakening and gaining steam. His chest hurt like hell when he took a deep breath, and his knee was throbbing away underneath the sheets. His car was still in the hospital’s parking garage. He had four more pain pills and would need to find a way to fill his prescription soon.

  Hoping for a miracle, Martin shifted his legs to the edge of the bed, placed his feet on the floor, and tried to put weight on his injured knee.

  It hurt like hell.

  There was no way that he could attend Daniel Ashley’s surprise party tonight. Even with crutches, the doctor had warned him that the first three days would be tough, and restricting his mobility would be best. Though he had never been pleased with the notion of attending a party for a client, the prospect of canceling on Laura pained him more than any of his physical ailments. Missing an opportunity to spend some time with her was bad, but the thought of disappointing her was almost too much to bear.

  But he had no choice.

  Martin spent the next ten minutes reviewing what he would say to her, and then dialed her number, which he knew by heart.

  Laura picked up on the first ring. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Martin had anticipated a question like this, and his response was well rehearsed. “I have some bad news.”

  “Let me guess. You don’t know how to dance.”

  “No,” Martin replied, though this too was true. “I had an accident last night. I fell down the stairs in my house and broke my leg.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, I’m serious. I broke my leg and a few ribs and I have a concussion. Or I had one. I don’t know how long a concussion lasts.”

  There was a long pause before Laura finally spoke. “I’m not kidding around, Martin. Tell me. Are you serious?”

  “I’m afraid so. It was an ugly fall,” Martin said. He had originally planned on using the word “nasty” to describe the fall but felt that it might sound too cliché. “I’m so sorry, Laura. I know how excited you were about tonight.”

  “I’m coming over. Give me your address.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Martin said, regretting it almost immediately. He would need help in getting through the day, and there was no one in the world he wanted by his side more than Laura.

  “Shut up and give me the address.”

  “Really it’s not…”

  “Martin, shut the hell up and give me your address. Now.”

  Martin did so and, before he could say another word, the line went dead.

  Less than thirty minutes later, Laura burst through Martin’s front door, shouting, “Where the hell are you?”

  Expecting her arrival, Martin had managed to don a T-shirt and slide a pair of sweatpants over his leg immobilizer before descending the stairs, one at a time. In the downstairs bathroom, he swallowed the last of his pain pills and brushed his teeth before unlocking the front door and ambling over to the couch to wait for Laura’s arrival. This would be her first visit to his home, and though it had been unexpected, Martin was relieved to see that the house, save the unmade bed upstairs, was in its usual order.

  “In here,” Martin answered, making no attempt to move. Though he had taken the pain medication almost fifteen minutes ago, it had yet to make its presence known. Even the brushing of his teeth had caused him considerable ache.

  “Oh my God! You were serious,” Laura said, rushing over and reaching out to embrace him.

  “Careful,” Martin warned, shying away. “My ribs are pretty sore.” He could see from the look on Laura’s face that she was genuinely concerned. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. Or at least I will be.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Martin spent the next twenty minutes explaining to Laura how he had been on his way to the kitchen for a midnight snack when he missed a stair and fell. He told her about his visit to the emergency room, the diagnosis of his injuries, and his prognosis. For once, Laura listened intently with few interruptions, waiting until Martin seemed finished before speaking.

  “How did you get home?”

  “My father. I tried my sister but she didn’t pick up the phone. It was late.”

  “You could’ve called me. You know that, right?”

  Martin would’ve never thought of calling Laura, but her assurances sent his heart soaring. “Of course. Calling my dad just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Good. Does this mean you’re not going to make it to your parents’ anniversary party either?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Martin answered, trying to sound disappointed.

  “Does your sister know?”

  “Yeah. I called her about fifteen minutes ago. She wanted to come over and check on me, but I convinced her that I’m fine. She has a lot to do today, especially with me stuck here at home.”

  “I could drive you to the party,” Laura offered. “Just to make an appearance.”

  “No,” Martin answered, ready for the offer. “The doctor wants me as immobile as possible for the first seventy-two hours. It’s best that I stay right here.”

  “Okay. So what are we going to do about you?”

  “Me?” Martin asked. “I’m going to be stuck on this couch all day. But you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. Don’t let me ruin it.”

  “Martin, don’t be a moron. I’m going to spend the day with you.”

  “You can’t…”

  “Shut up. Okay? I can’t just leave you on this couch all day. Alone. You have a broken leg, for Christ’s sake. And broken ribs. Someone’s got to take care of you, and I want the job.”

  “Honestly, Laura. I’ll be fine. The pain medication is starting to kick in. And I know how much you’ve been looking forward to the party.”

