Still Mine

by Amy Stuart

  She would never have crossed it on her own, Jared said. Shayna is crying again.

  “Then you brought me in here. I thought we were looking for Mom. I was so out of it. ‘Why is there a cot in here?’ I’m asking you. Then you locked the grates.”

  “He was trying to help you,” Clare repeats.

  “Right. Right, Dad? You were here, giving me the pills, making me drink, pouring water down my throat. And then you’d be gone. For hours.” Shayna coughs and looks at Clare. “He talked to me about withdrawal. It’ll take two weeks, he said. Maybe a month. Right, Dad? You dragged me outside and dumped cold water over my head. You wrapped me in blankets. I’m trying to count days. I think it’s twenty days, but then I think, it can’t be twenty days. I can’t have been here for twenty days.”

  “Three weeks,” Clare says. “And you’re better now. It worked. Just like you promised Louise, Wilfred. That you’d take care of it.”

  At the sound of her mother’s name, a wail escapes Shayna.

  “Wasn’t she looking for me?”

  “Yes,” Clare says. “Yes. Just not in the right places.”

  “No one was looking,” Wilfred says. “You hear me? No one. Your mother can’t keep it straight. They want us dead. We remind them.”

  Shayna drops her head in her hands. “Don’t say that. Please.”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Wilfred says.

  “That’s not true,” Shayna says, the anger bubbling up. “Do you want to die here, Dad? Is that what you want? To die in the mine?”

  “There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  Shayna picks up a clump of earth and hurls it at her father, then drops her head and wails again. Nowhere to go. What Wilfred means is that everything is lost, that there is no going back, no starting over. Clare understands. The last time Jason locked her in the cellar, Clare found a length of rope and secured it to the underside of the cellar stairs. For hours she sat and watched the noose dangle, unsure of what kept her from snaking it around her neck and kicking free the tackle box she’d placed underneath it. Clare has known it, that deepest point of despair. Nowhere to go.

  Wilfred looks up at them. “You know what I said? I said, ‘If we open it, we all die.’ That’s what I told them.”

  “What?” Shayna says.

  “I told them, you have to come in here now. There’s no way out. Once we secure the hatch, it’s a done deal. I told those Merritt boys, ‘Don’t listen to your father! You listen to me!’ ”

  “He’s talking about the mine,” Clare says. “That’s what you said, right, Wilfred? To the men? You were trying to save them.”

  Wilfred’s eyes are frantic. “There was no air. Just gas. It was poison.”

  “You knew that,” Clare says. “Jared told me the story. He said you stood your ground. That you all would’ve died if you’d opened the hatch.”

  Shayna cranes wide-eyed at the sound of her husband’s name. Then she drops forward to her hands and knees and creeps across to her father. He tightens his grip on the shotgun. When Shayna touches his knee, Wilfred flinches, dropping the flashlight. The way the light from the lantern falls, Clare can see Wilfred’s face but not Shayna’s. He looks alert, afraid.

  “Give me the gun, Dad.”

  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “I’m done with this. It’s over. She’s bleeding. Give me the gun.”

  When she reaches for it, Wilfred jolts, taking hold and firing. The blast fills the tunnel. Shayna tumbles and knocks over the lantern, snuffing it out. Only the straight, white beam of the flashlight stretches across the floor. Coughing. Shayna. The pain in Clare’s shoulder stabs her as she bears weight on the arm, crawling along the dirt. She cannot see Wilfred, not even his silhouette. He makes no sound. Clare touches up against Shayna’s body.

  “I’m not hit,” Shayna whispers. “I’m okay.”

  Clare finds her hand and squeezes it. From the other side of the tunnel she hears fumbling. When the flashlight reveals him, Clare lunges and takes hold of Wilfred’s shirt, hugging herself against him. He must’ve dropped the gun because both his hands are on her, working to grab her neck, and Clare presses her weight into him, pinning him against the wall. When Shayna picks up the flashlight and shines it on them, Clare sees the shotgun dropped against the cot. She takes it by the stock and jams it into Wilfred’s ribs. He buckles.

