by Alex Finlay
“I know.”
“That’s why she’s lucky you’re on the case.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“No, no, no. None of that. You’re the shit too. I mean, how else would you have this slice of beef waiting for you at home?”
“I’ve got to get to bed. I’ll call you tomorrow after the funeral, you lunatic.”
“Aight. You got this, Federale. I’m out.”
CHAPTER 49
MATT PINE
Matt drove his grandfather’s old station wagon into the Adair Motel parking lot. Tonight the lot was more crowded than before, jammed with news vans and cars with out-of-state plates. More troops to cover the funeral tomorrow, Matt supposed. He saw Kala standing in front of the door to her room. She wore jeans and a shirt knotted so you could see her midriff. The piercing on her flat tummy.
She walked around the long vehicle, eyeing the wood-paneled sides with an amused squint in her eyes.
“Nice wheels,” Kala said, pulling the seat belt over her shoulder.
“My grandfather’s. I think he’s had it since my mom was a kid.”
“How is he?” Kala asked.
“Not great. They say he has moments of lucidity. But I haven’t seen any.”
“I’m sorry.” Kala put a hand on his shoulder, rubbed it.
“It’s all right.” Matt thought back to Cindy’s remark. The only family he had left was a brother in prison, a curmudgeon aunt, and a grandfather who didn’t recognize him.
“I’m starving,” Kala said.
“I told you to go to Lincoln with everybody,” Matt said.
Ganesh and company were getting cabin fever. He’d texted Matt that they needed to go to a real restaurant and a real bar, preferably one without tumbleweeds outside and inbred hicks trying to kill him. It was sweet of Kala to hang back. To make sure Matt wasn’t alone. She was from rural Oklahoma, so he supposed she had a higher tolerance for small towns. Though even Kala was starting to get that cooped-up look about her. Once you lived in Greenwich Village, it was hard to go back. That was why every New Yorker comes across insufferably superior.
Kala said, “I needed a break from everyone. And I wanted to see you—you’ve been gone all day.”
“There aren’t many food options this late,” Matt said.
“You’ll think of something.”
Matt drove the clunker out of the lot, not sure where to go. He could head to Lincoln like the rest of them, but it was already late. He was tired, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d spent the day watching TV and visiting with his aunt.
Kala gazed out the window at nothing. The air was thick. It was already feeling like summer.
“Anything would be great,” she said, still staring outside like she was searching for something on the horizon. “Even that crap fast food you and Ganesh like.”
“You’re really slumming it,” Matt said.
“When in Rome,” Kala replied. It was something she always said, and Matt had picked up the habit of saying or thinking it himself. Funny how you acquire the verbal tics of your friends.
“We could go to Runza,” Matt said. “I think it’s open late.”
“Go to what?”
“You’ve never had a runza?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Soon Matt was veering onto the interstate, keeping his distance from the semis barreling down every lane. He punched the gas, concerned the old tank wouldn’t even hit fifty.
Kala gripped the plastic handle that hung over the passenger window as the station wagon rattled and finally picked up speed.
Ten minutes later Matt pointed out the window. “It’s still there.”
Kala glanced at the glowing green-and-yellow sign atop a long pole designed to be visible from the interstate. Matt took the exit loop and pulled into the lot.
“It looks like a McDonald’s, but green,” Kala said.
“I told you not to get excited. Eat here, or get it to go?”
Kala peered into the restaurant. Empty except for a kid in what undoubtedly was a polyester uniform pushing around a mop.
“Definitely let’s get it to go,” she said.
As Matt pulled up to the drive-through speaker, Kala said, “What exactly are they?”
Matt thought about how to describe them. “A runza is like a warm bun filled with beef, onions, and cabbage. It kind of looks like a Hot Pocket. I know it sounds horrible, but it’s actually good.”
A distorted voice came through the speaker. Matt ordered an original runza, fries, and a Coke.
Kala leaned over Matt and called out the window, “Make that two of everything.”
Back on the road, Kala plucked out one of the fries and bit into it. “Is there, like, a park or somewhere we can eat? Anywhere but the motel.”
“My old school isn’t too far away. There used to be outdoor tables.”
“Ooh, I get to see the institution that shaped Matthew Pine.”
“I’ll spare you the suspense: there was no Dead Poets Society.”
Kala sipped through her straw, her eyes twinkling.
* * *
The benches were newer, but in the same place: across from the outdoor basketball court, next to the gym.
Kala examined her runza with curiosity, poking at it with a plastic fork.
Matt picked his up like a burrito and took a bite. The taste took him back in time. He had no specific memory, just a feeling.
Matt scanned the area. The cliché was true that everything looked smaller. The school was a two-story redbrick building. The front was barren, no trees or landscaping, an empty plain of concrete.
The dark sky lit up beyond the building, lightning in the distance. So far away, you couldn’t hear any thunder.
“What grade were you in when you left?” Kala asked.
“Ninth,” Matt said. “The school goes from seventh to twelfth grade. Not enough kids around here for a separate middle school.”
“So your brother and sister went here with you?”
“Just Danny. Mags was in elementary school when we left. Mom was pregnant with Tommy.”
