Where I Lost Her

by T. Greenwood

  I check the closets. I check behind the furniture, inside all of the kitchen cupboards. I check the bathroom again, throwing back the mildewed shower curtain liner that hangs from rusty rings.

  She’s not here.

  And so I go back into the living room, try to avoid looking at the woman’s body as I make my way to the front door, in case the dog is still waiting for me in the backyard. I figure if I can just get down the driveway to whatever road it connects to then I can flag someone down. It is morning now, and I pray there will be someone out on the road. A bicyclist even, another runner.

  I start to open the door, growing dizzy as I realize I have been holding my breath. I sway a little, press my palm against the wall to steady myself, and then grab the doorknob.

  But then I hear the sound of tires on gravel, and when I look out the window, I can see the white truck pulling up the drive.

  I run to the back of the house, to the kitchen. I search the counter, and find a phone amid the clutter. I reach for the receiver, feel its cold heft in my hand. I press it against my ear and pray.

  A dial tone. Oh my God. The phone works.

  Fingers trembling, I dial 911 and when the operator comes on—“911, what’s your emergency?”—I have no words for what has happened here. For what might happen here now.

  I hear a truck door slam and then another, the heavy sound of two sets of boots as they climb the steps.

  “Hello? 911.”

  “I found . . .” I start as one of them tries the doorknob.

  “It’s locked,” a man growls.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Where the hell’s the key?”

  “It’s just stuck. I didn’t lock it behind me.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, you’re going to need to speak up,” the dispatcher says sharply.

  Bang, bang, bang. Is he kicking the door?

  I whisper into the phone as clearly as I can. “I found a dead body. It’s been here a long time.”

  “A body? Where are you now, ma’am?”

  Bang, bang, bang.

  I see a piece of mail on the counter and grab it, and I sink down to the floor, trying to make myself small, press my back into the counter, and study the address on the envelope. Karina Rogers.

  “505 Lost Pond Road,” I read. “It’s a red house.”

  “Okay, ma’am, we’ll send someone right out.”

  “Wait,” I say. “There’s a man trying to break in.”

  “There’s a man trying to break into the house?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Please, please send somebody quickly.” I think about how long it took Strickland to arrive the night I found the little girl. How long will it take before he finds me in here?

  “Can you get out of the house?” the dispatcher asks. “Is there a way for you to exit?”

  I am too afraid to look out the back window to see if the dog is still there, canine sentinel standing guard, though I think I can hear its wet breath still. The low, steady growl.

  “No,” I say, and shake my head. “Please send someone quickly.”

  The blows are harder, louder. I scurry on my butt backwards, hitting the handle of the fridge with my head. A sharp pain sears in my skull.

  “Hello?” the woman’s voice is tinny inside the receiver.

  I try to think about where I can hide. The bathroom maybe. I crawl on my hands and knees as quietly as I can to get to the small back hallway. I think of the knife on the counter and wonder if I should go back and grab it.

  And then the front door gives.

  I hear them stumble into the living room, listen as Sharp reels.

  “Holy shit,” he says. “What the fuck, Vince?”

  I hear him staggering around the living room, imagine him yanking up his shirt to cover his mouth. The smell is so strong, but it is no longer making my eyes burn.

  “I told you,” Alfieri says.

  “Motherfucker.”

  “Delivered to her just over a week ago. Looks like she shot the whole fucking motherlode herself. Kid musta been on her own for a couple days before I found her.”

  Kid? My ears prick up, tears sting my eyes.

  “Fuckin’ brought her home that night and found this shit.”

  Alfieri found her?

  I struggle to make sense of what they’re saying.

  So that night the little girl must have left this house, wandered down through the woods into the road where I found her. Then she got scared and ran back through woods to Sharp’s property. Alfieri would have been pulling into Sharp’s just after he blew past me on the road. He must have found her, recognized her, and decided to take her back home, here, to her junkie mom. I picture the barrette slipping from her tangled curl as he scooped her up. She would have seen his dog in the truck then, and it would have growled at her. Bared its teeth at her. Scared her. Sharp. I have to stifle a sob.

