Turn Me Loose (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  That was the other half of the deal. She wanted to hear the rest of his story. She didn’t want to leave their metal . . . not coffin. Their . . . cocoon, where it wasn’t about real life, her bad past choices, or their uncertain future. Where it was about sitting next to Travis and listening to him talk, slow and deep and steady. And maybe holding his hand, too.

  Like it or not, though, the elevator was descending again, steadily this time, and then the doors were opening with a rush of cool air and a guy was standing there in dark blue Carhartts and boots, saying, “Everybody OK?”

  Travis was on his feet already, pulling her to hers, and the guy was staring at her, clearly having lost his train of thought. Her skirt had ridden up as she’d stood, her shirt was sticking to her, and Mr. Maintenance was checking it all out. She pulled everything down, tossed her hair back, and said, “Yep. We’re all good. Thanks for coming.”

  “I was on a call down in Cheney,” the guy said. “That’s why I could get to you so fast.” He finally tore his gaze from her and glanced at Travis. Travis moved a fraction of a step closer to her, and Rochelle could almost hear the antlers lock.

  “Yeah,” Travis said, his voice flat. “Thanks, man. We’re all good.” He bent down, picked up the water bottle, and handed it to Rochelle, then picked up her file box. “Ready to get out of here?” he asked her.

  “Sure.” She smiled and felt the tremble around the edges. “Thanks again.”

  Travis led the way down the basement steps, and she followed him, directed him to the storage room, stowed the box, and headed upstairs again. They walked down the echoing main hall, and both spoke at once.

  “Can I—” he said.

  “I’m just—” she said. “Oh. Go ahead.”

  “No. You first.”

  “I’ll just . . . duck in here.” She indicated the ladies’ room. “If you want to wait a sec.”

  In reality, it was more like ten minutes before she could get herself presentable again. Her first glance in the mirror had her reaching for the paper towels and her purse in horror. Melting your makeup off in an elevator wasn’t on anybody’s list of beauty tips.

  And then she had to make a call. She ducked into the back of the restroom to do it so Travis wouldn’t hear her. “Hey, Kayla?” she said. “I know I’m really late. It’s a long story. I got stuck. But could I bring somebody to lunch with me?”

  “Sure.” Her friend sounded surprised. “It’s fine. We went ahead without you. Zoe couldn’t wait. It’s just sandwiches, anyway. Who are you bringing? Your sister?”

  That made Rochelle laugh, and she realized how shaky she still was and leaned against the cool tile. “About the furthest thing from it. A guy. His name’s Travis. Or Wayne. Or something. He probably eats a lot, and like I said, we’ve been stuck, and I’ll bet he’s hungry. And I’m rambling, I know. We’ve had an adventure, you could say. Can I bring him?”

  “Oh, good. That does sound like a story. Of course you can. Whatever his name is. I’d like to hear more.”

  “Later. Maybe. Depending.” Rochelle hadn’t told anybody about Travis when it had happened. She hadn’t even said much to her cousin. She wasn’t sure she was ready to start spreading the news of her hookup among the blissfully newlywed.

  When she came out of the restroom, Travis was standing there, relaxed as ever.

  “You could at least look a little wrecked,” she told him. “I had to do major damage control in there.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She got another of his slow smiles for that, just a lightening of the eyes and a movement at the corners of his mouth. “You looked all right to me. I was thinking, you said you’d ridden your bike up here. It’s hot, and you’re shaken up, and maybe almost as hungry as me. Let’s toss the bike in the back of my truck and go grab lunch, and then I’ll give you a ride home.”

  She cleared her throat. She could still hear the faint sounds from down the hall that meant the elevator guy was doing his thing. At least it’d be fixed for the school week. “I’m late for lunch with friends, actually. But if you’d like to come along . . .”

  He gave her more of that crooked smile. “Is this a trick question?”

  “I didn’t say get down and dirty,” she cautioned, trying to keep her heart from lifting. “I said lunch. With friends.”

  “I heard what you said. And I’ll take it.”

  Careful, Travis told himself as he set her bike in the bed of his truck and slammed the tailgate shut, then opened the passenger door and held it for her. Slow and steady. He still had a long way to go to earn her trust.

