The Long Goodbye

• Authored: 2018

My knees sink into the muck. The overhead clouds catch and throw back down to the ground the flashing lights coming from the mess of ambulances and firetrucks, a swirling display of light coating everything in shifting colors. Vague shades that in life were people move through the kaleidoscopic commotion. Beside them, a river rushes through the dark, spotlights shining down on a section of it, revealing the churning green surface.

The divers surface in unison. One drags a half-submerged shape through the water behind him as they return to the shore. I know what it is, but my dreaming self doesn’t. He’s still there, in this moment. He doesn’t want to believe yet. He’s still clutching onto the vanishing hope that she’s alive, that there’s been a mistake.

When they pull the bloated body onto land, the person in my body gasps and I feel the bile rise in his throat. I fall to my hands, retching. Nothing comes out but dry heaves. Boyd is behind me, saying something I don’t hear. I didn’t hear it when I was there a decade ago, and I never hear it still, even when I know it’s coming. There is nothing to be done; the dream plays out now as the moment did then.

Every night, my heart breaks all over again.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21st

I wake up somewhere I don’t remember going to sleep. A firestorm rages in my head. Bloodshot eyes grasp at forms throbbing in the dark. Cross-eyed images resolve and I find myself on the floor of my office, staring up at the ceiling. Good, I think, glancing at the clock on the wall creeping close to nine. The morning sun slips through the window blinds and falls on my face in bright, parallel lines. A half-empty bottle of vodka perches on my desk like a prism and breaks one of the light rays into a rainbow across my chest. Sitting up and sliding through the ripple of warm colors, I slowly piece the previous night back together, none of it worth remembering.

A cigarette and a cup of coffee bring me back to life, scrapping and scalding my throat by turns. A hot shower dashes my thoughts to pieces, as the last traces of the dream swirl down the drain with the soap suds. It’s been a decade, I remind myself. Ten whole years.

As I button up my shirt and slip back into the office, the first client of the day is already sitting in a chair, waiting for me. I must have left the door unlocked last night when I stumbled in and passed out, I realize.

“What did you find?” He asks me eagerly, bypassing all introductions. I take a seat at my desk and stare hard at his face. I can’t remember his name for the life of me. Rifling through the case folders in my desk drawer, I find a matching photo and a dossier.

“Ah, Mr. Wilkins,” I say, looking through my notes below his picture, “I think you better have a look yourself.”

Swiveling around in my chair, I retrieve an envelope from a filing cabinet and slide it across the desktop towards his awaiting fingertips. Mr. Wilkins rips open the envelope with ravenous glee and pulls out a stack of photographs, each successive slide in the series peeling away a layer of expression from his face until he gets to the last one and he looks back up at me with blank eyes.

“She’s cheating on me,” He says without emotion.

“It does look that way,” I reply.

Mr. Wilkins, lost in a fog, stands up to leave and wanders towards the door. I call after him, shaking off the malaise of last night, “You should receive a bill in several days to settle your account.”

He turns back, “I paid you already.”

“Half up front,” I remind him, “Half when it’s done. That’s what the contract you signed said.”

His lip twitches involuntarily. He glares at me in anger, the knuckles in his hand turning white as he grips the doorknob tightly. Finally, he swallows and finds his voice, “Hell of a way to make a living.”

I nod, “Like I said, you should get that bill in a few days. Check your mail.”

The door slams shut behind him. I put on another pot of coffee and sink into the depths of a couch. The day passes in the haze of a headache and half-remembered dreams glimpsed through the fog of delirium tremens.

Just as I skirt the edges of a deep and dreamless sleep, the buzzer goes off, jolting me awake. A crackling voice pierces the smoky silence of my office, “Your one o’clock is here.”

Stumbling towards the intercom with sleep still smothering my thoughts, I punch in my reply, and yawn, “I don’t have a one o’clock.”

“You want me to send her away?”

With scrunched-shut eyes and a pinched nose, I grunt, “No, no. Go ahead, send her up.”

An aspirin crunches between my teeth and a cold trail of bitterness punctures my gut. I assume position behind my desk, struggling to hold my posture as the gravity of sleep pulls me back towards it.

Someone taps lightly on the glass window of my door. I call out, “Come in.”

A tiny creature in a skirt and blouse shuffles through my door, holding her purse in front of her and staring at the ground, “Mr. States?” “Call me Elliot, please,” I stand and extend my arm towards a chair, “Have a seat. Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Water?”

She sits down opposite me and meekly replies, “No, thank you.”

I study her face, its soft features beginning to wrinkle with age. A sadness lurks in her eyes, avoiding me, unable to meet my own. Deja vu sweeps over me; I know those eyes; I know what they hide.

“What brings you to my office today, Mrs…?”

“Ms. Walters. But you can call me Lilly,” She finally meets my gaze, “You’re from New Harford, aren’t you?”

Her question blindsides me, “Yes, I am. Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you,” She says, “The whole city knows you. From the news…” She doesn’t finish her sentence. We both know what she means.

Lilly Walters continues, “My daughter, she—I—” Suddenly, she is a mess. An avalanche cascades across her face, streaming over her cheeks with slick tears and bursting out of her lips in sobbing fragments, “She’s missing. The police aren’t doing anything. Everyone thinks she’s dead.”

Here it this then, this confluence of things, and here I sit in the middle of it.

“Please,” She cries, “I need your help.”

—

I close early after Lilly gives me her address and we agree to meet back in New Harford. Once I lock the door and hit the lights, I sit in the darkness of my office for a moment to smoke a cigarette and ponder the future.

I am going home.

The drive back is endless, an escape trajectory I never thought to retrace back to its origin. It takes me forty-five minutes to get from my office to the highway on-ramp, navigating with buckshot precision through the clogged city traffic. The tangled highways encircling Baltimore yield outside their perimeter to a sullen straight interstate stretching through dark forests into the panhandle of Maryland.

I am going home, I tell myself. But it still doesn’t feel real yet. Mountains creep into the horizon. I follow their peaks west. Cities dwindles behind me; lanes of traffic peel away from the highway lane by lane as the flow of people trickles to nothing. My old rusted sedan cruises down a solitary strip of highway, the only car for miles. I disappear between hills and swoop through valleys, rocky outcrops sprouting everywhere around me. The interstate curls around a cliff-side, revealing the stamped sprawl of farms and forest below, legions of cows crowding across hills.

The radio crackles through signals, relegated to a few stray broadcasts that dissolve into static after a few coherent syllables. I scan through the bands, picking up only gospel sermons and news programs,

“– down fifteen percent year-over-year. In other news, Mayor Remender and the New Harford council announce development on the Rolling Mills property–”

“–for our struggle is against not flesh and blood, but against–”

“–the Senator and his family broke ground on a new wing of the Saint Charles library this morning, after donating–”

The forest encroaches. The broadcasts weaken and disperse. Civilization evaporates.

The road undulates over the surface of the Earth. The highway becomes a roller coaster. At the crest of every summit, I can see for miles in all directions. I let my foot off the accelerator and glide down mountain passes, letting gravity do its work.

There was a night, ten years ago. A night when I made this exact same drive the last time, after it was too late, and I had to go back and tell Leah. Now it’s daytime and I’m an old man, but I remember every curve and every bend, every exit and every sign, etched into my memory with a dagger.

The other half of the highway emerges from the dense forest and connects the opposing flow of traffic to my two lanes. I know I’m close now. The remains of the old state park pass on my right, in the process of transforming into a golf course and resort. The highway banks around the base of the mountain and I skirt the edges of old homes pouring white smoke from their chimneys. Mile markers perform the countdown.

Three and a half centuries ago, when the first European settlers came, this land stood as a bulwark against the unconquered west, bracing the Appalachians that spilt across the Ohio Valley with wooden palisades and makeshift forts. Back when what lay beyond the horizon was still unknown and held the secret heart of the country in thick forests and looming peaks, the burgeoning New Harford was consecrated the Queen City of Maryland, the vital valve releasing onto its rivers and towpaths canals boats and oxen carrying forth timber and pelts. As history accumulated, the transports became trains and tracks while the hauls coal and bauxite, but New Harford yet stood as a hub connecting greater cities in a network, a necessary spoke grinding in colossal gears. And then, a century ago, the world circumvented it in its march to globalize, stranding its skyline among the peaks like another natural formation.

Between a pair of mountains, the highway slopes into New Harford. The road leaps from the mountainside, caught and suspended in the air by two rows of concrete columns that gently lower my car down into the valley where the city lie. I descend through a thicket of church steeples onto old streets with old memories. My car hums through the checkered city blocks of red and brown brick buildings.

Abandoned factories haunt the hills. I watch them through the windshield as they in turn watch me from their entombed peaks. Train tracks bisect the city, dividing it down the center into two hemispheres. On the eastern half of Everly Avenue, I wait for a train to clear the tracks. The idling minutes give me time to think.

I am home, I tell myself. But I know there is no home here for me anymore.

—

Lilly Walters’ idyllic house could have been pulled from a Norman Rockwell painting, like a time capsule from a distant postwar chapter of American history.

Lilly opens the gate to the picket fence encircling her house and escorts me down a pathway hidden by a layer of fallen leaves. Our footsteps crackle. Her vermin barks at me and rushes around my legs as we walk up the porch steps. She stops at the top next to a recycling can of milk bottles, shoes the dog inside and turns towards me, holding herself in crossed arms.

“This was the last place I saw her,” She explains, her voice distant as memories replay in her head, “She got on the school bus. I waved at her from the window over there. Like I always do. She hates when I do it, says it makes her feel like a little kid.”

I can’t help but notice she talks about her in the present tense. Lilly Walters believes her daughter is alive.

“She sat next to Cynthia Roswell, in the back,” Lilly says, “Like she always does.”

“Did she make it go to school that day?” I ask.

“Yes,” Her lips quiver, but she holds back whatever is threatening to overcome her. She goes blank and begins reciting, as if from a list of rehearsed bullet points, “She went missing halfway through the school day. The last person to see her was Lydia Steinbeck at lunch. That’s another one of her friends.”

I take out a pack of cigarettes, “Do you mind? “

“Not at all.” She replies, a hint of life returning to her voice, “Can I have one?”

Our smoke pools and mingles under the porch roof. A low thunder heralds the arrival of storm clouds on the horizon. Lilly continues, “Lydia said she saw her leave the cafeteria around 12:30, to go to the bathroom. That’s the last time anyone saw her. That was three weeks ago today.”

“Which school is this?”

“Calvert Catholic.”

I glance sideways at Lilly, “Are you religious?”

Lilly shrugs, “I guess so. I always try to take her to church on Christmas and Easter, but we aren’t really a super religious family. It’s just the best school around here is all.”

I chew my filter and taste the nicotine, summoning old instincts. I run through the checklist before proceeding, “Would she have run away?” Lilly looks at me with those sad eyes of hers, “No, definitely not. Not Rachel. Rachel is happy. She plays soccer and the flute. She loves vampire novels. She spends the night at Lydia’s or Cynthia’s or here every weekend. I always hear them gossiping about boys. She is going to go to the formal with Billy Lumbar. He’s on the football team. She is so…”

“Happy,” I finish her trailing sentence, “Does she have a bank account, access to money?”

Lilly nods, “First thing I did was call up the card company to see if she had used it anywhere. I check every day. She hasn’t used it.”

“What about her cell phone?”

“The police found it in her locker and confiscated it,” Lilly replies.

Put it a pin in that for later, I think, hopping laterally into the next series of questions, “Where’s her father?”

Lilly hesitates, gulping, “He left before she was born,” She says in a dead voice, “He never wanted to be part of her life and I never wanted him to be either. He was a mistake from back in college. I should have known better. I think he’s in Florida now. I’m not sure, though. I haven’t talked to him in over a decade.”

I nod, “Any extended family?”

“No. My mother died a few a years ago. My father before that. I have a brother with a family in Louisiana, but he left home when I was young. He didn’t get on with my father. I never really knew him all that well. There’s no one else besides that. Just me and Rachel.”

I sigh inwardly. Nothing is ever easy. It would have been too simple for this to be your run-of-the-mill kidnapping. I begin to feel the itch, that old familiar feeling from back when I was on the force, a gnawing in the guts when you begin to suspect the worst about a case.

I’ve come to the game too late; the board has been set, the opening moves have already been made and I’ve been given the unfavorable position. Three weeks is late, too late. Three days, maybe, but three weeks and only a fool would believe the girl is still alive.

Lilly blows a cloud of smoke. Feathery plumes disappear into the gray haze of the darkening morning. Her eyes move in a flickering sort of way, like a flashlight running out of juice or a car sputtering on an empty tank; she’s become a process unwinding in the absence of locomotion. Lilly has shut down all non-essential functions to preserve the core drive propelling her: hope.

Only a fool would believe the girl is still alive. But I have been a fool many times in my life. Once more won’t hurt.

I snuff my cigarette out on the sole of my shoe. Lilly takes our butts. I hand mine over and ask, “Can I see her room?”

As we go inside, rain begins to fall.

Lilly leads me through her living room. She has been very busy, I realize, these past few weeks. I see the evidence of her mania everywhere. Newspapers are scattered over everything, highlighted and circled in red. I look at one of the articles on the closest paper, one that has been circled angrily in marker. The headline is about Rachel. My stomach sinks when I see her photo.

Jules?

“Is this Rachel?” I ask, thoughts mushing together in my head. It can’t be.

Lilly inspects the article, “That’s her. My Rachel.”

Suddenly, my head is swimming on my shoulders. I steady myself on the couch. One moment I’m in Lilly’s house, looking at Rachel’s photo, the next I’m gone. I’m there again, that night long ago. They are dragging her body out of the water. I’m crawling over to her. I’m cradling her. Her face is my hands. People are trying to shepherd me away, but I won’t budge.

I remember your face, Jules.

This is your face. How can it be? Rachel looks exactly like you would have looked.

“Mr. States? Elliot?” Lilly’s words draw me back into myself. I’m in my body again. I feel her hand on my shoulder. I’m in Lilly Walters’ living room, I tell myself. I hear Lilly’s voice, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing,” I say, shaking my head, “You were going to show me her room?”

I follow Lilly in a daze down a hallway. A family history is written in photos on the wall; Rachel is in every single picture. An unease descends on me, unsettling me in a way I’ve never been unsettled. An uncanny feeling that I cannot place coils around my heart, nesting in my chest.

Lilly opens a door to another world. The jumbled mess in the rest of the house has not found its way into this room. I know instinctively that Lilly keeps this room just the way it is, the way we kept Julia’s, in hopes that she will return, and life will resume as if nothing ever happened.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken this case, I think. It’s stirring something in me, something I thought I had gotten a handle on. Lilly hasn’t signed anything yet; I could still go, leave without an explanation, but I know I won’t.

Lilly stops at the threshold of the door, “Rachel doesn’t like it when I go in here. But you can go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

I regard her for a brief second, this grieving mother, but let it pass without saying anything. I step inside and run my hand over the dresser as I walk by, fingers gliding over polished wood, navigating through a maze of lipstick and hair-scrunchies.

“Did she have a diary?” I ask Lilly.

“She does, but I don’t know where she keeps it.”

“Have the police been in here?”

Lilly nods.

“Did they take anything?”

“No,” She shakes her head, “Not her diary, at least.”

“Do you remember the detective’s name?”

“Pierce Boyd.”

Of course. Boyd, you lazy fool. I’ve been gone a decade, but I see nothing has changed; you’re still a terrible cop. I scratch my chin and gaze around the room. If I were a teenage girl, where would I hide my diary?

I’m about to give up after fruitless minutes spent scouring her room, but then I lift up the mattress, pull the box spring from the frame and find the buried treasure tucked into a corner where the dust cover has been pulled back.

The cover reads Rachel’s Diary KEEP OUT.

—

On the way back to Baltimore, the suns descends into oblivion, disappearing behind a pair of mountain peaks. I pull into a shopping plaza and buy a notebook from a bookstore. The gas station there overcharges me for a carton of cigarettes. At the diner next store, I order a cup of coffee and two poached eggs. With all of the essentials gathered, I begin.

A new case, a new notebook. An old ritual whose artifacts could still be found in my basement. I write Rachel Walters on the front and crack open the leather-bound cover. I write down the basic facts of the case on the inside of the front cover.

Age: 16 Date of Disappearance: September 30th, approx. 12: 30 pm Last Known Location: Calvert Catholic High Schoo*l *Cafeteria

A few scant facts, hardly enough to build a case on. Sometimes being a detective was a little like being a magician. Behold, these plain, innocuous facts. Nothing out of ordinary. Nothing up my sleeve. Watch as I pull from these propositions an endless knotted tapestry.

I flip to the last page of the notebook and write Suspects. A page that must remain empty for the time being, until the picture has resolved into finer detail.

The book closes, its template complete. All that remains is to fill it with the particulars. I begin to consider whether or not I truly believe Rachel Walters is alive. Traditional wisdom would claim she’s buried in a basement somewhere and has been for three weeks.

I remember another case, long ago. Another case where everyone thought the missing girl was already dead. I skirt the edges of the moment in my mind, following the trail that led me there.

You died in the end, Jules. But only because I couldn’t save you.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd

I page through the diary while waiting for the principal. Most of it is drivel, the lustful ramblings of a teenage girl searching for her soulmate. Of the possible candidates, she has narrowed it down to Billy Lumbar, the dreamy high school quarter back, and Stevie Rejnik, a stoner with cute butt. I flip open my notebook and write down their names on the first page.

The secretary escorts me to the principal’s office and introduces me to Brother Isaac Miller, a turtle of an old man dressed in black with a white collar, his obtuse head sunken deep into his shoulders. The wispy remains of his hair decorate the rim of his head but leave the top so shiny I can see my reflection in it. He offers me a seat.

“How can I be of assistance, Mr. States?”

“Call me Elliot, please,” I reply, “I’m a private detective. Ms. Lilly Walters has hired to look into the disappearance of her daughter,” The ink is still drying on the contract in my bag, I think, “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Brother Isaac nods with a somber expression, “Calvert Catholic was deeply saddened when we heard about Rachel’s disappearance. And right out from under all of our noses. It’s a tragedy unlike any this school has ever seen,” He looks out the window, appraising a huddle of kids in the yard with a disciplinarian’s eyes and then back at me, “I wasn’t aware Ms. Walter’s had hired a private detective, though.”

“She has been beside herself with grief, as you can imagine. She’ll do anything to get her daughter back.”

“Of course, of course,” The principal agrees, “I will do anything I can to help you. We all want Rachel back.”

“Thank you,” I mull over how to proceed, “Could you tell me about the day Rachel went missing?”

As if suddenly a great weight has been placed on them, Brother Isaac’s shoulders sink, revealing the beginnings of a neck, “It was a day like any other. We didn’t even know Rachel was missing until Ms. Walters’ called that evening, hysterical. I went through Rachel’s schedule and talked to all her teachers. Mrs. Ratchet was the last to see her. She never showed up for Mr. Hart’s fifth period science class. Lydia Steinbeck, one of our students, has since said she saw her leave the cafeteria during lunch. No one saw her after that. She just…” The Brother pauses, wiping his face with a liver-spotted hand, “Disappeared.”

He continues, “When Rachel didn’t come to school the next day, I knew something was wrong. My suspicions were confirmed when the police showed up midday. They questioned me much the way you are currently doing, and I told them what I am telling you now.”

“Did you know Rachel?”

“The whole school knew Rachel. She is a very talented young lady. One of our star soccer players. She always made the local paper. Quite the flute player, too. I have tried to convince her to join the band on many occasions, but, well, I’m afraid the band has a bit of a reputation for being, hmm, nerdy, shall we say, and Rachel was…” The Brother trails off, losing his train of thought.

“Popular?” I inquire.

“Indeed,” He replies.

I scribble popular in my notebook. Brother Isaac appraises me as I write.

“Would I be able to get a copy of her class schedule?”

Brother Isaac rubs his chin for several moments, as if remembering something important, “I’m afraid I have to ask to see some credentials.”

“Of course,” I pull out my wallet and present him with my private detective license, “Licensed to operate in eleven states, this one included.”

Brother Isaac puts on a pair of spectacles to inspect the license, “Forgive me. A formality, you understand. I’ll have Miranda print you out a copy before you leave.”

“Thank you very much,” I reply, putting my wallet back into my pocket, “I’d like to question all the teachers on Rachel’s schedule. When would be a good time for me to pop in?”

My request startles the principal. He raises his bushy eyebrows in curiosity, “You don’t think someone here was involved with Rachel’s disappearance?” “Maybe, maybe not, but someone probably saw something either way,” I reply, “I’m just ticking all my boxes, Brother.”

—

Brother Isaac gives me the guided tour, jangling as he walks. One long hallway loops around a sealed courtyard in the center of the school. An aerial shot of the school would look like the difference of two squares, a hollowed-out interior lush and green surrounded by tan bricked walls.

The entrance I came through this morning sits facing south, opening into a lobby that provides direct access to the gymnasium and administrative offices on either side as you walk down a long-carpeted aisle. To the west, the auditorium and cafeteria sit back to back along a zigzagged hall. The east and north wall are classrooms and lockers.

“How many students go to school here?” I ask the brother.

“Three hundred and twenty-seven,” He says proudly. I can’t help but wonder if he is including Rachel.

The sounds of second period drift through the building as we head east and north, towards the source of students. Brother Isaac explains the history of the school and building, some long sordid tale stretching back two centuries about a veteran of the War of 1812 donating a hefty sum for its establishment, but I interrupt him, “Can I see Rachel’s locker?”

The ancient turtle waddles down the line of lockers to No. 216. He takes a long wooden stick from his seemingly endless pants pocket. At the end of the stick is a conflagration of keys, the source of the jangling that accompanies his step. After a serious struggle, his arthritic hands triumph against the tumblers. Opening the door, he explains, “We’ve left it just as it was. Just in case.”

It’s picture perfect, neat and organized. A far cry from the chaos of my own high school locker. I inspect the bags under my eyes from the mirror hanging on the inside of the locker, my face framed with heart and butterfly stickers. A photo of a model or a singer torn with razor precision from a magazine is pinned above the mirror, a stark contrast to my own sagging wrinkles and hollow eyes.

A row of textbooks sits on the bottom. I pull one out. Civics and Government. The inside cover declares the book property of the state, even though Rachel Walters is written in swooping curves at the bottom. I place it back and notice a few of the subjects are missing, recalling a shelf of books in Rachel’s room at the Lilly’s house. I reach into the cubby-hole at top of the locker above the coat hangers and blindly pat around, looking for anything, but finding nothing.

“Thank you very much, Brother,” I turn around, satisfied, “I’d like to see where she disappeared now.” We arrive at the entrance of the cafeteria. I hear lunch-ladies banging away in the kitchen, preparing for the onslaught of children in a few scant hours.

“Technically, where I am standing right now,” Brother Isaac explains, planting his feet in the entrance door frame, “This is the last place Rachel Walters was seen.”

Two options: Left or right. I search the crevices of the walls and ceiling for a black tinted dome or flashing red light, “Do you have any security cameras?”

“We are getting them installed next week,” Brother Isaac frowns, “This…incident has shown us many areas we could make improvement.” That won’t help Rachel now. We’ll have to do this another way, the old-fashioned way. It’s been a while since I’ve had to trust my judgment. The intervening years since I last walked the beat have not been kind to it.

“What’s to the right?” I ask.

“Well, that leads us back to where we started, the main lobby. The auditorium and music room are off that way, too. Bathrooms, as well. That’s where Rachel was headed.”

“Mmhmm,” I hum, “And to the left?”

“The library, a few empty classrooms, a storage room,” Brother Isaac replies.

I try to get into the mind of a teenage girl. It’s a hard fit for an aging alcoholic, “If I wanted to get out of the school as quickly as possible from this exact spot, how would I do it?”

Brother Isaac ponders on that for a moment, “Well, I suppose the closest exit is back through the storage room and the janitor’s office.”

“May I see it?”

He leads me to the left through a dank concrete room with drains in the floor and past a hidden office currently unoccupied. Brother Isaac explains, as he pushes open an exit and brisk autumn air rushes in, “Cookie is usually around here somewhere. That’s our janitor.”

The florescence of the school melts into the sun. Dumpsters resolve from the blinding contrast. Straight ahead, a concave gravel incline meets a precipice and levels out towards a forest line. Brother Isaac points out the edge of the football field to my right. I can see my car in the parking lot to the left.

Cookie proves to be manhandling a leaf blower in the parking lot. He switches the contraption off when he sees us approaching. Brother Isaac offers the necessary introductions and I begin into the barrel-chested man, “Is it alright if I ask you some questions.”

“I don’t know how much help I’m going to be.”

“You never know,” I explain, flipping open my notebook, “The tiniest detail could help. Do you remember where you were the day Rachel Walters disappeared, Monday September 30th at half past noon?”

“Well, I don’t recall the actual day itself, no, but my weeks are pretty routine, so I could probably tell you based on that.”

I nod, “Go ahead.”

He shrugs, “At 12:00, I go around the school and take out all the trash that needs taking out in the classrooms while the kids are at lunch. Usually takes me a half hour, so I probably would have been hauling a cart of trash to the dumpster around that time.”

“Did you see Rachel in the hallways or outside?”

“No sir, not that I remember.”

“What do you do after you take the trash out?”

“Directly after?”

“Yeah, walk me through your day.”

“Alright, well, I probably would have grabbed a cup of coffee and then if it was a Monday, I would have gone to cut the football field. That would have taken me until at least 2.”

I am matching his events against the timeline I have scribbled in my notebook, “Did you see any cars arrive in the parking lot while you were cutting the grass? Any cars leaving the parking lot?”

“No sir.”

“How certain are you?”

“This here’s private property, sir. I would’ve noticed a strange car.”

“What about familiar cars? Any of those coming or going?”

“Not that I recall, no.”

“Anything at all unusual? Out of place?”

“No sir,” He replies, “Like I said, I don’t know how much help I’m going to be.”

Brother Isaac and I return inside. We exchange information and align our schedules for the coming days. As I exit the school again, the wind rises, its outline traced by swirling storms of fallen leaves. I step into the autumn, another piece of flotsam caught in invisible currents.

—

I get a room at the Diplomat Motel off of the highway to avoid the three-hour commute. It never even crosses my mind to go back to the house until I’m already sitting in an innocuous yellow room with the curtains drawn and the television muted. I haven’t seen Leah in over nine years. I wonder how she would react to me showing up on her doorstep unannounced.

I leave the thought alone and step outside to smoke a cigarette. I make a circuit around the motel. A forest stands close behind, the darkness between its trees filled with the chirping of crickets and the hissing of less musical insects.

Back inside, I transfer the names of all of Rachel’s teachers from her schedule into my notebook. Then I retrieve the diary and began to study it again. I flip open towards the end,

September 2nd School started today! Everyone looks so different! Bobby grew like a foot and now he’s taller than Lydia. They had matching outfits. They’re sooo cute together. Abby’s boobs got huge over the summer. All the guys are so obvious about it, it’s disgusting. Except Billy. Billy’s different. We have history class together this year and he sits right next to me. He talked to me and I almost—

I skip down the page, not needing to know the sordid details of puberty. Once was enough to last me a lifetime, but I can’t escape it; every entry is the same. The excited stream of consciousness of teenage girl, the exuberance of youth, the naive optimism of a suburban child,

September 5th Lydia asked Bobby to ask Billy who he is going to ask to the formal. He said he was going to ask me! Like, OMG. I had no idea he liked me like that. He said Lydia, Cynthia and I should come to the game tonight, yesterday in class but I thought he meant as friends. But now it all makes sense. HE LIKES ME. Mom said she would drop me off after lessons with Mrs. Bittinger–

The date of her disappearance creeps closer as I go through the lines. There is a disquieting disconnect between the terminal outcome and the blissful ignorance of the entries,

September 9th Stevie is sooo jealous Billy likes me. It’s adorable. He almost punched Billy at lunch yesterday. Bobby had to break them up. It’s cute–

I stop short. A spurned lover? Could it be like all the other cases I’ve had in the past eight years? Could it be that easy? I take out my notebook and flip to the last page. I write Stevie’s name down on the paper. After mulling over the dried ink, I jump to the next entry in the diary,

September 11th BILLY ASKED ME. OMG. I had to try so hard to be cool. I wanted to scream. I can’t wait! I’m going to get the prettiest dress. Jessica is going to be soooo jealous when she sees me w/ Billy. I can’t believe the most popular guy in school wants to go to formal with me! Mrs. Ratchet said she is going to chaperon–

Jesus Christ, I think, running my hands through my hair. This is too much. She was just a girl. Just an ordinary girl, with ordinary girl-dreams. Something simmers in my stomach and I know what it is. Who it is. I push it down and ignore it. I keep reading,

September 16th It’s impossible to pay again in Mr. Hart’s class. I’m going to fail for sure. He’s so freaking hot. I almost wish we had Mrs. Stevens like the other class, but at the same time, I think I’m in love. Lydia told me she has dreams about him. I stayed after class the other day and we talked for a whole ten minutes. He said I was smart! O_0

I remember Mrs. Krampf, my tenth grade English teacher. My sixteen-year-old heart beat only for her, a raven haired apparition skinny as a giraffe with a neck to match. I couldn’t recite a single line from Shakespeare or Bronte, but I could draw the curve of her back to this day. I would smell vanilla and cherries when she walked by during exams. I still get flashes of her when I catch the same scent on another woman. This Mr. Hart seems to fill a similar role in Rachel’s life. I scribble his name in the front of my notebook. The next entry reads,

September 20th Billy is sooo cute. He left a teddy bear at my locker room in between classes. It was hugging a heart with my name on it! I almost cried it was so cute and thoughtful. I told Mr. Hart what he did when I stayed late after class. He said Billy was a nice boy and that he would be a good date for the formal, but he said I should keep in mind that I’m only in high school and I would be applying to colleges soon. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I keep thinking about it.

Mr. Hart isn’t exactly wrong, I think, recalling the current status of my high-school girlfriend. The last I heard, she stabbed her baby’s father through the hand with a kitchen knife and then was pulled over twenty minutes later with an infant in one arm and a needle in the other. Ah, I think, teenage love. Only two more entries before the diary stops, both equally mysterious,

September 25th OMG. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. HE KISSED ME.

The words sit on a single line, stopping there. No indication of who this mysterious he is, no paragraphs of jumbled, useless details, just the breathless declaration of blind, stupid teenage love. The next entry further deepens the mystery,

September 27th Lydia almost found out. I’m so stupid. I texted her without thinking after it happened. Hopefully she doesn’t tell everyone. If Mom finds out I’m dead. Lydia keeps asking me, but I haven’t said anything yet. Should I tell her? Would she understand?

Did Rachel and Billy share a secret moment? Does it matter? Would it have any bearing whatsoever on this case if they had? I sigh, scratching my head. It’s impossible to tell what’s important and what’s not. All of this might simply be fodder for locker gossip between classes. Or it might be the lynch pin around which this whole case swings.

It would help to have Rachel’s cellphone, but Lilly said the police already confiscated it as evidence and without a warrant, there’s no way I’m getting records from her carrier. Another dead end, another path in the labyrinth without an outlet.

No more entries before September 30th, the day Rachel Walters went missing. The last fifty or so pages of the diary are blank, with no more thoughts to parse. If only I had a crystal ball or a pack of tarot cards, I might stand a chance at divining the clues hidden in this diary, but for the moment, I am at a loss. I need more information. I need to talk to the characters on these pages, put faces to names and make them real in my head.

I comb through the entries in the month leading up to Rachel’s disappearance again, picking out anyone who might have a reason to dislike her and perhaps, motive to do her harm. I’m writing Jessica’s name below Stevie’s on the last page of my notebook when my cell phone rings. Lilly is on the other end.

“Mr. States–”

“Elliot,” I interrupt.

“Elliot, I found something you need to see.”

—

Lilly is in a state when I get to the house. She is ranting and raving incoherently about Rachel. I guide her to the couch and sit down beside her, “Ms. Walters, you need to calm down so I can understand what you’re saying.”

“After you found the diary,” She huffs, “I—I went into Rachel’s room. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I found this in her sock drawer!”

She points to a plastic zip-lock bag on the coffee table. Inside the bag must be at least an eighth of an ounce of marijuana. Ditch weed, but it’s all the same to teenagers.

“She is smoking pot! This is that fucking Stevie Rejnik’s fault, I’ll swear my life on it! Oh, I’ll kill her–” She stops when she realizes what she is saying. Her anger falters. A sob explodes out of her throat and then she is in my arms, crying, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know!”

I hold the crying mother with the same gentle touch that I’ve held other crying mothers with in my life. Too many, I think. Far too many.

—

After Lilly’s house, I need a drink. The old haunts are where I left them. I walk the bridge over the highway from the motel into town. Cars pass under me and leave streaks of white light trailing in their wake. I find Lucky’s Place down a familiar road. A wretched hive of drunks and fools. My favorite bar for miles around. No one recognizes me when I enter.

I take a seat at the bar and order a neat vodka from Shirley.

Shirley does a double take, “States? Elliot States?”

“In the flesh.”

“As I live and fuckin’ breath, it is you, States!” She exclaims. Shirley reaches over the bar and bear-hugs me. I smell cigarette ash and lilacs on her breath as she rasps in my ear, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Baltimore City,” I reply, escaping her crushing grasp.

“The fuck you doin’ there?” She asks with a raised eyebrow as she pours my drink.

“Getting piss drunk, mostly.”

Shirley barks a laughter worn thin by decades of smoking and hard drinking. I slam back the shot and wait. When she’s done, I continue, “I opened a private investigation agency.”

“What? You always was a dick, but now you’re Private Dick, is that it?” She pours me another drink.

“Something like that,” I chuckle and steer the conversation away from me, “Where is everyone? Where is Boyd?”

