She's Not There

by P J Parrish

  Phones . . .

  They could tell people a lot. Amelia’s phone had told him things. Things that hurt. Things that made him mad.

  His gaze drifted to Amelia’s pink phone, lying on the dresser, still attached to the charger. Last night, he had brought it home and plugged it in, swiping the start screen like a maniac to get it to open again.

  Then he had spent an hour scrolling through her calls, contacts, text messages, and websites. He was not surprised to find that Mel had made phone calls only off a limited contact list of friends, businesses, and this person “J.”

  This man called “J.”

  The 415 area code was in San Francisco, and a reverse directory had provided Alex with a name: Jimmy Reyes.

  The name had been familiar, but it took a Google search to bring it all back. Reyes had been a dancer with the Miami City Ballet. Alex had seen him dance with Mel a couple of times, but he remembered him best from watching him offstage at galas and parties. Alex remembered how Reyes would circle the room as sleek as a panther, planting kisses on the cheeks of men and women alike.

  Alex had seen the strange electricity between Reyes and Mel, something that went beyond what they did on stage. Reyes whispered things to her, smiled at her from across the room, always connected to her by something only the two of them understood.

  Once, Alex had lost his temper when Reyes seemed especially attentive, and Mel had warned Alex to never do it again, that she was not a possession.

  So he had stood there at that party like a putz, holding a watery drink and smiling like a fool.

  Last night, he had started to call Reyes several times, but always stopped. He knew he should warn Mel that Buchanan was after her. That was the right thing to do, the best thing for Mel, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually call Reyes’s number.

  It was selfish, but he didn’t want to warn this man that he was coming to San Francisco to get his wife back. If she was already there, she might be safe from Buchanan, at least while she was with Reyes. And if she wasn’t there yet, there was no way Alex could warn her of anything.

  So he would just go and hope she made it, too.

  He turned back to the two cases on the bed. He set the pink iPhone in his briefcase and snapped it shut. Then he finished packing his small suitcase. When the clothes were neatly in place, he added an old green and blue repp tie. He had bought the tie at Nordstrom’s back when a fifty-dollar tie was a lot of money for him, and wore it to his first criminal trial, a case he should have lost but won on a bizarre turn of events during closing arguments. He had always considered the tie his talisman, with juju that somehow always turned the jury his way.

  When he joined up with McCall, he had put the tie away in the closet. But now, as he made his plans for a new life, he wanted it with him.

  He paused, trying to figure out what else he needed to pack. Shoes. Damn it, he forgot shoes.

  Alex returned to the closet and grabbed brown loafers and running shoes. He was about to close the closet door when his eye caught a small wooden box sitting on the shelf. It was the box that he had found in his office days ago. He had brought it up to the bedroom but hadn’t opened it.

  He grabbed the box from the shelf, took it back to the bed, and sat down. He ran his fingers over the letters that had been burned into the varnished top.

  ALEX

  Nine . . . he had been only nine when he started collecting things in the box, his things, things he could hide away from the others. But eventually, he had put the box away and it collected only dust. He had found the box when he and Mel were packing up to move to the new house. He had almost thrown it away then, but in a moment of reflection on his new partnership with McCall, had decided to keep it to remind himself how high he had climbed. He had never opened it, never feeling the need to reminisce.

  He opened the box now.

  On top were two faded snapshots of himself—as a toddler sitting in the sand at a beach, and as a tanned boy in a T-shirt and shorts straddling a bike outside a yellow stucco motel. The memories came hard. The beach was somewhere up in the Panhandle, near Destin. The motel had been one of a dozen places they had lived in after his father left them. The bike was an old Huffy, a donation from the Boy’s Club, and he was so ashamed of it that one night he had abandoned it behind a 7-Eleven and told his mother someone stole it.

  He picked up a third picture. A tall thin man stared back at him, wearing a black gown with a garnet and gold Phi Beta Kappa sash. It was his graduation photo from Florida State, taken by one of his professors because his mother had moved away to Texas by then and hadn’t been able to make it back to see her only kid start his new life.

  He set the pictures aside and picked up the next item, a newspaper clipping folded in a square. It was dated 1993, when Alex was sixteen. The headline read:

  Renowned Attorneys Establish Innocence Project

  He had forgotten he had this, but the memory of saving it was clear. He’d been busing a dirty table at Beachside Burgers in Panama City and picked up the discarded New York Times. As he read the article about Barry Scheck, it struck him as strange that someone would give up fame and money to fight the justice system. But he had ripped the article out and stuffed it in his apron. Had it been the reason he had become a defense attorney? It was too long ago, and he wasn’t sure any more.

  Alex refolded the article and looked back into the box. A red plastic slap bracelet. A couple Mercury Head dimes. A fake gold ankle bracelet, returned to him after a breakup with a girl in sixth grade whose name was lost to him. His first watch, a Timex with a frayed leather strap. And a pin.

  Alex held the pin up to the light. It was an inch long, an octagon-shaped emblem with two embedded rubies. The embossed letters on the front said “NFL.”