  It wells up in Clare all at once. Her stance adjusted, Clare swings the shotgun like a baseball bat at Wilfred so that the stock cracks against his skull. He crumples forward onto all fours. Clare lifts the gun and swings it again, and it cracks again, and in the light of the flashlight beam Clare can see the blood in veiny trails down Wilfred’s forehead.

  Clare did not run, did not give up everything and run to die here in this tunnel. She will not die here.

  “Don’t kill him,” Shayna howls. “Please stop!”

  Her senses return to Clare. Wilfred Cunningham is flat on his belly, sputtering for breath. Clare feels a hand on her leg. Shayna raises the flashlight to Clare’s face, blinding her. Stop. The words come to Clare as a whisper. If this were Jason, this man bleeding at her feet, Clare would take proper hold of the shotgun and fire the last bullets into his heart.

  But this is not Jason. Clare steps over Wilfred to the grate and pushes the barrel of the gun through it. Her shirt is wet with her own blood, the wound on her shoulder open. Clare sees stars. She must steady herself and take aim. Behind her Shayna’s voice is a mumble, slow and deep. Clare pulls the trigger. A spray of daylight appears where the pellets pierce the wood door. She pumps and fires again, but the chamber is empty. Shayna’s words run together. Clare drops the gun and tries to grasp the grate to stop herself from falling. Too late. She is on the ground. She turns her head to one side. The door is speckled with tiny dots of light, and Clare watches it as the sound fades, watches the door for some movement, something, as if someone might know to come.

  You will say he is a monster for doing this to me. You’ll see this place with its dank dirt walls and you’ll say he had no right. He of all people.

  I’ve thought of you every hour of every day in here. I think you’ll call him a monster because he did what you couldn’t do. You handed me over to strangers. You couldn’t take care of me yourself. He doesn’t ask me to make promises like you do. He knows it won’t change anything for either of us. You never understood that part of it. Neither did my mother. She called us serious, like that’s all it ever was.

  He won’t confine me here forever. It’s hard to breathe. He did not have the right to lock me in this cage, that’s what you’ll say. But in the light of it, I see what he’s done. He saved me. He did what no one else could do. That’s what I’ll tell you when he finally opens the door and lets me go.

  WEDNESDAY

  A hospital room. Clare wears a blue gown. There is a needle in her wrist, tubes leading to an IV. Her arm is wrapped and slung across her chest, her shoulder bandaged. Clare pats at her aching cheek. Her left eye is swollen to a squint. When she wiggles her jaw, it clicks. The door to the room is open, a chair pulled up next to her. Voices in the hallway.

  “Malcolm?” Clare speaks to the empty room.

  Nothing. She rests her head on the pillow. What does she remember? The egress doors being pried open. Faces over her, people and darkness, the tunnel. Someone carrying her. A stretcher. A van. Or was it an ambulance? Shayna beside her, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. A man next to Shayna. Jared. Not Jared.

  Derek.

  After that, nothing.

  There is light out the window. It must be morning. Did Clare wake last night? Is she remembering this room in the dark? She can’t be sure. Was Malcolm here? Sitting in that chair beside her bed? Watching her? That might have been a dream.

  Her shoulder. The pain. Clare digs around for the bed controls and uses the button to raise herself to seated. The voices in the hallway are gone. She drinks the cup of juice from the tray overhang
ing her bed. It tastes sugary and cool down her throat. Her phone is on the tray too. She peels back her gown and pushes the sling aside to assess her shoulder, the black and blue of the bruising. If she runs her fingers over the bandage, she can feel the hollows where the pellets from the shotgun pierced her. She reaches over her shoulder to feel her back. No bandages. No exit wounds.

  There is a quiet tap. The door opens fully. Jared stands at the threshold of her room. Clare rearranges the blanket over herself.

  “Look at you,” he says. “Bullet-ridden.”

  “Not just a gash anymore.”

  Jared maneuvers the door to half-closed and sits at the foot of her bed, his hand resting on her leg, the heat of it through the blanket.

