The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  I tilted my head. “Barbara?”

  The woman nodded. “And do you remember my brother’s name?”

  Don Rush. Of course I remember. But I don’t know any of you. I could barely tell my best friend about my past. I’m not about to discuss my memories with strangers.

  I forced a grimace. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “But I bet you remember his story.”

  “I remember wishing I could have helped you more.”

  “You did help.” She reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “You made me feel like I wasn’t crazy. You and Steven both. And you gave me this.”

  She handed me a small laminated card, frayed and yellowed over time. I smiled at one of the prayer cards Steven gave me to hand out to the families of the missing.

  “Do you remember this? It got me through a lot of hard times. I whispered it like a prayer: ‘You are with me. You are in the rain. You are in my tears. You are where the water falls,’” she recited.

  I ran my fingers over the words, and Barbara closed my fingers around the card. “You keep it. Maybe it will bring you comfort now.”

  “How about me?” asked a morbidly obese man who was leaning on a chair. My heart skipped a beat as I instantly remembered him.

  Marcus Burg. You were there for one of the most frightening moments of my life. “I’m sorry, it’s been so long—”

  “I wasn’t this fat back then. I was fat, just not megasized. Marcus, the guy with the telescope? Ham radio operator? Trying to pick up the little green men on the radio? We met in a cornfield once.”

  “Oh yes, of course, Marcus.”

  “Again, let’s everybody have a seat,” Doug repeated. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

  A man in an expensive-looking Brooks Brothers suit frowned at Roxy. “No offense, ma’am, but this is highly sensitive information. I’ve never even seen you before. And I’ve only ever seen the politician’s wife on television.”

  “Robert, at one time, this woman knew more about being a Researcher than you do,” Barbara said.

  “Prove it,” the man insisted. “What’s the Arthur Crowning incident?”

  He disappeared while fishing after a rainstorm, his gear and lunchbox left inside the boat.

  I shifted my eyes.

  “What about the Doyle Robinson disappearance?”

  Doyle Robinson went hiking on a trail in Giant City in downstate Illinois. Hiked the trail all his life. Was never seen again. But if I tell you everything I remember, you’ll assume I’m still one of you. I have no idea what you intend to do with my memories.

  I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

  “Those are only the most famous abduction cases in Illinois, and you don’t remember them? So, again, we’re here to make a deal with Steve’s old girlfriend, and she doesn’t even remember anything—”

  “What about my brother Don?” Barbara asked quietly. “What do you remember about him?”

  I will not, however, come off as a flake. “I remember he was your twin, and you were living in … Michigan. You awoke one night to lights in your bedroom. You went downstairs and found the door open, and you went to the window to see your brother standing out in a snowstorm. There were suddenly lights, and your brother was gone.”

  The room was silent. Barbara nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s all true. You see, Robert, Lynn didn’t investigate the Crowning or Robinson cases. But she did mine. And she cared, too.”

  I cared about all of them. I remember them all.

  Doug cleared his throat. “We’re here to talk about Steven.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why isn’t he at the university?”

  “The official word is that he was suspended for using university equipment, on university time, for personal use,” he responded. “That’s what Dean Fulton said. The only reason the dean even kept Steven around was because of his expertise. His articles about the gases on Mars alone have given this department a gold-star reputation in the academic world. But, as you may recall, Ms. Stanson—”

  “It’s Roseworth.”

  “Yes, as in Senator Roseworth, of course. You may recall, Mrs. Roseworth, that Steven is also terrible at playing the academic poker needed to stay ahead at this college. So I wasn’t surprised when I showed up a few months ago and saw his office locked. I was surprised, however, that he left me no message. Nothing. All I had was the official word from the university’s communications department that they severed ties with him, and that information was only supposed to be shared internally, not with anyone else.”

  “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “End of the summer semester.”

  Roxy flashed me a look.

  “Has there been no sign of him at all?” asked a woman in a long skirt, pulling her glasses up to rest on her crown of gray hair.

  Barbara shook her head. “No, Mary.”

  “I don’t understand,” the woman continued. “Steven was so excited this summer. The last I talked to him, he felt like he was making some breakthroughs, especially on the Abel and Notish cases. And then, suddenly, he was gone. We still have no idea why, Doug?”

  “As I’ve told you, I came to work to find that the dean had his office locked up. So I came here, and everything had been cleaned out, practically. And that’s it.”

  “So he just skipped town? And no one has had any word from him? I know this drips with irony, but should you have filed a missing-persons report?” Mary asked.

  The room grew quiet, and Doug shifted uncomfortably. “Can you imagine the questions police would have asked? Once I told them that the dean suspected he was using university equipment for personal reasons, and that all his belongings were gone, they would have assumed he was just lying low.”

  “Maybe he is,” Robert said, loosening his expensive tie. “Listen, Steven is a great colleague. An even better Researcher. But there might be some truth to what the university suspects—”

  “Bullshit,” Doug interjected.

  “—and Steven is trying to sort out his next move. But it’s been three months. Even if he had a reason to disappear like this, we need to find him. Just to make sure he’s OK.”

