The Missing Hours

by Julia Dahl

  The furniture beneath an overhang was uncovered, so he sat down on the sofa and settled into the understanding that he was going to sleep here tonight. Close to the house so he might hear someone move around inside. Which way was he facing? Maybe he’d open his eyes into the sunrise. Maybe Claudia would bring him a cup of coffee.

  * * *

  His full bladder woke him just after eight a.m. Trevor jogged down to the water and relieved himself before his brain could tell him that getting caught, dick out, in a place like this, would be very bad. He peered in through a side door, seeing a kind of mudroom: slate floors, raincoats on hooks, boots in cubbies. He tried the handle and it opened.

  “Claudia?”

  The sound of his voice unnerved him. Was he frightened? Desperate? He let the door fall shut behind him, not latching. Something about letting it latch felt too permanent. Like he was making a decision he couldn’t run from. If I don’t close the door entirely, maybe I didn’t actually come in. The side room led to a kitchen open to a dining room open to a sprawling living area. It was like the houses on the renovation shows his mom watched. Tables didn’t have mail or sunglasses or keys lying on them; there were no sweaters on the backs of chairs. No signs of active life. Vases and books and framed photographs were set purposely, symmetrically, on surfaces. He said Claudia’s name again as he walked slowly toward the staircase, which creaked as he climbed it. The landing on the second floor had a leather chair and bookshelves, a telescope beside the window. There was so much space. Down the long hallway, the doors to the bedrooms were open and he peeked into each. Why not? The first had a canopy bed and an old-fashioned porcelain washbasin in the bureau. A silver comb-and-brush set. Framed watercolors of seashells hung over pale yellow-and-white floral wallpaper. Trevor wondered how long it had been since someone slept there. The second bedroom was similarly impersonal: a four-poster bed; black-and-white beach photos framed above the headboard; blue-and-gray striped wallpaper; a blanket folded at the foot of the bed; a book about knots on the little desk at the window.

  Claudia’s room was different. From the doorway he spotted a series of old-fashioned Polaroids hung by clothespins and strung across the ceiling, dangling like flags. There were probably fifty of them, each with a handwritten date or phrase or symbol penned on it: July 18; Derby; ♥♥. In one marked Spring Break, Claudia and a girl who looked like her—the sister, maybe?—lay in bikinis on the stark white deck of a boat. Both girls had an arm resting over their eyes. Were they asleep? Were they posing? Looking at her body like that, nearly naked, glistening in the sun, he couldn’t help where the blood flowed. It had been more than two weeks since he first saw her in those shorts at the elevators in the dorm, and he hadn’t once been able to fall asleep without succumbing to the fantasies about her that swarmed his mind. It felt biologically necessary but morally wrong. And it made him angry; he’d used part of that anger in the Mews. Anger that was confusion. Anger that was disgust. At night, alone in bed, he imagined that even after all she’d been through she could still want him to grab her and kiss her. Girls are funny like that, his brother used to tell him, before prison. Sometimes they want a gentleman, but sometimes they want a predator. You gotta learn to play the game, his brother said. Hold the door and pay for dinner, but back in the bedroom rip off her panties and push her against the wall. Mike told Trevor that the first time he made his high school girlfriend come he had his hands around her throat. Not too hard, he said; just hard enough. Trevor hadn’t had the nerve to try it until Whitney and it’d worked. No wonder she hated him.

  He adjusted himself and looked around at the rest of the room. An ornate mirror with an iron frame took up much of one wall. Necklaces and scarves and ID badges hung from its corners. Claudia had been backstage at Taylor Swift; she’d been to Coachella and the VMAs multiple times; she’d been to Cannes.

  Trevor left Claudia’s room and went to a window at the end of the hall, which looked out toward the ocean. The house was still. She wasn’t here. No one was. He walked back down the stairs and out the back door to the sofa where he’d slept. He closed his eyes and lifted his head to the sun. Then he called his brother. When Mike didn’t pick up, Trevor texted.

  it’s me—lost my phone and had to get a new number. can you talk??

  A moment later, the phone rang.

  “Trev?” His brother sounded groggy. “You okay? What time is it there?”

  “Sorry.” Shit. It was predawn in Ohio.

  “What’s up?”

  Trevor spilled. The video, the Mews, the empty house on the Vineyard.

  “Jesus,” said his brother. “How long have you been with this girl?”

  “We’re not together.”

  “Okay, whatever, hooking up.”

  “We’re not hooking up.”

  “You’ve committed two felonies for a girl you’re not hooking up with?”

  Was that what he’d done?

  “You need to get out of that house,” said Mike. “Get out of there before somebody finds you.”

  “I fucked up,” said Trevor, his voice breaking. It was all about to come loose.

  “Listen to me, Trev. Leave now. Get off that island as fast as you can. If there isn’t surveillance of whatever happened with that kid you could get out of this. Unless she said something. You know you can’t trust someone you just met, right?”

