The Last Place You Look

by Kristen Lepionka

  I wasn’t sure where Garrett and Elaine Cook fit into my elevator pitch.

  I wasn’t sure how long an elevator pitch was supposed to be.

  I needed a pen.

  Four thirty.

  I invented a game: try to guess when exactly five minutes had passed.

  It was virtually silent in the cell. Every so often, I heard the faint crackle of a radio dispatch or a murmured conversation from somewhere else in the building, but no one so much as came down the hallway. I realized I could hear the ticking of the clock if I sat very still.

  Some game.

  At five o’clock, I went to the gate and cleared my throat and shouted, “Hey.”

  Nothing.

  “HEY.”

  Nothing.

  I took off one of my boots and banged it against the bars as hard as I could, still shouting.

  Finally, I heard footsteps in the corridor, and a second later, Officer Pasquale appeared in front of me. “You’re making quite the racket,” he said helpfully. His eyes drifted from my cheekbone to my chest. “Cold in here, huh?” he said.

  “Is there any news about Veronica?” I said, ignoring him.

  “Nope,” he said. “Is that what you’re making all this noise for?”

  “When can I get out of here?”

  “Not my call.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I’ve been in here for three hours and I haven’t been booked yet and I haven’t gotten to make a phone call or anything. Can you tell me when that is going to happen?”

  “Let me go see what’s going on,” Pasquale said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He wasn’t.

  I wadded up my raincoat and tried using it as a pillow, but the thin nylon provided little cushion. My headache was coming back, but this time it was different, deep and grinding. I was hungry—I hadn’t eaten today. I went to the sink and attempted to drink out of it, but it was too shallow to get my mouth under the stream of water. I managed a few sips from my open palm.

  Six o’clock.

  I took my boot off again and banged it on the bars and yelled for Pasquale. This time it was Meeks who came down the hallway.

  “Shit,” he said when he saw me. “What happened?”

  “I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t been booked or gotten to make any phone calls, is what happened,” I announced. “Is there any news about Veronica?”

  Meeks’s eyes narrowed slightly when I said four hours. “I tried to—” he started, but then he seemed to realize this wasn’t the time for an I-told-you-so. “There’s an Amber Alert out now. Everyone’s looking.”

  “Twenty hours after she was last seen,” I said, “that’s fantastic. What I told you earlier, about Kenny Brayfield—”

  “What did you do? Who brought you in?” he said.

  This seemed familiar. I sighed. “Derrow. Look, I promise not to do it again or whatever if you let me out of here.” I had no intention of keeping that promise, but my options were limited and I had zero leverage.

  “Okay, let me go see what’s going on. I know you’re trying to help.”

  He turned to walk away.

  “Wait,” I said. He looked back at me. “Can I have a pen?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Wait,” I said again when he turned back around. “Can I have something to eat? Or at least something to drink?”

  He looked at me. “What were you brought in for?”

  “Criminal trespass,” I said. “Yes, a fourth-degree misdemeanor.”

  “And you’ve been back here since two?”

  I nodded.

  He did seem slightly concerned about this. “Let me go see what I can find out,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He wasn’t. My headache was getting worse. I tried lying on the bench with my legs up the wall. I tried putting my raincoat over my eyes to shield from the aggressive fluorescent light.

  I wondered where Mallory and Colleen had been killed and how long it took.

  I wondered how in the hell Sarah’s parents fit into this.

  I wondered how Shelby was doing. I hoped she wasn’t out there wondering about me.

  Seven o’clock.

  “I need help,” I yelled, throwing both boots at the gate without getting up.

  A few minutes later, I heard the squeak of footsteps and then Meeks reappeared. He held a bottle of water and a single clementine.

  “What’s this,” I said, steadying myself on the wall. I got a little dizzy sitting up.

  Meeks didn’t say anything.

  I took the water and the fruit. “What’s going on here?” I said.

  “Someone should get to your report soon,” he said stiffly.

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “What time?”

  “Soon.”

  “Is Derrow still on duty?”

  “No,” Meeks said.

  I leaned against the bars and closed my eyes. “You can’t do this,” I said. “It’s illegal.”

  “You’ll be brought up on charges or released within seventy-two hours. That’s the law.”

  “Seventy-two hours?” I felt like I would undoubtedly be dead within seventy-two hours if I had to stay in here. The reality of the situation was too big to contemplate all at once.

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t hold someone here for seventy-two hours without food,” I said.

  “I just brought you an orange.”

  “This is from your lunch and don’t pretend it isn’t,” I said.

  At that, he gave me a slight smile. “It is.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  “Can you please tell me what’s going on?” I said.

  He looked down at the ground. “Chief Lassiter said he talked to you this morning about not interfering.”

  “I’m not interfering.”

  “Not right now, you aren’t. But you were. We’re doing everything in our power to find Veronica. We don’t need a civilian getting involved, trying to sneak through fences onto private property—”

  “Honestly, enough with the private property! Meeks, listen to me. These women are connected. Kenny Brayfield is the link. Talk to Shelby Evans. She’s seen him hanging around on her street. For no reason. On top of everything else, isn’t that enough to warrant a conversation with him?” I couldn’t remember my elevator pitch. That was why I had needed the pen. I ran a hand over my face, forgetting about the cut on my cheekbone. “You can’t tell me you don’t see it.”

