The Space Between

by Dete Meserve

  “It can’t process the weaker reflected ambient light. The light creates a blind spot.”

  “Any idea why someone would want to blind the camera aimed at your pool?”

  A wave of prickly heat rushes through me. The camera is aimed at the pool, but its field of vision also includes the garden. The part of the garden where the gun was hidden. Whoever placed the gun in the garden that night knew exactly where the security camera was and blinded it with an ultrabright spotlight.

  Was it Ben who had buried the gun there? Could this be what Ben didn’t want anyone to discover?

  I’m done looking at clips. They make my mind run through so many possible questions that my head starts to swim. If it was Ben who buried the gun in the garden, it made no sense for him to blind the security camera when he could more easily stop it from recording with a click of his mouse. But here was proof that Ben had gone even further and deleted all of the security-camera footage. That could only mean there was something else on that DVR that Ben didn’t want anyone to see.

  Aaron’s voice brings me back to the moment. “I know this is a lot to take in. There’s just one more clip I think you should see. You okay?”

  I nod yes. But I’m not okay. I lean my head against the back of the leather couch and close my eyes for a moment, my frustration rising swift and thick. When I open them, he’s looking at me, a puzzled expression on his face. My eyes meet his, and for an instant, the scientist-colleague version of him is gone, and in its place is the man I kissed in the airport. I gaze at him a moment then force myself to look away. I know what it would be like to let this moment take on a life of its own.

  I don’t.

  “What’s next?” I say, but my voice hitches.

  He looks at me for a long moment as if he’s going to say something, then instead clicks on another entry: Tuesday 12:41 p.m. Hours before Ben went missing.

  This shot is taken from the camera over the front doorstep, where Ben’s partner, Richard Jenkins, stands dressed in a dark sport coat.

  Ben’s back is to the camera, but we can hear him say, “We’ve been over this a thousand times already.”

  Richard’s voice is silky. “Let it go, Ben. The only people who are going to profit from your lawsuit are the lawyers.”

  “You want me to look away while you siphon off millions? Remember when we started this together and everyone else predicted we’d be shuttering the place within eighteen months? Instead, we made it—I made it—a huge success by every measure, bigger than any of us ever imagined, and yet all the profits are gone.”

  Richard pushes a finger in Ben’s chest. His voice is a low growl. “If you don’t stop now, it’s not going to end well for you. You’re going to regret it.”

  Then he looks straight at the camera above Ben’s head.

  Richard Jenkins made good on his threat. Or so it appears.

  Ben’s car was found in the desert, in the remote Pinto Basin of Joshua Tree National Park, just 175 miles east of Los Angeles. The keys were still in the ignition, and the tank was completely empty.

  At least that’s what Detective Dawson seems to be saying as he stands in my living room later that afternoon. I’m foggy and unfocused. It feels like the words slip out of his mouth in a hazy jumble and my brain has to assemble them like a puzzle into a coherent sentence.

  “No sign of him yet,” he continues. “A search of the area by helicopter with special heat-sensing equipment turned up nothing. We have over fifty officers, volunteers, and eleven teams with search dogs combing the park. The area’s been having unseasonal high temperatures these past weeks—over a hundred degrees—so we’re working fast. If he’s fallen or been injured, we need to get to him quick.”

  Joshua Tree is over a half-million acres of unforgiving wilderness shaped by strong winds, unpredictable torrents of rain, and extreme climates. Even with hundreds of searchers, it would take weeks to scour every acre.

  “It’s possible that he could be nearby.” I hear my lack of logic, but it doesn’t stop me from continuing. “That he just left the car and is coming back.”

  The detective draws a deep breath, rubs his cheek. “We found the car around Porcupine Wash, a really remote area of the park. Out in the open. It appears as though it has been abandoned for a few days. And there was a lot of blood on the front seat. Consistent with an injury.”