“He don’t come in no more,” She frowns, “Ever since he got promoted.”

“He got promoted?” Boyd with authority. Now there is a terrifying proposition.

She nods, “To sergeant.”

“Will wonders never cease?” I say, mulling this new piece of information over in my mind. No one would ever top McMullen as the world’s worst commanding officer, but I could come up with a dozen names better suited to the rank than Boyd. A potato, for instance.

A serious expression passes over Shirley’s face, “You seen Leah yet?”

That night again. Everything always comes back to that night.

“I’m not here to talk about her,” I say, throwing back another shot. I point at the bottle in Shirley’s hand and nod to the empty shot glass on the counter.

Shirley scowls at me, obliging my request by topping me off, “You ain’t changed a bit, States.”

“What do you know about Rachel Walters?”

Shirley scrunches her face at me, “Who’s that?”

“The missing girl from Calvert Catholic.”

“Oh, her,” Shirley replies, frowning, “Not much I can tell you. Sad story. Saw it on the news a month back or so. Girl went missin’ from school. No one knows what happened.”

“That all you know?” I say, the pulsing twinge of alcohol unfurling down my bloodstream.

“What’s this about, States? Why you asking about a missing–” Shirley stops mid-sentence and stares at me with wide eyes. It’s always the same. People censor themselves around me. They don’t want to remind me of you, Jules. As if you’re not already on my mind at every moment of every day. I remember why I had to leave this city.

“Is that why you’re back?” Shirley whispers.

“Yes.”

Shirley pours me another shot.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd

I never thought I’d be fighting hangovers in high school again, but here I am, sitting in Brother Isaac’s office, still half-drunk. I manage to keep a lid on the shaking, but the brother surely notices the sweat pouring from my face and the veins creeping into my eyes. We decide not to address it.

“This is Mr. Brandon Hart,” Brother Isaac indicates the man standing at his side, “Please, have a seat, Mr. Hart.”

Mr. Hart is a tall tree branch of a man, spindly and limber. Clean-shaven and lean, he is handsome and young in all the ways I am not. He wears a navy-blue polo with a striped sweater pulled over it and sits with crossed legs, leaning over his knees with cupped hands.

“What’s this about, brother?” Mr. Hart asks as he settles into his seat.

“Mr. States–”

“Elliot,” I insist.

“Elliot is a private detective in the employ of Lilly Walters. He would like to ask you a few questions about Rachel.”

Mr. Hart frowns, “Of course. Anything at all to help. It was such a tragedy.”

“Indeed,” I reply, “Did you know Rachel?”

“She was in my fifth period physics class.”

“What was the nature of your relationship with her”

Mr. Hart wrinkles his face and replies curtly, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” I explain, “Were you close with Rachel? She was one of your students.”

A pause. Mr. Hart collects his thoughts, “She was smart. Gifted, maybe,” He says, smiling sadly, “She would always ask questions in class. The kind of questions teachers like to answer. I enjoyed having her in class. She loved triangles.”

I write down smart in my notebook, “Triangles?”

“Finding angles from lengths, that sort of thing,” He says, “She was really smart. She was going to join math club when it started up in January.”

“Was?” I divert the flow of the conversation, testing the waters, “You believe Rachel Walters is dead?”

“I-” He stutters, losing his rhythm, “It’s been so long.”

“What Mr. Hart means to say is,” Brother Isaac interjects, “we are beginning to lose hope.”

Mr. Hart nods and turns his gaze to floor, “I only mean… it’s getting harder and harder to believe she’s alive.”

“No one’s found a body,” I insert.

“Do you think she’s alive?” Mr. Hart’s eyes meet mine. I’m not sure what I see there.

“I don’t discount any possibilities in my line of work.”

He nods, “Of course.”

“Did you notice any abnormal behavior in Rachel before she went missing?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Mr. Hart replies, “She was talkative in class, but we didn’t talk much outside of that. I just transferred here, so I’m still getting to know everyone.”

“Where did you teach before here?” I probe.

“Hart State College.”

“So,” I ask with genuine curiosity, “You’re Mr. Hart, from Hart State College?”

“An unlikely coincidence, I know,” Mr. Hart grins, “It’s not, actually. A coincidence, that is. You might know my father?”

The realization dawns on me. I declare more than ask, glancing between the two men, “Your father is Senator Hart?”

“Mr. Hart is much too modest to say, but the Hart family has been an integral part of Calvert’s history, Brandon and his father included,” Brother Isaac confirms, “As I was explaining yesterday, this school was founded with a donation by Mr. Hart’s great-great grandfather, Jeremiah Hart, in 1866. When the Senator informed us, his son was a teacher in the area, well, it was a natural fit, what with the passing of Brother James three years ago. It was one long string of substitutes until Mr. Hart came along.”

“How interesting,” I say as I scribble a litany of thoughts down in my notebook, “Do you like it here?”

Mr. Hart’s expression is a conjunction of opposing poles; he smiles while crinkling his brow in hesitant suspicion, explaining, “Everyone here has been very kind to me. It’s been a good fit.”

“When did you start at Calvert Catholic?” I ask.

“Last January,” He responds.

I write the information below his name and examine the results of my interview scrawled in shorthand on the notebook page.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Mr. Hart asks.

“No, not at the moment,” I reply, drawing my eyes down the lines of the notebook in my lap, “I may have further questions later on. I would appreciate it if you would be willing to leave me your number so I could reach out to you, if I do have more questions.”

“Of course,” Mr. Hart says. He hands me a piece of paper with his details before he leaves for first period. I read his first name from the torn scrap. Brandon Hart. Son of Senator Elroy Hart, a man who has been in office for as long as I can remember.

The bell rings, jolting me from my thoughts. I glance through the office window and see the rush of students outside, pouring into the school. Someone here knows something; it’s just a matter of dredging the right channels. Time to get to work, I tell myself.

—

The football stadium is empty. I walk along the bleachers for an hour, cataloging and organizing my thoughts, waiting for my prey. My unconscious is hard at work, digesting. School is in session and I can hear a history lecture from an open window. Something about Helen of Troy and Ancient Greece. Odysseus and the Iliad.

Somehow, the target slips my net and materializes under the bleachers after the second period bell. I smell Stevie Rejnik before I see him. Crouched in the shadows underneath the bleachers, a red cherry burns brightly between his lips, passed between a huddle of students. I pick him out from the group; He doesn’t look much like his yearbook photo from last year, but the cloud of smoke hanging above his head definitely helps me identify him. The stoner with a cute butt.

I step over the bleacher struts and glance up through the gaps between the seats. The mid-morning sun casts hazy nets down into the shadows around me. A cough born from thirty-five years of smoking escapes my lips involuntarily. I silently curse as Stevie and the other kids cock their heads around. Their eyes grow wide.

“Before you do anything stupid,” I shout, “I just want–”

Too late. The boys dart away like a clutch of frightened rabbits.

I dash after Stevie, ignoring the others, calling on muscles that have slept soundly in my body for many years. My body screams at me to stop even before I even begin. A gallon of tar sloshes around my guts as my feet hammer away at the ground. Every step is another knife in my lungs. The little stoner is faster than he has any right to be. He streaks halfway across the football before I tackle him to the ground.

“You can’t arrest me, man!” Stevie screams, squirming in my grip, “I’m a minor! I got rights!”

“If you would shut the fuck up and stop trying to bite me,” I growl with as much menace as I can muster, pinning his head to the ground with my arm, carefully avoiding his mouth, “I would be able to explain to you I don’t care about you or your weed. I’m here to talk about Rachel.”

With that, he goes limp. Like a popped balloon, the fight goes out of him instantly. What an instant ago had been a writhing ball of teenage rage is now a docile lamb in my hands.

“That’s more like it,” I say as I release him. He rolls over onto his back and sits up.

“You’re not a cop?”

“Not anymore,” I reply.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a private detective. Rachel’s mom hired me.”

“Whoa,” Stevie exclaims, wiping the grass from his face, “Like, an old school, film noir private eye?”

“Sure, kid,” I throw back, “Let’s have a seat.”

We huddle together on the first row of the bleachers. I sit and breathe heavily, catching my old man breath.

“I would like to ask you some questions about Rachel.”

Stevie nods, staring at his feet.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“The day she went missing. We have third period together.”

“What was the nature of your relationship with Rachel?”

“We were…,” Stevie hesitates, “…friends.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yes. I mean, no,” He sighs, “It’s, like, to hard to explain.”

I wait. He sits in silence.

“Can you try?” I finally yield.

“I don’t really know you, man,” He counters.

“I’m just here to find Rachel. That’s all,” I explain, “I’ve been around the block a few times, kid, and I’m not here to judge. I’m not your mother. Try me.” Stevie looks away and then back at me. He takes a deep breath and invests it into a hesitant, uneven explanation, “We hooked up once, last year. We were both drunk,” He swallows another heavy breath, “She said it was a mistake after, that I’d always be one of her friends and nothing else.”

I nod and scrawl down some notes.

“I love her, you know,” Stevie says, choking back tears, “She broke my heart when she kissed that moron, Billy. But I still love her.”

I listen in silence.

Stevie sniffles, “Do you think she’s alive?”

“I hope so, kid. I really hope so.”

—

I sit in the hallway between periods and cross out Stevie’s name from the last page of my notebook. The heartsick boy no longer strikes me as a suspect. That leaves me with Jessica, whose last name Stevie informed me is Parentino.

When the bell rings, the halls come alive. I watch from the bench as lockers open and books are exchanged. Cliques form. Laughter echoes down the walls. A boy gallops down the hallway with another boy on his back. Awkward lovers share shy glances and whispered words. The bravado and vitality of youth pronounces itself in every disparate moment, collected into this brief whole. The juxtaposition of all this life with Rachel’s disappearance is stark. I chew the inside of my cheek and feel a cigarette craving twist through my guts.

Would you have been a soccer player, Jules? Would you have gone to the winter formal with the high school quarterback? Would you have been popular? If I had saved you.

Minutes pass and the hallways empty. Silence replaces life. I am left alone with my thoughts. I shake my head to put them in disarray and glance down the list of names on the first page of my notebook.

Mrs. Beverly Ratchet reminds me a cupcake, with bushy hair frosted white with age billowing over her doughy body. She wears glasses hung from a strap around her neck that enlarge her eyes out of proportion with rest of her face. Her eyes peer out from dark pools of green eye shadow.

“You must be Mr. States,” She says when I knock on the door to her empty classroom.

“I am, ma’am,” I reply, “Brother Isaac said you had a moment to answer my questions.”

“Of course, Mr. States,” She says, standing up from behind her desk, “Anything for Rachel.”

I enter the classroom. A portrait of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall above the chalkboard. Mrs. Ratchet spies me looking at the painting.

“Are you a religious man?” She inquires.

“Once,” I say, “In a different life.”

“Ah,” She replies with curious expression, “Well, I certainly have love for our Lord in my heart, but I keep the picture up for other reasons. Old trick of the trade.”

She laughs at my confusion, “You can see a reflection of the class in the glass of the picture. Kids think you have eyes in the back of your head.” I chuckle, “Clever.”

Mrs. Ratchet nods. Her expression changes into a frown, “I remember you.”

I turn towards the older woman, who wrings her wrinkled hands in front of me. She chatters nervously, “I followed the story on the news.”

I’m not sure what to say. I never know what to say. What do they want me to say? Is there some combination of words that will satisfy them? Is there some spell I can cast that will raise the dead?

“Do you think…” She gnaws on her words, forming them in her head, “This is like that?”

I shake my head and say, “I’m still piecing it all together.”

We take a seat in the first row of desks. Mrs. Ratchet leans forward over folded hands. I open my notebook and start a fresh page.

“Tell me about Rachel.”

Mrs. Ratchet beams with pride, “She’s sharp as whip, that one. I always love reading her essays.”

“What does she write about?”

“Oh, all sorts of things,” Mrs. Ratchet replies, “She loves Hemingway. I had them read For Whom the Bell Tolls last semester. She really took to it. When the school year started, she told me she read all of his books over the summer break.”

I scribble the book title into my notebook.

“You were the last faculty member to see Rachel. Was there anything abnormal about Rachel’s behavior the day she went missing?” Her pupils swim in her eyes as she gathers her memories together, “Now that you mention it, there was. She is usually so attentive in class. She always listened to my lectures. But that day, she was distracted. There was something on her mind. She didn’t seem like herself.”

“How do you mean?”

“She was somewhere else,” Mrs. Ratchet explains, “The whole class, she was thinking about something. I could tell.”

“What was she thinking about?”

“That I don’t know,” She frowns.

I nod and ask, “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything that might help me understand what happened?”

Mrs. Ratchet ponders for moment, “Well, when the bell rang at the end of class, she came up to my desk. She asked for an extension on the paper due at the end of the week.”

“Why did she do that?”

“She said she had been busy with extracurriculars and didn’t have time to write the essay yet.”

“What extracurriculars did Rachel participate in?”

“Oh, she was a soccer player, but she also joined the school newspaper this year, at my request. She was on the winter formal planning committee, as well. Rachel had full plate. I gave her the extension.”

“Can I get the names of the faculty in charge of these activities?”

“Of course.”

I stare at the list of names, logging and organizing each one in my memory for later retrieval. Where is she, Jules? Do any of these people know?

—

If Coach Phillips were an animal, he’d be a bear. I watch from the edge of court as the beast of a man shouts orders at his posse of students. Lanky kids in gym shorts sprint across the polished gym floor. The cavernous ceiling echoes with the clatter of their feet.

The gym coach glances at his watch and then yells, “Alright, class is over, hit the showers!”

As the students crowd into the locker rooms, I approach the bear. He studies me with hard eyes set above a chiseled jawline, “You the detective?”

“Yes sir. I’m Elliot States and you must be Coach Todd Phillips,” I say. When he doesn’t reply, I continue, “I was told you are the soccer coach for the Spartans and that you run the school newspaper.”

Coach Phillips wobbles his meaty head in agreement, “You are correct.”

“How well did you know Rachel Walters?”

Coach Phillips sighs.

“She was a pistol, that one,” He says, running a hand over the stubble covering his freckled head, “The soccer team would have been lost without her. Are lost without her,” He amends, “She scored at least twice a game. Best striker I’ve ever seen, boy or girl. Always made the Times. She brought us home the regional trophy last year. She was just a sophomore. Hell of thing, to be so young and to be that good.”

I see the wistfulness in his eyes. My notebook fills with scribbles.

“She joined the newspaper this year?”

“She did.”

I nod, “How often does the newspaper staff meet?”

“Twice a week.”

“How did Rachel fit in?”

The coach furrows his brow, “What do you mean?”

“Any unusual behavior? Did she get along with everyone else?”

He crosses his arms and gazes past me, “Everyone loved Rachel.”

“And her behavior before she went missing?”

His eyes find me again, “Well, she had missed the last two meetings before that day.”

“Say again?” I implore, this new development reordering my thoughts along its new track, “She didn’t go the newspaper meetings before going missing?”

The coach nods in affirmation, “That’s correct. She missed soccer practice the same week too.”

“Did the police interview you?” I ask, grasping for balance, anything to provide ballast, “Do they know this?”

The coach shakes his head, “You’re the first person I’ve talked to about Rachel in a formal capacity.”

Boyd, you moron. You fucking fool.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not that I can think of,” He says, “It was unlike her to miss practice. She loved soccer. I know she did. I saw it in her face when she scored a goal,” He gets the look, that look I’ve seen on everyone’s face I’ve talked to today so far, “Do you think she’s…”

“I don’t know. But if she’s alive,” I cut him off, an absurd promise tripping over my lips before I can stop it, “I’ll find her.”

—

Brother Isaac offers me a school lunch, but my stomach is roiling with last night’s thunderstorm of booze. I politely decline but tell him I’d still like to see the cafeteria during lunchtime.

Florescent lights paint dull white light over the herd of students queuing up with trays. I make a circuit of the room, slowing myself to match pace with Brother Isaac’s waddling. No windows to the outside, but the side of the cafeteria opens into an inner courtyard at the heart of the school, where some students take their lunch in the waning warmth of the autumn sun.

“Where did Rachel sit?”

The old man points out a table filling up with students. I notice Cynthia Roswell and Lydia Steinbeck amongst the inhabitants. I turn to the principal, “Excuse me a moment, brother.”

They recognize me before I get to the table. They don’t know me, but they’ve obviously been run through the ringer these past few weeks, questioned every which way until they aren’t even sure what their own names are. Lydia busts out sobbing before I even say a word.

I take a seat and place my hand on Lydia’s, “I need to talk to you about Rachel.”

She nods and wipes her nose. Her eyes are shrink-wrapped in a sheet of tears. I look over at Cynthia. The rest of the table stares at me like a pack of deer in a spotlight, “Would you two follow me into the hallway?”

I lead the girls out of the cafeteria and find a bench. Lydia is still a whimpering mess, but she’s calmed down enough for me to get answers from her. Cynthia is a silent mystery.

“Lydia,” The tiny brunette mess flinches when she hears her name, “You were the last person to see Rachel before she disappeared.” She nods.

“Tell me about what happened.”

I wait. The clock on the wall ticks loudly in my ears as long seconds pass. Lydia finally squeaks, “She didn’t say anything at all the whole lunch. Not a word.”

“That was unusual?”

This time, it’s Cynthia’s turn to agree.

I can see the memory percolating through the two girls’ heads, a moment caught in limbo and suspended between them, “She got up and said she was going to go to the bathroom. Then she left.”

“Did anyone go and check on her?”

Cynthia pipes in, “I did. A little while later. I don’t know how long. Before lunch ended.”

“Go on,” I say.

Cynthia bites her lip, “I went to the bathroom, but it was just the cheerleaders. Rachel wasn’t in there.”

“Do you know which cheerleaders were in the bathroom?”

Her heads bobs in affirmation.

“Would you mind giving me their names?”

I hand her my notebook and pen. She writes in cursive. I wince inwardly, remembering a similar script in Rachel’s diary.

My stomach drops when I see Jessica Parentino’s name on the list.

—

Cheer-leading practice is after school, so I’m stuck waiting. I go through Rachel’s schedule again, but all of her teachers are currently occupied, so I chain smoke in my car. Just like when I was actually in high school.

I thumb through the front of Rachel’s diary and pick a random entry from earlier in the year,

February 11th Lydia is sooo in love with Bobby, it’s disgusting–

I skip down. Another entry, from later in year,

April 4th All the girls made lists the other day. Lydia’s list only had Bobby. She’s so lame. Cynthia was at least interesting. She put down Harrison Wilmer. HARRISON WILMER. The guy who reads those weird fantasy novels and stares at Jessica all second period. Whatever, I guess. She put down the new teacher Mr. Hart, at least. I put down Stevie. And of course, I put Mr. Hart down too. Lydia asked if I would. I said no. But I definitely would. He’s sooo hot. When he calls on me in class, I get so flustered I can’t answer–

Paragraph after paragraph of flowing, flowery language. Rachel, it seems, had quite the crush on our science teacher, Mr. Hart. I flip back through the pages and notice there are more than a few entries about Mr. Hart. I make a note in my own book.

There is something itching in the back of my brain when the crash of cymbals jolts me from my study. I see lines of students marching down the football field, hoisting instruments in their arms. I flick my cigarette into the growing pile of butts outside of my window and follow the music into the bleachers.

The band’s not bad, as far as high school bands go. I watch a hunched music teacher conduct from the twenty-yard line. A marching ballad fills the autumn afternoon. Batons twirls through the air. At the climax of the song, one of the students backwards-somersaults down the field for a whole thirty yards, before popping into the air to do a pirouette and land on his feet in a crouch. I’m impressed as I hack phlegm into my clenched fist, remembering how winded I was after my earlier sprint with Stevie.

After a few more songs, the band clears the field and the cheer-leading squad takes their place. I find Jessica in the center of the chaos, amidst the metallic shrubbery of a dozen pairs of pom-poms. I watch as her friends toss her into the air, amazed at her contorting acrobatics.

Practice ends and I find myself on the edge of the field talking to Sally Struthers, the cheer-leading coach. I flash my license and a moment later I’m sitting next to Jessica on the first row of the bleachers, Sally’s watchful eyes staring at me from the opposite end of the bleachers.

“Hello Jessica,” I say by way of introduction, “Do you know who I am?”

“Mrs. Struthers said you were a detective. That you wanted to talk to me about Rachel.”

“That’s right. Is that alright with you?”

“I don’t know anything,” She replies, “But I’ll answer your questions.”

“Good,” I flip open my notebook, “Were you friends with Rachel?”

She hesitates, “No,” After another moment, she adds, “Yes. We used to be.”

“Used to be?”

“In middle school,” She kicks her feet through the gravel, “When we went to the Lighthouse Academy together.”

“When did you stop being friends?”

“This year, I guess.”

“What happened?”

She looks down. I feel Sally Struthers gazing at me. Jessica replies, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is it because she kissed Billy?”

Jessica’s eyes pop out of her round face, “How did you know?”

I answer her question with another, more pointed question, “Did you hate Rachel Walters?”

Shame creeps into her expression, wrinkling her face. She whispers, “No. Yes. I guess so.”

“Enough to hurt her?”

Her eyes grow wide again, “No, I would never—”

I sink into a rhythm, “Were you in the bathroom outside of the cafeteria on the day of Rachel’s disappearance between the times of 12:30 and 1:00 pm?”

She is reeling, off balance, “I don’t—yes, I think, why?”

“Did you see Rachel come in?”

“No, she never—”

“Are you lying to me?”

She’s crying now, wracked with sobs.

Way to go, Elliot. You’re a real tough guy, making teenage girls cry. The next moment, Sally is shepherding her away and glaring at me with pure malice. She’s telling me to leave. I may have overstayed my welcome. I slip away without saying anything.

Back in the car, I cross Jessica’s name off the list of suspects. The empty list makes me anxious. I’m missing something; I don’t know what it is, but I know I’m missing it.

I won’t let what happened to you happen again, Jules. So, tell me, what am I missing?

—

The hospital is three blocks from the school. The entrance sits on a rise over the main road, crenelated layers of stone stacking several feet up to its foundation. I pull into the parking lot and circle the building. I count at least seven security cameras.

The nurse behind the desk has a pug nose and hair done up in a bun behind her head, crisscrossing chopsticks poking out towards her shoulders. She wears polka scrubs that hang loosely from her scrawny frame.

“Good afternoon,” I say.

She smiles, “How can I help you, sir?”

“Who would I talk to about seeing your security tapes?”

A frown crosses her expression, “I’m sorry, sir?”

I take out my wallet and flip it open. I briefly consider flashing my old badge but think better of it. My detective license slides across the counter towards her, “My name is Elliot States. I’m a private detective. Do you watch the news?”

She blinks and picks up the license. She compares me to my photograph from eight years ago, to the man I used to be, “Well, yes.”

“Have you heard about Rachel Walters?”

Her eyebrows jump in recognition as I put my wallet back, “The girl that went missing from the down street?”

“Mmhmm,” I reply, “Her mother hired me.”

“Oh,” Realization dawns on her, “Oh.”

She takes me to security office and introduces me to Barney.

“A private eye, huh?”

Barney’s joints audibly creak as he gets up from his chair. He arches his back and kneads out the soreness with closed fists.

“Yes sir.”

“None of that sir, stuff,” He says as he ushers me through a series of doors, “Were you cop?”

“I was.”

“Around here?”

“In New Harford, actually.”

He peers back at me as he pushes open the final door, “For how long?”

“Long enough to get my pension.”

He raises his eyebrow, “How long ago was this? “

“Ten years, give or take,” I reply.

“Ten years,” He scratches his chin, remembering, “Why, that would have been a few years after Big Wally and Manny Domingo. Back when the gang wars were flaring up down in Little Italy.”

“I remember,” Now there are two names I never thought I would hear again. Albert Bigelow and Manuel Domingo. Big Wally and Manny. The sleepless nights I used to spend cleaning up after those two.

The hours they stole from me, hours I should have been spending with you, Jules.

“Were you on the force during the Gray murders?”

This old man should leave sleeping dogs lie. I almost tell him so, but for whatever reason, I find myself answering, “I’m the one who booked Big Wally and Freddie Gills.”

That gets his attention, “That was you?”

“Me and my partner,” Those were the days, Boyd. You were slightly better than useless back then. I seem to recall there being an actual human inside of that lummox at some point. I save that thought; it might come in handy later.

The security station is ancient, a panel of old tube televisions manufactured by a company that no longer exists. Barney flicks a switch and the screens come humming to life. I feel like an insect, my sight scattered through a prism of perspectives.

“Did you have a date and time?”

“September 30th, between 12:30 and, let’s say, 1:30 pm.”

“Which angle did you want to see?”

“Let’s start with the ones that point towards the main road.” He puts the video stream through to one of the televisions on the panel. The time signature speeds through the interval. I watch cars pass like paint-strokes gliding across the screen. Every time one appears, I have him stop the video and play it back in slow motion.

Nothing.

“What other angles are there?”

“Well, most of them in are inside of the hospital.”

“What about outside?”

“There’s ones in the parking lot out back, but they’re the older models. Resolution ain’t so great.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

The tree line appears on several screens, displayed at different angles. Cars zip through the lot in exaggerated motion. Around the 12:41 mark, I notice something, “Stop.”

I lean in and examine the forest, “Play it at normal speed.”

The video starts. Colors move between the trees. A large black shape and a small white shape moving in tandem, “Stop.

“Play back the last ten seconds,” Barney rewinds the video and replays it. This time he sees shapes moving through the trees, too. He puts on his glasses and leans closer, next to me. His sour aftershave burns my nostrils. A sound resembling a croak burps from his lips.

He plays the video back again.

About twenty pixels worth of information. It’s not much, but it’s something.

“Have the police seen this?”

“No, they haven’t, mister,” Barney replies, “You’ve done found something here.”

“Will you send it over to them?” I ask as I take out my cellphone and snap a picture of each screen.

“Of course,” Barney says, “What should I say who found it?”

“Make sure you get Pierce Boyd on the line,” I grin, “Tell him Elliot said he’s a fucking idiot.”

—

I make Barney promise he will get the video to the police department before the end of the day. He gives me assurances before I leave from the back entrance and creep into the woods in search of a trail that has surely long since gone cold. If only I were here three weeks ago when it was still fresh, I might have had a shot at finding something.

Nevertheless, I comb through the forest, searching for any clue of Rachel or the other shape I saw in the video. If the white shape was even Rachel. Somehow, I know it is. Too coincidental not to be. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, there are no coincidences.

A quarter mile from the hospital the trees end abruptly at a precipice. Several feet below, a cul-de-sac sits nestled in the crook of a hill. The road leads out onto another dirt road, running parallel with the main avenue out front of the hospital, hidden from view by the forest. I ease down the sharp edge and drop. I’m in free fall for a split second, landing on the tips of my toes.

I weave through a dense layer of shrubs, crouch down and examine the road. Tire tracks.

The faint marks lead me down the road then split east and west. I choose west. I follow the tracks at least a mile until they end where the dirt becomes gravel. The gravel leads me down spiraling topographies. I swear I pass the same spot at least three times.

My trek lasts the better part of a half hour before I find myself somewhere behind the school again, its back wall and roof visible through the trees. I am facing the wall lined with dumpsters Brother Isaac and I exited from yesterday during the tour.

I cut through the woods towards the waning sunlight and come out on the edge of a cliff. I step out and gaze down. The drop is several hundred feet onto jagged rocks. Crushed beer cans litter the outcrops all the down. At the bottom, a river snakes through the trees and disappears between a pair of mountains. In the distance, the sun has become an angry red ball and now begins its terminal descent towards the horizon.

On the boulder beneath my feet, I study the etchings of drunken teenagers, echoes from the past. An artist once frequented this spot, evidenced in the kaleidoscopic wonders scrawled on the stone with a rich palette of spray paint.

Amongst the names scratched onto the boulders, I find a pair that sticks out at me like a sore thumb: Rachel & Billy.

—

A few phone calls and I have an address. I recognize the street. The restaurant is next to the dog track, one of the old spots where Boyd and I used to while away the hours when we were off shift and too drunk to go back home. As I pull into the lot, I look across the street and see the crowds piling into the stadium. The evening races are about to start.

The source of people has overflowed into the restaurant. I weave and push through crowds just to get to the entrance. An enormous rooster sits atop the small, squat building’s roof, raising its painted wooden beak to the sky. A red bib flaps under its chin emblazoned with stark white letters, Uncle Larry’s Chicken Shack. An electronic rooster crows as I swing open the door. The cashier is a nervous mess in an over-sized apron, with a paper cap sitting atop his greasy red hair. I ask him if Billy Lumbar is working. His voice breaks and squeaks in reply and then he disappears into the back to find him.

I’m sitting in a booth, bunched in with the dining customers, staring through the wide paneled windows, watching lines of people filter through the front gates of the dog track, when Billy approaches.

“Billy Lumbar?” I ask, standing.

The boy is lumbering and awkward, muscled like stallion but clumsy like donkey. When he’s not talking his mouth hangs open. He wipes his thick palms on his apron and nods his head, “That’s me. Who are you?”

“My name is Elliot States,” I reply, “I’m a private detective investigating the disappearance of Rachel Walters.”

He frowns, “Bobby said you talked to Lydia.”

“She helped me and I’m hoping you can do the same.”

He sits down and crosses his fingers in front of him. His eyes trace the lines of his hands up his forearms and then vanish into a distant stare. He replies from far away, “I wish I could help. I really do.”

“Then start. Tell me about Rachel.”

“She was never…” He begins and then pauses, re-formulating the thought in that big head of his. He starts again after a moment, “I didn’t even really know she existed until last year.”

“Calvert Catholic is a small school,” I say, littering the contrary facts before him, “Your class only had sixty-five people in it. You went to the Lighthouse Academy with Rachel before that. You had class with Rachel for the last six years. You must have met her before last year.”

“Well, I mean,” He amends, “I knew who she was, but like, we were in totally different social circles.”

I don’t reply, waiting for his explanation. He provides one, “She was the smart girl, like. And I was on the football team. We never really talked.” “What changed?”

He scratches his chin, worrying at the few whiskers sprouting from his baby smooth skin, “She joined the soccer team two years ago. And she was good. Really good. Last year she took us to the regionals.”

“And so that got your attention?”

“Yeah, we started hanging out together, too,” Billy explains, “Her friend, Lydia, started going out with one of the front linebackers, Bobby Yarkowski.”

I lead him towards Rachel’s disappearance, “When the school year started, your relationship with Rachel took a turn.” He smiles and then I understand. He’s a big lumbering ox with a sweetheart. A hopeless romantic trapped in a giant’s body. Here bounds a puppy dog, traipsing after Rachel’s feet.

“Rachel was incredible. I never met a girl like her.”

“Were you two an item?”

“Not officially, not yet,” He says with melancholy, “We were still talking. After the formal, I was going to ask her out for real.”

“So, you never went out?”

“We hung out, but always with other people. Lydia and Bobby. Jordan, Louie, Kasey. The rest of the team.”

Something doesn’t match up. Two contrary set of facts struggle in my head in diametrical opposition, “So you were never alone with her?”

“Never alone alone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Billy,” I ask delicately, “Did you ever kiss Rachel?”

His brow folds over his eyes and his mouth twists, “No sir.”

“I don’t care if you did, I just want to know,” I adjust my tactics slightly, “I’m trying to find Rachel. I need to know everything.”

“I would tell you if I had,” He says, “But we never did, not yet anyway.”

“Some of your classmates seem to think you did.”

“They said we kissed?”

I nod.

That confuses him, “Who said that? Stevie?” When I don’t reply, his confusion turns to anger, “I know it was him. He’s been jealous ever since Rachel and I started talking. Now he’s mad and starting rumors. I’m gonna beat his–” He cuts himself short as he remembers he’s talking to an adult. It doesn’t matter I’m a washed-up boozer without an ounce of authority. Doesn’t matter that just last week I had a bottle broken over my head after cheating in a card game and that I gave as good as I got. I represent the looming specter of trouble. He’s a kid, I realize, just like Rachel. He doesn’t want to get in trouble.

All of these kids. Stevie. Lydia. Cynthia. Jessica. Billy. Just kids. I’m not going to find a kidnapper here, much less a killer. I ask him a few more questions, but it’s the same story. Rachel disappeared without a trace. I thank him and we stand up from the booth. He goes back to work, and I buy a chicken sandwich from the acne-scarred cashier. The grease and bread soak up the remains of last night’s bender sloshing around in my stomach.

Across the street at the racetrack, I put five hundred on a hound named Lady Luck and take a seat in the stands. People crowd around me huddled in seats, holding tight tickets and hot-dogs. I’ve got three races before Lady Luck is up, so I pull out Rachel’s Diary and flip through it, re-reading sections with my new information,

September 25th OMG. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. HE KISSED ME.

Who was she talking about, if not Billy or Stevie? I have a vague hunch that if I find the answer to that question, this mysterious disappearance will be a whole lot less mysterious, but where to begin? My eyes float over the pages, finding another passage from further back,

September 9th Stevie is sooo jealous Billy likes me. It’s adorable. He almost punched Billy at lunch yesterday. Bobby had to break them up. It’s cute and all, but at the same time it makes me realizes they’re just boys. Sometimes I wish I could just find someone mature.

I flip back to the passage prior to the mystery kiss and try to put it into context, seeing how it fits,

September 20th Billy is sooo cute. He left a teddy bear at my locker room in between classes. It was hugging a heart with my name on it! I almost cried it was so cute and thoughtful. I told Mr. Hart what he did when I stayed late after class. He said Billy was a nice boy and that he would be a good date for the formal, but he said I should keep in mind that I’m only in high school and I would be applying to colleges soon. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I keep thinking about it.

