The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  After conferring with Tom, I consented. I had to admit, the end result had been a beautiful spread on the Peddler and the garden.

  The writer thought the garden might make the cover, but none of us expected the photograph that was ultimately chosen. William had been corralled along with his brothers to the front lawn while the photographs were taken, but he had begged his mother for sweet tea after a while, and Anne had snuck him into the house. As they exited, the photographer cried out for silence (mainly directed towards Roxy), and snuck up on the little red-haired boy wearing only overalls carrying a glass of sugar-drenched tea, wandering through the garden. The end photograph was William looking back towards the camera, surrounded by calla lilies.

  I should have been thrilled by all of it. But I could barely look at the magazine; horrified by the customers who asked me to sign it, inquiring if Tom knew how famous his wife was now.

  With a quick glance at Brian to confirm he was still sleeping, I bolted across the bedroom and hurried down the stairs while hugging the rail like a car driving too fast on a curve.

  The stairs led to a hallway off the kitchen, and the first person I saw was Tom, leaning on the counter and intently checking his phone.

  “Was it all orchestrated?” I said, startled at the volume of my own voice.

  I then saw the police officers crowded around maps on the kitchen table, with Kate in the center. By the refrigerator, two men in suits stopped their conversation with Detective Strombino.

  Kate moved around the table quickly. Tom put away his phone. “Lynn—”

  I waited till he was near enough for him to hear my whisper. “Your operatives, did they send that writer to the shop? Was that all part of some campaign?”

  “What?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? The magazine cover. The profile of our family. It wasn’t by chance that writer came. And now William is gone. How could you let me sleep?”

  “It’s only been an hour, Lynnie. Honestly, I didn’t even know you were up there until about thirty minutes ago, when I couldn’t find you—”

  “I don’t need to sleep. I need to know if that’s how William ended up on that cover.”

  “What you need to do is calm down and not make a scene.” He stepped in close.

  “I have never made a scene in all my life.”

  Kate rubbed my arm. “Mom—”

  “Where is Anne? I need to see her.” I felt delirious from the swell of anger and exhaustion.

  “Stella made her lie down in the back room. She’s asleep, finally, and so is Stella, beside her. I think Stella strongly suggested she take a Xanax,” Kate said.

  “Then who’s out searching?”

  “Seems like half the police department,” Kate looked out the window. “We came in to look at some of the geological maps in better light. We’re all about to go out again. Roxy is here.”

  I walked past them and the police officers, heading out the screen door. I knew neither Tom nor Kate would follow.

  I instantly heard Roxy’s voice as I moved across the dewy grass that would soon become bone dry in the oppressive heat.

  She was railing into her phone, which was barely visible amidst her mess of black hair streaked heavily with gray. She wore a white T-shirt with a Beethoven face, his eyes peering out from beneath her denim vest. There was some kind of embroidered flower on both the vest and her matching shorts. She slipped her feet in and out of her Birkenstock flip-flops.

  “Get your ass over here, Rick. I’m calling the entire garden club. We’re all going to help in the search. See you in a minute,” Roxy said. She turned to see me walking across the grass.

  “They can’t find him.”

  “Don’t start saying that.” She pulled me close and patted the curls on the back of my head, just as she had done when Marty Throw broke up with me before the eighth-grade Sweetheart Banquet. Those same hands would later punch him in the gut in the alley behind the gym. “He’s gonna turn up any second now.”

  “I wanted to call you, but I kept telling myself we would find him by now.”

  “You should have. I’ve already told the cops they need as many trusted volunteers as possible to comb the woods and the neighborhood. So I’ve already called the sewing group, the garden club, and the Roseworth Democrats, and they’re all headed this way. I’m going to the shop to make coffee for everyone, then I told the cops I’d screen all the people showing up, to make sure no media types get in. No offense to Stella.”

  “I keep thinking about William, hurt out there or in some stranger’s car—”

  “Don’t go there yet, Lynn.”

  “I have to get it together,” I rubbed my face. “I tore into Tom about that damn magazine article.”

  “I doubt very much you tore into him. In fact, you haven’t raised your voice to him in decades.”

  “If I wasn’t so afraid, all I would be is angry. Let’s just say we learned last night that the magazine was coinciding with a big announcement Tom would like to make.”

  Ever active in the Democratic Party, Roxy raised her eyebrows. But she quickly shook her head. “Go wash your face and change your clothes. Then get back out here. We’ll find him, Lynn. Look at me. We’ll find him.”

  I nodded once and turned back to the house. As soon as I began to hurry away, I heard Roxy once more on the phone. I could still hear her as I crossed the porch and entered the kitchen.

  Kate and Tom were standing and talking to Detective Strombino, their arms identically crossed in front of their chests. The two men in suits were looking at a laptop computer and conferring with the police officers.

  Kate approached me. “They’re FBI.”

  “Strombino thinks he’s been kidnapped, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s not said that yet.”

  “That’s what he thinks. That’s why you’ve called in the FBI. Kate, you have to tell them about—”

  A scream came from upstairs.

  I scrambled up the stairs, everyone else in my wake. One of the officers said something about letting him go first, but I ignored him and pushed open the bedroom door.