  I hear them coming toward the kitchen.

  I manage to get to the bathroom, and I crawl across the filthy floor on my hands and knees. My wounded hand throbs, and the gauze bandage is stained again. I try not to think about what sort of diseases I might pick up here. About all the terrible things that have happened in this house.

  I push the door closed gently with my foot, and I startle when it latches shut. I pray they didn’t hear the sound. Pray that it was imperceptible against all the noise they’re making as they tear the house apart.

  “Fucking junkies,” Sharp says, slamming open cupboard doors.

  “It’s not here. I already looked,” Alfieri says. “I told you. She blew it all herself.”

  “You think Lisa’s gonna come back for the kid?” Sharp asks.

  “Highly doubtful,” Alfieri says. “She’s bailed.”

  “What are we gonna do with her then? Can’t keep her down there forever.”

  Oh my God, oh my God. They have her. My heart is pounding in my ears. I feel like I might pass out.

  “Who fuckin’ knows? Place has been crawling with cops; that’s why I haven’t come back here to deal with this. But it’s just a matter of time before somebody comes up here and finds this shit, figures out it’s her kid. That’s all it’ll take before they start searching again. And that is a shit storm I’d like to avoid.”

  My mind is reeling.

  So after he found her, Alfieri decided to bring the little girl here, back home to her mother, but found her overdosed. By the time he got back to Sharp’s, there were cops everywhere searching for her. Dogs. Helicopters. And because they’re drug dealers, they couldn’t just go to the cops with her. So what did they do with her? Where are they keeping her? And what will they do with her now?

  “Somebody finds the kid, dude, I’m going back to Norfolk,” Sharp says. “We’re gonna need to get rid of her.”

  Alfieri coughs and starts to gag. “Goddamn. This reeks. Let’s just deal with one fucking disaster at a time.”

  And then there is an eerie quiet.

  I think of the 911 dispatcher, wonder if she’s still listening. Worry that she will say something, that he will hear her voice on the phone. Hope to God this is recording. That she’s heard every word they’ve said.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I try not to breathe. Not to make a single sound. I try to make myself invisible. And I wait.

  Then, I hear their footsteps receding. Back through the house: stomping across the kitchen linoleum, then on the wood floors of the bedroom, and finally back into the living room. They’re in there for a long time. I press my hand against my chest, trying to keep my heart from leaping out of it.

  What are they doing?

  I hear the front door slam shut, let out a cry. It escapes from my lips, a sort of keening. When I try to stand, my legs are too weak. Trembling, as though the bones have turned to ash.

  I can hear the truck as it backs out of the driveway, and I wonder where the hell the cops are. Jesus Christ, how long has it been?

  I don’t leave the bathroom until I am sure they’re gone. Only then do
I dare pull the door open and go back out into that house. I look around at the wreckage. It was already a disaster, but now it’s completely trashed. Nothing has been left untouched. It is a miracle that he didn’t find me.

  I make my way through the bedroom. I stop and grab the photo on the dresser, peer at her face, those big eyes. I pull the back off the frame and slip the photo out from behind the glass. What have they done with her?

  I need to be here when the cops arrive. To show them the picture. My God. I can do this, I think. Just make one foot step in front of the other.

  But as I walk into the living room, I peer into the bright light at the stained chintz couch and see.

  She’s gone.

  I can’t stay here.

  The police are on their way, but instead of finding the body of that woman, that poor little girl’s mother, they’re going to find me, cowering in a bathroom of an empty house. I try not to think what will happen if it’s Andrews who arrives.

