by Kate Moretti
But now there was nowhere to slink and she’d done a stupid thing of making herself visible, or as Vi would have said, a spectacle. This would surely be in the paper, and then what would people think? What would Nate think?
“Alecia?”
Bridget stood behind her, her head cocked to the side, waiting for an explanation without asking for one, and even though they hadn’t really talked, and the last few times Bridget had called Alecia had pressed decline, Alecia was still so relieved to see her. She held her arms out and Bridget hugged back, patting between her shoulder blades and whispering, “What the actual fuck are you doing here?” and Alecia laughed, a half hiccup really, into her hair.
“I have no idea. I thought it would be busier, that I could feel like I was doing something. I’ve been so fucking impotent in all of this, I can’t even tell you.” Bridget tried to pull away but Alecia held tight, just for a moment longer. She finally released her, stepping back, and found herself unable to meet Bridget’s eyes. “Don’t you have school?”
“In-service day. Kids are out, we’re supposed to be in. I played hooky.” Bridget shrugged. “This looks weird you know.” She motioned to Alecia and then spread her hand wide toward the Mom Squad, as though Alecia didn’t know.
“No shit. Should I leave? I should leave.”
“Maybe not?” Bridget raised her chin in the direction of the Texaco, where a white car had just parked, and who got out of the driver’s-side door but Rowena White, reporter extraordinaire. Her black hair gleamed in the sunlight, and she hung back writing in a notebook, snapping her own pictures with her cell phone, documenting this sad, pathetic excuse for a search party.
Under the hot May sun, Alecia’s arms popped with gooseflesh. Before she could decide to stay or go, Harper stood and flicked his toothpick into a metal trash can, seemingly placed next to the card table for this express purpose. He fished a fresh one out of his shirt pocket and approached the group of women, his hands on his hips.
“We’re going to meet a mile past the post office on Route Six, where Lucia Hamm was last seen running into the woods. We’re going to walk two miles in and two miles out, twenty feet apart. We are performing a search and rescue, but please keep your eyes open for anything along the way that will provide clues to Ms. Hamm’s whereabouts. Two miles in is approximately halfway into SGL 214. There are close to five thousand acres of dense woods and wetlands here. We’ll be covering the area by helicopter later this afternoon. We expect everyone to be back here before five o’clock and we’ll do an attendance check. Keep your neighbor in sight at all times. It’s very easy to get turned around in this forest.”
The Mom Squad nodded in unison and Bridget squeezed Alecia’s arm. “I think it’s good you came.”
For the first time, Alecia wondered where the students were. She’d think that at least one student would show up to look for their missing classmate, and it had to mean something that no one did. She turned to Bridget to ask her, but Bridget stared ahead, fixated on Harper. Instead, she leaned in and said, “Stay close to me, will you?”
How much pressure can you put on a friendship before it snaps like a stick under an eighty-dollar pair of Nikes?
“I’m close. I’ll stay close,” Bridget promised, and who knows, maybe she meant it.
• • •
The only reason Alecia owned hiking boots was because of Nate. How ironic then, that her first real hike involved looking for a girl he might have . . . what? Kidnapped? Killed?
The boots were a birthday present when Gabe was two. Right after the Christmas party from hell but before Gabe was diagnosed, that blurry middle time when life still seemed on plan, when the direction of their marriage, while aimless at times, was still a topic of conversation. Nate complained that they’d gotten lost, that they didn’t do things together, just the two of them anymore, and Alecia always thought this was staunchly childish. Like Nate and Gabe were on opposing sides, vying for her affection. She’d gotten strangely protective of Gabe’s feelings then, at the time just an innocent, babbling toddler, and they’d gotten in a fight about it. Nate had shaken his head at the argument: I just want us to stay people, as well as parents. To be a couple. They knew people whose entire coupledom was absorbed by their children, and they called each other Mommy and Daddy even when there were no children around, which was almost never. Suddenly it wasn’t about I like, or he likes, but rather we like, as in We actually really like The Wiggles, you know? Alecia could picture them, long after the children were tucked into bed, drooling into bowls of vanilla ice cream watching Australian folk singers jump around in rainbow-hued drunkenness sing about fruit salad. No, they were not these people.