  Brian was sitting upright on the bed. Barely audible under his screaming was the sound of static coming from the television in the open armoire. I’d forgotten to turn off the alarm. The television was programmed to turn on automatically at 5:30 A.M. Instead of HGTV, all that buzzed was a grainy white-and-black screen.

  “Baby, it’s OK, it’s OK,” I swept him into my arms. “Tom, turn off the TV.”

  Tom scrambled for the remote. Brian continued screaming as I rocked him. Finally, Tom found the device and the TV went dark.

  My grandson immediately stopped crying, but continued to stare at the screen.

  “It’s OK, it just scared him,” I said. The cops and the FBI agents looked around the room to make sure. Tom came over to the bed and sat down, patting Brian’s back.

  “Hey buddy. You’re OK. You got spooked.”

  “Must have been a power surge last night,” Kate rubbed her eyes. “All the clocks in the house are blinking.”

  “He’s asleep again,” Tom noted.

  I looked down to see Brian solidly passed out. I laid him down, brushing his hair from his forehead.

  “We really need to talk to him,” Detective Strombino said quietly from the hallway.

  “Lynn, we have to wake him up.”

  “Not until one of his parents is here. Kate, go get Chris. Let Anne sleep.”

  I continued to stroke Brian’s hair as the minutes dragged on. The clock in the room ticked irritatingly loud. Tom stood by the window and looked out at the large gathering of volunteers and police.

  “You told them, didn’t you?” I asked. “That’s why the FBI is here. That’s why you didn’t tell me I was wrong about the article. They know, don’t they?”

  He kept staring. I buried my nose in Brian’s hair.

  “They know what?” Chris asked, wearily walking in, with Kate and Strombino behind him.

&nb
sp; “About what I told everybody last night.” Tom looked out the window. “The agents know what that means—”

  Chris sat on the bed and put his arm under Brian, a little rougher than I would have liked. “Wake up, son. You’ve got to wake up.”

  I couldn’t watch, hearing the frustration and desperation in his voice. I also feared that if he successfully woke Brian, the boy’s only response would be a dense stare.

  “You think this is all connected?” Chris asked.

  My husband waited a moment before answering. “When you agree to run for vice president, you make a lot of enemies overnight.”

  FOUR

  “Mom, are you with me?”

  As my youngest daughter leaned in closer to apply a heavy coating of concealer under my eyes, I realized how haggard even she looked in the bright lights of the makeup mirror, although her face was void of wrinkles and age spots.

  “If I can make myself look awake at four in the morning to read about car wrecks and shootings on TV, then I can surely make it seem like you haven’t been awake for twenty-four hours,” Stella said.

  “I did sleep for a while. They shouldn’t have let me sleep.”

  “Mom, you were probably asleep for fifteen minutes. You need to rest. You’re going to bed right after the news conference—”

  “I will not do it, Stella. I told your father that, and I told Kate that. I cannot do it. I am in no shape for it. The only reason I am sitting here now is because you practically strong-armed me. I should be out looking for him.”

  Stella put the makeup brush on the bathroom counter. “One thousand people, including members of the National Guard, combed over every foot of the woods. It’s not that big of an area. Every house in the near vicinity has been searched. William is not in the woods. He is not in the neighborhood. You have to realize that. We have to reach a wider audience.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can. You’ve done a million election nights.”

  And I had hated every one. Sitting nervously in the room at the Hermitage Hotel watching the results come in, Tom pacing even though he knew he was a shoo-in every time. The Washington staff flown in for the election, complaining about the slow pace of the servers in the restaurants and checking their cell phones frantically.

  “You have to do it, Mom. For Anne, Chris, for William. For Dad. It will be hard enough as it is for him to make the statement. All you have to do is stand beside him and hold that picture of William.”

  “I will start crying.”

  “You’re not a big crier. You know that. I’m the same way. So is Kate. Anne got all the waterworks genes. You stand up there and know that what you’re doing is getting William’s picture out all over the country. It’s urgent that we do this now. This news conference will be carried by every cable channel and will be in every paper in the morning. It will be the top story on every news website and will be all over social media—Twitter, Facebook. There is no place in the world that won’t know he’s missing. It will bring him home.”

  I looked down. “How much time do we have?”

  “About ten minutes. But we should go down. All the stations in town will be taking the news conference live at the top of the six o’clock news. That’s good, Mom. Most people will be home from work, if they work on Saturdays. And it’s so hot tonight most people will be indoors. It’s the best exposure you can get. And we need the exposure. Pretty soon, William will be missing for twenty-four hours. And you heard what Strombino said about that.”

  I looked back in the mirror, horrified at the yellow tint of my skin in comparison to my white shirt. My cheeks looked sunken, my eyes dark.

  “Come on.” Stella pulled on my hand softly.

  I took my hand back gently to indicate I was fine to walk on my own. As soon as we walked down to the kitchen, I heard the screen door snap, and Kate was there, wearing a dark business suit. “Are you ready, Mom?”

  I left the mug, thinking the caffeine might make me even more jittery. If that were possible.

