“So, he usually swims alone?” he said.
I nodded at first, stopped and brushed the sopping strands of hair from my face. Last time I’d mentioned I was getting it trimmed, Jack begged me not to, insisted the longer, the sexier. I’d told him in that case he was welcome to let his hair grow past his chest and deal with all the knots, the bird’s-nest bedhead and ultra-bad hair days, before instructing the stylist to lop off a good three inches. Jack had loved it all the same, but in that moment, standing with Sam, Stevens and Heron near the beach, I made a silent, desperate promise. If Jack reappeared here and now, I’d never cut my hair again. When Sam squeezed my arm, I saw them watching me, and he had to repeat the question.
“Does he usually swim alone?”
“Not always,” I said. “Sometimes I go with him.”
“Why not yesterday?” Stevens said.
“I told you.” I raised my voice this time, I couldn’t help it, and it had the same effect on Heron’s and Stevens’s eyebrows. I lowered my eyes, mumbled, “He was supposed to go for a quick swim before heading back to work.”
“To the place he got laid off from,” Heron said.
“Yes, but—”
Stevens jumped in. “You said Jake’s thirty-three?”
“Jack.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, fought hard to keep the anger inside because if I let it out, there was no telling what I might do, or if I’d get it back under control. They were wasting my time. Jack’s time.
“His name’s Jack Smith,” Sam said, his voice firm with more than a touch of authority, and I was grateful for his gravitas to counterbalance my near hysteria. “And Lily clearly stated he’s almost thirty-three. Shouldn’t you be taking this more seriously?”
“Sir, we are, I promise,” Detective Heron said before turning to me. “Have you called Jack’s friends?” The emphasis on the name wasn’t lost on anyone but she still shot her colleague an unmistakable get it right next time, you idiot look, which made him wither for no more than a split second.
“Of course I did,” I whispered.
“Miss Reid—”
“Lily.”
“Lily,” Heron repeated, her tone still even. “Could Jack have had car trouble and called someone to pick him up? A friend or family member, maybe? Perhaps he—”
“No. I told you. I called everyone. Besides...what about those?” I pointed to the keys and wallet in her hand, the items I’d given to her within moments of their arrival at the beach. “Anyway, Jack would’ve called me. He doesn’t have family here. His, well, ex-boss is away for the weekend somewhere, and as for other people...” I let the rest of the sentence die, didn’t want to admit Jack hadn’t any close friends in the area, had chosen not to develop those relationships since he’d arrived in town two years prior because he’d been let down by people too often before. Telling them would invite too many questions I couldn’t answer. Things I’d never pressed Jack about because I’d recognized his need to leave history behind, and because we were focusing on a future together, not our separate pasts.
The minutes ticked by, dragging us from Saturday morning to afternoon, and the rain had finally slowed to a steady trickle. At some point, more police vehicles arrived, and Jack’s truck had been searched. When Heron had played the increasingly desperate voice mails I’d left for him on his phone, I turned away, not wanting to hear the terror in my voice.
A while later the local press interviewed me, but I couldn’t remember what the immaculately made-up journalist had asked, or what I’d said. I felt like I’d gone numb from the inside out. The coast guard was alerted, something I became aware of through snippets of conversations overheard on the police radio, and well before Heron or Stevens filled us in. All this time, Sam stayed on the beach with me, dressed in his pajamas, listening, watching, hoping. I didn’t want to leave. If I went home it meant abandoning Jack, but Sam insisted there was nothing we could do, I needed to at least try to get some rest.
“You’ll be the first to know of any developments,” Heron assured me in her calm yet efficient manner, and so I’d reluctantly agreed to Sam driving me back to his place to pick up my car. I declined his offer of going inside his house and him making something to eat. I wasn’t hungry and needed to be alone. I made it half a mile before having to pull over by the side of the road so I could let out the cries of frustration, anger and fear, which had all mixed together into a ball of raw emotion I could no longer contain.
