When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  Melody falls over her father and hugs him and he runs his fingers through the tangles of her hair. Then he’s lifted up into the back of the ambulance and I kiss Melody on the cheek, rub my hand on the side of Russ’s face and get in with my husband. The doors close and I watch the kids through the rear windows as two troopers fall in beside them and lead them to one of the vehicles. I wave and each of them waves back.

  * * *

  John has trouble speaking at first. They pump a lot of fluids into him and set him on a course of antibiotics for his infected sores. When he’s better and he’s spent an hour or more with the kids, hugging and smiling at them and not saying much, I send them down to the hospital cafeteria and his eyes roll over to look at me, gone pink, filling with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  Most of it falls into place with what I’ve put together. Struggling for months to get a project off the ground, he was tempted to do something completely outside the norm.

  “Honestly I was thinking about Bruce, about writing something more literary — two grown men who’d had trouble in school and where their lives had led them — you know, something like that — what happened when they ended up back in each other’s lives. I thought he was going to buy some pot to sell. Maybe coke. I’d just get a sense of it, maybe feel a little scared. I’d use it. Break out of this rut.”

  They met Carl Dixon in Massena during a weekend John was supposed to be doing repairs at the lake house, two weeks before our date in Plattsburgh. Behind an abandoned factory, like something out of a movie, John sat there in Bruce’s truck while Bruce carried over a backpack full of cash. He’d started drug dealing in Florida, like Olympia said, but things had gotten too hot for him and then Rainey was diagnosed, so they left.

  “It was going to be his last deal, he said. A hundred and fifty thousand’s worth and he was going to triple it — he told me this only afterward. Enough to pay for anything Rainey needed for her recovery, he said. But he got greedy, scared — I don’t know. I’m sitting there and I see the flashes of light inside this guy’s car and hear the shots. Then Bruce gets out and he’s got another bag with him, a briefcase or something, and he jumps in and we hightail it out of there. I didn’t even know what to think. I was in shock. I think Bruce was, too. He didn’t say anything almost the whole way back to Henderson. He drops me off and he just looks at me and he says, ‘We good?’”

  “John, you don’t have to.”

  “I never thought you and the kids were in danger. I didn’t know what he was doing when he came to the house. I hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks. I didn’t know what to tell you — I thought he was trying to be my friend, trying to act like nothing happened. I was going to say something to you — I was, Jane. I wanted us to decide together if I should go to the police. And then she came to the house, that woman — Olympia — and asked me about him. I knew who she was — I could tell or something. She was one of the . . . she was behind the guy Bruce shot. She was cleaning up. She wanted to look around and see if I had anything — any money, any of the drugs. I didn’t. And then she left. And that night they came back. Bruce and Rainey. Rainey looked terrible, like she’d taken a turn for the worse. She drove my car and Bruce put me in his truck and I fought with him, tried to get away. And he said, ‘Calm down. I’m not going to kill you.’” The last word dies in his throat. John swallows and knuckles away a tear, pulls himself together. “They got the idea at dinner — about what to do with me. When we had them over and talked about where we got married.”

  I’m sitting beside the bed and have my hand in his. I feel calmer, more in control than I’ve felt in several days.

  When our eyes connect again he says, “I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Everything you’ve gone through. You and the kids . . . nothing matters but the three of you. Nothing.”

  I’ve thought about it long and hard. During the ride in the ambulance, over the long hours since his admittance to the hospital, with the adrenaline settled and John returned to me, my mind has been going non-stop. I’ve questioned everything, looked into every corner of myself, wondered if this was what forgiveness felt like or if, instead, I was still numb and could no longer feel the trust I’d felt with John all these years.

  He’s not a saint. Just because he took on a single mother and her infant daughter doesn’t win him any medals. In a relationship, in a marriage, it never ends. You can’t rest on your laurels. You put in the work and the love and you maintain the trust every day.

  Every day.

  I thought about ending it, Mom.

  But I didn’t. If this was one of those novels you read about a woman going through all this kind of upheaval, she’d probably wind up with the cop on the case or the handsome stranger at the exotic place she’d gone off to while contending with the mystery. But this is real life. John isn’t a Marcus Gainsborough. He’s not a Daryl Chase. He’s a good man.

  He just really, really screwed up.

  And I’m not perfect. You of all people know that, Mom.

  So I stand up and lean over John and give him a soft kiss on the lips. “I’m going to go check on the kids.”

  He squeezes my hand and gives me a smile. Before I step out of the hospital room he calls over to me. “Hey, so how much currency does this give you in the relationship bank?”

  I hold onto the door frame and look down to conceal my grin while I consider it. “I’d say I’m a millionaire at this point.”

  “That’s fair,” he says.

  “I love you,” I tell him.

  “I love you, too.”

  Halfway down the hall to the cafeteria I can hear my children bickering about something.

  EPILOGUE

  Sunday, May 19th

  One last thing, Mom — I thought you’d like this.

  So about six weeks later as I’m coming to the end of writing all of this to you (it came out of me in a torrent, like I’m suddenly Jack Kerouac, and I’ve never written anything, really), I popped online to check John’s book stats.

  All the media attention has launched his book sales into the stratosphere. Even Edge of Night is finally having its day in the sun.

  And though this started out as a letter to you, John encouraged me to send it to Marty, his agent, who wants to publish it as a book. So after you read this, and after some intense editing, I’m sure, it will be out there in the world, with all sorts of people reading it.

  They’ll probably want to know what happened to Bruce.

  It was on the news about a week after finding John in the shed: Bruce was killed in Canada in what was “believed to be part of a wide-ranging drug operation,” they said. So, that’s that.

  Anyway, John is outside in the spring blossoms, playing with the kids. Next year I guess for spring break we’re going to go to Arizona to visit Frank and Delores.

  Oh and we had the storage shed removed from the lake house. I’m sure Grandpa would understand.

  Love you, Mom.

  THE END

  ALSO BY T.J. BREARTON

  HABIT

  SURVIVORS

  DAYBREAK

  BLACK SOUL

  DEAD GONE

  TRUTH OR DEAD

  DARK WEB

  DARK KILLS

  GONE

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  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank Lisa Regan Prodorutti for having an early look at this and helping me to unearth the whole story. John Ramirez and Bob Sirrine for spotting the snares and for their unwavering encouragement. Troopers Kristy Wilson and Sean Kane for lending their law enforcement knowledge and for their service and protection. To Korey Shumway — you’ve inspired a great character here and I thank you — much love to you, brother. Thanks to Ed Handyside for excellent edits and handling business like a pro; to Jasper Joffe for taking on yet another one of my projects in the midst
of his amazing growth. And thank you, my wife and kids, for leaving the door to my office closed when I needed it, and for opening it up when I needed it more.

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  A GRIPPING THRILLER WITH AN EXPLOSIVE ENDING BY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR T.J. BREARTON.

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