by Martha Carr
Rachel was missing. It didn’t take a genius to guess where she was.
Unless...
I glanced back to the door of the 24-hour gym.
Maybe, but unlikely.
Do or do not, but decide.
I had to assume she was in the van.
The woman leaned towards the driver’s side window and rattled off something that sounded like instructions.
My feet moved with a life of their own as I charged toward her.
In this secluded spot there were only two ways the van could go, and one was blocked by the Farmer’s Market.
The woman pointed my way, then flung the side panel closed.
I picked up speed.
Like a dog chasing a car. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d caught it.
Something white moved in my peripheral vision.
I glanced back long enough to spot the old white pickup pulling around from behind Sub Zero, the driver a stringy-haired man who fit the picture Jan Allen had verbally painted. The gang was all here; not two people, but three.
The van jerked forward.
A Lexus sedan eased out of a parking slot, blocking its path and buying me a precious few seconds’ reprieve.
I’d have sacrificed my right arm if I could have teleported Chuck and his team into view, but he wasn’t here. No one was here. It was all on me.
The truck caught up with me and jerked sideways, trying to hit me.
I leapt onto the running board, reached through open window for the wheel, and yanked it. The driver should have hit the brakes. Any normal person would have stopped and blocked the entire road, but not Stringy-Hair. Oh, no. He stomped on the gas.
I grabbed the mirror with one hand and slammed his face into the steering wheel with the other. A horn blared and I caught a flash of fear in the elderly eyes of the Lexus driver.
Metal smashed into metal and I lost my grip.
Kinetic energy lifted me into the air, flung me into the Lexus windshield, bounced me off the front bumper of a Mini Cooper, then deposited me on the pavement.
The rest is a little fuzzy.
In my mind, the Reggie Carpenter I’d returned from Afghanistan to find again calmly picked himself up, walked around the carnage, opened the door to the van, rescued the little girl with the red curls and ice cream hangover, and returned her to a jubilant mother.
Unfortunately, that Reggie Carpenter disappeared when my head hit the pavement.
The current Reggie Carpenter made a mess of things. That guy did pull a five-year-old kidnap victim from a van that sunny Saturday afternoon, but not before he’d broken a few bones, left two men in pools of their own blood, and secured a woman to a van’s front seat with her own shredded jeans.
That Reggie Carpenter called his twin sister, the lawyer, to clean up his mess.
Again.
It was the kind of cleanup that took the rest of the day.
The Port of Call parking lot was empty at two in the morning. I sat in the Jeep, bare feet dangling out the door, breathing in the salt and the sea and the cool Gulf breeze. Under the light of a cloudless moon, I studied my right hand.
The blood was gone and the deepest of the cuts was stitched, but my head and my heart still hurt. Just as I had during the years spent in someone else’s sandbox, my mind played and replayed the afternoon’s events as if somehow, by thinking hard enough, it’d be possible to re-write the mental movie and make things happen differently.
It didn’t bother me in the least that I’d put the two cretins in the hospital. What hurt was knowing that because of me, a five-year-old girl had seen something no child should ever have to see.
I’d made the wrong call.
I should have tried something else to stop the van, or should have let it go and let the cops handle it just like the professionals had insisted I do.
Caldwell had wanted to arrest me, but Chuck and my twin sister Melinda, the current head of the white-shoe law firm, had talked her down.
Headlights turned into the lot, setting my head to pounding harder.
Melinda pulled to a stop next to the Jeep.
Her window rolled down, and she leaned forward to look at me.
“You okay, baby brother?” she asked.
Baby brother.
She’d been born first by three minutes, and has lorded it over me ever since.
I took a deep breath and let the air out slowly.
“I thought this over-the-top anger crap was over,” I said.
I sounded pitiful, and I hated pitiful. I needed to sleep.
“You’re getting there,” she said. “One day isn’t a pattern.”
She was right, I supposed.
Melinda tossed the Jeep keys in my direction.
I caught them and she laughed. “She was a pretty young woman,” Melinda said, “but come on, she’s a little young. Even for you.”
That got a smile out of me.
Mel had been the one to deal with Story while I was with the police. Story had held up well, she said. She’d tried to do what I’d asked, had called my phone and had managed to get Chuck to pick up twice, but he’d hung up on her both times. She’d gone off in search of Caldwell instead without realizing the detective had already left.
She’d driven the Jeep to Port of Call and had one of her trust-fund friends take her to the station, where she’d kept asking about Chuck and asking about me until Mel had shown up, put two-and-two together, and given the poor girl answers.
I had no complaints about Story, though I’m sure she had plenty about me.
I’d had to get away from it all; taken a taxi from the precinct and hung out in the Jeep until Mel could get free. She got out of her car now, walked to where I sat, wrapped me in a sisterly hug, and then let go and jabbed my shoulder. “I know you’re disappointed, but don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “If you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t acted, that little girl would be in Georgia by now. You broke up a pretty convoluted plan.”