  He saw it. But he looked uneasy. “There are different rules where the Brayfields are concerned,” he said.

  “Different rules.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Meeks shook his head. He wasn’t going to say any more about that. “Look,” he said, turning down the volume on his radio as it crackled to life on his hip. “You just have to be quiet. They’ll let you go after you’re quiet.”

  Then he walked away.

  Quiet.

  I sat back down and drank half the water in one gulp and felt immediately nauseous. But I peeled the clementine and ate it in two bites. Then I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, a gnawing pit of dread opening up at the center of me. I finished the water, but I didn’t want it. I wanted a drink.

  Seventy-two hours.

  In seventy-two hours, every trace of Veronica could be gone.

  Nine o’clock.

  I was physically anxious, my body begging me for an explanation. I retrieved the clementine peels from the sink and studied them to see if there were any more pieces of edible fruit stuck to them. I wondered if eating a clementine peel would kill me, decided probably no. My headache was more likely to finish me off. I experimentally chewed on one. It tasted like shit. I spit it out. I really wanted a drink.

  Needed.

  It was starting to scare me, how much I needed a drink.

  Ten o’clock.

  I banged my boots
on the gate and yelled some more. My voice was starting to fray.

  I counted to a thousand. Then two thousand. I made lists.

  New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Austin, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Charlotte, Fort Worth, Detroit, El Paso, Memphis.

  Royals, Giants, Red Sox, Giants, Cardinals, Giants, Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, Cardinals, White Sox, Red Sox, Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks, Yankees, Yankees, Yankees.

  Ardmore, Buffalo Trace, Crown Royal, Dewar’s, Eagle Rare, Four Roses, Glenlivet, Heaven Hill, Inchgower, Jameson, Knob Creek, Lagavulin, Midleton, Oban, Pappy Van Winkle, Queen of the Moorlands, Redbreast, Sazerac, Talker, Usquebach, Very Old Barton, Wild Turkey, Yamasaki.

  I tried to fill the water bottle up at the sink but could only get a few inches in before the water flowed back out, again because the sink was so small. Fill, sip, fill, sip. My hands were shaking.

  Eleven o’clock.

  I filled the bottle as much as I could, then touched it to the bars on the cell door and dragged it back and forth. It made an awful noise, jarring but satisfyingly loud. It made me feel like my head was about to cave in, but I kept at it until someone came over, this time a mean-looking guy my age with so much gel in his hair I could smell it.

  “Is there a woman on duty?” I said, trying a different approach. I wanted to speak to someone reasonable.

  “Huh?” he said. His name tag read Shanahan.

  “Is there a woman on duty,” I repeated. “I’m having, you know, woman problems.”

  “Like you need a tampon?” he said brightly.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like that.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Sorry.”

  He walked away but returned a few minutes later with a tampon in a crumpled pink wrapper and thrust it at me sheepishly.

  I sighed. I regretted wasting a wish on a tampon I didn’t need. “Hey,” I said. “Can you tell me if there’s news on the missing girl? Veronica Cruz?”

  He cocked his head. “From what I understand, you’re not supposed to be asking about that.” But then he said, “Hasn’t turned up yet. We’ve got every agency in the county on the lookout, though.”

  They didn’t need to be on the lookout across the entire county. They needed to look a hell of a lot closer than that. I didn’t say anything. I just lay back down and thought about what kind of incendiary device I might be able to make with a tampon, a water bottle, and a clementine peel.

  Midnight.

  I needed a drink.

  I wiped a thin layer of perspiration off my upper lip.

  * * *

  My father was showing me how to handle a revolver. I was ten. “You always check to see if it’s loaded,” he said. “Even if you’re sure it isn’t, you always check. That’s how you know what kind of beast you’re dealing with.” He snapped the barrel open and showed me the empty slots. “Now you know it’s a harmless one.” He pointed it at me. Bang, bang.

  I woke up as the cell door slammed open and I nearly fell off the bench. A new uniform was shoving a twentyish girl into the cell with me. She was dressed in an impossibly tiny black dress and patent spike heels and she reeked of vodka. It cleared my head for a second, just the smell of it, and I felt better, and then I felt worse.

  “Hey,” I said to the cop before he closed the cell door.

  He acted like he hadn’t heard me.

  “HEY.”

  Behind me, the girl’s phone rang and she answered it. “Fuuuuuuck,” she drawled, “where the fuck have you been.”

  The fact that she was allowed to keep her cell phone in here made me feel insane. The cop was now walking away like he hadn’t even seen me. I pulled the tampon out of my pocket and threw it at him.

  “This is illegal,” I said. My voice was nearly gone now.

  The cop came back to the cell door. His name tag said Kowalski. He smiled at me coldly. “Not your brand?” he said, holding up the tampon.

  “This might fly for punk suburban kids,” I said feebly, though I was in no position to be making demands of any kind, “but it’s not going to work here.”

  “It seems to be working okay,” he said.

  “I need to make a phone call.”