But Nate thought they were.
So he bought her hiking boots when she’d never hiked a day in her life, when only Nate seemed to like the outdoors. But it was pretty typical of Nate to get her a gift that reflected only something he wanted to do (even though, admittedly, she hadn’t made any gesture at all, so who was worse, her or Nate? It was hard to tell, and one of those recurring rhetorical questions that over time built a marriage). She tried not to show her exasperation with him, and the boots sat in the box untouched. He’d organized a few hikes, only to have her beg off at the last minute: Gabe needing something, or a headache, or once a stomach flu. And no matter how legitimate the reasons—and they were legitimate!—the act of constantly rescheduling left them both a little deflated, until after a while, Alecia (or maybe Nate, she wasn’t even sure) stuck them in the back of her closet where they collected dust for almost three years.
Until now. Until she paced off two miles of untrodden woods, dense undergrowth and sticks slapping at her calves, her arms, her cheeks, her feet, new boots and all getting sucked deep into wetland, the beginnings of a blister forming on her big toe.
To her left one of the moms huffed out the first mile, losing her sneaker in the mud only once, her voice reedy, calling Carol! Carol! Until the mom to her left stopped. Alecia kept going, not sure her help would be welcomed anyway, and from fifteen feet, gave Bridget a little wave. She couldn’t discern from her friend whether Bridget was on team Poor Girl or team Wait and See or maybe on her own team: Team Figure Shit Out. Or Team Avoid Holden’s Mother.
“Alecia!” Bridget yelled, her arm waving above her head to get her attention. “Stop! Pass it on!”
Alecia called to the mom next to her, “Stop! They say to stop! Pass it on!” She waved lamely, not really knowing who they were. Harper or someone like him, she assumed. It couldn’t be time to turn around yet, they’d only walked for about a half hour at a snail’s pace.
“They found something,” Bridget said.
“They found Lucia?” Alecia asked. Bridget shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Alecia closed the distance between herself and Bridget, rubbing a branch scratch on her cheek. Bridget’s face was flushed, with either the exertion or the excitement.
“What if they found her?” Alecia asked again, but Bridget shushed her with a hand. A small group had gathered near the base of the embankment and Bridget slowly started picking her way in that direction. Alecia followed.
Harper, an EMT, and one of the firefighters stood in a huddle. When Alecia approached, they turned to stare at her, their faces unreadable. Their mouths forming words Alecia couldn’t hear. Bridget called, “What did you find?”
No one replied for a beat, then one of them said, “Show her.” And lifted his chin in their direction. Unclear on which her he was referring to, Alecia took a step forward, her arms and legs cold, her skin crawling.
Harper extended his hand. A white baseball cap, the burgundy embroidered coach thumbed over with mud.
She’d know it anywhere.
CHAPTER 26
Nate, Friday, May 8, 2015
There was no shortage of clichés about time: it healed all wounds; it was always a-changing (said with an upward lilt and a soft click of the tongue); it flew when you were having fun. What was lesser kno
wn, though, was how elastic it became when you had only time and nothing else. The days became evenings became nights became mornings, one blending into the other with graceful slowness and seemingly almost by accident. With no job, few allies, no to-do list—a longtime staple of adulthood—he reverted back to a teenager. Nate spent most of his hours on the couch, avoiding the adults in his life, watching endless hours of daytime television and SportsCenter. The only teenage staple missing was his cell phone, often left haphazardly around Tripp’s townhouse, the ringer turned down, the notifications off. Social media held nothing but vitriol for him, his texts were sporadic and went unanswered. How are you doing, buddy? From a handful of random gym friends, a few baseball dads, one a week ago from Peter Tempest. He thought more about the people he didn’t hear from: Dale Trevor, Tad Bachman, Bridget, Alecia. He could ruminate for hours on the hidden meaning of silence.