  The screen door exited to the north end of the wraparound porch. Tom, smoking a cigarette, paced beneath large Kimberly ferns. Another man and a woman, also smoking, stood nearby.

  “Lynn, this is Tony and Deanna from the Washington office, they both just flew in.” He quickly snuffed out the cigarette. “Tony, Deanna, this is my wife, Lynn, and my youngest daughter, Stella. You remember, Lynn, that Tony works with Kate in our press office. Deanna is kind of a surprise; I didn’t know she was joining us. This is her first day. Some hell of a first day,” Tom said, straightening his tie.

  “I’m so sorry for all this,” Deanna said, trying to hide the cigarette in her own hand.

  Stella walked over and stopped her father’s efforts, taking the tie into her own hands. He thanked her quietly.

  Kate rounded the corner of the porch, motioning for us all to follow. Tom walked over and took my hand.

  “My wife isn’t a fan of the cameras. Or any attention, for that matter.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I replied, so softly only he could hear me.

  “Oh Mom, wait.” Stella rushed back into the house. She appeared seconds later, holding a large framed photo of William’s magazine cover.

  “Oh my God, I almost forgot.”

  As we crossed across the porch, the woods beyond seemed to vibrate in the summer haze.

  The lights took him, Brian had said.

  You know you’ve heard it before.

  My family called my mind a steel trap. I remember the ever-changing shoe sizes of my grandsons, how much aluminum to add or subtract in soil to change the color of a hydrangea, the names of quilt patterns. I am everybody’s first choice on teams for Trivial Pursuit. Roxy commented she would give me psychedelic drugs if it meant I would stop recalling the time she admitted she found George W. Bush attractive.

  How long can I pretend I haven’t heard it?

  Live-feed vans and satellite trucks, with tall masts and enormous dishes, lined the street in front of the house. I scanned the call letters on all the trucks, failing to recognize several of the stations, which had come from all over the state. Some of the larger trucks had no writing at all, which, I remembered from Tom’s election nights, meant they were local production companies hired by the networks.

  From the trucks rolled long black cables, stretching across the yard like snakes, leading to the sea of cameras standing in a row. It felt as if we were approaching a firing squad.

  Tom gripped my hand and led us towards the microphone stand, a silver rod where more than a dozen mic flags were fastened, decorated with garish colors and numbers. Standing among the cameras were reporters, armed with notebooks. I could hear several of them talking, broadcasting live off the top of the six o’clock news.

  “… Marcus, Senator Roseworth is now approaching the microphone…”

  “… I can see his wife and two of his daughters with him…”

  “… One of them is Channel Four’s own Stella Roseworth, who is obviously taking some time off to be with her family…”

  “… It doesn’t appear the parents of the missing boy are here, and none of the other grandchildren are here, including the one we’re told who last saw William Chance…”

  “… Let’s listen in and see what the senator says.”

  Tom stopped before the microphones, squinting in the brilliant last light of day.

  “On behalf of my wife, Lynn, our children, and our grandchildren, I want to thank you all for coming here tonight. And thank you to all the volunteers and police officers who have helped us try to find our William.”

  The lights took him.

  Of course I remember. But I didn’t even dare mention what I suspected; I just hoped we’d find him by now. We all just need to focus on alerting everyone to his disappearance—that’s what matters now.

  “As you all know, my youngest grandson disappeared in these woods late last evening. We have combed every inch of the area, spoken with all our neighbo
rs, and there is simply no sign of him. We have no other choice but to assume he has somehow been taken.”

  The lights took him.

  I can’t tell them now. They’ll think I’m hallucinating. Tom will rush me to the hospital, fearing I’ve had a stroke.

  “We are asking everyone watching to take a good look at our boy. Our William. He is everything to us. His momma misses him, his daddy misses him, his brothers miss him, and his grandpa and nanna really miss him. He’s our baby boy, our Will, and we need all your help to find him and bring him home.”

  Like fireflies in evening shadows, the lights on top of the cameras started to glow. The sun had faded behind some powerful clouds, and the photographers scrambled to keep enough light on our family. The satellite truck operators turned on the large lights on stands that stood behind the row of cameras, to light both the press conference and the reporters who would soon turn back to the cameras to repeat what had just been stated. The lights bathed my family in white, causing my eyes to flare.

  The lights took him.

  With that, I admitted to myself what I’d worked so hard to bury. There was no use denying it.

  William had been taken, just like all the others.

  FIVE

  I walked into the kitchen, pulled my sunglasses from the tangles in my hair, and glanced out the windows above our banquette. The purse that I intended to set on the counter slid off my shoulder and landed with a thud on the floor, and the keys I always carefully put in the drawer under the microwave crashed to the floor with it.

  The window provided a wide view of the satellite trucks that had doubled, maybe tripled in number since I left that morning. The monstrous vehicles now appeared to line both sides of Evelyn Avenue. More photographers had arrived to stand on our side lawn, their lenses following investigators walking in and out of the woods. Heavy traffic prevented the trucks from parking on Harding Road, which is why I’d taken it when I’d returned a few minutes ago, fearing but not fully comprehending the chaos surrounding our home.