Darkness My Old Friend

by Lisa Unger

He watched, helpless, as the smallest form moved too close to the water and lost her footing. He watched her cling for a second to a thin branch, which broke off in her hand. The other two forms bent toward her like reeds, arms outstretched. He watched her fall into the cold, rushing water. And then, a second later, while everyone else stood stunned and rooted, sound and distance isolating them all from one another, he raced down what was left of the incline and jumped in after her.

  The cold hit him like a freight train, sending a shock through his body. The rushing water churned around him, then pushed him toward the surface, where he gulped at the air before going down again. He could hear her yelling in front of him. He tried to swim, but the current carried him along, knocking him against the rocks. He wouldn’t have thought this river could be so powerful, that his physical strength would be nothing against it. There are things more powerful than your will. Isn’t that what Eloise had said? He still didn’t believe it, even now when it proved to be true.

  And then everything suddenly seemed to quiet. The girl had stopped yelling, the current slowed. He could still hear voices on the bank. He dove below the surface. At first there was nothing but a rushing flood of cold. Then he saw her floating up ahead. Or rather he saw something darker than the rest of the darkness. He used all his strength to reach her, to be faster than the water that pulled her along, too.

  Finally he was able to put his hand on her; her arm was impossibly thin and cold, her fingers so small. He tried to pull at her, to take her up with him. But something held her fast. He grabbed hold of her leg and dragged himself down to where he could feel that her foot was wedged between two large rocks. He yanked at her calf, his chest growing painful with his held breath. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to free her, he started working on the laces of her thick leather boots. He could only feel them beneath his fingers. He could see nothing now. All he wanted to do was surface and take the air into his lungs, but he knew if he did, the current would take him and he’d never find her again in the dark water, never be able to fight his way back to her.

  When he finally untied the lace, her foot drifted free. Just as it did, there was a flood of light. And she seemed to lift away from him, pulled from the water by unseen hands. Was it the current taking her down the river? Where was the light coming from?

  He let her go because he didn’t have any strength left, and he was bone tired suddenly, numb with cold. And it was so easy to just stop moving. He’d always heard that drowning was a peaceful way to die, though that seemed like a strange idea. How could anyone ever know such a thing? But as the darkness closed around him in a cold embrace, he knew it was right.

  chapter thirty-four

  It was the light that brought him back. It was not a soft and heavenly light, beckoning him to the great beyond. It was the harsh white of a floodlight. There was someone pumping mercilessly on his chest and then breathing hard down his throat. He choked up a river of water and bile, took in a ragged breath that felt like swallowed razor blades. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see the face of God. It was Chuck Ferrigno, looking like some combination of determined and desperate. Behind Chuck stood Eloise Montgomery, holding a gigantic police-issue flashlight. Her expression was serene, as though the outcome of everything were already well known to her. Or possibly she just didn’t care. It was hard to tell which.

  “Jones,” the other man said, kneeling back. “Christ. You are too old to be jumping into the river like that.”

  All Jones felt was cold. “Where’s the girl?”

  “She’s here,” said Chuck. “She’s okay.”

  The kids sat under the tree, all three of them wrapped in a blanket. Willow Graves was soaking wet. She leaned her head on the shoulder of the other girl, who held her tight. Cole Carr just looked lost beside them, blank and staring off at nothing. The rain had slowed to little more than a drizzle.

  “You pulled us out?”

  Chuck, too, was soaked and shivering. “You wouldn’t have thought I had it in me, right? I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Henry and the kid. They held me. I grabbed the girl, then you.”

  “How did you find us?” Jones asked. But he supposed he already knew the answer. Chuck glanced back at Eloise.

  “Eloise came to my house. She said there was trouble.”

  “And you believed her?” Jones was irrationally angry at this. How could someone like Chuck, so grounded and pragmatic, listen to Eloise Montgomery?

  Chuck offered a quick lift of his shoulders. “Hey, I’m a New Yorker. Nothing surprises me. Anyway, she wouldn’t leave unless I came with her, said I’d have to arrest her. I’d rather go out in a storm than spend all night filing paperwork against the town psychic.”

  Jones looked at Eloise in her giant yellow slicker and big flashlight. He supposed he should thank her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Wasn’t it her fault he was here in the first place?

  “I told you that you wouldn’t be able to manage the risk,” she said. She wasn’t smug, but almost.

  Up above them they heard voices, saw lights. Jones hauled himself to his feet, fighting nausea and light-headedness. He didn’t want people to find him lying on the bank of a river. From where he sat now, it didn’t look that wild. It certainly didn’t seem like the churning, rushing nightmare to which he’d nearly surrendered.

  “You called for backup?”

  “I did. The kids said they saw Michael Holt up at the dig site. He chased them down here. That’s why they were running along the bank.”

  “Where’s Henry?”

  “He went back to get the girl’s mother,” said Chuck. “And to call Maggie.”

  Jones made his way over to the kids. Cole had his arm around both the girls, and they leaned into him.

  “Are you okay, Willow?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes full of fatigue and sadness. “You almost died trying to save me. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder, and she pressed her cheek against it. “Thank you,” she said again.

