Ruin Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  Abby walked back to the kitchen, thinking about a frost-beaded glass of iced tea. There were a couple of bottles in the fridge, kept for nights such as this when she couldn’t sleep anyway and the caffeine wouldn’t be a problem. It would’ve been chilled white wine back in the days when Abby would never have dared to stay up all night. When she had plenty of wine and crystal to drink it from, but sleep was her only escape.

  She had escaped for real now; she and Cody both had. Bill was a buttoned-up type who played by the rules. But rules wouldn’t keep Bill from making her life hell, and Cody’s, too. In fact, as this letter proved, they would enable him to.

  Dear Ms. Harmon:

  You are hereby ordered to submit to two (2) supervised visitation sessions weekly to be held at …

  Abby put the letter down and twisted the cap on her iced tea, drinking deeply from the bottle. Frost-beaded glass indeed. Who was she kidding? There were sippy cups in the cabinet, some paper plates, and that was about it.

  Abby felt a small poof of air upon her, even hotter than the enclosed heat of the condo. She went to turn off the fan, which was useless anyway. There was no air-conditioning in this place, even if she had been able to afford the utility bill.

  She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think the air had come from the direction of the fan. Abby let the swallow of iced tea that had gone warm in her mouth trickle down her throat. She took a long look around the empty apartment.

  In the room that was intended for living, but invited no such sort of activity, there was a pair of cheap club chairs, so small they almost fit Cody. They were upholstered in some nubbly white fabric whose nubs had long since worn off.

  White. What a stupid choice in a place where people came, waited for their luck to change, and went. The cloth had grayed in spots where elbows and bottoms rubbed. The chairs’ sole claim to fame was that they rotated; Cody loved to spin in them.

  It was so hot. Maybe Abby would wash her hair just for an excuse to stand beneath a cold stream of water. She didn’t like to be out of earshot of Cody, though. Not with his dreams.

  Abby went to peer out into the starless night. A trident of heat lightning forked, and the window stared back at her like a lidless eye. She squinted, trying to make out something besides her own dark reflection. Then she turned around, and everything inside her folded. Abby felt her heart stop pumping, the blood cease its flow in her veins.

  Bill sat in one of the club chairs in the living room.

  His long body dwarfed the wheeling thing. He was a not-handsome man who spent regular time at the gym to compensate. Even through a shirt and suit pants, muscles could be detected. Bill rose from the ridiculous chair. His thinning hair was shaved close, and his face still bore the ravages of adolescent acne. He nodded at her, all business.

  “I wanted to make sure that you received the letter.”

  Autonomic function had come to a halt as soon as she’d seen him. Abby couldn’t catch her breath.

  Bill took two long strides; they covered the cramped room. “And that you planned to obey it.”

  She felt the chill of wherever he’d come from.

  “I always thought you were a team player, Abigail.”

  Abby stared down at the floor. The worn, scuffed floor, grouted with dirt. She’d been demoted; Bill used to address her, only her, by her nickname.

  “But if you’re not on my team any longer, you had better follow the laws of the land.” Bill paused, taking a look around, and the sparse meanness of the place she’d come to live in was mirrored in his gaze. “You’ve probably already guessed that I entered this shithole through Cody’s room.”

  He walked past Abby without so much as grazing her body. Bill’s tactics had never been crude. Rather, he was like the very air around her: invisible, oppressive, impossible to escape.

  After he left, Abby went back to the light, wobbly kitchen table and picked up her phone. Without a pause, she typed a curt reply in the text box.

  OK. We’ll come. What next?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Liz woke the next morning under a dome of white comforter. She stretched luxuriantly, trying not to disturb the still-pristine sheets, or the duvet that lay over them light as a cloud. They must have both slept solidly, hardly tossing or moving. The promised romantic interlude hadn’t come to pass before they’d collapsed. Liz remembered stirring once in the middle of the night, and shifting to reach for her husband as she hadn’t done in more nights than she could remember. But the bed had been too delicious to do anything besides sink right back into sleep.

