The Last Place You Look

by Kristen Lepionka

  “It’s fine,” I said quickly. His touch sent a sharp spiral of pain from my jaw down to my sternum. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Right, of course,” he said.

  I pushed outside into the rain and took a series of breaths so deep my lungs hurt, hoping I could breathe out all the tension. But I couldn’t. I didn’t feel any better and I didn’t understand. Or maybe I did, which was worse.

  “Are you all right?” Tom said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said quickly. Act normal. “I just—that was—thank you, Tom, really. What did you have to do? I hope I didn’t cost you any favors.”

  “Oh, you know, I just had to make some empty threats, generally pretend I’m more important than I am,” he said.

  “Typical Wednesday.”

  “Typical Wednesday,” he said. “Roxane, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just ready to be done with this portion of my day.”

  I followed him to his car and sank into the passenger seat, which felt like the clouds of heaven after fifteen hours in that cell. I pulled the seat belt across me and the buckle rattled in my trembling hands as I tried to fasten it.

  Tom turned to me, touched my forearm. “You’re shaking,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” I said again, too quickly. “I think I’m just hungry,” I added. I wasn’t. My stomach felt like I had swallowed a bottle opener. “I haven’t really eaten since Monday.”

  “Can I get you some breakfast?”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” I said, “you’ve already done enough, coming down here in the middle of the freaking night.”

  “I don’t mind,” Tom said as we turned onto Clover. “I’m in urgent need of coffee anyway. Today’s going to be rough.”

  I didn’t want to have breakfast. I wanted to get back to my car, to the whiskey bottle that I had shoved under the passenger seat. “I thought cops were used to hours like this.”

  “Coffee willing,” Tom said.

  Inside the restaurant, I asked him to order me a cup of tea and the same as whatever he was having to eat. Then I went into the restroom and locked the door, leaning against it as I tried to breathe evenly. I caught sight of my reflection and winced—my cheekbone was a swatch of black and blue, the cut red and angry. My skin was pale and my hair was tangled and greasy. I hadn’t showered since Monday either. No wonder drunk Kira called me a trainwreck. I washed my hands and patted my face with a cool, damp paper towel.

  An hour.

  An hour, tops.

  I could do that.

  I went back into the restaurant and sat down across from him and gulped at the bitter black tea, then folded my hands in my lap so he couldn’t see them shaking.

  “Are you going to tell me what started all this?” Tom said.

  I looked at him. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk at all. I wanted to put my head down on the table and weep from exhaustion and embarrassment. But Tom was in my corner, unlike the cops I’d been dealing with all night. “A girl is missing,” I said. “She didn’t come home Monday night. She’s actually a friend of the daughter of that woman I had you pull case info on. Frank’s case.”

  He leaned on his hand, watching me. “Okay.”

  “I know when we talked the other day, I was afraid I’d just found Sarah Cook’s body, that Brad Stockton had led me right to it. But it wasn’t her. It was another girl. She was thought to be a runaway, eight years ago. But she wasn’t. Someone killed her. While Stockton was in prison.”

  The waitress brought our food, waffles and bacon and grits with a slick of neon yellow butter pooling on the top. I wanted to throw up. But I continued, “That made three girls—Frank’s case, Sarah, and the body I found. Now a fourth, with this girl who didn’t come home. It’s been nearly thirty-six hours. And there’s one guy who is connected to all of them, a piece of shit named Kenny Brayfield. But his parents paid for some city park in Belmont and now the police won’t even listen when I try to bring it up.”

  Tom nodded, chewing. “So you got arrested for what, for criminal implying?”

  I knew I was supposed to smile, so I did. “Well, that. While in the act of trying to see if I could fit through a fence.”

  He looked at me like I should know better, which I should have. Which I did. Or maybe I didn’t. “Why?” he said.

  I cut off a tiny piece of waffle and chewed it slowly but it was like a mouthful of sand. “I think he took this girl. Her name’s Veronica. I think he took her and if she’s not dead already, he’s keeping her somewhere. The police don’t care—”

  “What’s your evidence? I mean, it’s a small town. I know you’re a city girl but connections abound in places like this.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. I didn’t have any evidence, not really. Just a bunch of anecdotes and Kenny Brayfield appearing on the security tape at the Varsity Lounge, which wasn’t really proof of anything except the fact that he had been at that bar. I still had no clue where Sarah’s parents fit in. But taken as a whole, the collection of anecdotes told a very convincing story. Right? Things were getting blurry. I wouldn’t have been surprised to wake up and find myself at home in bed, or still in that cell, or ten years old, or dead.

  Tom added, “I’m just saying, devil’s advocate, without evidence, you might just come off like a lunatic calling a tip line, right? Police departments, especially small ones, don’t like it when citizens try to tell them how to do their jobs.”

  That annoyed me a little. I was clearly aware of this point. “I’m not telling them they need to install a traffic signal in front of my church,” I said, “I’m talking about a missing teenaged girl.”

  “No, I know, I get it. She’s been gone how long?”

  Then, on the table next to Tom’s plate, his phone lit up.