  My sister hugs my shoulders tightly. I glance over and see tears in her eyes. “I’ll call Lauren now, and we’ll get friends and family to help with the new search,” she says calmly, though I know she’s anything but. She’s imagining the worst, like I am.

  “Please don’t,” Dawson says. “The sheriff’s office has been getting lots of offers for help. But with the temperature hitting 105 again today, they’re only working with trained volunteers.”

  My legs are so wobbly I sit down on the couch. The detective settles beside me.

  “On the front seat, we found a slip of paper with your name and cell number.”

  He hands me his phone and shows me a photo of the paper. Even though the writing is scrawled, I recognize the handwriting.

  “Is it Ben’s?” he asks.

  I nod, shaking all over, fighting back tears.

  Everything turned to chaos after that. More news media turned up on our front lawn. Lauren had banded some of our friends together and raised ten thousand dollars to offer to anyone with information that brings Ben home safe. Then social media lit up with people—complete strangers—offering to search for Ben at Joshua Tree and being turned away by the sheriff’s office.

  I dig through my closet searching for shorts for daytime and layers to throw on for the cool desert temperatures in the evening, then toss water and snacks into a backpack. I’m lacing my boots when my sister comes into the room.

  “You’re not going,” she says.

  “Why not? I’ve got to do something.”

  “You need to be here. In case he comes home . . .”

  My voice catches in my throat. “How would he get home if his car is in the desert?”

  She looks flummoxed for a moment. “Maybe he could hitchhike. I don’t know,” she says then breaks into tears. “He still can find his way home.” She doesn’t believe what she’s saying. She’s afraid they’ll find him—his body—when I’m out there searching. She’s worried how I’ll react if I see him dead, hundreds of miles from home. She’s not wrong about that. My nerves are hanging by a thread, and I’m not sure how much more I can handle.

  “Besides, you heard the detective. It’s not safe. They’re turning everyone away.”

  “I can’t just sit here, waiting for news. I need to—”

  “You can’t go, Sarah. Zack already has one parent missing. If nothing else, you need to be here for him.”

  Zack. How am I ever going to explain to him that his dad’s car—with blood on the front seat—has been found abandoned in the remote desert? He’d stayed home again, looking pale and exhausted, and mostly remained in his room all day.

  I head to Zack’s room. It’s only four thirty in the afternoon, and he is sprawled on his bedcovers, the cat sleeping in a nest of blankets he’s made for her at the foot of the bed. He looks so peaceful, I decide not to wake him.

  I place a light blanket over him, and when I go to switch off his lamp I notice a plastic snowman by his cell phone.

  I haven’t seen it in over ten years. It’s the casualty—or should I say the survivor—of a snow globe accident. When Zack was three, maybe four, years old, Ben had given me a snow globe for Christmas. Inside was a dapper snowman holding a candlestick and songbook as the music box played the tune “White Christmas.”

  I had placed it briefly on the coffee table, and when I turned back to it, Zack was shaking it in his chubby little hands, watching the snowflakes swirling around. Then it slipped through his fingers and crashed onto the hardwood floor, the glass splintering into tiny pieces. Zack wailed with tears, partly because the snow globe had broken, but mostly in response
to the loud shriek that had escaped my lips.

  I lifted him out of the wreckage and noticed that the snowman had broken loose from the base. It was far smaller than it had appeared in the glass globe—as if it had been miniaturized. I scooped it up, rinsed it in the kitchen sink, and handed it to him. He stopped crying.

  For many months after, the snowman was his constant companion wherever he went. At night, he’d line the snowman up on his nightstand alongside Batman and Superman action figures. And during the day, he stuffed it in his pocket and proudly showed it to anyone who would listen.

  “See? It came out of the broken snow globe,” he’d say.

  As Zack grew into a young boy, I’d lost track of the snowman. I can’t help but wonder what meaning it holds for him now. Perhaps it’s a reminder of simpler times, but could he, too, be searching for hope that out of something broken, some good might emerge?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They’ve found a body. Just off a sandy trail a mile and a half from Ben’s car. No sign of foul play.

