Rapid Attraction

by E. F. Jacks

  “I won’t be taking care of you for much longer, so enjoy it while it lasts.” My eyes glance down at the blue tiled floor. Despair clutches at my heart, because although I say the words like I mean them, it’s not what I want to happen. It’s what has to happen.

  The older woman, who was working behind a computer at the desk when we arrived, looks over at us and smiles in a sympathetic way. “Please sit down.” She points to a bench behind us. Besides the guy at the front desk, the place lacks cops. The woman peers over her glasses and smiles at us again. “Would you like something to drink?”

  I answer for us. “I’d love some water.” And a sandwich. But that can wait.

  The bench is next to where the guy with the handcuffs is sitting, and his eyes take us in as we sit down. The woman moves from her chair over to the water cooler and brings us two cups. Ellis nods thanks.

  “Thanks,” I say, and she returns to her station.

  The man in handcuffs speaks to us out of the corner of his mouth as though he doesn’t want her to know he’s talking to us. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Ellis shrugs and stays quiet and sullen while I tell the man a little. His eyes widen as I rehash more and more of the story to him. Then I realize I’m probably telling him too much, and I pause. I finish my water and crush the cup.

  He shakes his handcuffed wrists at me, and I lift a little out of my seat. “What are you waiting for? Go on. I want to hear the whole thing.”

  Ellis turns and speaks with force to the guy. “Quit bothering her.”

  The woman by the computer clears her throat and glares at the man, and he leans back into the bench and closes his eyes. He isn’t sleeping, though, because he peeks over at us every so often.

  Ellis and I wait in silence with our gear at our feet.

  He speaks first. “How much are you going to tell them?”

  I let out a breath. “I’ll tell them no more than they need to know. I won’t tell them about you, if that’s what’s bothering you.” I throw my cup into a can next to the bench.

  “That’s not why I asked.” Ellis is quiet, and then he says, “You’re a good person.”

  “Don’t.” I whip around to face him. “You’re a liar. You don’t get to decide who’s good or who isn’t. After this is all over, I want you to stay the hell away from me forever.” My face burns from anger when I try to hand him his jacket. “I don’t want anything to do with you.” Yet from the soft inflection in his voice I could tell he did mean what he said.

  A few moments later, the cop who said he’d help us returns with a tall, wide-shouldered man in his late thirties with cropped dark hair and a boyish face. From the golden badge on his beige-colored jacket he’s Mayer’s sheriff.

  Ellis and I stand to shake his hand. The sheriff’s eyes, twinkling with astonishment, dart back and forth from Ellis to me. If before he didn’t believe what his colleague told him about us, then now that he’s seeing us with his own eyes, he has to accept that we and our appearance are true.

  The cop from before has also brought a blue medical kit and gestures for Ellis to return to the bench so he can tend to his wounds. “I called an ambulance for you, sir.”

  Ellis’s lips tighten, and he strains to smile at the guy. “You didn’t need to do that, but thank you.”

  I roll my eyes at Ellis, who has no idea how awful his injury looks, or if he does, is in complete denial.

  As Ellis sits, the guy squats in front of him and helps him pull his shirt over his head.

  The sheriff shakes my hand again as I introduce myself. He glances at Ellis. “And he is?”

  Ellis saved my life more than one time, and the sheriff doesn’t need to know more than that Seth and Nick are up in the mountains and what they did and tried to do. The rest can be up to the police to figure out. “He’s my guide. I’m American.” I show him my passport.

  The sheriff holds my open passport book in his tanned hand and skims it over. “What about him?” He nods at Ellis as he passes my passport back to me.

  I put more of my weight on one foot as I’m silent. “He left his behind when we had to ditch most of the stuff from our raft after we were attacked,” I finally say.

  “And where’s your guide from?”

  A pause will heighten his suspicion so I answer fast. “I’m not sure. He’s just my guide. We didn’t really talk about those sorts of things.” If only this man knew how much more than a guide Ellis was to me.

