by David Bell
“The police are once again sending her picture and information out everywhere. This is still a missing person case. Someone knows something.”
“What if someone has her, Paige? Some freak . . .” Red spots appeared before his eyes. “He could be holding her. Hurting her. Do you know I sometimes think I can hear her screaming? It’s just kids playing on the next block, but it sounds like Summer screaming.”
His knees felt wobbly. He started to slide down, but Paige’s hands held him up. He found some last measure of strength inside him and straightened.
“Let’s get out of here, Bill.”
“Yes.”
Bill stared at the girl’s still body for another moment. The red spots appeared before his eyes again. He brought his hand back and then forward, his fist clenched. His knuckles hit the glass with as much force as he could muster, and the excruciating pain did what the sight of the girl couldn’t. It brought him to his knees where he wailed, clutching his limp hand.
“Bill? Shit. Did you break your hand?”
He squeezed his eyes tight, the red spots growing larger and exploding like fireworks against his closed lids. The pain rattled his body like an electric shock, searing every nerve ending and cell.
He didn’t know how long he kneeled that way. Then someone was beside him, taking his hand gingerly.
Bill managed to open one eye. The security guard examined Bill’s knuckles, gently turning the hand one way and then the other, pressing in some places.
“I was a medic in Iraq,” the guard said, his voice flat. “Just keep breathing.”
Bill tried to. He huffed and puffed, and the pain eased.
“I don’t think you broke anything,” the guard said, “but you sure tried to.”
Paige started to help him up. “Let’s go home and put some ice on it. Or do you think you need an X-ray?”
“No. No. No.”
“No, what?”
“I’m not going home. Why the fuck would I? That’s the one place I know Summer isn’t.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Bill flexed his hand as they went back out into the hall, the guard leading the way. Bill asked, “How can we get upstairs from here?”
“Upstairs?” the guard asked, the word seemingly unfamiliar to him.
“To patient rooms,” Bill said. “The rehab wing. We want to visit someone.”
“Are you talking about Haley?” Paige asked. “Is now the time?”
Bill ignored her. “Can you show us?”
The guard led them through the twisting, turning hallways until they ended up at an elevator. “Which floor?” he asked.
“We know,” Bill said as he hit the up button.
On the elevator ride, Paige stood with her arms folded.
“What is it?” Bill asked. His hand felt limp and loose, his wrist sore. He kept flexing it.
“I figured you’d want to go home,” she said. “If Summer is out there, alive, she could end up coming home at some point. What if she shows up and you’re not there? Nobody’s there?”
“You saw the condition of those other girls,” Bill said. “You think she’s coming home in any kind of decent shape? If she comes home. What are the chances this animal beat those other two girls and left her alone?”
“You never know.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s those kids. Probably obsessed with her. They probably spent every waking hour jacking off while looking at her picture.”
Paige remained silent for a moment as the elevator dinged upward. “According to that chart, they didn’t have to jack off.”
Bill almost wanted to laugh, the comment was so crude and unexpected. His hand hurt so much, his anger was blunted. “Yeah, I’m learning a lot of things, I guess. I just want to find out if Haley is awake yet. She saw whoever did this to them. She can tell us. She’s the one person we know who was there. It’s time.”
“If she remembers,” Paige said.
Her words dampened Bill’s spirits even as he knew she was right. He remembered the prognosis given when everyone thought this was Summer. “Possible long-term damage.” But he hoped that wasn’t true for Haley. She was a witness to the crime. She might even know where Summer was.
Bill hated the familiar smells and sounds of the hospital. The squeaking of the nurses’ shoes, the calls over the PA system. The rattling of carts and bottles and equipment.
As they approached the rehab wing, Bill saw a man he didn’t recognize standing outside Haley’s room. His small head was shaven, making it look as sleek as a bullet. He wore a perfectly tailored suit that showed off his long, slender body. He looked like a runner, a guy who entered marathons with the intention of beating the previous year’s time. He tapped his phone as they walked up, then started to go into the room.
“Excuse me,” Bill said. “Where’s the guard?”
When the man turned around, some recognition crossed his face. “Oh,” he said.
Bill didn’t recognize him, but he made a guess. “Are you Haley’s father?”
“I am. And I know who you are.”
The two men shook hands as Rich Rodgers offered Bill and Paige his sympathies. “You really didn’t have to come by,” Rich said. “I know you’re going through a lot.”
Bill and Paige exchanged a look. He doesn’t know. No one knows yet. Or they were finding out right then if Hawkins was announcing it.
Bill let out a long sigh. He felt too tired to explain, too weary to go into it.
“Is something wrong?” Rich asked.
“Where’s the guard?” Bill asked again.
“Oh, he’s here,” Rich said. “A couple of kids from school came by, hoping to visit Haley. The guard walked them out. Is something wrong?”
So Paige stepped up. “Yeah, there’s been a new development there. . . .”
She told Rich about the discovery that Summer wasn’t the girl buried in the grave, that she was once again a missing person. Rich listened, and the more Paige talked, the farther his chin dropped, until his mouth hung wide open, a tiny thread of spit linking his upper and lower lips.