  “Thanks for helping to get us out of there, kid,” Jones said to Cole. Cole gave him a shy nod, looked down at the ground as though he were embarrassed.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Jones said.

  The boy glanced up at him quickly, startled. “For me?”

  “I saw your mother today.”

  Cole leaned forward. Jones saw how young he was then. Teenagers looked like grown-ups sometimes. They occupied such an awkward, uncomfortable space between childhood and adulthood. In that moment, wet and scared, Cole Carr looked far closer to boyhood than manhood. “My mom? Where?”

  “I thought you told us your mom was in Iraq,” said Jolie. Willow shushed her.

  Cole stood up. “Where did you see her?”

  A young man walked up behind Jones and wrapped a blanket around him. The paramedics and other officers had clambered down the hill and were forming a group around Chuck. The dark night was filled with light and voices.

  “Sir, you should have a seat,” the paramedic said. Jones recognized him from his time on the job but couldn’t place his name. He looked just like Ricky, with spiky dark hair and a ring in his nose.

  “Okay,” said Jones. “In a second.”

  Between breaths he told Cole about his mother, where she was and what had happened. Jones told Cole how much his mother missed him and wanted him to come home. He thought the boy would cry, but he didn’t. He just looked at the ground and hunched his shoulders forward in a protective stance.

  “Do you want to go back to her, son?”

  “I do,” he said. “I want to go back to my mom.”

  “I’m going to take you to her,” Jones said. “Do you know where your father is?”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. I think he went looking for my stepmother. She’s been gone for a couple of days.”

  “Did he know where she was?” Jones felt a surge of fear for Paula.

  “I don�
�t know. He was watching her credit card online, to see if she charged anything.”

  “Did she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jones put his hand into a jacket pocket filled with water and retrieved his phone, which was ruined. He stared at it, helpless. Then he let the paramedic lead him over to a large, flat rock, where he sat while the young man shone a penlight in his eyes. Above him the thick cloud cover that had persisted for days preceding the rain was breaking apart, and Jones could see the white of the moon. He called Chuck over and told him about Paula.

  “I’m going to get someone on it right now,” Chuck said.

  “I’ve got a contact at the credit bureau who’s been watching her card for me,” he said. Jones gave Chuck the name.

  “I know Jack,” said Chuck. “We’ll find her.”

  “Find her fast,” said Jones. He kept looking up at the path, expecting to see Henry and Bethany. But no one came. What was taking them so long?

  “How did you wind up in the middle of all this, Jones?” said Chuck. “I thought you retired.”

  But Jones didn’t get a chance to answer, because Chuck’s call went through. He walked off, and Jones heard him inquiring about Paula Carr’s credit-card charges. Jones heard Chuck say, “Jones Cooper said he was working with you.”

  Eloise walked toward him.

  “You like it,” said Eloise. “All of this. You’re happier today, having nearly drowned, than you were the day I first came to see you.”

  He was about to argue with her. But what was the point? “I guess we all have our calling. This happens to be mine.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  He watched her then. She looked as small as a child in her big rain slicker. Her hair was matted with the wet. The lines on her face were as deep and dark as valleys. But he noticed for the first time that there was a light to her skin, an odd youthfulness. She seemed lit from within. He remembered the pictures he’d seen in her home from a time when she was young and happy. He could still see that prettiness in her. He’d Googled Eloise. He knew now that she’d lost her husband and child in a terrible accident, nearly died herself. He knew now that people from all over the world consulted her on their cases, for the sight that seemed to come after surviving the car wreck. He found himself with a grudging respect for her.

  “Did you know,” said Eloise-she was looking up at the clearing night sky-“that the oxygen in our lungs, the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, was created inside a star before the earth was ever born?”

  He followed her eyes up.

  “Do you know where Paula is, Eloise?” He hated himself for asking. But he would have hated himself more for not asking. She didn’t say anything right away. She just looked up at the moon, shifting from behind the clouds.

  Henry was moving fast, at a light jog in spite of the slick conditions of the path. Once Jones and Willow had been pulled from the river and Chuck arrived on the scene, Henry ran for Bethany and to call Maggie. He was halfway there when he stumbled on a rock and came down hard on his right knee.

  He lifted himself up, and when he stood, Michael Holt blocked the path before him. It took him a minute to get his head around it. Jolie had told them that Michael Holt was out there. That he’d chased them from the dig site. But Henry figured he’d have run, knowing that more cops must be on their way. The guy was a giant, tall and wide in the night. And Henry found himself taking a step back.

  “I know you,” Michael said. Henry heard the other man’s breath coming hard and fast.

  “Yes,” said Henry. “You do.”

  “You were there the night my mother died.”

  “I was,” Henry said. Henry raised his palms. “But it was nothing more than what your mother told you. We were only friends.”

  “You were holding her.”

  “I was comforting her,” said Henry. “Your mother was… unhappy. I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” asked Michael. His voice was desperate and childlike. “Why was she so unhappy?”

  He wanted to sugarcoat it, to soothe Michael. But maybe there had been enough of that. Michael Holt needed the truth; he’d spent his whole life looking for it. And Henry felt at least partially responsible for that.

