The Last Place You Look

by Kristen Lepionka

  “But the other day,” Tom said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I didn’t handle it well, what I said. But I didn’t know how else to tell you.”

  “How to tell me what. What else is there?” I said.

  His jaw bunched and his eyes filled up and I felt my sinuses getting tight too. I pressed a hand over my mouth.

  “How important you are, Roxane,” he said. “To me. That there’s a big space in my world for you no matter what. You’ve been very clear that it was just sex, and maybe that’s true. But that’s not all you are. You were there when no one knew how to be there.”

  I was shaking my head. “But I didn’t do anything,” I said.

  “Are you kidding?” Tom said, and then he was crying and I was crying and I didn’t know what was happening. “All the nights you let me talk about him even though I know you didn’t want to? All the times I didn’t even want to talk but I didn’t want to be alone? You always knew what to do.” He leaned toward me, so close our foreheads were almost touching. “I would not have made it without you. I feel like we went through a war together, Roxane, like I trusted you with my life. That matters more than anything. That’s bigger than everyone else. That’s why I always want you to call, and I always want to answer. It doesn’t matter why or where you are or where I am, okay?”

  I squeezed my eyes closed. “No.”

  “No what? No you don’t want somebody on your side?”

  I was being ridiculous. I did need somebody on my side, probably now more than ever. “I’m sorry I’m impossible,” I said.

  “You’re not. Sorry, that is,” he said with a smile in his voice, and we both laughed a little bit. “You’re impossible just like he was.”

  “I always hated it when people said I was like him,” I said, “but it’s true.”

  “It is true, Roxane. But that’s something you can be proud of. You can leave the parts you don’t like.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Says who?”

  “I don’t know.” Over the last nine months, we had talked about my father a lot. But we hadn’t talked about me. I didn’t want to. I thought I could skip over that part and come out on the other side, already over it. But I couldn’t. Probably no one could. “I don’t even miss him but I feel like a part of me is gone,” I whispered. “So I guess I do miss him.”

  “It’s okay to miss him,” Tom said.

  We sat like that for a long time, until his tears stopped and then mine did and then he kissed me on the cheek and pulled away. “I’m going to hold you to it, about that drink,” he said. He rubbed his face like he could get the sadness off of him that way. “Soon.”

  I nodded quickly. “Very soon.”

  “And I want you to meet Pam.”

  “You’re going to have to give me a minute for that,” I said. I wiped my eyes. “I hope she knows what a delicate flower you are.”

  He grinned. “No, she thinks I’m stoic and tough. I guess that’s her type.”

  “You’ll have to break it to her eventually.”

  Tom shrugged. “I figure I can come find you when I need a good cry.”

  I met his eye. It was hard to believe that less than a year ago, we’d barely known each other. Now it felt like I had known him forever. “Any time,” I said, and then I squeezed his shoulder and got out of the car.

  The morning was bright and cold and it hurt my eyes and my lungs as I walked down the street to my brother’s car. Jack Derrow’s house was half gone, the garage a sagging black hole. I paused and stared at it for a second but then turned away, unwilling to give him another second of my attention.

  THIRTY-SIX

  There were reporters at the hospital too, but they didn’t appear to notice me. They were much more interested in who might be coming out of the hospital than who might be walking in. I passed a lot of cops as well, what looked like half the police in the county standing around with their arms crossed. Part of me was glad to see them, like it made the hospital somehow safer. The rest of me wanted to tell them to get back to work. I stopped in the gift shop, stared at the racks of balloons and teddy bears and magazines. But I hated all of the things they sold, so I just went up to the third floor empty-handed. A Belmont uniform was guarding the end of the hall where the women’s rooms were located. As I got closer, I saw that it was Shanahan, the guy who’d brought me the tampon. He nodded at me and gave me a sheepish smile before he stepped aside and let me pass.

  I wondered if Veronica and Sarah would ever be able to look at a police officer again without fear.

