by Simon Wood
Despite his exhaustion, his stomach reminded him that it still needed feeding. There was nothing substantial in the fridge and what was in there didn’t appeal. He dug out the yellow pages from under the TV and ordered a pizza. His order arrived forty minutes later. The pizza box promised piping-hot pizza and ice-cold sodas, but somewhere along the way the promises had been swapped. Terry ate in front of the TV.
“Welcome to America,” he said.
Within an hour, the jet lag got the better of Terry and he fell asleep.
Two years earlier
“How’s your butt?” Sarah asked.
Terry was facing the Pacific Ocean, watching puffy white clouds drift by and crystal blue water wash against the Costa Rican beach. He turned around to face her. She was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, which was something he wished he could do. He rubbed at his arse through his swimming trunks, feeling the scabbed-over welt.
“Still sore.”
She laughed.
“It’s not funny,” he said, smiling.
“It is. You shouldn’t have worn jeans.”
“Yeah, well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
Although his backside had been burning for two days, he wouldn’t have traded the horseback ride for anything. It hadn’t been some pony trek across a beach. It had been eight hours of grueling cross-country terrain. Their destination had been the cloud forest nature reserve of Monteverde. It involved a steady climb through the mountains—usually an easy ride for novices, which Terry and most of the group were. But the rain had changed that. November wasn’t rainy season, but no one had told Mother Nature. Ten minutes into the ride, the heavens opened. Previously rock-hard dirt paths turned into clay molasses. The horses sunk in the slop up to their bellies, and novice riders turned into instant experts. It was a miracle no one had fallen and none of the horses had snapped a leg.
Everyone was a casualty of fatigue, but Terry was the only one sporting an injury. He’d worn jeans, his only long trousers. The thick seam and the soaking denim had joined forces on his tailbone to wear through his flesh. He couldn’t see the wound, but he’d shown Sarah and apparently, it was an impressive battle scar—quite befitting for an adventure holiday.
He, Sarah, and seven others were part of an adventure-vacation group that was touring Costa Rica. Strangely enough, their guide was Swedish. A Canadian travel company had organized their trip, and the party of nine had come from five different countries. It was the United Nations of travel.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Sarah asked.
“Time of my life.”
She nodded in agreement. “There’s so much I’ve never done.”
“Me too. In the last two weeks, I’ve whitewater rafted, boogie-boarded, deep-sea fished, climbed a volcano, felt an earthquake, and met you.”
This last experience had slipped out by accident. He hadn’t meant to share that thought, or maybe he had. They hadn’t had a holiday romance, but they had formed a connection that Terry hadn’t experienced with anyone else. He reddened and looked toward the ocean again.
Sarah stood up and came over to him. She slipped her arm around his. “And it’s all coming to an end. In a couple of days, we’ll all be going our separate ways.”
He wanted to say it wasn’t true. It was going to be hard going back to the daily grind. Costa Rica had taken the shine off life back in England. Or was it Sarah that had done that?
“We’ve got each other’s addresses and telephone numbers.”
She frowned. “It won’t be the same.”
She was right. It wouldn’t.
“We can visit each other,” Terry countered. “I get plenty of holiday allowance, and you work freelance.”
Sarah brightened. “You’ve never been to the US, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s ski season soon, and you ski. Come and we’ll go to Tahoe. We’ll have a ball. You’ll love America.”
CHAPTER THREE
The ringing phone jolted Terry from his sleep. Despite his slumber, his brain felt like a drawer stuffed with dirty socks. It took him two rings to remember where he was and the situation he found himself in. Sarah, he thought and lunged for the phone. A half-eaten pizza slice slipped off his stomach onto the floor.
“Crap,” he mumbled.
Terry snatched up the pizza but the damage was already done. Tomato sauce and congealed cheese clung to the carpet as he pulled the slice away. He cursed again and chucked it onto the pizza box.
He snatched up the phone before the answering machine kicked in. “Hello. Sarah?” His throat was dry and sleep muffled his vocal chords.
“Terry Sheffield?”
“Yes.”
He tugged at the curtains. Sunlight smashed him in the face, and he jerked them shut again. He squinted, looking for a clock. The DVD player displayed 10:10.
“Mr. Sheffield, it’s Pamela Dawson.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “Who?” but recollection filtered through the haze. Pamela Dawson had hired him at Genavax, in the nearby city of Vacaville. She was his new boss, and he was their new senior research associate.
“Oh, hi, Ms. Dawson. How are you?”
“A lot better than you by the sound of it.”
Terry cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’ve just woken up. Jet lag, it’s a powerful thing.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She didn’t sound convinced.
He injected some life into his voice. “How can I help you, Ms. Dawson?”
“It’s Pamela. We are not formal at Genavax.”
You could have fooled me, Terry thought. “Okay then, Pamela.”
“I wanted to check to make sure you had arrived as scheduled and that you would be starting Monday morning.”
