The Vanishing Girls

by Callie Browning

  “Feeling strong enough to go to the police station and get that demon Lloyd arrested?”

  Eileen’s eyes blazed with fury. “Yes.”

  * * *

  DERRICKS LOCKED DOWN THE AIRPORT, deployed patrols at major docks and dispatched almost every police car to hunt down Lloyd Greaves. He had looked Eileen and Holden up and down when they’d first walked into Central Station sopping wet and smelling like day old fish. His mouth had fallen open when he’d heard their story and he wasted no time in setting things in motion to apprehend Lloyd. Less than an hour into giving their statements to the officers, a voice crackled over the police radio announcing that Lloyd had been stopped on his way to the airport with a box containing clumps of hair and four bloody scalpels. Derricks clapped Holden on the back and shook Eileen’s hand, thanking them for their assistance before he got into a waiting police car, plopped the red siren on the roof and blazed through the night to claim the glory for bringing the Cane Slasher to justice.

  Holden lifted an eyebrow and asked, “Ready to go home?” The tone of his voice was unmistakable. To him, a single night had wiped out everything, the bad memories and deal breakers scratched from the record with one act of contrition. But she knew that it wouldn’t be enough, it couldn’t erase the truth nor fix the cracks that had broken them.

  “Yes,” she bit her lip nervously. “They said they’d take me home since my car is —well you know. You were there.”

  Holden grinned and waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Actually…” Eileen took a deep breath “…I’d rather if they took me home.” She bit her lip as she lowered her voice and said, “Look, I’m truly grateful that you saved me. And I’ll forever be in your debt for that reason, but I’d rather if we didn’t try to salvage something just because someone tried to kill me.”

  Holden tilted his head as though he hadn't heard her properly. “But Eileen…”

  She held up a trembling hand and looked down at her feet. “I don’t want us to be one of those couples who’re on, then off, always tipping the scales trying to find a balance between happiness and misery.”

  “That’s never going to be us.”

  In the back of her mind, she heard Lloyd’s voice: “They get their money’s worth out of the assistants.”

  Eileen shook her head as a tear slipped down her cheek. “Two confirmed bachelors would never be content with driving around collecting bodies. He told me about you and Clifford.”

  Confusion marred Holden’s handsome face. “What about me and Clifford?”

  “That you ‘share’ the assistants,” she said making rabbit ears with her two forefingers and pumping them twice when she said the word “share”.

  “What?!” He stared at her for a moment before he sank down on the wooden bench behind him and asked, “And you believed him? The man who tied you up and tried to kill you?”

  Eileen’s mouth tightened. “You’re not saying it’s a lie so why shouldn’t I believe him?”

  “Lloyd has always been a chronic asshole, plain and simple. I have never once been inappropriate with a single assistant and you should know this.”

  She shook her head and stepped back. “I’m tired and they’re saying I have to go to the hospital for a doctor’s report —“

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she said a little too loudly. “Just stop.” Eileen shook her head irritably. “Thanks for saving me, but I have to go.”

  Holden folded in his lips, but said nothing as she walked toward the officer waiting for her at the door. Holden stood on the steps of the station and watched as the policeman opened the back door and let her in.

  When she drove away in the back of the police car clutching a blanket around her, Holden was still there.

  * * *

  EILEEN SPENT MOST OF THE NIGHT UNDER OBSERVATION at the hospital. Lloyd had damaged the ligaments in her left wrist, resulting in her leaving the A&E with a bandaged hand and painkillers. Luckily, that was the worst of it. The doctors proclaimed that she hadn’t suffered any brain damage from being submerged for so long and they believed she’d made a full recovery. But Eileen knew that she wouldn’t feel very lucky once she got home. How could she forget what had happened, the trauma she’d experienced at Lloyd’s hands, knowing how close she’d come to death. She sighed when she got into the police car just after sunrise. She’d made it through the ordeal and now, she could only hope to get better.

  She’d dozed for a few hours in the hospital so she wasn’t overly tired when the constables deposited her at her door. She sorely regretted the loss of her handbag and house keys; they were probably waterlogged and drifting out to sea with the tide. Eileen trudged up the stairs and reached under the mat for the spare key. She was just about to unlock the door when she noticed something glowing in a cardboard box next to the mat. She leaned over and lifted out a jar of fireflies and smiled. Nostalgia stole over her as she watched them fluttering around in their glass enclosure; they reminded her so much of her childhood. As she’d always done in the past, Eileen opened the jar and let them fly into the predawn light like golden confetti adrift on a zephyr. It would never do to keep them captive for a whole day.

  There was also a large see-through bag filled with broken chocolate biscuits, two beers and a bulky envelope with a foreign object that slid back and forth inside its paper prison. “Oh, Holden,” Eileen said softly to herself. Only he could have left this box at her door: the fireflies she said she loved, the beer and biscuits they ate the first time they had a proper conversation. A tear slipped down her cheek as the memories came flooding back. She thought she could just move on from him, but she couldn’t. In a few months, they had clicked into place like two broken halves wanting to be whole. Eileen heaved a deep breath as she looked at the envelope. Did she really want to know what was in it?