Something isn’t right. Mr. Hart told me he barely knew Rachel. A queasy feeling rolls through my stomach, making me regret the greasy sandwich. I’m going to have to pay the science teacher another visit, it seems.

Lady Luck loses to a mutt named Thor’s Hammer. Before I put another five hundred down, I go to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and rinse away the stench of failure and maybe hurl a chicken sandwich into a toilet. The door creaks along its edges and I hear the clap of flesh from inside. Two men in suits are pushing a third against a stall door and slapping him senseless. The brawl pauses mid-action as I enter. The three men look at me with equally confused expressions. The moment passes and the two men return to their task, battering the third with fists.

The water from the sink is cool on my hands. I watch the fight from a smudged mirror. Not so much a fight as a one-sided beating. One of the men is holding the victim still while his comrade works the body with a flurry of hooks. After an endless minute, the faucet stops. I shake my hands dry and the men drop the battered body to the floor.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” One says, tossing a ticket onto the huddled, fetal form, “Here, have my bet. I put twenty on Baby Driver. If she wins, that ought to cover about one percent of what you owe Big Wally.”

stumbling or else don’t care. I’m nobody to them, after all. Big Wally’s men. The kingpin of New Harford’s long arm. He must be out and back on the streets. I put him away years ago, but prison doesn’t seem to have had its desired effect on Albert Bigelow. I wonder if he stopped running his empire even for a moment while he was inside. Somehow, I doubt it.

The man moans. The thugs push past me and exit through the bathroom door, back into the commotion of the racetrack. One of them gives me a nasty look as they go by, but I pretend to concentrate on wiping my hands. That seems to satisfy him.

Then it’s just me and the beaten man. He staggers to his feet and stumbles towards me, nearly tripping over his unresponsive limbs. He puts his hands on the edge of the sink and hawks a wad of bile into the center. He turns to look at me. One of his pupils is ringed in red. He spits again and says, “Thanks for the help.”

I shrug, “What did you want me to do?”

The man grunts.

“How much do you owe them, anyway?”

A snort, “Too much.”

“Give them what you got.”

He looks at me askance, “I don’t got anything to give.”

I frown, remembering, “Do you know what Big Wally does to people who owe him money and can’t pay?”

A wet, rasping laugh, “I think I get the gist.”

“You should leave town,” I advise. I’ve seen his type too many times, usually at the county morgue. I rummage through my wallet, pulling out old business cards and searching through the numbers. I find a plain white card with big red letters, Ray’s Cleaning Service. I write down the phone number on a scrap of torn paper and hand it to the man, “Call this man. Tell him Elliot States sent you. Tell him about your circumstances.”

The man looks at the paper, then at me, then back at the paper, “What’s he going to do about it?”

“He can get you out of town, without a trail. New driver’s license, new papers. That sort of thing. Which is something you will want when Big Wally has you in his sights,” I explain. After a moment, I add, “For a modest fee.”

The man sighs, “I just told you I don’t have any money.”

I hand him five hundred dollars, “Double that twice and you should be good. Any dogs in the next few races got a spread like that?” The man is taken aback. He gingerly accepts the offered bills, “You’d need 4-to-1 against, at least,” He licks his lips as the mental math races through his head. He pulls a pamphlet from the inside of his jacket and looks down the list of today’s scheduled races, “There’s Jezebel next race that’s 10-to-1, but I’ve lost money on that bitch before,” His broken, blood-rimmed pupils scan down the list, “Then two races from now, there’s Tyche at 11-to-2, Eris at 18-to-1, Lily Flower at–”

“That’s the one,” I interrupt, not needing to hear the odds, “Lily Flower.”

He furrows his brows at me, “Why her?”

“I’ve got a feeling,” I smirk.

He places the bet and meets me back in the stands. He tries to tell me his name, but a gunshot starts the race and suddenly the crowd is a roaring ocean of noise. Everyone is on their feet. The gates release the dogs from their starting positions. A stuffed rabbit zips along its railing, beckoning the pack around the track. They gallop down the lane, kicking up trailing clouds of dust.

Lily Flower pulls forward in the last stretch and wins by a mile.

I leave a thousand dollars poorer, but it doesn’t bother me much; Sometimes you simply have to give the gods their due. Now with them distracted and their greed sated, I might be able to get some real work done.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24th

The morning finds me awake in my motel room and half-sober, surrounded by coffee cups filled with cigarette ash and vodka. My notebook sits on the bed, flipped to a random page. Three days, I’ve been back. Three days and I know almost nothing about Rachel Walters’ disappearance. Some shapes on a video. Conflicting accounts of a teenage romance. Nothing at all that tells me where Rachel might be, even if that happens to be underground. I need to get serious.

The address leads me down state route 220, around winding curves and over steep hills that send my stomach flying through my mouth. I pass the prison, a gray abscess growing from the dirt like a vicious weed. I wonder how much of my work remains on display inside. Probably not much.

In the forested hills outside of the city, I find Mountain View Trailer Park. As I pull onto the main dirt road and cruise down the rows of trailers, the sun begins to peak above the mountain tops, casting long rays of blinding yellow into the foggy morning. Wisps of white air drift around the trunks of tall pine trees, chased away by the awakening sun.

The trailer I’m looking for is the second to last one on the right, ringed by a chain link fence. Various toys scattered in yard tell me there is a child inside; Stevie must have a younger sibling.

I only have to wait fifteen minutes before Stevie comes out hefting a black plastic garbage bag. As he tosses the bag into the trashcan in front of the trailer, I wave at him from the hood of my car. I toss a cigarette to the ground and jog to catch him.

“What are you doing here?” He asks as he meets me at the edge of the yard.

“I need you to clarify something for me,” I tell him.

He shrugs, “Well, go ahead. I’ve got to get ready for school soon.”

I nod, “I’ll make it quick then. How do you know Rachel kissed Billy?”

He scrunches his face, “What’s this about?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I mean, I didn’t see them do it or anything. I’m not, like, a weirdo. Lydia told me,” Stevie explains, “Basically everyone at school knows at this point. She’s kind of a gossip.”

Another receding doorway, always just beyond reach. I can’t help but wonder if I’m chasing after nothing; if I’m getting wound up in the politics of high-school melodrama. I sigh and shrug, “How do you get to school?”

“I take the bus.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Dad leaves for work before the sun comes up.”

No mother, then. I fumble with a pack of cigarettes, “Get dressed. I’ll take you. I’m going there anyway.” He glares at me, “Alright, but you have to take my little brother Gavin and drop him off at West Side Elementary, too. And you can’t smoke around him.”

I sigh again and put the pack away, “Fine, fine. Let’s go.”

Stevie turns to go back inside, but then stops short. He looks me up and down and says, “Is that all you smoke, man?”

“I swear to God, Stevie,” I retort, “If you try to sell me weed, I’ll drag you down to the police station.”

He throws his hands up, “Alright, alright. I didn’t even say anything, but if I had, let’s just say the price would be very reasonable.”

I glare at him with icy cold eyes of death, “Get. Dressed.”

—

Gavin never shuts up the entire way to school. He asks me questions the whole time. The kid’s only seven years old, so I do my best to answer the never-ending string of queries.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Elliot States.”

“Oh,” He replies, “That’s a weird name.”

“I suppose it is. I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, why do people call you Gavin?”

“Because that’s my name.”

“And did you get to pick your name?”

“No, mommy gave it to me when I was born.”

I glance over at Stevie and see him wince at the mention of his mother. I look over my shoulder at Gavin and reply, “Same thing happened to me.”

He giggles, “Are you a police officer?”

“Gavin,” Stevie interrupts, “Stop. You’re being annoying. Leave Mr. States alone.”

“No, it’s alright,” I glance in the rear-view mirror at the miniature human strapped into my backseat, “Why do you think I’m a police officer?”

“You’ve got a badge hanging from the mirror.”

He’s right. I forgot about it. An old habit I have of clipping my wallet to a strap hanging from the rear-view mirror so that it hangs open and reveals my old badge from the force. I don’t even notice I do it, as automatic as putting the keys in the ignition.

“Ah,” I say, snatching the badge from the air and unhooking it from the strap. I pass it back to Gavin. He clutches it in wonder, “I used to be.”

“But you’re not anymore?” He peers up from the prize grasped between both of his tiny hands.

“No, I’m not.”

“Why did you stop?” He asks.

Stevie looks over at me, interested. Gavin waits, expectant. I frown, not knowing how to answer. It’s been years since I’ve had to talk children. I’ve forgotten what’s it like. Finally, I say, “I lost someone.”

“Who?”

“Gavin!” Stevie shouts.

Gavin pauses and then answers, “It’s okay.”

I smile at his reflection in the mirror, “Oh?”

“Yeah,” He replies, “We lost our mommy when I was three. And everyone was sad for a while, but now it’s okay.”

“Gavin…” Stevie whispers.

“She’s still here, you just can’t see her anymore,” He says, handing me back my badge, “I bet whoever you lost is too. You’ll see.”

—

Back at Calvert Catholic, I get called into the office before I even make it three feet inside. Stevie waves good-bye and we part at the entrance to the office. A familiar feeling of dread greets me as an elderly lady named Miranda escorts me through glass doors and down tiled hallways, through the administrative wing of the school. The long walk of shame to the principal’s office, a walk I made countless times in my youth, although in public school and usually for far lesser crimes with much lower stakes.

Brother Isaac is in the exact same position I’ve found him the other two times I’ve come to school, seated behind his desk. This time, he bobs up and down in fury as he reprimands me for my behavior yesterday, “I was most displeased when Mrs. Struthers informed me of your, hmm, handling of Jessica.”

“I’m sorry, Brother,” I offer, “I never meant any harm. I only want to find Rachel.”

“Yes. Quite. We all do,” He says, removing his glasses, “But we must also show some measure of decorum in doing so, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Of course. You’re absolutely right,” I reply with too much haste, “I will apologize to Mrs. Struthers and Jessica in person for my behavior.”

“That won’t be necessary,” He licks his lips, “Why have you come to Calvert Catholic today, Mr. States?”

“I need to talk to Lydia Steinbeck and Mr. Hart to clarify some minor details, that’s all,” I explain, “After that, I will be out of your hair for the foreseeable future.”

“That might be best for everyone,” He agrees, “Alright, Mr. States. I will have Lydia called to the office. Mr. Hart won’t be available for another forty minutes. You can wait in the main office with Miranda. I trust we won’t have any more incidents?”

“You have my word, brother,” I reply. We return through the hallways and I find a seat, settling down to wait. No detention or in-school suspension, a marked improvement from my previous encounters with high school principals. Nevertheless, without the authority of the police department behind me, I need to be careful, or else this might be my last opportunity to pry information out of the school.

Miranda watches from her desk. A waist-height partition separates the secretaries’ desks from the waiting area, so that only her frilly bee-hive hair and drooping eyes peak above it. She patiently stares at me.

I only have to endure Miranda’s silent scrutiny for several minutes before Lydia Steinbeck arrives escorted by Brother Isaac. I ask for some privacy and the brother reluctantly grants us a corner room with a window on the door. Miranda watches from the other side of the glass, but at least no one can hear us.

Lydia takes a seat. I decide to practice caution and sit so that Miranda can’t read my lips. Something about her unwanted attention unnerves me and I don’t want to take any chances.

“Hello again, Lydia.”

“Good morning,” She whispers, averting her gaze.

“I have some more questions for you,” I reply. No tears this time; Lydia is much more composed, yet still reticent.

“Alright,” She replies curtly.

“Did you receive any text messages from Rachel between the dates of September 25th and September 27th?”

She raises her eyebrows and widens her eyes, “Well, yeah. Probably. We always text.”

“Alright,” I say, “Would you remember the content of those conversations?”

“No, I mean, hold on,” She says, pulling open a purse. She takes out her phone and flicks through her text message history. She hands me the phone and I scroll through the conversation. Most of it is written in abbreviations and shorthand I’m far too old to understand, but there are a few nuggets I can digest. One message on September 25th at 4:15 pm sticks out,

LYDIA. OMG. I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU.

“What was she talking about here?” I ask Lydia, showing her the message.

“I don’t know,” Lydia replies, “I asked her. She wouldn’t say.”

“What do you think it was about?”

“Well,” She hesitates, anxiously mulling over her words, “I don’t want to say.”

“Lydia, I’m not here to get anyone in trouble,” I explain, “I just want to find Rachel.”

“Okay,” She says, taking a deep breath, “I mean, like, she was hanging out with Billy all the time. I just kind of figured, you know…”

“What?”

“That, like, they hooked up or whatever.”

“Is that what you told Stevie?”

Her eyes go wide again, “How did you know?”

My notebook fills with notes, endless notes. There is something going on here. Nobody’s accounts are matching up and Rachel’s diary only adds to the confusion. What happened the week of September 25th? Why did Rachel miss soccer practice and the school newspaper meetings? Who did she kiss? Are these things connected? So many questions without answers and at every turn, a dead end.

Before I hand the phone back, I catch a glimpse of the most recent message, from just last week,

I really hope you are alive, Rachel. I wish you would say something. Please say something–

She takes the phone before I can finish. I frown. She must not know the police found Rachel’s cell phone in her locker and confiscated it. She doesn’t know Boyd is sitting on the other end of the line, reading her text messages. I wonder if Boyd cares some little girl is grieving, if it touched him at all. Boyd might be incompetent, but he wasn’t heartless. I might be able to use him after all.

—

I meet Brandon Hart in his classroom after the bell. The walls are papered with equations and pictures of mathematicians. The smudges on the chalkboard reveal the remnants of first period: triangles and square roots. I point to the board, “What class was this?”

“Pre-Calculus,” He replies, appraising his earlier work, “Trigonometry, whatever you want to call it. Same thing.” I regard him, the dashing and handsome teacher, wondering who he really is, “You’re one of them smart types, huh?”

He snorts and chuckles, “I have my moments.”

“Where did you study?”

Mr. Hart looks confused, “Is this what you wanted to talk about? Where I went to school?”

I sit down at one of the desks, “No. I had some other questions,” I open my notebook and face him.

He joins me at another desk, sitting with crossed legs, hands delicately balanced on his knees, “By all means, however I can help.”

“Last we spoke, you told me you did not have a relationship with Rachel outside of class, correct?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Hart confirms.

“Help me understand this then,” I say, placing Rachel’s diary on the desk and opening it to September. He frowns in confusion and replies, “I don’t follow, Mr. States.”

“Elliot, please,” I insist, drawing my finger down the page, “This is Rachel’s diary. She writes on one more than occasion about staying after your class had ended to talk to you, alone. On September 16th and 20th, for instance. Should I read those entries?”

“No need,” Mr. Hart replies, “It’s true. She sometimes stayed after class and we had conversations.”

My lip twitches involuntarily, “Then why did you lie to me?”

He flinches. His eyebrows burrow down into his face, “I didn’t lie. We talked a few times. Not enough that I would know her very well.”

“How often did she stay after class?”

“Here and there. It wasn’t a regular occurrence.”

“Interesting,” I reply, scribbling in my notebook. I stare down at the word*liar* written next to Brandon Hart’s name, then back at the man himself, “Did she ever stay after school had ended?”

He frowns, “No, never. Always in between classes.”

“Hmm,” I say, “What did you think about her relationship with Billy Lumbar?”

Another wave of confusion passes over his expression, “Well, as I recall, I told her she was smart and should be more concerned with her future than with boys.”

“How very kind of you,” I reply, “Is there anything else I should know? Any other details you’ve left out?”

Mr. Hart shakes his head, “I never meant to mislead you, Mr. States. I just didn’t think it was important.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what’s important?”

Exasperation. He yields, “Of course. What do you want to know?”

“Did you know Rachel had a crush on you?”

“I–” He stutters, grasping for words, “I had no idea.”

I load the gun and pull the trigger while his defenses are down, “Did you ever kiss Rachel?”

His face is pure shock. His hands grasp at nothing in the air. He stands up in huff, “This is totally inappropriate. I would never–”

“Of course,” I interrupt, standing up to meet his fury, “I only ask–”

“No,” He interrupts me in turn, “I think you had better leave. I don’t like what you’re implying, Mr. States. Not at all.”

I watch him fume for several seconds with clinical indifference. After painting a more complete portrait of the man in my mind, I pick up my jacket and tuck away my notebook and Rachel’s diary. As I leave, I turn to him once more and ask one final question, just for the hell of it, throwing caution out the window, “Do you know where Rachel Walters is?”

“What do you think? Of course I don’t,” He growls, “I’m a high school science teacher.”

“As you say, Mr. Hart,” I reply, half-bowing. I duck out of the classroom quickly and quietly. As I flee down the empty hallways, I hope I will be able to sneak out of school before Mr. Hart tattles on me to the principal.

I almost get away before Brother Isaac catches me in the parking lot. I have the opportunity to hop in my car and drive away, but I decide I owe the Brother the small pleasure of yelling at me. When I leave, I wonder what the world record for number of expulsions from school is. Whatever it is, I’m definitely in the running.

No matter, I think. I got what I came for, staring down at Brandon Hart’s name scrawled on the last page of my notebook.

—

I should have come here sooner, but I wanted to let the past stay in the past for as long as I could; Now there’s no excuse. With the school no longer an option, I need all of the information I can get and if that means I have to reopen old wounds to get it, then so be it.

The New Harford Police Department stands on the edges of downtown, crowded in a congregation of public service buildings, inserted between the New Harford Fire Department and Chamber of Commerce. City Hall looms behind them all on the north end, its domed roof crested by a towering flagpole. A parklet littered with historic monuments separates City Hall from the rest of the buildings; I stroll over its low-cut grass towards the police department, past statues of local heroes from colonial times riding bronze horses into unseen battles. The sidewalks are filled with men in business suits and women in slacks, rushing between meetings while shouting into cell phones and earpieces. I glide through their midst, invisible as ghost.

I circle a fenced off parking lot filled with squad cars, spying a few cops milling around their vehicles with steaming cups of coffee and cigarettes trailing silky ribbons of smoke. I look through the lot, searching the numbers on the cars for my old unit, but to no avail; all of the squad cars are newer models, different from the ones we had when I was here, christened with unfamiliar call-signs.

The entrance opens into a lobby. A metal detector sealed between two locked doors guards the inner hallways from unwanted pedestrians. A glass window reveals the cozy office I used to call home when I first started, and they assigned me to overnight desk duty. I pass two elevators doors on my right, spying the magnetic card locks that prevent the buttons from operating.

A fresh face greets me on the other side of the plate glass, a young recruit still green from the academy. He pops out his earphones and perks up as I approach, eager for a break from his mind-numbing routine.

“How can I help you, sir?” He asks with bright eyes. His badge tells me his name is Anderson.

I say, “I wanted to pull a police report.”

“Certainly,” Anderson replies, “There is a $10 fee.”

I pull a bill from my wallet and slide it underneath the opening in the glass, “I wanted to see the report from the Rachel Walters’ disappearance a few weeks back.”

“Not a problem,” He cheerfully responds, plucking the offered bill from the tray and sliding it into a cash drawer hidden underneath the desk. As he scribbles me a receipt, he adds, “I just need to get your information first. Can I get your driver’s license?”

A nervous smile twitches on my lips. A brief impulse threatens to drive me from the station and into my car, back to Baltimore, away from everything. Another triggered instinct whispers in my ear to hand him one of the fake IDs I have tucked away in my wallet, for just such occasions. I am a basket-case of conflicting forces, a muddled mess. After hesitating awkwardly, I give him my real driver’s license, wondering what sort of flags I will set off in the department’s databases.

Anderson disappears back into the offices, leaving me to idle in furious anxiety. The long moments of withering tension prove futile when Anderson returns without issue minutes later. He slides a manila envelope and my license back through the opening and explains with a smile, “Keep in mind, personal information has been redacted in the interests of privacy.”

I force myself to smile in turn as I grab the envelope, “Thank you very much. Do you have a public restroom?” Without waiting for an answer, I flee down an adjacent hallway and push into the men’s restroom. I flip the locks to a stall and sit down on the toilet, emptying the contents of the envelope onto my lap. The single sheet of paper that slips from inside is still warm from the printer. I pull it out and examine it,

Incident Report #3397806

Date: 9/30/19

Time: 10:05 pm

Incident Type: Missing Person

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Persons of Interest:

Last Name: First Name: Sex: Address: Phone:

Walters Lillith F redacted reda cted redacted

Walters Rachel F redacted redacted redacted

Summary of Events:

At 5:17 pm, I was radioed by central dispatch informing me of a

9-11 call from the residence of redacted redacted. The occupant,

Lilly Walters, had reported her teenage daughter, Rachel Walters,

missing. I arrived at redacted redacted at approximately 5:30 pm

and proceeded to interview Mrs. Walters. I learned her daughter

had gone missing during school that day. Mrs. Walters informed me

Rachel is enrolled at Calvert Catholic High School.

Mrs. Walters said Rachel’s phone goes to voice mail. A search of

her daughter’s room yielded no relevant evidence. A more thorough

investigation is required.

Actions Taken:

Case will be filed under Statute 10.254.A and an investigation

opened per the mandate. As the reporting officer, I will take the

lead on the investigation. Based on my knowledge, training

and skill, I determine the best course of action is to interview persons

of interest at the aforementioned high school.

Worthless. Nothing new here. My hands are already shaking; my body knows what needs to be done before I’m even aware the thought has entered my head. I know there’s more information here, hidden behind magnetic card locks and passwords. In my wallet, I find my old swipe card. I turn it over in my palms, wondering if it still works. The gears of government grind slowly, after all.

I must be out of my mind, I think. Deranged.

I memorize the case number before tossing the crumbled police report into the trash. I carefully sneak back into the lobby. Creeping around the corner, I lean out and check if Anderson is paying attention. The newbie mindlessly flips through screens on his cellphone. I search for any other prying eyes but find none. Crouching, I crawl close to the front desk and slip underneath the glass window to stand back up on the other side out of view. With a hurried motion, I pass my card in front of the button panel and hear a satisfying beep as the light above the elevators turns green. A smile creeps on my lips involuntarily. I duck into the elevator and press myself against the wall, out of Anderson’s line of sight. I hurriedly mash the button marked B. After an eternity, the doors finally close. A momentary lull allows me to collect myself and smooth my shirt before the elevator settles and the doors open again. I take a deep breath and step into the New Harford Police Department basement.

A yellow line on the floor leads me down a concrete hallway to the Appropriations and Evidence Department. Next to the office window, I grab a form from a plastic container pinned to the wall. After filling it out with a bogus case number and details, I ring the bell on the counter and wait, nervous energy radiating out in the tapping of my feet.

Griswaldo shambles into view, even more decrepit than I remember. He was ancient when I started but now, he might as well be a mummy. Decades he’s spent alone in this basement cataloging and organizing containers of evidence with diligent efficiency, working unseen as generations of officers passed through this building, myself included. He earned his pension decades ago, but for some reason he never retired. Thankfully, he doesn’t recognize me. He wordlessly takes the form, eyes the case number and disappears back into the evidence locker-room, without ever acknowledging my existence.

Once he’s gone, I speed into motion. My swipe card opens the door to the Appropriations Office, and I slip inside. I hurry down a hallway with numbered doors until I find Room B-23. The door swings open into a server room buzzing with electricity.

I find a computer and shake the mouse, coaxing it to life. An operating system from the late nineties meanders through its instruction set at a snail’s pace. Lines scroll over the screen as the computer finally boots into the desktop and asks me for my username and password. I am giddy as a schoolgirl as I type my old combination into the form and the computer acquiesces without issue. No one thought to delete me from the system. Christ, I think, this place is a mess.

I click the case search application and wait another lifetime for the window to load. When it finally does, I type 3397806 into the search bar. My mouse clicker becomes a spinning hourglass as the computer collects the results into a report. When it’s done, I download the result into one of the local folders. Nothing has changed since I left; the format and file structure are the exact same. I compress everything into a zip file and email it to myself. Before leaving, I delete the downloads and log out. I pause briefly, gazing around at the computer towers, wondering if my session has been logged in a file somewhere in this room. Too late to worry about that now.

By the time I slip back into the hallway, Griswaldo is returning from the evidence locker, confounded. I hurry past the window and hear him call out after me, but I am already around the corner, rushing towards the stairs in the back of the building.

The swipe card opens the door to the back stairwell. Caged bulbs cast faint light against pale green walls. I hear voices from the top, all the way up on the third floor.

“–tearing into him right now. McMullen is ruthless.”

I pause at ground level, my hand on the exit. The door leads into the back lot, back outside where I’ll be able to disappear into the city but hearing the shoptalk about McMullen is too great of an opportunity to pass up.

“Any idea why?”

“Dunno,” The voices grow closer as they descend down the flight of stairs, towards me, “Sarge got called in as soon as he came in today. McMullen’s been unleashing hell ever since.”

The second voice grunts, “He wasn’t half as bad before. Getting elected was the worst thing that ever happened to him. He’s had a stick up his–”

The voices are right above me now, forcing me to abandon their conversation. I push through the exit and emerge into the back lot. As I pass down the cement walkway, I smile and wave at the three officers I saw milling about earlier. One of them nods at me. I push my hands into my pockets and saunter towards the corner of the lot, where the fence opens up onto Mechanic Street. I want to laugh when my card opens the gate and I walk away with no one the wiser.

That was way too easy, I think.

—

The librarian has so many piercings she jingles whenever she moves. Today her hair is hot pink, though tomorrow I suspect that will change. Her tongue stud taps against her teeth as she says, “That will be $2.35.”

I empty my jacket pockets onto the counter and sort through a crushed pack of cigarettes, a wad of receipts and a ring of keys before I gather the necessary change. The librarian watches me with disdain, rapidly clicking her long, purple nails against the counter.

I slide a pile of coins towards her and she hands me a stack of papers. I disappear into the bookshelves and find a wooden desk secluded in the Fantasy section. A hand-drawn poster of a pointy-capped wizard watches me as I sort through the stack containing the hard-copies of all the files I stole from the police department servers. I find the main report again, but also all of the supporting documents. The first one reads,

Addendum Form 56A #678491

Date: 10/3/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary:

Rachel Walter’s cell phone was found in her locker at Calvert Catholic High School. Text message records show conversations between the subject and Lydia Steinbeck, Cynthia Roswell, Stevie Rejnik, Billy Lumbar and an unnamed contact. I have submitted a motion to Judge Finan of the Second Allegany County District Court to run a trace on the number of the unnamed contact. Attached is the contents of the submitted motion.

An unnamed contact? I lick my lips, pondering. Who is this person? Do I know them? Could this person be related to the mysterious kiss? Could this person be the shape on the hospital security video? What were they talking about, Rachel and this unknown? So many questions; I can only hope their answers are somewhere in this stack. I keep combing through the trove of documents, hoping for some further clue,

Addendum Form 56A #678505

Date: 10/5/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806, #A-678491

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary

Today at 3:15pm, Mrs. Lilly Walters arrived in the main lobby of the New Harford Police Department. She requested to meet with me. When the officer on duty informed her I was not in the office; she became enraged and berated him for several minutes. Afterwards, she filed a formal complaint. Attached are the contents of the formal complaint.

I flip to the next paper and read through the supplement scanned on it. Lilly’s cursive is remarkably similar to Rachel’s,

The efforts of the New Harford Police Department in locating my daughter have been utterly atrocious. No one returns my calls, no one can tell me what’s going. I have to come and file reports to get any sort of update from anyone. I pay taxes like everyone else and I expect my emergency to be taken seriously–

A sad smile crosses my face. I wish Lilly had come to me sooner. There’s so much I could have done, if I had just been here sooner. Rachel’s cell phone, the security video, everything would be easier to parse if it weren’t already spoiling with old age, redacted or otherwise impenetrable through the fog of three weeks. I sigh and continue. The next form reads,

Addendum Form 56A #678563

Date: 10/9/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806, #A-678491, #A-678505,

#E-1043920

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary

Per #678491, trace on unnamed contact in Rachel Walter’s phone was approved. Results reveal a track phone purchased at Mountaineer Mart located on 12401 Willowbrook Rd at 4:23 pm, August 15th of this year. A GPS signal was used to recover the phone from a dumpster behind Burger King on Pagoda Ave in New Harford. The phone’s SIM card was destroyed and ruled un-recoverable by the tech team. Attached is the summary of the tech team’s report.

Ominous, I think. No one innocent destroys a cell phone and throws it in a dumpster. Tiny pinpricks course down my skin in waves. There is no doubt in my mind this person is at least linked to Rachel’s kidnapper, if not the kidnapper themselves. Did you come to the same conclusion, Boyd? I need to know what they talked about. The tech team’s report is on the next page,

Examination of the phone contained in evidence container 1043920 revealed a SIM card damaged beyond repair.

The body of the card was lacerated and pierced in several places. A caustic agent appears to have been used to dissolve the circuitry inside of the card. Despite the state of the SIM card, the phone contained an internal DRAM storage unit connected directly to the processing unit on the phone’s motherboard which was able to be accessed.

The tech team was able to dump the DRAM’s last state onto a department hard-drive and load it up into an emulated device on the department’s servers. From this, the team has been able to assemble a map constructed from the GPS history of the phone. This map displays the location of the phone in the 24 hours prior to being destroyed.

No other relevant information can be taken from the phone using department equipment. Recommend submission of container #1043920 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Quantico Office down state for further analysis.

Worse and worse. Someone is covering their tracks, someone meticulous. Someone with a plan. The method, the precision, it’s too calculated for someone caught up in the heat of the moment, being driven by passion and circumstance. Someone was planning to take Rachel Walters and once they did, they hid their trail with mechanical certainty.

Beneath the body of the report, fat letters cased in a rectangle read REJECTED. A handwritten note is scrawled below the stamp, explaining further,

Due to budget concerns, present analysis is deemed sufficient for purposes of the current investigation.

- Joseph McMullen, New Harford Police Commissioner*

There’s the McMullen I know. Pinching pennies and cutting expenses, no matter the real cost. My jaw grinds sideways. I never should have left, I think. I never should have let McMullen get his hooks in the department like this.

The map scanned onto the next page shows a thick looping line crisscrossing the city. The trajectory winds through the grid of streets, tracing out a path down Route 40 onto Galveston Boulevard and then across the river and onto Mechanic Street, where it switches onto Fayette, Braddock and then meets a dead-end on Augustine Street.

Where Calvert Catholic High School sits.

This is the person, the kidnapper. I know it is. This is the person who took Rachel Walters. Whoever had this cellphone is the person I need to find.

Breathless, I pull the next form from the stack,

Addendum Form 56A #678633

Date: 10/14/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806, #A-678491, #A-678505, #A- 678563, #E-17689

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary

Davis Fairbanks, father of Rachel Walters, was located in Jackson County, Florida. The Jackson County Police Department were informed and they dispatched a deputy to investigate. Fairbanks was found in a state of inebriation and did not immediately acknowledge his relation to Rachel Walters. After subsequent questioning, Fairbanks admitted being the biological father of Rachel Walters but said he has never met her. Interviews with Lilly Walters corroborate this. Fairbanks is not considered a likely suspect or person of interest, barring any contrary developments.

This would be the father Lilly mentioned, or what’s left of him. How different things could have been, if Rachel had had a father. If someone had been here to protect her, someone who understood the way things are, someone who could see this coming, she could still be here right now.

If I had never left, if I had been here when that call came in instead of Boyd, that’s all it would have taken. To change the course of history. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m too late.

I take the next form in hand and continue reading,

Addendum Form 56A #678701

Date: 10/18/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806, #A-678491, #A-678505, #A- 678563, #A-678633

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary

Despite diligent investigation no information regarding the whereabouts of Rachel Walters has been found. Per approving officer’s recommendation, case will be filed on the stet docket pending new developments.

They shut the investigation down three days before I got here. Eighteen days they spent looking into her disappearance, more than I would have thought. I’ll give Boyd credit there; Most crimes are solved within a few days of the initial report or not at all. McMullen couldn’t have been happy signing the expense reports on a long, dawdling investigation like this one.

I find one more addendum attached to the main report,

Addendum Form 56A #678701

Date: 10/23/19

Reference Codes: #I-3397806, #A-678491, #A-678505, #A- 678563, #A-678633, #A-678701

Reporting Officer:

Name: Peirce Boyd

ID: 3J9570

Approving Officer:

Name: Joseph McMullen

ID: 56M0K6

Summary

At 4:30 pm I received a call from Sacred Heart hospital informing me they had discovered a security video that would be of interest to the referenced case. The caller indicated the video was found by former officer Elliot States. The reporting officer reviewed the contents of this video and found it to contain images of two people appearing to flee through the woods on the date and time of Rachel Walter’s disappearance. Recommend immediate re-opening of primary investigation.

They always told us to be clinical in our reports, so it’s hard to gauge Boyd’s reaction to finding me tangled up in all of us. I have a feeling I’ll get the chance to ask him myself eventually. We’ve been circling each other for a while; it’s only a matter of time before we stumble across each another. Something tells me it won’t be a joyous reunion.

I close my eyes and hear a distant gunshot echo in my memory.

The last page of the report contains a list of everyone who has accessed the initial incident report since the investigation was opened. I search the lines and find a few unfamiliar entries,

Record of Activity*

Date Last Name First Name*

10/1/19 Walters Lillith*

10/2/19 Walters Lillith*

10/3/19 Walters Lillith*

10/4/19 Martin Lynn*

10/4/19 Walters Lillith*

10/7/19 Walters Lillith*

10/9/19 Kolinsky Emile*

10/13/19 Kolinsky Emile*

10/24/19 States Elliot*

I add the names Emile Kolinsky and Lynn Martin to the growing list of names in my notebook. So many people, so many threads, all connected to a single missing girl. Every branch leads to two more and the explosion of possible endpoints in this tree is beginning to eclipse my potential to navigate, let alone understand.

