The Missing Place

by Sophie Littlefield

  “Try cutting the lights. The moon’s probably enough.”

  The SUV was far ahead now, disappearing over a gentle rise. With the headlights off, the road in front of the truck was illuminated eerily by the moon, its silvery light shining on the tire tracks. Cautiously, Colleen started forward.

  Neither of them spoke. Colleen stayed as close as she could to the other set of tire tracks. The road was marked by bright yellow poles on either side, and she tried to keep between them so they didn’t end up in the ditch.

  She thought she’d lost the SUV several times, but each time it popped up again on the gently rolling road ahead. As they started down a long incline, Colleen realized that the placid field stretching far to the right at the bottom of the hill wasn’t a field at all, but a lake.

  The SUV was slowing in front of a tiny boxy shed.

  “Hunting blind,” Shay said. “Or fishing shack, one or the other. I’d bet money.”

  The SUV made a lazy turn and pulled up with its lights shining on the shack. A figure in a bulky parka stood in front of the little structure. Behind the shack, Colleen could see another truck.

  “There he is, whoever she’s meeting,” Shay mumbled. “What on earth . . .”

  Colleen slowed, the truck crawling along the road, wondering if they’d already been spotted. They descended a swell and were momentarily cut off from the view of the shack. When they came up the other side, Colleen decided there was no way they could assume they were still hidden. She had to hope the driver didn’t turn around and look up the hill.

  A gasp from Shay made Colleen twist around to see what was wrong. Shay’s mouth hung open, her face contorted in an expression of shock. “Oh, God,” she said, and then her hand was on the door handle and she was opening the door. “That’s Taylor’s truck. Oh, my God, I can’t believe it, that’s Taylor’s truck!”

  She was in the snow, trying to run, her legs sinking almost to the knees. Colleen jumped out and raced after her. When they got to the tire tracks, it was easier going. Colleen strained to see the figure that had turned now and was looking up the hill. A man. There was something wrong; he seemed to be stumbling, losing his balance. His face was lit white and featureless by the headlights as he lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

  He stepped out of the bright glare of the spotlights and for a moment he hesitated, staring at the two women running toward him in the snow.

  Then he lurched forward. “Mom!” he yelled. He took three steps, the word still on his lips as he fell to the snowy ground.

  twenty-nine

  ELIZABETH RAN, HER feet plunging through the crusted snow, desperation the only thing keeping her from falling.

  She had been moving toward Paul when he fell. The sound of the car doors behind her were like bullets in her back. It never occurred to her that someone would follow her out here, once she slipped the knot of her family, once she got behind the wheel of her mother’s car. Everything in her life was moving forward, toward Paul, toward her future. Paul was still trapped in the net of the past, but Elizabeth would be strong enough for both of them, strong enough for them and for the baby too. Everything had gone wrong and she was to blame, and she was sure she would pay for that later, if there was justice in the world. But for now she could not look back, because it wasn’t just her anymore: she had a baby—a family—to take care of.

  So she ran. But Shay was faster, wild like a dog racing with its head down and its ears flying, every cell in its body focused on being where it wasn’t. Elizabeth witnessed the exact moment when Shay realized that the man on the ground was not her son. Too short, too wide, the wrong clothes—if it weren’t for the desperation of her love she would have seen it sooner.

  She staggered and Colleen ran into her, she was so close behind. Colleen pushed Shay out of the way as if she was nothing, a rack of clothes, a shopping cart, and Shay’s hands went to her mouth and Colleen reached her son and threw herself to the ground.

  By then Elizabeth was there too. She knelt on his other side: the two women, like when Jesus died and it was his mother and Mary Magdalene who grieved together, keening over the body and tearing their hair. Except Paul wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be. Elizabeth found the tab to his coat zipper and pulled it quickly down. Then, more carefully, she unbuttoned the soft cotton shirt with the stiff brown stain she knew she would find there.

  The headlights from the car illuminated them in harsh white light, leaching the finer features from Paul’s face and the color from his skin. Elizabeth worked carefully, terrified of hurting him further.