He’d never been a perfect husband, he knew that. But he did think he was a good husband. A good father. Maybe not a great one. He lost his patience with Gabe too quickly. Alecia said his expectations were too high, which might be true for everyone. Except all he ever wanted from his wife was her attention, which didn’t seem like a very high expectation at all. He didn’t care if the house was clean or his laundry was done. He didn’t say one word about the nights she ordered to go from Ruby Tuesday. He’d rather these shortcuts, preserving her energy for them, for their family, and childishly for him. Instead, she seemed to spin herself out before he’d even gotten in the door most nights. He walked in and she was raised and ready for a fight, picking and pecking until he lashed out, then blaming their argument on his quick temper.
Then again, his temper was quick, always had been.
These things, these marriage things, were the hard stuff. He’d take it all if he could just go home.
Nate was used to moving his body, at the gym, running around the baseball field—one of the only coaches to ever join the warm-up jog. He liked it. He got his blood moving, made him part of a team. He’d missed that.
Which is why Saturday he woke up early: 9 a.m. Earlier than he’d gotten up all week, Tripp clomping past him in the living room making no effort to stay quiet anymore. He pulled out his hiking boots. He used to hike all the time; he’d spent his whole childhood in the woods. Alecia didn’t like it. The walking itself was boring; it was either too hot or too cold, and she was never interested in the nature aspect. She’d gone a few times, pre-Gabe, and talked the whole time, prattling, really about whatever popped into her head. He’d tried to tell her a walk is for silencing your mind, looking around. The animals fascinated him; as a kid, he’d return to the same spot, two miles from his parents’ home and watch a blue heron every day. When he told Alecia this, she asked, what did it do, though?
Nate scrawled a note to Tripp: went for a hike. He’d drive to Bear Creek, the opposite direction of the forest he’d gotten lost in earlier in the week. The air was perfect, the fish would be rising. There wasn’t much to get jazzed up about these days, but the hike came close.
The doorbell rang as he was tying his boots, checking the laces. He answered it absently, without looking through the peephole, wholly unprepared for Detective Harper on the other side of the door. A tall, thin man with a thick knot of a mustache stood behind him, nose like the beak of a hawk.
Nothing about this would be good.
“Going hiking?” Harper asked, an odd delight in his tone that Nate couldn’t figure out.
“I was going to, yes,” Nate said, and opened the door. They walked past him into the living room and into the kitchen and Nate followed. Tripp was at work, but they surely knew that and they acted like they owned the place. “Can I help you?”
“Sure. We have some questions.” Harper was direct and his last round of questioning hadn’t been kind, but it wasn’t aggressive. He’d collected a statement from Nate about the nature of his relationship with Lucia, prodded with everything they had, from the motel to his cell phone records (two calls from her, incoming or outgoing, two! Both calling for help, he’d told them). They hadn’t found much to support the claim, except the photo: a clear close-up of Nate, hugging Lucia, his eyes closed. Her up on her toes, like lovers. In real life, it had been a grateful embrace, almost awkward and fumbling. She had said no one cares like you do. He had hugged her, wondering if it was true, thinking about Taylor, wondering if he could call her and get her to come to the dive of a motel. He hated this place, hated that it was the cheapest place in the area, hated the peeling paint, the yellowed lace curtains.
He’d stood inside her little dank room, the air cold and smelling like plastic and cigarettes. The bedspread thin, striped with a large coffee-colored stain in the middle. He wouldn’t even sit on it. But he’d left her there, as much as he didn’t want to.
“We have a problem, Winters,” Harper said. “Your girl is missing.”
“Not my girl,” Nate said, correcting him, and Harper waved his hand like it didn’t matter, but you know, it wasn’t a fucking pedantic detail. She wasn’t his girl.
“Missing how?”
“Either ran away or, well, something happened to her. Hard to say. Hasn’t been in school since Friday.”
Tripp hadn’t said a word. They’d played two-man poker—“heads up”—until Tripp beat him and then wouldn’t take his money, like a bitch. It pissed Nate off and he went to bed. That was maybe Tuesday? Wednesday? He’d never said a thing to him.
