Seeing Black

by Sidney Halston

  -Helen

  “Holy shit!” Alexander and Oliver both said simultaneously.

  “Told ya!” Heather grinned.

  They found a few more entries about the drug deal, but most of it involved how scared Esther was of Josef and Rocco and also about the men whose money was stolen. Alexander went back to the journal that would should’ve contained this particular page. It took them over an hour to find it.

  June 2, 1989

  I will never forget what my sister told me and how she looked as she told me, but this morning, I completely panicked. I shouldn’t have written it down. It shouldn’t be on paper for everyone’s safety, including my own. I couldn’t help but rip up the page first thing this morning. I’m glad she confided in me, but I’m not even sure what to do with this information. I’m going to have to put some thought into it.

  -Helen

  Chapter 10

  That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

  -Friedrich Nietzche

  Present . . .

  “Listen, she just vanished! You have to do something!” Alexander yelled into the phone at Officer Flynn, the police officer assigned to the missing person’s case.

  “Son, we’re doing everything we can. There are no signs of her. We’ve looked everywhere for her.”

  “I’m telling you that son of a bitch, Rocco Taylor, has her.”

  “Listen, Alex, I’ve already explained to you that I can’t just barge into the home of a man like Taylor and accuse him of abducting your girlfriend, his daughter. He’s Rocco Taylor, he has more money than God, and she’s his daughter, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Why the fuck not? If he were anyone else, you’d have questioned him already. It’s been six goddamn months!”

  “You need to calm down. We have questioned him. He’s clean. He’s even helped with the investigation, hired a PI and everything.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! In all these months, there has been absolutely no trace of her. You don’t know her; she wouldn’t have just disappeared without telling a single soul. She wouldn’t drop out of school and leave all her belongings. Her car is still parked outside her apartment. That morning, she walked to class. Some of her classmates saw her. She went to class and then what? She just fell off the face of the Earth?” Alexander pounded his fists against the coffee table at his apartment. “You haven’t questioned him enough. Of course he’s going to help. Isn’t it obvious? He’s covering up that he fucking took her! What better way of covering up than to hire a PI and pretend you’re concerned!”

  “Okay Alex, I’ll speak with the Chief again and see how we can approach Taylor. It won’t be easy, and I can’t make any promises. He’s rich. He’s powerful. Every goddamn attorney in Texas will be pissing their pants to represent him if word gets out that the Austin Police Department even so much as suggested he may have his daughter imprisoned or abducted or whatever the hell you think he did. I’m going to be honest with you, son; it’s farfetched and ridiculous, and I don’t think it’ll fly. But I like you. I know you’re hurting. And, truth be told, I don’t like that son of a bitch much either. I’ll see what I can do to help you. Give me a week, okay?”

  “Thank you, Officer. My brother and I really appreciate it. She’s all we have. Please, anything you find let me know.”

  “I will.” There was a click, and the line disconnected.

  Alexander turned off the phone and hurled it across the room. He ran his fingers through his long hair and then rubbed his face with his hand. He hadn’t bothered to shave or cut his hair in months. He closed his eyes and prayed for the tenth time that day, as he’d been doing every day, that Jillian would call or that he would somehow hear something from the police.

  He shuffled to his room. The damn room still smelled of Jillian, even six months later. That damn lavender scent permeated his senses. The picture frame of the two of them in the park, a few days after they arrived from the Island, a little over six months ago, when she insisted the day was beautiful and they just had to have a picnic, served as a constant reminder of Jill.

  He wasn’t a picnic kind of guy, but Jill had insisted. She had whined. “Please. I have a basket and everything. We can feed the ducks. I’ve always wanted to do that with someone special. The ducklings by the lake are so cute and sweet. Please, Xander.” How could he deny her? So they had sat on a blanket by a small lake in a nearby park while Jill fed the ducks crackers. Alexander had leaned back on his elbows and had watched. She’d worn a long cotton casual navy blue dress and flat silver sandals. Her hair had been held off her face by a thin silver headband, but the long red curls had fallen free down her back. She had been crouched down, throwing crumbs of crackers, surrounded by ducks. In one of the funniest things he had ever witnessed, the cute sweet picnic she had wanted, turned into a duck feeding frenzy, and the cute sweet ducklings were followed by their not-so-cute and not-so-sweet protective duck parents, who began to get closer and closer to her, along with some geese that made honking noises in protest. She’d completely flipped out when the angry ducks and angry geese looked as if they were going to start pecking at her arm when she ran out of crackers. She had shrieked and begun to run, and the ducks and geese had followed—quacking and honking. Alexander had been sitting on the blanket, laughing so hard that tears had formed in his eyes. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d shooed the ducks and geese away, yanked her by the arm to the blanket, and began to tickle her. It was a great moment. Beautiful. Extraordinary. They both had lain on the blanket, spent from the fit of laughter, then she’d said: “Xander, next time, remind me that I hate ducks!” That caused another fit of laughter from both of them. She hadn’t been able to resist taking a picture. Both heads had been together, her arm outstretched when she’d snapped the photo. Her eyes had been red and watery from laughter, she’d worn no makeup, and her hair framed her face in a big curly mess. And now, that beautiful moment was staring him right in the face. Every. Single. Day. The photo sat on his night table and served as a constant reminder of how the life they were just about to start together was cut short.