  The sheriff’s gaze is skeptical. “I see.”

  For a moment I think he’s going to question me about Ellis. Yet he listens with patience as I recap our nightmare up in the mountains to him.

  “I’m aware of the situation,” he says. “And I am so sorry for you folks. I had my deputy fly out to the mountains with other officers and search dogs not long ago. I stayed behind to talk with the folks who came here before you did. Their description of the culprits matches yours. I’m going up there myself once I’m done talking with them and getting their statements. From what they’ve told me, you two are lucky you survived.”

  “What folks?” Concern is apparent in my voice heard through my own ears, and from the bench Ellis gazes over at me as though to inquire about what’s happening.

  “They’re in the conference room. Come with me, and we’ll see if you recognize them.”

  My boots skid across the sleek hall floor and I trip over myself. The sheriff steadies me. I peer over my shoulder and Ellis is watching me leave. I don’t owe him an explanation about why and where I’m going with the sheriff because I don’t really know him.

  The sheriff leads me through a frosted-glass-paneled door into a small conference room.

  Helen, Doug, and their boys are seated around a varnished mahogany table. They look like they’ve been through hell. Their hair and faces are smudged with dirt, and their eyes are shiny with distress and fatigue. The telephone rings from a table in the corner and the sheriff steps away to answer the call.

  “You’re alive,” I say.

  Helen turns to look at me and leaps out of her chair. I’m in her arms once she’s up, and her scent’s a mixture of a little sweat and soft perfume, the beautiful smell of a living, hardworking woman. The sheen of tears is on her face, and my eyes dampen with my own tears.

  “I am so sorry,” I say.

  She whispers against my hair. “Honey, it’s not your fault.”

  “How?” I say after a moment. “We found your raft. There was so much blood on it.”

  Helen releases me from her arms. “We ran into them, like we ran into you. Except they weren’t so friendly. I asked them a few questions, where they were from, and such like. That’s all it took for them to flip on us, especially the younger one. He was the worst.”

  Seth.

  “We managed to escape on foot, but Doug hurt his hand during the struggle. We walked all the way here. My God, it was horrible.”

  Doug waves his bandaged hand at me. Their sons watch me in awe and smile together with their identical missing front teeth. An ambulance cuts its sirens in the street outside the building.

  The sheriff finishes his phone conversation. “I see you all already know each other.” He smiles and leads me out into the hallway. “Let’s go and get your guide into the ambulance so he can get to the hospital. I can get his statement from him there.”

  “One second,” I tell him. Then I poke my head back in the doorway and say goodbye to Doug and Helen.

  “Stay in touch, honey,” Helen says.

  I no longer have her email address but I nod yes.

  In the main entrance room Ellis isn’t sitting on the bench, and my gear is there but all of his is gone. Except for his jacket. The officer who was tending to him exits the men’s room.

  “Where is he?” I ask him.

  The guy scratches his neck and looks around the station. “He was supposed to wait here while I used the restroom.”

  “The ambulance is here for him,” the sheriff says to him.
>
  “I know. I heard it outside.” He excuses himself and asks the woman behind the computer at the front desk if she knows where Ellis went.

  She tells us Ellis said he was stepping outside to make a phone call. As far as she knows he hasn’t returned. I didn’t know he had a phone on him.

  I press Ellis’s jacket to my chest—it smells as good as him—and race to the front to fling open the heavy wooden door. Where has Ellis gone to? I’m not supposed to care. But I do. I care a lot. My chest swells. Will he be okay?

  I stand out on the quiet street, with the sun beating on my face.

  A door shuts and a car horn toots, then a blue uniformed paramedic walks up to me. “Are you the person who’s waiting for an ambulance, miss?” Her red hair is done up in a ponytail with bangs.

  “No, I’m…he’s…No, I’m not waiting. The person who was waiting is no longer here. He’s gone.”

