Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  Only Grainger hadn’t shown any interest when he got back from vacation. Said he had better things to do than to chase some runaway. Grainger had even told Reuben it was a waste of their time. Worry about more relevant cases. Whatever. Grainger didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Reuben’s mother kept a framed photograph of Aunt Ruby on the mantle, her dark hair draped over one shoulder. Aunt Ruby who didn’t get a chance to even be Aunt Ruby. Reuben hadn’t told anyone that his aunt had died before he was born, murdered in her late teens, by—surprise, surprise—her then ex-boyfriend, who—surprise, surprise—had a history of roughing her up. Reuben had, as a kid, gone to the library and looked up the old microfiche and read about it, and then, once he’d joined the force, got the evidence box out of storage. Ruby’s ex-boyfriend had raped her, left her in the field outside their high school with her skirt hiked up, her shirt yanked up over her face. Reuben had stared at the photos in the file—at Ruby’s white school-uniform socks, still pulled up to her knees, and her tangled cotton panties at her ankles, the bruises on the insides of her thighs. The guy got convicted of manslaughter and spent only fifteen years—out for good behaviour. Good. Fucking. Behaviour.

  Reuben watches now, on camera, the perp sitting alone in the interrogation room, reading the back of Reuben’s empty can of Coke. Reuben has watched this clip so many times. Why the hell was the guy reading the back of a Coke can? What was he expecting to find back there? A good alibi? And then the guy actually started crying! Like, tears actually coming out of his eyes, face in his hands crying. About a can of pop? He could conjure up more emotion for the empty can than he could about the vic! Seriously twisted. Reuben watched as the guy suddenly stopped crying, wiped his face, glanced around the room and then wide-eyed at the mirror.

  He knew they were watching.

  Now, Reuben hits pause and stares at the screen. There’s nothing new on this tape. He’s got the victim’s watch, but not the vehicle where it was found, and a witness statement but no witness. Fuck. Fucking fuck. He’s called the perp back into the station, but what makes him think he’s going to get anything out of him this time? This asshole is steady as a rock. A rock he’d like to pick up and throw through the fucking window. Reuben stands up and paces. He pulls his cellphone from his pocket and stares at it for a moment. Then dials.

  “Hey,” he says, when the ringing stops.

  And the answer. “Hey, Bro. What’s up?”

  CAM

  THE HAIRCUT IS GOING TO BE HARD TO EXPLAIN.

  I had some time to kill because Summer was napping when I went to pick her up. Abby said Summer had a bad dream last night. I didn’t want to wake her up, so I went to the mall to wait, to do some errands. My hair was getting too long, anyway. I needed a trim.

  It sounds believable enough. Plus, Reuben point blank asked him to spend more time with Abby and her family. Asked him to see if he could get the inside scoop, incognito. As a kid, Cam told everybody he was going to grow up to be a cop, just like his big brother. Okay, so technically Reuben wasn’t his biological brother. For all intents and purposes, Cam is an only child, an IVF baby—his parents were high school classmates who reconnected after their twenty-year reunion and had trouble conceiving. Cameron Christopher—their miracle baby. But before all that, Cam’s father was married to Rebecca, and Rebecca had a son from a previous relationship, Reuben. Reuben had been pretty little when Cam’s father married Rebecca, and had raised him like a son until he’d divorced Rebecca when Reuben was almost an adult.

  Reuben wasn’t around much by the time Cam was born, but there were pictures of him around the house, like one in his uniform posing with Cam’s dad. One Christmas, Reuben had bought him a Star Wars Millennium Falcon replica bigger than his head. And one time Reuben picked Cam up for lunch in his police cruiser and they went for Happy Meals. All the kids in his class were totally jealous. Cam went as a cop for Halloween three years in a row until the year his teacher took away his plastic nightstick because he whacked another student with it. Come on, he was a kid! They were just playing.

  Cam was just being helpful when he went over to Abby’s. Cam recalls the probe of Abby’s fingers against his scalp, the slight tug on his hair as she measured the evenness of the strands. The steady vibration of the razor against his neck.