  ”Which brings us to why we wanted to meet with you, Lynn,” Doug said. “To see if we could help each other.”

  “I’m not sure how I could help. I came here for help myself.”

  Doug looked briefly to Robert. “We’re willing to share everything with you. All of the records we’ve stored on thumb drives, or on the cloud, on every case. And, course, the video.”

  The room grew quiet and everyone looked at me, waiting.

  “I’m sorry, what video?” I asked.

  “Of course, you never saw it. It came to us years after you were gone,” Barbara said. “Show her, Doug. Pull it up on your laptop.”

  Doug frowned. “Maybe we should finish talking about what we need her to do, first. I don’t know about sharing—”

  “Just show her, Doug,” she insisted. “She was a Researcher long before you were even born.”

  In a move that was so dramatic that I knew Roxy was rolling her eyes, Doug reached into his shirt and pulled out a simple chain on which a thumb drive was attached. He slid a laptop out of a beat-up satchel alongside of his chair and opened it. After plugging in the memory stick, he huddled over the screen, keeping the keyboard close, so no one could see the passwords he was furiously typing.

  After a few moments, he placed the laptop on a coffee table and swiveled it around towards me. “This is part of what we’re prepared to share with you, if we can come to an agreement. But I must strongly warn you—”

  “Doug, play it,” Barbara said wearily. “And turn up the volume. It’s hard to hear.”

  He reached over the screen to punch the volume key several times, and then hit the space bar. The blue video screen turned black, then the grayish-white image of a man sitting in a chair came into view.

  Converted from film on which it was first recorded, the video oc
casionally flickered, showing the man dressed in all black, his hair slicked over, with the kind of hard part that was so popular when I was a little girl.

  “I can’t hear anything,” Roxy said.

  “It’s coming, give it a second,” Doug scowled.

  “Are you comfortable?” the man in the video said, his voice hollow, recorded on a microphone that was too far away from its subject.

  The man leaned forward. “Can you tell me about what you saw?”

  The film quality was so poor that I could barely make out that he was beginning to take notes.

  “What do you remember about the ship in the sky?”

  Doug reached over and snapped the computer closed. He stared at me, holding his chin high.

  “What you’ve just seen is the first proof ever recorded of a government operative questioning someone who’d been abducted.”

  “That’s your proof?” Roxy asked. “How does that prove anything—?”

  “Where did that come from?” I asked softly.

  “I wish I knew. Steven obtained it. But there’s much more. And while we only have footage of the operative asking the questions, at the end, the camera moves a bit, and for a second you see whom he is talking to. I’m willing to show it to you, as well as all Steven’s latest findings and research about the missing. It might help you too, because I know you think your grandson’s been abducted too. There’s one thing I’d ask for in return.”

  He leaned forward. “Go public. All out. Press conference and everything. Admit your past as a Researcher and how you feel your grandson has been abducted. Say that you’re working with us to find him. The hope is that Steven will see it, wherever he is, and get back in touch with us. Or maybe even you.”

  I put my hand to my chest. “I can’t … do that.”

  “Why?” Doug asked sharply.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then we tell you nothing.” He waved his hand. “You once supported our efforts. You believed in it; Steven told me everything. Everything. Now your own grandson has gone missing, and you won’t come forward with support for us? Do you care that much more about your husband’s image than finding your grandson?”

  I grabbed my purse. “It was a mistake coming here.”

  “Lynn,” Barbara pleaded.

  “I won’t be forced into anything.” I stood. Roxy joined me, chewing her cheek.

  “Then you leave here with nothing.”

  “Doug!” Barbara said.

  “Trust me, you want to see this entire film. But not without a guarantee.”

  “You are terrible people,” I said, hurrying towards the stairs. Barbara stood, but Roxy held up a warning hand.

  “You should be ashamed,” Roxy scolded, wagging her finger. “Giving a grandmother false hope and all that. You’re nut jobs, every last one of you. And don’t think I won’t call the cops on you all.”

  “You won’t,” Doug said. “Because it will all be traced back to Lynn, and apparently her public persona is more important than her grandson.”

  “Eat shit, you little punk,” Roxy said, catching up with me at the top of the stairs as I stepped through the shell of the fridge.

  We hustled through the house and out the door, Roxy’s hand on the small of my back. I heard the truck unlock and practically ran around to get inside the cab.

  My face was buried in my hands when she turned the key. “Oh, Lynnie.”

  “Drive, Roxy. Drive to the hotel and get our things, and then drive all the way home. Don’t stop.”

  “Honey, let’s think about this—”

  “No, I want to go home.”

  “Of course.”

  I heard a rap at my window and turned to see Doug standing outside, shivering. He’d clearly run out after us, for he wasn’t wearing a coat.

  “Lynn, this isn’t only about William.” He was practically yelling.

  “Back away from the car, you asshole,” Roxy said.

  “You’ll never know. You’ll never know the truth—“

  Roxy threw the truck in reverse with such force that Doug stumbled back.