“I haven’t been in school in over a week, Detective. I have no idea what’s going on.” He hated the whine in his voice, he sounded like the kids in his classes. Defensive, argumentative.
Harper gestured toward the other man, a detective, Nate assumed. “This is Clark Mackey. He’s another detective on Lucia’s case.”
“Her case?”
“She’s technically a missing persons case at this time, Mr. Winters.” Clark Mackey’s voice was low, and rumbled like he had a throat full of sand.
Missing persons.
“You called in a report Monday night. What can you tell me about that?”
“I was driving here from my house and I was going slow and I saw her on the side of the road. She waved me down. I think . . . She might have been on drugs.”
“What makes you say that, Mr. Winters?” Mackey’s tone was quick, sharp.
“I’m around a lot of kids day and day out. I can see when they’re on something,” Nate said. “She was jumpy and wasn’t making sense. I told her to stay put. I couldn’t let her in my car, I was calling you.”
“Why couldn’t you let her in your car?” Harper asked, and Nate couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Are you serious, Detective?” When Harper stayed deadpan, Nate shook his head. “Okay, fine, because she and a reporter have accused me—wrongly, I’ll add—of an inappropriate relationship. I am currently suspended from my teaching position at Mt. Oanoke High School and I was trying to do the right thing. I called the police. When I said that she took off into the woods.”
“What did you do?” Harper asked, and Nate flinched.
“Do?”
“Sure, what did you do next?”
“I came home.” Nate felt the bottom drop out of his stomach then, a sick, twisty sensation. He’d never lied to a cop and had a feeling it was a bad time to start. Hell, until this moment, he’d never been questioned by a cop. Cops were poker buddies, racquetball partners. Harper didn’t look like he’d seen a gym in twenty years. With his bony hand on one hip, the soft flesh of his arm hung off the bone, a skinny kind of fat.
“Right home? Did you stop anywhere?” Mackey interjected.
“Uh, I stopped over at the QB before I saw Lucia, if that’s what you mean.”
“Nope it’s not what we mean, Winters. Did you go anywhere after you saw Lucia and before you went home?” Harper was losing his patience.
“No. I came right home,” Nate repeated, and scratched the back of his neck.
“Did you get out of your car and follo
w Ms. Hamm?”
Pause. “No.”
“You didn’t get out of your car at all?”
“Do you think I . . . did something to her?” Nate demanded.
“Why, has something been done to her?” Mackey asked.
“No. Not by me.”
“So that’s a no then?” Mackey pressed.
Mackey and Harper exchanged a glance.
“That’s a no,” Nate said.
Harper nodded once and then smiled disarmingly. “Glad we chatted, Mr. Winters. We’ll be in touch.”
Nate walked them to the door and hesitated. It might be so easy to call them back, tell them he made a mistake. He’s nervous, scared, whatever. Any other guy might do the same, right?
He was still thinking about it when they got into their unmarked car, a gray Buick, too new for the taxes in Mt. Oanoke, with doors so heavy they hardly made a sound as they thunked shut. The engine barely hummed as it turned over. Nate was still thinking about it as they pulled away from the curb and he put his hand up in a wave, like a simple idiot.
Only after they made a right, the taillights winking out of sight, did it occur to him that maybe he just really fucked everything up.
CHAPTER 27
Bridget, Monday, May 11, 2015
“You know they found something on Friday,” Dale said, his pale fishlike skin shining, spittle at the corners of his mouth.
“How do you know?” Bridget asked. She hadn’t told anyone she’d gone to the search and rescue. Even thinking about it made her eyebrows sweat. She hadn’t called Nate, told him what they found; she’d been too afraid of what he’d say, that he’d lie to her. She followed Alecia home, both of them shaky and scared. Alecia said very little except, tell me how it could mean nothing, tell me. And Bridget said, he called the police that he saw her. He must have tried to follow her. He’s a good person, Alecia. He tried to do the right thing. Bridget mostly believed it. She left Alecia with Gabe, making dinner, because being alone was preferable to being together, although if pressed, neither could have articulated why.