  From the back seat of his car, Summer asks, “Is Jessica going to be there?” Summer had sat quietly from the time he picked her up until this. Cam hits the turn signal and makes a right. Summer never calls him Daddy. She doesn’t call him Cam or Cameron, either. She doesn’t call him anything, really. Just looks at him with her furrowed brow. Where did she get that quiet stare? Not from him, and definitely not from her mother. Abby can’t stay quiet for more than a couple of minutes before mouthing off some opinion.

  “Yup, Jess will be there,” Cam says. Why does Summer always ask this question? He and Jess have lived together for two years now. “She’s making spaghetti,” Cam adds. “You like spaghetti.” Does she actually? He’s seen her eat it before, sure, but what is she really thinking? What does Summer really think about anything?

  Summer presses a button and rolls the window down, removes a dull glob of pink gum from her mouth. Her fingers flutter at the gap for a moment before the gum is released to the wind.

  The first time Abby put newborn Summer in his arms, Cam held her away from his body, like he was giving her away. She’d squirmed, balled her fists, and shrieked. He’d thought he was going to drop her.

  “Jeez!” Abby had said. “Hold her like you mean it!” She stood up and winced, her stomach still saggy, the top of a white bandage visible against the waistband of her low-rise sweats, covering her C-section scar. Cam had not been in the room while they’d sliced her open. Thank God. Abby readjusted Cam’s arms around his daughter, and he let her manipulate him, like a mannequin.

  Were babies supposed to scream this much? “She doesn’t like me,” he’d blurted. Shit. Why did he say that?

  “Neither do I,” said Abby.

  Well, Cam thought, the feeling is mutual.

  Was that six years ago? Almost. Summer sits quietly again as Cam slows for a stop sign. Maybe after dinner, he’ll drive Summer by the new house he and Jess just closed on. Or, he should say, the new house he just closed on, because technically Jess’s name isn’t on any of the paperwork, but he’s told her, “it’s our house, Baby.” Even though the money came from him selling the condo that his parents bought him after graduation, and the top-up funds they added to “help him out.” Cam told Summer about the new house last week, and how she can pick whatever colour she wants to paint her bedroom walls, but she hadn’t mentioned it since.

  So, he doesn’t know for sure if Summer likes spaghetti, but he wouldn’t say she doesn’t like him anymore. They’ve hit a groove. It’s not like when she was two and he didn’t cut her hot dog lengthwise and she started coughing and choking and then threw up on the kitchen hardwood. Not like when she was four and he took her to the splash park but forgot to put sunscreen on her and she burned lobster pink, dead skin peeling from her shiny shoulders for a week.

  He’s hit a groove with Abby, too. He pays child support, sees his kid pretty regularly. In the beginning, his parents paid child support for him until he finished his B.Comm, but so what? He was eighteen, and Abby probably got knocked up on purpose. Plus, she didn’t even put his name on the birth certificate. He could have just walked away. Easily. Six years later, he hasn’t told his parents that his name isn’t on Summer’s birth certificate. It’s just better not to push Abby, not to get her back up. Cam takes his daughter for dinner, goes to her school plays and stuff like that, pays child support on time. Is civil with Abby when they do the drop-off and pick-up.

  Cam pulls up to his house, quits the ignition. His head throbs as though Abby’s fingers are still massaging his scalp. He feels the little bits of hair, like whispers, falling to the kitchen floor. “I got a haircut at the mall while you were sleeping,” he says to Summer, op
ening the driver side door. Summer should know the party line before they walk into the house and Jess quizzes him about his new hairdo. Summer glances at him with eyes like Abby’s and scurries out of the car. Her quiet personality isn’t like her mother, but those judgy looks are. Still—she was asleep the whole time. She won’t rat him out.

  Rewind a couple hours. He’d arrived at Abby’s to pick up his kid, but Abby came out front before he’d even made it up the steps. “She’s sleeping,” Abby explained. “I didn’t want you to ring the bell. She had a nightmare last night and was up from two to four. She crashed about half an hour ago. Probably won’t sleep for much longer. You can come in and wait if you want.” Abby had on a low-cut black tank top and jean shorts. Cam could see the nude-coloured straps of her bra.

  “I was fixing the sink,” Abby said. “Sorry, I look like shit.”