  “Is he dead?” Colleen screamed. “Oh, my God, please don’t let him be dead!”

  “He’s hurt, Mrs. Mitchell. Can you call nine-one-one?”

  Colleen dug frantically in her coat pockets, coming up empty. “My phone—it’s in my purse. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Elizabeth was going to tell her to run to the car and make the call, when she changed her mind. Paul’s skin was hot, much too hot. The heat radiated from his skin, shimmering in the freezing air. Fever. He was burning up with it. There was a faint crust of white on his dry, cracked lips. A smell came from him, sweetish and terrible.

  He was so much worse than he’d let on. But she would fix this.

  “Mrs. Mitchell, stay here with him, please. He’s hurt, here, on his stomach. I think it’s infected. I’m going to get help.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. She ran toward the car, picking out Shay’s footsteps in the snow so she could be faster. Shay had gotten to her feet and was staggering toward the shack. She was looking for her son. She wouldn’t find him. Elizabeth felt a crush of emotion—guilt, shame, fear—and then she resolutely pushed the feelings back.

  The door of their car was open, and she slid into the driver’s seat. Two purses sat on the floor of the passenger side. Elizabeth grabbed the black leather one and pawed through it, found the cell phone in a pink case with a scrolled floral design. No passcode—thank God. Only one bar. She tried the call: nothing.

  She felt for the keys, and yes, they were still in the ignition. She slammed the door shut, the car dinging its seat belt warning, but she ignored it. A seat belt was nothing to her. She floored the gas, turning the car in a wide turn, remembering too late that she could easily end up stuck in a drift. Her wheels spun, then—miraculously—bit down into the snow. She let up on the gas and ground her teeth together and willed the tires to find purchase in the tracks they’d made driving down. Slowly she inched up the hill, then picked up speed at the top before slamming on the brakes. She stabbed at the phone, trying again.

  When the dispatcher answered, she gripped the phone tighter.

  “What is the address of your emergency?”

  “A man’s hurt. He’s, I don’t think he’s conscious. He got stabbed. We’re on the southwest side of Lake Kimimina. There’s a fishing shack? It’s the only one on this side of the lake.”

  “I need to know the address.”

  “It’s not marked, it’s a farm road. A mile . . . maybe a mile and a quarter past Abernathy Road.” She could hear keys tapping, fast.

  “You said the victim was stabbed?”

  “With a knife. A fishing knife.” She thought fast. “I don’t think it hit anything important, though.”

  “Who stabbed him?”

  “No—no. He’s not here. It didn’t happen today. It was days ago. Eleven days. It got infected, it’s bad—”

  “You’re sure the suspect isn’t there?” the dispatcher cut in.

  “Yes. I’m positive.”

  “They’re on their way as fast as they can. I’m going to give you some medical instructions now, okay?”

  “No, no—I can’t,” Elizabeth said, already hanging up. She couldn’t stay in range and also be with Paul, and nothing the dispatcher told her was going to help him now.

  She had to get her wits about her. She had to do this exactly right, for Paul. She had to start thinking, fast.

  Weeks ago, when she found out about the
baby, she had panicked. All her life, Elizabeth had wanted only one thing: to get away. But now it was for real. Now she had to get the baby out too. There was no way on this earth she would let her baby grow up the way she had: trapped, scared, desperate to leave this bleak and empty place.

  She grabbed at the first chance that came along. Stupid, stupid! Even after Paul had told her he loved her, after they had fallen in love with each other. God had listened to Elizabeth’s prayers and given her the gift of Paul, and instead of keeping faith the one time it mattered most, she’d turned away, she’d brought disaster down on them all. And let there be no mistake: she knew she was guilty and she knew she deserved to suffer.

  But Paul didn’t. Not Paul, her Paul. Her love.

  With the engine idling she dialed one more number. It took two rings for her father to answer.

  “Dad.”

  “Elizabeth? Where are you?”