Something else worries at my thoughts until I realize what it is: where are the cellphone records? The text message transcripts? I shuffle through the stack of papers again, hoping I missed them. Standard procedure would have been to attach the document to the Addendum that referenced them, but they are gone, nowhere to be found. Either Boyd forget to file them or…what? I gulp, impinging implications dropping like pins. What are you thinking, Elliot? You better be certain before you start down that train of thought.

Tucking the report under my arm, I leave the library intent on unscrambling this mess.

—

I realize I’m being tailed when I’m a mile away from the Diplomat motel.

I stare into my rear-view mirror. My tail idles three cars behind me, slyly concealed by a large SUV. When my car banks around turns, I catch glances of him through his windshield. He is bald and wears large sunglasses that conceal half of his face.

I memorize the license plate while weaving into the other lane and making a sudden right turn without a turn signal. The tail now follows two cars behind. I pull up to the next red light and stop, my thoughts racing. Why am I being followed? How much do they know?

A moment passes and doubt creeps in. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe he’s staying at the same motel. I have to be certain, so when the light turns green, I make four left turns in quick sequence and wind up back at the exact same light, with the exact same car now trailing three behind again.

I am definitely being followed.

What in the world have I stumbled onto here?

I shout at my cell phone to call Lilly.

She picks up. Her voice crackles with static, “Mr. States? Elliot?”

“Ms. Walters, write this down.”

“What is it? Hold on.”

I look back at the tail. I see his side mirror poking out from behind a station wagon.

“Go ahead,” Lilly says.

“Seven, B as in Beaver, T as in Thomas, nine, nine, zero”

“What is this, Elliot?”

“The license plate of the car following me.”

I hear her gasp on the other end of the line, “You’re being followed? By who?”

“I don’t exactly know, Ms. Walters.”

She is breathing heavily. So am I.

“I’m going to lose him and then I’ll be by.”

“I-Yes, of course. See you soon. Be safe, Mr. States. Elliot.”

“Ms. Walters?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Yes, in my closet–”

“Get it.”

I hang up and hit the gas. My car speeds into the intersection. I swerve around the honking traffic with haphazard graze.

I glance back and see the tail still sitting at the red light, unable or unwilling to give further chase. I lose myself in the winding streets of downtown.

A bead of sweat drips down my forehead. My heart is pounding.

—

Lilly answers the door holding a rifle. I can’t help but smile at the absurdity of this tiny woman holding a deadly weapon.

“Oh, Elliot,” She breathes a sigh of relief, setting the rifle down, “Come in, come in.”

We huddle together in the living room. She sits on the edge of her seat as I relate to her the events of several moments ago. She strokes the dog sitting in her lap as she listens. The dog sways between dreams in a fitful sleep.

“So, you were being followed back to your motel?”

“That’s when I noticed, anyway. They might have been following me all day for all I know. But yes, that’s right, Ms. Walters.”

“And you’re sure you were being followed?”

“I was a homicide detective in the New Harford Police Department for over twenty years. I know when I am being followed.”

She rubs her cheeks between her hands, “Where were you going?”

“Back to my motel to drop some things off.”

She looks up at me, “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” I confess, “Let me put it all together in my head first and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime—,” I glance around the living room, “Do you work?”

“At the bank, but I’m on leave until all this is sorted.”

“Good,” I nod and turn my gaze to the rifle standing next to the front door, “Do you know how to use that gun?”

Now it’s her turn to nod, “My father taught me.”

“Even better,” I say. I change the subject, frantically jumping thoughts, “I have something to show you.”

I take out my cell phone and bring up a photograph, “I found this on the security footage from the hospital a few blocks from the school yesterday,” I show her the grainy blur I believe to be Rachel and as-of-yet-unidentified person. She studies the pixelated scene intently. I flip between the screens with a flick of the wrist.

“What am I looking at?”

“Do you see the shapes in the trees?”

She stares closer.

“Is that…Rachel?”

“I believe so.”

Her breathe leaves her body. She swoons. I grasp her by the shoulders and hold her upright until the moment passes.

“Someone took her,” She declares in a hushed voice.

“That’s what I believe.”

“We have to…we have to tell the police,” She says, distracted by the ghost in the photo.

“I already have,” I explain, assembling my best half-truth, “They showed me their case files. They have more information I am not sure you are aware of. Rachel was texting an unknown number before she went missing. They traced the number back to a prepaid cellphone that was destroyed and recovered from a dumpster.”

Lilly braces her forehead with the points of her fingernails as the information sluices through her brain. Her pupils shrink to pinpricks. She shivers, “What-what’s going on? Who was she talking to?”

“I don’t know yet,” I answer, “I’m working on that.”

“The police knew this and didn’t tell me?” Her lips twist into crooked lines.

I grimace and nod. Even a decade removed, I can’t help but tow the company line, “Don’t take it the wrong way, Ms. Walters. It’s an ongoing investigation. They can’t release certain information, even to you. I had to use a little…finesse to get the records myself.”

Her anger fades into twitching fear. She breathes and stares at me. A smile flickers briefly over her face and then disappears. She reaches over and places her hand on mine, “I’m glad you’re here.”

I swallow and stand up. Lilly stands up after me, releasing my hand. The dog jumps from her lap, rudely awakened. He circles her feet, sniffing the ground. Lilly says, “Are you leaving?”

“For now. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see an old friend,” I reply.

“Can you stay a little while longer?” She whispers, shivering, “I-I’m afraid.”

“Keep the gun with arm’s reach at all times,” I explain, placing my hand on her shoulder again. We lock eyes. I see the fear there. The void. An old friend of mine, “I have to go, Lilly. I’m going to find Rachel.” She nods.

“Let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary. I need your help just as much as you need mine. Look for anything unusual or out of place at all. Strange cars parked out front. People walking on the street who don’t normally walk on this street. Phone calls with dead air when you pick up. Anything at all like that. Do you understand?, Lilly”

—

The paranoia didn’t take very long to rear its ugly head. Four days on the case and I’m already a diagnosable schizophrenic. I drive around the same block for an hour before I’m satisfied I’m not being followed. And then I drive around for another ten minutes, just to quiet the voices in the back of my skull.

Dakota doesn’t believe it’s me at first. I meet him at the old diner on the corner of Everly and Pagoda. He still looks a boy, though he’s got to be pushing forty by now. He orders the same thing he used to order when we were on the graveyard beat together: Eggs over easy and two strips of bacon. His coffee is more milk than caffeine. Strange, I think, how nothing ever changes while things are changing. The same patterns repeat until we die. Here is a man and a boy both at once, two opposing poles with only time to separate them.

It doesn’t take me long to realize the boy is still head-over-heels in love with me, while the man has tried his best to forget in my absence. I feel dirty using it to my advantage, but with visions of Rachel being dragged from a cold, dead river, I press my luck. I slide my hand across the cool tabletop and leave it idling inches from his. I see the tension in his muscles, I see the boy who would have left his wife if I had only said a single word, made a single move.

“I need a favor,” I say.

“Anything for you, Elliot,” He replies without thinking.

I retrieve a folded piece of paper from my jacket pocket, “Can you run these plates for me?”

“Of course,” He gushes, “But—Elliot, what is this about?”

“Rachel Walters.”

I am disgusted with myself when he takes my hands in his. His eyes shining with compassion, he says, “I understand. It’ll take a few days. I’ll run them under a case I’ve got down in the Burroughs.”

The waitress returning with our food is a welcome respite. I bury myself in a plate of hash-browns.

—

I make it back to the library an hour before closing. The same librarian from earlier clicks her tongue ring at me, “You again?”

“I felt so welcome here the first time, I thought I’d drop by again,” I reply with dripping sarcasm, “Can I see the county maps?”

I follow her down a row of shelves labeled Public Records. She pulls down a tome the size of her torso and lugs it back to the table area. The book thuds heavily onto the wood. She cracks it open and pages through a collection of maps until finally arriving at the desired spot: Calvert Catholic and all the adjacent plots.

I thank her and turn to study the map, not knowing if there’s even anything to be gleaned from it. Putting a theory together was like groping blindly in the dark; you fling yours arm in all directions and look for any handhold that can guide you towards the light.

Calvert Catholic sits at the end of Augustine Street, its back against a cliff side. The street has no outlet. The next plot over belongs to the county hospital. These facts I already know. I search the net of lines cast over the map representing county and state roads. The dirt road behind the hospital is not on it, nor the gravel trail leading around the school.

The rest of the plots on Augustine are residential. I consider going to the courthouse and pulling the owners, although I don’t know what good it will do me. I learned a long time ago, though, an entire case can be built on a single fact pulled from an otherwise inconsequential ledger. I make a note in my notebook of all the house numbers on Augustine and resolve to make a court appearance tomorrow morning, if nothing else comes up.

On a whim, I ask the librarian to show me the Hemingway. I find a tattered copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls. I check the list of names on the card in the back sleeve. No familiar entries. I tuck the copy under my arm and go over to the row of computers.

My fingers idle over the keyboard as I wonder what combination of words will summon the information I require. After a moment’s indecision, I type Rachel Walters into the search bar and the computer spits out a list of articles. I am aware of the man three computers down. I watch his eyes carefully from the corner of my own, making sure they stay on his own screen. The paranoia is with me now at every moment.

The articles don’t tell me anything I don’t already know. It’s the same story over and over again: a missing girl no one can find, myself included. I absently flip through my notebook examining my scribbles from the previous four days. I have a date and time. I have a video with two grainy shapes. I have a mysterious kiss. I have a lying teacher.

And I have a tail. Why would I have a tail?

I’m missing something. What else is there?

I flip to the last page and see my recent addition to the list of suspects: Brandon Hart. Son of Elroy Hart, United States Senator.

I feed a string of jumbled thoughts into the search bar: Elroy Hart Rachel Walters New Harford. One of the results immediately catches my eye, an article from an online periodical, Maryland Current Affairs & Policies.

The title of the article reads Empire Lost: An Examination of the Hart Family Legacy and Its Effect on Maryland History by Lynn Martin. Like a curtain being pulled back, I realize that’s the name from the police report list. There are no coincidences, I remind myself. I click onto the site and a wall of text loads. The article must be at least twenty pages worth of densely packed information. I scan through the contents, searching for keywords. The paragraphs are littered with dry references to history and past Harts. I sigh. Time to dig in, I think. So, I start reading,

Empire Lost: An Examination of the Hart Legacy and Its Effect on Maryland History by Lynn Martin

Driving west down Interstate 68 towards New Harford, you can’t help but notice all of the cows. Mile after endless mile is filled with herds of grazing bovines. If you are a passenger on a long road trip, you might even be tempted to try and count them all to pass the time. Only the most dedicated will succeed in their task. There is one person who knows for sure how many cows live along I-68, and that is the man who owns them all: Abner Hart.

“One thousand, five hundred and eighty-two,” He proudly declares as he walks down the lane towards the Hart Bottling Company plant outside of New Harford. That many cows live and graze on Hart farms all throughout Allegany and Garrett county along the I-68 corridor; At least a quarter of them call New Harford home. A few of the animals stop grazing and raise their heads as humans walk by.

The Hart Bottling plant is an immense factory with looming smokestacks that still plume with industry, one of the few remaining sources of such activity in New Harford. There are four more just like it, though smaller in scale, scattered throughout the two neighboring counties. In addition to the sprawling industrial farming complex that forms the backbone of Western Maryland’s agriculture, the Hart empire also extends into insurance, though that side of the business is harder to tally up on road trips; In 2000, HBC’s Risk Management Department was spun off into a separate business unit, christened Allegany Farmer Insurance. Since then, AFI has underwritten over a million policies in Maryland alone, from hedging crop yields on soybeans to fixing the sale price of milk months in advance. The CEO of AFI is Christopher Hart, Abner’s younger brother.

Abner points out an aluminum building next to the main plant that looks like an airplane hangar. A pair of workers slide open the door along its tracks. Inside, a huge metal carousel sits in the center of a sterile white room with high ceilings. The turntable is called a Rotary Parlor, one of the standard designs for modern industrial milking operations. The cows walk up a ramp and are strapped into one of the milking stations. Then the carousel is spun, and another cow loaded into the next spoke and so on until the device is filled. The machine holds 90 cows in total. A milk technician dressed in a green plastic jumpsuit and face mask stands on a platform operating a series of levers and buttons, like a carnival hand managing a tilt-a-whirl. As the cows rotate slowly, suction cups attached to their udders pump milk through pipes into a central reservoir.

The average cow produces 8 gallons of milk a day. Doing the math, the total amount of milk produced by Hart farms is an astonishing 4.5 million gallons per year. While the Hart Bottling Company is a privately held business and their finances are not public information, at the current market price of $3 per gallon, this would give the company an annual revenue of over $14 million dollars due to the sale of milk alone. However, cows are not the only source of income for the Hart Bottling Company; It is also the annual recipient of $50 million dollars from the federal government, according to the Government Accountability Office, a congressional entity responsible for auditing federal funds.

In 2005, the United States Congress passed the Farm and Agriculture Revitalization Act, championed by none other than Maryland Senator Elroy Hart, Abner’s father. The bill established the annual allocation of $20 billion dollars for farm subsidies in the federal budget; The Hart Bottling Company is one such beneficiary. Senator Hart has repeatedly denied any conflict of interest, citing his stepping down as chief executive officer of the Hart Bottling Company in 1995. His single share in the company was passed to Abner Hart a month before Elroy Hart launched his campaign for office. The Senator has since maintained a calculated distance from any of the family business; his tax returns are publicly available on his website, if any doubt this claim.

This, however, has not been enough to satisfy staunch critics, like Addison Feinstein, a policy analyst from the Maryland Public Interest Research Group, who points out, “The Hart family is intimately linked with the politics and economy of Maryland,” She writes in an email, “It’s not just a simple case of nepotism. To really understand what’s going on, you have to go back and find out where the Harts came from in the first place. Then you’ll realize money is trivial to them and what they’re really after is something else entirely.”

Standing in front of the Rotary Parlor, Abner explains with gritted teeth, “I refuse to acknowledge Ms. Feinstein’s comments about my family. My grandfather started this business back in 1937 and it’s been in the family ever since. We’re farmers, plain and simple. My father, more than anyone else in DC, understands what farmers need. There’s no backroom deals or shady negotiations or ulterior motives. It’s about doing what’s right for our country and this area, in particular.”

He may be right, but once you discover the breadth of the Hart presence in Maryland, it’s hard not to notice it everywhere: Hart’s Farm milk can be bought at any grocery or convenience store in the tri-state area and most supermarkets on the East Coast will carry Hart’s line of cheese. AFI has office outposts in most Maryland cities and has begun to expand into Pennsylvania. HBC has headquarters in New Harford and Annapolis. In total, Hart companies employ over 15,000 people statewide. Not to mention the long list of public edifices bearing the Hart name, such as Hart Library at the University of Maryland, Hart State College in Prince George’s County, Hart Memorial Cemetery in Oakland or even a bench dedicated to a bygone Hart in downtown New Harford. The Hart name is ingrained into the fabric of Maryland.

In this special report, we will be examining in depth the Hart legacy, its effect on the history of the state and how this family of farmers became so entwined with Maryland.

I sit back in my chair and run my hands over my head. There’s still pages upon pages of material to read. All at once, I am drowning in new information. Brandon has two brothers that I didn’t know about: Abner and Christopher. And they’re wealthy, old-money wealthy. More importantly, they’re connected, woven into the fabric of the community. They’re elites, the ruling class. How did Brandon wind up as a high school science teacher, when his brothers are corporate executives and his father is a Senator?

I tap the end of a pen against my overflowing notebook page. I don’t understand what any of this has to do with the disappearance of a teenage girl, but there’s something out of place here, something not quite right. I send the article to the printer, intent on reading through it in its entirety later on. I have a hunch there is more to be gleaned from it; I might even consider tracking this Lynn Martin down. Why was she pulling Rachel’s police report? Questions at every turn.

Just then, a loudspeaker blares to life and announces the library is closing in fifteen minutes. I quickly navigate to Elroy Hart’s personal website, searching for anything else of interest. The menu on the side contains a list of upcoming events. Clicking through it, I see the Hart Charity Auction is being held tomorrow evening at the Walcott Convention Center in New Harford. Tickets are obscenely expensive. I buy a pair.

I leave the library with the Hemingway book, a stack of papers and several new leads in tow.

—

The conversation with the security guard from the hospital sticks with me, compounded by thugs at the dog track. The implications wiggle through my unconscious thoughts until a sudden impulse seizes me from seemingly nowhere. I find myself on the Strip, awash in flashing neon light. Street walkers strut their wares and call out to passing cars, swaying on paper thin heels. Strip clubs and sex shops vanish in the rear-view mirror. At the intersection of the Strip and Galveston Boulevard, a pair of performers break dance on flattened cardboard boxes, their thumping boom-box muffled against my windows. The night is alive with vice and wonder.

Little Italy. I haven’t been here in years. I didn’t realize I missed it until now.

The club I’m looking for has a line extending back several blocks. Women in short skirts hang off the arms of well-dressed men. Everything is glitter and sequins. Tendrils of electric music drift out onto the street as I exit the car and walk up to the line. Flashing words blaze brightly from the banner: The Havana. The prize Big Wally pried from Manny Domingo’s cold, dead hands over a decade ago. The crafty bastard hid it behind a stone wall of shell companies before I could touch him.

I approach the bouncer, skipping to the front. He looks like he eats barrels of protein for breakfast every day. Dead-eyed, I tell him, “I’m here to see Big Wally.”

“And you are?”

“Elliot States.”

The bouncer doesn’t know me by name. I’m offended. I expected to be the resident bogeyman. Has Big Wally moved on in my absence? The bouncer checks his list, but shakes his head, “You’re not on here.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Piss off,” He grunts, pushing his earpiece deep into his skull and looking away.

I take out my police badge from the old days and flash it in front of his face, “Your boss is going to want to talk to me. Tell him the Statesman is here.”

The bouncer appraises the badge with discerning eyes. He looks me up and down, like a piece of meat at the market. With snarling lips, he unhooks the ropes and leads me inside to a waiting area.

“Wait here,” He orders, pointing to a seat next to a bouncer on break reading a magazine.

“Of course,” I agree. The man leaves to go find Big Wally.

I turn to the second bouncer and ask him, “You been here long?”

“Going on six years,” He says without looking up.

“You hear about this Elliot States guy?”

“Nope,” He replies. His eyes scan lines of the article engrossed in the story. I wave my hands above my head. The bouncer doesn’t notice. I shrug my shoulders and duck out into the main club area.

Dark purple panes on the floor illuminate the room with grim light. Shelves of balconies curl around the curve of the room, layered atop one another, each one more exclusive than the layer below it. The top layer is sparsely populated, a few bored looking patrons mingling at the VIP bar. That’s where I’ll find Big Wally.

Music pounds in my head as I dodge dancers on the dance floor. I approach the circular bar on the ground level and get the bartender’s attention. I order a neat vodka and toss it back, before turning around and leaning on the bar. I survey the landscape.

I’ve been here before. Manny still held the Havana then and passed untold thousands of drug money through its ledgers on a weekly basis.

The week after you were born, Jules, I was sitting outside of this building in a van marked up to look like a florist, wearing a pair of headphones, listening to Manny Domingo do lines of coke and lose his mind.

Three bodies dropped that night.

The bouncer at the top of the stairs puts his hand on my chest when I try to enter the VIP section and shoves me back. I smile, “Tell your boss Elliot States is here to see him.”

Finally, some recognition. The bouncer peers at me from over his sunglasses. He unhooks the ropes and leads me to a booth tucked away in the corner where an overgrown lump of flesh sits.

Big Wally shakes his head when he sees me and laughs a resigned laugh, “The Statesman.”

“Big Wally,” The bouncers hands are all over me, patting me down. A humming wand passes over me.

“I’m insulted,” He says, as the bouncer presents him with my wallet and cellphone, “No wire. Not even a weapon.”

“I come in peace.”

“Hmmph,” The sound is guttural. He tosses my wallet aside after counting it’s meager contents, then he pulls the battery out of my cell phone, “I’m going to have to fire that worthless fucking pup of a bouncer downstairs,” His lips twist into an insidious grin, “He was supposed to go back down and club you in head.”

I laugh.

“Have your balls gotten so huge since I last saw you, that you think waltzing here in unannounced is a good idea?”

“I have some questions.”

“Oh, he has questions!” He throws his thick arms above his head. I remember the sheer power of the man; This is a man who commanded an army and by the looks of it, still did. His hysterics continue, his booming voice overpowering the music down below, “Go fuck yourself, Detective States! I spent three years in lock-up because of you!”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I reach across the table, pluck his drink from in front of him and gulp it down in one long swallow. He gapes at me, startled.

Then there is laughter, earth-rattling laughter. I take a seat.

“Only you, States,” He says, flashing two fingers above his head. Moments later, a waiter materializes with two new drinks, “Not a man alive would talk to me the way you do.”

Gambit accepted. Time to play.

“What do you want to ask before I slit your throat, and have you tossed into the garbage?”

“I’m looking for the missing girl from Calvert Catholic.”

The confusion is plain on his face, “The Walters girl?”

I nod.

He becomes deadly serious, “I didn’t have nothing to do with that.”

“I didn’t say you did,” I reply, “I know you, Wally. Not your style.”

“So, what do you want then?”

“Have you heard anything around town? Anything at all about a girl?”

He shakes his head.

“What about human trafficking?”

He snorts, “Who the fuck do you think I am, States?”

“Some prick. Have you heard anything or not?”

He shrugs and replies, “I can’t help you.”

I frown, “What about the Harts? What can you tell me about them?”

His lips become thin and tight, “Hart as in Elroy Hart?”

I nod.

He favors me with a long glance, “Now there’s an interesting question. What are you asking me exactly?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I reply, “But I think they’re involved in her disappearance.”

Big Wally clicks his tongue, “Don’t go biting off more than you can chew.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Harts run this town, States,” Wally replies, “Even I know that. I’m just a small fish in a big pond compared to them.”

“So what?”

“So, I’d be very sad if something happened to you before I got my chance.”

Tired of worrying out unspoken threats, I ask bluntly, “What are you implying?”

Big Wally grins mischievously, “I like you, States. You were a weirdly honest cop, but you picked the wrong city to set up shop. Your colleagues were never so steadfast in their honor. I made plenty of ‘campaign contributions’ to all sorts of judges and police commissioners in my time, and more than a few were Hart men. If you hadn’t put it into the head that self-righteous bitch of a state’s attorney to file a change of venue, I would have walked on every single charge you threw at me. Anyway,” He puts on a mock expression of concern, offering me the flats of his palms, “That’s all my behind me now, of course. I’ve been on the straight and narrow ever since I got out.”

“Of course,” I sardonically agree, “You’re the very image of respectability. You’ve only threatened to kill me twice since I sat down.”

“In another life, States,” Wally says, favoring his glass with long glances, “It might have been different between us,” Big Wally opens his throat and his drink simply vanishes. He regards me, “I was sorry to hear about your daughter, you know. They told me when I got out.”

“Don’t get sentimental,” I shake my head, “What was it you said to me, last time I saw you?”

The memory delights him, “That before I die, I’d choke the life out of you with my own bare hands.”

“Yeah,” I say, remembering, “That was it.”

“Have you come to offer me your neck?”

“Maybe later,” I swirl my drink before taking another swig, “I had a tail today. You wouldn’t know anything about that either, would you?”

“Would you believe me if I told you no?”

I shrug, “Can you help me out at all?”

“I’m a simple man, States. Guns, gambling, money,” He explains, his gargantuan hand gesturing towards invisible instances of each item on the list, ticking them off one by one on his fingers, “These are things I understand,” He turns his eyes to me, “If I knew anything about the girl, I’d tell you.”

I believe him. God help me, I believe him.

“Will there be anything else?”

I sigh. I have a general notion of what is coming, “Wally, however much you hate me, understand this: I need to find this girl.”

“Of course,” He nods, “I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

For a second, I’m foolish enough to believe I’ll be allowed to leave unscathed. I stand to exit.

“Now, don’t be in such a hurry to leave, States. I’d like to introduce you someone. A very close associate of mine,” He waves to someone behind me.

“I wish I had found Lucian earlier, truth be told,” He explains, as a mountain of a man appears at his side, dwarfing even Big Wally’s impressive stature. He is thick muscle and taut skin. He doesn’t say a word and I get the impression he doesn’t talk much at all, “Things would have gone down very differently if I had Lucian at my side back all those years ago.

“We call him Goose. It’s a joke, you see. His nickname is Luce. So, naturally, we call him Goose,” He explains, weighing the names with his palms, “Goose doesn’t have much of a sense of humor though, I’m afraid.”

I gulp.

“Goose, introduce yourself to Detective States.”

Goose wraps his hands around my shoulders like big meaty clamps and lifts me into the air with ease. He throws me across his back like a small child. I am helpless.

The rest of the night is fists and pavement.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25th

I wake up with tubes coming out of me. There is someone in the room with me, but I’m not quite awake enough to tell who. I try to roll over, but Leah yanks on my arm. I tell her I have to get up. It’s time for me to take Julia to school.

“You want I should I make you breakfast and suck your cock before you go?”

My eyes flutter open. I am greeted by sterile white walls. A handcuff chains my right arm to a bed post. A familiar voice taunts me, “You’re a real piece of work, States.”

Boyd is uglier than I remember. His face has gone soft in the years since I last saw him. He’s become more troll-like in his appearance. The hair from the top of head has retreated down his scalp, now growing out of his ears and nose. His muscles have been replaced by rolls of fat.

“You look like shit,” I say.

He laughs, “You’re one to talk.”

I smile and raise my hands, showing him the IV pumping fluid into my arm.

Boyd stands up and brushes off his light blue fitted suit. Either he’s bought that eyesore of a suit a hundred times, or he’s wearing the same one from a decade ago. Judging by its frayed appearance, I’d put my money on the latter.

“You up and disappear. No one knows where the fuck you’ve gone. Not a single word for nine years,” He says, plucking a pair of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He tosses me one, “Then I get call about a John Doe beat to shit admitted to the hospital late last night. And who the fuck do we find in the bed?”

John Doe? Goose must have swiped my wallet. I can’t recall through the haze of fists.

“I can’t believe you called that nancy boy Dakota before me,” He growls.

He sparks up his cigarette and then bends over to light mine. A nurse pokes her head into the room, “You can’t smoke in here.”

“Fuck off,” Boyd sneers at her. She disappears without a word. Boyd closes the door and shuts the curtain.

“If you were anyone else, I’d haul your ass down to county and make you sleep it off behind bars,” He growls at me as he unlocks my cuffs, revealing a red bracelet where the steel chafed my skin raw.

He sighs as he sits back into the chair beside the bed. We smoke our cigarettes in silence.

“You’ve been looking into the Walters girl,” He finally says.

Does it bother you I’m doing your job for you, Boyd? Or does it make you nervous?

“Stop it,” He huffs, “Jesus, you haven’t changed a bit. I know what’s going on when you get that look. You have no cause to suspect me. Christ, you think by the way you’re looking at me, we’re goddamn strangers, like I ain’t spent near three decades eating your shit. So, yeah, go fuck yourself. You sent me the video, didn’t you?”

I breathe a plume of smoke through gritted teeth and regard my old partner with suspicion.

“Stop looking at me,” He says, “You know I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

I cock my head and ask, “With what?”

“The girl going missing.”

“No, of course you didn’t,” I retort, “You were only assigned to her case.”

That stings him. The anger melts from face.

“You ought to think about what you say to people sometimes, States,” Boyd looks like a wounded animal, pathetic and hurt, “I wasn’t ever the best detective, I admit that, but I did the job. I checked the boxes. I turned in the numbers.”

“I’ve been here four days and I already know more than the entire department.”

He sneers at me, “Well, aren’t you just a foot-long swinging dick.”

I inhale the remaining length of the cigarette and smash the butt against the surface of the bedside table. Boyd studies me. I study him back.

“You have her cell phone records,” I say.

“We do.”

“Tell me what’s on them.”

Boyd smirks, “I thought you knew more than the entire department.”

“I need to know what’s on it,” I demand, unfazed.

“Not a chance,” He replies.

“Why?” I ask angrily, “You know I just want to find this girl.”

He stares at me hard for a long minute. Then he relents, “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What was on her phone?”

“Some text messages,” Boyd eyes me suspiciously, “Mostly her friends. Dumb teenage stuff. But one number in particular stuck out.”

I sit up in the bed, “Yes?”

Boyd runs his hands over his cheeks, “The day she went missing, at 11:05 am, she texted ‘i’m ready’ to this number. At 11:50 the number texted back ‘outside’.”

“That’s it?” I ask.

Boyd nods.

“What do you think?”

He shrugs, “Sounds like she ran off.”

I shake my head, “I don’t think so. She didn’t pack anything or take any of her clothes with her. All she took to school that day were her books and phone. If she were planning to run away, she would have left more of a trail. Her bank account hasn’t any withdrawals this entire time. No,” I conjecture, “I think someone took her.”

Boyd exhales a cloud of smoke and says nothing.

“Did you find the phone?” I probe, testing him, “The one she was texting?”

“We did,” He confirms. I breathe an inward sigh of relief; Boyd’s not lying to me, at least not yet, “In a dumpster. Someone did a number on it. Destroyed it real nice. The guys in tech couldn’t pull shit from it.”

I make a wild gamble and expose my hand momentarily, banking on Boyd being too dense to connect the dots. I offer up a suggestion, “You know, they’ve got tech down at Quantico–”

Boyd cuts me off, “Yeah, Pauline had the same idea.”

“Well?”

He grunts, “McMullen wouldn’t approve the expense report.”

My teeth grind in my jaw, “What’s going on, Boyd? This whole investigation is half-assed. No one even thought to check the security footage at the hospital next to the school where she went missing? For Christ’s sake.”

“Yeah, that was an oversight–”

“Did you know I have her diary?”

His brow contorts in surprise, “You found it? Where is it?”

“Somewhere that’s not here.”

“I told you what was on her cellphone,” Boyd replies, “Tell me what’s in her diary.”

“Why?” I say, “I know you’re not working the case anymore.”

He scrunches his face at me, “How do you know that?”

I retort, “It’s true, isn’t it?

He sighs again and looks away. He lights another cigarette with the glowing ember of the one he just smoked and flicks the smoldering butt to the ground. The janitors will love us.

“What do you want from me? I did everything I could. McMullen wanted it shut down after a week and me back in rotation. Clifford and Garcia were catching everything,” He says, “Your little tape caused quite the shit storm with the brass. I thought he was going to blow a gasket.”

“So,” I state, “McMullen is commissioner now.”

Boyd nods from behind a cloud of smoke.

“Whose ticket did he run on?”

“Abner Hart,” Boyd explains, “Hart lost, but McMullen got in.”

That name again. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?

“Hart was running for what?”

“Mayor,” Boyd replies, “But we got the Remender fella instead. Don’t think he’ll beat Hart again next year, though. Whole department knows Abner’s a shoe-in.”

“And what about you, Boyd?” I inquire, “Got any political ambitions I should know about?” Boyd looks at me with disgust, “You know, just because some of us give a shit about our career doesn’t make us the bad guys.”

“The Walters girl is still out there,” I say, “I know she is.”

Boyd treads carefully with his next words, “Maybe you’re right, but what are we supposed to do? She’s vanished, States. Hardly a trace. We can’t push pause on the rest of our cases. Garcia just caught a double down on Venture this morning. Are we supposed to ignore everything for one girl?”

“No, I guess not,” I sneer through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry to say,” Boyd whispers, “But if someone took her, we both know where that girl really is.”

Silence. Boyd frowns.

“Word of advice,” Boyd says as he gets up to leave, “Go home, States.”

My laugh is involuntarily, sinister in its shape, “I am home, Boyd.”

—

Goose did a number on me. My whole body aches. I wipe the steam from the bathroom mirror and stare at my sunken eyes. I’ve become an old man in a matter of days. I run my hands over my face and feel my skin sluggishly retract into place. I struggle with the hospital bracelet for at least ten minutes, before I give up and get dressed. The big man and his silent minion did in fact take my wallet, but at least they me left my cell phone. I call up and cancel my cards. In my car, I find my passport and a paper copy of my private detective certification. They will have to do for now in lieu of my driver’s license. The afternoon turns sour outside of my motel room. Dark clouds threaten to unleash a storm. It’s time to buy a gun, I think.

—

I empty my checking account. The teller at the bank recoils in horror when she sees my profile, like a demon with a malformed, misshapen face. I slide the envelope she gives me into my jacket pocket, and I ask her for a balance on my savings and certified deposits. She says less than five words to me the whole time.

There is no mistake this time. The tail definitely follows me out of the bank parking lot. The same car with the same license plate. I decide to play a different game this time. He’s subtle, letting himself slip out of sight and disappear behind larger cars and around turns for blocks at a time, so I let him think I don’t notice. Let him see where I’m going.

Down the road and three blocks over, I pull into an all but deserted shopping plaza. My tail passes the plaza and pulls into a restaurant parking lot partially obscured through a wall of trees. I don’t look over as I get out, but I feel his gaze in a wave of vertigo, a queer sensation that sweeps over me as I wonder again how it is that I’m caught up in something I don’t understand. Like realizing your house has a secret door leading to a whole wing you never knew existed. I am scratching at the surface of a cancer festering in the city I once knew; Metastasizing growths are swelling in its corners, creeping into sight.

In the gun store, a gruff old man shows me his collection of 38s. I pick out a little German number, tiny enough to stash in my pocket if need be. I show him the paper copy of my detective license and he looks my number up in his system. Afterwards, he rings me up for the gun and a box of ammunition.