“Ah, we might have a problem there.”
“A problem?” A hint of frost breathed out from the receiver. “What kind of problem?”
“My wife is missing. She didn’t turn up at the airport to collect me yesterday, and she didn’t come home last night.”
“And what has this got to do with Genavax?”
Damn fool question to ask, Terry thought. He knew it was a dog-eat-dog world in the US, but American business couldn’t be as callous as this, could it?
“I would like to find my wife.” He did his best to make his tone civil and not adversarial. He could thank Pamela Dawson for one thing. She’d helped lift the sleep haze that fogged his mind. He was awake and pissed off.
“I understand that, but it shouldn’t get in the way of your job.”
“I’m afraid it will for the moment. Surely you can understand that?”
“Terry, we went to a lot of time and expense to hire you, not to mention the concessions we made. We hired you on your reputation before your immigration status was finalized. I don’t think we’ve ever done that for anyone else. Genavax has a lot invested in you. I would hate for it to come to nothing.”
Wasn’t she getting it? Terry collapsed into the easy chair. “I’m not sure I’m making myself clear. My wife is missing. She could be dead, for all I know. I would like to take some time to find her.”
“Mr. Sheffield,” she said, “I fully understand the predicament you find yourself in, and I sympathize with your plight. But we are not a charity. We have a business to run. Biotechnology is a make-or-break industry. We are not Glaxo or Pfizer. We are a company without an FDA-approved drug yet. That means we have no income. We need every employee to be a team player. You are a team player, aren’t you?”
Terry’s grip tightened on the phone. He didn’t like threats, and he took Pamela Dawson’s last statement to be one. He bottled his knee-jerk reaction.
“I need to file a missing person’s report with the county sheriff. Can I call you back? By that time, I’ll have a better idea of where I stand.”
“Of course.” She reeled off her telephone number. Terry found a pen on top of the stereo and scribbled the number on the back of his hand. “I’ll expect your call.”
“Good.”
“When you start on Monday, don’t forget to bring your green card, passport, and things of that nature.”
“I’ll call you this afternoon.”
Terry went to hang up, but Pamela wanted a final shot. “Oh, Terry?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t make me regret hiring you,” she said and hung up.
“Thanks for nothing,” he muttered and tossed the phone at the couch.
A long shower washed away Terry’s jet lag and irritation. Afterward, for the first time, he felt in tune with his new time zone.
He didn’t bother with breakfast and went straight to Sarah’s computer to check her e-mail. He’d received more than a couple dozen replies to his message from the night before. Half of them were bounced e-mail and automatic out-of-town notifications. But the sight of a dozen or so solid replies was encouraging. Each one held potential.
“Someone please know something,” he said before opening the first e-mail.
His prayer went unanswered. Everyone expressed their shock at Sarah’s disappearance and wanted to be kept informed, but no one knew anything. All of it was supportive, but all of it was useless.
The e-mails had proved helpful in one regard. He now had a sense of some of Sarah’s friends. Most had introduced themselves to him in their replies. A couple of people had gone to college with Sarah, while others had worked with her. It hadn’t been hard to glean she’d only had a business or professional relationship with the remainder. He found that disturbing. What did that say about his wife? She was either selective about who she made friends with or kept everyone at a distance. That wasn’t the woman he knew. Maybe he was different, and he’d broken down her barriers. That thought erred on the side of wishful thinking. If he’d gotten really close, he’d know where she was this minute.
Terry called a cab company then brushed his teeth. Thirty minutes later, a cab tooted its horn in the driveway.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“The sheriff’s office,” Terry said as he got in.
After a short ride, the cab dropped Terry off in front of the sheriff’s office, and he walked inside. Obviously, Edenville wasn’t the crime capital of America. Terry was first and last in line. Holman and Deputy Pittman stopped their work at his arrival.
“Mr. Sheffield,” Holman said brightly. “Did your wife come home?”
Terry shook his head. “No.”
“I guess you’ll be wanting to start the ball rolling on that missing person’s report.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like me to start a case file, Sheriff?” Deputy Pittman asked without much enthusiasm.
“I don’t think so. I’ll take this one. Mr. Sheffield deserves my attention. He’s had a rough welcome to the US. I want to show him that people here are decent.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Terry said.
“You’re welcome.” Holman unlatched the counter door. “Follow me into my office, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Holman led the way into a cluttered room. There was barely room for his desk and chair and a couple of chairs for visitors. Filing cabinets consumed most of the space, and the American and Californian flags dangling from individual poles didn’t help matters. The office was painted a utilitarian gray-green, not unlike the color of the sheriff’s jacket but with the life drained from it.
“Take a seat, Mr. Sheffield,” Holman said. He sat and fired up his PC. “So she didn’t come home then?” he said, rephrasing his earlier question.
“No.”
“Well, that’s not good.” Holman’s PC beeped. “Give me a second to get this machine working, and I’ll pull up the appropriate form; then we’ll get this show on the road.”