I shook my head. The plan hadn’t been that bad; it was the knuckleheaded kidnappers who’d sent it off the rails. Fortunately for Chuck, knuckleheads tend to cave under pressure, and the answers came pretty fast. I’d caught pieces of the story from him and Caldwell, and later from Melinda while words like Craigslist and anonymous, email, and Bitcoin were tossed around as background noise.
The kidnappers hadn’t known who’d hired them or what would happen to Rachel. She’d have been across state lines by now in the company of her estranged father if those stumblebums hadn’t decided to go the extra mile and milk the situation for additional cash instead of just delivering the kid like they’d been hired to do.
Greed and stupidity don’t mix well.
Mel offered, “Listen, you call me if you need me, okay?”
I nodded and looked after her car until her tail lights faded.
I hefted my keys, slipped them into my pocket and my feet into my shoes, and turned toward the dock.
I walked as I thought, and when I made it to the end I sat. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Small sounds: flags fluttered against poles, boats bumped against docks, and small waves lapped at pilings.
I’d come back to Elan to rediscover the happy-go-lucky beach bum I’d once been, and thought I’d been successful. Today had proved differently.
Maybe there wasn’t a way to go back. Not all the way back.
And maybe that wasn’t entirely bad.
A splash forced my eyes open. A hopping frog caught my attention.
I watched him work his way from boat to boat. On a particularly long jump he caught only the edge, but hung on and fought his way up. He was a frog doing what frogs did.
The frog and I, we weren’t so different.
I’d caught the edge today, and I’d hung on.
Maybe tomorrow I’d find my boat.
About Stephen Campbell
Stephen Campbell is the author of Four Seasons of Reno Hart and the Reggie Carpenter Adventures Series, the first of whi
ch is coming October, 2017. Learn more about Stephen at his
website http://www.stephenrcampbell.com/
Seven
Girl Will Frame
By Mixi J Applebottom
On the one hand, I know that what I'm doing is horrible.
I mean, it is one thing to kill yourself. That will devastate my mother, my father. Even my younger brother Sam; he's not going to be happy to find out that I'm dead. They are going to be heartbroken. I'm choosing to break the hearts of everyone I love.
My thoughts on suicide haven't changed, not even a little. It is still the cruelest thing you can do to the people you love. However, they aren't going to know it's suicide.
Because I'm going to frame my husband. Even though this is horrible, beyond wrong. Choosing to punish him for my death, a murder he didn't even commit is cruel. On paper, it looks like I shouldn't do it at all.
I shouldn't kill myself.
I shouldn't frame my husband.
It's morally reprehensible.
And yet... Even though there is a tiny small voice inside my head telling me that this is the cruelest and most inhumane thing I could do to the man – I'm going to do it. He deserves nothing better.
That's the truth.
***
I'm not crazy.
I'm sure that's the thought that's running through everyone's mind; in fact, if I do a bad job at framing him and they figure it out – I've killed myself, and he didn't do a damn thing – that would be the most embarrassing thing to happen to me. Dead or alive.
But I'm not crazy. He deserves a fate worse than death. He brought this on himself.
Not that I'm utterly innocent. I don't particularly have a reason to go on, though; maybe that's it too. I don't have a reason not to kill myself.
My belly is empty as I sit in the rocking chair in my nursery. I'm not gonna do it yet. I'm not going to kill myself this week or anything. I want to make sure that he will go down for my murder. So I plan to do it on her anniversary.
I stare at the empty crib. I try to remember what she felt like in my arms. When she was born, she was so beautiful. Her tiny little face, her gorgeous little eyes. She even had perfect tiny eyelashes and adorable tiny fingernails. It's a desperate tug in my belly – remembering what she looked like – I feel it fading within me.
But when I open my eyes, all I can see is my empty nursery, where a baby never even cried. The only one who has cried in here has been me. It's disgusting.
It will be her anniversary in exactly nine months. As long as it took for me to grow her, that is how long I have to frame him. There is something about this dynamic that feels incredibly fair.
The fairest thing that could happen to the two of us, spending nine months curled up together waiting for me to die. Just like I spent nine months with her in my belly, unwittingly knowing she was going to die. That's what it will be like for him. I will be her. He will be me.
I know I sound crazy, but maybe that's what happens when your baby dies.
***
I've always been good. The last time I went grocery shopping, they accidentally gave me the bag of the person in front of me. It had a rocky road ice cream inside. The cart had a nearly broken wheel, so I didn't even notice until I was loading up my car. I found this bucket of rocky road ice cream. It's my favorite type of ice cream. And my baby is dead. Shouldn't I... relish in a tiny miracle? A favorite treat of mine, freely and accidentally given.
It was already in a bag, in my cart, not two feet from my car. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm pretty sure that anyone else would have just put that ice cream in the car driven at home and enjoy the spoils of stolen ice cream. Accidentally stolen, but stolen just the same. But not me; I put all my groceries in my vehicle, even though I had frozen pizza and it was 82° out. I left it all in the car, so I could return the ice cream. The store manager didn't even seem impressed, that I stood there with someone else's ice cream. "This accidentally got put my bag, I didn't purchase it," I said. It used to be that I'd smile at people, but I am not sure I remember how. The best I can do is beg my face to look pleasant instead of unkind.
