The One That Got Away

by Joe Clifford

  “I don’t know. It’s all right, I guess. A little pretentious.”

  “That’s all I got.” Noah’s shoulders slagged. “A progress update on my paper is due and I can’t get Riley to talk to me. I barged into the precinct and got tossed on my ass. Ordered not to come back. I kinda made a scene. That’s why I reached out to you. You’re right. I don’t know what I’m doing. I got to write this paper, and it’s a big deal, and Detective Riley won’t return my calls. They almost arrested me.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I thought maybe you could hook me up with Riley.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Look. My dad pays my tuition, all right? And he kicks down a lot of scratch for the day-to-day incidentals. Journalism’s, like, supposed to be my thing? My father is Yoan Lee.”

  Noah waited for the reaction. Alex had no reaction.

  “Yoan Lee, the columnist? The Post? The Yoan Lee?” Noah scanned the grounds, making sure no one else could hear him act like the spoiled trust fund kid he really was. “It’s too late in the semester to change my topic now. And if I flunk Beats and Deadlines, I am screwed. My dad won’t foot the bill if I get less than a three-point GPA. I live off that money. I’m not moving back home, and I’m not getting a job. I figure you can talk to Riley. You’re still friends, right? I mean, he’ll answer your questions. Maybe let you glance at his evidence, tell you why he suddenly thinks Benny Brudzienski is innocent? You get me his notes, snap a pic with your phone, provide me some quotes, I can pay you a little money. Like a finder’s fee. An anonymous source. I ace this paper, it runs in the Codornices. People are reminded of who you are, your story, women’s rights groups or whatever. A feature like this jumpstarts a career. It’s a scoop. I might be able to start interning at the Times next summer.”

  “They teach ethics at Uniondale, too?”

  “Couple hundred bucks ease your conscience?”

  “How about you do your own homework?”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little convenient?”

  “What?”

  “Benny Brudzienski not being able to talk.”

  “Not for Kira Shanks, it’s not.”

  “She goes missing. The one guy who knows what really happened’s already retarded.”

  “I don’t think people call them that anymore.”

  “Fine. Mentally challenged, handicapable, whatever. Now all of a sudden, he clams up with some mysterious condition. The dude was hardly Mensa material but he used to hold down a job. Had to be able to follow instructions, right? From what I hear, after that bicycle accident, he just stares at walls and shits his pants. I think it’s all an act. I want to know why your pal, Riley, thinks this dangerous predator is innocent. That’s interesting, right? You say Parsons didn’t have a partner—”

  “For the last time, he didn’t have a partner.”

  “Fine. He didn’t have a partner. The two cases aren’t connected, whatever. But there’s still got to be a reason why the detective who broke both cases is now rushing to a killer’s defense. I’d think you of all people—”

  “Don’t.”

  “What?”

  “Play me. What makes you think Riley would let me look at case files?”

  “Because of your relationship.”

  And there it was. Noah said it so brazen too, like everyone in Reine knew about their affair. The scandal they’d sought to avoid, a secret to no one. She loved Riley. So she’d let him go. But if Noah knew about it, everyone knew about it, so what difference did it make? They’d thrown away any hope of a future together. For nothing.

  Alex gathered her things and left.

  “Wait,” Noah called after her. “How about two-fifty? Three hundred? Come back. Let’s talk. Price is negotiable! Alex!”

  Alex headed to her car. No matter how loud he called her name, she did not turn around.

  When she came to the Interstate 87 split south, she didn’t go home either.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She never wanted to hurt him. She knew the damage done if word spread, how it would destroy Riley’s world, which in addition to the job and wife now included a new baby girl. The age difference alone would destroy his reputation. He might even go to prison. Alex had understood Riley’s need to break things off. She never held that against him, and she believed him when he said he wanted to stay friends, have her in his life. And he tried.

  It was funny. Riley’s ending their affair wasn’t what spurred Alex to leave town. It had taken Kira Shanks to do that. Not being in his bed hurt bad enough. Being rendered irrelevant was too painful to bear, the entire town consumed by Kira Shanks hysteria.

