And Then You Were Gone

by R. J. Jacobs

  I texted him: OLIVIA SHOWED UP HERE. WE’RE UP IN MY OFFICE. PLEASE ADVISE.

  No response.

  “Yeah, it’s supposed to be quiet. It’s supposed to help people relax when they’re talking.”

  “They just talk when they’re here? Like, talk and talk and talk?”

  “No, not really.” I was keyed up, trying not to sound snappy. “Most are kids, like you.”

  I was thinking, thinking. I couldn’t take her back to her mom’s. Dropping her off alone in an empty apartment was irresponsible, unthinkable. But would she be safer there than with us?

  “What do they talk about?” Olivia continued.

  “All sorts of things.”

  “Like what?”

  I just couldn’t possibly explain right at that moment. I’d pulled my phone from my pocket and was staring at it, willing it to ring. “Honey, I’ll tell you another time. Do you know your mom’s number?”

  “Nope.” Her curls swayed as she shook her head. She was propped up on her elbows, pumping her feet as if working imaginary pedals.

  I pictured Detective Mason pulling up just then in a police cruiser. I’d have to explain everything wearing freezing-cold handcuffs. Olivia would be in the company of police—or worse—taken to DHS, for God’s sake.

  They’ll think you kidnapped her.

  That wouldn’t really happen.

  Would it?

  Wind rattled the windows as I looked down at the street. Coming from the direction of the park, a car slowly passed down the side street. Was it a police cruiser? Unmarked? It was big enough.

  Maybe someone else.

  Was I being paranoid?

  I pushed off the couch. “Honey, we need to go.”

  “Why’d my dad leave?” Olivia asked.

  “He went to the medical center for a few minutes. Come on, I’m going to run you home.”

  “Why’d he go to the medical center?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way. He’s taking longer than I thought,” I explained, picking her raincoat up from the floor. I opened the door.

  In the stairwell, I texted Cal again, as if doing so would make him reply sooner. LEAVING NOW, GOING TO YOUR PLACE.

  Something had gone wrong.

  I pulled the front door closed behind us. Outside, the sky was the same low gray it had been all morning. Olivia ran her fingers through dust on my truck that’d never washed away. We climbed in. I blew into the Breathalyzer, turned the keys.

  “What’s that plastic thing? That?” She pointed, her expression curious, wanting clarification. We pulled away. We needed to move.

  “Oh, this? It makes sure I’m healthy before I start driving.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “You’re sick?”

  “Not anymore. I was, before, but now I’m fine. It’s just to make sure I’m safe to drive.” I looked at her. “Which I am, obviously; otherwise I wouldn’t be driving you.” I meant to sound reassuring but was obviously creating the opposite impression.

  I caught her glancing down at my boot, her eyes flicking over the scar on my hand.

  Kids love the truth.

  “I made a bad decision,” I admitted, “And … drove when it wasn’t safe. I wouldn’t do it again, but they need to be sure. So I have this gadget for a while.”

  She nodded. “So why are you crying?”

  I wiped at my eyes, not wanting to admit I was terrified. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure something out.”

  “What?” She blinked.

  Where in the hell we’re going, I thought.

  “How best to get ahold of your mom or dad,” I said. “Somehow we obviously got turned around.”

  Just a little more time. If I got us to a place away from danger, then Cal would pop back up.

  No one comes back, remember? Stop hoping.

  My heart recovered a memory of a rocking sailboat, of nausea, of being lost. But goddammit, I was going to take this little girl somewhere safe.

  Behind us, the same car passed again. A plume of exhaust drifted up as it pulled to a stop.

  No, I was imagining that.

  Who could I call?

  Allie.

  Driving, I dialed the phone, wiping away tears and the snot draining from my nose with the rough sleeve of my sweater.

  “You shouldn’t do that and drive,” Olivia informed me.

  Least of our problems, I thought.

  Allie answered and relief flooded me.