  He had won it when he was seventeen, but it had nothing to do with football. The National Forensic League had awarded the pin to him for accumulating five hundred points in speech and debate tournaments.

  You’re just like your goddamn father. You can talk your way in or out of anything.

  He shut his eyes. God, he had been good. He thrived on the tough mental preparation, staying cool as his opponents sweated and stammered under the hot white stage lights. And he loved the feeling that came after a win, the applause rolling over him like waves of warm water. He remembered suddenly what an opposing prosecutor had once said to him after Alex won his case.

  You’re a natural, Tobias. You can seduce a jury faster than a thousand-dollar-a-night hooker with a silk-lined hooch.

  Alex put the photos back in the box and set it aside, trying to decide if there was anything in it he wanted. But maybe “wanted” wasn’t the right word. Did he need it? Did a man need his past to have a future?

  His eyes drifted up to a mirror. He needed a haircut. And a shave. And another drink.

  How pathetic was that? How pathetic was he? Drinking himself into a coma last night. Drinking to kill the hours between his fight with McCall until this morning when the banks opened and he could get done what needed to be done.

  Well, he would stop soon. He would get himself back under control when he found Mel. When things were right again, he would be right again. He placed the box inside the suitcase.

  He closed the suitcase and carried it down to the foyer. He stood staring into the living room for another minute, looking around to see if there was anything he had forgotten. Just ornaments, he decided.

  “Esperanza!” he called.

  The housekeeper appeared in the doorway. He didn’t know her well, never paid much attention to her moods, but it wasn’t hard to see she was upset.

  “I’ll be leaving for a while,” he said.

  “For how long, sir?”

  “I don’t know. But I need you to keep coming here and maintaining the house, like you’ve been doing. I need you to make sure the gardener and the pool guy come
as scheduled. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Why had he told her that? He had no intention of ever coming back here. But it seemed important somehow, seemed right to keep things clean.

  He hesitated, and then walked to her and pulled out his money clip. He had been to the ATM the previous night and had taken out as much as his bank allowed on one visit—four thousand dollars.

  “Here’s some money to make that all happen, plus some for you,” he said, handing her the bills. “I’ll send more when I get where I’m going.”

  Esperanza accepted the cash with trembling hands. The woman’s eyes were filled with tears.

  Tentatively, he placed one hand over hers. “Everything is going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. I’ll take care of you, no matter what. Do you understand?

  She nodded. “What do I tell people if they ask where you go?”

  He hesitated. He couldn’t avoid people forever, but he needed to buy enough time to get across the country and find Mel.

  “Tell them you don’t know,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone I left with suitcases. As far as you know, everything is completely normal.”

  “Excuse please for me saying,” she said softly, “but things not normal in this house since I come here.”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply, just turned and walked slowly back into the kitchen.

  She was right, Alex thought. Nothing had been normal here in years. Nothing was normal now. He’d realized that days ago, when he was sitting in his study, going through Mel’s scrapbook.

  The Story of Us.

  He turned toward his study, struck with an idea. It was stupid, a gesture triggered more by the haze of last night’s vodka than any real sentiment, but he would do it anyway.

  In the study, he pulled out the scrapbook and carefully peeled away the dry Scotch tape around the fede ring he had given Mel in France. He wrapped the ring in a Kleenex and put it in his pocket.

  When he found Mel, he would offer it to her a second time, convince her to start another story with him, a better one this time.

  As he started to put the scrapbook back in the desk drawer, he saw something that stopped him—the .45 automatic SIG Sauer handgun.

  He had bought the thing when he was a public defender and had received a threat from a client who had accused him of “meet ’em and plead ’em McJustice.”

  Alex picked up the holster and pulled out the gun. The steel was cool against his palm, and it brought back the same discomfort he had felt when the dealer had first placed it in his hand. It was the only gun he had ever owned, the only one he had ever fired, and that was only a few times at the range with a cop friend where he rarely hit the X in the center of the target.

  You own the gun, Alex. It doesn’t own you.

  His friend thought he was afraid of the gun, but he was wrong. It was just that Alex had never seen much use for them. They were the weapons of cretins and cowards. Civilized men worked out their problems using their brains, their ability to communicate. That was a skill he did have, one that had served him well in the courtroom.

  But he was not walking into a courtroom now. He was going to face off against Clay Buchanan. A thug who wouldn’t listen to reason.

  Alex holstered the gun and returned to the foyer, where he tucked the gun into the suitcase. As he shut the suitcase, a strange thought crossed his mind, strange enough to give him pause.

  Maybe the gun could be used to scare off Jimmy Reyes.

  Had he really just thought that?

  He pushed the latch into place and picked up his bags.

  It was just the vodka talking. That’s all it was. Just the booze.

  Alex made three stops on the way to the airport. His accountant was just coming back to the office from lunch when Alex showed up. He told the man to make arrangements to take care of all his financial obligations for three months. He didn’t know why he’d chosen three months, it just seemed like enough time to find Mel and set up a life somewhere else. Then from wherever they were, he could sell the house, the cars, the yacht, and everything else.