The tail watches me return to my car. I make no attempt to hide my stare. I decide to put on a show, placing my shopping bag on the hood of my car and taking out my purchase. Bullets snap into the clip of my new gun while I stare directly into the tinted windshield of my tail.

The clip provocatively slides into place. I chamber a round. The tail hurriedly backs out of the restaurant parking lot and peels into the main avenue, out of sight.

That ought to get their attention, whoever they happen to be.

—

If I didn’t need to know, I wouldn’t want to know. As it stands, I have no other choice. I step out of my car into the autumn afternoon and walk across the parking lot towards the Auto Clinic, an old fire hall converted into a mechanic. Bells ring with my entry.

Ogie spits his coffee when I come walking through the door. Two customers sitting in the waiting area look up from their magazines to watch the spectacle. One of them gasps when they see my face.

“States?” The squat barrel of a man behind the counter asks incredulously, “Is that you?”

“Ogie,” I reply, “Good to see you.”

“Detective!” He shouts, standing up in a huff and rushing over to greet me, “I’ve not seen you in some time!”

I smile through swollen lips, leaning on the counter, “I’ve been away–

“What happened to you? You look awful. Are you alright?”

“I’ll live. How’s business?”

“Good, good,” Ogie replies, drumming his fingers tattooed with grease and dirt nervously next to the cash register. He nods to the customers, “Right before winter in the mountains is always a good time for mechanics. Very busy.”

I chuckle softly and reply with a devilish grin, “I meant the other business.”

Ogie gulps, glancing from the corner of his eyes to the two waiting customers, “What do you mean?” He puts on a nervous smile, “What brings you in today?”

“Maybe we could talk in your office?” I suggest.

He eyes me with apprehension, lowering his voice to a growl, “Should I be worried about something, detective?”

“Come on, Ogie,” I click my tongue in mocking disapproval, “We’re old friends. Let’s talk.”

Ogie reluctantly assents, leading me through a door that warns off all but employees due to insurance reasons. The loud yawing of power tools fills the room. Sparks spray in wide arcs through the air as a masked man wields a blow torch, soldering two sheets of metal together. He stops and looks up as we walk by. Ogie leads me around a car that has been jacked up on a strut six feet above the ground. As we pass, I look up into the skeletal undercarriage rusted brown from salt and grime. A mechanic ratchets loose a tank, releasing thick dollops of viscous oil that drip down like lengths of syrup into an expectant pan.

The office awaits at the top of a short flight of stairs, its windows opening into the garage so that Ogie can watch his employees from the safety of his desk. He offers me a chair.

“What do you need, detective?” He asks, with all the civility he can muster. He doesn’t seem to know I’m not a cop anymore, but I don’t bother to correct him. If he thinks I have more authority than I do, all the better.

“I need you to see if the lojack in my car has been activated,” I reply, “And then I need you to remove it.” Ogie studies me for a hard minute. The timid oaf that led me to the office is replaced by a stoic accountant. After the long moment almost stretches into awkwardness, Ogie finally says, “I hope you don’t think this is a charity.”

I smirk, “There’s the Ogie I know.”

A thousand dollars later, we’re in the parking lot. A length of cigarette burns between my fingers. The wind raises and carries clouds of smoke from my lips. I give him my VIN, make and model. He looks up a number in an old notebook with brittle pages yellowed with age. Then he fiddles with the knobs on an electronic receiver and stretches its long antenna two feet in front of him.

“I haven’t used this thing in years,” Ogie explains, “It might need new batteries–”

A whirring noise chirps from the speaker in his palms. Ogie’s eyes go wide.

“What’s that mean?” I ask.

“Your lojack’s on,” He answers, the growling wind grinding his reply down to a whisper. My fists clench. Suddenly, I’m dizzy. Ogie licks his lips and glances away, “Look, you know I don’t ask questions, but I don’t see you for a decade and you show up beat to hell with a hot car. I don’t even know. Are you still a cop–”

“But,” I stutter, the swirling implications staggering me with their scope, “It’s my car.”

“Well, States,” Ogie replies, anger creeping into his voice, “I don’t know what to tell you. If this is some kind of trick–

“Ogie, come on. I wouldn’t–”

“Either way, I do not need heat like this. You need to leave–”

“I’m being followed, Ogie,” I explain suddenly, “Look, listen to me. I’m looking for a girl–”

“What are you talking about?” Ogie says, shaking his head, “Stop. I don’t need to know. I don’t care. If you’re being followed and you’re lojack’s on, well, it don’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

“The cops,” I state plainly his unsaid conclusion, the words dry in my mouth, “Someone in the department is following me.”

Boyd, did you lie to me?

Ogie grimaces, “Like I said, you need to leave. I don’t want caught up in whatever bullshit this is.”

“Can you take it out?” I grab him by sleeve as he turns to leave, “Get rid of it.”

The rotund man in overall scratches his chin. His sunken eyes flicker through hidden algebra, “I can take it out, but then I give it to you, and you get rid of it as you see fit. I don’t want no part of it beyond that,” He offers, adding, “You get far away from here before you destroy it, too. I don’t want the signal going dead anywhere near this place, you understand?”

I nod, some slight measure of relief stabilizing my swaying, “Thank you, Ogie.”

“Thanks, ain’t got nothing to do with it,” He sneers, “The price just went up considerably.”

—

At the gun range, a man is strapping a glossy portrait of a brunette woman to the target line with clothes pins. I walk down the lane next to him and hang the lojack from the wire, a dark metal box no larger than a CD case dangling from a thick black cord. We exchange curious looks.

“My ex-wife,” He explains, “You?”

I shrug, “It’s complicated.

The man snorts “Isn’t it always?”

I sit down in the booth next to the man. He produces a rifle from a vinyl case sitting at his feet. With practiced care, he pulls back the bolt and oils down the barrel with a greasy rag. From a box of ammunition, he plucks a row of bullets and sets them upright in front of him, all while talking at me, “We were married twelve years, can you believe it? Two kids and a dog, the whole deal. And then I found out last month, she’s been fucking the neighbor for years.”

He shakes his head and slides a bullet into the gun barrel with thick, stubby fingers, “

“The signs were there the entire time,” He explains, jerking the gun bolt into position, “I just didn’t want to see them. Last night phone calls, day trips out of town. She never had an explanation for any of it that made any sense.”

I clap on a pair of earmuffs and everything goes silent. The man takes aim down the rifle’s iron sights. I read his muttering lips, “Lying whore.”

The muzzle flashes and the gun jumps in his grip. Down range, a hole appears above his ex-wife’s shoulder.

As I peel the covers off my ears, his voice floods back in half-way through a sentence, “–still existed, she’d probably be fucking the milkman too.”

Somewhere, in the recesses of the brain, I feel the rumblings of an awakened thought, poking me in the shoulder, asking me to examine it. I try to give it shape, but it flees before my attention.

“You want to give her a shot?” The man says, indicating for me to take his rifle.

“Sure, why not?”

He pushes the rifle into my hands. He smiles, “Careful, she’s pulling a hair to the right today.”

I prop the rifle against my shoulder and lay my head against the stock. The sights align on top of the black box swaying on the wire down range, but my mind is elsewhere, stuck on something the man said.

The signs were there the entire time.

I pull the trigger and the rifle punches me in my shoulder. A loud twang echoes against the surrounding hills, audible even through the dense silence of the earmuffs. I pull the earmuffs down and examine my shot. The metal box lays smoking on the ground with a single hole sheered through its body.

“Nicely done,” The man comments as he takes back his rifle, “What’s your deal, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, is everything alright? You don’t look so hot.”

I touch my cheek and feel a dull pain throb across my face. Oh right, I think. I look like a punching bag. I deflect, “Let me ask you something. What do you know about the Hart family?”

The man raises one of his bushy eyebrows, “Do I know you?”

I shake my head and offer my hand, “I don’t think so. Name’s Elliot States.”

He licks his lips and considers. After a moment, he grasps my hand in my bear-paw, “Dan Stevens. I’m the foreman down at the Bottling plant.”

Genuine surprise crosses my expression, “The Hart Bottling plant?”

“The very same,” He replies, “What are you asking about the Harts for?”

“Oh,” I improvise, “My—daughter–” Jesus Christ, Elliot, “–goes to school up at Calvert Catholic. One of the faculty there, a science teacher who just started, is a Hart, Brandon Hart. I think–” Here goes nothing, I think, glancing down at the portrait of the man’s ex-wife pierced with a gun shot, “–he might be having an affair with my wife.”

“Brandon?” The man says, leaning close, suddenly interested, “No shit?”

“Why?” I ask, “You know him?”

“Well no, not directly,” He replies, “But you know, I hear things.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not one to gossip,” But here comes the gossip, “But everyone says he’s gay.”

That’s new information, “He is? Are you sure?”

“That’s just what everyone says. I see his step-brother all the time—”

“His step-brother?”

“Abner,” The man explains.

There is more to this story than I realized, “I thought that was his brother?”

“No,” The man shakes his head, “Abner was Elroy’s first son. That’s the Senator, you know?”

I nod.

“But Brandon, he’s from the Senator’s second marriage.”

I clamp my temples between pointed fingers and lean forward, “Wait, you’ll have to back up. I’m afraid I don’t much about their family–”

The man’s voice dips down into the sultry tone of a gossiping crone, “The Senator’s on his third wife, can you believe it? His first wife, that’s where Abner and Chris come from. She died back in the eighties–”

“How long have you worked there?”

“Well, when the Kelley-Springfield closed down in ‘88, I was out of work for a few years. I started at the Bottling plant, I think, back in ‘92, back before he got elected and he still ran the joint. It was definitely before ‘93; He got remarried in ‘93 and it was all anyone could talk about it. She was some big wig banker, something Diamond. Dimon. Daemon. Something like that. Brandon was born in ‘94. “

“So,” I venture, “What happened to the second wife?”

A faint grin appears on the man’s lips, “They divorced a year later.”

“Do you know why?”

“Only the stories,” He almost whispers, reveling in his scandalous tittle, “I heard the marriage was some sort of hostile takeover. She was marrying into the family so she could take control of the company when Elroy passed. Guy was in 60s back then. Guess she didn’t expect him to hold on much longer,” He chuckles, “Joke’s on her though. He got elected in ‘96 and he’s still in office today.”

“Have you ever met the Senator?”

“Once. Before he was a Senator,” The man replies, rubbing his chin, “At a banquet for Abner’s tenth anniversary at the company. We shook hands.”

“What’s he like?”

He thinks on his response for a moment, “He’s a force of nature.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain,” He replies, “You hear all these things about him and his family working there. His father, for instance. The man’s a legend. You know about how the Bottling plant came to be?”

I shake my head. The man’s eyes widen in surprise, “You from here?”

“I am.”

“And you never heard about old Jack Hart?” “Should I have?”

“He’s a local legend,” The man exclaims, “Back in the 30s, during Prohibition, he ran the largest bootlegging operation in the state. Or so they say. Everyone down near the capital got their booze from Jack. The Harts had money before then, old money from Europe, but that’s where they got their real start. Way the stories go, he had City Hall wrapped around his fingers. Everyone in town was on the take–”

“So,” I interrupt, processing this new information, “How did they become farmers?”

The man’s grin widens into a toothy smile, “Jack’s son was a delegate down in the General Assembly or something. Supposedly, they knew Prohibition was getting repealed before it actually happened. So, Jack found himself with a huge bottling operation and in a few months, he would have nothing to bottle. He took everything he had and put it into farms. All those trucks that were delivering booze to Baltimore and DC started delivering milk.”

“And Elroy was Jack’s son?”

The man nods in affirmation, “His second son. His first died in the war.”

“Which war?”

“World War II.”

I shake my head, “That’s a lot to process.”

“So, what are you going to do with all this?”

I glance at him in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“About your wife and Brandon. What are you going to do?”

“Well,” I turn the question around on him, “What would you do?”

The man stares down at the rifle in his hands, “I’m not sure you want to know.”

—

Lilly answers the door holding the rifle again and almost drops it when she sees me. My face is a mountain range of throbbing lumps. She ushers me inside and lays me down on the couch. I am blinded by hot compresses pressed tightly to my eyelids. The dog jumps onto me and curls up on my chest to go to sleep. I pet the yappy little bastard and he snuggles closer. Lilly returns with a cup of steaming tea and props me up with a stack of throw pillows. This is nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve known a mother’s care. I forget the entire reason I came here.

“What happened?” She asks.

“My friends didn’t play nice.”

“Be serious.”

“I went to see someone I shouldn’t have. An old…coworker.”

She clicks her tongue in disapproval, “And they did this to you?”

“Goose did this to me.”

She shakes her head, exasperated. She gives up on the line of questions and instead asks, “You shouldn’t be up walking around in your condition. Dinner is almost ready anyway. Will you stay?”

I chew on my cheek and feel my stomach rumbling at the mere suggestion of food. I haven’t eaten since I saw Dakota yesterday. I nod eagerly. Lilly cocks her head and smiles strangely at me. Then she sighs and trots into the kitchen, leaving me and the dog bundled up on the couch. She says, “It’ll be a little bit. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

After she’s gone, I push the napping vermin from my chest and retrieve my bag. The dog growls at me and then nestles against the foot of the couch. Inside my bag, I find the article from earlier, Empire Lost by Lynn Martin.

I skip the first section and pick up where I left off,

Six Barons of Baltimore

The story begins in 17th century Britain, with the Lords Baltimore and the Protestant Reformation.

Okay, I think. It’s going to be one of those. I sink into the couch cushions and steel myself for an avalanche of mind-numbing information,

George Calvert declared his Catholicism publicly before the Protestant court of King Charles I in 1625 and subsequently retired to his primary estate in Ireland. His political star was in decline; Having served Charles’ father, James, loyally all his life, Calvert had gambled all on a marriage pact for the prince with the Spanish Empire and lost. Now, with the King coronated and married to a decidedly un-Spanish Queen, he had been expelled from court and left to sulk in his Barony of Baltimore while the King and his council drew up plans for war on the Catholic stronghold of Spain. George Calvert no longer cared what people thought, so he told them what they all knew already; that he himself was one of those vile creatures they all hated: A Catholic*.*

At school as a young boy, Calvert was forced to take an oath renouncing Catholicism and dedicate his life to the crown. Nevertheless, Calvert continued practicing his faith in secret. Records show after his children entered adolescence; officials were alerted to the fact his sons were being tutored by a Catholic priest. Strict judgments were rendered on the care of his two sons by the local courts and the children were removed from his house for a time until Calvert had been deemed fit to commit no further sedition.

Despite harboring this hidden faith in a realm of Protestants, Calvert rose high in politics, becoming an indispensable figure at court and gathering a list of titles and lands, among them Lord Baltimore. With a front row seat, he watched as the kingdoms underwent a metamorphosis. He saw England break off from Rome and form its own religion, much to his dismay. He stood by as public executions of Catholic priests became more and more common on the mainland. He watched as civil war fomented across the four supposedly United Kingdoms.

In the subsequent years, he made plans to sail from the tiny island in the North Atlantic, and seek refuge in the New World, away from the persecution of the English Reformation. He had been granted a royal colonial charter for long years of service to James I, though some whispered it was a ploy by the new King to put an ocean between Calvert and the court. Regardless, Calvert now intended to make use of it. The charter made him Proprietor of a gestating colony nestled in the Chesapeake Bay, already inhabited by 5,000 people and bustling with trade. He made all of the arrangements for the voyage and said good-bye to his home country, intent on creating a refuge for Catholics across the ocean. However, two weeks before he was to depart, he took ill from a seasonal flu and died in his bed at home.

His two sons, Cecil and Leonard, took up his mantle. Cecil, his first son, inherited the titles of Lord Baltimore and the first Proprietor of Maryland in 1632, though he never once set foot in the colony. Instead, he sent Leonard, his younger brother, to oversee the administration of the colony. Leonard was given free rein to rule as he saw fit, as long as the crown and Barony received a fitting tribute of gold and silver plus two fletched arrows from Native American tribes every year. To accomplish this, the younger Calvert established a Palatinate, an autocratic form of government where all decisions rested in his hands and began marshalling troops from the populace. This drew the notice of the Virginia Company, a nearby joint-stock venture also established by the King to oversee new settlements in America. Virginia was largely a Protestant colony and instantly suspicious of their new Catholic neighbors to the north. The Virginia Company thus contracted mercenaries and enlisted local native tribes to reinforce their border with Maryland. Tensions eventually spilled over into armed conflict.

After unsuccessful skirmishes with the local Algonquian tribes and the neighboring colony of Virginia, colonists under Calvert’s dominion decided they could no longer bear the cost of an unopposed rule, so they demanded a legislature be established and the Governor submit to their laws; the General Assembly of Maryland was thus born. The Calvert family would have a long history of attempting to constrain and limit the powers of the Assembly Leonard Calvert was begrudgingly forced to acknowledge while his attention was focused on winning battles against the Virginia Company. Eventually, Calvert captured a trading post on Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay and used it as a bargaining chip in an uneasy truce with the Virginia Company. By the time Calvert returned to the capital in St. Mary’s City, the Assembly had already begun passing laws that placed limits on Calvert’s powers.

In 1661, Cecil Calvert sent his son to take charge of the colony as Deputy Governor and relieve his uncle, his goal to corral public sentiment and cement their authority over the colony. Charles Calvert would be the first Lord Baltimore to set foot in the colony his family had been overseeing for the past three decades. Upon arrival, Charles formed a Governor’s Council and stacked it with relatives and friends, offering them tithes from local coffers. Some of the colonists would notice 19 of the 27 seats on the council were given to Catholics, despite the population of Maryland swelling with Protestant immigrants in the recent years.

Bills were churned out of the General Assembly, establishing the precedence of English Common Law over the dictates of the Governor’s Office, all of which were duly quashed by the vetoing hand of the newly arrived Deputy Governor and his executive Council.

In 1670, Charles Calvert, Cecil’s son, the third Baron of Baltimore and second Proprietor of Maryland, faced with a growing Protestant population and an unruly legislature, imposed a strict condition on suffrage: only males who owned 1,000 acres of land or more could vote in elections for the General Assembly. The short list of families who met this requirement would ensure the General Assembly stayed in the hands of those loyal to the Calverts for many years to come. Satisfied with his work of quelling a potential rebellion, Charles Calvert sailed back to England with his uncle, never to return to Maryland. The year was 1684.

Five years later, a 700-man militia calling themselves the Maryland Protestant Associators marched into St. Mary’s City and seized the State House. With the city’s meager and unaware defense overwhelmed, the interim Deputy Governor Henry Darnell, a Calvert supporter, was forced to resign and sign a treaty that stated, “*We being in this condition and no hope left of quieting the people thus enraged, to prevent effusion of blood, capitulated and surrendered.” One of the first items on the agenda of the new proprietary government was outlawing Catholicism.*

Whether or not Charles Calvert would have responded in kind once word reached him will never be known. The Glorious Revolution was sweeping through Britain, drawing every baron and duke who could field troops into the ensuing political chaos. In the end, the Catholics lost, and a Protestant Queen was installed on the throne. In the spoils doled out to the victors in the aftermath, the Calverts, being Catholics, lost their royal charter. Due to the converging threads of history, Charles Calvert I lost all claim to Maryland in a few short months.

After a calm had settled across Britain, Calvert began petitioning the new Queen to restore his family’s royal charter, but circumstance intervened yet again. In 1715, the Lord Baltimore took deathly ill all of the sudden for reasons unknown and died at one of his estates in Woodcote Park.

His son Benedict Calvert endeavored to continue his father’s work. The new Lord Calvert saw with cold clarity the source of his family’s ills; He promptly renounced Catholicism and prostrated himself in public before the new Protestant court. His supplication was rewarded with the restoration of the Proprietorship of Maryland to the family. Calvert appointed a close friend and veteran of European wars, John Hart, to act as Deputy Governor while he settled accounts in the Barony and made plans to install a new Calvert government in Maryland. Hart sailed for America with a small force of well-trained soldiers and retook the capital with disquieting ease. The leaders of the Protestant Associators were drawn and quartered in the main square of St. Mary City’s in 1716.

However, fortune provided another rebuke when two months after his father had passed, Benedict Calvert also took ill. No amount of medical attention could save him. He passed days after coming down with a fever despite the efforts of the family’s personal physician, leaving his 15-year-old son, Charles Calvert II, in charge of Maryland. The boy being too young to rule in his own right left charge of the colony in John Hart’s capable hands and went about his teenage years in blissful ignorance of his domain across the ocean, only noticing its existence when the bi-annual tribute was unloaded on the quays next to the docks in the form of barrels of tobacco, racks of animal pelts and chests of gold and silver. Calvert did not question Hart or his methods, nor that of any of the successors his family appointed through the years.

Calvert visited Maryland only once in 1732 for a few months to settle a dispute with William Penn over the border between Pennsylvania, the results of which prompted King George II to note “there is my Lord Baltimore, who thinks he understands everything, and understands nothing”; History has recorded Calvert calculated the length of the border based on incorrect longitude and latitude readings and thus ceded Penn 1000 square miles of land that actually belonged to Maryland.

When Charles Calvert II died in 1751, he left his titles to his son Frederick Calvert, aged 20, the sixth and final Baron of Baltimore–

“It’s almost ready! I’ll bring it out in a moment,” Lilly calls from the kitchen. I put the article down, digesting the dull list of facts. I couldn’t have written a more boring history if I had tried. Nevertheless, there might be something worth knowing here. John Hart, I recall the name, looking back through the paragraphs that mentioned him. The first Hart? A cold-blooded soldier and royal lackey? Is this Brandon’s ancestor? Lost in a mental labyrinth of theories and conjecture, I limp into the kitchen as Lilly stirs a pot of sauce and adds a pinch of salt to it.

“Sit,” She orders, “You should be laying down.”

“Yes, mother,” I immediately regret saying anything.

Lilly freezes in place. I apologize hastily, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” She says, going back into her routine, “It’s fine.” Lilly sets a mountain of pasta snowcapped in tomato sauce in front of me. Wafts of steam tickle my nose with fragrant spices. With all the courtesy of a starving man, I shovel gobs of pasta onto a hunk of torn bread and cram it down my gullet, barely stopping to chew.

“Good?” Lilly asks.

“Mmmhmm,” I hum, tonguing aside a mouthful of food, “Delicious.”

“Uh huh,” She snorts, “I can tell.”

I wash everything down with a glass of water and then look up at Lilly, who is searching through the refrigerator. She produces a cake wrapped in plastic. She delicately unwraps the desert and places it in front of me, slicing through its spongy flesh with an over-sized knife. I watch her deliberate strokes. She hands me a slice and says, “I made it for you this morning.”

The frosted concoction sits on my plate, glistening with sugar. As I dig in, Lilly inquires, “Have you found anything else out?”

With a mouthful of vanilla cream, I look up at Lilly again. Where to begin?

“I-” I hesitate, swallowing. The text messages, I think. I should tell her about the text messages. But the words won’t come out. What good would it do, but worry her? I skirt around the issue, “I have a few leads that I am looking into.”

“What sort of leads?” She presses me.

“Lilly, I-I don’t want to say anything until I know for certain,” I explain.

She frowns, “That’s what the cops told me. For three weeks.”

I bite my tongue, unsure how to respond.

“I trust you, Elliot,” She finally says, folding her hands on the table. I sullenly push the cake across my plate, wondering if I am making the right choice. I want to tell her, about everything, about Boyd, about Ogie, about the text messages; but there’s too much uncertainty. Too many variables.

Too many Harts.

Leaving the last bite of cake on the plate, I turn to her and remember the reason I came here in the first place. I ask, “Do you have any plans tonight?”

Her eyebrow arches in suspicion, “No. Why?”

“You do now.”

She crinkles her face in confusion “What’s this about?”

I ask her, “Do you have a dress?”

“Yes, why-”

“I bought us tickets for a charity auction,” I say, rubbing my bulging stomach, “Get dressed. It starts in an hour.”

—

Lilly refuses to leave until she’s tied my tie for me, abhorred at my lousy, stringy knot. She won’t look at my face, but I’m used to that. There were entire weeks Leah couldn’t look at me back when I was on the force.

Her face is close to mine. I smell a garden in her perfume. Her lipstick makes her lips look wet. Green eyes twist my stomach into knots. I realize she’s beautiful, more than beautiful. I’ve never noticed it before, but now it’s obvious. Lilly Walters is a vision. I follow her necklace down into the shadows of her chest.

We take her car and she insists on driving. As we leave the house, I watch her hips sway in the tight green dress she has chosen. I feel something stir in me. I push it down. Deep, deep down. She makes me lay in the back seat and close my eyes. I’m asleep before I know it.

—

Lilly shakes me awake.

“You were talking in your sleep,” She says.

I rub the sleep from my eyes and sit up. We’re at the Walcott Convention Center.

“Who’s Jules?”

I close my eyes, searching for that sweet spot to send me back to sleep.

I know she knows. I’m surprised it’s been this long. She hasn’t brought you up until now.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

I push past her and squeeze through the car door. The sky has gone dark. I stretch my arms above my head and feel all of Goose’s little reminders poke and prod my battered body. I tenderly touch my face. The swelling has gone down somewhat, but I am sure to horrify many an onlooker tonight.

I hear Lilly’s heels clicking on the pavement as she rushes to catch up to me. She doesn’t say another word until we get to the red carpet. The spectacle takes both of us aback.

“Oh my,” She whispers.

A hundred cameras flash at once. Crowds mill about the entrance to the Convention Center, watching as well-dressed couples make their way inside. Couples with old names and old money, all vying for a spot on tonight’s local news or a photo in tomorrow’s paper. I look for familiar faces but find none.

We make our way through the commotion. Lilly slips her arm through mine. I’m skating on ice, siren dreams whispered into my ear. Flashing clouds of white take pictures of us as we approach the entrance. A nervous smile crosses Lilly’s face, rare in its appearance, like a solar eclipse.

I present our tickets to an usher in a glass booth. I feel Lilly shiver.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods, “I’ve never been to a place like this.”

“I shouldn’t have made you come.”

“No, it’s okay,” She says, looking down, “I needed to…get out.”

A sadness reaches through her eyes and peels her attention away from the present.

I lead her by the hand through the revolving doors into the Convention Center, into the excitement. Music plays from somewhere. A chandelier hangs from the atrium. A pair of spiral staircases skirt around the fixture, twisting up towards the second-floor balcony. A man in a tuxedo directs us down a velvet hallway with the other couples. We follow signs to the Windsor Room.

Our table hides in a low-lit ballroom, illuminated by a single candle. A bouquet of roses crowns the center. I know immediately this was a mistake.

A beautiful mistake, I realize, looking at Lilly.

I pull out the chair for her and she sheepishly accepts. I see the smile again. A waitress appears to take our drink orders. I take a neat vodka and Lilly orders a glass of wine.

And then it starts. The lights dim and the master of ceremonies takes the stage. He makes a speech about the dangers of whatever disease the proceeds are going to, but I’m not paying attention. I’m much more interested in the pair seated on the dais, right next to the stage. An old man and his trophy wife, at least thirty years his junior. The old man has gone to fat, but there are memories of power in his frame. In his youth, he could have torn phonebooks in half with his bare hands. Now, however, the years have robbed him of his strength. But not his mind. His old-man eyes orbit in their withered sockets like dueling suns in a dying universe.

Senator Elroy Hart and his third wife, Henrietta Vander-Strauss, heiress to the Vander Chocolate Company fortune. A series of performances prefix the auction. The master of ceremonies introduces the first performer, a squeamish young man whose fingers kick up a storm on a piano. As the music fills the air, the waitress brings back our drinks. Mine barely survives to the end of the song while Lilly nurses hers, distracted by the music.

I’m about to point out the Senator and his connection to Rachel’s science teacher to Lilly, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve never seen Lilly happy before. There is a moment during one of the performances, a crooning ballad sung by last year’s Miss Maryland, where I see her forget. For a second, Rachel is back home, doing her homework, and she is out on the town. And then it is gone. The realization of where she is, when she is, sinks back into her thoughts and I see her happiness evaporate.

I want to say something to Lilly, something to distract her and bring her back to where she was, but I see Elroy Hart and his wife stand up from the dais and step through a back entrance, followed by two guards. Something tells me to follow them. I excuse myself and leave a confused Lilly at the table with a half empty glass of wine.

The door off to the side of the stage opens into an alley. I step out and spark up a cigarette. The smoke is blue in the moonlight. Skewed shadows cast from distant headlights on the highway dance like javelins in flight across the brick wall opposite the exit. I follow the receding shadows down the alley.

Elroy Hart huddles around a luxury sedan in the parking lot with several others. They exchange heated words. I watch them through a cloud of smoke as I lean on the Convention Center wall. I recognize one of the others, another member of the Hart clan.

Abner Hart, the next mayor of New Harford.

The vodka has made me bold. I scroll by and bend down three cars away to tie my shoe.

“–is he ready to talk?” Elroy is rasping in his old-man voice.

“Not yet, sir,” One of the unfamiliar others replies, “He hasn’t returned any of our phone calls and our people can’t get past his secretary.”

Abner pipes in, his blubbery voice matching his swinging jowls, “Maybe we should have someone from the department…reach out?”

“Hmmph,” Elroy replies.

The unfamiliar one offers, “I can call Joe.”

The driver opens the door for Elroy. His lumbering mass drops the car on its suspension several inches. The others follow in after him. His grating voice echoes from the inside, “Do it. This has gone on long enough. We need it done before the detective–”

The door slams shut their conversation. I stand up as they leave the parking lot, glowing taillights leaving florescent red ribbons trailing after the limousine.

The detective, he said.

I toss my cigarette to the ground and go back inside, unsure if the chills coursing down my body are the result of the sharp wind lapping at my skin or the Senator’s words echoing in my mind.

Lilly waits for me at the bottom of a wine glass.

“Where did you go?”

I sigh, “I haven’t been totally honest.”

“About why we came here?”

I arch my eyebrows at her.

“Are you telling me this wasn’t a date?” She asks.

“Lilly–”

She giggles, “I’m not stupid, Elliot,” And then sudden as a storm, she is serious and all hint of joy is gone from her expression, “The Hart Charity Auction. Do you think the science teacher—”

“I don’t know,” I cut her off. “It’s just a hunch.”

The detective, he said. I lose focus, my vision drifting over the ballroom.

“I understand,” She says, popping an olive into her mouth.

And then the auction begins, tearing me from my thoughts.

Bids fly through the ballroom and excitement undulates over the crowd, but Lilly has resigned herself from the night. She sits and stares into her drink, sipping every now and again and glancing around at nothing in particular. I’m not even sure she knows I’m here.

I need to do something drastic.

The auctioneer announces from the stage, “The final item on tonight’s block, an all-expense paid trip for two on the French Riviera for two whole weeks,” Mutters go through the crowd, “Keeping with theme of twos, the bidding will start at two thousand.”

I stand up and flash our number high above my head.

Lilly looks at me in bewilderment, “Elliot, what are you doing?”

“Going to the French Riviera,” I reply.

“Don’t be silly.”

The bidding has passed me by three thousand. I throw back a shot of vodka and get the waitress’s attention. By the time I stand up again, it’s at eight thousand.

“Fifteen thousand,” I shout.

That shuts them up for a second. I get dirty glances from around the room. I remember what my face looks like.

“Elliot,” Lilly demands, “Stop.”

Some cretin from the corner raises the bidding to twenty thousand.

Time to get serious.

“Thirty thousand,” I reply.

Lilly is speechless.

“Thirty-one thousand.”

I am about to blow the take on the last dozen contracts, but so what? I steady myself and leap blindly into the bid, “Forty thousand.”

The bidding finally stops, and the gavel comes hammering down after no one answers my number.

“Why on Earth did you do that?” Lilly asks after I sit back down.

“Because I wanted to,” I explain, “For you and Rachel. When we get her back.”

Her mouth opens and closes several times as the precursors to words form on the tip of her tongue, but she never manages to make anything comprehensible come out.

The waitress returns with our drinks. A man comes and takes my information.

Back in the atrium, a band plays us out. I hear something I’ve never heard before. Lilly laughs. She twirls around me, her dress spinning around her thighs, and I realize she is drunk. She staggers and I go to catch her. She falls onto my chest. She looks up into my eyes. Her hands lightly caress my shirt. I’m frozen.

She pulls back. The moment is over. She shakes off a passing fancy and appraises me with new eyes, “Are you ready to leave?”

“I am,” I say, “But maybe I should drive.”

“You’re drunk, too!” She sounds like a schoolgirl. Like Rachel.

“A natural state of affairs for me, though.”

She laughs again. I melt.

The car is alien in my grip. Lilly is looking at me from the passenger seat with an expression I can’t penetrate. The trip back to her place is filled with silent tension.

We sit in her driveway. I stare blankly ahead at the taillights of my car. Lilly sways in the embrace of wine, but I feel her sober eyes peeling me back layer by layer.

“Do you–” Lilly starts, touching my arm lightly with her fingers, “Do you want to come inside?”

I turn to look at her. She leans closer, looking up at me. I find myself undressing her with my eyes, wondering what it would be like to touch her. I can’t stop my thoughts, but my hands are another story; They stay firmly planted on the steering wheel.

“Lilly,” I reply, “I can’t–”

“Of course,” She hastily cuts in, pulling back, “I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.”

The car door slams shut. Her heels dig holes into her yard as she scampers from the driveway to the porch. I get into my car.

Things are never neat. Things are always messy.

I sit in Lilly’s driveway for ten minutes before my hands stop shaking. The drive to the bar is lonely.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26th

At three in the morning, Shirley kicks everyone else out. I am half-way between my stool and a familiar dream, crouched on the bar with my head resting on the crook of my elbow, eyelids tingling with the coalescing static of memories that won’t go away. Shirley sets a nearly empty bottle of vodka next to my hunched body. I lift my head up from my arms and look around. The lights from the pinball machines flash chaotically on the wall opposite me. A sudden thought strikes me out of nowhere.

