Right Next Door

by Leah Montgomery

  Marcy’s grateful her neighbor didn’t take it personally. She turns and they continue on. Marcy pauses again as she passes the second door. She reaches just inside and flips on the light. “Here’s the bathroom. If you don’t find everything you need, just let me know. I’m sure I have at least two of everything in my bathroom.”

  “I appreciate it, but hopefully I have everything I need in my bag.”

  Continuing on to the third door, Marcy steps inside, switching on the light as she does. She surveys the clean, neat guest room with its muted floral curtains, soft blue rug, and jacquard duvet the color of clotted cream. It’s the one room everyone knows not to touch. Also the one room Marcy had cart blanche in decorating. Sometimes, she comes to stand in the doorway and stare into it. It’s a throwback to a simpler time, when she and John were just getting started with their life. They were young and things were clear-cut and easy. Not that she would trade their family life now, but sometimes things feel overwhelming and she needs to escape for a few minutes. It’s during those times she comes to this tranquil room and gets some much-needed solace.

  She inhales deeply, pleased that the space smells of lavender and spotlessness. Marcy has always had a fondness for both—essential oils and a tidy home. “This will be your room, Jill. Please, make yourself at home.”

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you again for letting me stay.” Jill comes farther into the room, John not far behind. He sets the case inside the doorway and exits without a word. He’s a smart man. He knows this part belongs strictly to the females.

  “It’s our pleasure.” She glances around once more before clapping her hands together and making her own retreat. “I’ll let you get settled in. Come on down when you’re ready. I’ll open a bottle of wine and you can just relax.”

  “That sounds heavenly. Thank you.”

  Marcy makes her way from the room, closing the door behind her, trying not to appear rushed. Her insides are twitching with anticipation, though. She’s hyper aware of the package at her waist. Her thoughts go immediately to what’s inside.

  She hurries downstairs, motioning to John who has resumed his place on the couch. He gets up without question and follows Marcy into his office, where she pushes the door up, but doesn’t close it all the way. Before she takes the envelope from her back, she peeks through the crack to make sure Jill didn’t come down. Silly, yes, but she’s in full spy mode now.

  “I found something at Jill’s,” she tells John, taking the package from her waistband and handing it to her husband.

  “Where was this?” John opens the flap and peers inside the manila envelope.

  “It was hidden behind a vent grate in Mark’s office closet.”

  John frowns up at Marcy. “Jesus, when did you have time to search the place? What, did you knock Jill out or something?”

  Marcy smirks. “No, smart ass. She wanted to clean up, and asked me to go and grab her overnight case from the closet in Mark’s office. While she was busy upstairs, I took the liberty to, you know, sort of nose around a little.”

  “Nose around a little isn’t slang for conducting a cavity search. You do know that, right?”

  “I searched no cavities, thank you very much.”

  “Not human cavities, maybe, but checking behind grates in closets is pretty much the same thing, I think. What would you have said if she’d come in? Or, God forbid, if Mark had? That’s not something you can casually excuse. You can’t exactly pull the dumb blonde ‘oops, this isn’t the bathroom’ spiel.”

  “Mark wasn’t there, and I knew he wouldn’t come back. He left.”

  “Left? After bringing his wife home from the hospital?”

  “Yep.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  “No, it can’t. I don’t know what’s going on between them, but Jill knows something is up.” When John says nothing, she prompts him, tipping her head at the envelope, “Well? Are you gonna look through it or what? Come on, come on. She might be down in a minute.”

  John walks to his desk and pours out the contents of the envelope. There are three letters, one smaller envelope, and a black flip phone. He looks back in to make sure there is nothing left. “There’s something else in there.” He reaches deep into the fold at the bottom of the envelope and pulls out a lock of blonde hair.

  Marcy gasps. “Oh my God, is that hair? Human hair?”

  John rubs it between his fingers, sniffs it, holds it up to the light. “Looks like it.”

  “What kind of creep keeps something like that?” Her eyes round. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “You don’t think… You don’t think he actually killed someone, do you? And this is his souvenir?”

  “How the hell should I know? I don’t routinely keep chunks of hair.”

  John puts the lock back inside the envelope as Marcy reaches for one of the three folded letters. They aren’t in envelopes, so she opens one, scanning the words.

  DID YOU THINK I WOULDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WENT?

  It was written in blocky capitals. In Marcy’s mind, it adequately conveyed anger. It read like a furious scream. An accusation.

  John asks what it says, so she reads it aloud. “‘Did you think I wouldn’t know where you went?’”

  “Hmmmm. So Mark was trying to escape someone. Or something. And he didn’t quite make it.”

  “Sure sounds like it,” Marcy agrees. She reaches for the second letter. It’s printed more like the first letter, the one Marcy never gave to Mark. The one that’s still upstairs in her underwear drawer.

  I will take everything from you. Everything else.

  “Well?” John asks, nodding to the paper she’s holding.

  “This one isn’t quite as angry looking, but it’s still threatening. ‘I will take everything from you. Everything else.’ Else is underlined. Wonder what was already taken?”