  Alex had of course followed the story when it first happened seven years ago, was vaguely aware of the particulars. Noah’s proposed exposé jostled loose the long-term, brought specifics back to the light.

  Though they were no longer together, Alex watched Riley’s star rise, albeit from a distance—his promotion to detective as he led the charge to find Kira, just as he’d done with Alex five years earlier. Only the hero was too late this time. Alex knew they liked Benny Brudzienski for the crime, which, as Noah Lee pointed out, still listed officially as a missing persons case since no body was ever recovered.

  Benny Brudzienski wasn’t much older than Alex. But he seemed a lot older. In part because he was such a permanent fixture in Reine. Like that hundred-year-old oak tree struck by lightning or the fire-scorched hall of records, you never remembered a time when he wasn’t around. Alex could still picture Benny wandering through town—sloe-eyed, lumbering strides, aimless. Reine’s very own George slouching toward Friendly’s or the Pig ’n’ Poke. Until one of his brothers would roll up beside him, load him onto the flatbed like some wayward, dopey cow that had broken through the fence. No one ever believed he was dangerous.

  When word of Benny’s involvement leaked, either via press or police, unidentified locals chased him down, ran his bicycle off the road, shook loose whatever remaining lug nuts were rolling around his junkyard oil pan. How much more damage could the accident have caused? Guy had the IQ of an eight-year-old to begin with.

  Alex hadn’t known Benny was in a mental hospital, but it made sense when she thought about it. Noah was the first to imply Benny was faking it. Alex didn’t know if he was or wasn’t. He deserved to burn all the same.

  Sometimes Alex doubted her memory, especially during stretches where she partied too hard. There were a lot of stretches like that. It got worse after her ordeal, the pills she leaned on to make her forget, the holes in her memory that formed like Swiss-cheese excerpts of a hastily erased tape. There were times, late at night, when she’d wonder if what she and Riley had was as real and deep as she recalled. She knew she had a tendency to think in terms of black and white. Heroes, villains. Good guys and bad. When your hand is against a wall, you know where you stand, no matter how dark it gets.

  Therapy helped. For a while. She liked the part about how Denise’s rotating cast of abusive boyfriends hindered her chances long before Parsons came along. Loose mothers and tumultuous childhoods absolve most sins where therapists are concerned. Alex didn’t appreciate the other interpretation though, the one about a seventeen-year-old victim infatuated with the young, handsome, married cop who saved her. Savior complex, the doctor called it. Alex hated that. Made her sound clingy, nuts, like some wacko trashy home-wrecker. She knew what she and Riley shared was real; she didn’t need a diploma on a wall to validate it.

  When Alex first left Reine, Riley checked in. Then that correspondence waned. Mostly because Alex stopped returning calls and answering emails. She’d never been one for small talk—how a new job is going, what are you doing for fun, how about this crazy weather we’ve been having. People move on. Alex hadn’t spoken with Detective Sean Riley in at least three, four years. So why did the wound still feel so fresh, so raw? Why did just hearing his name make her heart yearn? Why had the need to see
him come on so pressing, so strong, so relentless?

  The Reine police station sat across the river in a squat brick building that might as well have been a video store in a strip mall. Reine had undergone a major facelift since Alex’s last visit—more chain restaurants, renovated Hannaford, new Target—but the local PD hadn’t parlayed the string of murders into bigger, better headquarters. Compared to the daunting NYC jails, the understated precinct projected junior league.

  When all those girls went missing in the early 2000s, terror gripped the small town. You’d think local politicians would have been able to manipulate residents into footing the bill for more cops, shinier cars, state-of-the-art digs. Instead, everyone opted to ignore, pretend like it never happened, lock the doors and stay inside, turn a blind eye. Can’t rationalize an evil you don’t understand.