  “Listen to me, you idiot. It wasn’t the party. I was excited about spending the day with you. I don’t care if we’re at a party or stuck on this couch. I just wanted to be with you. Okay?”

  Martin couldn’t remember the last time he had been so happy.

  When the knock on the door finally came, Martin was more surprised than he had ever been in his life. Though he had never seriously considered the possibility of being caught, he had envisioned the arrival of the police at his front door from time to time, and had even rehearsed his possible responses to their questions. Though he knew that his skill, planning, and precision protected him from the possibility of detection, there was no harm in mentally preparing for all po
ssible circumstances, and though he would never admit it, the prospect of discovery was fun to imagine. Without the constant danger inherent in his occupation, Martin’s skills and the pride that he took in them would be meaningless. It was exhilarating to remind himself about the risks of his profession. It kept him focused on and engaged in the work at hand. Nevertheless, when he opened his front door, sixteen memorable days after his encounter with Clive Darrow, he was speechless.

  While the prospect of spending a month at home hadn’t appealed to Martin, his careful planning and willingness to save had placed him in a secure financial position. Realistically, Martin could miss more than a year of work without much concern. He owned his home, free and clear, and he was judicious in his spending. And as long as he returned to his job at Starbucks (he was currently on medical leave), the health insurance that the company provided would pay for any future medical bills like the ones he faced after his fall down the stairs. Even though he genuinely missed his clients and his work, his temporary immobility left him with little in the way of financial concern.

  In fact, the previous two weeks had proved to be especially satisfying to Martin. Laura had stopped by the house nearly every day since the accident, sometimes for an hour or two but more often for most of the evening. Though they had yet to be intimate, the two had become close, with their first real kiss taking place at 8:04 on the night following his accident. After picking up his prescriptions earlier in the day and cooking them an elaborate lobster dinner, Laura had sat down on the couch, toasted to Martin’s health, leaned over, and kissed him. Though her embrace had caused his ribs to flare up in pain, Martin managed to ignore it long enough to enjoy the kiss and make note of the time.

  Thankfully, it had been the first of many kisses that week, and after a few days, Martin had summoned the courage to initiate an occasional kiss himself.

  Most of the time they had spent together had been filled with conversation, a process at which Martin was growing more adept by the day. Though he continued to plan and rehearse possible conversational elements prior to her arrival, much of his recent dialogue with Laura had been completely spontaneous. Martin had learned a great deal about Laura in the time they had spent together, and the more he learned, the more he liked this clever and quirky woman.

  In order to fill the time, Martin had also spent many hours working on his novel, and after a week of pleading, he finally allowed Laura to read the first chapter. He couldn’t help but stare at Laura as her eyes scanned the words that he had placed upon the page, watching as the sentences forced smiles, frowns, and looks of confusion from her. He marveled at how he had managed to create an entirely new world from his imagination, and how real his characters, and in particular his main character, had become. Though he couldn’t be certain, he thought that she enjoyed the story a great deal, and he was proud of what he had accomplished so far. He had written more than thirty thousand words, filling more than a hundred pages, and his story had taken an interesting turn. His main character, Matthew Stock, had turned out to be a smash-and-grabber, an ordinary thief with a little more finesse than most of his kind. He was in his mid-twenties and living a bachelor’s life, with a large number of friends and acquaintances and a constantly rotating stable of women in his life. His friends considered him the consummate frat boy with a well-paying job in an IT department at a major insurance company, but in reality Matthew was a much more private person than anyone knew. As a smash-and-grabber, he specialized in jewelry but had recently found himself becoming more interested in the people from whom he stole than in the actual jewelry that he acquired. One of the women whom Matthew Stock planned to rob was suffering from leukemia, and in the midst of chemotherapy, her husband, a coward by the name of Paul, had moved out, unable or unwilling to deal with the stress of the situation. Matthew Stock suddenly found himself needing to take care of this woman in her greatest moment of need, but not knowing how to do so without being caught.

  Remarkably, the novel seemed to be writing itself. What had begun as autobiography had quickly diverged into the story of a man whom Martin never would have imagined until his fingers began striking the keys, and this burst of unexplained and seemingly uncontrollable invention thrilled Martin and made the days pass by with ease. Though he had no idea where this story might lead, he had learned to stop worrying about plot and allow his imagination to take control.

  He had pretended to be a writer for years, never knowing how easy writing could be.

  After she finished reading the first chapter, Laura had grabbed Martin’s face, kissing him and telling him how proud she was of his accomplishment. “You’re so talented! What made you think of writing about a thief? And a thief who I kind of like.”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” Martin had lied. “Maybe I read something in the newspaper that day. I don’t know. I came home after that night at the Elbow Room and just started writing. This is what came out.”