“Why did you leave town? The documentary made it sound like townsfolk with pitchforks.”
“It wasn’t so dramatic. Just a lot of whispers and stares wherever we went. I actually got in a fight right over there about it.” He nodded at the basketball court. He hadn’t been defending Danny’s honor. A kid had said that maybe someone would take Maggie down by the creek. It had scared him, how he’d lost control and whaled on the boy. And if he could lose it like that, he’d realized, so could his older brother. “And that was it. We packed up and moved.”
“That was pretty selfless of your parents. I mean, your dad leaving his job, your mom giving up her hometown.”
Matt had never really thought of it that way. But she was right. He liked that she didn’t hesitate to talk about his family. He was learning that it was a topic people were finding uncomfortable. Matt liked talking about them. He didn’t want them to vanish as if they’d never existed.
Kala picked up the half-eaten runza and put it and her wrappers in the bag. She cleaned up Matt’s mess, too.
A heavy silence fell between them.
At last Kala said, “Ganesh said that girl at the bar, the one who broke up the fight—that you, like, met her at four in the morning?”
Matt told her about Jessica. How he’d met her at the Knoll the night Charlotte was murdered. He almost told her about seeing Danny in his letterman jacket, pushing the wheelbarrow. But tonight wasn’t about Danny.
“She was your first love?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Okay, your first something else…” She cocked a brow.
Matt rolled his eyes. “I was fourteen.”
She watched him, waiting for him to tell her more.
“It was just a kiss.” One electrifying kiss.
“You’ve got unfinished business w
ith her.”
Matt shook his head again. “I was a kid.”
“Unfinished business,” she repeated with a clipped nod. “You’d better finish it.”
Maybe Kala was right, maybe she wasn’t. Either way, it would have to wait.
“Thank you,” Matt said.
“For what?”
“For coming to Nebraska … For”—he paused—“for everything.”
She looked at him for a long time. For a split second he thought she was going to lean in, give him another kiss he wouldn’t forget.
“Un. Finished. Business,” Kala said, emphasizing each word with a poke of her index finger to his chest. She took his hand. “Let’s get you back. You have a long day tomorrow.”
It would undoubtedly be the longest day of his life.
CHAPTER 50
EVAN PINE
BEFORE
They spent their first full day in Tulum at the beach, dozing in rented cabanas, ordering cocktails and virgin daiquiris and watching Tommy splash in the blue ocean. Sun-drained and tired, they decided to pick up some groceries, eat in for dinner.
Evan sat at the kitchen counter, watching his family prepare the meal—Tommy’s favorite, spaghetti. Not exactly in line with local cuisine, but it brought Evan back to when they would spend Sunday nights cooking together, telling stories and laughing at the table.
Tommy was cutting onions with a butter knife, Liv guiding his hand in between sips of wine. Maggie was in charge of the sauce, and she stirred a big pot with a wooden spoon.
“No, really, sit down, relax, the womenfolk have got this,” Maggie said to Evan.
Evan sipped his beer, taking in the scene. He looked at his son. Tommy’s face was tomato red, this after Liv applying sunscreen seemingly every two minutes. He was trying to pierce the onion with the dull blade, but it kept rolling off the cutting board.
“The water’s boiling, sweetie,” Evan said to Maggie, noticing the pot nearly bubbling over. He jumped off the stool and ran around to the stove to turn down the burner.
“You been sneaking my beer?” he said, noticing that Magpie seemed a little spaced-out, lost in thought.
“Gotta prepare for college,” Maggie said.
Evan grabbed his heart, feigned a pain in his chest. “Don’t say that, not my little girl.” He hugged Maggie in an exaggerated embrace that she ordinarily would’ve fought off, but tonight she just stood, arms at her sides, until he released his hold.
With the meal finally ready, the four sat at the dining table. And for the first time Evan could remember in ages, they held hands, bowed heads, and Olivia said grace.
Liv’s tradition was to give thanks and then say a blessing for each of the children. When she got to Danny, Evan noticed Maggie’s eyes fixed on him, as if she were waiting to see his reaction. As if trying to discern whether the only thing on his mind was the case. He gave his best poker face, but his daughter knew him too well.
Later Evan sat at the edge of the bed, contemplating his wife in the faint light seeping in from the en suite. Liv was naked and had kicked off all the sheets and blankets, out cold from the sun and cocktails and wine at dinner. She was a stunningly beautiful woman.
Evan was still buzzed himself, and didn’t want to leave her. But he needed to get this out of his system. The plan was simple: He’d sneak over to the Moloko Bar, where the call had been made, check things out, confirm Charlotte wasn’t there, and come home. The rational side of him knew it was crazy—understood that Charlotte was dead—but with Evan, reason often gave way to desperation.
He slipped into his shorts and T-shirt from earlier, and padded quietly out of the room. The map app on his phone said the bar was about a ten-minute bike ride away.
“Where are you going?”
Evan felt a thunderbolt rip through him at the voice. Maggie was sitting on the couch in the dark.
“Hey, what are you doing up?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Evan looked at her.
“You don’t have to answer—I know where. I’m coming.” She stood.
“No way.”