  It’s not Ben.

  On the phone, Detective Dawson tells me the details, but I’m so relieved it’s not Ben that the specifics of the discovery don’t sink in. As long as they don’t find Ben’s body, I cling to the hope that he might still be alive.

  I switch on the TV in the kitchen, and Channel Eleven’s Kate Bradley is delivering her report live from Joshua Tree National Park. Wearing a teal sleeveless dress, she stands in front of a twisted, spiky Joshua tree that looks like it’s straight out of a Dr. Seuss book. “With temperatures soaring over 112 degrees today, police found the body of seventy-six-year-old Leonard Vazira in Joshua Tree National Park. Police believe Vazira succumbed to exhaustion and dehydration from the record heat.

  “His brother, Robert Vazira, said Leonard suffered from mild to moderate dementia but lived on his own in a remote area about a hundred miles away from where his body was found. Robert suspects his brother was on his way to visit him in Hayfield, California, when he got lost in the desert only twenty-five miles from his destination. He is not clear how Leonard arrived in Joshua Tree, as he has no car and his driver’s license was revoked several years ago.

  “But what makes this discovery so relevant today is the body’s close proximity to the car of missing Aurora restaurant owner Ben Mayfield. Police are investigating possible connections, but so far have found no evidence the events are related.”

  Kate goes on to describe it as another tragedy of the extreme temperatures and a cautionary tale of going into the desert alone without water and adequate preparation.

  When her report is over, I’m even more on edge. The coroner estimated the man was in the desert for less than two days before he died. How would Ben survive this blistering heat? Especially when all the blood in the car suggested he was seriously wounded.

  I know Joshua Tree, and that part of the desert has dunes that peak and valley, and there are shrubs, bushes, cacti everywhere. It won’t be easy to find him, no matter how many search-and-rescue teams and volunteers are out there.

  And if they do find him, will he still be alive?

  Everyone is certain Ben is dead. But they don’t dare say it to me. Their eyes give it away—even if their smiles radiate false hope. I’ve asked Lauren, Rachel—all of them—to leave so that I can have a few moments where no one is asking me what I need or telling me things I cannot begin to process.

  A heavy tiredness blankets me, as though someone has increased Earth’s gravity by fifty percent, slowing every movement and thought. I feel myself succumb to the darkness. Deep in my fuzzy, exhausted brain, I know that I cannot continue to cling to the hope that Ben will walk in the door any minute. I haul my heavy body upstairs to Zack’s room and find him at his desk, hunched over his computer, writing a paper. His teachers had given him extensions on his homework due dates, but he’s immersed himself in the work, diving into assignments immediately instead of waiting until the last minute like he usually does.

  He’s a lot like me in this way. Escaping into work when the stress gets overwhelming. Finding comfort in the concrete and the certain.

  I ruffle my fingers through his thick mop of hair that reminds me of Ben’s when I first met him. “How’re you holding up?”

  He keeps his gaze fixed on the screen. “OK. I guess.”

  I tell him about the body they found in the desert, and he exhales sharply when he hears it’s not his dad’s.

  I sit at the foot of his bed. “Can I ask you something about the hours before Dad went missing?”

  “Yeah,” he says, but his voice is filled with uncertainty.

  “I saw on the security footage where Dad asked you to erase the DVR. And you helped him.”

  He’s absolutely still for a moment, then swivels his chair to face me. “He made me swear not to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask him why he was erasing it?”

  “No. Why would I question anything when I was grounded? He just asked me where the delete button was and I showed him.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why?”

  He shakes his head. “It didn’t seem strange or anything. He was like, ‘Hey, show me how to erase the security-system DVR . . . but I want to surprise your mom, so don’t tell her.’”

  “He wanted to surprise me?”

  He shrugs. “That’s what he said . . .”