“Can I use your computer?”

Shirley balks, “The fuck you need my computer for?”

“I need to do some research.”

She sighs in exasperation but yields to my request. I stumble after her, steadying myself on the walls. Shirley leads me into the back office and shows me to a desk with an over-sized leather chair on a swivel. Her desk is a museum of ancient memories, pictures accumulated over her long life. Her daughter graduating from college, her daughter getting married, her daughter holding her granddaughter, her daughter, her daughter, her daughter.

Always, everything, everywhere, leading me back to you, Jules.

I brush aside my thoughts and thank Shirley. She switches off the light as she leaves and tells me, “You’re free to use the couch if you need, as always.”

The computer glows green in the black of Shirley’s office. I sit inches from the screen, one eye closed and the other squinting so that the words stay together in my vision. With the punctuated taps of a wobbling index finger, I peck missing girls in Maryland into the search bar and begin pouring through the results.

After going through several articles, I find a curious one that draws my eye. My heart sinks when I read the headline,

MISSING GIRL FOUND DEAD IN THE POTOMAC RIVER

For a moment, I stand on the precipice, ready to take the plunge. But then I notice the date. Three years ago. That can’t be you, Jules. I click the link and search the article.

Alexandria, MD - On December 3rd, a frantic two-month manhunt ended in tragedy when the body of Diana Hofstetler, 23, was found in the Potomac River–

History, I realize, is either one of two things.

--The report released by county coroner indicates she had several broken ribs and wounds consistent with strangulation–

It could be an ordered collection of the same tragedies playing out endlessly through time, the minor variations irrelevant; everywhere, the same horror binding us; Everywhere, the details, different in their particulars, leading to the same outcome; History is either this random horror of being, or it is–

--Diana went missing on September 15th from her dormitory at Hart State College–

A conspiracy of cosmic proportions.

—

The detective assigned to the Hofstetler case was a man named James Lutz. I find his address in a dark corner of the internet. I leave New Harford while the sun is only a suggestion in the morning sky. Shirley makes me drink a cup of coffee and eat some breakfast before I leave, but that paltry defense doesn’t do much to sober me up before I depart. I don’t find my head until I pull on the beltway around Washington DC, when the morning finally dawns. By then, my hands are shaking and sweat is pouring from my face.

I get off at Alexandria and pull onto an avenue that feeds into rows of identical houses outside of an air-force base. I find a spot to park and drink a cup of dishwater coffee from a nearby gas station while the suburb slowly awakens. The three radio stations in New Harford have been replaced by a huge catalog of broadcasts. I pour through the band, searching for news.

A stray snippet from a political pundit show catches my ear, “–campaign is in full swing. Headquartered in New Harford, Hart–” That name is everywhere, I think, I can’t get away from it, “–has hired a legion of veteran managers and pollsters, many of whom worked on his father’s congressional campaign. The political arsenal being brought to bear on this relatively small city in Western Maryland is extraordinary to say the least–”

A talking head pipes in, offering her insight, “What’s more, the incumbent Rick Remender has yet to announce his formal candidacy for next year, leaving many to wonder why he is letting Hart gain so much ground in the polls unopposed–”

“Well, Gloria,” Another voice interjects, “I think it’s clear last election was a referendum on the economy. Remender promised a litany of reform and he simply hasn’t delivered. The debacle in Rolling Mills hasn’t done much to help his chances–”

The more somber voice of the program’s host explains, “Stephen is referring to the New Harford City Council recently invoking Eminent Domain to rezone and develop a blighted residential neighborhood downtown.”

“That’s right, Glenn,” The words squeaks through the radio, “Maybe the report last week that Remender was considering not running for re-election are true–”

“Let’s not forget,” The female voice explains, “Abner Hart’s grandfather was mayor of New Harford for fifteen years and his great-grandfather before that for even longer. New Harford has traditionally been Hart territory–”

I switch off the radio when the door to the house I am watching swings open. James Lutz steps into the morning air, bends down to pick up a newspaper left on his doorstep and disappears back inside. I give him ten minutes to collect himself before I find myself on his porch, knocking on his door.

Mr. Lutz answers wearing a bathrobe and boxers, still emerging from a sleepy daze. He blinks several times and then opens his eyes wide as they run up and down the length of me. In a gravelly voice, he inquires, “Who are you?”

I incline my head and respond, “Elliot States, sir. I’m a private detective from Baltimore. I understand you were the primary investigator on the Hofstetler case three years ago. Is that correct?”

His eyes narrow and regard me with even finer suspicion, “Who sent you?”

“No one,” I reply, a little stunned at his tone and unable to summon a better response.

One of his eyebrows arches, “What’s this about?”

“I-uh,” I find myself stuttering, “Well, sir, I have a similar case right now and I think it might be related to yours. I wanted to compare notes, if that would be alright with you.”

Mr. Lutz glances down his street in either direction. Clouds of steam rise from the blacktop. The avenue extends like a hall of mirrors, each house along its length a reflection of its neighbors, the series disappearing into infinite regress in the morning fog. A jogger appears from the mist; he passes the front of the house and waves at both of us. Lutz reluctantly waves back and then grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me inside of his house.

“Who knows you’re here?” Mr. Lutz asks once the door is closed. A single lamp hangs from the foyer ceiling, casting long shadows across our faces. The old man stares at me, waiting for my answer.

This is not the reception I expected.

I offer him the flat of my palms, “No one.”

“You know a lot of people with that name,” Lutz retorts.

“Look, that’s the truth,” I counter, “I’m here because I want to talk about Diana Hofstetler.”

“Then you’d be the first person whoever did.”

My tongue ties into knots. I stare slack jawed at the wizened old man, “What—do you mean?

“Not until you tell me what this is about,” Lutz replies, stone faced.

“I told you,” I explain through a taut grimace, “I’m investigating a case. A missing girl. By the name of Rachel Walters. I think it’s a kidnapping and I think I have a suspect. A man named Hart–”

“Hart?” Lutz interrupts, “Christopher Hart?”

A wave of goosebumps spills over my skin. Hart. That name keeps coming up everywhere I turn. Coincidences upon coincidences. I reply with a hushed breath, “His brother. Brandon.”

Lutz gnaws on my response, puzzling over my story, “And you said you were who again?”

“Elliot States,” I pull out my wallet and show him my detective license, “I’m a private detective out of Baltimore.”

Sneering, he licks his lips and takes my license, “Wait here.”

Lutz disappears from the foyer. Down the hall, I hear him calling up a flight of stairs, “Joyce! Get out here!” And then I have several moments to collect myself, standing in the dim light of the doorway. I glance around, hearing the muffled conversation transpiring several rooms over, unable to make out its particulars.

The Lutz household is even ratio of shag carpet and tacky ceramic statues of cats. I peer through the arches into the living room and inspect a plaid couch well-worn with the imprints of the two inhabitants. I wander towards the warmth of a crackling fireplace, wiggling my fingers above the lapping tongues of flame. A purring feline materializes from the shadows around the fireplace and snuggles into my leg, rubbing his head against my shins.

James pokes his head into the room, “Baltimore, you said?”

I turn around and nod.

“Come to the kitchen and have a seat.”

I follow Lutz down a hallway. His wife watches from the second-floor railing as we pass. I nod and wave, but she clicks her tongue and disappears back into the bedroom. Lutz mutters in a barely audible tone, “That’s Joyce, my wife.”

In the kitchen, I sit at the table and listen to Lutz make a phone call. More cats crowd around the table, meowing expectantly.

“Lieutenant Estevez, please,” Lutz barks into the phone.

I chuckle as I realize what’s he doing, “Are you vetting me?”

Lutz doesn’t reply.

“Tell Estevez he’s a fascist pig.”

After a short call, he’s satisfied I am who I say I am and hands me back my license. I can only imagine the endorsement Estevez gave me; I’m tempted to ask what he said about me, but I don’t want to press my luck. Lutz joins me at the table, pushing a curled cat from his seat. The disoriented cat hisses and darts into the hallway. Its companions, realizing food is not in the offering, slowly follow suit, slinking back to their sleepy malaise in the shadows of the house.

“Alright, Detective States,” He says, settling into his chair, “Tell me why you’re here.”

Cleared to proceed, I finally launch into my inquiry, “I want to know everything about the Hofstetler case.”

He frowns, “How much do you know, exactly?”

“Only what the papers said,” I reply, “Girl went missing from her dormitory at Hart State on September 15th, two weeks after school had started. Her body was found in the Potomac two months later. No one was ever arrested.”

“More or less,” Lutz replies, “That’s good enough starting point, I suppose.”

He groans as he stands back up, “Are you sure you want to know everything?”

I nod.

“Wait here,” He orders. Meows follow him down the hallway. A minute later, Lutz returns with a beaten-up cardboard box in his arms and a herd of cats at his ankles. Hofstetler has been scrawled across the front of the box in black marker He hands me a folder from the depths of the ragged box. Inside I find a bundle of documents. Pushing aside our coffee mugs, I spread the treasure trove out over the kitchen table and survey the accumulated knowledge of James Lutz. News articles, police reports, photographs–

A picture of Diana Hofstetler. I’ve seen her before, but never in color. Always the black and white of newspaper, but now, looking at her, it’s obvious. The blonde hair, the blue eyes, the skinny build…

She looks like Rachel.

Another coincidence?

I open my notebook and add to the heap of notes.

“What happened exactly?” I ask, scribbling, “Give me the long version.”

James Lutz sighs and sits down at one of the wooden chairs around the table. He spreads his legs and his bathrobe hangs open over his knees, revealing scarred hairy legs and feet adorned in plastic flip-flops. A geography of scars webs up his right leg and creeps around his thigh. Hairless suture marks describe the circumference of his knee cap. Lutz picks up his mug and sips his coffee black, unaware of my scrutiny. He’s diving into memories he never thought to explore again. One of the cats hops onto his lap. He mindlessly pets the purring feline behind its ear as he collects his thoughts.

“I wasn’t the first guy assigned to the case,” He finally explains, “I picked up after a fellow by the name of Luis Barraza.”

“Why was he taken off the case?”

“Don’t know,” Lutz grunts from underneath a jutting brow, inspecting me with appraising eyes, “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

I scribble the new name in my notebook, averting my attention from the old man’s hard gaze, “Does he still live around here?”

He nods, “He’s still on the force, but he’s not in homicide anymore. They transferred him not long after that, a few months later. He’s in Appropriations now. Going on thirty years and never been promoted past detective.”

I grin, “Sounds like we’d get along.”

“What do you mean?”

“I never made brass either.”

Lutz arches his eyebrow at me, “You were a cop?”

“Used to be,” I reply.

He closes one eyelid and inspects me through a sniper lens. After a moment, he bobs his head in approval, “Things are starting to make more sense.”

“Anyway,” I say, returning to the task at hand, “You were telling me about the case.”

“That’s right,” He affirms, “So I took over for Barraza around the beginning of October. I don’t remember the exact date; it’s here somewhere, I’m sure,” He says, flipping through a binder, “Anyway, to be honest, Barraza had a lot of the grunt work done. He had interviewed everyone at the dormitory plus the campus security guards on duty,” Lutz points towards a pile of transcripts, “You can read everything there, if you want. Not much be to be gleaned, though. Else I could never find anything in there. You might have better luck.”

I page through the transcripts. There must be at least an encyclopedia worth of interviews, I realize. I would need a week just to begin to understand what was in all of them. Pushing aside the transcripts and trusting Lutz’s judgment, I ask, “So where did you go from there?”

“Well, Barraza was looking into a conference that had taken place that week on campus, so I picked up there,” he explains, “It was a financial conference. The 17th Annual Maryland Financial Forum. A bunch of finance bigwigs giving presentations to each other. Some of the students were invited to join by their professors. Diana was one of them.”

Lutz rifles through a pile of torn newspaper pages, pulling up an article about the conference. The photo accompanying the words shows a crowded auditorium in silent rapture, receiving a sermon from a spotlighted individual at the podium. The blurb underneath the photograph identifies the speaker as Kenneth Powell, chairman of the New York Federal Reserve.

“A lot of important people were there, it seems,” I remark.

“The school is run by the Hart Foundation. Hart as in Senator Hart,” I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise, as if that connection were not the entire reason I came here. Lutz continues, “The senator has a lot of friends.”

I am about to interject when Lutz says something that stops me in my tracks, “And sons.” This time there is nothing artificial about my expression. I lean closer, drawn into his story, “What do you mean?”

“This is where it gets interesting,” Lutz replies, returning to the box at his feet, “I have it here somewhere.”

“Have what?”

“The interview,” He replies simply. I hold an anxious breath and wait.

“The conference was on Tuesday, the 13th, two days before Diana disappeared. It was being held on campus in the auditorium in Eleanor Hall,” He pauses, digging through the box. He retrieves a small plastic cassette tape and exclaims, “Ah, here it is!” Placing the cassette on the table in front of me, he continues without addressing the tiny, idling mystery any further, “I pulled the security footage in the auditorium where it was held.”

“Did you find her in it–” I attempt to ask.

“I did, but there’s more before that,” He cuts me off, “I had to get a warrant for the footage.”

A puzzled expression slides over my face, “The school wouldn’t turn it over willingly?”

Lutz shakes his head, “They said it would be a violation of the attendees’ privacy.”

I bite my tongue in thought, worrying at the implications, “So the school where the girl disappeared wouldn’t help in her investigation?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lutz amends, “But there was definite pressure from somewhere not to cooperate unless compelled. It was like pulling teeth.”

I fill a page in my notebook chronicling all the minor details Lutz is feeding me, “Why do you think that was?”

“Let’s keep going and then you tell me,” Lutz replies.

After a brief pause to collect his thoughts, he continues, “So I find her on the footage sitting at one of the tables in the auditorium. I have her on camera for at least three hours. In that time, she talks to five people. The first two were people sitting at the table, her friends from class. I interviewed them. They’re kids; they didn’t know anything. Of the others, one was a waiter. The last two, though…” He trails off.

“Yes?” I implore.

“They were Christopher Hart and one of his associates, Giovanna Bertolucci.”

I lick my lips, “What did they talk about?”

“I wish I knew,” Lutz replies wearily, “There’s no audio on the tapes and her friends weren’t at the table when it happened.”

The cassette on the table suddenly assumes new significance. I look down at the tiny rectangle and ask, “So what is this?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Lutz smirks insidiously, “I was just getting to that.”

I shake my head and turn back to his story. The old man continues, “The friends and the waiter were useless, so naturally the next step was Hart and Bertolucci. Only thing is, Bertolucci lives in Milan–”

“Italy?” I ask.

“Yep,” Lutz replies, “So without him stepping foot on American soil again, there was no chance of me interviewing him–”

“What about extraditing him?”

Lutz laughs, “On what grounds? For talking to a missing girl? Do you think the Italian government gives a shit about some missing girl in Maryland?”

“Right,” I sigh, “So, that leaves Hart. You’ve talked to him, then?”

“Indeed, I have,” Lutz says, “It took me a week to get him in a room. We issued a subpoena, but he’s got an army of lawyers that did everything in their power to delay, delay, delay. When I finally did get a chance to depose him, he had had a lawyer with him.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

Lutz smiles and plucks the cassette from the table. He plunges the tape into a hand-held recorder and sets the contraption upright in front of me. The speakers crackle to life.

“–October 10th, 2016. Please state your full name for the record,” Lutz sounds exactly the same in the recording as he does in person.

A smooth, slippery voice responds, “Christopher Alexander Hart.”

“Christopher, do you consent to being recorded?”

“I do.”

“Where were you on the date of September 15th?”

“As I recall,” The voice slides through the sentence, slick as oil, “I was staying with my brother at his estate.”

“This would be the Harford Manor in Allegany County?”

“A boorish name from a century and a half ago,” Hart replies, “We no longer call it that, but yes. That one.”

“And what about two days prior? Where were you on September 13th?”

“I believe you know, or you wouldn’t be–”

A whisper interjects and cuts Christopher off mid-sentence. Lutz turns to me and explains, “His lawyer.” Christopher continues after re-composing his thoughts, “I was attending a financial conference at my father’s school.” “The Maryland Financial Forum at Hart State College?”

A sigh, “Indeed.”

“Your family certainly likes to put its name out there.”

“What are you implying?” comes the measured response.

“Hart this, Hart that,” Lutz antagonizes, “Everything is Hart with you people. The Hart Foundation, Hart Bottling–”

“We’re a trusted name,” Christopher declares in a smug tone, “People feel confident when they see our name on the sign.”

“If you say so.”

“Detective–”

“There are some who might accuse your father of violating the Senate Code of Ethics,” Lutz jabs, “Not me, mind you. But others. They might say your father is allowing his name to be used for fiduciary gain–”

Christopher grunts, “This again–”

The lawyer interrupts outright, “Precedent has been established in the case of Hart vs Greene, 2007. Citing the examples set by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and our current president–”

“Yes, yes,” Lutz sighs, “I’ve heard all the excuses. I don’t care. I’m not here to talk about your financial dealings. What were you doing at this conference?”

“Is this really necessary?” Christopher whines, “Do you need me to go through every little–”

Another exchange of whispers. Lutz nods at me, indicating another interruption from Hart’s lawyer. Christopher’s voice picks up after a pause, “I was attending the presentations.”

“So,” The recording of Lutz inquires, “What do you care about some suits going through some slides on a projector?”

“It’s a little more involved than just some slides. It’s about the people you meet there–” “Let’s talk about one of those people,” Lutz interrupts, “What did you and Giovanna Bertolucci talk to Diana Hofstetler about that day?”

A pause.

“Excuse me?”

“What did you and Giovanna Bertolucci talk to Diana Hofstetler about–”

“I heard you the first time, detective. I don’t know who she is.”

“So, you are claiming you never talked to her?”

“No, I never—” Another whispered interjection and then an amended response, “If I did, I certainly don’t recall talking to her.”

“What if I told you I have footage of you talking to her for over five minutes on the day in question?” His responses come after a silent moment, “Then I would have to take your word for it, detective.”

“You have no memory of talking to Diana on that day?”

“None at all, detective,” Christopher explains, “There was an open bar and it was more than a few weeks ago at this point. My recollection of the convention, besides the presentations, is hazy at best.”

Lutz turns off the tape recorder and explains, “There’s another ten minutes or so, but it’s more of the same. He never gave me a single straight answer and anytime it seemed like I might get something out of him, his lawyer cut him off. He claimed he didn’t remember talking to her and stuck to the story the whole time.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Would you?” Lutz snorts, “I kept digging.”

He continues, “I went through the roster for the conference and interviewed everyone I could find. After the conference ended that evening, I have several eye witness accounts of Hart and Bertolucci going to a bar down the street, a real classy place in the lobby of a hotel called the Arboretum,” Lutz explains, “The bartender there confirmed they visited that night. He told me they drank until a girl arrived–”

“A girl?” I ask, “Diana?”

He nods grimly, “I believe so. The bartender wasn’t able to identify her,” Lutz replies, “But I asked a few regulars who were there at the time and they described the girl as skinny and blonde. When I showed them Diana’s picture, all of them positively identified her. So, I operated under the assumption that it was her.”

“Did she join Hart and Bertolucci?”

Lutz nods again, “Bartender says she was flirting with them and they were buying her drinks for a few hours. They all left together that night. He said they were quite drunk at the time. She was supposedly hanging off Hart’s arm when they left.”

“So, Hart was either very drunk or a liar.”

“Those would be the options,” Lutz says.

“Did you confront Hart with this information?” I ask.

Lutz frowns, “I never got the chance. They found her the day after I talked to the bartender. Next thing I know, they were dragging her body out of the Potomac the next county over, the case was being given to that county’s department and I was assigned to another case.

“I tried to explain to the brass about Hart, but no one cared. None of the evidence was hard enough to charge him with anything, and at the end of the day, the department only cared about closure rates. They weren’t about to let me spend another four weeks on a case that was already out of our hands regardless. Let the Prince George’s people deal with it.

“A month later, the case was declared an unsolved mystery by the PGPD. And that was that.” Mulling over his story as I transpose it into my notebook, questions begin forming in my head when Lutz clicks his tongue and sighs in exasperation.

“I know it was Hart,” Lutz explains, “I know he did it.”

Boiling every question, I have down to a single word, I ask, “Why?”

Lutz looks at me. Old age drips from every wrinkle on his face. The hardness in his expression melts away, replaced with exhaustion. He rubs his temples with his fingers and replies, “I don’t know. I find myself thinking about it sometimes. Maybe things got out of hand. Maybe there was an accident. Or maybe…” He trails off.

“What do you make of him?” I ask, “What type of person is Christopher Hart?”

He frowns as he gathers his thoughts, “He runs Allegany Farmers Insurance, did you know that? They’ve got these commercials, with this god-awful jingle. It sticks in your head. I see him all the time on the television, read about him in the paper,” Lutz explains, “Best I can figure is, he is too connected for anything to stick to him. His father, his family, it’s a bulwark against the real world,” Lutz rubs his calloused palms with thick sausage fingers, “People are ants to him, so there are no consequences when he steps on them.”

We stare at each other. I ask, “Anything else you can tell me? Anything at all you can think of?”

He shakes his head.

A morbid curiosity seizes my thoughts, “Did you ever talk to the Hofstetlers?”

His eyebrows jump in response, a momentary surprise fading quickly before a memory, “A few times. She had a sister I interviewed. The father, though…” Lutz replies, trailing off again before catching himself and restarting, “I met him at a bar about a year ago. He didn’t recognize me, didn’t realize that I was the investigator on his daughter’s case. I didn’t see any reason to tell him. He wasn’t doing so hot. His marriage didn’t survive the death of his daughter and he’d become a hopeless alcoholic–”

“Never mind,” I reply, standing up, “Forget I asked.”

Lutz scrunches his face, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” I gather my things, packing them back into my bag, “Thank you for everything. You’ve been an enormous help.”

I stand awkwardly in the kitchen for several moments before I nod and make for the front entrance. Lutz calls after me, “You never told me about your case.”

I pause and turn back. The old man sits at the kitchen table, waiting. After a deep breath, I reply, “It’s his brother this time, I think. Brandon Hart.”

Lutz frowns, “Another missing girl?”

I nod.

His lip twitches, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find her alive,” I reply, “Before someone else finds her in a river.”

—

I park outside of the Alexandria Police Department and wait for Barraza. On my phone, I find pictures on his social media profile and commit them to memory. I wait until mid-afternoon when I finally see him exit the building and get into his car. I follow him down congested streets. He parallel parks alongside a deli and gets out. I pull up behind him. Inside, I find him waiting in line. I grab a number from the ticket dispenser and step up beside him. He smells like aftershave and baby powder. Wet lockets of brown hair droop over his forehead and disappear behind the dark tint of his sunglasses.

“Barraza,” I whisper from the side of my mouth.

He jolts around and looks at me, surprised “Who’s asking?” “Elliot States,” I respond, extending my hand in greeting. He stares at my proffered palm but doesn’t take it. Instead, he glares at me suspiciously and asks, “Who are you?”

“I’m private detective. I’d like to ask you some questions about Diana Hofstetler.”

His eyes go wide, and he bites his lower lip. He replies, “You’ve got wrong guy.”

With suspicion I inquire, “You’re not Luis Barraza?”

He shakes his head and then turns away from me, back to the line. The clerk calls his number. He steps up and starts ordering, but I interrupt the clerk and keep pestering the man I am certain is Luis Barraza, “So you don’t work for the Alexandria police?”

“Buddy,” He replies curtly, “I just told you, you have the wrong person.”

“Hmm,” I say, “That’s weird. I just followed you from police department. What were you doing there if you’re not a cop?” The man sneers at me, “What the fuck are you following me for?”

“I want to ask you some questions about the Hofstetler case.”

A visible lump lurches up his throat. He says through tight lips, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He stalks out of the deli without completing his order. The clerk stares at me with raised eyebrows and asks, “What was that about?” I shrug and follow Barraza back into the street.

“Barraza,” I say, as he opens the door to his car, “I know it’s you.”

“You don’t know shit,” He retorts.

“Then tell me,” I resort to pleading, “I want to understand. Help me”

“You want my help? Go home,” He says, getting into his car, “Some things you’re better off not knowing.”

The door slams shut. His car screeches into traffic and disappears down the block. I am left standing on the sidewalk, watching his taillights fade in the distance. A cold wind blows across the pavement.

—

A disguise ultimately comes down to the details. A man in a t-shirt and flip-flops would never pass as a banker just like a man in a suit and tie would never be mistaken for a janitor. In eons past, it was simpler; we plucked leaves from trees and smeared them over dirty limbs to hide in the mud from predators stalking the forest. Now, however, I search through a department store for my camouflage, hunting through the rack of lanyards for something official looking. I pull one down and slide my old gym card into the plastic container, holding it at a distance from my face so that I can inspect the ruse. Good enough. I slip the cord around my neck and rip off the price tag.

Next, I wander through the men’s clothing section and select a suitably pretentious bowtie and suspenders. Penny loafers grab my eye in the shoe section and amuse me, so I bring them along as well. I try on several pairs on glasses from a spinning rack until I find a thick rimmed pair that doesn’t obscure my sight too badly. By the time I am done, I look like a genuine, full-fledged prick.

I always hated talking to the press.

The quad of Hart State College slopes over a low inclined hill, opening up along the diagonals to the four main dormitory halls. I walk down the center lane, passing through sparse crowds of students fleeing from class to class.

The clerical buildings sit behind a cluster of classroom annexes sprinkled around the imposing library. In a parklet outside the front of the Stern Library, I find students smoking cigarettes. I bum an absurdly long cigarette from one of the kids wearing a woven hemp sweatshirt. The cloves tickle my lungs and make me cough as I ask the little stoner, “What do you know about the Harts?”

“Who?” The kid asks.

“The Harts,” I hack, “The Senator’s foundation that runs this school.”

“I don’t know, man,” He shrugs, pinching a roach between his lips, “I guess he’s, like, alright. I like it here,” The words slip out of his mouth through clouds of smoke.

“How long have you been going here?” I ask.

He looks up at me and frowns, “Six years.”

I raise my eyebrow, “Do you remember Diana Hofstetler?”

“Who?”

Useless. I toss the cigarette to the ground and thank him. Back on course, I wind through curving walkways cut into the natural contours of the rolling landscape, passing the bursar and registrar buildings on my left and right in sequence. The administration building sits at the end of a cul-de-sac on a peak, the walkway looping around and leading back the way I came. I pass through revolving doors into the main corridor of the administration building.

Without glancing at the secretary sitting at the entrance desk, I shuffle past into the labyrinthine hallways as if I belong. I duck down the first empty one and pace the length. Dim lamps with funneled shades cast orange light upwards in ovals against soft red walls. I study name and title placards accompanying the parade of office doors as they pass.

The hallway leads to the other side of the building, along which I find the stairwells and a directory. At the top of the list is Mr. Howard Quill, president of the college. His room number takes me up two floors and down another hallway with more offices along its length. At the end, I find the entrance to the president’s office. I push open the door to the waiting room and smile at the secretary behind the desk.

“Good afternoon,” She greets me, “How may I help you?”

“I was hoping to talk to Mr. Quill.”

She wrinkles her face and flips through a book on her desk. Scanning the pages, she remarks, “I’m sorry, Mr. Quill doesn’t have any appointments today–”

“Oh, I know,” I say, holding up the badge hanging from my lanyard. My index finger partially covers the name of the gym, “I’m a reporter with the Baltimore Sun. I was hoping to get some comments from Mr. Quill for an article I am writing.”

She noticeably recoils in surprise, “Why–you’re from the Sun? Why didn’t you call first and set up an appointment?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, drawing closer to lean on the counter. I let the badge drop out of sight beneath the edge and lock eyes with the secretary, lowering my voice down to a whisper as if I’m letting her in on a secret, “You see, I’m profiling Abner Hart, since, well, you know, with the election coming up in New Harford…anyway, I was in the neighborhood and thought it would be better if I came in person. I’m old fashioned,” I grin and add, “I like to give my stories a personal touch.”

“I understand,” She replies automatically, “But you still should have called first–”

“I’m awfully sorry,” I interject, trying to keep her off balance, “I can call to set up an appointment if you like, but it’s long a drive to Baltimore and I don’t know when I’ll have an opportunity to come down this way again. Does Mr. Quill have any time available today at all? I would only need a few quick quotes,” My grin deepens, and I lean even closer, “It’s a bit of a fluff piece, really. Just need some sound bites, that sort of thing.”

She snorts through thin nostrils and pulls the phone from its receiver, clutching it between her head and shoulder, “Give me one moment. This is highly unorthodox, but I will see what I can do. Have a seat over there.”

I bow and reply, glancing at the name chiseled into a polished placard on her desk, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Humphrey.”

After a whispered conversation with the phone, the secretary disappears. After ten minutes of paging through the college’s course catalog, the secretary reappears and escorts me through double doors into the corner office of Mr. Howard Quill. He stands up from behind his desk.

“Mr. Marlowe!” He greets me with the fake name I gave the secretary, taking my hand between his hairy knuckles, “So nice to meet you. Please have a seat.”

We take chairs on opposite ends of his desk and Mrs. Humphrey excuses herself. A giant window frames Mr. Quill in front of a view of the campus, distant students milling around like ants in a glass tank. He smiles and says, “Mrs. Humphrey said you were from the Baltimore Sun.”

I nod, “Yes sir. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Not a problem at all. Don’t tell the board I said this,” He grins slyly, “But the school basically runs itself.”

I give him the reaction he is seeking, chuckling at his wit.

“What can I do for you today?” He asks.

“I’m doing a piece on Senator Hart and his son Abner,” I tell him as I open my notebook across my lap and uncap my pen, “I was hoping to get some quotes from you about them.”

“Of course,” Mr. Quill eagerly responds, “What would you like to know?”

“Well,” I improvise, “Would you care to comment on Abner Hart’s mayoral campaign in New Harford?”

Another mischievous smile digs deep into Mr. Quill’s aged features, “No comment.”

“I understand,” I reply with my own sly smile, hoping he has accepted my gambit, “Then let’s start with something else. This is going to be, hmm,” I gesticulate wildly with my hands, drawing his eyes into my ruse, “A piece on the Hart legacy. You get what I’m saying?”

Mr. Quill nods. I can almost see the punch cards being inserted into his ancient brain, old talking points being drawn from a sealed vault, “I take your meaning. To start, let me just say,” The assembled routine unwinds into a speech, “Senator Hart is a tremendous man,

“He’s done so much for our state, including the bill that established this school,” Mr. Quill explains proudly, “Back in the nineties, with the passage of HR 266, a bill he wrote, Hart State College was founded with a grant from the federal government. He broke the ground here himself on March 20, 1998 when the purchase of this plot of land was finalized by the state.”

“So that’s why the school is named after him?”

“Well, him and his wife.”

“What do you mean?”

He responds in short order, “The two main class halls here are Victoria and Eleanor Hall, the first and middle name of his first wife.”

I nod somberly, “She passed in, what was it, 1987?”

“1988,” He corrects, “It was all very sudden and out of nowhere.”

The pages of my notebook fill with details, “Did you know her?”

He bobs his head in affirmation, “I’m close with the family.”

“What was she like?”

Mr. Howard Quill exhales a heavy breath, “If you could say one thing about her, it would be that she loved her children.”

I pull back, “I’m sorry to bring it up.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” He says, his eyes shining with memories of Elroy’s first wife, “It was a long time ago. She was a great woman. I’m happy to have known her.”

Changing topics, I flip to a new page, “So you must know her children then, as well.”

He hesitates, “Yes. Abner is on the board here. Brandon used to be a professor here as well, although he came from the Senator’s second marriage. Great kids. Brandon was one of our best math teachers. He got excellent evaluations from all of the students.”

I dip my toe in the water, testing, “And what about Christopher?”

A frown briefly threatens to cross his lips, but the tips of his mouth curl into a mock smile after a moment’s consideration, “I don’t see Chris much since he took over the family’s insurance business. He was always a bright boy.”

“Not so much a boy anymore,” I remark, “He’s 47.”

“Time certainly does fly,” His empty platitude falls flat between us.

“Indeed,” I reply, “Speaking of, several years ago, there was a student here named Diana Hofstetler–” Mr. Quill interrupts, “Are you here to ask me about that? Is that what this is about?”

“No, no,” I retreat, “I apologize. Rest assured; I won’t be writing about that in my story. That was off the record. Let’s move on. I almost have what I need.”

His expression withers on his face, his charming demeanor transformed into a bland monotone, “I hope so. I think that will be all–”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m a very busy man,” He indicates the door, “Thank you for stopping by.”

I gape at him, startled. After realizing he is serious, I stand up, pulling closed my jacket to hide my fake credentials. Unable to press further without potentially blowing my cover, I turn to leave. With my hand on the doorknob, I look over my shoulder and shoot one last question at Mr. Quill.

“What happened between Diana Hofstetler and Christopher Hart?” His eyebrows jump involuntarily, and he swallows a lump in his throat before stating in a dead voice, “Get out.”

