by James Newman
One minute the air was still, the next Nick could barely see the world outside through the sheets of pouring rain.
In the passenger seat beside him, Melissa stared out her window. Her shoulders trembled, but her sobs were muted beneath the rhythm of the Bronco’s wipers thumping back and forth like long, skinny arms warding off the blows of a bully. Wormy rivulets of rainwater trickled down the glass in front of her face.
“Where are we going?” Nick started up the vehicle. “You wanna sit here and talk, or should we—”
“Just drive,” she said. “Anywhere. I don’t care.”
He nodded, pulled away from the curb. Before they headed down Main Street, Nick saw where his daughter had been staring: on a telephone pole a few feet from the Bronco, a soggy flyer with Sophie’s face on it had been all but destroyed by the storm. The fourteen-year-old’s features appeared to be melting in the rain.
Nick felt a chill.
“Mind if I smoke?” Melissa asked him.
“Be my guest.”
She lit up. Her cigarette quivered in her grip. She rolled down her window a half-inch or so, tapped ashes through the gap.
Neither of them said another word until they had traveled out of the town common, into the wooded outskirts of Midnight. When he noticed his daughter was shivering, Nick cranked up the Bronco’s heater. Mostly it just blew out cool, dusty air that smelled like someone’s basement.
Softly, he said, “Tell me about her.”
The storm howled around them. At least a minute passed before Melissa replied.
“She’s a wonderful young lady.” She continued to stare out her rain-streaked window, alternately chewing at her fingernails and taking long drags off her cigarette as she spoke. “Nothing like me when I was her age, thank God. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Worries about her epilepsy, of course. Says she wants to be a writer when she grows up. She loves coffee ice cream, and those caramel candies with the white stuff in the middle. She spends a lot of time at the library, although it’s usually so she can get on the Internet, mess around on Facebook. She used to beg me all the time to cook her favorite dish, lasagna...”
Melissa let out a little whimper, wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her denim jacket. She shivered again as she turned to look at her father.
“She’s a great kid. You would love her.”
“I’m sure I would. I can tell she means the world to you.”
“I wish they knew how much it hurts, when they talk about why they think Sophie was the one who killed Eddie. It tears my heart in two. That’s why I didn’t tell you about Sophie’s phone call at first. I didn’t want you to think about me the way they do. Everybody in this frigging town, they look at me like I’m one of those piece-of-shit moms who knew what was going on but I turned a blind eye to it. I could never be like that. I cared a lot about Eddie, but if I thought for a second he was putting his hands on Sophie, I would have killed him myself.”
Nick said, “The good news is, Sheriff Mackey knows he was wrong now. He can start looking at this from a different angle.”
“I tried to tell him all along. Didn’t matter that they confiscated her diary, took every scrap of paper out of her bedroom—every note, every homework assignment, even the doodles in the margins of her textbooks—but they never found a shred of evidence suggesting that Sophie had been abused. It didn’t matter, ’cause they had her phone call. Ever since she called me from that payphone, Sheriff Mackey’s had his mind made up about how the whole thing went down.”
“You can’t blame him,” said Nick. “Until we knew what Leon saw that night, it’s all he had to go on.”
“I know.”
Nick eased to a stop at an intersection, looked both ways through the storm to make sure nothing was coming. Hoped for the best. He hooked a right onto Howard Street, which would soon turn into Route 30 leading out of Polk County. The road was slick beneath the Bronco’s tires.
They passed the Snake River, which bisected the town of Midnight into two near-perfect halves. The river resembled not so much a body of water as a black swath of nothingness beyond the trees that lined its banks. It wasn’t too far from here, Nick remembered, where his parents’ farmhouse once stood. He didn’t bother looking for it, though, as the property had been sold and his childhood home torn down many years ago.