  “No.”

  “One phone call.”

  “No.”

  “She gets to keep her phone with her and I don’t get to make one fucking call after ten hours in here? Eleven?”

  “She’s just waiting for a ride,” Kowalski said. “Keep it down.”

  The girl, meanwhile, had pushed my raincoat onto the floor and stretched out on my bench.

  “Can I use your phone?” I said.

  She kept talking like she hadn’t heard me either. “So I said, if she wanted to put her skank ass up in his face, she could just—” She stopped and stared at me. “What?”

  “Can I please use your phone?” I said. “Please.”

  She blinked at me. “Yeah, I’m still here. Some trainwreck in here is, like, trying to steal my phone. I know.”

  I paced from one end of the cell to the other and back, then stared into the throat of the toilet for a while, trying to decide if I was hungry or sick or actually dying. The floor was filthy but I grabbed my raincoat and curled on my side, my face buried in the still-damp lining. I could feel my pulse in my hands. Anything could have happened out there in eleven hours. I didn’t know what to do.

  * * *

  Then my father was dragging me out of the house by the sleeve. Catherine started to open her car door, but Frank hip-checked it closed. “Don’t rub it in my face,” he hissed at me. I could almost taste the whiskey on his breath.

  Then I was at his funeral, clinging to Andrew’s arm while the spindly heels of my borrowed shoes sank into the muddy area around my father’s grave. The officiant asked for a moment of silence and then, through the cold air, the crackle of radios and a voice rang out, clear and strong.

  “Forty-one three oh one…”

  My father’s badge number. This was the last radio call, the tribute my mother had selected instead of a three-volley salute, not wanting to hear gunfire. Around me, a ring of faces contorting.

  “Forty-one three oh one … Calling number forty-one three oh one …

  “This is the last call for radio number forty-one three oh one.

  “No response from Detective Frank Weary. The time is sixteen hundred hours, February eighth. After thirty-eight years and four months of police service, radio number forty-one three oh one is ninety-seven on his final assignment. Forty-one three oh one is ten-seven forever. Rest in peace, brother. We’ll take it from here.”

  My whole body hurt, like each word was a car accident.

  And then it was two days after the funeral and I didn’t have any food but I did have whiskey so I just went with that. Tom called ten times and I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t move. But then he was there, the front door still unlocked from when he had left. He climbed into my bed with me and embraced me from behind. “Can I just stay here with you for now? I don’t know where else to go,” he said, and I nodded that he could.

  Crown Royal.

  Crown Royal.

  I wasn’t sure if I was awake or not. A matronly female cop was unlocking the door for a bald guy in glasses and a rain-spattered trench coat. “Come on, Kira,” he said.

  “But I’m so tired,” the brat who took my bench whined.

  I sat up. My eyes were watering from the headache. I rubbed a hand over my face, temporarily forgetting about my cheekbone again. The sharp pain helped me focus. I cleared my throat. “Are you a lawyer?” I said.

  Trench Coat looked at me warily. “Yes—”

  “Because I’ve been in here since two o’clock yesterday afternoon,” I said quickly, “and I haven’t even been booked yet. I haven’t been able to call anyone. Please help me.”

  The guy looked at me, then at the cop. Her eyes were wide.

  “You haven’t been booked
, even?” she said.

  I struggled to my feet. “No.”

  “Well,” she said. “Well. Let me see what I can find out.”

  I’d heard that before. “Can I have my phone back, please?” I said.

  “What?”

  “She got to keep her phone. Can I at least have mine back?” I said.

  “Kira, come on, please,” Trench Coat was saying.

  “I just had no idea this was going on back here,” the cop said. “But it you weren’t booked yet, why don’t you have your phone?”

  “He put it under the counter, in an envelope,” I said.

  She went around the corner while Trench Coat grabbed Kira’s arm and pulled her to her feet.

  I heard the cop set my revolver on the counter, muttering, “What the…” But she came back a second later and handed the phone to me and locked the cell door again after Trench Coat and Kira had made their way out. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on, okay?” the cop said.

  I sat down on my bench, cradling the phone like it was a precious artifact, which it was. I had six missed calls and a dozen texts but the battery was at four percent and I didn’t waste power looking at them.

  Instead I called Tom.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When the cell door opened again, it was after five in the morning and Jake Lassiter was scowling at me from the hallway. He looked rumpled and furious that he’d been woken up to deal with this. “You’re free to go,” he said.

  I sat up shakily.

  “You can collect the rest of your belongings at the front desk.”

  “Has Veronica been found?”

  “You can collect the rest of your belongings at the front desk,” he repeated. I assumed that to mean no. If she’d been located safe and sound, a guy like Lassiter would have relished telling me so.

  “Is that all you have to say to me?” I said.

  “It sure is,” Lassiter said.

  I didn’t have the energy to deliver the lecture I’d fantasized about. I just brushed past him and out to the lobby, where Tom was sitting with his eyes closed. He looked like he was asleep, but he jumped up as soon as I walked in. “Hey,” he said, giving me half of a smile. Then his expression hardened. “What happened,” he said, tipping my head up gently with a knuckle under my chin as he studied my cheekbone.