An hour later I’d paced my apartment a thousand times, and there was still no news. I’d lost count of how many times I’d checked my cell, how often I’d willed, ordered and begged it to ring, or for the screen to light up with a text message, but it remained silent and dark, useless. If it hadn’t represented a lifeline to Jack, I’d have snapped it in half and stamped on the broken remains until they were dust beneath my feet.
As I reached for my phone again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything since the last time I’d looked, a sharp knock made me jump. I raced across the room, almost upending the coffee table in my haste, and yanked the front door open. It was Stevens and Heron, the bags under their eyes making them seem as tired, drawn and washed-out as I felt.
“Have you found him?” I said, my heart thumping hard. “Have you found Jack?”
“Can we come in?” Heron said gently.
No, I wanted to shout. No, you can’t come in because I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I’m terrified. Please don’t tell me. Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.
I stepped aside. Once I’d closed the door behind them and, ever so politely, offered them a seat (which they accepted) and a glass of water (which they declined), I couldn’t help asking again, my voice resembling a frightened child’s who’d woken up from a nightmare. “Have you found him?”
They looked at each other, jaws clenched. No doubt Heron had already decided who’d do the talking: her as the seasoned detective, or rookie Stevens. Either way, whoever was set to deliver the bad news, I wanted them to hesitate or have a long, drawn-out argument about something with each other, anything to delay the message I knew was coming. I took a step back, trying to put more distance between us as I pulled at the neck of my shirt, which seemed to be strangling me.
“No, we haven’t found him,” Heron said.
Air rushed into my lungs, filling me with hope, making my head spin with the possibility of finding Jack alive. I resumed my pacing, fiddled with the heart-shaped charm on the bracelet he’d given me on our first Valentine’s Day. He’d tucked it into a box of candy, and I hadn’t seen it at first, felt a tinge of disappointment as I thanked him for the chocolates. Despite our shared and somewhat negative opinions of the kitschy, commercial pseudo-forced romantic day, I’d hoped for...more. It wasn’t only the fact this was our first Valentine’s Day as a couple, but also the first time I’d seen the point of celebrating it with someone. Consequently, and embarrassingly, when he’d turned the lid of the box upside down to reveal the hidden jewelry, the fact he felt the same had made me cry.
“He’s still out there,” I whispered, looking up. “Are they searching—”
“The coast guard is doing its job,” Stevens said, holding up a bony hand, and his nonchalance made me want to grab his fingers and twist them backward until they snapped.
“The search isn’t why we’re here,” Heron added.
I stopped pacing, and my eyes darted from her to Stevens and back again as I tried to fathom what other reason might have brought them to my door. What could be more important right now than being out there, looking for Jack?
“We came because we want some information about, uh, Jack,” Stevens said.
“Okay.” I reached for my phone. “If you need another photo, I can—”
“Perhaps you should sit.” Heron gestured to the sofa, and something in her gentle tone told me to follow her command. I obediently walked over and sa
t down, perched on the edge of the seat, probably looking like I might make a run for it. Depending on what she told me, maybe I would.
“What’s this about?” I touched my bracelet again, wishing it were a portal to the past so I could tell Jack not to go swimming, or that it would transform itself into a magic lamp containing a genie who’d grant me three wishes. Or just one. One wish would be plenty.
“How well do you know Jack?” Heron said, and my forehead crinkled as I tried to focus enough to understand her question. “You mentioned you’ve been together for about a year and a half, is that correct?”
“Yes.” The air around me had become thick again, making it hard to breathe.
“And in that time,” Stevens took over, “have you met any of his family? Any old friends or acquaintances from before he arrived in Brookmount?”
“No. His parents are dead, and he has no siblings. Why?”
Heron rested her elbows on her knees. “The driver’s license in his wallet is a fake.”
“Huh?”
“A forgery,” Stevens said. “A good one, but not perfect. They rarely are.”