  He might have watched her step up and swing her legs in, and he might have enjoyed it. Just like he’d enjoyed seeing that maintenance guy’s eyes slide away from her body once he’d gotten the message. All sorts of primitive things were going on here, and what was worse, they were fine by him. He’d left the city behind for sure.

  She directed him through town, up the Maple Street hill, and around to a house on D Street at the north edge of town.

  “Nice spot,” he said when she led him around the back of the house, where a deck overlooked the view of the last few straggling streets and the fields beyond.

  It really was “lunch with friends.” A man, two women, a boy, and a baby, all sitting in the shade of a blue awning over a wide deck. And to complete the domestic picture, a border-collie mix who came forward wagging a feathery tail.

  Rochelle crouched down and gave the dog a pat, saying, “This is Daisy.”

  The guy had stood up. “Luke Jackson,” he said, shaking hands with Travis. “My wife, Kayla.” A pretty, petite blonde. “And my sister-in-law, Zoe.” Another short woman, a brunette this time. The baby was next to her, asleep in a carrier on the ground. A very tiny baby, the kind that made Travis nervous, all fragile arms and legs and a visible pulse beating through the soft spot at the top of its head under some wisps of brown duck-down hair. The baby was wearing only a one-piece undershirt. He couldn’t even tell if it was a girl or a boy, because the undershirt was yellow, with a duck on it.

  “And our son, Eli,” Luke said, nodding at the boy next to him. Travis saw the motion, sensed Luke’s kick on Eli’s ankle, and had to smile. Exactly what his own dad would have done. The boy scrambled to his feet and shook hands.

  “This is . . . um, I don’t know,” Rochelle said with a laugh. “Travis Wayne Cochran. Who likes to change his name.”

  “Travis,” he said. “Among friends.”

  “Please,” Kayla said. “Sit down and have something to drink, and a sandwich. Rochelle said you’d had an adventure.”

  “Travis is a new lecturer in Computer Science.” Rochelle sat down and poured herself a glass from a pitcher of iced tea. “You might have met Zoe, if she wasn’t on maternity leave,” she told Travis.

  “Geological Sciences,” the brunette said as Travis seated himself across from her. “Once upon a time, back when I was smart. Right now, I’m mostly trying to teach Advanced Topics in Sleeping. And failing badly.”

  “How old is your baby?” he asked.

  “Thirteen days. This is our first real social outing. She’s on her best behavior, as you see. Don’t let her fool you, though. She’s evil. But tell us about the adventure. Entertain me.”

  “She actually loves her baby,” Rochelle informed Travis. “Who has a name. Geez, Zoe.”

  Zoe laughed, and her face lit up and changed entirely. “Her name is Alice. And sorry. I’m shocking, I know. Cal—my husband—is harvesting, so I’m refusing to let him help me out at night, and my nobility is killing me. Wheat doesn’t wait, and neither do babies. Never mind. I’m good. Tell me the story.”

  “It wasn’t that exciting. Stuck in an elevator,” Rochelle explained, her hand waving, glancing at him from time to time out of the side of those laughing eyes. Travis lay back in his chair, sipped his iced tea, ate a sandwich, and watched her. The conversation flowed effortlessly around him, and he relaxed and listened and thought, Works for me.

  “How’s yo
ur sister doing, Rochelle?” Zoe asked after a bit.

  She shrugged, suddenly not looking quite as animated. “Stacy,” Travis said. “Nice girl.”

  “You’ve met her.” Luke’s eyes were watchful, as they had been ever since Travis had showed up with Rochelle.

  “Wait.” Rochelle was sitting up straighter. “You didn’t. She didn’t.”

  “She didn’t what?” Travis asked before finishing off his sandwich and dishing himself up some salad. “Thanks for this,” he told Kayla. “Exactly what I needed after my grueling adventure with Rochelle.”

  “You’re not going to worm your way out of this,” Rochelle said. “You got my address from my sister.”

  “That’d be telling. Couldn’t we say that I really wanted it, and I’m a persuasive guy, and leave it at that?”