When Paige was finished, the man was speechless. He didn’t say anything. He just stared in disbelief.
“But we were wondering how Haley is doing,” Bill said, trying to break the spell. “Did she wake up?”
Rich reached up, scratching at his bullet head. He still seemed unable to find any words. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” Paige said. “They’re sure about this part.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.” He scratched his head again. “Or maybe this is good. Better, I guess. Right?”
“We hope so,” Paige said.
“So,” Bill said. “Haley?”
“Right, Haley. It’s slow, her progress. I guess the two of you know that, since you spent a lot of time here. The progress is really slow.” He sounded impatient, as though he thought Haley wasn’t doing enough to recover, like she was sleeping in on a lazy Saturday morning. “They’re working with her a lot, so we keep hoping for things to get better.”
“So she’s not able to speak yet?” Bill asked. “Maybe if we went in and, I don’t know, tried a little harder. Tried something.”
When he asked the question, Paige made a subtle noise with her mouth, something akin to “Tsk.” But Bill ignored her.
“No,” Rich said, looking behind him at the closed door to her room. “And I’d like to hear from her too. I really would.” When he turned back around, he stared at Bill’s face, considering him as though deciding whether he wanted to say the next thing. He must have decided yes, because he went on. “I’m just eager to hear from her mouth that the things being said about her, the things the police are telling us about these boys, aren’t true.”
“Yes, it’s kind of hard to accept as a father. They’re so young.”
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Rich didn’t bother to lower his voice despite the ever-bustling presence of nurses and orderlies. “Haley has always had a certain gift for finding herself in over her head. Ever since she was a little girl. She’s easily led, easily manipulated. She takes after her mom in that way.”
Bill tried to think of something to say to stop the man from going on, but he couldn’t.
“Not living here, I’ve worried about the kind of trouble she could be getting into, and now all of that has come true. When she wakes up, if she wakes up . . .” He stopped talking, and it looked as though he wasn’t going to bother finishing the thought. But then he said, “She has a lot of explaining to do. To me. I don’t care what she says to her mother, but I’m going to have some things to ask her and some things to tell her.”
Paige forgot her tsking at Bill and decided to speak up herself. “You can’t really think she was asking for this, can you? Someone attacked her. Look at the condition she’s in. Nothing could merit that kind of violence. Another girl is dead and one is missing.”
Rich stared at Paige like she was a rock that had suddenly started to speak. “I didn’t say she deserved to be hurt. I didn’t say that at all. But I think a firmer hand is needed sometimes. Especially with a teenager. And I don’t think my ex-wife provides it.”
“A firmer hand?” Paige said.
“Do you mind if I just take a peek in there?” Bill asked. “Maybe if I just—”
“What exactly is happening with the search for Summer, then?” Rich asked. “Where are they looking? It seems strange as hell they found two girls and not the third. What could have made that happen?”
Bill’s hand felt like a water balloon. A little swollen, a little useless. He needed to ask a nurse for ice. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I just know they’re looking. And time is working against us in a big way.”
“Do you think . . .” Rich stopped himself. His lips formed a tight line, a seam in his face. Then he said, “I understand Summer was kind of the leader among these girls. You know, I remember that shoplifting thing a few years back. Haley said Summer goaded her into it. Summer always seemed more assertive, more outgoing. God knows Haley wasn’t that way. Summer was the leader, and now she can’t be found. . . .” His voice trailed off, and then he shrugged, a helpless gesture, an attempt not to be fully responsible for the words he was saying, as though the shrug softened the blow. “Why would she be the only one they didn’t find?”
The hallway grew quiet. Even the Muzak seemed to have stopped.
Bill shook his limp, bruised hand, and felt pins and needles in each of his fingertips.
“I wish I knew that, Rich,” Bill said. “I really wish I did.”
Rich’s phone began to ring, and he didn’t bother to excuse himself before he turned and answered it.
Then Paige took Bill by the arm, moving him back, pushing him toward the elevators. When they were almost there, Paige turned to Bill and said, “I feel even sorrier for Haley than I did before.”
Once inside the elevator, Paige remained oddly quiet. Bill stared at the illuminated numbers, watching them light up one after another.
“What are you thinking?” Bill asked. “You’re always thinking something.”
“He was an asshole.”
“Yes. But?”
“Nothing.”
“Paige?”
She folded her arms across her chest and said in a low voice, “Do you know, Bill—do you really know—everything Summer was involved in? I mean . . . Let’s talk about it in the car, okay?”
When the doors opened, Bill walked out while Paige tried to keep up. He saw the familiar figure of one of the security guards coming toward him through the lobby. The guy was middle-aged and paunchy, and his face changed when he saw Bill. It turned somber as he looked down, almost appearing to wish Bill wouldn’t recognize him, but as they came up to each other, the man held out his hand.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Price,” he said. “I’m just so sorry none of this is working out for you.”