“You know,” Melissa said, tossing her cigarette out into the rain, “after Mom died, I thought about ending it all. Not that I would ever have the guts to do something like that—I’m a wuss when it comes to pain, and can’t stand the sight of blood—but I don’t think that’s the only thing that kept me from doing it. Weird as it sounds, I think I knew deep down inside that I still had something important to live for. I think...I knew I was gonna come clean with Sophie. Eventually. And we’d build a life together.”
Nick didn’t say anything.
“I think part of it was you, too.”
At that, Nick took his eyes off of the road long enough to glance over at his daughter. “What do you mean?”
“I think I knew you would be here. One day. That you would come back for me.”
Shame devoured his soul. “I didn’t even show up for your mama’s funeral, sweetheart.”
“No. No, but you called. You sent flowers.”
That much was true. Thousands of dollars worth, he’d sent. They were delivered to the church that day by a fleet of black vans. Definitely not Nick’s finest moment.
She said, “That’s not my point anyway. What I’m trying to say is...I knew there would be a day when I would get to know you. I don’t know how I knew. But I can’t help thinking that I held on after the cancer took Mom ’cause you were still out there, somewhere. I still saw you once every few years, so I wasn’t ready to write you off completely. I had a feeling you’d come back for me, one day. Maybe we wouldn’t live happily ever after. I know that’s not the way it happens in real life. But eventually everything might work out like it’s supposed to. Maybe not perfect, but...better. It had to get better.”
“It hasn’t worked out like it’s supposed to, though,” Nick said, as much as it pained him to say it. His big right hand dropped from the steering wheel, engulfed her left hand. “Your daughter’s been kidnapped. You’ll be thirty in—three, four months? I’m not even sure—and I’ve learned more about you in the last day than I’ve known your whole life. You called me as a last resort, Melissa. And the truth of it is, I came because I had nothing better to do. That sounds cold-hearted, fucking despicable, but I don’t want you giving me credit I haven’t earned. We both know if this had never happened to me—” he turned his head from side to side, indicating his facial disfigurement “—I never would have answered that phone in the first place. I’d be on the other side of the world, and you...you’d be out of sight, out of mind. Just like every other time in your life when you needed a father.”
Melissa jerked her hand from his as if she had touched something hot. She crossed her arms like a sullen child.
He pulled off of the highway now, onto the gravel lot of an abandoned apple-packing warehouse. Needles of rain stabbed at the Bronco harder than ever. The windshield looked as if it were covered with a wrinkled gray blanket. But Nick’s reasons for pulling over went beyond poor visibility. He had something to say.
He jerked the gearshift into park. Turned to face his daughter.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, baby. That’s the last thing I want to do. I’m just being honest. For once. I owe you that. I need to admit what I am. To you, and to myself. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to be something better. I’ve never wanted anything more in my whole miserable life. I didn’t know that until yesterday. But it’s true.”
“Daddy...”
“I’ve only been back for a day. I can’t change thirty years, just like that. I know it will take time. But I promise I’ll make this right. Any way I can...”
“Just find Sophie,” she said. “Bring her home. That’s all I want.”
He wrapped one massive arm around her, gazed out at the storm. “I’d give anything to change who I was back then. The guy who abandoned you and your mama...I hate that son-of-a-bitch.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, I hate him, the selfish punk I was back then. I wish I could go back in time and beat the shit out of him.”
In spite of herself, Melissa let out a giggle. “Would you put him in a choke hold?”
“Worse.”
She smiled up at him now, and Nick loved it. Despite his daughter’s nicotine-yellowed teeth, the crow’s feet around her eyes that made her look ten years older than her true age...that smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“I’d do my signature move on his ass,” he said.
“Your big finish!”
“You remember it?”
They said it together then, in that ominous tone the announcers had used back when the Widowmaker was pro wrestling’s most hated monster heel:
“...the FUNERAL MARCH!”
As if on cue, bright white lightning illuminated the world outside the Bronco. A crack of thunder vibrated through the vehicle’s chassis, rattled its windows. The sound was like the world’s largest two-by-four being split in two.