  Next to her, Paul lay on his back, eyelids trembling as he slept on. A bad dream? It shouldn’t be possible to have nightmares in such a sumptuous bed. Liz yawned widely, managing to extricate her hand from the material draping it so that she could reach for the clock. The temperature outside the bedclothes was pleasantly cool.

  Eight o’clock. Even the kids had slept in.

  Liz got up, trying not to wake Paul, whose body twitched as she rose. He’d done most of the heavy lifting yesterday with the bags, although getting Reid and Ally settled after the elevator ride had been no walk in the park for Liz.

  She sleep-stumbled into the outer room of the suite. It was dark enough to be disorienting, but Liz didn’t want to turn on a light. The more sleep the kids got, the better impression they’d make on their grandparents. She tiptoed over to the pullout sofa, squinting at the twin humps the children made under their blankets.

  Liz stepped closer, rubbing grit from her eyes. Humps, but where were the kids’ heads? She saw no hand or foot poking out from quarters that were snug for two kids sleeping together.

  Liz threw back the blankets.

  The sofa bed was empty.

  She remembered the trio of false scares yesterday, her own uncharacteristic response to them, and took a deep breath. She flicked on a floor lamp as she strode past it en route to the bathroom. One of Reid and Ally’s favorite games was filling up the bathtub to make potions. The prospect of a brand-new tub surely held an irresistible allure, and Liz should’ve known the kids would never sleep till eight o’clock.

  She paused for a moment, the hotel carpet rough against the soles of her feet.

  She didn’t hear water running in the bathroom.

  Because the tub was already full, she told herself.

  Then where were the squeals, the screeches of laughter that the kids would never be able to contain, impervious to the needs of exhausted parents?

  Liz pulled open the bathroom door.

  It was dark in there, and empty. She smacked the light switch up, flooding the room with blue fluorescent glare, and yanked back the shower curtain. It felt plastic and stiff in her hand, and the tub was dry as silt.

  Liz ran for the door, shouting to Paul.

  She flipped the bar lock at the top of the door and peered out into the hall. Also empty, although a bustle of travelers could be heard below. The run of loudly patterned carpet wound along a wall that guarded a drop four floors down to the lobby. Heart pulsing in her throat, Liz reached the barrier in a single step and looked over. Her stomach did a slow, sick roll, but everything was quiet down there, save for a scatter of people wheeling suitcases.

  A fall would’ve produced pandemonium, not this orderly buzz of the workaday starting. Liz looked in every direction, willing some nook or hidey-hole to reveal her kids.

  Paul dashed out into the hall behind her, his chest bare, wearing only pajama bottoms.

  “Liz?”

  She turned to him, shaking her head back and forth, unable to summon a word.

  “Take it easy,” Paul commanded, instantly making sense of things. “We had two episodes of wolf crying yesterday.”

  Paul didn’t even know about the third episode: Liz’s irrational reaction to the bellhop.

  The bellhop, she thought.

  “Reid’s probably got someone else in his sights, and Ally’s trying to keep him from getting arrested,” Paul added.

  The li
kelihood of that scenario soothed Liz a little. Surely this would again turn out to be nothing, as fleeting a scare as the pickup truck. But as Paul walked Liz back into the hotel room, picking up the phone to call security before tossing clothes out of the suitcase for both of them, the order of his actions belied his seeming calm.

  Hotel security arrived within what felt like seconds, although Liz didn’t have a good handle on time by then. Either hours had passed—days—or else no time at all. She looked at the men who had come into their suite, and found herself utterly unable to command speech. A helpless spill of tears left her eyes, and she pressed her hand brutally against her face. It throbbed from the pressure she was applying, and she felt Paul remove it, heard him offering a description of the children’s ages and looks.

  Two men in uniform left the room, talking into radios.