  He glanced down at it, and so did I. A text, from Pam G. Is she okay?

  “You told her about this?” I said, my voice coming out harsh.

  Tom looked surprised. “I did,” he said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know it was top secret.”

  I sighed and shoved my plate away. “This is just—I hate that the first time she hears about me I’m calling you from jail.”

  “Well, it’s hardly the first time she’s heard about you,” he said. “But it was a little hard not to tell her, I mean,” he added, “I was at her place when you called. Like, sleeping.”

  Of course. I ran my hand over my face, forgetting about the bruise again. “Why did you answer the phone then?” I said.

  “What?” Tom said. Now he looked confused. “I assume you wanted me to answer.”

  “Only if you weren’t busy,” I said. I didn’t know what I would have done if Tom hadn’t answered. But that did not seem important at this moment. “You’re not supposed to answer the phone when someone you’re fucking calls you, if you’re in bed with someone else you’re fucking.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Roxane, I seriously don’t understand how you’re mad at me.”

  “I’m not,” I said. I tried breathing slowly but even that wasn’t working now. I needed that drink. “I’m not. You’re right. I did want you to answer. You can tell her I’m fine, I’m fucking fantastic.”

  He was looking at me like he could tell something wasn’t right here. He was a detective, after all. “What happened?” he said. “Really.”

  “I need to get my car,” I said, unable to deal. “Now. Can you give me a ride or should I call a cab?”

  Tom let out a heavy sigh. But he pulled out his wallet and dropped a twenty on the table. “Let’s go get your car.”

  We rode in silence through the dark, wet streets. The traffic lights made streaks in my vision like vapor trails. I knew I needed to say something, but my thoughts were a blank white square. As we pulled up behind my car on the access road, Tom said, “What are you going to do?”

  “What am I going to do?” I repeated. “About what?”

  “Well, you just told me you got arrested trying to sneak t
hrough a fence,” he said, nodding at the wrought-iron fence caught in the glow of his headlights, “presumably this one, and I just want to make sure you aren’t going to try that again.”

  I stared at him, irrationally annoyed at the implication that he had the power to make sure I did or didn’t do anything at all. “Whatever I decide to do, it’s not your problem.”

  He made a face. “I’m trying to help, here. That’s not what I was saying. “

  “No, it was,” I said. I felt the tug of gravity in this conversation, a free-fall plummet. But I couldn’t stop. “You think you get to give me a lecture because you got me out of a jam, is that it?”

  “No—”

  “Well, I don’t need it. I don’t need a lecture and I don’t need any help. I don’t even know why you answered the damn phone.”

  “You called me.”

  I put my head in my hands as he spoke.

  “I don’t know what this is really about, but I’m not playing a game with you. Don’t call me if you don’t want me to answer,” he said. “Because I’m always going to.”

  “Stop it.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, it’s because I promised.”

  “You didn’t promise anything,” I said to my lap.

  “I promised Frank,” he said after a minute, his voice softer. “I promised Frank. That I’d look out for you.”

  I took in his profile in the dashboard light for a second, my heart hammering in my head. The last person I wanted to hear about in this moment was my father. I got out of the car and steadied myself against the rain-dotted hood.

  Tom opened his door and got out too. “Roxane, come on.”

  “You promised?” I said, spinning around. “What did you even promise? And when? He’s bleeding to death and he asks you to babysit me? Is that what we’ve been doing for the last nine months?”

  “No, of course not—”

  “I don’t need you to do me any favors, okay?” I said. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can.”

  I was going to crawl out of my skin. “Then why are you throwing that in my face?”

  His eyes were worried and confused and a little mad too. “I’m not throwing anything in your face,” he said. “I’m concerned—you’re not acting like yourself, you’re honestly not making sense, and—”

  I couldn’t hear any more. “Thanks for whatever you said to them, at the police station,” I said curtly. I fumbled through my pocket for my car keys, my hand shaking.

  “Roxane, wait.”

  His voice made my chest hurt. I knew I was being unfair, but I didn’t know how to stop. “Take care,” I told him. I ignored the hand he skimmed along my arm as I walked over to the driver’s side of my car. He didn’t say anything else and neither did I.

  There was a parking ticket on my windshield. I snatched it off and threw it into the ditch. Then I got into the car and felt for the bottle on the floor of the passenger seat, still aware of Tom’s headlights shining on me. I ripped the cellophane off the top of the bottle, waiting for him to leave. I didn’t dare look up into my rearview mirror. Finally, he pulled a three-point turn on the access road and went back down to Clover Road. I took a long swallow of whiskey and squeezed my eyes closed. I thought of the first time I’d ever tasted Crown Royal: I was nine, sneaking a sip from the liquor cabinet in the middle of the night, curious about what it was that my father liked so much better than all of us. It burned my throat and my gums, a forest fire that made me cough so hard I saw stars, so hard that I didn’t hear my father coming down the steps to see what was going on. “You like that, huh?” he said, startling me. I expected him to be mad but he wasn’t, just tiredly amused, probably still drunk himself. “Tastes nice and quiet, doesn’t it?” he added. I didn’t know what he meant by that at the time; there was nothing nice or quiet about the big, ugly flavor of that sip. He sent me back to bed after I swore not to ever touch anything in the liquor cabinet again, a promise I thought I’d have no trouble keeping even into adulthood. But at some point I forgot how gross I thought it was, and at some point after that I realized he was right. It did taste nice and quiet. It was the only thing that did. Now, in the car, I swallowed a little more and tried to pretend that everything would be okay.