  Did she add that part about looking like shit because he’d looked at her weird or something? She looked good, actually. Flushed. Hair twisted into a ponytail. Her pale freckles came out in the summer, across her shoulders and in the cleft of her breasts.

  “Okay,” he said. Swallowed. Followed her inside. Usually he just rings the bell, stands and waits in the doorway until Summer comes out. He’s going to have to get used to this if he’s going to help Reuben out. It’s win-win, really, if he solves this case. One, he’ll get a lot of attention in the media. He’ll be a local celebrity. Think of all the chicks he could get with—wait, no no no, he’s engaged. Oops. Anyway, Reuben would get some of the credit, too. And Cam would look good in his big brother’s eyes.

  Plus, solving the case would be good for Summer. This house is creepy—how much of this furniture had belonged to Abby’s “missing” sister? Natasha was clearly dead, Cam had thought—no one just doesn’t show up for six years. His little girl was being raised in this mausoleum. It’s about time this whole thing gets put to rest so Summer can be a normal kid. And also, Reuben scared the shit out of Cam by telling him that Abby let Natasha’s ex-boyfriend, Greg, babysit, and that a witness had come forward saying that Greg had been abusive to Natasha way back when. That could mean his kid is being babysat by a killer. Greg looks like a wimpy dude—could he really have killed Natasha? Reuben seems so sure.

  “Do you want juice?” Abby asked, already moving towards the kitchen.

  Cam sat down on the edge of the couch. She didn’t wait for him to answer, now did she? What was Summer’s nightmare about? Should he know these things? Abby would know what Summer was afraid of. Monsters or bumblebees or some cliché shit like that? Maybe she’s having nightmares about “Uncle Greg.”

  When Cam was a kid, he had this recurring nightmare where he was alone inside a candy store, eating handfuls of sugar-crusted jujubes, chocolate-covered malt balls, banana-shaped marshmallows, stripy hard-candy mints, squishy gummy worms. The candy was so plentiful that it spilled from the containers. Cam licked his lips and stepped over it, licked a giant yogurt-covered salted pretzel that hung suspended from the ceiling. Mmmm. He ducked around behind the counter and scooped a cold chunk of strawberry ice cream with his bare hand, put the frozen sludge to his lips and slurped. His mother only let him have ice cream on special occasions, and even then, it was the shitty kind, reduced sugar, low lactose. He slurped the last sweet pink drops from his palm.

  A lone pear sat beside the cash register. Cam wiped his sticky hands on his jeans, stood on tiptoe until he was at eye level with the pear. The pear sat on a white paper napkin, on which someone had scribbled, DO NOT EAT.

  Do not eat? Cam licked his lips. Why not? He picked up the pear, turned it over in his hands. It felt soft, round. What was it doing there, with all the other goodies? Cam held it closer, inhaled. How subtle and delicious it smelled, better, suddenly, than all the candy, all the chocolate, all the—

  He bit into the pear’s side. Juice squirted into his mouth, splattered across his cheeks. He bit into it again. Again.

  His lips tickled. Then his tongue. Cam felt his fingers tickling where he’d touched the pear, an itching that spread across his cheeks and prickled its way down his throat. He dropped the pear at his feet, into the rainbow mess of splattered candy. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. He tried to swallow. Gasped for air.

  Cam darted to the door, yanked on the handle. Locked. He raised his fists, slammed them against the glass wall that looked out onto the empty street. Where was everybody? He clutched at his throat. His hands and arms had speckled with an angry rash. His stomach tightened. He heaved for air, grasped at the windowpane, smearing the glass. Black spots danced in his line of vision. Help me! Help me! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!

  Abby came back into the living room with a glass of something purple. “Grape. Summer’s new thing.” When she leaned forward and put the juice down in front of him on the coffee table, he snuck a peek at the dark hollow of her cleavage. Even when he hated Abby, even when she was nine months pregnant and he couldn’t talk to her without wanting to put his fist through the wall, he still wanted to have sex with her. Once you’ve had sex with a woman, you can’t look at her and not want to have sex with her again. Not after having the kind of sex Cam had with Abby. Abby used to chide him that sex with her was better than sex with Jessica. Wilder. She was right, and she knew it, and she knew Cam knew it.