  “Well, I think it’s brilliant. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Can I read the next chapter?”

  Martin had told Laura that the next chapter wasn’t finished and that major revisions were needed, but in truth, his first three chapters were complete. He just wasn’t ready to share them yet. As much as he wanted to hand the pages over to Laura immediately, he worried that the story might fizzle out at some point, leaving him with an interesting character and no place to go. By parceling out the chapters one at a time with days or weeks in between, Martin hoped to avoid disappointing Laura if things weren’t going well.

  He had been sitting at the dining room table, working on chapter five of the book, in which Matthew Stock confronts Paul at the hotel where he is staying, when the knock came. The sound startled Martin out of his fictional world, causing him to wonder who might be at the door. It was two-thirty in the afternoon and Laura was working. The two had spoken less than an hour ago by phone and had planned to dine out this evening, the first time (other than doctor appointments) that Martin would leave his house since the accident. His visit to the doctor yesterday had been good. His leg was healing nicely and his ribs were nearly pain-free. The two had decided that it was time to celebrate.

  Martin rose from his chair, grabbed his crutches, and made his way over to the front door. As he reached for the knob, the person on the other side of the door knocked again.

  “I’m here,” he called, turning the knob and swinging open the door.

  He should have recognized her immediately, but the possibility that she might one day be standing on his front stoop had never entered his mind. She looked different than Martin remembered, with purple and yellow bruising under one eye and a swollen, bruised jaw. She was wearing a sling over her left arm and looked as though she had been through hell, and yet she was smiling.

  It was the smile that Martin finally recognized, for he had only seen this woman smiling. Had only seen her in photographs. Standing on tropical beaches and in exotic locales.

  “It’s you,” Sophie Pearl whispered in a soft voice, her eyes moving from the immobilizer on his leg to the healing gash in his forehead. “I can’t believe it. I found you.”

  “Me?” Martin stammered, feeling his entire body begin to shake. His instinct was to slam the door, turn and run, but he knew that it was too late for anything like that. Besides, he doubted that he could manage the maneuver. He was trapped in a state of frozen trembling.

  “It’s okay, Martin,” she said, causing his terror to spike to new levels.

  She knows my name, he thought. Oh my God. She knows my name.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m not here to get you in any trouble. I’d like …”

  “How? How did you know?” Martin interrupted, still trapped in place by a nervous system on overload.

  “Can I come in?” she asked. “Please? It wasn’t easy finding you, but I had to meet you.”

  “How?” Martin asked again, not because he wanted the answer anymore but because it was the only word he could manage to say.


  Sophie Pearl sighed and reached into her jacket pocket with her unencumbered hand. A moment later her hand emerged from the pocket grasping a small, rectangular piece of plastic.

  Martin recognized it immediately.

  Attached to his keychain were several small plastic cards from the various businesses that he frequented. Grocery stores, pharmacies, retail outlets, and even gas stations distributed these cards to consumers in order to build customer loyalty. Whenever Martin made a purchase from one of these establishments, the cashier would scan the bar code on the back of the card and as a result, Martin would receive a discount, a coupon, or a sale price on items that he purchased. In between Sophie Pearl’s thumb and forefinger was an orange card for the Stop & Shop supermarket, its top left corner broken off.

  “How?” Martin stammered again, this time with genuine curiosity.

  “I found it in my backyard,” she explained. “Underneath one of the garage windows.” She paused a moment, seeming to wait for Martin’s response, but when none came, she leaned forward, closing the distance between them. “Please, Martin, can I come in? I won’t be long. I promise.”

  Martin was still processing the idea that Sophie Pearl had found his Stop & Shop frequent-shopper card in her backyard. He understood how it had ended up there almost immediately. After spotting Clive Darrow’s truck inside the Pearls’ garage, he had fallen, landing in the grass below the window. Since his keys were stuffed in his pocket (a place they never would have been during a regular visit to a client’s home), it was conceivable that the fall had caused the card to snap off his key ring, depositing it in the grass as he stood up. And since Laura had been doing his grocery shopping for the last two weeks, the loss of the card had gone undetected. He couldn’t even remember seeing his keys at all over the last two weeks. But how had Sophie Pearl used that card to determine his identity? There was no name or address on it. Just a bar code. Martin’s mind was stuck.

  “Please, Martin. Just five minutes. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he managed, knowing that he had no choice. To send Sophie Pearl away at this point would be impossible. Martin turned and moved out of the doorway, making room for her to enter. Once she was inside the house, Martin motioned to the couches in the living room and began moving in that direction.