  Maybe Noah Lee had been right about that part, too. At least in a broader cosmic sense. Like cheating death, escaping the noose meant for her. Didn’t matter that the two cases were unrelated; that the man who’d abducted Alex and killed all those other girls, Ken Parsons, was locked up miles away in a maximum-security prison when Kira Shanks disappeared. Alex had traded one life for another, her unintended release creating a malevolent butterfly effect. Like one of those cheesy Final Destination movies. One child taken, another spared. Fate, a roll of the dice.

  Alex parked her battered Civic around back beside a cruiser. Remnants of rainwater dribbled off the gutter overhead. Before her interview with Noah Lee, Alex hadn’t known for sure if Riley still worked in Reine. She’d assumed so. Riley preferred to be a big fish in a little pond. Probably ran the whole show up here by now. Talking to Noah Lee had got her thinking, wondering…regretting? No, that wasn’t the right word. But there was no reason why she couldn’t stop by and say hello. They were both adults. In fact, given their history, be rude not to.

  She tilted the mirror, sweeping the hair out of her eyes, securing an unruly lock of brown behind her ears. She retouched her lipstick and eyeliner, adjusted her shirt, tightening and tucking, grinning back at what she saw. Alex owed Denise and the father she never met that much.

  “Can I help you?” the young desk sergeant asked.

  Behind him, the small-town force scurried, filing speeding violations to make the monthly quota, or whatever they did to pass time up here in between kidnappings. Route 9 by the elementary school had always been a speed trap, stuffing county coffers since Alex was in pigtails. Denise had been popped there at least half a dozen times, providing her mother with yet another reason to feel like the whole world was out to get her.

  “Miss?” the desk sergeant repeated.

  “I want to talk to Sean Riley. Riley. Detective Riley.”

  “Is this about a case?”

  “Yes,” Alex lied.

  The desk sergeant said to have a seat. Alex didn’t sit, instead pulling her black hoodie over her head, jamming hands in her back jean pockets. She studied pictures on the wall. Certificates, awards, accommodations, handshakes with the chief, rewards for jobs well done. There was one of Riley being given his detective’s badge. He faced the camera, stern expression betraying a solemn oath to serve and protect, but there was an undeniable glibness in his eyes, an inability to hide the joy. He deserved it. She could still hear the resounding cheer that erupted when they walked through the door that night. He’d wrapped her in a scratchy old wool blanket, his arm around her, pulling her so close she could smell the musk on his neck and feel the scratch of several days’ growth.

  “Alex?”

  It felt like forever since she’d heard his voice in person. He had the same intense, soulful stare, and still looked younger than his years, except that he’d grown an actual beard, tight and trimmed. Faint crow’s feet tattooed the eyes. Other than that, he was the same Riley.

  “Surprise!” Alex said, feeling stupid the moment the phony exuberance escaped her lips. She’d intended irony. The exclamation came across as ridiculous, childish.

  Alex pretended to be distracted by a sudden noise but the only startling sound was her own beating heart. She had a hard time avoiding that piercing gaze, which still possessed the power to disturb.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “In town. Visiting friends.” They both knew that was a lie—Alex didn’t have any friends left in Reine. Other than a cousin she seldom spoke to, no family remained since Denise died. Alex’s mother passed, like most old alcoholics, going quietly in the night, unnoticed, unmissed, until the dogs next door smelled her and started barking and a neighbor alerted the police. Despite the town’s best efforts at reinvention, Reine was still small enough that every death resonated, even that of the town drunk living alone above a bar.

  Riley waited. Alex had seen enough cop shows to know the trick. Prolonged silence makes people talk, give themselves up, say anything to fill the void. And it worked.

  “I talked to a reporter today,” she said.

  “Reporter?”

  “Some kid with the college. Said you weren’t returning his calls.” The truth wasn’t always Alex’s first choice. Another coping mechanism, according to the doctors. The truth could be terrifying so victims of trauma often created their own realties. Easier to place pieces in advantageous positions that way. But Riley had always been able to throw her off her game. And this time the truth covered up the real, more substantive reason for her visit, the need to see his face, which came on without warning, relentless, like a rockslide, stones pressing on spine.