  He sounded more confused than angry. Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I’m at the fishing shack down that farm road on Lake Kimimina, on the southwest side. You know the one I mean?”

  “You’re—what the hell is going on?”

  “You know where I mean?” she pressed.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I called an ambulance. Paul Mitchell is here. The boy that disappeared. His mother is here and the other mother too. Paul’s hurt bad.”

  “Wait, wait, slow down. You’re with Paul Mitchell? Are you safe?”

  “Yes, I’m safe, Dad. Everyone is. But Paul’s hurt bad and—and things are going to get . . . They’re going to get . . . Dad, I have things to tell you. Everything’s gone wrong.”

  There was a silence—just a short one, but Elizabeth could picture her father’s face, the way it looked when he was paged. She’d seen it a hundred times, how he could shut everything else out, narrow down to the phone in his hand and the job in front of him.

  “Don’t talk to anyone,” he said in a clipped voice that sounded nothing like she expected. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “I mean it, Elizabeth. Do. Not. Talk. No matter who gets there, not if you know them or if you don’t.”

  “Dad,” she pleaded in a small voice, surprised when a tear dripped off her cheek and onto her lap. “There’s something else. You have to make sure Paul is okay. Not just at the hospital. But later when you talk to him, you have to protect him. Don’t let them—don’t let anything bad happen to him. Promise me.”

  “What are you talking about? Elizabeth, you’re not making any sense, you’re—”

  “I’m having a baby, Dad. I’m pregnant. It’s Paul’s.”

  She could hear his sharp intake of breath and then a muttered curse. “Don’t talk,” he repeated, and hung up.

  Elizabeth allowed herself to sit for only a few seconds before she put the phone back into the black purse. Her heart was racing, but she had done it. She had finally told. Now she had to make sure Paul was all right. She turned the truck and headed back down the hill. The tracks were deep now; she could see the dark undergrowth poking through the snow in places. A thin, wispy cloud slid past the moon, making flickering shadows on the field of snow. As she descended, she looked down on the scene below. Colleen was bent over Paul; her hands flitted over his torso, adjusting, touching, talking, whispering. Shay staggered toward her, coming in the direction of the white truck. The one that had belonged to Taylor. Even with the windows rolled up, even across the distance, she could hear Shay screaming.

  Elizabeth felt the terrible thing she had done seep into every corner of her body. She had already accepted that she would pay in ways that she didn’t even understand yet. If hell waited, she’d go willingly—after she raised this child and spent her life with Paul. She’d pay when payment was due and not a moment earlier.

  But watching Shay lurch across the snow, her hands opening and closing around nothing, Elizabeth understood for the first time that she had ended a mother’s life too. She pressed a hand to her flat belly, imagined the tiny embryo inside her, growing, waving its hands languidly in the warm liquid world of her womb, blind and not even aware that there were colors and sounds in the world, two parents to love it. Elizabeth made a wordless promise to her baby and gained speed down the hill.

  For the first time she understood that she was just like them now. Mothers: they were all the same, even if only Elizabeth’s child was still protected and unharmed. But someday her baby would go out into the world as well, and things would happen, joyful things and terrible things and things he or she would never recover from and others that would feel like revelation.

  She parked where the car had been before and turned the ignition off. She left the keys where they were and got out, closing the door gently. She walked through the snow, unblinking, watching one mother’s joy and another’s agony. She was numb with the new understanding that it wasn’t her love for Paul that had transformed her, after all. She loved him and she would love him more tomorrow and even more the day after that, but it was motherhood that had made her something new.

  “They’re coming,” she called. “Help is on its way.”

  Colleen only nodded, unable to tear her gaze away from Paul. His lips were parted and he was breathing fast and shallow, his eyes rolling up in his head.

  Elizabeth needed to go to him, but there was one last thing she had to do first. She went to Shay, who was shivering in the wind, arms locked across her chest. Elizabeth stood directly in front of her, but even then she wasn’t sure the woman saw her. Her pale hair whipped around her shoulders, knotted and snarled. Her eyes were wide with shock. Her eyelids were purple and finely veined, bare of makeup.