I tried to make sense of his words. The suggestion was ridiculous. Jack was in his thirties; he didn’t need bogus identification to buy booze. If they were right, which they weren’t, what would Jack be doing with a fake ID? I tried to imagine other possibilities. Had he got into trouble, been caught speeding, or running a red light? Had his license been revoked and he’d continued driving with a forged one? Had he never taken his driver’s test in the first place? I’d read about a similar case once. A man had driven for almost ten years before being found out at a random traffic stop.
“Why?” I said. It was the only word my brain allowed my mouth to articulate.
“We don’t know yet,” Heron said, still leaning forward, close enough for me to see the yellow flecks in her deep brown eyes. “This Jack Smith doesn’t exist, and by that, I mean the details on his license don’t match any records. Lily, it may not even be his real name.”
I wanted to rewind what I’d heard and listen again at quarter speed. If I did, maybe something, anything, would make sense. Their words sounded like gibberish, an alien language I couldn’t understand. “You’ve made a mistake, I—”
“What kind of problems was Jack having?” Stevens said.
“Problems?” I whipped my head up and looked at him, searching my brain for any concerns Jack might have shared with me of late. I wondered if I should mention he’d seemed a little agitated a few times. He worried about money a lot, I knew that, and he was always careful about not overspending. On more than one occasion he’d said he wished he could spoil me with lavish gifts, and I’d laughed and said it wasn’t the 1950s, thank you very much, I was perfectly capable of treating myself. Jack had countered that wasn’t the point, but I’d waved him off and told him to stop being silly.
Then there had been another occasion just last week in the shopping mall parking lot. It had been uncharacteristically busy because of a big sale, and a teenager in a shiny black Audi had taken the spot Jack had patiently been waiting for. Jack had yelled at him, called him a “pretentious git for nicking my place.” Once we’d parked elsewhere, and I’d suppressed a laugh after Jack translated git (jerk) and nicking (stealing), I said, “You never get bent out of shape for stuff like that. For a moment there I thought you’d go all Kathy Bates on him, like in Fried Green Tomatoes. What’s up?”
“Nothing, it’s fine,” he’d said, before apologizing and leaning over to kiss me. “I hate showy knob-heads. Next time remind me to call the idiot a spunk bubble.” At that point I’d collapsed in a fit of giggles, and we’d walked to the shop arm-in-arm, the mini confrontation already forgotten.
Looking at Stevens now, I decided neither of the incidents were worth mentioning. They were trivial. Irrelevant. What would I gain by bringing them up when I knew they meant nothing? “He didn’t have any problems.”
“Was he depressed?” Heron said softly. “About losing his job?”
The inference became clear as their heads tilted to one side, sympathetic expressions at the ready. “He didn’t kill himself,” I said, and as they exchanged an almost imperceptible glance, I wondered if I’d put the idea into their heads by somehow misrepresenting who Jack was. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”
“We have to consider all possibilities,” Heron said.
“Not that one,” I fired off, straightening my back. “Because you’re wrong.”
As she opened her mouth to respond, her phone rang. She answered it swiftly, asked, “When? Where?” and finished with a curt “Uh-huh, fine,” before hanging up and turning to me. “They found some clothes farther down the beach. It may be nothing, but they’re sending—” Her phone beeped, and she held it up, screen pointed at me.
I let out a sharp gasp. There it was. The dark green American Eagle shirt I’d given Jack for Christmas, the one I’d chosen because it complemented his amber eyes, and which was so soft, I couldn’t resist hugging him whenever he wore it. It was my favorite as much as his.
“They found this hoodie.” Heron brought up another photo, and my hands flew to my mouth as I closed my eyes.
“Ask them if it has a hole in the left pocket,” I whispered. “Half an inch long.”
Heron fired off a text and I stayed silent as we waited for the reply, but when Stevens’s phone rang, I jumped. As he moved to the kitchen to take the call, I struggled to comprehend what was happening. First, I refused to accept Jack may have harmed himself, and I didn’t believe Heron’s tale of his identity being fake, either. She’d made a mistake, or there was a glitch in the system. Someone, somewhere had made a clerical error, mixed up Jack’s records with somebody else’s. Jack Smith was a common name, and there had to be a thousand possible things that could have happened to create a mishap like this, and the ensuing confusion.