  Outside, a bit of ice began to fall. It had been spring when I last left Champaign. It was fitting that it was winter now, and the air smelled like a snow. I was right to leave here and never come back. I prayed for the kind of whopper where snow covers the entire town. I could leave knowing everything here would be buried.

  TEN

  The silence in the truck was interrupted occasionally with my sharp intake of breath. When Roxy tried to comfort me, I shook my head. When we got into Nashville and neared the house, I proclaimed my stupidity for even suggesting the journey to Illinois. I insisted that I wouldn’t put my family through any more agony, that we were never again to discuss what we had seen or learned. Roxy implored me to reconsider, said we should, at the very least, go to the police with the information that Steven had a map of the property and vanished at roughly the same time William disappeared.

  “No,” I said simply. “We’d be wasting their time.”

  Thus I perfected the art of denial.

  The smells were my greatest ally. The earthy pine, the cinnamon candles, the burning of dry wood. Baking pumpkin bread, tangy oranges in bowls, and brewing flavored coffee were more powerful now than the things that once soothed the anxiety I routinely felt with the approach of the holidays. The idea of all those gifts to buy, all that wrapping, all that traffic, used to be balanced out by the white lights wrapping the trunks of the trees outside the house and Johnny Mathis holiday music. All those worries were petty and meaningless now, and no amount of music or decorations could lift my spirits.

  So I relied on the scents of the season to smother my sadness. When I practically moved into the Rose Peddler, which we transitioned into its seasonal holiday phase, I inhaled deeply as I thoroughly checked each tree brought in from McMinnville for any traces of blight. When I was in the house, amidst the Christmas trees I couldn’t bear to give more than a passing glance to, I put spices in a pot on the stove to simmer. My tall coffee mug was always in hand at the Green Hills mall, my nose kept close to the rim as I tried not to cry purchasing gifts for the grandkids, knowing who wouldn’t be there on Christmas morning. When he was home on the weekends, Tom occasionally complained his allergies were kicking up because a candle seemed to be burning in every room.

  Roxy kept the festive music at a lull in the store, but flooded the place with candies and freshly baked cookies to give to children as their parents fretted over finding the perfect tree. When Roxy caught me glazing over while looking at the small children, she rushed to the house and grabbed a bunch of buckeyes out of the fridge, returning as quickly as possible to fill the shop with peanut butter and chocolate.

  I approached my daily tasks with a ferocity, finding if I baked twice as much gingerbread, vacuumed twice as often, the days passed instead of limping by. I sat in with Tom during the weekly updates with investigators, listening as he peppered them with questions, pretending to buy into their theories. My bottom lip developed a sore because I bit it so often.

  When the second Friday of December arrived, and the discount prices on the Christmas trees began, I welcomed the crowd at the store as yet another blessed distraction.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when the last family left and Roxy declared it a night. We were sitting at the table behind the counter going over the receipts when Stella came in, her cheeks rosy from the chill. She’d come right from work to help with the Christmas crowds. “Mom, do you feel like one more customer? Some lady said you helped her out earlier, and she had a quick question for you.”

  “Sure, hon.” I said, passing the receipts to Roxy.

  “Oh, let me personally thank this woman for enabling me now to do all the closing by myself,” Roxy said.

  I patted her on the shoulder and grabbed my coat and scarf. The night was lit by rows of white lights strung above the trees. I slipped on my gloves and walked into the rows of pine, seeing no one.

 
“Hello?” I called out. “Did someone need help?”

  Someone called out my name from the far end of the trees, and I hustled over. I peered out in the darkness beyond.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Were there ladybugs swarming when your grandson disappeared?” a voice said from the trees.

  I froze. A female shape stood between two trees, her long silver hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a long dark-blue overcoat, too thick and heavy for the southern winters.

  “Barbara?”

  It had only been a few weeks since I’d seen her, but she seemed thinner, even in her bulky winter coat.

  “Did they, Lynn? Did they swarm?” Barbara asked.

  I looked around for a moment before replying. “You know they did.”

  “It’s been documented in so many cases. Sometimes the beetles cover entire walls, crawling like they’ve been driven insane. When I see ladybugs now, sweet as they are, it stops my heart.”

  She exhaled, her breath white in the icy night. “They have your grandson. They’ve taken him. Steven said he thinks he can help you find him. If your boy’s been returned.”

  “Who has William? And where is Steven? I thought no one knew where he was.”

  “Steven is here now, Lynn. That’s why I’m here tonight, to take you to him.”

  I looked past her to make sure neither Roxy nor Stella had come out to see where I was.

  “How could you come here, after what happened?” I asked.

  “I’m not happy about it either. Doug can be a first-class jerk, and can’t see past his own ambition in order to do the right thing. The others think he’s the Messiah, with his grand talk of taking all this public. He sees you as the key to do that, to finally get validation for all our work. And he is genuinely concerned about Steven. But he doesn’t know how it feels to lose someone, like we do. You have to remember, Lynn, my brother was my twin. When he vanished, half of me vanished too. And you don’t care if people believe you or not. You want to find him. My brother is long gone, but your grandson may not be. That’s what Steven thinks. He thinks there’s still a chance to find him.”