  “I think she wanted more from life than what she had, Michael,” said Henry. He had a voice that he used with troubled students. Firm but gentle, soothing but not yielding.

  “More than us?”

  Henry forced himself to breathe before answering.

  “She loved you and your sister very much,” Henry said. “But sometimes people have expectations of life, and life gives them something else. Most of us accept that. Some of us can’t.”

  Henry saw Bethany then. She had come up behind Michael on the path and now stood behind him.

  “She didn’t leave you and Cara, Michael,” said Henry. “She was taken from you. At least you know that now. She didn’t run away.”

  “No,” said Michael. It was a sad and desolate grunt, the beginning of a sob.

  Michael’s breathing came ragged then, and for a moment Henry thought it was rage. That he was going to have to defend himself against this concrete wall of a man. But Michael fell to his knees and started to wail, a horrible keening that filled Henry’s head. Bethany put her hands to her ears and started to cry as well. It was primal, the very sound of sorrow. Henry didn’t know what to do but kneel beside him and take Marla’s son in his arms. Even as the truth dawned on Henry, he let Michael rest against him.

  Michael whispered to Henry, “All these years I thought it was my father. That he was hiding this awful secret, and I was his accomplice in silence. I couldn’t wait for him to die so that I could uncover his lies.”

  Michael’s breath was foul; he reeked of body odor and rotting vegetation. Still Henry held him tight, for Marla. Even with what Michael had done, Henry knew that Marla would want him to help her son.

  “Michael,” Henry said. A part of him didn’t want to hear the truth. Once it was said, there would be no more denial.

  “All these years I thought he holed himself up in that house with all his garbage, that guilt was burying him alive. But it wasn’t guilt. It was grief.”

  “Please,” said Henry.

  But there was no stopping the words now.

  “I killed her.” The words were a horrific howl, and they cut Henry to the bone. He heard Bethany sobbing. She was on her knees as well now. “When my father came home, I told him that there had been a man in the house. I was so angry. I felt so… betrayed. They fought, worse than they ever had.”

  Henry wished Michael would stop. The biggest part of him didn’t want to know what had happened to Marla.

  “I heard her slamming drawers in her room. She was screaming, ‘I hate you! I hate this place! I hate my life!’ I couldn’t let her leave. She must have known that.”

  Michael’s voice dropped again to that hoarse whisper.

  “I tried to stop her. Her suitcase spilled open. She ran from me, out the back door, into the woods. And I followed her. My father tried to stop me, but he couldn’t. No one could have stopped me.”

  Michael took a deep breath. “And all these years, he kept that secret. He was protecting me.”

  He was sobbing again. Weeping like a child, he put his head to the ground. There were lights and voices coming up the path. And a minute later they were surrounded. Michael looked up, as if surprised by the crowd.

  “It’s over,” Michael said. There was a glassy, unhinged quality to his gaze.

  And Henry supposed that it was true, that it must offer Michael some kind of relief to know. However tragic and horrifying the outcome was, Michael had finally found his mother.

  chapter thirty-five

  The woman working the hotel desk was the wrong side of forty. She wore thick, dark-framed glasses, had her hair pulled back tightly, fanning out from a dramatic white part in the center of her head. There was a flurry of acne below her cheekbones. N
o ring on her finger. But Kevin Carr could see she still had hope. That was a good thing. All women react to a handsome man carrying an extravagantly large bouquet of roses. But a woman like that would react more favorably than most.

  He had his overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Had made a point to keep his suit jacket off while he drove, so that he would arrive looking pressed. He wore a bright pink tie, a light smattering of cologne. He’d dressed to make an impression. He’d shaved and styled his hair for the first time since Paula had left. He hadn’t been to work; hadn’t even called. His partners were panicking, because he was the only one staffed with a client. And the client was freaking. He hadn’t returned a call in days. Fuck them. Fuck them all. He’d been waiting for his bitch wife to make good on her promise. And, of course, she hadn’t. She wasn’t going to give him that money. But it was going to be his just the same.

  Amelia, his girlfriend, was starting to get suspicious. His card got declined at dinner the other night; she’d had to pay. He made up some excuse about identity theft, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it. He’d been pretending to have the flu, told her that’s why he hadn’t seen her for a few days. He wasn’t sure she was buying that, either. She wasn’t smart like Paula. That’s what he’d liked about her. She was beautiful and desperate, not sharp. But even she was starting to wonder about him.

  “Hey,” he said as he approached the counter. He tried to sound a little breathless, gave the girl (WELCOME, I’M CAROLINE!) a bright smile. And the look. There’s a look you can give a woman, a warm smile, a kind gaze. It’s a look that says, I find you so attractive. Most of them smile back. The girl at the counter beamed.

  “I’m so late meeting my wife and kids,” he said. “She’s gonna kill me.”

  “They’re staying here?” she asked. Her hand fluttered to the heart-shaped locket at her neck.

  “Checked in a few hours ago,” he said. Idiot. He knew she’d use that card, that old American Express she still had open in her name. He’d been watching it, pressing the “refresh” button every hour or so. He knew she’d get tired of motels, want something nicer. She was a spoiled brat and had been since the day he met her.