Swerve

by Inglath Cooper

  And he likes being at the top of her preferred client list. She believes in rewarding those who go by the rules, and the bonuses are worth the good behavior.

  So, no, not tonight. Let Savannah have her fun. He’ll make sure the guy doesn’t get a repeat performance.

  Mia

  “Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.”

  —Alexis Carrel

  YOU KNOW THAT little voice that pings inside you when something doesn’t feel quite right? The signal that goes off deep in your gut like a smoke detector just before you smell the smoke?

  Mia had that feeling.

  It was the second time she’d seen the Range Rover circle the street right beyond the festival limits. Maybe it was noticeable because there was so little traffic. Most people were still inside the cordoned-off area, dancing and eating cotton candy, buying T-shirts and bumper stickers.

  Grace had eaten too many of her favorite things and didn’t feel well. She wanted to head home. And they had a standing rule that they stayed together when they went places.

  It was something Emory had made her promise she would always do, and Grace’s parents had been equally pleading in their insistence that she do the same.

  Mia and Grace, even though they’d arrived at their county elementary school without ever having met, had an amazing amount in common where their families were concerned. Emory had raised Mia, but no parents could ever out-parent Emory when it came to Mia’s well-being, and the rules she thought necessary to keep it first and foremost.

  As much as Mia hated those rules, she made a decent effort to stick to them because Emory had no problem taking her phone away when she crossed lines or neglected to remember some piece of safety advice that her sister had drilled into her.

  And she mostly did remember. Except for the Range Rover and the little voice that made her wonder about it.

  She saw it again as she and Grace left the festival and walked in the direction of the parking lot, a temporarily converted field. They could have avoided it by veering off to the right and walking through the crowd.

  But they didn’t.

  Grace was talking about a boy from school she liked and had seen in line at the concession stand. She couldn’t decide whether he liked her back and wanted Mia’s opinion. Part of Mia’s brain focused on her question, but another part was assessing their proximity to the car and how many steps they would have to make in getting past it. A dozen. She picked up her pace. Grace followed her lead, still talking.

  Just then, the back of the car popped open in a single instant, the way light floods a room at the flick of a switch. A man appeared out of nowhere, pointing a gun at them, his expression blank in a way she’d never witnessed in another human being. It was as if he didn’t see them as human beings at all, his eyes flat and lifeless, like maybe he’d been dead once and forced back to existence through no choice of his own.

  “Get in,” he said in a low, flat voice, moving the gun to the center of her forehead. “Get in now, or I will shoot you both and leave you here to bleed out.”

  That was their mistake, of course.

  Getting in.

  Because in the end, it would have been far better to die there. At a place where they’d had a good time. Where life was familiar. And the choice of living or dying was still theirs to make.

  Sergio

  “Good loses. Good always loses because good has to play by the rules. Evil doesn’t.”

  —Henry Mills

  IT’S A HIGH like no other he’s experienced in this life.

  Getting away with something does that. Makes him feel like he’s cracked a secret code or been given the keys to the kingdom.

  And he’s become something of an expert at flying under the radar of societal rules. Take, for instance, the fact that he lives a very affluent life in the United States, but where citizenship is concerned, he’s a ghost. He doesn’t exist. And he has every intention of keeping it that way.

  He takes certain precautions in his everyday life. Wears a baseball cap whenever he’s in public. Sunglasses outside. Fake eyeglasses when he’s not. One thing about America is true. Nothing is private anymore. Cameras are tucked into every mall entrance. Every traffic light observes your stop and go. Every ATM notes your deposits and withdrawals.

  It takes some effort to go unobserved in this country.

  But it’s worth the challenge. He has no social media footprint. No Facebook page. No Snapchat account. No Twitter feed. No email address. No credit cards. He uses a disposable cell phone. And he doesn’t visibly break laws. He comes to a full stop at stop signs. Never runs yellow lights. Leaves good tips at restaurants but not extraordinary ones because he doesn’t want to be remembered. He never goes to the same hairdresser to get his hair cut.

  He’s good at what he does. But he’s not smug about it. Smugness creates overconfidence. And overconfidence creates mistakes. And mistakes, well, that’s death.

  Taking two girls tonight could be considered overconfident. But he’d watched them a full three hours at the music festival before making his move. They’d been so comfortable with their safety. Oblivious to any thought of risk. The world was their Garden of Eden. Not a serpent in sight.

  Or so they’d thought.

  He comes to a full stop at the light ahead, listens for any sound from the back. Not a peep. The injections are doing their job. They’d be out for at least another forty-five minutes. Plenty of time to get them where he needed to take them. Tuck them away in their private conversion chambers. The room where they will either concede to a completely new and different life. Or no life at all.

  The proprietor will be pleased.

  And if she is pleased, life goes smoothly on. As he needs it to do. And then one day, when he decides it is time, he’ll step away from all this, take what he’d earned in the selling of his soul and disappear to yet another land in which he will be his own king with a woman of his own who will be with him because there is no other place she would rather be.