  The head of security was dressed in a suit. He informed them that all access points to the hotel—automatic entrance doors, side doors, kitchen, even the overhead riser in the supply area—now either had a guard stationed beside them or had been locked.

  It came to Liz as soon as the head of security mentioned the kitchen. How hungry two kids who’d eaten mostly snacks and some candy all day would be. And suddenly her usual persona of practicality and acceptance reasserted itself. There was no reason to panic. Reid and Ally were used to going off by themselves, and they had found this hotel a wonderland last night. They had simply chosen to do some exploring on their own this morning.

  “You serve breakfast, right?” she asked. “Downstairs?”

  She didn’t wait for the man to nod before opening the door. She already recalled being given four tickets for a complimentary meal, which the kids had used to play carnival before Liz finally got them to bed last night.

  She covered the length of hotel hallway, then banged open the fire exit at one end and took the four flights of stairs at a run.

  Paul arrived beside her as she was trying to parse the chaos of the dining room. Her eyes felt like laser beams programmed to identify her children, and yet the clumps and clusters of people eating at tables, or waiting in the waffle and juice and coffee lines overwhelmed her. The combination of smells brought on a nauseating pang. Liz shoved hair away from her face, then spun in Paul’s direction.

  “I’ll look here,” he told her. “You check the lobby.”

  Liz turned, biting back a sob. All thoughts of playful exploration had been snatched away. Reid and Ally were children—country kids at that—in a hotel in an unknown town. They had hardly ever left home before. Who could say how many people passed through here, and what they might make of two children alone? A parade of strangers marched through her mind, and she brought hooked fingers up to her face as if she could claw them away.

  Stop it.

  Liz must’ve hissed the words aloud; she heard their reverberation in her ears. But she couldn’t halt the flood of fear. What if Reid and Ally weren’t still in the hotel? They might be outside amongst the long asphalt stream of road or in a big box store or in somebody’s car—

  Her legs began to fold.

  “And the gift shop!”

  Paul’s order saved her. How long had it taken her to think all that, conjure up nightmare scenarios no parent could survive? No time at all. Paul hadn’t even begun his search; he was still issuing instructions. She turned a tear-ravaged face toward her husband. Every moment that passed was a dangerous one; she knew that.

  Paul began to approach the lines of breakfasting guests. He turned one person around with a clap to the shoulder and a question, got a head shake in response, and moved on to the next. Liz took off, following a blur of signs.

  The gift shop, when Liz reached it, was tiny.

  One of the security guards had clearly already had the same idea; he was talking to the perky girl behind the counter. Liz dashed down a row of toys, then over to a corner where goggles and bathing caps were displayed.

  The pool.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A memory had her in its grips as she began to run again, seeking pictures of a stick figure stroking through the water, indicating the location of the hotel pool. She felt as if she were moving in slow-motion, that sticky dream state from which you could never get free.

  When Liz had been pregnant with Ally, and Reid was under two, her parents had invited them to their condo, which had the luxury of a pool. Reid had worn one of those floaty vests and the effect had been to make him top-heavy. Liz kept having to tilt the little boy back as she bobbed with him in the water. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him for more than a second, only pausing to wipe some water from her face, when he went over. She’d blinked open her eyes to see Reid floating facedown on the shimmery blue surface of the water. Liz’s father snatched him up by the back of his vest like a kitten. It’d been such a short time that Reid hadn’t even gotten water up his nose. He had no idea how much danger he’d been in. But if her father hadn’t gotten to him, Reid wouldn’t have been able to raise his face, much less flip himself over. The precariousness, Reid’s utterly helpless condition, had stayed with Liz ever since.

  Maybe that was where Reid’s fear of death stemmed from. Maybe some visceral part of him remembered the closely averted tragedy.

  She swerved to see the security guard beside her.

  He had intuited the same scenario. “Do you have both your room keys, ma’am? The pool and spa are accessible only with a keycard.”