  “Hey! Allie, it’s me.” Finally, a stopgap from the world having fallen completely apart. A path to safety, to Olivia getting away from whatever was happening. “Allie, I’m in trouble. Really, this time, really, listen. I know, I know, but listen—”

  Dead air came through the line. Try not to sound maniacal, I thought. Try.

  “Hi, how are you?” she began, before a small hesitation. “Great to hear from you.”

  The calm calculation in her voice stopped me cold.

  “Allie, listen.”

  “I’ll be just a moment,” she insisted in a clipped, banal tone, like a hurried flight attendant.

  Beyond her voice was the sound of movement. Her standing, a door closing.

  I wore people out. But this was different. Different from every other emergency I’d bothered friends to untangle. It was life or death.

  I pulled the phone away from my face to check the time. Almost half an hour since I’d heard from Cal. Anger pressed inside me, but weakly. Really, it was fear. A terror of falling and never stopping.

  Allie was back on the line, her voice completely different—a harsh whisper, exasperated. “Look, they know you were at Summit last night. I’m an idiot for telling you any part of that. For feeling like I owed you an apology. This gets us both. I’m lucky I haven’t been arrested. This is you tampering with a witness. This is me colluding.”

  I was shaking my head. “Stop. Allie. Cal’s gone … I was wrong about everything. Matt Cianciolo’s not involved. It’s—”

  She cut me off, abruptly. “Where are you right now? Never mind. You know something, Emily? Andre Mason is going to arrest you today.”

  “What? No, Allie—”

  “And honestly, right now, I can’t tell if that’s a bad thing. At least until everything gets sorted out.”

  Olivia had tugged open the visor. She was opening and closing the business card–sized mirror to illuminate its light, which—unbelievably—still worked.

  I could not get arrested right then. Not that there’s ever a great time to get arrested. But me in a cell meant not finding Cal, meant not protecting Olivia, meant me losing what remained of my career. It meant Jay Silver flying away to London—or anywhere he wanted.

  Allie sounded as though she’d just straightened her posture. It felt like the phone call was in its final few seconds. Maybe someone had walked in.

  Or maybe she’s recording you.

  “My advice?” she said. “Let him bring you in. Go directly home, call him, and wait. The longer you run, the worse it’s going to look.”

  I’m running?

  “Allie,” I was shouting. “It’s Silver. Jay Silver.”

  But she didn’t hear me.

  “I sure as hell hope they’re wrong, Emily. I sure as hell hope you had nothing to do with people dying—and that I haven’t helped you.”

  “You need to stop. Listen.”

  “Call Mason,” she said. “But call your lawyer first. That’s my advice.”

  Then she hung up.

  Tires hummed over the road, wind gusts shoving wickedly at the windshield. I dropped the phone into a cup holder, trying to keep my eyes ahead.

  Stay focused.

  “Miss Emily? Are you okay? Where are we going?”

  “Your house, honey. Your dad’s going to meet us there.”

  At a stop sign, I wiped at my eyes, picked up the phone and began mapping the address he’d entered. “We’ll find your dad super-soon, I know it.”

  I did not know it. I’d like to thank the Academy,
the Hollywood Foreign Press.

  The map function on my phone moved slowly, the spotty cell service making our position disappear into a gray grid.

  “Lean back,” I told her. “Just to be safe.” I touched the back of her hair, my kidnappee, briefly imagining Detective Mason’s owlish eyes as I explained absconding with her.

  A bright room. Then a disciplinary board. Then a jail cell.

  I stopped myself.

  How had I gotten here? Boyfriend dead, suspected as a murderer, alienated from an old friend, and relying on a six-year-old for directions as we drove into the countryside.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Down the road we flew, the agricultural South around us. Fields were speckled with livestock, even that close to the city. Stacked stones; ghosts from the Civil War. The road sensibly straight until it curved to the will of limestone. Overhead, four black birds swept the gray sky in a loose downward spiral.

  My phone chimed, an area code I didn’t recognize. I reached for it then stopped short, my hand balling up. The near accident I’d had answering the phone while driving Cal flashed through my thoughts as I told myself to focus, to stay present.

