by Amy Stuart
Clare clears the search history. Think.
Malcolm Boon Wife Missing
A mishmash of stories pop up. Clare switches from news to images as she scrolls. Photos of missing women with fathers or husbands named Malcolm, the sheer volume overwhelming. How many women go missing in a day? She knows Boon isn’t his real name. Still, as she clicks randomly from one story to the next, it amazes Clare that it’s taken her until now to even try searching. Fifteen minutes pass before she clears the history to try again. She types Clare O’Dey, then deletes it before hitting enter. Then Clare O’Callaghan. Delete. She can’t bear to read her own story, or Jason’s recounting of it, whatever version is to be found online. She doesn’t want to see the faces from Blackmore. No good will come from searching these things. She types again.
Private Investigator Missing Women
This time the results are mostly advertisements with a few news stories mixed in. Each link she clicks reveals an elaborate website, often with a lengthy biography of the private investigator, mostly retired police officers with unsmiling head shots and a long list of specialties and success stories. It takes until the bottom of the fifth results page for Clare to see something that stops her in her tracks. She clicks through to a single home page, black but for a few lines in white at its center.
Has Someone You Love Disappeared?
Private Investigator for hire. Specializes in missing persons.
Discreet methods. Anonymity. Proven record. Guaranteed results.
Clare stares at the screen until her eyes itch. No number is provided, only a generic e-mail address, but in her gut she is certain this is Malcolm’s site. She can imagine Jason typing in similar search words and scrolling to this page. She thinks of how Malcolm might have responded. The exchanges between them. Jason providing him with Clare’s photograph, copies of her identification. What did Malcolm see when he first looked at those photos of her?
The clock reads 11:40 p.m. Though it feels like only minutes have passed, Clare has been sitting at the computer for two hours. She clicks through Ginny’s files, opening essays and assignments, nothing of interest. Then she clears the history and closes the laptop. Her throat aches with every swallow. Outside, the rain has stopped. The campus green is vast and dotted with circles of white light from lampposts along the path that bisects it. At its center is a statue of a man on a horse, a sword high in the air, a bench facing it. Ginny has left the baggie of pills on the desk. Clare steps out of view from the window and changes into the clothes Ginny left for her. The shorts fit, loose silk hemmed to rest high above her knee. Clare stands in front of the mirror. She is surprised by the sensation of her bare legs against the air-conditioning shooting from the grate above her, her thighs coated with goose bumps. Ginny left her lipstick behind. Clare dabs it on her finger, then traces her lips, rubbing the remnants into her cheeks as Ginny had done. Then she digs in her bag for her phone and thumbs a text.
In town, on college campus. I know it’s late but can you meet?
Clare wonders where he might be at this hour, whether he’s alone. His response comes after only a few beats.
Where?
Clare holds her hand to her mouth. She might not have been expecting him to answer.
Statue at center of main lawn? she types.
OK, comes his response. 20 mins.
Clare sits on a bench across from the statue and watches the empty parking lot beyond the green, waiting for the double beam of his headlights. She counts her inhales to steady herself. It will be almost midnight by the time he gets here.
The bench is patched wet with rain. Clare sets her hand down in one of the puddles, the water warm to her touch. She sees herself in the bathtub of the motel room, her knees bent, the water not covering her breasts no matter how low she sank. The bathroom door was closed. Why would she have closed it? Malcolm must have been on the other side.
“Clare?”
The voice comes from behind her. Clare jumps to her feet. Malcolm stands, hands in his pocket, a folder tucked under his arm. He wears shorts and an army gray T-shirt, so casual, and he smiles in a way that baffles Clare.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. Is that a slur in his voice?
“Didn’t you drive here? I was watching the parking lot.”
“I walked,” Malcolm says.
“From where?”
Malcolm circles the bench and sits. Clare backs up towards the statue, adjusting her posture to account for the clothes Ginny gave her, her legs bare, the shirt cut so that a band of her bare waist is revealed if she lifts her arms. Malcolm studies her, eyes glazed.
“Have you been drinking?” Clare asks.
“I have a folder for you. Full of goodies.”
“Goodies? What is wrong with you?”
Malcolm cranes to absorb his surroundings, the empty campus.
“Sit,” he says, patting the bench next to him.
“No,” Clare says, backing up again until she lands against the granite of the statue’s base.
“There were statues like this all over campus when I was in school,” Malcolm says. “I never understood it.”
“Understood what?”
“Monuments. To war.”
There is ten feet between them, Malcolm’s shoulders slumped, his skin tanned against the gray of his shirt. Clare wants to be angry with him, but there is a swirl of something else too. There is an ache in her chest. Malcolm looks at her, then gestures towards the dorm on the far side of the green.
“Why are you here again?” he asks.
“They’ve executed a search warrant at High River. We had to leave.” Clare points to the single window lit at the building’s center. “I’m staying with Virginia Haines. Ginny. Helen’s daughter? She’s an engineering student. She had a spare bed in her room.”
“You made a friend,” Malcolm says.
“What? No. Like I said, we had to leave.” Clare sighs. “What’s in the folder?”
