The Night Before

by Wendy Walker

  She looked around carefully. There were four coffee mugs, some empty, some with remnants days old. Also three dirty dessert plates. Four water glasses. Rosie gathered them slowly, methodically piling them on the floor just outside in the hallway.

  Her eyes turned next to the unmade bed. The black eyeshades that lay across a pillow. The sheets and blankets tangled from restless sleep. Dreams. Nightmares, maybe.

  Does the past visit you at night, Laura? Is that why you can’t sleep?

  She shook out the covers and then made the bed. Replaced the throw pillows that had fallen to the floor. Laura was everywhere in this room. Her smell. Her clothes, strewn about the pieces of furniture. A chair. A bedside table. Even the floor. They hung in the closet and draped from the shelves where they had been placed without any concern for folding. For order. And Rosie found herself straightening them as she checked the pockets, undoing the chaos in this room as though it might turn back the clock and bring Laura home safe and sound.

  It was just after five-thirty when she sat at Laura’s desk. A laptop was open, its screen black. Papers and books were stacked in piles. A notepad. Pens. Writings on paper.

  Rosie looked through them, slowly at first, cautiously, as though Laura might walk through the door and see her. It was ridiculous. Of course she was looking for something, anything, that might tell her where her sister had gone. If for no other reason than she had Rosie’s car and she had promised to have it back by morning.

  Page after page, there was nothing but work. Notes and data about companies. She’d said she was staying on top of things. Rosie hadn’t fully believed her.

  She started then with desk drawers, finding most of them empty. A stapler, but that was Joe’s, when this had been his desk. Some more pens. Paper clips. Nothing personal. Not even a checkbook.

  She closed the last one and sat back in the chair, her eyes now on the computer. She placed her finger on the track pad and swirled it slowly until the screen came to life. It wasn’t locked.

  She sat back then and stared at the screen, now filled with the color from a photograph.

  Rosie was startled as she saw herself staring back, just ten perhaps, with Laura, who must have been eight. Beyond them, at the edge of the creek that ran behind their house, were two little boys. She knew them instantly.

  One of them was Joe—strong and tan, his dark hair long, past his ears. How strange it was to see him as a boy, to be reminded that they’d been friends since birth, that they’d ever been friends like that, wild and free and young.

  The other boy was Gabe, of course. He was the opposite of Joe—tall and slender, with a buzz cut. Each of them was so different, like they had been cast in a television show. Still, the four of them had been inseparable, and even though other kids came and went, they were the ones who’d stayed together until the end of junior high when Joe’s family moved closer to town. Rosie hadn’t seen this picture for years, since their mother had left for California. Laura must have had it copied and scanned. But when? And why? Laura hated everything about her past here.

  They’d been collecting frog eggs that day, large masses of gray jelly with tiny black dots. They used to put them in buckets of water and wait for the tadpoles to hatch, which only happened once over the years. They’d been too young to know that the eggs needed to be fertilized after they were laid. It hadn’t mattered. The excitement had been in the hunt and the waiting and, of course, the friendship that surrounded the adventure.

  Rosie wore candy-striped shorts and a pink shirt with frills around the collar. Laura was in her tomboy attire by then—dirty jeans, torn T-shirt. Their skin was tan, their hair streaked blond from the sun. Rosie was smiling, a big wide smile right at the camera. Laura’s face was not empty, exactly, but searching, her eyes not focused on the camera, but instead on the person behind it, holding it. Her eyes were on their father, her image out of focus because she was not the subject of the lens or the man behind it. Rosie was. Not Laura, though her eyes pleaded to have the camera turned her way, to focus on her. Good Lord, how this knowledge struck hard, as though it were the first time she’d found it.

  She leaned forward and studied her sister.

  How far back did it go?

  The angry child, fits of rage, uncontrollable. Rosie tried to remember. It was forever. Their whole lives. Laura had bloodied her fists even back when she still wore pink, pounding them into a wall, breaking through the plaster. Rosie closed her eyes to see it clearly. Blood dripping on a snow-white arm. Tears streaking a freckled face. She couldn’t have been more than six.

  Had anyone else bothered to see her? The grown-ups in the neighborhood had their own lives. Couples sipping cocktails on someone’s patio. Wives sipping coffee in the kitchens. Men drinking beer, their lawn mowers idling side by side on a Sunday afternoon.

  A wave of guilt made her close her eyes.

  Their mother told Mrs. Wallace that day in the kitchen that Laura had been hard to love, the little girl with fists for hands. With rage inside her. But maybe they had created the rage—all of them. She knew this now, having her own child. How easy it was to damage them with nothing more than words. Or indifference.

  None of that mattered now. Time only moved in one direction.

  Rosie started to click on the icons.

  * * *

  Two hours later, she heard the floorboards creaking. First came the slow, heavy steps of her husband. Then the quick shuffles of her son.

  She heard her name being called.

  First by Joe. “Rosie?”

  Then by Mason. “Mama?”

  Morning was here, though she tried to deny it. Even as the dark sky began to turn gray and then orange. Even as the clock ticked relentlessly on the table beside the bed. Minutes, then hours had passed with no headlights coming down the driveway.