Still...doubts tried to wriggle their way in through the cracks of my mind, nibbling and distorting what I knew to be true. Jack hadn’t shared much about his past. As I’d informed the police, his parents had died, and he had no siblings, only a few distant family members in England he never saw or stayed in touch with after moving to the US as a teenager. What if only part, or none, of that was true? No. I wouldn’t doubt the man I loved, and with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. The man who’d said he had the same feelings for me.
The beep of Heron’s phone ripped me out of the jumble of thoughts that had turned themselves into a minefield, making me incapable of taking a single step without the risk of blowing what I believed to be the truth wide open. She exhaled slowly, and said, “There’s a hole in the hoodie. Left pocket. About half an inch.”
Before I could process the information, collapse or let out a scream, Stevens walked back in with a dark look on his face. “Another round of storms is coming in, worse than the first. The coast guard has to suspend—”
“But Jack’s still out there,” I said, finding my voice. “They can’t stop looking.”
“The search will resume as soon as it’s safe to go back out,” Heron said, getting up and walking over, her palms facing me in a calm down gesture that did nothing to settle the crescendo of panic. “I promise you, they’ll start looking as quickly as they can.”
I closed my eyes again, tears spilling over my cheeks as my new reality set in. With Jack missing since last night, come tomorrow there’d be no more talk about a rescue mission.
It would be a recovery operation.
5
THE MAN FROM THE BEACH
A little while after the trailer had set off, I’d gone back to the wardrobe and searched through the bottom, where I located a pair of socks and running shoes. The sneakers were two sizes too big, but I pulled them on anyway, wincing when the insoles pressed against my shredded feet. As I closed the door a T-shirt caught my eye. It had the words The White Stripes
on it, along with a picture of a guy in a top hat, and a woman with long brown hair, wearing a red dress. Snippets of a music video went through my mind. Images of red, black and white triangles. A woman... M...something. M... Yes, that was it, Meg.
I had to stop myself from punching the air with a whoop because I’d remembered. Things were coming back. If I could recall something so obscure, surely the more important stuff would return because the image of Meg White—Jesus, I knew her last name now—was so clear, it was almost as if I were watching the video on TV. As suddenly as it arrived, the image faded, replaced by one of a young girl. Her hair was shorter than Meg’s, and instead of drumsticks she smacked a pair of chopsticks together so hard I thought they’d break, but then that picture blurred and faded, too, and after that...nothing. What did it mean? What did anything mean? I didn’t know, and both my brain and body were so exhausted from the effort of trying to place things, I crawled to the bed and lay down, vowing I’d only let myself close my eyes for a second.
I didn’t wake up until the trailer went over a bump, and I glanced at my watch, struggling to believe an hour had passed. The pain in my head had subsided, and when my fingers gently reached for the cut on my skull, I felt a mass of hair stuck together with dried, stiffened blood. Once again, I tried to force my mind to remember something—anything—but it was as if my existence only began on the beach. I looked out of the back window, squinting as the gray light hit me in the face. The winds had lessened but the rain held steady, bouncing across the asphalt in translucent beads.
As I sank back down on the bed, I noticed the corner of a brochure wedged between the mattress and the wall. I pulled it out. It was a take-out menu for an Indian restaurant, and the names of the dishes and the pictures of aloo gobi, samosas and malai kofta made my mouth water. Until now I’d been able to ignore the gurgling of my empty stomach, let the hunger pains transform themselves into a dull ache, but at the sight of food my gut contracted hard. I pushed myself up and headed for the kitchenette cupboards, where I found half a loaf of bread and strawberry jam. I fumbled with the lid and didn’t bother opening the drawer for a knife, but shoved a piece of bread deep into the jar, groaning as I pushed the food into my mouth.
You Will Remember Me Page 3