  She used her house key to slit it open, its jagged edges revealing a thick sheath of papers, a key and a small note written in Holden’s neat handwriting. The papers were legal documents with a lot of jargon that Eileen barely understood, but the gist of it was that Holden had submitted a petition to dissolve Davis and Sons, transforming the funeral home into two businesses. Eileen clutched her hand to her chest. She suddenly felt weak; had she been the reason that Holden gave up on his father’s dream? It wasn’t her intention to break up their family. Eileen pressed her hip against the door jamb and rubbed her temples slowly.

  The sun peaked over the balustrade, shining softly on the key and the note in her hand. To her surprise, it was the same one she’d used to access the funeral home when she had to lock up. The note was only a few lines, but it was enough to shake Eileen to the core:

  Eileen,

  My father used to say sacrifice has no short cuts. It’s the only saying he had that I never understood until now. We can’t expect any kind of growth without stepping back and taking a chance that what we give up today will make way for a bountiful yield tomorrow. I love Paul, but I trust that throwing him out of the nest will make him a better man in the end. I’ve enabled him for too long and his antics are not only stressful for me, but everyone else too.

  There’s room for you in my life, literally and figuratively. Your key is enclosed and everything is upstairs. I hope that you’ll take a chance on me too.

  Holden.

  Chapter 33

  A Room for Two

  Eileen leaned her head against the door and tried to hold back tears. Adrenaline took over as she rushed inside the apartment, changed her clothes and raced down the stairs to catch the first bus. She cursed Lloyd as she hurried down the uneven road; thanks to him, she had no car and probably wouldn’t again for a long time. She sniffed hungrily as she ran; the aroma of salted meat, macaroni pie and rice hung over the village like a swarm of locusts. Eileen arrived at the bus stop, panting and bent double as she propped herself on the pole and waited. It didn’t take long before Debra sauntered past in her church clothes. Debra’s eyes lit
up when she saw Eileen standing beneath the circular red and white bus stop. “Mornin’, where part the car?”

  “Good morning. I’m well, thanks for asking. My car got wet.”

  “Wet?” Debra wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Hmph, you talk so pretty, but ain’t know you got to roll up the windows to keep out the rain?” Debra shook her head. “You going to Buckworth Street?”

  Eileen bit her lip. “Yes.”

  Debra looked her up and down. “Well, I ain’t got time for gossip because I going and take in God’s word now. But when you come back you could tell me why the tall dark fella with the sexy lips was by your house last night.”

  * * *

  VERY SELDOM HAD EILEEN seen Buckworth Street rendered in its catatonic Sunday state. The vendors who lined the street with wooden crates of golden starfruit, bumpy sour sops and spindly cassavas weren’t there. Businesses were shuttered, traffic was sparse and not a single pedestrian trod the weather-beaten sidewalk as she slipped the key into the lock and entered the funeral home.

  The building felt like a comfortable old T-shirt the way it welcomed her back. The aroma of tea mingled with the woody scent of coconut frond spines and orange oil. The mottled pattern of old grey tiles mixed with new hadn’t changed. A crudely sharpened pencil with neat indentations left by her front teeth and a stack of catalogues were exactly where she had left them on her desk. But on top of the catalogues was one thing that wasn’t familiar. Eileen picked up the small slip of paper and read the three words written in Holden’s neat hand: Please go upstairs.

  Upstairs? thought Eileen in confusion. In all the time she’d been there, she had never known there to be an upstairs to Davis and Sons, but it suddenly dawned on her that there had to be. The building had two stories, but it had never crossed her mind to ask how to access the second floor. She went inside the viewing room, looked around and noticed for the first time that the wood-panelled walls that ran the full length of the room were unbroken except for the far corner where a waist-high brass handle stared back at her. Surprisingly, the door didn’t creak when she pulled it; the smell of grease told her that the door had been recently lubricated.

  At the top of the narrow steps was an area with a layout similar to that of a living room except that it looked more like an abandoned art gallery. Thin slats of light from the bi-fold doors streamed across the room, landing on two easels and a stack of palettes and brushes. Eileen raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to be looking for but before she could search any further, she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her.

  She turned to see Holden standing in the middle of the staircase, his eyes wary as he watched her watching him. He took a step back as though trying to decide if he should leave. She took a step forward.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” He jutted his chin in her general direction. “I didn’t know you would have been released from the hospital so soon, but I’m glad you’re well.”

  “Yeah…” she jutted a thumb over her shoulder. “You left me a note telling me to go upstairs.”

  He shook his head and made to retreat. “No, it’s nothing. I just came to pack up…some things.”

  Silence descended on them, dwarfing both of them as they stood less than five feet apart. They’d reached an impasse, an awkward moment in which neither of them was sure what to do or what to say. Eileen felt something stir inside her, not lust nor longing, but the sensation she got whenever she was near him. It always struck her as unfamiliar but not uncomfortable, the feeling that stole over her when Holden was close by. At first she had interpreted it as mutual respect, but as time went on and she noticed the little things about him, became enthralled by them, she knew it was something else.