  “Rosie?” Joe was outside the door, knocking softly.

  “I’m here,” she answered.

  The door creaked open. Joe stood in the hallway, holding Mason. As usual, he was bare down to his diaper. Mason hated clothing.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Joe asked.

  Rosie looked at him with wide, manic eyes. She could feel her expression and she could see its reflection on Joe’s.

  “She didn’t come home.”

  Joe nodded. He let their squirming child down and he ran to Laura’s bed and climbed on top of the covers. She had a fluffy down comforter and Mason liked the way it felt against his skin.

  “Okay,” Joe said calmly. “You been in here since before? When you woke me up?”

  Rosie didn’t answer. She looked at her son, then back at her husband. Suddenly she felt as crazy as the person he was seeing.

  “Hospital?” Joe asked.

  “Four times.”

  “Her phone…”

  “Every fifteen minutes. Goes right to voicemail. Why won’t she answer?”

  “Because it’s dead. Look,” he said, pointing to an outlet near the floor. “She left her charger—again. She does it all the time.”

  Rosie nodded. “I tried to find this guy on that website, but there are so many of them! And they use screen names … and I can’t get into her account unless I have the password, but I can’t change the password without access to her email.… I’ve tried everything—her birthday, initials … and there’s nothing in all this stuff—just work. Christ, Joe—I even tried ‘Deer Hill Lane.’”

  “She would never use that … not after what happened there.”

  “I know! I’m losing my mind.…”

  Joe walked to the table where Rosie was working. She looked up at him, afraid to let him see her and what was going on in her head.

  “I don’t know what to think. What to believe.”

  “Listen to me. Your sister is lying in a bed, trapped beneath some old dude’s hairy arm. She’s got a wicked hangover and she’s desperate to sneak out of there without having to fuck him, because that’s what he’ll want if he wakes up. You’ll see.”

  Joe r
eached out and stroked her hair, waiting for a smile. But she couldn’t comply.

  “Did you find any evidence suggesting that my theory is wrong?”

  “There is something strange,” Rosie said. “Look…” Rosie typed the name Jonathan Fields into a search engine. “There’s no divorce record, at least not in Connecticut.”

  Joe sat down on the edge of the bed next to the table and turned the laptop to face him. “So maybe he got divorced in New York or New Jersey, or anywhere. Did Laura say where he lived?”

  “I assumed he was local.…”

  Joe shook his head quickly. “No, no … see that’s what I’m saying—he could be from anywhere in driving distance.”

  “Then we’ll never find him!”

  Mason crawled into his father’s lap, rolled over, and hung upside down across his legs.

  “Take a deep breath. It’s still early—at least take a shower and have some coffee. You look deranged right now.”

  “Thanks. That was the look I was going for.”

  Joe tickled his son’s belly. Mason laughed.

  “Come here, baby.” Mason found his mother’s arms. She pulled him close and tried to smile.

  It was unconvincing.

  “I’ll take a shower.”

  Joe got up, Mason back in his arms. “I’ll make coffee and feed this guy. I can go in late today.”

  * * *

  Seven turned to eight. Eight turned to nine.

  By nine thirty, Rosie was inconsolable.

  And obsessed with Jonathan Fields.

  She was in the kitchen now, with Laura’s laptop open on the table. She stared at the screen as she scrolled through images of men with the same name on Google. But the name was so common, there was no way she would ever find him.

  Joe stood with Gabe at the center island, holding Mason in one arm and Rosie’s bag in the other.

  Gabe had come the second they’d called him.

  “So what’s the plan here?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m gonna drive around, look for the car. Mason can watch shows on the iPad.”

  “Richmond—also the garage on Main…”

  “Yeah, and the harbor. But she only left fifteen minutes to get where she was going, so downtown’s a better bet.”

  Rosie heard them. She heard every word. She heard the silence that followed and felt their eyes on her back. But she couldn’t turn away from the images.

  Joe started to move. Two steps and he was standing behind her.

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “I’m going now,” he said.

  Rosie reached her hand back, finding his face. Joe pressed her hand to his cheek, then kissed her palm.

  “I’ll call if I find something. You do the same.”

  She couldn’t turn around. She didn’t want to see the worry that had crept behind his eyes. This guy, whoever he was, supposedly had a job that he would now be at if nothing had gone wrong last night.

  Gabe answered for both of them. “You got it.”

  Rosie heard the door to the garage open and close. Gabe pulled up a chair beside her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “You hanging in there?”

  Rosie shook her head. No.

  “We’ll find her.”

  She managed a nod, but Gabe didn’t let it go.

  “Hey … listen to me now.”

  Rosie turned to face him.

  “There are a hundred scenarios between Laura nursing a hangover in this guy’s bed and whatever it is you’re thinking. Most of them fall within the Laura Being Laura category. She’s been wound up pretty tight since she got back.”

  Rosie nodded.

  “No police?” he asked.

  “No—you know I can’t do that unless this is real. Jesus. Laura Lochner back ten years later—reported missing—with a man she didn’t even know.…”

  Gabe sat back and held out his hands. “Okay—I got it. No police until we know for sure.”