  Riley creased his brow. “Noah something? Uniondale, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “Pain in the ass. Been calling nonstop. Stopped by couple weeks ago when I wasn’t here. Caused a scene—” He stopped. “He’s not a friend of yours, is he?”

  “God, no.”

  Riley waited for more, but Alex didn’t have anything else. There had been no reason to drive to the station.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that reporter, Noah. He was talking about Kira Shanks, and I guess it got me thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Us. Not us-us, but that time. In my life. What happened when I was seventeen. How if you hadn’t found me…” Alex let the words trail off, choking back a laugh. “I don’t know why I came here.” She thumbed out the glass door. “I’m going to get going.”

  “You want to grab dinner?”

  No one recognized Alex at the Double Y, the twenty-four-hour restaurant near the interstate on-ramp. Why would they? Several years had passed, and her star had long faded. A couple regulars waved hello to Riley.

  After they sat, he tried to sell her on the burgers, like a dad implying she was too thin. Alex asked for a beer.

  Riley ordered a Number Twelve, salad instead of fries, dressing on the side, with a water.

  “How’s Meg?” Alex glanced at the space on his left hand where a wedding ring should be. “And Sam? She’s got to be, what? Almost in middle school by now?”

  “This year.” Riley gestured out the window. A bigger Exxon had been erected beside the Vitamin Shoppe. Chain outlets lit up the dreary night sky. The new and improved Reine. “How long has it been since you were back?” he asked.

  “When did my mother die? Two and half, three years ago?”

  “You didn’t tell me you were in town.”

  “I wasn’t actually in town.” She nodded into the dark. “The morgue in Albany. Just long enough to ID the body. I made the cremation arrangements when I got back to the city.”

  The waitress brought her IPA. “Quite a change,” she said, referring to the widened roadway and added eats, superstores, and general increased bustle.

  Riley unwrapped his silverware from the tight, taped napkin, tapping his butter knife off the tabletop. Quiet conversation murmured among regulars along the counter. Cars spat back ground water as they raced along the busy boulevard.

  “What? Aren’t you happy to see m
e?”

  “It’s always nice to see you, Alex. But I haven’t heard from you in four years. You stopped responding to emails. I left more than a few unanswered messages on your phone. Till your number changed. We haven’t had a real conversation in ages. Then you pop in out of nowhere.” He ran his fingers through his thick hair, the same way he always did when she got him flustered. Strange how it all came rushing back. He kept tapping the butter knife, trying to grin away the awkwardness they both felt. “Maybe I’m rusty.”

  Alex brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Didn’t realize you missed me so much.”

  “Of course I missed you.”

  Since she was a kid, Alex had the ability to flip switches, like she was turning off a light. If she didn’t want to deal with something, an emotion came on too strong, the timing wrong, inconvenient, she could check out, go somewhere else. One more survival technique. Her shrink could rationalize away every tic and shortcoming. Part of the reason she liked Dr. Amy so much. At first. All faults forgiven, Alex’s life had been one forged from necessity. A drunk for a mother, no money, no sense of security, ducking landlords, fleeing with meager possessions in the middle of the night, this sense of uncertainty and instability exacerbated after Parsons. Alex could do it on the drop of a dime, check out of a situation, the choice to be physically present but mentally removed. Except when it came to Riley. His mere presence commanded she be with him. And when the feeling was good, like right now, she didn’t want to be anywhere else. Everything she wanted, right there in front of her.

  It’s why she had to leave, move all the way down to the city. Out of sight, the only way to keep him out of her mind. Sitting across from him again, Alex ached for the sensation of his skin against hers one last time.

  “I’ll always feel…” Riley trailed off.

  Alex leaned in. “What?”

  “An obligation.”

  “An obligation.” Alex eased back in the booth, watching the trucks and trailers zip past, gather speeds for the on-ramp. She swiped her beer. Took a pull, then another, then tipped back the whole bottle, sucking down the rest.