  Life will move on. I have to tell the sheriff about Mitch, the ranger. And get a decent meal. A headache pounds in my ears. The headaches I’d been getting after Sam’s death are returning now that Ellis is gone. The rafting trip was supposed to help me recover from my loss, but being with Ellis is what truly mended me.

  I turn from the paramedic and walk back into the police station to the sound of her asking, “Ma’am? Ma’am?”

  It’s all over. I’ll be returning home, and I won’t ever see Ellis again, or get to know the real man behind his handsome face.

  Chapter Twenty

  Pauline

  “And to think, after what happened to Sam, you had to go through all of that,” Mom says. She shakes her head and strokes my hair.

  I’m at home curled up on the sofa next to her. My stepdad, Frank’s in the kitchen fixing us fresh lemonade.

  “And, also, to think that I even went out of my way to make that guy iced tea.”

  She’s talking about Seth’s visit to the house.

  It’s the morning after the evening I returned home. Everything about the house and my parents is familiar. The way Mom always forgets to close the lowest buttons on her favorite peach-colored cardigan, which she wears even in the summertime. Her blond hair is longer than I remember, and her skin is ever young looking and radiant. I’ve been worried about Mom and Frank since Sam’s death, but they seem to be getting by okay now. My headaches have continued.

  My lips shake as I fight against my real emotions to hold my smile in place. I’ve managed to lie low during the media coverage of Seth and his brother’s arrest. And while I’ve shared with Mom what happened during the rafting trip, I haven’t told her the whole story behind me leaving school.

  “Sweetie, what is it?” Mom’s warm hand lands on mine and remains a comforting presence there.

  I let my breath out.

  We talk about the true reason I left school, and I make a promise to myself that I will be honest with them from now on. There’s sadness in Mom’s eyes, but compassion, too. She doesn’t jump up and demand I leave the house at once. I breathe easier once I let it all out.

  “Are you going to tell Frank?” I ask.

  Mom is quiet for a moment, and then she shakes her head.

  “He might find out,” I say.

  “Maybe. And if that time comes, I know he will be as supportive of you as I am. That’s why I married him, because I knew he would be a real father to you, not just on paper.”

  “I let her down. I let Sam down.”

  “No, you didn’t. She would have been proud of you after all you went through. She would have been proud you made it home to us.” Mom reaches her arm around me and squeezes me into her softness for a hug. “There’s something I want to show you, honey.” She rises from the couch and goes into her and Frank’s bedroom.

  I listen to Frank humming to himself in the kitchen and smile. Mom returns to the couch with a cream-colored envelope. She sits down close to me again, lifts her legs from the floor and tucks them beneath her.

  “Sam’s note to us.” Mom’s holding the envelope out between us.

  I pause, and then grasp it. I slide the creased, folded letter, read so many times by them, out of the envelope, and unfold it.

  I only wish I was as brave as Pauline, Sam has written at the end of her note. Every day, I wonder how she does it.

  My tears drip onto the fine paper. Someday, I’ll show them what Sam wrote to me in my letter. Not yet, though. It’s still too soon for me to share her sisterly thoughts with others.

  I fold the letter back into the envelope and rub my fingers across Sam’s gold bracelet. While I may never know what Fiona said to Sam, I know Sam loved and was loved by us.

  Frank ducks through the kitchen doorway into the living room—he’s a tall guy, and a high school basketball coach—carrying our glasses of lemonade. He glances at the envelope in my hands in a familiar way and tears glimmer in his eyes. With his curly, brown hair and his clear blue eyes, he’s a youthful looking guy. And he has a terrific heart. It’s no wonder Mom married him. He’s grown on me, too.

  A few weeks pass. I don’t work. I don’t sleep. But I recover. At least partly. Only partly, because no matter how much I distract myself with shopping trips with Mom, attending Frank’s games, and planning a memorial service for Sam next month, I can’t stop thinking about Ellis and what may have happened to him and if he’s okay. I wish I knew his real name so I could at least confirm he’s safe.