“I found plenty on your friend Raylene. That Twining guy too, and Jordan Haines. Local heroes. Lots of stuff on the land expropriation. Planning and zoning applications. I can’t see how any of it connects back to Sally, though.”
“Because you know nothing about the case.”
Malcolm sets the folder down, its edges wilting with moisture.
“The boy is all over the news,” he says.
“I know. You said that earlier.”
Clare waits for Malcolm to respond.
“What’s wrong with you?” Clare asks again.
“Me?” Malcolm smiles. “I was just thinking. You’re getting better at this job.”
“You’re drunk.”
Malcolm stands and steps towards her. Clare presses back into the statue until there’s nowhere else to go.
“Why did you ask me to come?” he asks.
“I found your website,” Clare says. “I was searching for you online. Searching for your wife.”
Malcolm coughs. “You won’t find anything.”
“I might if I knew your real name.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Whatever it is you aren’t telling me.”
He steps closer and reaches out to rest his palm lightly on Clare’s shoulder. The heat travels right through her shirt.
“Does it hurt?” Malcolm asks.
Don’t touch me, Clare thinks to say. She can smell the sweetness of alcohol on his breath.
“Does it?” Malcolm repeats.
“What do you think?”
And then Malcolm is leaning, his hand gripped to the soldier’s boot. He is taller than her by half a foot, her eyes level with his chin, his face angled down to hers. She could sidestep to get out from under him, but instead Clare remains frozen in place, this proximity too familiar.
“Do we not make a good team?” Malcolm says.
“We’re not a team,” Clare says. “I work for you. We’re not a team.”
“You’re something else, you kn
ow that?” Malcolm says. “You owe me an apology.”
There is a chiding to Malcolm’s tone, a playfulness.
“For what?” Clare asks.
“You could have killed me.”
Clare feels her whole body stiffen. She sees it, a gun in her hand, Malcolm’s face etched in fear. The motel room. You could have killed me. Clare takes his wrist. She pulls her shirt down to reveal the skin of her shoulder, then sets his thumb into the crater of scar tissue over the bullet wound. Malcolm tries to retract his hand, but Clare grips it fiercely in place.
“What do you think this is?” Clare presses his thumb down harder. “Who did this to me?”
“Clare. Please.”
“You did,” Clare says. “I took a bullet for you.”
“I never would have sent you if—”
“Don’t,” Clare says, her voice low. “It’s way too late for that. You could have let me go from the very start. You knew all along. In Blackmore, here. You never cared about the job. The job is a joke to you! You just want control. Right? Put me in the line of fire so you don’t have to be. You want to control me. I took a bullet because I was working for you, doing a job you were supposed to do. And then how long were we at that motel? Weeks. You doling out the medication like I’m some kind of child. It’s just control. That’s all it is. The gun? I aimed it at you to make a point. That you don’t control me.”
“No,” Malcolm says. “You’re not remembering clearly.”
To her horror Clare feels a well of tears. In her marriage, Clare’s memory was so often a jumble, whole days and nights erased by something she’d taken. Don’t you remember? Jason would say. You fell. You burned yourself on the pot. You hurt me. The snippets that came back to her in flashes always contradicted what he’d said happened. Her entire marriage, Clare’s memory failed her. Or at least Jason made her believe it did. Clare blinks tightly and allows rage to wash over her instead.
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t remember,” she says.
“I wanted to help you.”
Clare laughs bitterly, swatting his hand away. “Was that the issue with your wife?” she says. “You couldn’t control her? I bet you wanted to help her so badly but she wasn’t having it! So . . . what? You killed her? Or did she run away from you? Is that why you do this? You’re looking for your own wife and figured you’d make a job of it?”
“I would never, ever have hurt her.” Malcolm steps back until he hits up against the bench. He sits.
“That’s what men always say,” Clare says. “I won’t hurt you. But the words mean nothing. And now here you are, drunk. Drowning your sorrows. Your guilt.”
The distance between them is wide enough for Clare to see the pained look on Malcolm’s face. Her shoulder throbs. She thinks of the pills on the desk in Ginny’s room, their colorful array, the relief they’d offer. No, she thinks. Stay sharp. Malcolm’s eyes remain focused on the ground. Then, with a start, he straightens.
“What do you want?” he asks. “Do you want out?”
Clare shrugs, defiant.
“I offered you an out. At the motel. A straight out. Do you remember that?” Malcolm waits, but Clare doesn’t speak. “See? That’s the problem. You don’t remember.”
“I was taking the pills you were giving me. I remember that.”
“You were hurt,” Malcolm says. “I was helping you. If it wasn’t for me you’d have—”
“Stop,” Clare says, one hand up. “Stop talking.”
“No. You need to listen to me, Clare. The pills made everything worse. You weren’t yourself. I felt responsible for that. I gave you a choice. You wanted to come here. You wanted to work this case. You said you were ready.”
“I want you to tell me the truth,” Clare says.
“I am telling you the truth.”
“No. I mean the truth about you. Something changed. At the motel. You were taking calls. I remember. I know they weren’t about this case. Or about Blackmore. Something happened. You need to tell me what.”