  No one could blame them if they couldn’t.

  Veronica’s door was closed. I knocked, and Joshua Evans opened it and gasped. His wide face lit up and then crumpled almost at the same time as he dropped to his knees in front of me. “You’re an angel,” he whispered into my thigh.

  I touched his arm. “Joshua, it’s okay.”

  After a few seconds Joshua got to his feet and pulled me into Veronica’s room. She was asleep, clutching a fluffy pink teddy bear that someone who didn’t hate everything from the gift shop had purchased. Her mother was sitting beside the bed and she glanced up at me, stunned. She looked like she had no idea what to say to me, but that was all right. I smiled at her reassuringly. She didn’t need to say anything. I hoped that the absence of her jerk husband might be permanent, for her daughter’s sake.

  “Veronica hasn’t talked much yet,” Joshua told me. “But the doctor, he said—he said she’s lucky. That she’ll get better. It just takes a bit of time, maybe.”

  A bit of time. That seemed like the understatement of the year. Although Veronica looked peaceful sleeping there in the hospital bed, I couldn’t shake the hollow-eyed expression she had in that house. “I’m glad to hear it,” I said anyway. “Is Shelby around?”

  “Yeah, she was just here. Want me to call her and get her back in here? I know she can’t wait to talk to you.”

  This man is Shelby’s father, I repeated. “No, it’s okay, I’ll be around for a while,” I said.

  Joshua nodded. We looked at each other. “How did you know?” he said finally. “About him. He’s so, he just seems like the nicest guy. He was one of the officers who responded when I reported her missing—Mallory—I just—”

  I embraced him and let him cry on my shoulder for a minute while that sank in. That Derrow had been the officer to take Mallory’s missing-persons report, after he had taken her. It almost made me wish I’d shot him in the head. “I know, Joshua,” I said. “Derrow fooled a lot of people.”

  “But not you,” he said. “You’re amazing.”

  I didn’t feel amazing. I felt lucky. And Derrow had fooled me at first. But I supposed I should take the compliment. “I’m going to check in on the other woman,” I said. “You ever need anything, though, you call me. That goes for you, Shelby, Veronica, or her mom, okay?”

  He nodded. “People say that,” he said, “but I actually believe you mean it.”

  “That’s because I do.”

  When I got to Sarah’s room, I was surprised to see Shelby Evans sitting next to her bed. They weren’t speaking, and Sarah was just staring at the wall, her arms resting over her stomach. When Shelby saw me she jumped up and ran over and threw her arms around me.

  “How did you know?” she whispered into my shoulder, just like Joshua had. Behind her, Sarah didn’t even look up.

  I wiped my eyes. “You helped me figure it out,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it without you. How come you’re down here?”

  “Veronica went to sleep. And I thought it was sad, that Sarah doesn’t have a family to come be with her,” Shelby said with a glance over her shoulder. “Veronica said she was nice to her. But I don’t think she wants me here.”

  “Oh, Shelby,” I said. “It’s not you. It’s very sweet of you to sit with her though.”

  “Veronica said she thought she was dreaming,” she said next. “When she saw you. She didn’t understand.”

  “I
know.”

  “It was horrible, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “She didn’t really talk about it.”

  “Listen, Shelby, I want to tell you something.”

  Shelby looked at me. “Okay.”

  “Veronica is going to need time,” I said. “Probably a lot of time, before she’s back to herself, okay?”

  “I know,” she said.

  “You just have to be patient. This is a happy day, and the worst is over now, but not all the hard parts are finished.”

  She nodded.

  “Can you make sure you’re patient with her? That you don’t lose hope if she needs time? That goes for her mom too. I know you’re strong, kiddo, so that’s why I’m putting this on you.”

  “I know.”

  “And as for you,” I said. “We can always be friends, okay? If you ever need to talk—about her, about some other girl, whatever. I mean it.”

  She nodded again. “I’m really glad I met you.”