Terry was getting Holman’s bedside-manner treatment. His comments were a little too kind, but at least he was making the effort. He seemed to be trying to make up for yesterday’s mistake.
The sheriff pecked gingerly at the keyboard as if each key would bite him. After several minutes of manipulation, the PC beeped again.
“Right, we’re in business. Can I have your wife’s full name?”
“Sarah Lauren Sheffield.”
Holman tapped in the information. “Date of birth?”
“October the fifteenth, nineteen eighty-one.”
“What was her maiden name?”
“Morton.”
Holman proceeded to enter Sarah and Terry’s mundane personal details into the computer.
“Okay. How long has she been missing?”
“I would guess it’s been five or six days.” Terry went on to remind him about the stacked-up mail and the phone messages.
“But you can only be sure about the last twenty-four hours, correct?”
“Yes,” he replied reluctantly.
“What’s Sarah’s driver’s license number?”
“Don’t know.”
“Okay, I’ll get it through the DMV. Social Security number?”
“Don’t know it, sorry.”
Holman sucked on his teeth. “No problem, I can get that too. Let’s move on to some things you should know. Describe Sarah for me—height, weight, hair and eye color, et cetera—okay? Those sorts of details.”
Terry nodded. “She’s five-five with light brown hair with blonde streaks.”
The sheriff rattled the keyboard. “Dyed?”
“No, it’s her natural hair color.”
“Okay. Eye color?”
“Gray.”
“Weight?”
“A bit over nine stone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Terry did the mental calculation. “About a hundred thirty pounds.”
“Have you got a picture?”
“Yes. I brought one. I thought it might help.” Terry brought out a snapshot from when he and Sarah had met in Costa Rica. The picture was a little dog-eared. It featured Sarah weighed down by her backpack, smiling with a tropical jungle behind her. She was without makeup and damp looking—not her finest hour, but that was the Sarah he’d fallen in love with. He handed the photo to Holman and the sheriff examined it.
“Does she have any distinguishing marks like tattoos, scars—anything of that sort?”
“Sheriff, she’s not a sailor.”
Holman cracked a smile. His face creased like it was antique leather. “I didn’t mean it as it sounded. So I can take it that the answer is no?”
“Correct, but she does have a heart-shaped birthmark on her right hip.”
“Good to know. Who is her employer?”
“She’s a freelance journalist. She works features for magazines and newspapers, but I don’t know which ones.”
“How about friends and family?”
“Her parents are both deceased. I’ve never met her friends. I just have names in an address book, so I’ve sent them e-mails asking for their help. None of them seem to know anything.”
“Credit cards?”
“Probably.”
“But you don’t know the numbers?” Holman asked with a sigh.
“Right.”
Holman slid his chair back from his terminal and sat back, resting his hands across his trim stomach. “Mr. Sheffield, let’s make this a little easier for both of us. Why don’t you tell me what you do know about your wife?”
“She likes animals and travel, adores horses, and loves me.”
Holman exhaled. “That it?”
“Pretty much.”
“If your wife is a journalist, it’s possible that she’s off investigating a story.”
“Possible. But she would have left word for me.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because she’s my wife. She wouldn’t have run off and left me stranded.”
“How long have you known Sarah, Terry?”
Alarm bells were ringing. Holman was using his first name. Terry knew something was coming. “Eighteen months.”
“And how long in each other’s company?”
“Why?”
“Indulge me.”
Terry didn’t like where Holman was going with this line of questioning, but he indulged the sheriff. He totaled up the amount of time they’d spent together. It was embarrassingly short.
“Eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks?”
“Maybe nine,” Terry added.
“Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt—nine weeks. You’ve known this woman just over two months.”
“We kept in contact by phone and e-mail,” Terry interjected.
“Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. When you don’t have the luxury of living in the same country as another person, you have to make do. You improvise and do whatever you can to maintain that bond. Don’t knock it purely because you don’t understand it. You don’t know me, and you don’t know Sarah.”
“No, I don’t, Terry. I don’t know you or your wife, but I’m having a hard time believing in the seriousness of your relationship with this woman. Remind me, where did you get married?”
“Las Vegas,” Terry said with a sigh.
Holman shook his head and smiled wryly.
“Who was present?”
“Us, the minister, and two witnesses we dragged off the street.”
“Very romantic.”
It was romantic. That was how he’d seen it at the time. He’d fallen in love in a tropical location with a woman from another country. And it hadn’t been some meaningless holiday romance. Their bond had been strong enough for their relationship to blossom. They’d met up in other foreign countries every few months when they could get the time off from their careers. Their passports were full of immigration stamps proving their commitment to each other. And when their relationship needed to be elevated to a new level, they married. But to Holman—applying cold logic to the situation—Terry’s actions were ridiculous. To Holman, Terry was no more a romantic than one of those idiots at a casino who drops a million dollars on red and then watches it come up black. He was a fool.