“I used to watch you on TV every Saturday morning,” Melissa said. “Other kids loved their cartoons. I waited all week to see GWA Mayhem.”
“I’m sure your mother didn’t approve.”
“She didn’t. But I never missed it.”
Nick chewed at the wrinkled fold of recycled skin where his bottom lip had once been. Awkwardly, he kissed the top of his daughter’s head. She’d been six years old the last time he remembered doing that. This time her hair smelled like cigarette smoke.
She nestled in his arms, as if she had never been more comfortable. “You know what she used to say about you?”
“I’m sure she said a lot. Let me have it.”
“No, it was nothing like that. Mom never badmouthed you. Not where I could hear.”
That sounds just like Arlene, Nick thought. It was the kind of person she had been. No need to convince their impressionable young daughter that her father was a piece of shit—he had done a fine job of that on his own.
“She told me she never felt safer than she did when she was in your arms. She said when you two were in high school, you’d hold her, and all of her worries just melted away. She felt like you could protect her from anything.”
Nick swallowed a lump in his throat, peered out into the rain.
“Didn’t matter you were always the bad guy on TV. Growing up, I imagined you as this invincible giant. My guardian angel...or demon, I guess I should say.”
“You sure had me wrong, didn’t you?”
“You were my daddy. I was so proud of you, even if I barely knew you.”
“Didn’t bother you when your daddy rubbed ground glass in other dudes’ eyes, rolled ’em up in barbed-wire as a sacrifice to Moloch? Some role model.”
Melissa laughed. But then her brow furrowed. She leaned forward, squinted.
“Jeez...is that hail?”
Outside, the rain had tapered off, making way for an assault of ping-pong-ball-sized chunks of ice falling from the heavens. They bounced upon the gravel, rolled atop the asphalt, churned in foamy white drifts along the shoulder of the highway. They pinged, popped, and pounded violently on the Bronco’s roof and hood.
The storm’s roar grew to an almost deafening level. An image flashed through Nick’s mind: twenty-thousand marks booing, hissing, stomping their feet and throwing things as the Widowmaker stalked down the entrance ramp...
And then it was gone. He returned to the here and now.
He held his daughter tightly. They were like two pieces of an unfinished puzzle, mismatched pieces that didn’t quite fit together but they would have to suffice for now.
They sat like that for the next half hour or so, saying nothing more as the sky battered the earth relentlessly.
Dents stippled the Bronco’s hood. An ugly crack appeared in the windshield, followed immediately by another: one on Melissa’s side, one on Nick’s. The cracks grew larger, stretching across the glass until they met in the middle.
It might have been the End of the World out there.
But as he held his daughter in his arms, Nick Bullman was content for the first time in years.
†
He came in from the storm, dripping all over the motel’s main office like an old mutt.
If the woman behind the front desk wasn’t the most obese human being he had ever seen, she came in a close second. Straight brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks fell to her ample belly. Atop her upper lip, she sported nearly a full moustache. Her massive breasts sagged beneath a wrinkled Appalachian State University sweatshirt.
As Nick approached the front desk, she didn’t look up from the Cosmopolitan she was reading.
“Ma’am, I don’t suppose you have an Internet connection in this fine establishment?” he asked her.
“We do,” she replied, still not looking up from her magazine. “Free for guests to use.”
“Would you mind showing me the way to the business center?”
“Ain’t got one of those. Just a ’puter. Around the corner, by the payphones.”
“Thanks.” Nick did a little fingertip drum-roll on the countertop. “I’ll let you get back to your magazine.”
He found what he was looking for in a small alcove at the rear of the building. He unzipped his jacket, removed his wet wool cap. Adjusted the swivel chair in front of the desk to a tolerable level of uncomfortability. Bold black letters typed on a strip of paper taped to the monitor warned: TIME LIMIT 10 MIN IF OTHER GUEST ARE WAITING!!!!! Someone had drawn a penis on the note in red marker. Nick wondered how often folks lined up waiting for their turn at the computer in a joint like this.