—

A sign on the highway dares me to Eat at Joe’s. I order a plate of steaming crabs from a pretty waitress who cheerfully tells me three times her name is Jesse before putting my order through to the kitchen. Sitting in the booth, I crack open spindly overgrown spider legs with a mallet and dip long flakes of pulpy white meat into melted butter. As I eat, I ponder on the mystery of the Harts, wondering how many missing girls I will find in their history. With that in mind, I pull out the article I have been reading intermittently, the one by Lynn Martin, and pick up where I left,

The Last Calvert

Frederick Calvert would be the last person to hold the Calvert family name and the title Baron of Baltimore. Upon receiving the Barony and Proprietorship of Maryland in 1751, Calvert became the recipient of an immense monthly stipend drawn from taxes and rents in Maryland, worth a modern equivalent of $1,290,000. This extraordinary wealth immediately agreed with him. In the subsequent years, he became accustomed to a lavish lifestyle. According to records kept in the Calvert estate in Woodcote Park, Calvert toured continental Europe attended by a retinue of courtiers composed of a “*physician and a bevy of eight ladies superintended by two Negro eunuchs”, traveling like a royal circus from Rome to Naples to Constantinople. In the latter capital, he spent long years immersed in the local culture, leveraging his colonial income into a spot on the Ottoman court. It was probably here he developed his lifelong addiction to opium. A Scottish biographer, James Boswell, who encountered Lord Baltimore in Turkey in 1763, wrote, Calvert “lived luxuriously and inflamed his blood, then he became melancholy and timorous, and was constantly taking medicines… he is living a strange, wild life, useless to his country, except when raised to a delirium, and must soon destroy his constitution.”*

During his escapades in Europe, the colony of Maryland became embroiled in the French and Indian War. When the colonists sent to their Proprietor and the Barony of Baltimore for aid in the war, the requests fell on deaf ears. Calvert was a thousand miles away and wholly uninterested in the affairs of his subjects. Maryland would be the only colony during the war not to contribute to common defense of the thirteen colonies. Eventually, Calvert was forced to flee Constantinople when local officials accused him of keeping a harem. Events in the coming years of Calvert’s life would give credence to these allegations, though they were never formally proven. When he finally returned to England in 1766, he tore down his family’s estate in Woodcote Park and rebuilt it in the manner of a Turkish mansion. A contemporary article from the periodical Newgate Calendar notes, in this new mansion, “he kept a number of women, who had rules given them by which to regulate their conduct; and he had agents, to procure him fresh faces, in different parts of the town.”

In 1767, he became enamored with another fresh face, a young London milliner named Sarah Woodcock.

Sarah Woodcock was lucky, insofar as her family were moderately wealthy merchants who had the clout to ensure her case received more attention than it otherwise might have. A playboy image had dogged the globe-trotting Calvert his whole life, but there were also darker rumors whispered around court, that he had pushed his first wife from a carriage after their relationship soured or that his estate was little more than a brothel. Calvert was a man of extraordinary wealth and many clients, and so was granted a substantial amount of leeway in the absence of concrete evidence. But once the outrageous details surrounding the case of Sarah Woodcock were revealed in the local newspapers and court documents, the rumor mill churned ceaselessly, and Calvert’s reputation would never recover.

While visiting London, two women in the employ of Calvert, Elizabeth Griffensburg and Anne Harvey, happened upon the Woodcock Hattery on Tower Hill and discovered inside a woman of renowned beauty, Sarah Woodcock. Knowing his lordship would be interested, they reported this discovery back to Calvert. Over the next year, Frederick Calvert and these two women contrived numerous reasons and pretenses to visit the hattery. Ms. Woodcock thought nothing of their patronage.

Then one day in December 1767, Anne Harvey entered the Hattery and requested Ms. Woodcock attend Mrs. Griffensburg at her estate; She informed Ms. Woodcock that Mrs. Griffensburg was interested in purchasing one of the long-brimmed hats she had been inquiring about on her previous visit. Mrs. Harvey and Ms. Woodcock exited the hattery and entered an awaiting coach, with Ms. Woodcock under the impression they were en route to the Griffensburg Estate. Unbeknownst to her, the coach belonged to Frederick Calvert and Ms. Woodcock was being abducted.

Ms. Woodcock was surprised to arrive at the Calvert Estate and even more shocked when Lord Baltimore himself awaited her in the parlor. When the young milliner demanded to know where Mrs. Griffensburg was, the lady and her husband, Dr. Griffensburg, were summoned. They arrived accompanied by another person unknown to Ms. Woodcock, a man without titles named Isaac Isaacs. Lord Baltimore produced a basket of gifts, comprised of a purse, a ring and perfume, and offered it to her. He begged Ms. Woodcock to join them for dinner that evening. Ms. Woodcock declined and explained that her father would be wondering after her long absence, to which Lord Baltimore’s request became a demand.

According to the account Ms. Woodcock gave on the stand at the Court of the King’s Bench, she was then forcibly detained by Anne Harvey and Elizabeth Griffensburg, stripped down to her undergarments and dressed up in one of the gowns provided by Calvert. Then, she was paraded into the dining hall where she and Lord Baltimore dined in silence, with his servants standing at the edges of the room. Afterwards, they retired to the study where Calvert played the harpsichord for her and lectured her on spiritual matters. According to the testimony, “*his discourse consisted of a ridicule on religion, and everything that was sacred, even to the denying the existence of a soul.”*

Once Calvert was finished, Anne Harvey and Elizabeth Griffensburg appeared to escort Sarah Woodcock to the upstairs bedroom, where she found Dr. Griffensburg waiting in an armchair. Ms. Woodcock was locked into the bedroom, with the two women standing guard outside of the door. According to Ms. Woodcock, Dr. Griffensburg stared at her and offered no explanation. After some time, Lord Calvert himself appeared. The court documents state, “*though she called out repeatedly for help, she found none.”*

That night, according to her account, Sarah Woodcock was raped twice by Frederick Calvert, while Dr. Griffensburg watched.

For the next two days, Sarah Woodcock was held against her will in the Calvert Estate. Each night, she was visited by Lord Calvert who would bring another companion to watch. The names of the men who watched were not known to her. During the day, she was locked in an upstairs bedroom with only a single window to connect her to the outside world.

On the second day of her imprisonment, she noticed a passerby from the window and managed to flag him down, dropping a letter from the window into his hands, detailing her circumstances and requesting the recipient send for her father and authorities immediately.

Once her father was informed, he employed the services of Robert Watts, an attorney, who applied for a writ of habeas corpus to Lord Mansfield, under whose domain the crime was committed. That evening, Watts arrived at the Calvert Estate with the writ in hand and demanded to see Sarah Woodcock. Calvert calmly asked to see the writ and upon reading it, summoned Elizabeth Griffensburg. The servant returned sometime later with Sarah Woodcock in tow. According to the attorney’s statements, Lord Baltimore explained at great length the tenderness and affection he felt for Ms. Woodcock and how much he desired her to stay with him. Sarah Woodcock said nothing, even when Watts asked if she was there by consent. Using the warrant as leverage, Watts took her under his custody and left the Estate.

The case against Frederick Calvert, Sixth Baron of Baltimore and Fifth Proprietor of Maryland, and his associates, Elizabeth Griffensburg and Anne Harvey, was filed several days later at the Court of the King’s Bench in Kingston. Warrants were issued for all three parties; Griffensburg and Harvey were apprehended at Woodcote Park, but Calvert was nowhere to be found. For several days, authorities searched for Calvert, until he suddenly appeared at the courthouse and turned himself in. All three were subsequently released on bail.

The closing defense given by Frederick Calvert during the trial survives in the court stenographer’s records. His statement is here transcribed for the reader, “I do aver, upon the word of a man of honour, that there is no truth in anything which has been said or sworn of my having offered violence to this girl. I ever held such brutality in abhorrence. I am totally against all force; and for me to have forced this woman, considering my weak state of health, and my strength, is not only a moral, but a physical, impossibility. She is, as to bodily strength, stronger than I am. Strange opinions, upon subjects foreign to this charge, have been falsely imputed to me, to inflame this accusation. Libertine as I am represented, I hold no such opinions. Much has been said against me, that I seduced this girl from her parents: seduction is not the point of this charge; but I do assure your lordship and the jury this part of the case has been aggravated exceedingly beyond the truth. If I have been in any degree to blame, I am sure I have sufficiently atoned for every indiscretion, which a weak attachment to this unworthy woman may have led me into, by having suffered the disgrace of being exposed as a criminal at the bar in the county which my father had the honour to represent in parliament.”

The jury took one hour and fifteen minutes to decide. Frederick Calvert was ruled innocent.

The courts may have absolved Calvert, but not his peers. Calvert became a pariah. He was hounded from all of his social circle. His troubles were compounded when a thinly veiled novel written by one of his former mistresses, Memoirs of the Seraglio of the Bashaw of Merryland By A Discarded Sultana, exposed all of the misdeeds and infidelities of the ‘Bashaw of Merryland’, an obvious allegory for the Lord Baltimore of Maryland. In 1769, Calvert was forced to flee England altogether, taking his entire household with him.

Calvert spent the next two years hopping from city to city in continental Europe, his reputation never far behind him. Either the sickness that eventually claimed his life in 1771 began eating away at his sanity long before he showed symptoms or he descended in a hedonistic madness all of his own accord in the latter years of his life; A Spanish diplomat noted during this period of Calvert’s life, he was often in the company of his personal physician, who constantly whispered into his ear. The diplomat explains, “With the aid of his physician he conducted odd experiments on his women: he fed the plump ones only acid foods and the thin ones milk and broth.” The purposes of these experiments were never documented.

His arrival in cities was always accompanied by a rush of press and sometimes he was even directly questioned by authorities. In Vienna, his traveling harem became an object of official inquiry. The police report states, “He arrived at Vienna when the chief of police requested him to declare which of the eight ladies was his wife, he replied that he was an Englishman, and that when he was called upon to give an account of his sexual arrangements, if he could not settle the matter with his fists, it was his practice to set out instantly on his travels again.”

His travels ended in Naples, when he contracted a fever and died in his bed. He left no legitimate children and so the Barony of Baltimore died with him; The Proprietorship of Maryland, however, was another story.

While Calvert was crisscrossing Europe, Sarah Woodcock had given birth to twins, Henry and Frances Mary–

“Sir?” The waitress intrudes on my thoughts, “Are you alright?”

I look up and realize in my single-minded focus on the story, I’ve spilt the ramekin of butter all over my lap. I click my tongue in disappointment and shrug, too engrossed in this twisted family history contained in the pages I hold, wondering how it all relates back to the Harts and ultimately, Rachel. The similarities, the trail of outrageous wealth, missing girls and abductions stretching back centuries. What does it all mean?

“What are you reading, anyway?” She asks.

The stack of papers sits on the table next to the pile of broken crab shells. I swallow and ask, suddenly remembering the series of highway signs that lead me here, “What town is this?”

“Dunkirk,” She replies.

“Uh huh,” I reply, grasping at straws, “What county?”

“Calvert.”

A shiver goes down my spine.

—

Back in New Harford, I find myself sitting at Lucky’s, with a new host of facts to digest. My notebook lays open on the bar next to an empty shot glass and an ashtray piled high with cigarette butts. I crush my current cigarette in the mound and blow a lingering cloud of smoke into the stale bar air.

I stare at the only name left on my list of suspects.

Brandon Hart.

A pen dances in my jittering grip. I add a new name.

Christopher Hart.

I breathe heavily and keep writing, concentrating on the tip of the pen as it slides across the paper like a seismograph needle.

Abner Hart.

I swallow a shot of vodka. The shaking worsens. An itch swallows my insides. I breathe through a veil, smothered by implications.

Elroy Hart.

I drink but don’t get drunk. I shake until sleep finally takes me.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27th

I wake up in my car to a text message from Dakota. Without going back to the motel to change or shower, I get to the diner before him and order breakfast. The waiter brings a plate of grease and eggs from the kitchen window and sets it in front of me. Hobbled by withdrawal, I crouch over the plate and mutter thanks under my breath. I can barely hold the fork and knife with my shaking hands, but I’m starving so I make do.

As I wait for Dakota, my attention anxiously skips through thoughts, too manic to settle on any one for more than few seconds. Every question I chase leads back to the only one that matters: who are the Harts? I pull out Lynn Martin’s piece and stare down at their story, stretching across these sheets of paper back through the centuries. Like holy scripture, I peel the pages back and search the verses for where I left off,

Of Harfords and Harts

Henry and Frances were born in 1768. Due to their mother’s heavily publicized court case, it was widely known they were Frederick Calvert’s illegitimate children, but that did not stop Sarah Woodcock’s new husband Peter Harford from raising them as his own; They were both brought up as Harfords in his home in London.

Henry and Frances were inseparable as children. They were attended by the same tutors, worked in the Woodcock Hattery through their adolescence together and were never seen apart. Beyond these meager facts, not much else can be said; The Harfords were neither landed nor titled, and they did not live extravagant lives, so they did not accumulate a paper trail for history to unpack. Their residence on Bond Street in London was more than adequate for their small family, but the nearby mansions on Oxford Street belonging to the gentry dwarfed their apartment by comparison. Henry and Frances Harford would have walked by them every day as they crossed Piccadilly, on their way to their family’s hattery.

Later in life, Henry Harford would write in a letter to one of his associates that it was in his home on Bond Street, at the age of 13, where his mother told him who his real father was; whether or not she divulged the circumstances that led to his birth is unknown. In any case, the seed was planted. “It was in that moment,” he writes, “where I felt myself being lifted up by fate and ferried towards some greater end.” According to English Common Law, Henry Harford was the heir to Frederick Calvert’s title of the Proprietorship of Maryland, and thus he was owed thirteen years of rent. However, by then, the American Revolution had ended, and the colonies were now the United States; the territory of Maryland was no longer under British rule and he had little chance of acquiring his inheritance.

Nevertheless, at the age of 15, Henry Harford appeared before the court of King George III and requested formal recognition as the heir to Frederick Calvert and the restoration of his title as the Proprietor of Maryland. The King, with no actual authority over Maryland, granted his request without issue. Henry Harford left court bearing a writ that he hoped would cement his fortune.

Henry and Frances sailed to the United States together at the age of 17. According to the ship’s manifest, they shared a single room below deck for seven weeks before they laid sights on their new home. Most of that time Henry spent seasick.

When they finally landed at the new state capital and port city of Annapolis in 1785, Henry and Frances entered the Maryland General Assembly and submitted their claim. Henry had carefully devised the submission to avoid political traps: abandoning a large portion of his inheritance to the circumstances of history, the essence of the claim stated that he was owed rents from the period of 1771, when his father died, to 1776, when Maryland declared independence. In addition, all land falling above the northwest branch of the Potomac River not already claimed by free settlers, what is today Western Maryland, belonged by rights to his family, as his deeds and title attested.

However, as if its simultaneity were planned, another claim was presented to the Assembly. A man named Robert Hart entered the State House with his wife Elizabeth, formerly Elizabeth Calvert, granddaughter of Charles Calvert I, through his third son Cecilus. Years prior, the son of John Hart had married into a vestige of the continental branch of the Calvert family and entangled the two families together. As Hart’s wife could trace her heritage to a former Proprietor with legitimacy, whereas Henry Harford’s claim rested on his illegitimacy, Robert Hart moved that the Assembly grant all lands and incomes in dispute to his family.

Before the Assembly could issue any decision on the matter, they adjourned their session for the year, leaving Hart and Harford to simmer through the heat of an unusually hot Annapolis summer. Henry and Frances had sailed halfway around the world to claim their inheritance and a stranger had appeared out of nowhere to deny them; they could not have been happy. There are no accounts of what precisely transpired among the two families in the summer of 1785, but there are a few facts that have come down through time. During the summer, three things occurred with certainty:

Elizabeth Calvert died for reasons unknown. Robert Hart and Frances Harford were married. Frances Harford, now Frances Hart, became pregnant.

The next year, when the General Assembly called session again, Henry Harford and Robert Hart entered the State House together and presented their unified claim; Frances, now six months pregnant, did not join them. Henry Harford acquiesced before the Assembly and yielded to Robert Hart, who now submitted a new claim for all the lands and rents previously disputed. The motion passed the lower House of the Assembly easily enough, with famous Revolutionary figures like Samuel Chase arguing in its favor, but the Senate rejected it out of hand, citing Harford’s “absence during the war, and his father Frederick’s alienation of his subjects.” Harford and Hart left the State House empty-handed and in a foul mood.

A reporter from the Maryland Gazette was present to record the ensuing chaos, “the two parties adjourned into the lobby of the State House, whereupon a scuffle broke out between them. Henry Harford, the shorter of the two and a boy to look upon, enraged beyond reprieve, screamed for all in attendance to hear, ‘You cannot have her!’ before throwing his fists in wild manner at the barrel-chested Robert Hart. A half dozen bailiffs descended on the brawl before any bodily harm could come to any involved.”

The embittered Harford left Annapolis by carriage the next day. Before leaving, he went that morning to the Hart residence on Chester Street and stole into his sister’s room. History cannot be found in the moments they shared in that room. Whether or not Henry tried to convince his sister to come with him is unknown, but she would have been in no state to accompany him even if he had. Henry left his sister with Robert Hart that day and went west. A few months later, Henry Hart was born–

The eggs are a mistake. They soak up last night’s booze and inflate my abdomen to twice its size. A queasy vertigo liquefies my intestines into soup, a vile paste that crawls up my throat in violent heaves. I gallop through the diner towards the bathroom. By the time I’m done vomiting into the restaurant’s porcelain toilet, three people have come and gone from the neighboring stall.

I stagger back out into the diner, wondering which pairs of eyes that now harshly judge me bore witness to my morning ritual. If I hadn’t pulled over last night and passed out in my car on the side of the road, only the motel walls would judge me right now. As it stands, I can tell I’ve ruined a few breakfasts.

The only bright face in the whole place is Dakota. While I was emptying the contents of my stomach, the waiter must have seated him. He smiles warmly at me. I’m right in the sweet spot, halfway between drunk and sober. I better get the news from him before the equilibrium shatters into a hangover.

He slides the envelope across the table and asks, “Thinking about going into politics?”

“Come again?” I mutter, swishing a mouthful of cold coffee through my teeth. I spit the coffee back into the cup. Dakota is unfazed.

“Everyone on the force knows he’s going to run again next year.”

Suddenly, the table elongates. The envelope is now miles away, stranded in the vast openness between me and Dakota. The next question asks itself, “Who is going to run again next year?”

I peel open the envelope and look at the results.

My tail’s car is registered to Abner Hart.

—

The address from Dakota’s results leads me down winding dirt roads without names. High up in the mountains, I pull off the side of the road and gaze out over the vast stretch of Earth before me. New Harford is like a terrarium from this distance, an enclosure where the activities of the city can be studied without bias.

The city sits in a wooded valley, as if weighing the ground down with its concrete bulk. Mountains rise on all sides to form a natural barrier. The only connections to the outside world are a span of highway winding through the troughs of the mountain range and the train tracks running parallel. My motel sits on the outskirts, half-hidden by the encroaching forest. Lilly’s house is on the opposite end of the city, in the suburbs that curl around the base of a mountain and ascend towards its summit, where the hospital and Calvert Catholic sit, a water tower standing between them.

This far from the city is all state land, farms and private estates. I pass a grain silo and fields of wheat grown from flats carved out of the mountainside. A mansion sits next to its enterprise, showcasing its productive wealth. Then field after field of grazing cows, spilled across the landscape like puddles of black and white.

Here I weave through the vital reserves of the city. Imagine a patient strapped to a table, his organs excised from his body with surgical precision and placed around his hollowed chest while still pumping, then you will have some idea of New Harford’s anatomy. These farms feed the city, pumping into it their essence, although technically they sit outside its taxable boundaries.

My cellphone loses its signal, but the last message from the GPS tells me I’m a mile away. I pull off to the side of the road again and leave my car in a ditch, so that passing cars won’t be able to see until they’re right up on it. I haven’t seen another car in an hour, but caution has become paramount. In the trunk, I retrieve a pair of binoculars and my gun.

It’s not hard to find my destination for the same reason getting in is going to be impossible. The Hart Estate is surrounded by two concentric walls, the inner taller than the outer, enclosing at least ten acres of meadow. Spirals of razor wire wind around top of the outer wall and the inner wall watches the outside world through cameras placed at evenly spaced intervals around its circumference. The only entrance is a series of gates controlled electronically from a guardhouse on the other side.

This isn’t an estate, I think, it’s a compound. A fortress.

The mansion itself sits atop a rising hill, separate and disjunct from the menace of its guarding walls. The building was old a century ago, now it’s practically ancient, a relic. Its entrance is hidden behind a row of marble columns that support a slanted roof that stretches over the vast three-story structure. The symmetry of the mansion has been broken over time by additional wings, the eastern half of the building an odd conjunction of pods and towers while the western half is traditional Victorian architecture. Orange light glows from a few select windows, while the rest are dark.

I skirt the edges of the estate, keeping a healthy distance away from it. I climb a small rise and take refuge between a huddle of pine trees. I peer through my binoculars.

Figures in black suits make patrols around the building’s exterior. A guard smokes a cigarette outside of the guardhouse next to the gate. Another guard shuffles through a tended garden a half mile west, a secondary guest house sitting amidst the flowers and shrubs. I find the stable further west still, its door open and a beautiful woman leading a muscled stallion out into the yard. Henrietta Vander-Strauss. She saddles the horse and climbs onto his back, goading him through worn tracks. She disappears galloping behind the mansion, golden blonde hair streaming behind her.

I scan the walls, looking for outlets into the outside world. The row of power lines that follow the dirt road leading to the Hart Estate are buried in the ground for at least three hundred yards before tunneling underneath the walls, so no luck there. I keep scanning. I find a thin black cable threading up the eastern wall like a tiny capillary. It disappears through the wall. I smile.

This might be not be so hard after all.

—

“Elliot, oh good,” Lilly says upon opening her front door, “Listen, about the other night–”

“Not now,” I interject, pushing through into the house, “I found something. I need to look around Rachel’s room again.”

She follows after me like the dog that follows after her. On the way through the chaos of Lilly’s living room, I feel the clicking. The snapping into place of pieces. The picture is becoming clearer in my head, much clearer. I’m fairly certain about the abstract, but the particulars elude me. I need to sound out the depth of this rabbit-hole one more time.

In her room, I’m spinning. Who’s in on it? The teachers? The cops? The whole city?

Her shelf, the missing books from her locker. I retrieve a physics textbook. The pages are slippery plastic in my fingers. A flurry of rifled paper, blindly searching. Page 134, Chapter 4, Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. For every action, there is an equal, but opposite reaction. Rachel’s handwriting all over the place, leading my eyes to the margins where I see…

Brandon Hart circled in hearts. Next to it, similarly decorated, Rachel Hart.

I am crouching in the middle of Rachel’s room like an animal nervously guarding its fallen hunt. Lilly walks up behind me and lays her hand on my shoulder. I nearly jolt out of my skin.

“What’s going on?” She asks, concerned.

“Look.” I push the book into her hands.

She examines the margins, “She has a crush.”

I need to show her the trail, let her catch the scent before I pull the rug out from under her, “I’ve talked to this Mr. Hart. Twice. The first time, he told me they don’t have a relationship outside of class and never talk except in school. Then I found these diary entries.”

I pull Rachel’s diary from my bag and show her the entries about staying late after Mr. Hart’s class and talking to him. Lilly nervously takes the diary, as if she’s handling radioactive material. She becomes glass, delicate and fragile. After several pregnant moments of Lilly reading, I continue, “She writes about talking with Mr. Hart more than once. Enough that it was pattern. Yet Mr. Hart insisted he hardly knew her.”

“What do you think?” She quietly asks.

“That he wants me to think that.”

“What are you saying?”

“Rachel writes a lot about him in her diary.”

“And?”

“She went missing before Mr. Hart’s class,” I remind her.

“I don’t know, Elliot. Are you saying he took her? Rachel went missing at lunch. He was there the whole day, until school got out.”

“That he was,” I agree, “Did you know Rachel missed soccer practice and the school newspaper meetings a week before she went missing? Coach Phillips told me the other day.”

“What?” She doesn’t know, it’s obvious, “But, I dropped her off at school…”

“Where did she go when she was supposed to be at practice?” I trace the outline of Rachel’s disappearance with a series of questions, “Where was she when she was supposed to be at the newspaper? Who did she meet instead? What was she planning?”

I flip to the penultimate entry on September 25th,

OMG. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. HE KISSED ME.

I show Lilly the entry. As she is reading it, I explain, “I thought she meant Billy, but Billy said they’ve never kissed. I believe him,” I explain, punctuating the thought with another question, “Who was she talking about then?

I pause, catching my breath, “I went to Alexandria yesterday–”

“Outside of DC?”

I nod. She peers through confusion, another non sequitur woven into the obscuring veil that I am spinning around her. I explain, peeling back the curtains, “I found a case down there about a missing girl from three years ago. I went to interview the detective assigned to the case. The girl went missing from Hart State College. The detective showed me evidence that suggests Brandon’s brother, Christopher, was involved in her disappearance.”

I breathe heavily, “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

A wave of dizziness washes over Lilly. Hot breath and a slowed pulse. She clutches the cover of Rachel’s diary with curled fingers. Hushed words in a measured tone, “She was just a girl, my little girl–”

“Rachel disappears,” I say, leading Lilly back to the moment it all started, “Right before Mr. Hart’s class.”

“Elliot,” Lilly squeaks, “What happened?”

I launch into my prevailing theory, its previous vague outline solidifying into stone now that I hear the words out loud, “She went missing before Mr. Hart’s class, so he could make sure the kidnapper had at least an hour head-start before anyone had the chance to catch on.”

Her silence is all the permission I require to continue.

“I think he’s been grooming her for the past year. I think maybe that’s why he transferred here in the first place. Rachel was in the paper all the time because of soccer. Maybe he saw her picture in the paper and found her that way. Maybe he’s been planning this for a long time. Maybe he told her they were going to run off together and get married. Whatever fantasies she needed to hear, I’m sure he supplied. It would explain the lack of any signs of struggle. Someone should have seen something, but she simply disappeared, like that’s exactly what she intended to do.”

“But–” Lilly interrupts, “How can you be sure?”

“There’s more,” I hand her the results from Dakota, the final nail in the coffin.

She experiences every emotion along spectrum of human emotion in a matter of seconds before managing to choke out, “This is the car that was following you?”

“Twice. They followed me again yesterday. I forgot to mention it–,” Lilly in a green dress, swaying in my arms. I banish the thought and say, “Anyway, same car, both times.”

“Abner…” The name is vile on Lilly’s tongue, “Hart.”

“Rich and powerful, but not particularly smart. He gave my tail his own car. It would seem his brothers got all of the brains in the family,” Or at least I hope so, I think, “He’s been on my trail almost since I got here. Why? How did he know about me? Someone must have told him.”

“Oh,” The realization passes through Lilly’s eyes like an eighteen-wheeler barreling down a mountain, “Oh.”

“I bet Brandon didn’t wait five minutes after I talked to him to call his brother,” I conjecture. It’s so obvious now, why didn’t I put it together sooner? Where else would I get a tail? It had to have been someone at the school, snitching on me.

Or the hospital.

I count the degrees of separation. Barney, to Boyd, to McMullen, to Hart. Either way is plausible, either way the Harts are at the center.

It’s all around me and it’s been there the whole time. A dragnet, tangling me in invisible knots. Every road leads back to the Harts. Every avenue has a hundred gazing eyes, watching my every move, reporting it back to Abner Hart. Maybe even to Elroy himself.

And somewhere in all this mess, Rachel Walters. Are you still alive, Rachel? How do you fit into all of this? I find myself praying, hoping. I won’t let myself think it, but I know. I know what’s happened to you, and maybe is still happening right now, at this very moment. And I have a pretty good clue where.

Who to trust? Boyd? Dakota? A sad state of affairs when my only confidants are a ladder-climbing careerist and a lovestruck fool.

And Lilly.

I take her hands in mine, “Listen to me. Don’t do anything. Do you understand? I will take care of this.” Her eyes find their resting spot in mine, alight with fear, “Okay, Elliot.”

—

Back in my motel room, I collect my thoughts. More importantly, my ammunition. Everything reorders into new compositions, facts rearranging into a new narrative. Abner Hart has been following me since almost the beginning.

A sudden thought occurs to me. The Charity Auction. That was stupid, so stupid. Did they notice me? Do they know–

Lilly.

They know about Lilly. They know she hired me.

I’m putting on my jacket to go back to Lilly’s when I see the shapes moving through the curtains. I freeze in place. The room lights are on, broadcasting my presence through the window to the entire world. Stupid, Elliot. So stupid.

The knock on the door triggers primordial instincts. Suddenly, it’s twenty million years ago, and I’m a tiny rodent on the jungle floor, being stalked by lumbering lizards and birds of prey.

They knock again. I hear their muffled voices through the door. I get up the courage to peer through the peephole. Thugs, there’s no other way to describe them. Leather jacketed and slick-backed hair. Sunglasses and blank expressions. I slip back towards the far wall, pressing myself against chipped yellow paint.

The window shatters inward, sending slivered shards slicing through the air. Acting on impulses beyond my control, I duck behind the bed. Something thuds into the room and shatters. Then there is a whoosh and crackling. Heat rises in shimmering contortions to the blackening ceiling. Long flames twist in a typhoon on my bed.

I dive headlong into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Smoke seeps through the crack under the door. The window, I remember, scrambling. I unlatch it and squeeze my body through the tiny slot, plopping onto a pile of leaves outside. My eyes scan frantically. The forest stretches out behind the hotel into darkness. I am a crouching phantom, slipping into the night. I glance back and see a roaring inferno consuming the motel.

Into the comforting clutch of darkness, I disappear, swinging around the motel. I emerge in the bushes by the parking lot, encased in leaves and branches. I watch, still as a statue. Flames are leaping from the front of my motel room into the air. Smoke pours out in dark, thick columns, twisting into one large stack that smears across the encroaching night, as if its very source.

The two thugs now stand in the parking lot with weapons drawn. The flames have consumed the roof and turned the motel into a runaway disaster. A third man appears from behind the motel and yells something at the other two. The hissing flames eat his voice. They peer around in response, searching for me. I sink into the shadows, flattened against the forest floor.

Sirens shriek above the flames.

The three men get back into their car and peel out of the parking lot. I have nowhere to write down its license plate. I know who the car belongs to anyway.

I’m dizzy. I need a gallon of vodka, a carton of cigarettes and a hole to die in. There’s no time for any of it. I take stock of what has survived the fire; my cellphone, my money and my gun. Enough to get the job done.

Lilly picks up my call after the first ring. I’m already hurrying over the highway bridge into town. I hear my ammunition popping in the flames behind me, given to the fire like everything else I left in the room in my rush to get out.

“Get out of your house. Right now,” I command her, “Leave.”

“Elliot—what is going—”

“No, no questions. Do as I say.”

I hear uneven breathes. Doors closing. A car engine rumbling to life. A loose fan belt squealing. A hurried voice gasping, “Okay, I’m pulling out of the driveway.”

“Is there anyone following you?”

“I-Elliot,” She is heaving, out of breath, “I don’t think. I don’t know.”

“Get out of there and meet me at this address.”

I give her a street name and a number. I’m going to have to hoof it without my car keys.

“Elliot, what’s going on? Tell me. I’m scared.”

“There’s no time, Lilly,” I explain, “Someone just tried to kill me. They know about you.”

“Oh God, the rifle,” She says.

“Don’t go back for it. I have a gun.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

“If I’m not there when you get there, drive around the block until I am. Do not stop moving. Look for people following you. Run red lights, make turns without signals, do whatever you have to, but get away from them.”

“Okay, Elliot, I will.” She says, “Elliot? I’m scared.”

“Me too. We’ll be together soon.”

“Okay. Elliot?”

“Yes, Lilly?”

“Don’t hang up. You don’t have to say anything, but can you just stay on the line?”

“Of course, Lilly.”

I’m jogging down a crowded street. Packs of people emerge from the inside of buildings, to gaze and gape at the blazing ball illuminating the horizon and its accompanying smokestack drawn west by the breeze, stretching out like a length of rope thrown from the surface of the Earth. I dodge a huddle of kids watching through their cellphones, broadcasting the event into the ether.

“Elliot.”

“Yes?”

“Is she alive?”

Do I tell the truth? The minute I entered the picture, I changed the calculation. Rachel’s life was hanging by thread before I got here; what did the Hart brothers do when they discovered a new threat, one that couldn’t be bribed, bought or cajoled?

I’m standing by a river, ten years ago.

“I don’t know, Lilly,” I say, mustering my best response, “I’m still here. I’m not going to give up.”

She is crying, “Elliot.”

“Lilly?”

“If she’s dead, I won’t be able–” She can’t finish.

“Where are you?” I ask, trying to focus her on the task at hand.

“Hastings Street,” Her voice breaks and then recovers, “The light next to the bowling alley.”

“Take a left and then take Galveston all the way to market,” I explain, revising our plans, “Pick me up at the front entrance.”

I’m finishing my cigarette when I hear Lilly again, “I see you.”

I toss the butt to the ground and climb into Lilly’s car. She is a mess, her face like a weeping sore. We exchange seats. I pull the van out of the lot and down the road, taking note of the tank.

“What’s your mile per gallon?” I ask.

She looks up, “I don’t know. Thirty?”

“What’s this thing hold?”

“Ten gallons, give or take.”

“Enough to make it to Baltimore.”

She blusters, “Why are we going to Baltimore?”

“You,” I explain, pressing a crumpled enveloped filled with money into her lap with one hand while steering with the other, “You are going to Baltimore. Here,” I explain, “Take half. I’ll need the rest. I’m going to need to buy some supplies.”

“Elliot, I can’t take this,” She whispers, “It must be at least–”

“Five grand,” I approximate, subtracting the price of the motel, food and booze plus my half from my total, “More or less. Enough to keep you holed up for a month or more.”

“Elliot, what’s going on?”

“I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

—

“Anything she needs,” I say, pressing a wad of bills into Esmeralda’s wrinkled hands, “You get it yourself. Understand me?”

The old European lady nods her beak of a nose, counting the roll of money. She doesn’t look at me.