  “I think something bad happened to her.”

  “I don’t know what kind of spell she’s got you under,” said Mike. “But you need to start thinking about yourself now. You are currently breaking and entering, little brother. You’re not fifteen anymore. The law is not on your side. Get the fuck out of there before the police come.”

  He told his brother he would go but he didn’t. One more night. If she’s not here in the morning, I’ll go home. He found a wedge of cheese in the refrigerator and crackers in the pantry, and he ate them standing just inside the French doors, watching the sunset. There was an open bottle of white wine, too, and he finished it, allowing himself fantasies of her approach (a taxi?), the explanation (I just needed some time, she’d say), their reconciliation (I understand, she’d say. You were trying to protect me.). But when the night got dark his mind went back to the hotel room, to Lesley in her black dress, to the bag packed by the door. He didn’t really know her, and he had no idea where she might be. Maybe she had never planned to come here. Or maybe when she spoke the idea she’d thought she would, but later changed her mind and didn’t tell him. Did that make her selfish? Did it make her cruel? The Claudia he had spent the last two weeks with, he realized, was probably as new to herself as she was to him. What Chad and Jeremy did, what they threatened to continue doing, had to have changed her. It had changed him.

  At some point Trevor fell asleep. He dreamed of police cars; red flashing lights, wheels on gravel. He dreamed he was standing in the Mews in the rain but instead of Jeremy coming around the corner it was Mike. I can’t do this, he thought in the dream. He hit the wooden door on the storybook house beside him with a bat. Bang bang. And then he was awake. And someone was at the back door.

  TREVOR

  The man in the police uniform was coming in through the kitchen.

  “Hello,” called Trevor. “Hi. I’m a friend of Claudia’s.”

  “Claudia’s here?” asked the officer.

  “No,” he said. “She left. She said it was okay for me to stay.”

  Why had he lied? He’d made nothing but good decisions after Mike got locked up and nothing but bad since he’d seen that fucking video.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Trevor.”

  “You live on the island?” The officer was probably in his twenties. His hair was white-blond and his name tag read “Cross.”

  “No,” said Trevor.

  “Claudia’s family is looking for her. They called overnight to say she may have come here. But you’re saying she left.”

  “I meant, she’s not here. I was supposed to meet her, bu
t she’s not here. I don’t know where she is.”

  “How long have you been here?” asked the officer.

  “Since yesterday. I figured maybe she lost her phone and I was actually going to leave last night but I missed the ferry, so I can just take off now…”

  “Sit down, please,” said the officer. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Trevor sat. Officer Cross pulled out his phone.

  “This is Cross,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “I’m out here at the Whitehouse place. The kid says he’s friends with Claudia.” He listened, looking at Trevor, then looking around the room. “No. He seems a little confused about that.” More listening. “Right. Okay.”

  The officer ended the call.

  “We’re gonna sit tight.”

  Trevor had to pee. Should he say so?

  “How do you know Claudia?” asked the officer.

  “We’re in the same dorm. Same floor.”

  “NYU?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re from the city then?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m from Ohio.”

  “Long way from home.”

  Trevor forced a smile. “Do you mind if I use the bathroom?”

  “Not if you don’t mind company.”

  Officer Cross followed Trevor through the dining room to the half bathroom in the hall. Trevor stood at the door as the officer checked the room, maybe noting that the window was too small for a human being to climb through.

  “Make it quick,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trevor peed and flushed and replaced the seat, turned on the water, looked in the mirror above the sink. You can do this, he told himself. As he dried his hands he heard the sound of wheels on gravel. Has that been the sound in his dream? He looked out the window and saw a pickup. A white-haired man got out of the passenger seat and walked toward the back of the house.

  “Let’s get moving,” said Officer Cross.

  In the living room he instructed Trevor to sit back down on the sofa and met the white-haired man at the patio door. Trevor strained to hear what the men were saying, but couldn’t make out words. After what felt like an hour but was probably just a few minutes, Officer Cross and the white-haired man came back into the living room.

  “I’m going to need you to come with me,” said the officer.

  * * *

  The jail on the island was housed inside a small building with white wood siding and green shutters. It could have been any of the houses he’d seen on the drive from Claudia’s, except for the bars on the windows, the perfunctory landscaping, and the aluminum handicapped ramp. Trevor was taken to an empty holding cell on the second floor, with wooden benches lining the walls. They took his phone, so he could measure the passing time only by the light and the growing discomfort in his empty stomach. He was preparing his story. It was mostly true. She’d told him he could come. She’d given him the address. Why had he said she was there? He was going to have to walk that back and that was going to make him look suspicious. But of course he would look suspicious. He was suspicious. He was a desperate boy with blood on his hands. And his brother was right: He wasn’t even a boy anymore. At least in the eyes of the law, he was a man.