  One day, I’m sitting at the small desk in my bedroom upstairs with my new laptop open, leaning forward in my swivel chair while researching different college programs online. I plan to return to school for the next semester and resume completing my degree. I can’t take out more loans, so I’ll work my way through the semester doing a normal college girl job.

  The past doesn’t have to define me forever. And maybe that’s what Ellis wants, to leave behind everything that reminds him of the trip, and that includes me. I already have my admissions essay half completed: a paper about rafting and about Sam.

  On my phone a text pops up from my loan company, thanking me for my payment, which I don’t remember making. I check, and my loan balance is zero. The last time I checked, the debt was very much there, minus the money I made from the film. I should have asked for royalties. Thinking that it’s either a computer glitch or a miracle, I call the loan company to see what’s going on.

  Somehow someone has paid my debt in full. When I tell the company I didn’t make the payment, they say they’ll look into it and will call me back.

  I’m relieved but unnerved. Because the only people I know who have that kind of money is Seth’s family. Will I be able to stay safe without Ellis’s help?

  And who will help Ellis find his true identity? Well, it’s not my problem. He may have been tricked, too, but after what he did, he’s lucky I didn’t tell the police the entire story. And why hadn’t I? At the time, I couldn’t downright admit that I love him. But I do. He’s the first guy I’ve ever really loved. I still have his jacket, and I’m keeping it forever. I wish I had read more of his journal.

  A little research won’t hurt. If he was telling the truth about his hometown being near Albany.

  But I find nothing in and around that city, so the next day I search again.

  On a newspaper’s website, there’s an article that strikes my interest. The newspaper is for a small town outside Albany called Landon. It’s a brief story in a tiny local paper, but there it is.

  Hero Marine Still Missing: Estranged Sister Makes Plea

  Below the title is a photo of a woman with long, dark hair. She’s older than Ellis, but has his coloring. In the picture she’s speaking with a senator about the case. The caption states her name is Denise Hayes. Next to this there’s a picture of Ellis, clean-shaven and in uniform. Except his name isn’t Ellis. It’s Shane. Shane Hayes.

  It says in the article that Ellis saved two fellow marines before being injured. By the time Ellis’s sister, who is an orphan with him, was notified he was in the hospital, Ellis had checked hims
elf out by sneaking out of the hospital at night. Why had he left? And if it seemingly was this simple for me to find out who Ellis is, then why hasn’t he done so himself already?

  I call up Google again and search for Denise Hayes near Albany, New York. Nothing. And nothing that matches her exactly comes up even when I expand my search to the entire state of New York. I return to some of my earlier research and find that her name does appear in the headline of a larger newspaper outside of Albany.

  Landon Woman Vows to Continue Search for Missing Marine Brother

  The story states that Denise Hayes says she will keep up her search for her brother Shane after her new marriage and subsequent move to Appleton, Massachusetts. She’s quoted as saying, “I know my efforts might seem fruitless to some, but I have to find out what happened to my younger brother, so that my children can know their uncle.”

  Appleton is less than an hour from me. With rapid fire motions I search for Denise Hayes in the town to find an address for her. A Twitter handle and a Facebook page with the same name and a profile picture similar to the woman who was talking to the senator in the newspaper’s photo, come up. It looks like after her move she recently created pages seeking information on her estranged brother.

  For a few moments, I contemplate sending her a direct message, but given the public nature of her appeal, I fear she could think I’m a crazed person looking for attention and don’t actually have any pertinent information to reveal.

  Mom calls to me from downstairs and asks if I want to come down and eat lunch with her.

  “Be there in a minute.” I answer back through my closed bedroom room.

  I look deeper into the pages that have appeared on the search engine, keeping an eye out for Denise Hayes’s address. How many Denise Hayes’ can there be in a medium sized town like Appleton? It turns out there’s more than eleven of them. I scribble down a few, then hurry downstairs to join Mom.

  While I may not be able to find Ellis again if he doesn’t try to contact me first, I can visit his sister and let her know her brother is alive and her efforts have not been wasted.