  “Mrs. Capparelli,” she said. When the woman turned her unfocused gaze Elizabeth’s way, she put her hand on her arm. “Mrs. Capparelli.”

  “Where is he?” Shay rasped, her voice like dried leaves stirred on pavement.

  Elizabeth swallowed and forced herself to look into Shay’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Tell me he’s alive. Just tell me he’s alive.”

  But Elizabeth could only keep repeating “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  thirty

  THE PARAMEDICS SWARMED around Paul and told Colleen to step aside, but it felt like only part of her backed away. Like that TV show from long ago, when an angel came to escort the dead to heaven, and a ghostly shadow of the person clambered out of the motionless body in the hospital bed or at an accident scene.

  With Colleen it was the opposite. Her soul, the essence of her—certainly everything that was good and worthy about her—stayed behind with Paul, praying and promising to always love him best, while her poor, tired body carried on. She would not allow Death here. She looked around, past the strobing lights and all the police and paramedics trampling the snow, as if Death might appear in a guise she hadn’t thought of, creeping and finagling its way toward Paul with its greedy snatching fingers. She had to be on guard for what others couldn’t see, the terrible things that came when you were least expecting them, when you thought it was an ordinary day and yours was an ordinary family.

  No day was safe, and no sacrifice was enough. If life had taught Colleen nothing else, it had taught her that. She thought she had been vigilant before, but she hadn’t been able to protect her son from the threats that waited, always, just out of reach. Still, she had nothing to give besides her total dedication, her disregard for her own self.

  But maybe her selflessness was a more potent weapon than she had realized. It had gotten her here, hadn’t it? And it made it possible for her to endure Shay’s screaming, over there, kneeling in the snow. One of the paramedics had been trying to help her, talking to her, trying to help her stand, but then he got called over to help with Paul. He left Shay there, on her knees, so Colleen watched over Shay as she picked up handfuls of snow in her bare, red hands and smashed them down, like a child too young to make a proper sand castle. Her hair had escaped its barrette and strands of it stuck to her fac
e. Smudged makeup ringed her eyes, and a narrow strip of her back was exposed where her jacket rode up above her jeans. She had been screaming so long that her voice was going hoarse.

  Someone should go to her. Someone should comfort her.

  Colleen looked back at the paramedics and police. She counted six, seven, eight of them, two ambulances and two police cars and an unmarked car. Elizabeth was standing between the two cruisers, talking to a man in a parka and a knit hat. Everyone else clustered around Paul. They were getting ready to put him on the board, adjusting things around his face, doing things with the straps.

  When Colleen had touched Paul’s face, he was burning hot, raging hot. It had been eleven days since he was wounded, but she still didn’t know what had happened. Who had done that to him? Where had they gone? Who had cared for him after? Had he been afraid?

  And what had happened to Taylor? Had Paul . . . ?

  No no no.

  Colleen bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. She followed the paramedics’ progress toward the ambulance, watched them lift Paul through the open doors. The man standing with Elizabeth broke away from her to talk to the paramedics.

  Colleen hurried over to take his place. “Elizabeth.”

  The girl turned her face toward Colleen and it was obvious she had been crying. She dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Oh . . . Mrs. Mitchell.”

  “Did he do it?”

  The question hung in the air between them, and Colleen knew she couldn’t turn back from the answer. If Paul had done something, if he had . . . if he had lost control of a situation, if the anger had taken hold of him the way it used to, then what? It had been such a long time since Paul had slipped, and Colleen had believed he had outgrown it because she wanted to, because she had to. A devil had been purged, a problem had been handled.

  She remembered Paul on his knees in the kitchen the day before he left for North Dakota, cleaning up the shards of glass and crockery, his eyes swollen from crying. She had convinced herself it ended there. He’d had a bad moment, but all it had cost was a few plates before he got himself under control. And he’d been so remorseful, anyone could have seen that.