  “Me too,” I said. It felt good, knowing that I had helped to clear Brad Stockton’s name. But it felt even better that I had told Shelby I would help her, and I did.

  She hugged me again and went back down the hallway, shooting me a smile over her shoulder as she walked. I hoped that she’d be tough enough to get her father and her friend through this. I thought she was. She just had a look about her. Then I went into Sarah’s room and sat down. Her gaze was still pinned to the wall. In the bright light of the hospital, I could see that she had dark circles under her eyes, a sallow cast to her skin. Her hair was tangled and frayed, her fingernails broken and peeling. An IV was taped to the back of her hand.

  She looked miserable.

  But she was out of that house.

  That was not nothing, even if it was still hard.

  Neither of us said a word for a long time, which was okay. And then she finally spoke. “They did an ultrasound,” she said. “I’m going to have a little girl. In five weeks. They said she looks healthy.”

  I gave her a big smile. “Sarah, that’s such good news.”

  She nodded. But there was ambivalence in her eyes. “But she’s his.”

  “No, Sarah, she’s yours,” I said quickly. “He has no rights. He’s never going to hurt you again,” I said. “He’s going to jail and he’ll never get out. Never. You don’t have to waste another thought on Jack Derrow for the rest of your life.”

  She looked down at her belly. She didn’t tell me that was a stupid thing to say, even though it was. She’d probably think about Derrow forever, and probably so would I. We fell into another stretch of silence. Activity hummed behind us in the hallway, comforting in its normalcy.

  Today was an ordinary Friday for the rest of the city.

  “Is Brad still in jail?” she said after a minute.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’ll take a bit of time. But he will get out.” Then I added, “He still loves you.”

  She thought that over. “I guess we have even more in common now. We both had our lives stolen by the same person,” she said. For a second I caught a glimpse of the happy, bright girl she once was.

  “That’s exactly right,” I said.

  Sarah nodded. “Maybe I could see him,” she said. “Maybe.”

  * * *

  I ran into Danielle Stockton in the parking lot of the hospital. She almost hustled right past me, her nose glued to her phone. But she looked up at the last second and her eyes went wide. “You’re here,” she blurted. She was keyed up, a good kind of jumpy. “I went to the police station looking for you and they said maybe try here. Oh my goodness, Roxane, you—” But she stopped there, shaking her head, unsure of what she wanted to say.

  “I guess I owe you an apology,” I said lightly, “for trying to tell you the woman you saw wasn’t Sarah.”

  She laughed, nervous. “Right, you owe me the apology. I’m the one who fired your ass.”

  “You were not out of bounds. But I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t quite listen.”

  “It really is.” She kept shaking her head in disbelief, her hands clutching at the folds of her scarf. “I don’t know what to say. Thanks doesn’t quite seem to cut it.”

  I smiled at her. “Have you talked to your brother?”

  Danielle looked up at the clear blue sky, smiling. It had probably been a long time since she’d smiled when she thought about Brad. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m headed down there later today with my mom, but he called a little bit ago. His lawyer says they can’t just release him, they have to have a hearing and all that.” She let out a long, shell-shocked sigh. “I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not. Believe me. I know what you did for us. I might not ever be able to repay you, but I know what you did.”

  I could tell the reality of the situation hadn’t sunk in for her yet. When you’re stuck inside something for so long, it’s hard to believe it could ever be over, even when it is. Once Brad was home, it would hit her like a ton of bricks. “Go be with your family, Danielle,” I said after a few beats. “And maybe get Matt off my back—that would be repayment enough. Fair?”

  I held out my good hand, and she shook it.

  “Fair.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I took a shower when I got home, with some difficulty—holding my bandaged left hand outside and trying to do everything with one arm. There was a reason, I supposed, that everyone made such a big deal about teamwork. Then I made a cup of tea and lost it somewhere in the apartment, and then I went to bed.