  He stared at the photo. That had been a good day. He slid down to the floor and brought his knees up to his chin. He ran his fingers through his long tousled hair and then rubbed his face with his hand. He let his head fall back and it bumped against the wall.

  Knock, knock.

  Alexander kept his eyes locked on the ceiling fan. Round and round and round . . .

  He heard the front door open first and then the door to his room.

  “Hey,” Oliver sat down on the floor next to Alexander.

  “I heard you yelling at Flynn from outside,” Oliver said. Alexander didn’t reply. Oliver settled more comfortably on the floor next to Alexander; neither spoke for a long time.

  “She’s not dead,” Alexander said, unconvincingly, still looking up at the fan. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Oliver or himself.

  Oliver didn’t reply.

  “Did you hear me, Oliver?” Alexander turned his face towards his brother. “She is not dead!” Oliver and Alexander looked at each other; Oliver still did not reply.

  “Say something, damn it!” Alexander grabbed the lapel of Oliver’s gray shirt and shook him. “She. Is. Not. Dead!” He fisted the shirt tighter, his knuckles white, as tears flooded Alexander’s eyes. Suddenly all the emotions of the last months came pouring out, and he collapsed into Oliver’s chest. “Fuck! Oliver, say something! Tell me she’s not dead! Tell me!” Alexander yelled, as the tears flowed down his face. He had held it together now for months, well, if yelling at everyone, searching all of Texas, harassing the entire Austin Police Force, and calling Rocco repeatedly was holding it together. But he hadn’t cried. He wasn’t even a crier, but he had reached his limit. The dam burst. Oliver reached for his brother and hugged him tightly. Alexander sobbed loudly and uncontrollably in his brother’s arms for the first time since, well, for the first time ever. Oliver just let him cry. He didn’t say
a single word as Alexander cried and shook and begged and prayed and yelled.

  “Jill is not dead.” His voice faltered. “She’ll be back,” Alexander whispered. He pleaded. But deep down, he knew that after all these months without a single word from her things were looking bleak. “She’ll be back.” Who was he trying to convince?

  A light knock at Alexander’s bedroom door startled them both.

  “It’s me, Heather said. May I come in? The front door was unlocked.”

  “Yeah,” Oliver answered quietly.

  Heather meekly opened the door. Alexander looked at her. In the last six months, she had lost a significant amount of weight, and dark patches shadowed her eyes. Heather sat down in front of the twins with her legs crossed. “Any news?” she asked, but the look in her eyes showed that she knew very well that there was no news.

  Alexander used his shirt to wipe his face. At this point, he wasn’t ashamed about the crying. He wasn’t ashamed about anything. He just wanted his girl back. He sniffled and cleared his throat.

  “No. Nothing. Flynn’s going to see what he can do about getting someone to search Taylor’s homes.”

  “That’s a good sign.” She reached for Alexander’s hand and squeezed in an effort to reassure him.

  “At least it’s something,” Oliver replied.

  Heather reached for Oliver’s hand, and for the next few minutes they sat on the floor of Alexander’s room, quietly, each lost in their own thoughts.

  ***

  Red-eyed, cotton-mouthed, and heavy-hearted, Alexander stumbled out of bed two days later. He still wore the same ratty t-shirt and gym shorts he’d worn to bed when Heather and Oliver had left two days earlier. They had helped him into bed. The last six months had felt surreal. He hadn’t been drinking, but he felt drunk. The emotions had been so strong that he was immobilized.

  “I’m coming, dammit!” Alexander yelled at the incessant knocking coming from the front door. He shuffled forward as he rubbed his temples with his hands. He covered his eyes to shield them from the blinding sunlight that surely awaited him on the other side of the door, in complete contrast to the dark crypt that was now his home. He swung the door open and turned without bothering to look who stood on the other side. He heard the door shut behind him as he shuffled right back to his bed and under the covers.

  Alexander felt a dip in the bed behind him. “That bad, huh?” a familiar sultry voice, asked.

  He turned and opened one eye. “What are you doing here, Miriam?”

  “You don’t answer your phone; you don’t return your texts or emails. I got worried.” She bent down to get a better look. “I see that I was right. You look like shit. You using again.” It wasn’t intended as a question.

  “No. I’m not. Please leave. It isn’t any of your fucking business.” Alexander turned the opposite direction and pulled the sheets over his head, giving her his back.

  Miriam leaned towards the night table and turned on the lamp. “I was in a bad place six months ago, and you helped me get clean. I owe you for that, so I’m making it my business.” She stood up, went around the bed, and sat down, her back against the headboard. Her long legs were now right next to his face. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  He put a pillow over his head. “Just leave,” he mumbled. “Get out!”

  Miriam tossed the pillow he had over his face to the floor and Alexander growled.