  “You look awfully banged up,” he says. “But it could have been a lot worse.”

  “I don’t remember much. Do you know how I got here?”

  “From what I hear a crew of guys made it down to the mine. They saw the smoke all the way from town. When they got there, Steve told them where you’d gone. I guess they could hear Shayna yelling. Saw the bullet holes in the egress door. Probably took an hour to get you out.”

  “Is Shayna okay?”

  “She is. Better than when she went in. She’s got color in her cheeks, so I hear.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No.”

  “What about Wilfred?”

  “He’s one floor up, under police guard. Apparently a helicopter’s coming to get him. I guess they’ll take him to town and book him.”

  “Charlie?”

  Jared doesn’t answer.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “That’s what I’m hearing.”

  Clare leans back and closes her eyes. “Poor Wilfred,” she says.

  “You’re not the only person in town saying that. Reporters were already showing up last night. Women in pantsuits. I heard the motel’s open again, flooded or not.”

  “And Louise?”

  “She’s here too.” Jared shakes his head. “All I can say is I hope she doesn’t understand what’s happened. I hope Shayna keeps the worst of it to herself.”

  There are voices in the hallway again. Jared edges up the bed so that Clare must nudge over to make room for him. His fingers lace through hers, the needle from the IV shifting in her vein, tugging. Clare withdraws her hand and slips it back under the blanket.

  “Will you tell me who you are now?” he asks.

  “I came here to find Shayna. That’s all I can say.”

  “I asked you that. If that’s why you were here.”

  “You asked me if I was a cop.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “If you’re not a cop, why did you come?”

  “I can’t answer that. Honestly. I just can’t.” Clare repositions herself on the bed. “Your wife was missing.”

  “She isn’t my wife. What’s your excuse?”

  “I don’t know. I got caught up.”

  “Right. So you’re going home then? Once they spring you from here?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re not staying here.”

  “No.”

  Clare does not look at him.

  “You’re a cold one, you know that? Just like Shayna. Whatever it takes to get what you need.”

  Jared stands. Maybe Clare deserves his vitriol, but she will not give into it. She will not apologize or explain. All she wants is for him to leave. When he reaches the door, Clare meets his gaze. She lifts her chin in defiance or in good-bye, the only gesture she can muster.

  The moment he is gone, the pain comes to her chest. Regret. When will she learn to steel herself? Even on the day she left, when she and her husband sat at the table having breakfast, she felt it, a kind of nostalgia, a pit in her stomach at leaving her home, even at leaving him. Because of course Jason knew nothing of it. It never would have crossed his mind that that morning would be the last time he’d ever see her.

  The wave passes. Clare focuses on her breathing. Soon it takes effort to fend off the sleep, a familiar calm setting in. They must have given her morphine for the pain. Clare doesn’t even hear Eleanor come in. She stands over the bed, tinkering with Clare’s saline bag, fussing over the dressing. When she lifts away the bandage Clare can see the puncture wound clearly, a perfect cluster of dots pinched closed by flesh swollen and bruised. Her eyes meet Eleanor’s but she says nothing. Clare’s body feels heavy, pressing down into the bed. When Eleanor is done, she pats Clare’s arm and leaves.

  Clare reaches for her phone. Its screen glows blue. This is the cell phone that Malcolm gave her that morning before she left for Blackmore, the only one she’s ever owned. Untraceable, he said. Encrypted. Its clock reads 11:00 a.m. At home, in the house where she grew up, the clock on the stove is probably still stuck at 4:01, as it has been for years, even though it would be early morning there now. Clare uses her good arm to key in her old phone number.

  It rings seventeen times before she hangs up. Christopher was never one for answering machines. Next, she dials her own number. This time it rings only once before she hears the click.

  “Hello?”

  Clare tilts the mouthpiece away from her face so that he won’t hear her breathing.

  “Hello?”

  Jason. The rumble of his voice, the gruffness, the hello not a question but a statement. She hangs up and holds the phone to her pounding chest. I’m not dead, she thinks. And I won’t let you find me.