He had never been an avid Internet user, but he could find his way around cyberspace if his life depended on it. Several years ago, he had worked with a young fan—a nephew of a friend in the Biz—who had offered to build for him an official Widowmaker website. In the process, he had learned how to send and receive e-mail (although he could count on one hand the times he had used it since) along with the basics of surfing the ’Net.
That experience would come in handy now, he hoped. The idea had struck him as he made his way back into town, after he’d dropped Melissa off at her apartment. He thought it might be worth his time to do some more research on Eddie Whiteside’s scuffles with the law. Probably wouldn’t hurt to try digging up some info on other key players in this case as well. At this point he would take anything he could get.
Nick hunched over the computer. The room was silent save for the machine’s low hum and the murmur of rain on the roof overhead.
He opened a browser, brought up Google, typed “MIDNIGHT SUN” and “POLK COUNTY, NC” into the search field. Took him several tries to get it right; his fingers were like kielbasa sausages hunting-and-pounding on the tiny keyboard.
Before long, though, he found what he was looking for: the official website of his hometown’s newspaper, the Midnight Sun.
He typed Eddie’s name into a field labeled SEARCH ARCHIVES. This led him to a brief article that told him nothing he didn’t already know. Earlier this year, Eddie had been arrested during a routine traffic stop after the police found “small quantities of marijuana and drug paraphernalia” in his truck. He was charged with misdemeanor possession, and the authorities subsequently obtained a warrant to search his home on Gorman Gap Road. The article mentioned that “others living in the residence” were questioned, but no further charges were filed.
A dark suspicion nibbled at the back of Nick’s brain. Something about that search of Eddie’s house, and the fact that the cops came away empty-handed...
It didn’t add up. Shouldn’t they have found something?
Eddie was a dealer.
Nick searched for Melissa’s name next. He wasn’t sure why, and he felt more than a little guilty about it, but after a quick glance over his shoulder he did it anyway.
There were no results prior to the date Sophie went missing.
Thunder rumbled outside. The lights flickered.
Nick was ready to head back to his room now and admit to himself that this had been a waste of time. But then he remembered something Melissa had mentioned earlier, about how Sophie spent a lot of time on Facebook. Although he wasn’t entirely sure what a Facebook was, he searched for it next along with Sophie’s name. He wanted to learn more about his granddaughter, wished to see Sophie from her point of view, and maybe this would help...
Perhaps he’d even get lucky, discover that she had updated her Facebook whatchamathing in the days since she went missing. He was pretty sure the police had ways of pinpointing her location, if that were the case. Then again, they had probably thought of that already.
He realized that he could go no further without being a member of the site himself, so he took a minute to register, using the name “John Smith.” Once that was done, finding her was effortless. There were seventeen Facebook users who shared the same first and last name as his granddaughter, but the first “Sophie Suttles” on the list of results was accompanied by a photo of a young lady Nick recognized even though he had never met her in person. Her location, still listed as “Hickory, NC,” helped narrow his search as well. She was blowing the camera a kiss in her profile picture.
She had last logged on the day before she went missing.
Nick slowly scrolled down the page.
She had eighty-seven Facebook “Friends.” Most of them were local girls her own age, kids Nick assumed she knew from school. Numerous comments had been left by her buddies on her Wall, but lighthearted greetings like “GOING 2 THE MOVIES FRIDAY NITE?,” “THX 4 THE BDAY CARD SOPH,” and “DEVIN WALKER SEZ YOUR CUTE – TOLD U SO!!!” had been replaced within the last thirty days by darker lamentations such as “WE MISS U,” “PRAYING 4 YOUR SAFE RETURN,” and “POLK CTY COPS DONT KNOW THERE ASSES FROM A HOLE IN TEH GROUND: FIND SOPHIE SUTTLES!!!!!1!”