The manager had a ponytail that was much too high, and her eyes were narrow. And she seemed utterly confused by why I was standing there. As if she just expected that no one would return something as simple as some ice cream. "Okay, thanks." And she took it from me and kind of rolled her eyes as she wandered off.
I don't know why, but returning the ice cream made me feel guiltier. As if returning ice cream somehow made me a thief. That's how nice I am. So you can imagine the decision to frame my husband did not come lightly; it wasn't like a whim. In fact, I still wonder if it is the right decision. But then I remember, I remember her. Our tiny little daughter and how he didn't even meet her.
***
It has to work like a game of dominoes. Not like the matching the side’s game, but where you set them all up and they have to fall one after another, without any human involvement. Because if I have to knock them down one by one, someone will surely find out that I'm framing my husband.
He's lying right next to me right now.
He is snoring. I never minded him snoring. In fact, it is comforting, hearing the same sound every night, like the perfect white noise. It makes me sad to think about me being dead, and him being in jail.
But every time I feel that sadness, I try to tighten back down into my shell. The thing that makes all of those emotions wash away – my baby.
When I went into labor, I was a week early. It's not really that early, compared to most women. It's just that every time I called him; he didn't answer the phone. The phone was off, or he was busy. I didn't even figure out that he had to have been with a woman. I didn't even figure that out. That's why I kept leaving these adorable messages. "Our baby will be born any moment. Hurry up, honey." There was sweet excitement in my voice. I listened to that message maybe a hundred times. It's the best one; it's hours before my world, my heart, and my life was torn to shreds.
"Hurry up, honey." Such love in my voice. Even as I went into that cold, clinical room alone, with nobody to hold my hand. I was smiling; I was dreamy. Sure, the contractions hurt, but my heart was so full. I didn't even care that he was late. You can hear it in my tone; it's playful, it's pleasant. I would give the whole world to be able to go back there. Will I ever feel that hope again? Perhaps I am fully broken now. Maybe that message was the last time I will feel anything beautiful.
My next message, "The contractions are only three minutes apart. I don't want to do this alone. Please hurry. Why is your phone off?" An hour and a half later.My words weren't sharp. I was breathy and soft... I was sad. There is a layer in there. You might wonder, why did you wait an hour and a half to call again? I'm not sure. I think I was just dreamily enjoying being in labor. We had wanted this baby girl for so long. The feeling of her impending arrival was so glorious and bright; time seemed to fly. My eyes were shut, and I was relishing every contraction, for they would bring me the girl that I had been dying to meet ever since I was eleven. That's when I found out that I can grow humans inside of me. I don't think I've spent a day in my entire life not considering growing another human. It's always on my mind, like when's the next meal, and what should I wear, and should I grow a baby. It never occurred to me that when I finally did try to have one, it would be difficult and onerous. We hadn't used birth control in our entire marriage. We were in year five, and the first few years we tried, at least moderately, to use the cycle method and not get pregnant. But it was too easy, and I started to pay less and less attention to which days we were not supposed to have sex. But a baby didn't sneak in there until our fifth round of IVF. Our fifth.
It's funny to think about; we never really made a statement that we were trying. We just... got careless. And I think John and I both thought that being careless would slowly build us a little family. I went in for my yearly exam and told the doctor we were... being a bit reckless and hadn't gotten pregnant yet. That�
�s when he suggested IVF. It’s funny, how just fooling around and casually trying can suddenly shift to intentionally and actively trying. John was excited when I told him that I was willing to try drugs. I remember his big brown eyes lighting up. He kissed me so hard, and we started the next day. So I never expected it to take us still another year and a half. The doctor never particularly told us what the holdup was.
I remember John joking, "I think this baby knows he might have my face." That's how we did IVF, with a smile, without much worry. I didn't cry about how hard it was to get pregnant. We didn't argue about IVF being annoying. We just jumped in with a smile, like that time we jumped off the cliff when we were on our honeymoon.
"The nurse says I'm a champion; she's never seen someone in such great spirits. Especially with their husband missing. You do know you're missing, right? Hurry up. Pick up your phone. I called Sam. He's coming over. Where are you?" This time, I was trying desperately to sound like I was okay. A contraction fluttered into the call, and there was a long pause between “Especially with their husband missing” and “you do know you're missing, right?” And even though my words were trying so hard to be playful, almost teasing, the terror in my voice was clear and evident. The pain had been building. The pain in my heart, where was my husband? And the pain in my belly.
Even though I didn't say it to him, I had this horrible feeling already that she wouldn't survive the birth. The nurse told me, "It does look like it might be a rough one." She hadn't left my side in an hour and was carefully monitoring her heartbeat.
"Are we going to have a C-section?" I whimpered between terrified cries. I was weeping. This was when I started weeping. Seconds after the phone call where I tried to sound brave and playful. That's when I wept.
The nurse frowned and started an IV. "Oh, honey, don't cry. He's gonna show up soon, and you just called your brother? It's gonna be all right. We are just extra cautious," she said, and her eyes flickered to the heartbeat tape whirring softly out of the machine.