  “Did you run a more powerful scrub utility after that? To erase it more thoroughly?”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Scrub utility? No. Why would I?”

  “Well, someone did.”

  “I have no idea how to even run a scrub utility.” His face softens. “Honest, Mom, I only did what Dad asked me to.”

  “Okay,” I say and ruffle his hair once more, not entirely sure I believe him even though I want to.

  I leave his room and head to my home office, then light a candle and shut off the lights. In the flicker of the candlelight, my breathing slows and my thoughts flow more easily. The darkness always makes me feel protected, like I do under the night sky.

  Zack’s descriptions of his last hours with Ben don’t illuminate everything. He had no idea then that he wouldn’t see his father again, so he hadn’t paid attention to the details. It seems odd that Ben had casually asked him to delete the security-system hard drive under the guise of a surprise for me.

  What was he hiding?

  My questions are a way of distracting myself from the very real possibility that Ben is dead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kate Bradley is standing on my doorstep later that evening. Instead of the dress or blazer and skirt she usually wears on TV, today she’s dressed casually in a Breton black-and-white striped tee and black leggings. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid.

  “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  I look past her for Brad, the security guard, but don’t see him anywhere. “How did you get past—”

  “Brad’s dealing with the Channel Four reporters, who’re refusing to move their news van off your property. No doubt he’ll be back up here any second and is going to physically remove me from this porch.” She flashes a smile. “Unless you let me inside.”

  I place my hand on the door, ready to close it. “I’m not doing any interviews.”

  “The story about your husband being the prime suspect in Rebecca Stanton’s murder is about to break,” she says quickly. “I want to let you in on what we know so you can decide what to do.”

  What to do. I tighten my grip on the door. Should I pretend ignorance? “Who is Rebecca Stanton?” I imagine myself saying.

  “Do you have any idea how bad your timing is?” I say. “My husband’s car has been found in the desert. All evidence points to the real possibility that he’s dead. You just reported on all this. And yet you’re here to talk about his supposed connection with some murder?”

  Her expression softens. “I know what they found in your
home that links Ben to the murder. The timing might not be great, but don’t you want to know?”

  Of course I do. “What makes you an expert about anything to do with Ben?”

  She looks over her shoulder and sees Brad heading up the driveway toward us. She speaks more quickly now. “I have an inside source at the FBI who’s seen the evidence and knows the case. He spoke to me on the condition of remaining anonymous.”

  “Why would you tell me any of it?”

  She lifts the corners of her mouth. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m hoping you’ll let me be the first to interview you. When you’re ready to tell your side of the story.”

  “And if I don’t let you interview me?”

  “Time to move on, Kate,” Brad interrupts. “You know reporters aren’t allowed up here.”

  She looks at him but doesn’t move. “Ten more seconds, Brad. Please.” She turns back to me. “If I were in your shoes, I’d want to be interviewed by someone who’s going to tell the whole story, not turn this into tabloid fare. But interview aside, don’t you want to know what they found?”

  I loosen my death grip on the door. “Brad, give me ten minutes with her.”

  “You sure?” he asks.

  I nod. “I’ve got questions for her.”

  He eyes Kate. “If you’re not back out here in ten minutes, I’m going to come in and extract you. Ten minutes.”

  She flashes him a smile. “Got it.”

  I let her inside and we head to the living room.

  “Gorgeous tree. You do this?”

  I shake my head. “Ben’s creation.”

  She steps over to the tree. “Looks like he was a very handy guy.”

  “He is very handy,” I correct her. “Is.”

  “I hear he’s a good cook, too. That’s why he’s owned so many restaurants over the years.”

  “He’s always been the kind of guy who could make a meal out of anything. When we were first married, he’d come home, pull out some olives, a brick of cheese, and Italian bread, then get to work making dinner with whatever else we had lying around the kitchen.” I realize I’m describing the way things were years ago. A time I’m longing for.