  “You think it’s a mistake? Not calling them?”

  “That’s not my decision.”

  No, Rosie thought. This fell on her shoulders. She’d thought about calling the police since the moment she’d found that empty bed. But what if she was wrong? What if they were wrong? What if this was just Laura Being Laura? They all knew what would happen. The past would come screaming out of the shadows. It would be big news in this small town.

  The computer screen went back to the photograph in the woods, down by the creek. It caught Gabe’s eye.

  “Oh my God. Look at us.…”

  He smiled then, and in a way that brought back memories. They had each played a role in their shared childhood story. Joe, their strong, handsome leader. Rosie, the pretty girl looking on as Laura, the reckless tomboy, found some kind of trouble. And then there was Gabe—the brains of the operation.

  That was what she needed now. Someone whose mind could focus through the storm. Someone to think and figure this out. Gabe worked in IT. Sometimes he worked for clients who needed access to things that others didn’t want them to find.

  “What can we do?” Rosie asked him, pulling him back from his own memories.

  He slid the laptop closer and woke up the screen.

  “These dating sites, the ones with the complicated profiles and rules, they’re actually easier to manipulate. To create a false identity. Men can find women, make their dates, and stay hidden to certain people—a wife or girlfriend who’s come on to find them. Can’t do that on the phone apps. Those feed off Facebook. Most people can’t be bothered to make a fake Facebook account—and even when they do, they look fake.”

  “Can we get into Laura’s account? See the men she’s contacted?” Rosie asked.

  “Not without a password or access to her email. You said you’ve been searching the site?”

  Rosie clicked on the icon that held her search. “I kept it within twenty miles of here. Look—it could be any of these guys. We’ve got no photo and no screen name, so I can’t narrow it down.”

  Gabe studied the pages, the faces of the men who might be Jonathan Fields. Then he began to type.

  “I’m going to widen the search to thirty miles.… Can you print these pages?”

  “Okay—but why?”

  Gabe was already on his phone. “I have a contact at Verizon. I can get the location of where her phone is, or at least the last place it was live. We’ll see what’s around there and bring the photos. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “That’s it?” Rosie asked. “Can’t we hack into her email or get her call record? I know she was in touch with him to make their plan for the date.”

  “The police can,” Gabe said. He looked up from the screen again, his phone pressed to his ear.

  “With a warrant. Same for this website. They don’t like to betray their clients. Doesn’t help business.”

  Rosie watched and listened as Gabe made his call. It sounded like a woman on the other end of the line. He made small talk, let out a quick laugh. When he asked for the favor, his voice grew more serious.

  Please let her be okay.…

  Rosie’s phone rang. She picked it up from the table. Gabe’s eyes followed her as she moved across the room. It was Joe.

  “Hey,” Rosie whispered.

  Joe was yelling over the sound of the street noise. But his words came through loud and clear.

  “I found the car! It’s on Richmond. I found it!”

  Thank God!

  “Is she there? Is anything there, inside?”

  Gabe’s expression grew curious.

  Joe sounded breathless. “Just her other purse. There’s nothing in it but junk. She got a parking ticket at seven forty-five p.m. and another at ten this morning—they’re on the windshield. It’s been here all night. What do you want to do?”

  Rosie didn’t answer. She held the phone away from her ear and looked at Gabe, shaking her head. He seemed to understand.

  “Rosie?” Joe said again.
>
  “Gabe may have something.…”

  Rosie’s phone went silent just as Gabe got his answer. He stood up and started pacing as he listened.

  “Are you sure?” he asked the woman on the other line.

  Joe was speaking again into Rosie’s ear. “What did he find?”

  “Hold on,” she said. Then, to Gabe: “What did they say?”

  “The phone is offline. Last place it was live was down by the water—just after eleven.”

  “But that’s miles from Richmond Street—Joe just found the car there,” Rosie said. None of this made any sense.

  “Rosie?” Joe was yelling now. She yelled back, into the phone, “Just hold on … she’s not there … she’s not on Richmond … she went to the harbor! Oh God! What the hell is going on here?”

  Gabe walked to where Rosie was standing, and took the phone from her hand.

  He was close to her now, in his navy suit with his serious face. He and Joe exchanged a few words. They would meet at the car. Joe had the spare key and would drive the car home. Rosie would take his car and follow Gabe to the harbor, where they would look for Laura. They had suddenly resumed their roles in the story. Gabe making the plan, Joe leading the charge.

  “What do we do?” Rosie felt helpless as she waited for instructions.

  “We need those photos. Where’s the printer?”

  Rosie pointed to the stairs. “The attic—Laura’s room.”

  She watched him leave.

  Suddenly her throat tightened, choking her. This was real. This was happening. Laura was missing, and the worry had gone from her tangled thoughts to her husband, and now to Gabe.

  Laura …

  She hadn’t looked like a reckless tomboy last night. In that dress and those shoes. Her hair down, flowing around her shoulders.

  Laura …

  But that picture from their past—the sadness. The longing. And those little bloody fists.