  For a second, I could almost believe it. The liquor was warm going down and it numbed everything it touched. Unfortunately, that didn’t apply to my brain. Or to my white-hot anger, my anger at Tom, at the Belmont cops, Kenny, my father, myself, everyone, no one. I had no intention of driving anywhere yet, but I turned on the car and cranked the heater. I felt around in the dark for the cord to my phone charger and plugged the device in, but the screen told me it needed to charge before it would turn on. I dropped it onto the seat beside me in disgust.

  And then I saw a figure dressed in black coming quickly down the hill toward me.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  He opened a gate in the fence. I didn’t have time to process the existence of this gate and how it might have changed what happened yesterday. I automatically shook my gun from its holster and was out of the car just as he reached me. “Take another step and I’ll shoot you right here,” I said, aiming at his chest. The gun, I realized, felt curiously light.

  “Whoa,” Kenny said. “Holy shit. What is that. No, I just—”

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Roxane, whoa, come on—”

  “Do you think I’m kidding?” I said, stepping forward. “Because I’m not.”

  His thin face was white with fear. Real fear. “I just wanted to see if you were okay,” he said.

  That threw me. “What?”

  “I was worried! I saw what happened yesterday,” he said. “Like from the windows upstairs. You can see all the way down here.” He gestured around atmospherically.

  “What?” I said again. There was no space in my head to understand this. “You saw what happened. Me getting arrested.”

  “Yeah, I saw it, and I was like, I wasn’t dressed yet. So by the time I got dressed and came out here to say it was okay, he didn’t have to take you in, you were already gone. But I saw your headlights just now and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  I stared at him. This didn’t exactly fit with my theory. But then again, Kenny had been fooling people for years. He hadn’t fooled me though, which was why it felt strange that he seemed credible now. I’d already determined his poker face was shit. “Kenny,” I said, trying to sound calm, “where is Veronica Cruz?”

  “I don’t know Veronica Cruz.”

  “Yeah, you do. You drive up and down her street. Providence Street.”

  His jaw bunched up. His eyes were still on my gun.

  “Tell me what you’re doing on Providence Street.”

  “Look, can you put that away?” He nodded at the gun.

  “No. You need to start giving me some answers, Kenny.”

  He pressed his lips together in a thin, hard line. He didn’t look angry. He looked afraid. Of me. “She hangs out around Mallory’s daughter, right?” he said.

  “You tell me.”

  “I’ve seen—shit, Roxane, do we have to do this?”

  “Yeah, we do,” I snapped, taking a step closer. “What do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything! I saw her on the news. Veronica. And I’ve seen her, with Mallory’s daughter.”

  “How do you know Shelby?”

  “I sometimes, I don’t know, I just like to make sure everything’s okay over there.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Can you please put that gun away?”

  I had a suspicion that the cylinder of my revolver was empty anyway, but he didn’t know that. I kept it where it was. “What are you talking about,” I repeated.

  We watched each other for a few seconds.

  “When Mal told me she was pregnant,” he said, more quietly, “I didn’t react too well.”

  Oh my God, no. I felt like I w
as waking up from one of those dreams where you tumble off a bridge.

  “I said, are you sure it’s, you know, mine? Because there were a lot of guys, there was no getting around that. And I don’t know how she could have known. But I still shouldn’t have said it. She was coming to me for help. She wanted to get an abortion, like before anyone found out.” He looked down at the muddy ground. “We argued and then I didn’t see her for a while, she dropped out of school, and I heard she married that mechanic and they were going to have a family. And I just felt relief, okay, I was a junior in high school at that time, I didn’t know shit.”

  I thought of Shelby and Joshua and how close they were. This was not happening.

  “And eventually, Mallory came around again and we started, you know. Started back up with being together. She told me the guy, Josh, she said he was dumb as a box of hair but he loved the daylights out of that little girl. So she obviously made the right choice, going to him.” Kenny wiped at his eyes. “I said I’d always, you know, support her. Them. If they needed it. I gave her money, but that usually went right to drugs. When she disappeared, she was using a lot. Heroin. I don’t go there, I don’t mess with that. And then she was just gone one day, she just didn’t call me and she never picked up the phone when I tried to get her—I can’t even tell you how many times I hung up on her husband, when he answered. I figured she needed a break, from, you know, life. She always had that free spirit thing going on.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t know what happened to her.”

  “No, I had no idea. I thought she just took off. But I’d drive by that little house sometimes, though, during those few months when she was gone, and I’d see Josh and the little girl and they both looked so happy to be together, and that just made me feel good. Like good. If Mal and I had tried to raise a kid together—there was no way. There was no way anybody would turn out happy.”