  Not a woman he’s had to steal.

  Emory

  “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

  —Joan Didion

  I COME AWAKE with a start.

  At first, I’m not sure where I am, sleep a heavy veil between my brain and consciousness. I sit up on one elbow, realizing I’ve left the lamp on, and that I’m on the couch in the living room and not in my bed.

  I bolt upright, glancing at the watch on my wrist. One a.m. How had I fallen asleep? I’d sat down on the couch at just before midnight to eat the sandwich I made after getting in from work, expecting Mia home at any minute. I glance at the end table next to the sofa, spot my sandwich sitting on its plate and realize I never even ate it.

  A meow sounds from behind my head, a tentative paw taps my shoulder. I turn to see Pounce, Mia’s twenty-pound cat, balancing the beam of the sofa back. Mia. Had she not woken me up when she came in? Or was I so out of it that I don’t remember?

  She always tells me when she’s home though. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to wake me, thinking I needed the sleep. I pick up Pounce and walk the short hallway to her bedroom. The door is closed. I knock once, then turn the knob.

  But she isn’t there. Her bed is neatly made, the stuffed animals lined up in front of the pillows in the soldier-like order demanded by Mia’s OCD.

  After our parents’ deaths, Mia’s teenager-typical room had become as neat and ordered as any museum. The counselor had explained to me that this was a way Mia could impose order on her suddenly chaos-filled life, and that I shouldn’t question her need to return to the room half a dozen times before school to double-check that she had turned off the light.

  “Mia?” I call out for her, thinking she might be in the bathroom across the hall. The door is closed. I knock, only to turn the knob and find the light off.

  I put Pounce down. He bounds into the bedroom
and onto Mia’s bed where he knows he’s supposed to already be at this time of night.

  I walk quickly to the kitchen. Lights off there too. I check the front hallway, glancing in the bowl where Mia always drops her car keys. The bowl is empty.

  A flutter of panic assaults my chest. I squash it back, certain there is some explanation for Mia’s not being home yet. They could have had a flat tire. Or run out of gas. But she would have called. I pick up my cell and check recent calls. Maybe she’s spending the night with Grace. Had she mentioned this to me, and I’ve just forgotten, or maybe I didn’t hear her in the rush of getting out the door this morning?

  My sleep-groggy brain grapples for accurate memory of Mia’s plans tonight. “Is midnight okay?” I recall the question from our earlier call.

  Again, panic renews its attempt at a foothold in my chest. I draw in a deep breath, hurrying to the living room where I’ve left my cell phone. I pick it up, scroll Contacts for Grace’s mom’s number, wait for her to pick up.

  When she does, the voice on the other end is groggy, raspy with sleep.

  “Mrs. Marshall, it’s Emory Benson. Sorry to wake you. Did Mia come home with Grace tonight?”

  “What?” she asks, as if trying to get her bearings.

  “Mia. She hasn’t come home tonight. Is she spending the night with Grace?”

  “No. I assumed Grace was at Mia’s. She said she was spending the night with her after the festival.”

  “Neither of them is here.”

  “What time is it?”

  “After one.”

  “The festival ended at eleven. They wouldn’t still be out,” Mrs. Marshall says, her voice clearer now, as if sleep has released its grip.

  “Yes, I know,” I say.

  “There has to be some explanation,” she says. “Could they have stayed with another friend?”

  “Mia wouldn’t have done so without letting me know.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Marshall says. “Grace lost her phone yesterday but asked me to call Mia’s if I needed to get in touch with her.”

  And then I remember the Find My iPhone app and Mia’s agreement to keep it on. “I’m going to check Mia’s laptop and see if I can locate her phone. I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes, Mrs. Marshall.”

  “Okay,” she says, a tremor in her voice.

  I hurry to Mia’s room, flipping on the light and then finding the laptop on her desk by the window. I open the lid and login to her Apple account. I had used the account one other time when Mia lost her phone, and we were able to figure out that she had left it at school.

  I can feel my heart bumping as I scroll through the menus, finally finding the Find My iPhone option and clicking on it. I stand waiting, impatient as the satellite screen opens up and a circle at the center flashes for a minute or so before pinpointing the phone. The address pops up: 1219 Rosemary Avenue, Washington, DC. That’s the site of the festival Mia and Grace had gone to.

  She’s still there.

  Sweat beads across my forehead, and I force a breath of calm.

  Maybe it had gone on longer than expected. Still. Why hadn’t Mia texted? Why wasn’t she answering my calls?

  Pounce yowls from the bed next to the desk. He’s curled up against the pillows, looking at me as if asking where Mia is.

  I grab my purse from the cabinet near the front door and pluck my car keys from the nearby bowl I always leave them in. “I’ll find her,” I say.

  ~

  THE DRIVE TO the festival location would take twenty-three minutes from our house in McLean. I drive too fast the entire way, a speeding ticket the least of my worries right now.

  It’s nearly one-thirty. The highway is virtually deserted. I pass one car with its lights on bright. The driver weaves into my lane and then overcorrects, running off the white line on the other side of the lane.