  What feels like a blink must be a few hours of sleep, because when Clare hears the door open again, the angle of light through the window has changed. The sight of Malcolm floods her with a strange relief. He carries a plastic bag. For a brief moment he seems startled by her appearance, by what must be the bruises on her face.

  “Jesus,” Malcolm says. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s your gun?”

  “Nice to see you too.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Clare presses her fingers into her forehead. The light seems suddenly blinding. “I think Steve has it. Steve Gorman. He must have my backpack too. But there was nothing in it. Maybe the camera but the roll was fresh. I’m not sure how the phone survived.”

  “I couldn’t get to the trailer,” Malcolm says. “Police are swarming up there.”

  “There’s nothing there,” Clare says. “Just some clothes. The darkroom kit. I burned the photographs and the fake ID.”

  Malcolm pulls folded papers from the breast pocket of his shirt.

  “I printed this off this morning. Have a look.”

  Clare skims the article. “Missing Woman Found Alive in Abandoned Coal Mine.” On the first page is a stock photograph of the Blackmore mine, and then a shot of the egress, police tape zigzagged between the trees. Charlie’s mugshot. Clare skims the article. Shayna Fowles, 29. Addicted. Missing for three weeks and found alive. Kidnapped by her own father, a disgraced mine foreman who fed her methadone for weeks in an attempt to detoxify her. Charlie Merritt, known drug dealer, shot dead. Townspeople shocked. Little known about second woman found wounded in the mine. Clare O’Dey.

  “How did this make the news so fast?” Clare says.

  “It’s the Internet age. There’s a picture of you.”

  “There can’t be.”

  On the next page is a grainy photograph from Sara’s birthday at Ray’s. Clare remembers Sara taking it with her cell phone. In the picture Clare stands between Charlie and Jared at the bar. They both look straight into the lens, their eyes dewy with alcohol, but Clare’s head is tucked into Jared’s shoulder, so that only a profile can be discerned from under her hair.

  “I turned away.”

  “Barely. You can clearly see half your face. It’s in color online. The caption mentions you by name.”

  “It mentions Clare O’Dey. That’s not my name.”

  In the picture it is Jared who catches Clare, the wa
y she is coiled into him, his look of perfect detachment, put on as it may be. Clare is too absorbed by the photo to notice Derek Meyer come in. He stands next to Malcolm at the foot of her bed in a white coat, the look of an actual doctor, a large bouquet in his hands, his face still bruised from the fight with Jared. He sets the flowers on the table next to Clare.

  “These just arrived,” he says. “Someone drove them all the way up the mountain.”

  “Who are they from?” Clare’s mouth feels dry.

  “I don’t know.” Derek hands her the card. “I didn’t read it.”

  Malcolm watches Clare intently. She makes a fist around the card, bending it.

  “She needs a few days,” Derek says to Malcolm. “To recover. They’ll obviously want to question her.”

  “Do you two know each other?” Clare asks.

  “Derek was the one who hired us,” Malcolm says. “We just met in person for the first time. I’ve accepted payment.”

  Clare lies back and attempts to absorb what Malcolm has just revealed.

  “So you knew all along why I was here?” Clare asks.

  “No,” Derek says. “I was expecting someone else. A man. An investigator. In our e-mails he said he works from the sidelines. So I didn’t put it together right away.”

  “Not even the timing?” Clare says.

  “After you left my place the other day, I went over it all. I figured it had to be you.”

  “But you never said anything,” Clare says.

  “I came to Charlie’s to talk to you. But you were a little distracted.”

  “He was impressed by how well you fit in,” Malcolm says.

  “Better than I do,” Derek says. “You certainly weren’t acting like someone investigating.”

  Clare ignores this rebuke. “I found the book you gave Shayna,” she says. “The Hemingway stories.”

  “That was a silly gift,” Derek says.

  “I found the letters she wrote you too. Stuffed into the book. Louise was carrying it around with her.”

  “It was meant to be part of her rehab. She liked to write. I’m told Wilfred gave her a journal in the mine. To calm her.”