  Olivia looked at me expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, That’s not your dad calling. Just a salesperson or someone.”

  Olivia leaned forward, her forehead nearly meeting the dash, dim yellow sunlight turning her hair the color of caramel. She looked up at the birds, silent.

  How long since I’d lost touch with Cal? I checked the time. It was after three now—almost an hour since I’d seen him leave Silver’s lab. We drove. Miles. I imagined the truck’s heat as steam off the engine, mercifully piping hot through the vents. Cars blew past. Tobacco drooped in the fields, laying still as in submission, afraid to sway in the wind. I looked in the rearview mirror; the road behind us was empty.

  “That’s it.” Olivia pointed, finally. “With the white mailbox.”

  Dust whirled up behind the truck as I turned into the long ruts of the driveway. We bounced toward the house, only the green roof’s peak visible until I topped a small rise. Then the rest of the wide, white porch came into view.

  Cal had said it was country. He wasn’t kidding—the place looked even more bucolic than I’d imagined. In a neat row along the side, four Volvos rested in various states. A tire swing he’d obviously hung for Olivia swayed like a fish in a too-small bowl, continually encountering glass.

  I’d hoped that we’d find his Volvo in the driveway. Its absence prickled the skin on the back of my neck. I tried his cell again. Nothing. My finger hovered over the phone to call the police, stopped. What was I going to tell them? That Cal was missing? I knew this routine. Twenty-four hours at least, then they’d talk to me about his right to privacy and start to search for him.

  And who was looking? Me, of course.

  The person they suspected in one disappearance, one murder. They’d haul me in, and haul Olivia … somewhere? State custody? It seemed like an impossible choice. I was in a game with no rules.

  I told myself he would be there any minute.

  Tall pines lined the acre clearing, throwing long shadows onto the wind-burnt grass. Olivia produced from her pocket a beaded key chain, dog-shaped. Olivia unlocked the front door and the mix of air rushed in both directions through the open door. Inside was temptingly warm.

  The orderliness was intense. Countertops gleamed. Chairs were neatly tucked in behind the kitchen table. Shoes arranged in a row at the foot of the coat closet. Everything in its place.

  I scanned the hallway. Empty.

  Outside, the tire swing continued its short circle.

  I could see Olivia’s earlier enthusiasm had begun to wane. Even for someone used to trusting, this had turned into a very strange day.

  I found a bathroom in the front hallway and washed my face. The circles under my eyes were so dark they looked painted on, like a ballplayer would do if he were trying to block the sunlight of a day-game. The hand towel I dried with smelled like Dial soap.

  When I came back into the living room, Olivia pointed at my boot. “What happens when you break a bone?” she asked.

  I tried for some sort of answer, exhausted but full of energy. “You have to wear one of these,” I explained. “It’s really not so bad. Then your body heals itself.”

  She considered this idea as I watched the road, my hand resting on the curtain as if I was hiding behind it; I rubbed the textured material between my forefinger and thumb. I didn’t want to, but I checked the time again. Cold radiated through the old glass.

  This was more than not good. This was very bad.

  I flashed back to having my chin tucked over the back of the couch when I was seven, eight, looking out at the street, waiting for my father’s car—before I taught myself to stop expecting him. There had been a feeling like excitement, like in a movie: watching him come around a sparkling hood—a hopeful, wistful look in handsome eyes. In daydreams, he looked like a film star from the fifties, someone in black-and-white, wearing a suit jacket. Maybe an apology ready for the miscommunication that separated us for so many years; one that I was fully ready to accept.

  It didn’t have to be real to make me feel better.

  Olivia pointed to a door immediately off the living room, asked hesitantly, “Is it okay if I go to my room?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right here.”

  Wait, I thought, this is stupid.

  If someone—Silver—had found Cal, could he find us here?

  I grabbed the hood of her raincoat. “Hold on a second. Honey, stay on the porch for me, okay? I need to write a note for your dad.” My head was a buzz of anxiety, a swarm of crickets in summer.