  For the second time in a week, I slept all afternoon. This time when I woke up it was because someone was knocking on my front door. The clock said seven thirty. I rolled over and pulled a blanket over my head and hoped they would go away. But they didn’t. I got up, my hip loudly making its objections known, and I pulled on a shirt. “I’m coming, hold the phone,” I called.

  It was Andrew. He was holding a bouquet of white roses and a ten-dollar bill.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “I don’t know, it was in front of the door. And speaking of, what happened to your door?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “So are we going, or what?” my brother said. “And Jesus, what happened to your hand now?”

  I hadn’t even heard anyone at my door all day. I took the flowers and the ten dollars, which had a sticky note attached.

  I’m sorry, doll. I should have known, it said, and was signed Petey.

  The flowers had a note as well: You’re my local hero. Let’s talk.—C

  I thought about tossing them directly into the trash, but I dropped the flowers on the table in my entryway instead.

  I hadn’t looked at the news coverage but it seemed I was some kind of star. Andrew apparently hadn’t seen the news either. Chances were, he had just woken up too. “Going where?” I said.

  “The Test Pavements?” Andrew said, pantomiming a backward electric guitar. “I called you but I think your phone’s off.”

  “The other way,” I said, and he grinned and switched hands. My phone was not exactly off. Broken and lost somewhere forever was more like it. “I forgot about that,” I added. “Shit.”

  “How could you forget about the Test Pavements?”

  I rubbed a hand over my face, also forgetting, for the millionth time, about my cheekbone. “Sorry,” I said as I winced. “Let me get ready.” I turned around and went back into the bedroom.

  “Rox, are you okay?” The floor creaked as Andrew walked past my open door and back to the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I said. My clothes were scattered all over the floor, in various states of cleanliness. I looked into my closet and saw nothing but bare hangers. I sat down on the bed and sighed and it started me on a coughing jag, my lungs still scratchy and tight from the smoke.

  “You sound terrible,” Andrew said. He reappeared with a whiskey bottle and two shot glasses. He filled them and handed one to me. “Are you getting sick?”

  “I’m fine.” I put the shot
glass on my nightstand without drinking it and shook my head when Andrew looked at me quizzically. I took a slow, deep breath. “I think I need to pull back, where that’s concerned.”

  It was scary to say it out loud, especially to my brother. But he just looked at me for a second and poured himself another shot.

  “To each her own. You may change your mind later on, though,” he said. “The band that plays before the Test Pavements is apparently a Christian rock group.”

  “Orange Barrels for God?” I guessed.

  Andrew laughed. “Divining Roads,” he said.

  “We cannot go to this,” I said. It suddenly seemed impossible that I was even here, laughing with my brother. Last night had happened to someone else. I had just fallen asleep during a horror movie and woke up unscathed, credits playing.

  “Are you kidding me? It’s going to be fucking amazing.”

  I started coughing again.

  “But look,” he said, “as much as I want to make fun of him all night with you, if you’re sick, it’s okay. Mom would understand. She’d ask if you saw a doctor yet, naturally, but she’d understand.”

  I placed my good hand over my chest, trying to coax my lungs into stillness. It would be so easy to say yes, I was sick, and sleep for another seven hours. But I didn’t want to, I realized. I wanted to be around my family tonight. “No, I’m good. I just need to change and we can go.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I am,” I said.

  Andrew took the whiskey bottle back into the kitchen and I put on a bra and a cleanish shirt. I ran a brush through my hair without looking in the mirror. I didn’t even want to know at this point.

  “Mom told me yesterday that she sent Tom an e-mail about tonight,” Andrew said from the hallway. “Inviting him. I hope that even he has the good sense to stay away from this important family event, but who knows.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Do you think we could lay off Tom?”

  Andrew leaned into my bedroom. “What?”

  “He’s good people,” I said. “And he was probably closer to Dad than either of us ever was. I think he’s just doing the best he can.”