Maggie looked at him. “I suppose we could wake up Mom and ask her.”
Evan narrowed his eyes. Man, he loved this kid.
“Seriously, let me come.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Well then, I should definitely wake Mom.” Maggie headed toward the master bedroom.
“Wait,” Evan said. He deliberated for a moment. But once his daughter grabbed onto something, she didn’t let go. He knew where she’d acquired that trait.
“You’ll wait outside.”
Maggie nodded.
“And if I say you go home, you listen.”
She nodded again.
“And—”
“I got it, Dad. It’s only eleven thirty. Trust me, the place is gonna be packed. It’s Tulum, not Naperville.”
Evan let out an exasperated sigh. “I mean it. If I say you need to leave, then…”
Maggie smiled, already tying the laces on her sneakers.
They rode the bikes along the dark road, Evan wondering if this was a mistake. Maggie was in front of him, her hair in a thick braid swaying back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. For some reason he thought of the out-of-place clock in Dr. Silverstein’s office. He saw lights up ahead.
When they reached the intersection, Maggie waited for Evan, eyeing the map on her phone. “Not too much farther,” she said. “The place is just off the main drag.”
They continued on the dark asphalt, music floating in the wind now, the lights in the distance brighter. Maggie led the charge as they pedaled around clusters of pedestrians and to the Moloko Bar, which was just around the bend from an outdoor cantina. Even this late, the area was bustling.
Maggie stopped across the street from Moloko. She looked conflicted, like she wanted to say something.
“Everything okay?” Evan asked.
“Just be careful, all right?”
Evan smiled, got off the bike, and crossed the street.
The doorman looked at him wearily, as if Evan was the sad old guy at the club. But he waved Evan through.
Inside was what he’d expected: large crowd. Pulsing dance music. The smell of perfume and sweat. He scanned the faces, looking for her. It was at times like this, unexpected, unusual, that he had moments of clarity. Charlotte wasn’t here. He was chasing a ghost. Wasting his final days before Magpie went to college. Squandering his life with Liv and Tommy. Ruining his relationship with Matt. He needed to let this go.
But he was here. Might as well …
He navigated through the crowd and made it to the bartender. The barman had tattoo sleeves and a hipster beard. He wasn’t Mexican, but it wasn’t clear he was American, either.
The music was loud. The guy shouted over the noise, “What can I get you, mate?” He had an Australian accent.
Evan laid a five-hundred-peso bill on the bar, if only because that was what they did in the movies and TV when they were trying to get information. He held out his phone, displaying a photo of Charlotte.
“I’m trying to find my daughter,” he lied. He assumed the bartender might be more sympathetic to a father than if he thought Evan was a cop or a private investigator or a creepy old guy looking for a young woman.
Evan waited for him to say he’d never seen her before, that he was sorry he couldn’t help.
The bartender smoothed a hand over his beard, then closed his fist around the money.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her.”
CHAPTER 51
SARAH KELLER
Keller awoke to the buzz of her phone. She was disoriented for a moment, trying to comprehend why her nightstand was different, the window of her bedroom not where it should be, then she remembered. Nebraska. The motel. The old alarm clock said it was only 11:40 P.M., but she’d been in a deep sleep. She was going to ignore the call, but it might be Bob, an emergency with the twins.
&nb
sp; The number was from Mexico. Keller sat up, switched on the lamp, swiped the device.
“It’s Carlita Escobar.”
Keller’s thoughts were still fuzzy, and she blanked for a second. But then the fog lifted. Of course, the consular officer, Carlita “No Relation” Escobar.
“Hi, yes, thanks for getting back to me.”
“I’m sorry, did I wake you? You said to call when I got news, no matter the time. I can call back tomorrow.”
“No, please…”
“I’ve identified the girl.”
“Hank?” Keller asked.
“Her real name is Joanna Grace. She went by Joey. It turns out she is from Oklahoma, but she’s no hairdresser.”
Keller felt a rush of adrenaline. The fake persona confirmed that her meeting with Matt was no accident, that she’d lured him off with her, likely to deliver him to someone, until she apparently had a change of heart.
“She’s a party girl,” Escobar continued. “Works for a company out of New York.”
“You mean a prostitute?” Keller was on her feet now, pacing.
“Not quite. I checked into it, and her employer is basically like a leasing company. But instead of renting products, it’s pretty girls. Nightclubs and resorts pay to have American girls hang out at their establishments; it’s like a temp service.”
“That’s an actual thing, go figure.”
“In my day, the clubs had ladies’ night, but I guess that’s not enough anymore,” Escobar said. “I suspect some of the girls make money on the side doing more than looking pretty, but it’s otherwise a legitimate business.”
“Did you speak with her?”
There was a long beat of silence. “No. The reason we identified her so quickly was that some of the other girls in her troupe—they’re all working out of a club called Moloko—they reported her missing.”
Keller felt her stomach drop. She stopped pacing, opened the curtains, and looked outside for no reason. Several news satellite trucks were parked in the lot. “Let me guess: no one has seen her since the night with Matt Pine.”
“That’s right.”
“I suppose she could’ve taken off. Matt said she got cold feet, so maybe she’s hiding from whoever she was working with.”