  Ice water was filling her as if she had suddenly been thrown into a body of water herself. Her words came out stutter-stitched together. “I—I don’t know.”

  Reid and Ally had loved swiping the keycard last night. If they’d gotten hold of one, they might be trying it in every door. She didn’t think they’d dare to swim alone—the rule that an adult had to be present before you went into the water was impressed at a young age when you lived near ponds and rivers and quarries—but an accidental slip was always possible.

  “Where is it?” Liz asked, words still slurry, hunting another sign.

  They came to the end of the hall.

  She didn’t have her own keycard, she realized, skidding to a stop before the glass door. It didn’t matter, though. She could see into the pool room and the gym beside it, and both were almost empty, devoid of people save for one lone guest, walking fast upon a treadmill. The water was a flat stretch, unbroken by any recent entry, without so much as a shadow beneath.

  “Ma’am?” said the security guard from behind. “The police have been called.”

  The police assembling in the lobby made everything seem as real as a slice to the skin. Terror slicked her. No more could they pretend that Reid might be off harassing some guest. And Ally was a homebody, tending to the earth around her just as Liz did. Even if Reid had been up to his usual, Ally never would’ve stayed away this long.

  With the arrival of the police, the hotel security staff stepped back, respectful, or maybe just cognizant of their place. Liz longed for the uniformed man who’d accompanied her between the gift shop and the pool. He’d seemed able to anticipate her thoughts, and his presence had served to ward off the assault of panic.

  “I’m Detective Bissell.” A plainclothes officer introduced himself to Liz and Paul. “We want you to know that we were on this the minute the hotel administrator made the report. We have police officers physically checking every room in the hotel. And two cars are searching the immediate area. An Amber Alert has gone out as well.”

  Liz’s knees jogged. Paul slid a chair up behind her, and Liz sat down heavily. An Amber Alert didn’t belong in their lives. They were for movies, or other people’s stories, as cruel as that made Liz sound to herself. But she could stand to be cruel. She could stand to be anything, if only Reid and Ally were returned.

  Her lips felt puffy, unable to make clear sounds. “Ally,” she said, the word breaking into particles on her tongue. “Reid.”

  Paul patted her shoulder, a rhythmic, unfeeling touch, like the hand of a metronome.

&nb
sp; “Ma’am,” the detective said to her. “We need to speak to you and your husband.”

  “Yes, of course,” Paul said.

  Liz looked up blindly.

  “The hotel staff has made this room available to us,” the detective said, gesturing. “Would you like to step inside?”

  Like, Liz heard. What does like have to do with any of this? How could they have traveled, even just to Paul’s childhood home? They’d managed without a vacation for years.

  She made her way into the darkened room behind Paul. The detective flipped on a bank of lights, and a table with chairs around it was cast into bold relief. At the back of the room another table held water bottles and a carafe. In different times, maybe even later today, conferences were held in this room.

  The detective indicated two seats. “Can you tell me what brought you to this part of New York?”

  Liz looked at Paul.

  “I’m from Junction Bridge originally,” her husband said. “We came to visit my parents. On the farm where I grew up.”

  The detective jotted something down. “Have you been in touch with your parents this morning?”

  “Not yet,” Paul said. “I—this just happened.”

  Liz pressed her lips and looked away. Paul’s words cemented things somehow. Something had happened. They were different now than they had been before, and different, no matter how things turned out, from the way they would ever be again.

  A sob crawled up her throat. She wanted to hold her children. It seemed impossible that they were gone. She still felt them, like a phantom limb.

  She turned to her husband, whose gaze went bleak as he looked away. His words came from very far off, as if he were underwater, or she was.

  “But I don’t see why contacting my parents would matter,” Paul was saying. “The farm is still almost an hour from here. It’s not like the kids could’ve hitchhiked.”

  Liz sucked in a breath, and the detective looked at her.

  Paul’s shoulders dropped. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m—a little tense.”