  He shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Marcy unfolds the third letter.

  Say goodbye to your wife.

  Marcy’s lips round into an O. She turns the letter so John can see it. “Do you think this came before Jill had her accident?”

  John shakes his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. Sure as hell sounds like someone meant her harm, though, so it stands to reason it was sent beforehand. Maybe to rattle Mark.”

  Marcy refolds the paper and puts all three back into the empty envelope. She picks up the phone. “Twenty bucks says it’s a burner phone.”

  John takes it from her, flipping open the face and punching a couple of buttons. “Looks like it. It’s dead, too. Damn it.”

  “Are you sure? Did you try the power button?” Marcy takes it from him, depressing the red power button and holding it for a few seconds. They both watch the screen, but nothing changes. “You wouldn’t happen to have a power cord that fits a ph—”

  John starts shaking his head before she can even finish her question. “It takes a micro charger plug just like mine, but we can’t risk charging it. He would definitely know. And we need to get this stuff back over there before he gets back.”

  “I say we charge it. He won’t be coming back for a few days, it sounds like.”

  “And what if he does?”

  Marcy shrugs. “What if he does? If he goes looking for the package, why would he think we, of all people, have it? I would think the first person he would suspect is Jill, especially since she’s staying over here.”

  “So we set her up?”

  “I didn’t say that. If it comes to that, I think it would be smart to include her. She has a right to know what kind of dastardly deeds he’s hiding.”

  “So why not tell her now then?”

  “I don’t want to be premature. We need to find out more about what’s going on first. We can’t take this to her with half-baked theories. We need proof. And now might be our chance to get it. With Mark gone, Jill here, and the nanny at her mother’s, it’s the perfect time to get in and see if there’s anything el
se to be found. Tonight even, when there’s almost no risk of anyone surprising us.”

  “The odds of him having two hiding places are probably slim. You know that, right?”

  “Probably, but we won’t know until we check.”

  “Well, with Jill here, we can’t check, but I can.”

  Marcy’s lips spread in satisfaction. “I knew you’d be game.” She rubs her hands together in anticipation.

  John grins. “You’re really in your element, you know that?”

  Marcy grins in return. “God, I know! It’s terrible to say, but I’m really enjoying this.”

  “Let’s try to get to the bottom of this then. That way you can get your fix before Mark Halpern is carted off to jail.” John leans a hip against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “I wonder what the hell he did to her?”

  “So you still think it’s a her?”

  “Oh, this is a woman. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I was devastated when we heard back from Garrett. The only thing he was able to tell us was that the chemical on the piece of material wasn’t anything currently on the market. He had no other information on it. No idea where it could’ve come from. No idea how someone might’ve gotten their hands on it. The only thing Garrett had for us was a dead end.

  A dead end for our clue. And a dead end for my hope.

  I’d thought the padded room was bad.

  I’d thought killing a woman was bad.

  I’d thought finding out my son wasn’t coming home was bad.

  I thought getting my hopes dashed by Garrett was bad.

  And all of those things were bad.

  But it turned out there was bad, and then there was worse.

  As the days stretched on, endless hour after endless hour, I realized that being home without my son was worse. It was worse than everything else. I had no idea where he was, or if he was okay. I had no idea if he cried for me, or if he screamed his hate of me because I didn’t rescue him. I had no idea if he was alive, or if he was wishing he were dead. And it was torture. Agonizing, ruthless, never-ending torture.

  Time passed. Nothing could stop it. But rather than healing, like it was supposed to do, things only got worse. I didn’t let go. I didn’t learn to accept. I didn’t get used to the pain. It ate away at me. It burned and gnawed and festered. It rotted me from the inside out. I’d thought I knew what a living hell was.

  I was wrong.

  The days after hell were what true hell was. Or at least they were for me. I was stuck. Trapped in a cycle of the most unimaginable kind of torment. The kind that didn’t leave scars on the outside. It left a wasteland on the inside. It left something that was only barely recognizable as human.

  I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even call what I was doing “living”. I was…existing. I was taking up air and space, but I wasn’t living. I couldn’t live. Not while my son was out there, somewhere, waiting for me to save him from his own waking nightmare. It was Groundhog Day and I was stuck in a loop of the same questions and same dead ends. The same pain and the same hopelessness.

  Gabe was no better. We tried to comfort each other, but it was hollow. We couldn’t even manage to comfort ourselves. We were of even less use to the other person. We were like two disconnected yet related planets. Sometimes we entered each other’s orbit, but it was little more than that. It was more that we revolved around the same thing. Circled the same sun. And that sun was Dalton. Day and night, ebb and flow, he became more and more the center of our universe.

  The first thing to change came in the form of Gabe’s cautious announcement that he was going back to work. My initial reaction was anger.

  “What? How can you even think about work at a time like this?”

  “I have to, Shannon. The bills haven’t stopped coming in. They don’t know what we’re going through. And if we plan to have a home to bring our son back to, one of us has to work.” He didn’t come right out and say it, but he was sparing me from having to go through the motions. He was taking one for the team. As he so often did.