  His accountant asked a lot of questions, but Alex didn’t answer them, just gave him the authority to see things through.

  The second stop was at his broker’s office. Alex instructed him to dump every fund and stock he owned. The broker asked a lot of questions, too, and advised him he was going to take a huge loss on a recent Japanese ETF, but Alex told him he didn’t care. Two-thirds of the funds were to be sent to the Cayman Islands accounts and the rest to his bank in town.

  The third stop was at the bank, where he picked up a hundred grand in cash. He was on his way to the door when it occurred to him that there was another way to kick McCall in the balls on his way out of town. It would be a small kick, but it would piss him off. He went back into the bank and wrote a company check for two hundred grand, the maximum he could withdraw without a second signature.

  He arrived at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport under a cobalt blue sky and cool bright sun. The smooth black tarmac was spotted with sleek white Learjets, Citations, and Hawkers, tended by tanned men in navy shorts and blue polo shirts.

  The young brunette behind the counter looked up when he walked in the terminal. He had seen her many times before but couldn’t recall her name.

  “Mr. Tobias,” she said. “You’re right on time. Your aircraft is ready. We just need to complete the paperwork. Are we billing the firm, as usual?”

  He reached into his pocket for the envelope he had filled at the bank. It was a shitload of money to hand over the counter, but he didn’t want to leave a paper trail. McCall could find anyone he wanted with a few phone calls or computer clicks. And Alex didn’t want anyone—especially Buchanan—knowing that he was going to San Francisco.

  “No,” he said. “I’m paying cash.”

  The woman blinked. “I’m sorry. Did you say cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think we accept cash. I’d better check with—”

  He laid the envelope on the counter. “Cash it is, or I’ll find another charter service.”

  The young woman stared at him.

  “Will thirty thousand cover it?” Alex asked.

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  She drew the envelope to her, peeked inside, and then slowly slid it under the counter and into a drawer. “I’ll need to write you up a receipt,” she said.

  “I don’t need one. Where’s my pilot?”

  “That’s him outside,” she said, pointing. “Captain Bailey.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have a nice flight to San Francisco, Mr. Tobias.”

  He turned and stopped short at the sight of the woman standing at the entrance. White dress, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders like yellow feathers.

  Megan’s eyes slid to the woman at the counter, then back to him, settling on his face like lasers.

  “Who’s in San Francisco, Alex?”

  He moved closer to her. “Just business.”

  She propped a shoe on his suitcase. “I heard what you told my father last night. You quit the firm.”

  “I’m going out there for a job interview,” he said. “How the hell did you know I was here?”

  “I followed you. I was pulling up to your house this morning when I saw you drive away in the taxi. I wanted to know what you were going to do, if you were going to go to the police to report my father or some other stupid thing. So, I followed you.”

  Alex glanced back at the counter but the young woman had gone into an office. “So you heard everything I told your father?” he asked Megan.

  “All of it.”

  He reached down to grab his suitcase, but Megan pressed her heel deeper into the leather. He straightened and looked at her, keeping his voice low. “Tell your father I’m not going to the polic
e. He knows I have just as much to lose as he does. Now move your foot or I’ll move it for you.”

  She stepped away slowly. He grabbed his bag and pushed the door open with his shoulder. She followed him outside. When he didn’t stop, she yanked at his sleeve.

  He spun around. “I’m warning you, Megan, leave me alone.”

  She stared at him for a moment and then she laughed. “What are you going to do, Alex, hit me?”

  Alex glanced at Captain Bailey, who stood a few feet away, eyeing them uncomfortably. When Alex looked back at Megan, he was stunned to see tears in her eyes.

  “You made promises to me, Alex,” she said.

  Alex hung his head. These were memories he didn’t want, not right now.

  She doesn’t love you anymore, Alex.

  She’s my wife, Megan.

  But she’s not there for you. Not like I can be.

  I wish . . .

  What? What do you wish?

  I wish I could go back and start over.

  You can, Alex. With me.

  And for a while, he had told himself that maybe he could. Mel had been drifting away, and now he knew it had been to this man Jimmy. Maybe they had both drifted too far and it was too late for them. Maybe this whole idea of finding Mel and running away was wrong. It was a huge risk. Wouldn’t it be easier—cleaner—to stay here and let Owen make things right again? Wouldn’t it be easier to stay here with a woman like Megan who knew what he had done, knew what kind of man he was, but who was willing to love him anyway?

  But when he looked at Megan, he didn’t see her. He could only see Mel.

  The whine of the Learjet warming up filled the dead air.

  “I have to go, Megan,” he said.

  “Stay with me,” she whispered.

  Alex shook his head.

  “I don’t care what you did, Alex. Don’t you understand that? I know everything and it doesn’t matter to me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I have to go.”

  He started walking toward Captain Bailey.

  “Get me out of here,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”