“I can’t,” Malcolm says, standing. He approaches Clare again, this time stopping just short of her. She follows his gaze upward. The clouds have split to reveal hazy clusters of stars.
“Are you in danger? Am I in danger?” Clare asks.
“I need you to trust me, Clare. I haven’t hurt anyone. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Come on. You’re protecting yourself. Not me.”
“You’re good at this job. I want you to know that. We’ve . . . You just have to trust me. I can’t tell you anything yet. I need some time to . . .”
Malcolm scratches his head, one hand in his pocket, looking lost.
“Give it to me,” she says, extending her hand. “Give me the folder.”
“Clare.”
“Give me the folder.”
“You asked me to come here, Clare. I wasn’t expecting this. I want—”
“Give it to me!”
Malcolm returns to the bench to collect the folder. She snatches it from him without making eye contact. It’s a coping mechanism, Clare’s mother used to say to her. You’re hard as a rock when you need to be. Malcolm waits for Clare to speak. But she doesn’t. She takes a wide berth around him so that he cannot reach out to stop her from walking away.
“Clare,” he says. “Please.”
Through her sandals Clare can feel the dew forming on the grass of the campus green. Ginny’s dorm room beckons her with its square of yellow light. Clare hugs the folder to her chest. She knows Malcolm is watching her. She can feel it. But she won’t turn around, even if he calls after her again. She’ll keep walking, holding whatever power is to be had by not looking back.
WEDNESDAY
The sleeping bag wraps Clare like a straitjacket. She pries hard against it, wriggling to sit up on the small bed.
“Ginny?”
No answer. The dorm room glows with hot morning sun. Nine o’clock. What time did she fall asleep? Clare stumbles to the bathroom and drinks three glasses of water in quick succession. She looks in the mirror. Her cheeks are flushed crimson. She is still wearing the clothes Ginny gave her yesterday.
“Ginny?” Clare opens the door to the hallway and peers left to right. Did Ginny come home? She searches the room for signs. Was her bed made last night? On the desk Clare finds the paper with Jordan and Ginny’s cell phone numbers, scribbled in pink highlighter as a child would have done. She’s fine, Clare thinks. She probably just went out for a coffee. Some food.
In the bathroom Clare locks the door and strips. Her body hums with energy as she steps under the cold shower stream. Her shoulder tingles. She allows herself two minutes under the stream before turning off the tap. She listens.
“Ginny?” she calls again.
Clare steps out of the shower and stands in front of the full-length mirror, assessing her naked body. She can picture Malcolm watching her from the bench last night. The warmth of his breath on her cheek as he leaned in. How unfamiliar her own reflection seems, her cheeks more concave. The red circle on her shoulder, a bull’s-eye of scar tissue. When did she get so thin?
Her clothes hang on the radiator under the window. The bag of pills is still on Ginny’s desk. Blue to relax you, pink to lift you. The white ones you can never be sure. A surprise, Jason would say, easing her mouth open by the chin to tuck one behind her lower lip. Clare grips the bag in her hand. Is it waning, she wonders, the urge to take one? It must be. There was once a Clare who would never have resisted this bounty. But now she needs to stay alert. To find Ginny. She digs her dead cell phone from the bottom of her duffel bag, which she realizes she’d forgotten to lock. Surely she’d have woken if Ginny had come home, had attempted to go through it. She finds the charger too and plugs it in. The file Malcolm gave her peeks out carelessly from under the laptop.
Clare sits at the desk and opens the file. The volume is overwhelming, three stacks paper-clipped together. The first are stories about Jordan and Philip Twining. In the top article t
hey stand in a city alley facing the camera, Jordan with his hands in the pocket of his suit, tie loose. “Local Lawyers Take Up Legacy of Women’s Causes.” Lobbying, the article says, to have the city build a shelter on the abandoned lot next to their office. Working with local developers. A passion born from personal tragedy.
The second stack is articles about Raylene. “Prominent ER Doctor’s Husband Not Guilty in Manslaughter Death of Twin Children.” The most recent article shows an old family photograph, Raylene and her husband each with a smiling twin in their arms, an autumn scene of colorful leaves behind them. Clare studies the photograph closely. Raylene looks fifteen years younger, though Clare knows this shot is probably only five years old.
Under the desk Clare finds a plastic bag and puts the folder in it, securing it with an elastic band before depositing it in her bag. There is a strange fervor to each of her gestures. In three days she has gathered a lot of information. Made connections. Gone undercover by balancing her own truth with this false identity. But the largest pieces to this puzzle are still missing and it fills Clare with an energy unfamiliar to her. A spark. Something to harness. She lifts her phone and watches it come to life, then dials Ginny’s number. The call is answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Ginny. It’s Clare.”
“Why is your number blocked?”
“I don’t like sharing it,” Clare says. “You didn’t come back last night.”
“Aw,” Ginny says. “That’s so sweet. Were you worried?”
“Where are you?” Clare asks.
“Relax. I’m at Jordan’s. I’d have texted you but you didn’t give me your number. Your blocked number.”
“Why didn’t you just come back?”
Ginny sighs. “Very long story. Why don’t you cab over here? I’ll make brunch. I’ll tell you all the sordid details.”