  “Aw. Did the whiney redhead dump you?” Without missing a beat, Alexander sat up. It took every inch of his self-control not to hit her. He’d never hit a woman, but he was tempted, really tempted. Miriam must have noticed the sudden change from depressed to rage because she shifted her body and leaned back. “Shit. She did dump you. I was just kidding, Alex. I didn’t mean anything by it. I had no idea.” She held up both her hands apologetically.

  “This is partly your fucking fault, Miriam.” He inched closer, and she leaned a little more back.

  “My fault?” Her crystal blue eyes opened to the size of saucers.

  “Yes.” They were both still on the bed, but he inched closer to her as his words came out in a furious hiss. “Your. Fucking. Fault.”

  “W-what?” Miriam slowly leaned back even further and away from a menacing Alexander.

  “Did you tell Jillian you were my girlfriend?”

  Still scooting back, Miriam tried to stammer out a response. “I, uh, well . . .” Thump! “Ow!” She had shifted further and further away from Alexander, who looked like a predator ready to pounce. Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed that she had run out of bed underneath her, and she fell to the floor. From the floor, she looked up at the predator.

  “What the fuck, Miriam?” he yelled. “Jillian left angry, and I haven’t seen or heard from her in six months! I defended you. I was so goddamn stupid. How could I have defended you? I thought she was being irrational and jealous, but she was right, wasn’t she? You told her you were my fucking girlfriend!” Alexander’s voice kept getting louder and louder as he looked down at her. “How could you? You fucking lied to her, and I, like an asshole, defended you!”

  Tears streamed down her face. “I am so sorry, Alex. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Why’d you do it? Why’d you lie?”

  Miriam hesitated for a moment, slowly crawling back and sitting on her haunches. She looked down, embarrassed. “I was jealous. I was detoxing. I wasn’t thinking straight. I always thought you and I had something, and—”

  “We don’t!”

  “I know that! I do! Please, forgive me. I’m sorry. Please. I was in a bad place when I saw her. I’m so sorry,” she pleaded.

  Alexander sat back slightly, knowing he had been too harsh. It wasn’t all her fault, well, not completely. He shouldn’t have defended her; he should’ve believed Jillian. Yes, Miriam screwed up, but she was strung out when she had done it. Not that it excused the behavior but . . .

  And anyway, he knew beyond a doubt, that Jill’s disappearance went beyond a little fit of jealousy. She wouldn’t have picked up and disappeared without a trace over boyfriend problems. She may have been mad at him, but she wasn’t mad at Oliver or Heather, and she wouldn’t have left them without a call, an email, a text—anything. When he was a little calmer, just a little, he leaned back against the headboard.

  “I’m fucking pissed off at you. You shouldn’t have told her what you told her, but this isn’t all your fault. I mean you didn’t abduct her or anything.”

  “What? Abduct?”

  “I think someone took her. It’s not that she dumped me as you so blatantly put it. She just vanished. It pisses me off that wherever she may be, she may be thinking that I cheated on her or that I’m carrying on a relationship instead of dying little deaths every day that I don’t know where she is.”

  “Why would someone take her? I feel like I’m missing something.”

  Alexander wasn’t about to disclose anything to Miriam. It wasn’t his secret to tell. “It’s a long story, but she’s been missing more or less since you spoke with her. I saw her one other time and that was it. The weird thing is that the last time I saw her I thought she was going to forgive me for your stupid comment. I mean she was mad as fuck, but still, I felt we would be okay.”

  Miriam slowly stood and hesitantly sat back up on the bed, but as far away as the bed would allow. “I’m sorry, Alex. You’ve helped me so much the last year. I want to help. I screwed up. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

  “Five years ago you helped me sober up, Miriam. So, we’re even. We’re good. Don’t worry about me. Just go home.”

  “Hey, hey. We’re friends. This isn’t about being even. I want to help.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. I’ve tried everything: gone to the police, hired a PI, looked everywhere.” He pointed to a cork board by the door of his bedroom with photos and articles and other clippings and clues he had gathered throughout the months.

  “So you’re starting to feel hopeless?”

  He nodded.r />
  “Well, first of all, there’s not much you can do moping around in bed all day. So let’s get you up and start by taking a shower and getting dressed. Then we’ll talk some more.”

  Alexander moaned.

  “Come on, stinky. You kind of smell, and this room is a mess. Go. Get up, or I will dump a bucket of cold water on you.” When Alexander didn’t move, Miriam stood up. “I’m heading to the kitchen to get water if you’re not up in the next thirty seconds--”

  “Fine! I’m up. I’m up.” He held his hands up in surrender.

  A few minutes later, a freshly bathed, shaved, and hair-brushed Alexander walked out the bathroom with a towel wrapped low around his chest and headed to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Dropping his towel, he reached for his drawer and took out a clean t-shirt and gym shorts then turned around in order to get dressed.

  UMPH!

  He crashed right into Miriam, who had been reaching under his bed to grab all the clothes that had been thrown around and had accumulated over the weeks.

  The only thing between a completely naked Alexander and Miriam was a handful of clothes she held in front of her. “Oh, shit!” She took off her ear buds and averted her eyes. “I didn’t hear you walk in. Sorry.”