  The rural hush made it seem like somewhere a person was waiting. A monster.

  He’s coming.

  The feeling of being Olivia’s age, younger, when getting up from bed, walking through a dark house, could terrify. Something waiting in shadow that would get me, kill me.

  There’s fear, and then there’s real fear.

  Be the bigger monster. Stress brings out the manic in you.

  I turned over the back of a broad, white envelope. Country light cut in through the kitchen window above the sink. Reaching for a pen from a tall mug beside the phone, I knocked them all over. The pens scattered across the worn tabletop, a few dropping loudly onto the floor.

  “Shit,” I said.

  I had to think about how to do this, the point of the pen pressed against the envelope, a bead of sweat on my forehead. I uncapped a ballpoint and wrote in large letters.

  Olivia’s with me. We’re okay. We went to my family’s cabin.

  -E

  I heard his words in my memory. It was the best I had.

  He knew where. Exactly where. Where the lightning split the tree.

  “Miss Emily?”

  In the light of the front door, Olivia was framed like a painting. Like a girl looking to the road for her father from a long time ago. I tried to catch my breath, tried not to act like someone was behind me. I dropped my hands onto her shoulders, my eyes squinting, adjusting to the light. I’d talked with plenty of upset kids at work, but in those moments, I hadn’t been the one who was afraid. I glanced back up at the fence line. Still empty.

  “We can’t stay here, but we’re going somewhere pretty close. Your dad will know where we are. We’re going to find him, or he’s going to find us.” I rubbed my hands up and down on her shoulders, my eyes level with hers, and I leaned one knee onto the porch. “All right?”

  Olivia’s faith in me was beginning to wear thin. Trust is an earned thing, and it’s finite. We were reaching the edge of far too much.

  “But when are we going to find him?”

  “Soon.”

  “You’re sure?”

  God, I wanted to be sure.

  Back down the road. Opposite direction, to the safest place I knew.

  I wondered if it was obvious we were hiding. I remembered playing hide-and-go-seek as a kid, m
aybe Olivia’s age, maybe younger, peering through the slats of a closet door, or from behind the rough-barked sycamore in the back, my heart pounding so hard my chest shook.

  Don’t find me. Just a little longer. Don’t see me. Fall leaves, speckled with black and brown, crunched under my neighbor’s shoes. My cousin. My best friend, Meredith. They took turns hunting me. Strange game for children to play, I’d thought, even at the time. I’m not afraid of these people; I know them too well.

  It was only four o’clock, but the coming dark seemed like an immovable dome. Bars appeared again on my phone. Beside each outgoing number, my phone listed how many times I’d tried to call. Beside Cal’s name was a five. I made it six and pressed the phone to my ear. Voicemail again.

  Oh, Cal, where are you?

  I knew there was no point in continuing to call—heaven knows he would have been aware by then that I was trying to get his attention. Six missed calls and I’d kidnapped his daughter. What else do you want?

  Late autumn wind shoved at the truck, whistling through the window gaps. Between us, my phone rang again. Same generic number. I swatted at it like a fly trapped inside the truck; I wanted back the space it occupied in my consciousness.

  “We’re not far now. It’s just another little while,” I said. “You okay?”

  She made a resigned expression. Not okay, but okay.

  “Miss Emily, are you going to answer your phone?”

  I turned it over, looked up. In the other direction, a car rushed past.

  Pay attention, my thoughts screamed.

  “It’s just a wrong number,” I hurried to say, “Or marketing.”

  Or the police, I thought. Someone who was not Cal.

  I cleared the breathy windshield with the back of my sleeve.

  “What’s marketing?” Olivia asked tentatively, registering my annoyance.

  I started to explain when the phone began its condensed melody again, like a door slamming again and again in the wind.

  “Is it my dad?” she asked. Her hands were fists in her lap.

  “No, baby.”

  My eyes stayed on the road, but my hand hovered over the phone.

  “Can I answer it?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said absently.

  Her fingertip slid across the screen. With both hands she held the phone to her cheek before a stillness came over her.