  Just the thought of Mia still being out when the only other people on the road are likely to be drunk drivers makes my stomach drop.

  The festival had been held in a large field adjacent to a city park, temporarily transformed by enormous white tents and a stage.

  I spot some cars still parked at the far end of the tents and drive my way down one of the makeshift lanes, looking for Mia’s car, the old Land Cruiser that had belonged to our dad.

  I see it at the far end of the parking area, my heart beating now with relief and then worry for the fact that it is still here.

  Had she and Grace fallen asleep in the vehicle? Had she turned off the ringer to her phone? Was that why she wasn’t hearing my calls?

  I whip my car in beside the Land Cruiser, leaving it running as I quickly jump out and run to the driver’s side door, peering through the glass to see if the girls are inside.

  My heart drops as I realize the vehicle is empty.

  Just to make sure, I run to the back, looking through the glass there, only to find it empty also.

  Panic breaks across me in a cold sweat. Find My iPhone indicates she’s here on the festival grounds. Or at least her phone is.

  I fumble for my own phone in the back of my jeans pocket, pull up a browser and log in to Mia’s account. I wait for the search icon to again locate the phone.

  Another minute, and it still shows the phone is at this address.

  I turn off my car, but leave the lights on, then start dialing Mia’s number. From my end, I can hear it ringing, but see nothing in the darkness.

  I start walking toward what had been the main entrance of the festival, listening to the phone ring, ending the call as soon as her voice mail picks up and then dialing again.

  I walk a full circle around the outline of white tents, still not hearing the phone in the dark night.

  I start walking alongside the street I had driven in on, following the flashlight on my phone.

  A hundred yards or so away from the festival entrance, I decide to turn back, when, ahead of me, I hear the familiar ringtone of Mia’s phone. Luke Bryan. Sweat breaks across my forehead. I am at once clammy and burning up.

  I shine the flashlight in the direction of the ringtone. When it shuts off into silence, I frantically redial the number. The phone begins to ring again, and it suddenly occurs to me that I might not only find Mia’s phone here.

  Mia could actually be here in the undergrowth on the other side of the ditch.

  I plunge forward through the weeds, not caring now that I can’t see where I’m going or what I’m standing on. Luke Bryan’s voice is closer now. I drop to my knees, grappling in the tall grass in every direction, cutting my hand on a sharp rock. I keep crawling toward the sound until I spot the soft glow of the phone screen.

  It’s lying on its face, the light barely visible. But I reach for it, picking it up to see my own number flashing back, “Mia!” I scream her name over and over again. But there is no answer.

  I’ve found her phone on the side of the road, far enough away from the festival that I can only imagine how it got here.

  My stomach tumbles on a wave of nausea. A series of horrifying scenarios begin to flip through my mind like a collage of scenes from horrible movies I’ve seen at some point in my life.

  “Mia!” I call out again, her name breaking in half across the sob rising out of my throat.

  I get up and walk back to the pavement, staring down at the two phones. I realize I have no choice but to call the police.

  ~

  I HEAR THE SIREN’s wail long before headlights shine on the stretch of street before me.

  I stand on the pavement directly across from where I found Mia’s phone, afraid to move in case I might not be able to show them if I have to find it again.

  As the vehicle finally approaches, I wave my arms. A squad car slows to a stop. The policeman in the driver’s seat cuts the siren, but leaves the blue lights on top of his car flashing.

  He gets out, shining his flashlight directly at my face. “Are you Emory Benson?”

  “Yes, I made the call about my sister. She’s missing.”r />
  “Tell me why you thinks she’s missing, Ms. Benson. When did you last see her?”

  “This morning when she left for school,” I say. “I spoke with her about seven-thirty this evening. She was going to the festival here with a friend tonight and planned to be home by midnight. I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up at one o’clock, she hadn’t gotten home yet. She’s not at her friend Grace’s house. Neither one of them has come home. I drove here and found her phone in the grass over there,” I say, pointing behind me. “But no sign of Mia.”

  The officer shines his very bright light up and down the tall grass at the edge of the woods.

  “How old is your sister, Ms. Benson?”

  “Seventeen,” I say. “She’s seventeen.”

  “Has she ever not come home before?”

  “No. Never. She wouldn’t do that without letting me know.”

  “Ms. Benson,” he says in a voice that indicates he’s heard it all before, “at that age, there’s a first time for everything.”

  “I know. But you don’t know Mia. She wouldn’t—”

  “You’re right, ma’am. I don’t know your sister. I do know teenage behavior though. But because you found her phone in such an out-of-the-way spot, let me get some backup, and we’ll search around here.”

  I nod, grateful that he’s taking me seriously, and, at the same time, wondering what it is he thinks they might come up with. The thought of Mia being found somewhere in those woods is more than I can process.

  “Whatever information you need,” I say, “please just ask.”

  He walks back to the door of the car, ducks inside and speaks into the microphone on his shirt pocket. He’s back in a minute.