  Eileen took her time broaching the distance between them until she stood two steps above him — even then they were barely eye-level in the dimly lit stairwell.

  “Why did you tell me to go upstairs?” she asked softly.

  “Why does it matter? You said it would never work.”

  “I don’t want to come between you and Paul.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that he’s done that himself?” Holden snorted. “I’m not a masochist, you know.” He smacked his thighs with his hands, suddenly lost for words. “And frankly, if someone is going to torment me, I’d rather it be you.”

  Eileen laughed. “I’m not that bad.”

  Holden stepped up and held Eileen by the waist as he placed his feet on either side of hers on the landing. “Yes, you are,” he said earnestly. He was so close now that his jagged breaths tickled her forehead. “Since you practically hired yourself, I've felt different, almost like I was a robot without batteries until you jump-started me. And you’ve bloomed here too. You’re an incredible business woman and I know we can take over this whole country, and even the region, if we want to.”

  She glanced behind her at the wide open space and smiled. “So I can paint up here during lunch?”

  He beamed and took her right hand, leading her up the stairs until they were standing in front of the easels. “You can paint during lunch if you want to. But I was thinking that we should turn this space into an art gallery for your pieces. I’ll build stairs at the side of the building so people don’t have to come through the parlour.” His excitement was palpable as he let go of her hand and unbolted the bifold doors, throwing them open and flooding the room with light. “Look…imagine how amazing your art will look on the walls when the doors are open.”

  Eileen’s eyes shone. She looked around dumbstruck as she tried to absorb what Holden was saying. She reached out and touched the colourful tubes, fanned her fingertips across the paintbrushes’ soft bristles. “M-my own gallery?”

  He nodded earnestly. “Yup. I’ll hire a new assistant — Clifford’s son is interested in the post — so you’ll have all the time in the world to paint.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed the tip of his chin. “I can’t believe you’re willing to do this for me.”

  He leaned down and kissed her softly, his eyes burning with intensity as he looked at her. “My wife deserves the best.”

  She pulled away and gazed into his eyes, unsure as to whether she’d heard correctly. Eileen blushed. “Really?”

  “Really, really.”

  Holden pressed his lips against hers and for a fleeting moment, in the space where she’d set up her new gallery, in the arms of the man she loved, Eileen’s mind flashed back to the dark night they’d met. She remembered the months they’d spent getting to know and then finally growing to love each other. It dawned on her then that if they were to spend the rest of their lives together that there was no time to lose before she told him her secret.

  Chapter 34

  The Truth and Nothing but the Truth

  Lloyd Greaves’ arrest sent shockwaves across the island. The idea of a well-to-do businessman like him committing murders was enough to set tongues wagging about what other nefarious deeds he might have gotten up to. Commissioner Derricks held a press conference declaring the police force’s undercover sting operation to be a roaring success as he thanked members of the public for their help in apprehending the culprit. “Well,” said Holden as he closed the newspaper the next morning. “I guess Greaves will be going away for a good long time. Derricks has provided the prosecutor with enough evidence to see to that.”

  “Derricks sat on his chunky ass for months and never once listened to anything we told him until it was time to collect the credit,” Eileen fumed as she rolled her eyes. Clifford sat on the edge of Holden’s desk looking across at her as she grumbled. “And up to now he can’t even find that last prisoner that escaped.”

  Clifford chuckled. “At this rate, that fellow is going be on the run for the next twenty years.”

  “Nah…” Eileen waved her hand dismissively. “On the run for twenty years on this little two by four island? Impossible.”

  “Meh,” replied Clifford. “S
tranger things have happened.” He sauntered outside, whistling the cheery tune he always did when he felt sure that his prophesies would come to fruition.

  Eileen grinned. She had never come across anyone with such outlandish convictions as Clifford. Holden shook his head wryly. “The day he dies, his brain will be sold to the highest bidder.”

  “I’d pay good money to read their findings,” said Eileen with a giggle.

  Holden smiled. “So…” his heart caught in his chest as he contemplated her for a moment. “I was hoping we could finish our conversation if you don’t mind.”

  She bit her lip and said, “Yes, we can.”

  He pushed his chair over to her desk and sat down next to her. His mouth grew dry as he tried to recall what he had practiced in the mirror as he had gotten dressed that morning. “I came in early this morning and sat by myself for hours trying to find the best way to express myself what I have to say.” Holden studied his fingers for a moment, willing himself not to lose his nerve.

  He dropped to one knee in front of her. He pulled a small box from his jacket pocket and said, “You’re spunky, creative, you make me laugh and if I had to be marooned on a dessert island with you, I suspect we’d turn it into a lifelong holiday.”

  The tiny hinge on the velvet box creaked softly as Holden opened it. Inside was an elegant gold band, topped with a glimmering stone.

  Eileen rested her hand against her chest and tears formed in her eyes. “I love you too.”

  He slipped the band on her finger and kissed her softly. She put her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with such tenderness that Holden thought he would melt in her arms. Moments later when they pulled apart and rested their foreheads together, they sighed in unison.

  “So,” Eileen said. She caressed her fiancé’s cheek. “Should we seek Clifford’s blessing before we run off to get married?”