  Ever since Cam proposed, Jessica has been on this new weight-loss kick so that she looks “hot” in her wedding dress, even though they haven’t set a date, and even though she doesn’t need to lose weight. Jessica was beautiful, where Abby had been hot. Abby had come on so strong at that house party, her breath smelling like tequila, pulling him sloppily into the bathroom, taking his hands and sliding them up her shirt, up under the wire of her bra. He remembers the way he’d grazed his thumb along her nipple, crushed his lips into her neck.

  He’d actually thought Jessica didn’t like him at all, to begin with. Then that one pool party all three of them were at, Hurricane Abby stormed out because Cam had done something to piss her off, he didn’t remember what. Did she expect him to follow her? He’d offered Jessica a ride home, because technically Abby was Jess’s ride. Jess’s long dark hair was wet, and she twisted it to the side to wring it out a little bit, let it fall over her left shoulder, over the strap of her cherry red bikini. He’d never seen Jessica in so little clothing before. Compared to Abby, she always looked chaste, buttoned up. When he pulled up in front of her house, she thanked him for the ride, apologized for Abby’s impulsiveness. Oh man, did he want to kiss her then. She had little wet spots on her white cotton T-shirt where her breasts still hid behind her bathing suit. He liked taking care of her.

  Now, Jessica has replaced Cam’s regular milk with almond milk. She comes home from the farmer’s market with acai, matcha, quinoa. She does squats while blow-drying her hair. At night, Cam feels like he’s curled up beside a skeleton. Jess leaves at five a.m. for spin class and does CrossFit two evenings a week. Cam can never remember what night she’s doing what. He thought tonight she’d be at CrossFit, but then she started yakking about how she bought gluten-free pasta and was going to make Marinara sauce and maybe give Summer a manicure. What’s wrong with gluten? What’s wrong with a C-cup and a nice ass to round things out?

  Sitting on the couch, Abby watched him take a sip of his juice.

  “What?” he said. It tasted surprisingly good, like a melted popsicle. He had to figure out some kind of question to ask, some way to get the inside scoop without making it obvious he’s trying to get the inside scoop. Why was she looking at him like that? Did she already know his secret agenda? Back when Abby’s sister went missing, Reuben made Cam swear he wouldn’t let on to anyone that they knew each other because it could get him kicked off the case. Cam had, so far, kept this promise.

  Abby kept staring at him. “Where do you get your hair cut?” she asked.

  What was wrong with his hair? “Her name’s Rachel. She works in Westhills—why?”

  “It looks crooked.” Abby pulled her own hair out o
f its elastic, letting waves fall loose around her shoulders. Abby could have gone to university, she was smart enough, probably even smarter than Cam, if he was being honest. Her parents were livid about the fact that she’d studied cosmetology instead of getting a real degree. She probably refused university just to piss them off. Abby’s own hair changed practically every time he saw her—colour, length, curl—but it always looked good, even today, like she’d just woken up this way, just rolled out of bed in short shorts and sexy hair to fix a sink.

  “Crooked?” Cam touched the back of his neck.

  Abby sat down on the other arm of the couch, retied her ponytail. “Yup. Plus, you’ve had the same style since high school. You should go shorter. Your hair is so thin.”

  Did she mean balding thin?

  Jess has a way of nagging him without it sounding like nagging, except it’s clearly nagging. “We should do a fitness challenge,” she’d said, a few days before. “Keep track of our calories. Set healthy goals. The first person to reduce their percent body fat…” bullshit bullshit bullshit. Jess likes to announce things this way, things that they should do, meaning things she wants him to do. Do you think we should figure out what to get your mother for her birthday? Or It might be a good time for us to have the cars detailed. Can’t she make a single decision or do a simple errand by herself? He didn’t know if Abby could actually fix a sink, but she was doing it anyway.

  The house felt creepy and hot and he hadn’t been this close to Abby in a long time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat and talked to her, not just hi/bye/what time are you dropping Summer off. So far, he wasn’t doing a very good job at solving the case. “My hair is not thin,” Cam said, and took the last swig of his juice.