  “He brought me a plant,” Rochelle said. “A hydrangea. And then he planted it.” She was glaring at him as if it had been a body.

  “He did, huh.” Zoe’s eyes were big, round, and brown. Deceptively innocent, Travis would have called them. She didn’t look like she was suffering any loss of brain cells to him. “Why?”

  “Maybe because it was all I could think of,” he said.

  “Or maybe,” Rochelle said, “because my sister told you I liked to garden, and what to get me.”

  “Like I said, some people find me persuasive.”

  “You are so . . .” she began. “Both of you.”

  He sighed. “One minute I’m the elevator hero. The next I’m the goat.”

  “Hey,” she said. “Did you once try climbing out the top?”

  “Nope. I sure didn’t. Shared my Snickers bar, though.”

  She laughed at that, and he grinned back, and she told Zoe, “I’m not sure how Stacy is. Better, I guess. Up and down.”

  “She get a job yet?”

  “I hate when you zero in on the exact thing I don’t want to talk about,” Rochelle complained. “Nope. She hasn’t. Not too easy, when you got fired from your last one for not showing up, and it was at the university. Means I can’t use my contacts, because they check no matter what I say.”

  “I was hearing our new waitress saying they’re hiring at Macho Taco, out in the mall,” Kayla put in. “She didn’t want it, because it’s not the best, but . . .”

  “Hmm,” Rochelle said. “Yeah. They might be desperate enough. Thanks. And I will haul her butt down there every day if I have to.” She looked like she meant it, too.

  “I could use somebody,” Travis offered.

  Rochelle just looked at him, and he said, “Teaching assistant. You know, do my . . .” He cast about for an idea. “Grading,” he finished lamely.

  “No,” she said.

  “Hey. Why not?”

  “You know exactly why not. You’ve got two very small upper-division classes. If you needed a teaching assistant, you’d have asked for one.”

  “You know,” he said, “you could make this easier. I’m just saying.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Luke said. “Easy might be overrated.”

  “Thanks,” Travis said. “That’s helpful.”

  Zoe was smiling, and then she wasn’t. That’s what he noticed. Her eyes widened even more, and then she was standing, and Travis was turning to see what she was looking at.

  A big man in dirty jeans, work boots, and a feed cap had come through the side gate, moving fast, followed by a big, ugly dog. Everyone went quiet as the guy came up onto the patio and went straight for the baby, lifted her out of her little seat, tucked her securely into one big arm, and nuzzled the top of her head, then kept his face there.

  Ah. The dad. Zoe’s husband, Cal. But something was off.

  “Honey,” Zoe said, her hand on his arm. “What is it?”

  Cal lifted his head from the baby, and Travis got a jolt down low in his gut at the bleakness in his face. “I just needed to smell her.”

  Silence engulfed the group as Cal looked around the table, his gaze landing on the kid.

  “Eli,” Kayla said quietly, “you’re excused.”

  The boy looked from his mother to Cal, his expression much too old for his age. He didn’t answer—but then, he hadn’t said anything so far—just picked up his plate and left the table with Daisy trotting along behind.

  Meanwhile, the ugly dog had sat himself down next to his master as if he needed to stay right there. Just like Zoe did.

  “What happened?” Luke asked his brother. He, too, had stood. “Bad? The folks? Or what?”

  Cal sat down, still holding the baby, who hadn’t woken. He took one of her little hands in his own large one, the gesture incongruously delicate, and ran his thumb over the fragile knuckles, the tiny nails. “I found a dead girl.”

  Kayla’s hand was at her mouth, but Zoe, who still had her hand on Cal’s arm, said, “Where?”

  He took a deep breath, blew it out. “Harvesting. Just finished that first lentil field over near Black Butte. She was down in that ditch, under the weeds.”

  “How’d you spot her?” Luke asked.

  “Magpies. I just had to . . . I had . . .” Cal’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his strong throat as he swallowed, and the hand holding Alice’s was shaking. Zoe took the baby from him, got up, and put her back in her seat. Then she scooted close to her husband and put her hand on his broad back, smoothing over it in slow circles.