  Eventually Officer Cross and a woman with a gun clipped to her belt and a folder under her arm came to the cell and escorted him through a series of locked doors, down a flight of stairs, and into a room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along three walls and a table so massive and old it looked like it might have been used to sign the Constitution. The woman introduced herself as Lieutenant Lucinda Braga. She folded her hands on the table, leaned forward, and looked Trevor directly in the eye.

  “Claudia’s family is on their way from Manhattan,” she told him. “They haven’t seen or heard from her in nearly two weeks.”

  She paused and watched his reaction.

  “Did you know that?”

  “That Claudia hadn’t seen them? Yeah. She was sort of avoiding them. Actually she thought they were avoiding her.”

  “Well, they’re extremely concerned,” Lt. Braga said gravely. “If you tell me where she is I think we can make all this go away.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” said Trevor.

  She let him sit with that.

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “On Saturday. In Manhattan.”

  “You told Officer Cross she was at the house but that she left.”

  “I misspoke. I meant she told me I could come visit. She told me she was coming here.”

  “You misspoke.”

  “I was nervous. I’m sorry.”

  Lt. Braga stared at him, assessing his truthfulness, he guessed.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said again.

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “About … misspeaking.”

  “Claudia’s family has a lot of questions. And you should think very hard about whether you want to “misspeak” again. You can cooperate; you can tell the truth; or you can end up like your brother.”

  “What?” he managed to croak.

  “We might be a small town, but we know how to background stalkers.”

  “You think I’m a—”

  “Let me fill you in what I know. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with Claudia, but her family hasn’t seen her in weeks. And none of them had ever heard of you before yesterday. I also know you have a juvenile record in Ohio.” She paused to let that sink in, and it did. He should have known nothing is really “sealed” these days. Nothing done can be undone. “Claudia’s family suspects she is in danger. And as you may have gathered when you were trespassing in their home, they are the kind of people whose suspicions get humored. So we have to be on our game here. Leave no stone unturned. Which is why I’m going to ask you again: Where is Claudia?”

  “I really don’t know,” he said. “I thought she was going to be here. She told me she was going to be here.”

  “Did you hurt her?”

  “No!” He said it too loudly. He was scared, but to the cops he probably looked hostile. Possibly dangerous. Mike had done the same thing. His brother’s lawyer said that part of the reason the DA wouldn’t let Mike off without prison time was because he thought his brother had “violent tendencies” after the cops told him Mike had kicked a chair in the interrogation room. A fucking chair. Trevor looked at the table. He put his hands flat in front of him, and took a deep breath.

  “No,” he said. “I would never hurt Claudia.”

  “Were you in love with her?”

  “What? No.” Was that a lie?

  “It’s okay if you were. Love’s not a crime.”

  Trevor didn’t answer. He thought of that line in Hamilton that Boyd was always singing: Talk less, smile more.

  “If something happened, an accident, maybe?” continued Lt. Braga. “It’s in your interest to tell us. Because if we find a body…”

  “A body? She’s dead?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re the one talking about bodies. Is there something you’re not telling me?” That was a stupid question. There were probably fifty things they weren’t telling him. It was practically their job not to tell him things. This was a test and he was failing.

  “Calm down,” said Lt. Braga. “Maybe something happened, some sort of accident, and you feel responsible. Maybe you were doing drugs together. Do you know how many ODs we get on this island every month? Maybe you panicked.”

  Was Claudia actually lying on a slab somewhere? Or was she just making shit up? Trevor knew he hadn’t hurt Claudia, but there were several people whose lives would be more comfortable if she were gone. And he was not going to take the fall for them.

  “I don’t want to answer any more questions without a lawyer,” he said.

  Lt. Braga and Officer Cross looked at each other, eyebrows raised, a little performance of surprise.

  �
��All right” said Lt. Braga, standing up. “We do things by the book here. I don’t suppose you have anyone on retainer?”

  “What?”

  Lt. Braga smirked. “Will you be needing a public defender?”

  “Yes,” He couldn’t believe he was here again. “Can I call someone?”

  “Soon.”

  Lt. Braga left and Officer Cross told him to stand up. They left the Constitution room and just before they reached the stairs, they passed a door with a window that looked onto what appeared to be an entry hall. Standing in the hall, talking to another man in a uniform, was Ridley Drake. Trevor stopped walking.

  “Keep walking, please.”

  “What is he doing here?” The understanding shook his stomach. His legs went hot. Claudia had come to the island, and Ridley had followed her, and … What? Trevor banged on the window.

  “What did you do to her?”

  Ridley turned but Trevor didn’t get to see his expression because Officer Cross pushed him forward.

  “Where is Claudia?” Trevor shouted. He looked at Officer Cross, trying to regain his composure. He needed the officer to listen. He needed the officer to believe him.

  “Please,” said Trevor, struggling for a breath.

  Officer Cross grabbed his right wrist and twisted it back, then his left. It seemed like one motion. Suddenly he was in handcuffs.

  “Move!” said the officer.

  “Ask him about Claudia!” screamed Trevor. “Ask him!”