  The only thing I have, the only evidence that remains, is the photo of the little girl. The ladybug rain boots. God, were they the ones I found at Lisa’s? Was I that close to her? Where is she now? I trace her sweet face with my fingers. It is hard to give this up, this one thing that proves I am not crazy, that she is real. But it is only a photo. She is still out there somewhere. Down there, Sharp said. Underground? Is this what Mary meant? Is she in someone’s basement? They have her.

  I go to the living room, where the coffee table is scattered with cotton balls and syringes. Burned spoons. All the detritus of this woman’s sad life. I put the photo in the center, prop it up against a crumpled-up piece of tinfoil. Right there so that it will be the first thing they see when they come into the house.

  The best thing for me to do would be to run out the front door, down the gravel drive to Lost Pond Road. I seem to remember taking that road once, a shortcut from the lake into town. But this is the way the police, the ambulances probably will be coming. It would be suicide.

  I have no choice but to go back the way I came. Through the woods. I need to get to Sharp’s house. Does his house have a basement?

  I go to the fridge, open the freezer, and find the frozen pack of ground beef. The package is covered in crystalline white. I tear it open and hold the frozen chunk of meat in my hands.

  When I hear the sirens, I hurry out the back door. The dog is waiting for me, and so I hurl the meat as far as I can. He picks up the scent and goes after it, and I run.

  I run through the woods, my body somehow recollecting the trajectory that brought me here, and when I glance over my shoulder the red house becomes just a spot of blood in the distance. I can hear the sirens wailing.

  The dog seems to have forgotten me, but I keep running. My legs burn. I fall down once and then again; I can feel the stitches in my hand ripping and wince at the pain, feel blood seeping warmly through the bandage. I worry that this, the scent of my blood, will attract the dog again. I run until I am standing in the thick tangle of trees behind Sharp’s compound. And then I stop.

  Alfieri’s truck is in the driveway. Alfieri is not in the cab, but his dog is. His blocky head hangs out of the passenger’s side. His nose twitches and he salivates. Karina Rogers’s body is somewhere in the back of that truck. Like so many lawn clippings, I think. Though I have a feeling it’s not lawn clippings or leaves in those bags.

  I sit down on the cool ground and put my head in my hands. I feel sick. The adrenaline that got me here has now pooled in my stomach. I am nauseous. Woozy. What am I doing here? This is insane. I am in so far over my head. In this so deep. Anybody else would give up, leave it to the police. Anyone in their right mind.

  But when I squeeze my eyes shut, I see her again. Standing in the middle of the road, her pale belly protruding over the waistband of that tattered tutu. I think about the room she and her junkie mother were sharing, cannot imagine the unthinkable things she must have seen. I am the only one who believes in her. The only one who cares about what happens to her. I have no choice.

  Sharp’s back door swings open, and the two men emerge together. No little girl. They both get in Alfieri’s truck. Alfieri revs the engine and then throws it into reverse, and then they are gone.

  I run to the clearing and down the sloping hill to his backyard. I look at the house, study its foundation. It’s really just a mobile home on a slab foundation. No land-level windows. No basement. God, then where is she?

  I weave through the rusted graveyard of broken-down cars and appliances and discarded furniture to the trailer where I found her barrette. The trailer that is not on wheels but flush with the ground. Is it possible they’ve been keeping her in here?

  There had been a padlock on the door the other night. I go to the door and see that the lock is still there. I tug on it, praying that it might just come loose in my hands. But it is locked tightly.

  I bang on the door. “Hello?!” I say. If she’s in there, would she hear me? I press my ear against the metal door. Nothing.

  I look around, futilely searching for something to pick the lock with. And then I realize I can probably just break one of the windows. They’re boarded up, but if I can pry off the plywood, it would be just glass separating me from whatever is inside.

  I yank at the board, nearly ripping my fingernails off in the process. It won’t give. I need something to leverage it. I look all around and then see a metal pipe lying in the dirt next to the trailer. I grab it and shimmy it under the wood. Once it’s lodged underneath, I lean all of my weight on it, and it gives. The plywood comes off, and I can see the window. I reach down to the ground for a rock and use it to smash the glass as gently as I can, praying that if she’s in there she won’t get hurt. And then I hoist myself up, trying not to think about the pain in my hand. The glass that is cutting my arms and legs as I pull myself inside.