  Cal said, “Sorry, Kayla. I didn’t get a shower.” He looked down at himself as if noticing for the first time that he was still in his work clothes.

  “No, you’re good,” Luke said. “Could you tell who it was?”

  A violent shake of the head at that. “Too many birds. Coyotes, too, I’d say. But . . . a grown girl. Not a . . . not a child. Long, dark hair.” His face twisted. “Sorry. I’ve been with the cops. Quite a while. It was just—it kinda hit me, just now.” He put his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hand over his face.

  Kayla uttered an inarticulate noise, and Luke put his arm around her. Next to Travis, Rochelle sat still and silent.

  After a moment, Cal sat up again and took another deep breath. “Yeah. Well. I went on back and called the sheriff. Jim Lawson came out first, then all the rest of them.”

  “Jim’s his cousin,” Rochelle told Travis in an undertone. “Deputy.”

  “They say anything?” Luke asked.

  Another shake of the head from Cal. “You know how they are,” he said, sounding steadier now. “Just asked me some questions. Had I seen anybody, any rigs out there? No, but I hadn’t been out there. Had I noticed the birds before today? Of course I hadn’t. Wasn’t harvesting there before. But she’d been there awhile.”

  “I haven’t heard of any missing persons,” Luke said. “And I’d think I would have.”

  “Could’ve been dumped there from anywhere,” Cal said.

  “No way of telling how she . . .” Luke began.

  “No. But she didn’t get there by herself. Not all the way up that farm road, then off over all that rough ground, and in the ditch, with the weeds over her. Arranged over her to hide her, I’d bet. Has to be murder. Has to be. I kept thinking, her folks . . .”

  His voice cracked on the final word, and Zoe said, “Cal . . .”

  He looked at her and said, “Baby, let’s go home. I’m done for today. Even if I weren’t, they won’t let me move the combine. The whole place is a crime scene now. You about ready?”

  “Of course I’m ready. And of course you’re not going back to work today.”

  “You need to rest anyway,” he told her.

  “Oh, Cal,” she said with a broken laugh. “You’re so . . .” She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and said, “Come on. We’ll go home. We’ll rest together.”

  Cal picked up Alice’s car seat, and Zoe gathered her things then headed around the side of the house with her family, the big dog trotting along behind.

  A short silence fell over the group still sitting at the table after their departure.

  “Hell of a thing for
a new dad to see,” Luke finally said.

  Kayla looked at him and said, “You got that?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I did. He’s my brother.” He looked at Travis. “Takes a lot to shake Cal up.”

  “Yep,” Travis said. “I’ll bet it does. He’s Cal Jackson. The Seahawks quarterback.”

  “Oh,” Rochelle said. “I forgot that you wouldn’t know who he was.”

  “Took me a minute to place him, in the context,” Travis said. “I knew he wasn’t playing anymore. Didn’t realize he was farming. But I’m sure it does take a lot to shake him up. Famously cool under pressure.”

  “Different kind of pressure,” Luke said. “Cal’s pretty protective.”

  “I got that, too,” Travis said.

  ALL KINDS OF READJUSTMENTS

  Rochelle sat still, and so did everybody else. It was as if Cal had left behind a disturbance in the very air of this serene spot, a reminder not only of this latest violence, but also of all the violence that had come before. She knew without asking that everyone here was feeling it. Everyone but Travis, though he was quiet as well, his expression thoughtful. But then, it had been obvious in the elevator that he was a lot more sensitive than he let on.

  “Well,” Luke said after a second, “so much for dessert. I’ve lost my appetite. I don’t know about you all. You OK?” he asked Kayla.

  “Yes,” she said, then got up from the table. “I’ll just go check on Eli.”

  Luke watched her go with a frown on his good-looking face. Once she was inside, he told Travis, “Violence upsets her. Especially this kind of thing.”

  “Well, yeah,” Travis said. “I can imagine.”

  Rochelle shook herself, stood up, and began to gather dishes. “We’ll get out of here in a minute and let you guys regroup. Wow, what a day. Sorry, Travis. Maybe not quite what you had in mind.”