Bill shook the man’s hand, which felt cold and clammy. “Thank you.” He didn’t know if the man had heard the latest, and he decided not to get into it. He accepted the sympathy however the man intended it. And the gesture brought some warmth to Bill’s chest. “Thanks for all you did, keeping an eye on her.”
“Of course. I’m happy to do it.” He hitched up his pants a little. “I’m happy to help with Haley too.”
“Sure.” Bill started away, Paige at his side. He looked back and said, “I’m glad to hear kids from school are coming to visit. She’ll be happy to see them when she can.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Something about the man’s tone stopped Bill. He came back and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” the man said, waving his hand in front of his face. “Kids. Some kid shows up here, and he looks surprised to see me, you know? He acts shocked that there’s a guard on the floor where Haley is. And I tell him he has to go, that only immediate family and close friends can be up there now, and he, I don’t know, he throws a little attitude at me.”
“Attitude?” Paige asked. “He mouthed off?”
“Not so much,” the guy said, shrugging. “Just . . . entitled or something. Smirky. That’s why I walked him out. I thought maybe he needed to know he couldn’t just show up anytime he wanted. That’s a sick girl up there.”
“Did he tell you his name?” Bill asked.
“Yeah. He had longer hair. Clinton, that’s who he said he was.”
“That’s him,” Bill said, turning to Paige. “Clinton Fields. Why was he here?” He turned back to the guard. “Did you tell the police? Detective Hawkins?”
“No. Why? This just happened.”
“Tell Hawkins. Or I’ll tell him. He shouldn’t be here. Is he still outside?”
“He was leaving—”
Bill didn’t hear him. He darted for the sliding glass doors, Paige right behind him.
“Bill?”
He ran out into the parking lot, the cold air hitting his face. He looked around, squinting. People came and went. An ambulance, its emergency beacons blinking, pulled out of the lot. But he saw no sign of Clinton.
“Bill, leave him alone.”
“I can’t.”
“Let the cops do it. He’ll tell the cops. Okay?”
“What was he doing here, Paige? What on earth was he doing here?”
“It’s cold,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Bill tossed the keys to Paige. “You drive.”
He climbed into the passenger seat of the Civic, using his left hand as much as he could, and reached across his body to pull the door shut.
“Where do you want to go?” Paige asked.
“What?”
“Where do you want to go? You said you didn’t want to go home, so where do you want to go?”
Bill reached up, rubbing his hand across his chin. The windshield was dirty, the dashboard dusty. “What did you want to tell me?” he asked. “You have something on your mind.”
“It’s nothing, Bill.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s never nothing with you. It wasn’t nothing when you thought that wasn’t Summer.” Bill forced the next words out. “And you were right.” He looked over at Paige, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. She must have felt his eyes boring into the side of her face. He wanted her to. Like lasers. As if his eyes were giving off heat.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Bill. Just don’t. I’m sorry I said it.”
“Just tell me. I don’t want to be treated with kid gloves.” He reached up and brushed some dust off the dashboard. He didn’t know why. He just wanted to do something useful. “I need to call Hawkins, okay? I’m not going to trust a rent-a-cop to do it. So hurry up.”
“Okay.” Pa
ige turned to face him. Her face was drained of color, and Bill saw tiny red capillaries in her eyes, like infinitesimal rivers of blood. She bit her lower lip, then said, “Ever since you told me about that guidance counselor saying that Summer seemed upset lately, I’ve been thinking. And now they’ve found two girls, including Summer’s best friend, the girl she’s inseparable from, someone who is like a sister to her, but they can’t find Summer. It breaks my heart to say it, Bill.” Her voice was rising, growing thinner, more brittle. “Could she have run away? Could she just be involved in something we don’t know about? Something we can’t even guess at?”
Bill felt as though the air had been sucked out of the car. Something thumped deep inside his ear, a pulsing pressure. He formulated words, an angry, slashing response to his sister, but as he chewed them over, they felt empty and forced, a vain raging against something he couldn’t comprehend. His shoulders slumped. He wasn’t sure Paige could see it, but he felt it.
“Bill, I’m sorry. I’m likely wrong. She’s in danger, and we—”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. She lost her mother. She and I butted heads. She never wanted to stay in Jakesville. Maybe she . . . I don’t know. Maybe she did run off—I just can’t bring myself to believe that.”
Paige reached out, placing her hand on his. “Could she have gotten in over her head with something? Could she have just gotten in too deep?”
Bill turned and stared through the dirty windshield. He squinted against the weak, watery sunlight. “I just don’t know, Paige. What on earth would it be? Is she pregnant? Is she mixed up in a crime?”
“Maybe she’s mixed up in something, and those two girls got hurt as a result, but Summer is somewhere else?”
“You make her sound like a drug dealer. Or a mafioso. She’s a kid. A teenage girl who’s never been in any real trouble. She had everything going for her. She had a bright future. You should hear the way her teachers talk about her.”
“Do you have a guess?”
“No, I don’t. You know I don’t. What do you think I lie awake at night thinking about? I think about what she could be involved in. Or whether she ran away. Or whether she’s dead.”