  “Hello?”

  Inside it is dark and smells of cigarette smoke and mold. I push through some spiderwebs, kicking trash out of my way, waiting for my eyes to adjust. I move from one end of the trailer to the next. It is empty.

  I don’t know what I expected. Did I think she’d just be in here, hiding? Waiting for me?

  I sit down on the floor and shake my head. Tears are running hot down my cheeks. And then, in the dusty beam of light coming through the broken window, I see something. Of course, this is why the trailer’s wheels are gone.

  A door. In the floor.

  There is a handle, which I grab on to and lift.

  It is still too dark in here to see much of anything. And so I reach for my key chain, remembering the penlight meant to illuminate your car door lock. The light it casts is no more than that of the glowing tip of a cigarette, and so when I look down, I peer into a dark abyss. It is nearly impossible to see how far down the hole goes. But in the weak light, I see that there is some sort of ladder down one side. Some sort of manhole.

  Underground, the psychic had said. Jesus.

  I am Alice, if she had a chance to look down the rabbit hole before she fell. If she’d had a choice.

  I take a deep breath and decide.

  I turn around and start to climb down the ladder. It is like lowering myself into the pond. The surface is warm, while the murky depths are cold. Goose bumps riddle my skin as I descend. I keep the penlight shining, but its beam is pathetic, small.

  I climb down maybe five feet, when I suddenly hit bottom.

  I strain to see. The little bit of light coming in from overhead barely illuminates the room where I now find myself standing. As my eyes finally adjust, I can see it’s like some sort of root cellar. Or bunker. The walls are made of dirt. It’s a room, maybe about six feet by six feet.

  It smells like the earth.

  The walls are lined with crates.

  I turn around trying to orient myself. I am in a hole, underground, beneath the trailer on Sharp’s property. I feel bile rising to my throat again and press my forehead against the cool dirt wall.

  Mama.

 
; I shake my head.

  Mama.

  No. I press my hands against my ears. Please don’t let this happen again.

  But the voice is not inside my head. It is not the voice that has haunted me, the specter, the dream.

  I feel in the dark, trying to follow the sound. There is a doorway of sorts that leads to a smaller room. I duck my head and go inside.

  “Baby?” I say. I still have no name for her.

  My shins hit something. I reach down to feel. It’s a mattress, I think. A single, bare mattress. And there is the shadow of a girl, knees curled to her chest. She is backed up into the corner, like a frightened animal.

  I kneel down on the ground, hold my arms open. I peer into her large wet eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m here. I came back for you.”

  And then her arms are around my neck. And her hair is in my face. And as I stand, her legs wrap around me. I feel the scratchiness of her skirt and a strange, familiar softness. I make my way up the ladder, still holding her, but it isn’t until I emerge into the trailer that I realize:

  She’s wearing my sweater. The one I left at the side of the road.

  I clear the window frame of glass, and carefully climb out and then help her climb out and back into my arms. And then I run. Through the maze of junk in Sharp’s yard. Down the gravel drive to the road.

  I will run until we are safe. I will run forever if I need to, this time.

  Her bones are sharp. My breath hitches as I look at her emaciated limbs, which bounce against my legs as I run. I hold her head against my chest, cover her ears so that she won’t hear me cry.

  By the time I reach the dirt road that will lead back to Gormlaith, I can barely breathe, but I don’t stop running.

  The birds are singing loudly in the trees around us. The sky is turquoise. Her hair is soft and smells like the earth. Her skin is hot.

  When the car pulls up next to us, and the man rolls the window down, I start to run faster. No, no, no, I think.

  “Wait,” the man says. His voice calls after us. Gentle and kind. “Are you okay?”