  That made me feel lower than low.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing my fingers over my throbbing forehead. “I know life has to go on. I know it, I just…”

  “I know, babe. I know,” he muttered, drawing me into the strong circle of his arms. That hadn’t changed. No matter how broken he was, he was still stronger than me. That gave me a strange comfort, like I could fall apart as much as I needed to and he would always be there, ready, willing and able to pick up the pieces.

  And that was just what happened.

  He went back to work.

  I hit rock bottom.

  Rock, rock, rock bottom.

  For days, I kept thinking I’d hit it. I kept thinking it couldn’t get worse.

  But then it did.

  I’d find a new low. The house without Dalton and Gabe was almost as unbearable as the padded room had been.

  Almost.

  It was during that time that I learned about the beautiful oblivion of sleep. So I slept. A lot.

  That was all I wanted to do. Day and night. The position of the sun or the moon in the sky didn’t matter. To me, they were equally meaningless. I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for anything except disappearing into the nothingness of sleep. I didn’t dream. I didn’t toss. I wasn’t even sure I moved some nights. Or some days. Gabe was, though. Despite all that he was already doing to keep us afloat, he was still taking care of me, too.

  One Saturday morning, he woke me. Shoved a paper in front of my face. He was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I have a project for you.”

  I was groggy.

  I was always groggy. “A project?”

  “Well, maybe more of an assignment.”

  “What is it?”

  “See for yourself.”

  I blinked a few times. Squinted until I could focus on the paper. “The Potter’s Wheel Grief Group?”

  Gabe nodded. “I know it sounds hokey, but maybe you could learn something that can help us.”

  Instantly, my anger was pricked. “Help us what? Move on? Because I have no intention of—”

  “No, not move on, Shannon. Survive.” It was then, there in that last word, that I could see the toll it was taking on Gabe to hold everything together. To hold me together.

  Guilt roiled in my gut. Choppy and violent, like a turbulent sea. I said nothing for a few seconds. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say. Gabe didn’t push me, didn’t rush me. He just waited. Waited patiently for me to see the wisdom in it.

  Eventually, I did.

  “Okay. I’ll…I’ll try it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I’m not making promises. I just said I’ll try.”

  “That’s all I want. For both of us. To keep trying. We can’t give up.”

  He kissed my forehead. Disappeared from the room. I heard him downstairs a few minutes later, clanking pots and pans. The sound reminded me of breakfasts with Gabe and Dalton. Before.

  I pulled the covers back over me. Tugged them over my head. And I sank down into sleep, one more time. One more time before I had to brave the real world again.

  Two months and four days. That’s how long it took me to climb out of the deepest pit of despair. And to become a woman obsessed.

  I knew the exact moment it happened. I was standing in Dalton’s room, staring out the window. I did that a lot. Sometimes for hours. I wasn’t even aware of how much time had passed until I tried to move. Then I’d realize my feet were numb. I fell more than once when I tried to walk. But even when I got blood flow back to my limbs and could move physically, I never moved emotionally. I remained stuck in my son’s room, in my son’s orbit, lost without him.

  But then one day, something broke. Broke inside me. Broke the spell.

  A flash of white caught my eye. Brought me out of the pit. I
t was a panel van, disappearing down the street. It was nearly out of view when the logo on the side snapped me out of my fog. It was an enormous yellow T. The shape of the letter, the boxy black outline, that precise hue of yellow—I could see it in a different setting, under a different light.

  Red light.

  The ruby glow of a taillight, seeping into the pitch black of a locked trunk.

  I closed my eyes. Took a deep, deep breath. The memory slammed into my head like a runaway train.

  I turned toward it. Turned inward. Focused every ounce of my energy on what I’d seen that night. The logo, the color of the lanyard cord, the way it sat in the little pocket sort of crooked. And the first letter of the name on it.

  M.

  I remembered the M.

  My eyes flew open. Heart thrummed wildly in my throat.

  I gasped. It sounded so loud in the quiet of Dalton’s room. It sounded foreign. Out of place. Unwelcome. But I tuned it out. Turned all my attention to that identification badge.

  That afternoon, in a shaft of sunshine slanting through Dalton’s parted blue curtain, my feet moved. They were quick. They were light. Lighter than they’d been in as long as I could remember. I wasn’t sure they even touched the floor as I flew from the room.

  I raced down the hall, down the stairs, to my husband’s office. I slid behind his computer. Flung myself into his chair. Gripped the mouse with fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking.

  I clicked and I typed.

  I clicked and I typed.

  I clicked and I typed, and I searched.

  And then I found it.

  The letter.

  The color.

  The logo.

  It was a laboratory.

  A local laboratory.

  Close.

  And if it was close, that could mean he was close.

  And if he was close…

  Dalton.

  My breathing picked up. My palms started to sweat.

  I’d found the first real lead. The first real clue to the identity of my captor. I’d found the first breadcrumb that would lead me to my son. And to the misguided asshole who took him.