“Try to keep her inside,” I add, looking around her apartment; colorful tapestries hang from the ceiling, catching the haze of incense and pipe tobacco, “I’ll be back for her in a few days, but if I don’t get a hold of you by Wednesday,” I hand her a piece of paper with the name and number of one of my contacts, “This is someone called the Cleaner. He’ll get her out of the state and set up with a cover, no questions asked. There should be enough there for his fee, minus your expenses.”

She nods again. Her hair is tied up in a scarf and her back is crooked. She mutters blurbs in the lilting tones of Eastern Europe and her eyes dart around the room as if not comprehending me, but I’ve known Esmeralda Broslowski for the last eight years. She understands everything I say, but only speaks English on rare occasions. This is one of those occasions. She says something else in a language I don’t understand and then turns to me, “You go find girl, yes?”

“Yes, Esme. I go find girl.”

“Good boy,” She says, her voice thick with the Old World. She reaches over and pats me on the head, “You good boy. Make mother proud.”

Her words are like a knife in my gut. She sees me wince and begins howling in her native tongue again. I find myself ushered into the kitchen, where Lilly sits. Esme puts a pot of water on the stove and disappears behind a veil of clattering beads. We are alone, both aware the other is averting their gaze.

“Are you going?” She finally asks.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“I have to be out of contact for a while,” I add.

“Why?” She nervously drums her fingers on the table.

“I can’t risk having the battery in my phone except when I absolutely need it,” I tell her, presenting a facade of confidence, as if I have some notion of what I am doing, “They can track me that way. You should take yours out, too.”

She takes my hand. I’m putty in her palm.

“Elliot, before you go,” She says, electricity running through the tips of her fingers into mine, “I have to tell you something.”

“Lilly–” I interrupt, “Don’t–”

“No, you don’t understand,” She replies, “I chose you, Elliot.”

She’s right. I don’t understand.

“I—I saw your name on the list of private detectives. There were others, closer to New Harford I could have gone to. But I saw your name and remembered you.”

I open and close my fists. Her hands brace mine on my table. Our eyes dance.

“What happened to her, Elliot?”

I close my eyes and enter a past life.

“I was…” Can I do it? Can I say it? I see it coming, in the darkness, like a movie screen getting closer and closer, “It was…it was just a stranger,” I say.

“We went…we went to the playground down the street,” And then it’s rushing out, like a dam bursting, “She loved that jungle gym and wouldn’t play on any of the others, no matter where we took her.

“Leah was over at the foot stand, in line to get hot-dogs. I was the one who was supposed to be watching,” The memory evaporates before my very eyes. I feel nothing, I see nothing. I am simply saying empty words now, recitations with nothing behind them. The memory isn’t there anymore. Maybe I’ve finally killed it. Whether it drowned in a decade of liquor or died of its own accord, I’ll never know, but it’s gone regardless, “I turned away. For a second. Maybe ten seconds. Maybe it was an hour. I can’t remember, no matter how hard I try.

“When I turned back, she was gone.”

The gap is crossed. Images come flooding back.

Leah shrieking, beating on my chest.

“I found security footage at the bank down the street a week later.”

A battering ram taken to a door. An empty living room.

“In the house, in his house–”

A drawing in my hands. Boyd screaming at the SWAT team. A mattress knifed open. Sledgehammers sundering walls. They’ll find nothing. They’re already gone.

A drawing in my hands, staining with tears.

You drew me in my uniform, baby girl.

“He found out her father was a cop.”

Why did you draw me in my uniform?

“We followed him three hundred miles, across five counties,” I’m back in the room with Lilly, “It was already too late by then, we just didn’t know it.

“He confessed the minute Boyd put the screws to him. Told us where to find her.

“If I hadn’t looked away–” Who is this stranger talking? “If I had just thought to check the security footage sooner–” Is this the man you used to be? “If I had never become a fucking cop–”

Lilly touches my arm and whispers, “Then Rachel would be lost.”

She holds me for hours. I leave as the sun casts its rays across a waking city. In another life, I now find myself. In someone else’s shoes. In love with a woman who is not my wife. Whose daughter is not my own. Whose daughter I have to find.

Will find. Whatever it takes.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28th

I smoke a pack of cigarette waiting for the sign and decal store in Baltimore to open. I pace the parking lot with Lynn Martin’s article in my hands, pages crinkling under hooked fingers, searching for the thread that will lead me to corrupted heart of this story. The words are a portal to another world, one that has been unfolding in parallel to this one, grazing against it, now exposed in the light of day,

–Individual lives are often obscured by history. During this time, the Napoleonic Wars were cascading across Europe, heralding a new era; Ripples were felt the world over as country after country was pulled through France’s epochal wake. In America, the British Navy had blockaded the east coast to prevent French supplies in Canada from making their way to Napoleon’s armies in Europe. Trade in the United States suffered as a result and old battle lines three decades old were redrawn across maps. The conflict became a war in its own right, labeled by historians as the War of 1812, though the conflict wouldn’t be resolved until 1815.

In May 1813, a battalion of British soldiers sailed up the Potomac river. Among them was a young recruit of fourteen years whose name on the enlistment form was scrawled in chicken scratch: Jeremiah Hart. They descended on the newly incorporated town of Harford and put it to the torch. The town would never recover; still to this day, it is little more than a few, desolate streets in the middle of nowhere. Among the many buildings destroyed over the course of the two-day sacking at the beginning of the nineteenth century, known today as the Burning of Harford, the courthouse and register of the wills were razed to the ground, everything within consumed by flames. Any records of the Harford family, from the point in time when Henry Harford left Annapolis in 1786 to the moment the torches touched the tinder, were utterly destroyed. The town itself was decimated and all but erased from historical records. All that is known about the town of Harford and its inhabitants has to be inferred from the business ledgers in nearby cities and documents filed in other jurisdictions.

At some point between 1786 and 1790, Henry Harford found a stretch of land within the boundaries he had tried to win from the General Assembly as his birthright and settled there, claiming it instead through homesteading. By 1800, a small town had sprouted in the mountains of Western Maryland, far away from the intrigue and politics of the capital, christened with his surname. The closest trading post at Fort Frederick details accounts settled in Harford’s name on a bi-annual basis from 1795 until 1811, orders comprised mostly of animal pelts and lumber. A census in 1810 records the population of Harford at 15,580. The census in 1820 does not even mention Harford as one of its municipalities, instead including the population living within its former limits in the county total of 2,300.

The fate of Henry Harford himself cannot even be stated with any certainty. He may have died on one of those days in May 1813 or he may have died years prior. All knowledge of Henry passed with the destruction of Harford. If he did indeed die during the Burning of Harford, then the tragic element of his passing cannot be understated; Jeremiah Hart would have been his grandnephew, the son of his namesake, Henry Hart.

After the war was settled, a new municipality was incorporated thirty miles west. Among the signatories on the Articles of Incorporation, Henry Hart’s bold handwriting deliberately stands out between the smaller signatures of his peers. Which makes the name chosen for this town even more curious: New Harford.

From the very beginning of the town’s history, the Hart name is literally writ large. By 1816, the family had relocated to an estate in their new domain and planted their roots deep in its soil.

On January 5th, 1817, Frances Hart left her new estate in Western Maryland, climbed a ridge along Collier Mountain in Allegany County and threw herself from a height of 800 feet onto jagged rocks–

One tragedy after another, I think. This whole family is a Shakespearean nightmare. Another point wiggles in brain: Henry Hart founded New Harford. What exactly am I dealing with here? The question re-emerges: Who are the Harts? Before I can pick up where I left off, a teenager in overalls pulls up in a two-door truck and steps out. He opens the store and I push in before he has time to turn on the lights.

“I need a decal for a van,” I explain, “Quickly.”

“Alright, mister, hold on a second,” The kid rushes to the counter, switching on a computer hidden in a cubby-hole, “What did you have in mind?”

I consider that a moment. I am running blind here, acting on impulse. I am conjuring prophecies from the haze of the future, “Well,” I say before the plan is even formed in my head, “I’m with Comcast. We need a new van for our fleet, so I need to get our logo on the side.”

“Easy enough,” The kid answers, taking out a clipboard and form, pushing it in front of me, “Just fill out these forms–”

“I won’t have the van for another hour yet,” I improvise, “Is that alright?”

“Not a problem. We can get its info later.”

I nod, “When you’re done, can you have it delivered to this address?”

“Of course,” He looks at the address, “This is a parking garage.”

“It is. Is that a problem?”

“A bit unusual. You’re with Comcast, you said?”

“I am,” I reply, sensing his suspicion.”

“You got some ID? Employee number? Badge?”

“Sure do,” I slide a thousand dollars across the counter.

The boy smiles, all teeth and shining eyes, “One logo coming right up.”

—

I nearly crash Lilly’s van when the radio broadcasts the hourly news. I pull off the highway and turn the volume up to a thunderclap. I am breathless as the voice modulates overs a range of frequencies, dispersed into static and born again in audible chunks. Behind the news cast, I hear the twang of country music from another station. I am right on the edge of both broadcasts, picking sounds out of the noise, listening to the thread of information woven into the chaos, “…when he apparently lost control of his vehicle. Detective Dakota Jones was taken by helicopter to Willowbrook Hospital but passed away this morning due to injuries sustained in the crash…” the broadcast is swept away by the sad refrain of a drunken country song.

I buy every newspaper from the gas station at the next exit. The only one that mentions Dakota is the New Harford Times News. They use a photo from twenty years ago, back from when everyone on the force gave him hell for his peach fuzz. Stephanie, I think. Their kids. Two boys and girl. I don’t remember their names.

The details are sketchy. He lost control of his car on Galveston Boulevard and plowed into oncoming traffic. The tractor-trailer that hit him left only a streak on the road and a trail of debris. I don’t buy any of it for a second.

My jaw grinds and my teeth crack. They’ve drawn first blood, I think. There is fury boiling inside of me, steaming rage shooting through my veins. My stomach seethes with a hot, hot hatred, like a poison leaking into my body.

The clerk isn’t anywhere to be seen. I crawl over the counter and take a carton of cigarettes. The van squeals out of the lot following after my thoughts.

—

On my way back to New Harford, I pull off the highway three exits from town. Lilly’s van putters to a halt in front of a row of storage sheds. The bells chime as I enter the lobby of the main shop. The lady behind the counter pulls out a contract, gets my information and shows me the unit I just rented.

“How often do you do checks on the units?”

Her eyebrows arch in response, “The contract you just signed prevents you from occupying these quarters as a residence.”

“Oh no,” I half-lie, “I only meant, I’m going to be keeping some valuables in here. I want to know they’re secure.”

“Ah,” She replies, “We’ve got cameras on every unit that feed off site. They’re watched 24/7.”

Are they now?

“You know what?” I say, “I think I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go ahead and cancel that contract.”

Bafflement and bewilderment. Confusion muddies her expression, “But—there’s a termination fee.”

Beautiful, Elliot. If you didn’t know before, you know now. You’re a fool for the ages, “How much?”

“But sir, you just–” She attempts.

I hand her a hundred, “Is that enough?”

“Yes, but sir,” She protests.

I’m back on the highway before I can get change. I check out two more storage places before I find one without cameras. I don’t sign anymore contracts until I’m certain.

—

Back in New Harford, I leave Lilly’s van parked innocuously on a residential street. I walk down the incline of Washington Street towards downtown, searching for any reason whatsoever to not go where I am going.

Two parallel streets hoist Downtown New Harford between three blocks of potholes and receding pavement. I look down from an adjacent hill in the Historic District on the sprawl of red-brick buildings holding an array of boutiques and small businesses behind plate glass windows. Crossing train tracks and cutting across an unkempt field, I skirt the edges of a gazebo now claimed by the catatonic bodies of dope fiends; one lone, conscious junkie scratching his arm watches me with glazed eyes as I pass through the nearby stalks of overgrown grass. A bridge leads me over a murky creek where islands of silt have begun to grow trees and shrubs. I descend through winding racks of stairs towards Downtown, smoking cigarettes in a frenzy as I draw nearer.

A crowd milling around the entrance of City Hall provides a blessed distraction. I wander into the mass of people and become another appendage of the audience gathered around an elevated podium adorned with a bouquet of microphones. I search the faces of the crowd. Video cameras poke between heads. A dozen conservations with twice as many participants blend into garbled hissing. I pick a bow-tied, corduroy-jacketed man from the line-up and saddle up next to him.

He types furiously on his phone. I glance over, watching him send blurb after blurb of unedited stream-of-consciousness into a storming sea of comments and reactions. I lean in close and ask from the side of my mouth, “What’s all this about?”

The man jerks away from his phone, surprised at the interruption. He studies me with rapprochement, “Remender’s holding a press conference.”

“The mayor?” I ask, suddenly interested.

“Mmmhmm,” He hums, returning to his phone.

“What about?” I ask, insistent.

He looks at me askance, “Don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

“What do you think’s going on?”

He shrugs and turns away.

I always hated journalists.

I disappear back into the crowd, in search of a more pliable target. I find a group of older women in sweatpants and fanny-packs, holding poster-board signs scrawled with political epithets. One of them reads, Remember Rolling Mills, Remender. They chat in chirpy voices with each other and stop in unison when I interrupt. I slide myself into their midst and switch on whatever charm the ravages a decade of substance abuse has left me, “Say, would any of you young ladies know what’s going on here?”

They cackle with irreverent glee. A silver-haired woman from the group replies, holding her hand over mouth, “The mayor’s about to get on stage.”

I nod, bending my expression into faux consternation, “Any idea what he’s going to talk about?”

“Who the fuck cares?” The heavyset one blurts.

“Gladys!” One of the women reprimands while Silver takes me by the arm and pulls me towards her. She explains in a hushed voice, “We don’t much care for the current mayor.”

I scrunch my brow and inquire, “Why’s that?”

“He’s taking our homes!” The heavyset one shouts against the wishes of her compatriots.

“Oh, Gladys,” Silver sighs and turns back to me, “She’s not wrong. He’s trying to demolish our homes to make way for a new business-zoned area.”

“What for?”

“Oh, some fucking shop plaza–” Gladys exclaims.

“Gladys!”

“It’s true,” She replies a in huff, “They want to put in a dollar store, a gas station, one of them AFI’s–”

“AFI?” I cut her off, the acronym triggering a base instinct as I recall its meaning, “Allegany Farmers Insurance?”

“Yep,” She sneers, “And they ain’t even going to pay us a fair price. Either we take what they give us, or they use eminent domain–”

“And they want to put in an Allegany Farmers Insurance?” I ask, pressing the issue, “How do you know?” Silver responds, “It was in the paper the other week.”

“And after that cocksucker ran against Abner Hart last election and couldn’t say one good word about him, would you believe it,” Gladys adds, seething with unbridled rage, “I even voted for the weasel-y slug, God forgive me–”

“Gladys!”

“Oh, fuck off,” She grunts and grimaces, crossing her arms, “If God didn’t want me to say bad things about that swine fucker, he shouldn’t have gave me a tongue to say them with.”

Their conversation continues and might even include me, but I’ve left my body, riven from reality and pulled back into the dark rabbit-hole. They’re everywhere, the Harts. They’ve been here for decades upon decades, generations, spreading their roots through my city and I didn’t even notice. How many times have I driven by those insurance offices on every other street corner? How many times has my life been touched by the Harts without my knowledge? How many times have I grazed this conspiracy?

At some point while I’m not paying attention, Rick Remender takes the podium. He’s a young guy with the first traces of white crawling up his beard. I come back down to Earth towards the end of the prepared portion of his speech and zone back in, picking up the scattered details of a housing program for low-income families and it’s recent implementation in his concluding remarks. He opens the floor to questions.

“Would you care to comment on the fire at the old Diplomat Motel now being investigated as an arson by the New Harford Police Department Fire Investigation Unit?”

“That is a question for the police department,” Remender replies, “They do their job as they see fit. I have full faith in the police.”

From the barrage of questions and camera flashes, a reporter from the New Harford Times trumps everyone else, “Mayor Remender, Abner Hart has already launched his campaign to run for your office next year. When will you be formally starting your own campaign?”

Rick Remender frowns, “I have decided not to run for mayor next year–”

He barely finishes before the floodgates burst. The anxious crowd unleashes a deluge of questions, with everyone talking over each other. The commotion provides an opportunity for the mayor to thank everyone for their time and slink off stage. Camera flashes and microphones follow him back into City Hall. The crowd, without a center of gravity to hold them in orbit, disperses into clusters across the pavement.

Curiouser and curiouser, I think. I slip through the thinning crowd and swing around City Hall. On the backside of the structure, a secondary entrance leads down into the building’s underbelly. The entrance opens into a hallway of supply closets and locked doors. The only door that I can open leads to a stairwell rising two floors. On the first floor, I peer through the window and see a crowd of diligent reporters congregated around an orating man. I climb upward and come out on the second floor, on the balcony above the mob. Like cackling vultures, they swoop around the poor secretary and hound him with questions.

“–influenced the mayor’s decision–”

“–withdrawal affect the Rolling Mills project–”

“–endorses Abner Hart–”

I leave behind their cawing and slip down a hallway with aerials maps of the city plastered all over the walls. At the end of the hallway, a door labeled Mayor’s Office sits slightly cracked open. From inside, a conversation creeps through the crack.

“–on the phone again,” a woman says.

“Jesus, already?” Remender curses, “What more does he want?”

“He’s very insistent–”

“Alright, fine. Frances, cancel my meetings for the day. Reschedule them for later this week,” Remender says, “I’ll meet him over at my law office.”

“Certainly, sir,” comes the chirpy reply.

I pretend to study one of the aerial maps of New Harford’s elevation contours as Remender comes barreling out of the mayor’s office with his briefcase in tow, paying me no mind whatsoever. Giving him a moment’s head start, I follow him down the way I came, through the back stairwell, waiting at the lip of the basement for him to leave before jogging after him.

Before I get outside, he slips away sight unseen. No matter. I’ve dealt with enough lawyers in this town to know where they all hang their hats. A few blocks away, back over the river and train tracks, the district courthouse towers atop Washington Street, rising above all the surrounding structures with a piercing steeple. An aisle of law offices crests the base of the hill on which it sits, like kneeling pilgrims at an altar. Strolling down the street, I read partner names from hanging signs on otherwise identical suites until I find Remender’s name.

Lighting up a cigarette, I peer through the window into Remender’s first floor office. An unfamiliar man sits behind a desk, typing at a computer. Behind him a row of book-filled shelves leads to a back office where the door is closed, but the light is on. I decide to wait.

Across the street from Remender’s office, I find a parklet filled with gardens and benches. Amongst the shrubbery and flowers, a boulder sits with a placard bolted across its face. A path of stones provides a template for my feet so that I may approach and read its inscription,

At this location on December 25th, 1816, the first Christmas mass in New Harford was performed by Rev. James Beall. Among those the many in attendance were notables local figures Henry Hart and his son, Jeremiah. Rev. Beall read the following verse from Isaiah 45:1-4,

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: “I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, who call you by your name.”

There are more paragraphs about the sermon itself, but the mental fog cluttering my thoughts is too dense to penetrate. Pieces of the story are everywhere. This entire city, I realize, is one gigantic monument to the Harts. How was I able to live here for half of my life and not realize that?

In this new light, I consider the events of the previous day. They burned down a motel and killed a cop like it was nothing, which means three things: first, they have someone in the police department feeding them information. Second, they are cleaning up loose ends. Three, they are capable of doing exactly that. I have to hurry before whatever this is disappears back into the shadows of the city, but first I have to figure out what exactly this is.

I feel the sudden weight of my bag on my shoulder and find a bench to unload its contents. In my hands, I grasp the travel guide that has been leading me through these twisted yarns. I study the name of the author. Lynn Martin. A research analyst at the Maryland Current Affairs & Policies periodical who writes exposes on the Hart family and happens to a pull a police report on a missing girl who has been abducted by one of the Harts. An unlikely story, I think. There’s more going on here than these words I hold will tell me. Nevertheless, whatever fragment of the story they contain I need to know.

Waiting for Remender to exit his office, I chew on an unlit cigarette and dive back in Lynn’s article,

The Queen City

In 1825, President James Monroe signed a bill “to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals”. One of the canals thus proposed would extend from Washington DC to New Harford and then from there up into Pittsburgh. All cargo transported on this new waterway would be free of taxation, as long as construction was completed within five years. A flurry of industry reoriented towards this new source of capital and strategically deployed to take advantage of natural waterways in Maryland.

Days after the bill was signed into law, a legion of engineers descended on the Hotel Gunter in New Harford at the request of Henry Hart. Within the walls of that hotel, the Potomac and Ohio Company was formed with Henry Hart installed as its chief executive officer. A plan was devised to construct the canal in two parts, first from New Harford to DC along the Potomac River and once that was done, attention would shift to the construction of the north branch to Pittsburgh. The massive undertaking would be the largest transformation of cash and capital into productive faculties in Maryland’s history up to that point.

By 1828, with the help of a fresh batch of German and Irish immigrant labor, the first section of the canal was completed; New Harford’s economy became woven into the surrounding area as trade trickled down the canal into cities like Frederick and Baltimore. It was in this time period New Harford earned its moniker of the Queen City of Maryland, as its population blossomed to become the second biggest in Maryland, next to Baltimore. Coal mined in the Appalachian Mountains flowed like an avalanche down the P&O canal. An extraordinary amount of money changed hands and in the ledgers of every transaction, more than likely one would find the name Hart somewhere in the fine print. However, as plans were being finalized for the north branch, the American economy was upended by the steam-powered locomotive. A new technology supplanted colonial trade routes as tracks were laid all across the country, exposing markets that couldn’t be reached by water. In Maryland, the Baltimore Railroad Company became very interested in a track of land currently owned by the Potomac and Ohio Company. A series of misfortunes in the coming years would leave the Hart family exposed to the ambitions of a new generation of capitalists.

In 1832, a cholera epidemic swept through the camps of laborers working on the north branch of the P&O Canal. According to records, 1 in 3 workers died within a six-month period. Smokestacks stained the skies for weeks on end as corpses were burned en masse to preventing the disease from spreading. Those who survived looked around and saw their circumstances plainly enough; by 1833, the workers were unionized and on strike. A pamphlet distributed around the camps entitled “The Rights of Canallers” specifically mentions Henry Hart and his “desire for Earthly delectations” as “the sole reason a third of our friends and family lay buried in the ground.”

When Henry Hart brought in Chinese immigrants to fill the strikers’ positions, riots broke out. Mobs of Irish workers formed ranks around the Chinese laborer camps and refused to let anyone in or out; at some point on August 11th, 1833, violence broke out and a fire started in one of the makeshift habitations. Three people were killed in the ensuing chaos that day. The Maryland State Militia was eventually required to put the riots down. By the end, a dozen people were dead with twice as many wounded.

Before he could see his great project concluded, Henry Hart died of a heart attack on May 1st, 1834. The Potomac and Ohio Company likewise would not survive the year; when Jeremiah Hart took over, he immediately went into negotiations with the Baltimore Railroad Company and sold his entire stake in his father’s company to the burgeoning railroad industry.

Much has been written about the first Jeremiah Hart; A biographer in the 1908, writing decades after his death, would call him “one of the deftest political operators in Maryland’s history.” However, at the time, he was decried by the public. Newspapers published scathing editorials, accusing him of “selling out Western Maryland and leaving behind a grand old ditch,” referring to the P&O canal that would never be completed. The Hart estate in Maryland became the center of so many protests over the years that he had walls built around the entire property and brought in Pinkerton security guards to walk the perimeter.

Nevertheless, in 1836, Jeremiah Hart was appointed by the electoral college to serve as a State Senator in the Maryland General Assembly. One of his first acts as State Senator was helping craft a constitutional amendment that would prevent future representatives from attaining office the way he had; Chapter 197, Section 4 of the new amendment stated “that elections for senators shall be conducted and as soon as a new senate shall be elected hereinafter provided, and a quorum of its members shall have qualified as directed by the constitution and laws of this State.” Jeremiah Hart effectively burned the bridge that he himself had crossed into public office.

Over the next few years, Jeremiah Hart maneuvered himself onto the proper subcommittees within the Assembly and by 1838 was the de-facto legislator in charge of drafting the tax code for the railroad industry. Western Maryland suddenly found itself awash in tax revenue. Each mile of track laid westward was another percentage point on the local balance sheet. In New Harford, the mayoral campaign of 1840 drew special attention; one of the candidates was Jeremiah’s son, George Hart. In a short time, thanks to new money stuffing so many pockets, public opinion about the Harts shifted radically; The younger Hart rode a popular upswell into a landslide victory against his opponent, whose name history does not even record.

With the Hart family operating the levers of government on both the state and local level, a new era of politics dawned. A political historian writing in 1951 would facetiously coin the term “Pax Hart” to refer to the years in Maryland history between 1843 and 1859, when Maryland, and Western Maryland in particular, underwent an economic boom. The Baltimore Railroad Company completed their line to New Harford in 1842 and in the following years, it opened the Appalachian coal mines to the entire eastern seaboard. The population of New Harford more than tripled from 12,000 in 1840 to 40,000 in 1860. It seemed to everyone their prosperity would never end–

A movement in my periphery pulls me out of the story. The cigarette dangling on my lips drops into my lap along with my jaw as I glimpse the man responsible for the distraction climbing the stoop steps into Rick Remender’s law office, his crisp pressed uniform falling cleanly from his square shoulders and a peaked officer’s cap tucked under his armpit. His hair is gray where it used to be reddish brown and he walks with a limp now, but other than that, he looks much the same as the day I left this wretched city.

Joseph McMullen, New Harford Police Commissioner.

“Well, fuck me sideways,” I mutter, putting the article down, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

With no hope of putting myself back into Lynn’s story now, I fidget anxiously. Fifteen minutes and as many cigarettes later, my old boss exits the building with Remender at his side. Talking quietly with one another, they round the curve of Greene Avenue and disappear around the corner. I briefly consider following them, but there’s one thing I’ve learned about lawyers over the years: they always keep a paper trail.

Through the window to Remender’s office, I spy the man at the desk still typing away at his computer. I glance around, searching. A strip of pavement coming from the main road serves as a makeshift driveway for the building; Atop the concrete rests a luxury model sedan and a station wagon. The sedan has a bumper sticker that reads Vote Remender 2016. On the ground, I find a suitably large rock and heft into the air, testing its weight with my palm. Good enough, I think.

Winding up with both fists like a baseball pitcher, I hurl the rock at the station wagon’s windshield. The glass ripples with crystalline shards at the point of impact but holds together. The headlights shoot on like an awakened animal’s wide-eyed charge and its horns howl in protest. The screeching of the car alarm echoes down the street.

In the next moment, the man from inside rushes down the stoop and past my leaning spot to find the source of the commotion. He grasps the sides of his head with angry fingertips and wails like grieving lover, screaming incomprehensibly at the senselessness of the crime that has been committed. While he is distracted, I slip inside and scurry past the main desk.

I close the door behind me and take a look around at the legion of photos, certificates and diplomas decorating Remender’s room. Portraits of men in powdered wigs line the walls of his inner office. On his desk sits a picture of him and a brunette woman with opposite hands resting on, presumably, their daughter’s shoulders. I circle around the desk and open the drawers, finding offices supplies and case files of no interest. The main drawer contains a day planner; I flip through the pages and take note of a few interesting entries,

October 7th, 11:00 AM: …. J. McMullen October 27th, 9:00 AM: …. J. McMullen October 28th, 12:30 PM: …. J. McMullen

Remender is a stickler for the details; The last entry clocks in at mere moments ago, according to the clock on the wall. In and of itself, there’s nothing too terribly suspect about a mayor meeting his police commissioner, but I’m well past the point of questioning my assumptions. I need to abandon everything I think I know about this city.

Underneath the glazed mahogany desk, my foot bumps against something metallic. I crouch down and find a small safe sitting against the desk’s corner, hidden from view. I reach in and scoop the tiny box into my arms, no heavier or bigger than a small child. A combination lock embedded into the vault prevents me from opening it. I suppose Remender thought that would be enough to stop someone.

As I leave the law offices of Rick Remender carrying his safe under my arm, the man still frets over the shrieking station wagon as he explains the situation to his cellphone.

—

“Christ,” Ogie says, “I can’t believe you used to be a cop.”

“Yeah, yeah, spare me the sermon,” I retort, “Can you open it or not?”

Ogie spins the safe in his hands like a rotisserie, inspecting its edges with calloused fingertips, “Ain’t nothing special about this far as I can tell. I wouldn’t even need a thermal lance,” He sets the safe back on the desk between us and shambles past me out into the mechanic’s garage. He shouts, “Larry, grab me a crowbar, will you?”

“A crowbar?” I ask, “Really? I could have done that.”

“But you didn’t, did you?”

Several moments later, Ogie has his foot clamped tightly on the safe and the crowbar wedged into a paper-thin crevice along its front door, throwing all of his weight into torque. The metal creaks and resists until a loud pop thumps against my ears and the safe door busts open.

I crouch next to the sundered safe and peer inside. A single Polaroid photo hides face down. I slide it out just enough to grab the edge and then flip it over. Ripples of overhead light reflect across the glossy surface as I inspect its contents: Rick Remender sits behind the steering wheel of a motorboat with a young girl on his lap, his arm wrapped around her waist. Their laughing expressions are frozen in time, caught by the camera and memorialized. In the margins of the photograph, along the whitespace on the bottom, a note scrawled in permanent marker reads, “Let’s talk.”

The girl in the photo has blonde hair and wears a bikini top with jean shorts; She can’t be older than sixteen, I think. A familiar feeling of unease creeps up my spine. A lump slides up and down my throat like a metronome.

“What is it?” Ogie asks, curiosity overcoming his professional demeanor.

Stuttering words trip over my lips, “I—I don’t—”

Ogie snaps the photo from my fingertips, “Is that the mayor?”

I nod.

“Who’s that with him? His daughter?”

“No,” I whisper, remembering the photo on his desk, “His daughter is a brunette.”

Ogie furrows his brow, “States, what the hell is this?”

I take the photo back and slip it into the inside pocket of my jacket. I explain as I press a wad of bills into Ogie’s hairy knuckles, “This whole town’s rotten, Ogie. And it’s high time someone did something about it.”

—

The headquarters stands on the corner of Baltimore and Mechanic, a few blocks from City Hall. I follow neon poster boards stuck in the ground down Baltimore Street, reading slogans: Hart for Mayor. New Harford’s Hart. Elect Hart. The campaign operates out of an old bar, the Governor’s Club, a nondescript one floor building without windows. The typically low-lit ceilings have been exposed by bright cones of light cast from impromptu floodlights, revealing walls yellowed by decades of cigarette smoke. Posters plaster walls with Abner’s visage, his smiling face plump and round with his pate covered by a cap of neatly trimmed hair.

Turning away from her conversation, a lady with a clipboard greets me with a warm smile, “What can I do for you?”

“Is this the Hart campaign headquarters?”

She grins and looks at one of the posters, “Seems that way.”

“I want to volunteer,” I state simply.

“Of course!” She exclaims, “We can always use more canvassers! Follow me right this way!”

She leads me behind the bar, now doubling as a call center with a row of people at telephones diligently plumbing the depths of New Harford citizenry for campaign contributions. An office in the back has been converted into a campaign war room. A map of New Harford on its wall is tacked with a million little pins, detailing different demographics with color-coded pinheads. Mounds of files and folders grow like wildflowers across the linoleum. Behind the desk, a woman sits in a swivel chair, legs crossed. She peers up from the newspaper as we enter. I try to pretend I don’t recognize her, but I feel the skin on my face tighten as I realize who she is.

“Ah,” The clipboard woman hums with warmth, “Mrs. Vander-Strauss! What are you doing here?”

Thick, golden locks curl down her shoulders and spill across her crimson blazer and ruffled blouse. She licks her polished red lips and replies, “Hello Judy. I’m just waiting for Abner and Chris. They should be here soon.” Not good, I think.

“Very good!” Clipboard Judy responds, “I just needed to grab a volunteer form and then I’ll be out of your way.”

Henrietta nods ambivalently, returning to the folded paper in her lap. Without giving me a second thought, she scribbles a word into a checkered crossword puzzle. Judy grabs a form from a filing cabinet and then escorts me back into the bar.

“Does Abner come here often?” I ask as she leads me to a dining booth.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Judy says, placing the form and a pen in front of me, “If you volunteer here, you’ll be sure to meet him eventually.”

I grimace, “Let me ask something. Why do you support Abner?”

“He’s a great man,” The reply is automatic, “HBC is one of the largest employers in the area. We’d be lost without him. Half of the city works for HBC in some way, shape or form. He’s done so much for us already that I know as mayor he could do great things.”

I absorb her propaganda with a smile as I jot a fake name on the line, “What do you know about his family?”

“Oh!” She exclaims happily, “They’re just the best. That was Mrs. Vander-Strauss in the office, Elroy Hart’s wife. You know Elroy, right?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“They met back in the nineties, when the Vander Chocolate company was in talks with HBC to use our milk in their chocolate. She’s been instrumental in bringing even more jobs into our area.”

“Sounds wonderful,” I reply, handing her back the form.

She glances over my information, “Perfect. When can you start, Mr. Spade?”

“Would tomorrow be fine?”

“Yes, great!” Her bubbly cheer overflows and puddles at my feet, “I will have Ralph Stead show you around and introduce you to everyone, then we’ll get you started on the phones. Sounds good?”

A forced reply, dripping with insincerity, “Sounds great!”

“Excellent. Just ask for Ralph, okay? See you then!”

Outside, I lean on a telephone pole around the block and smoke cigarettes in rapid succession. Oceans of tar slosh around in my lungs. I hack a fistful of black gunk into my hand and spit a wad of bile onto the pavement.

Ten minutes later, I see them. Abner and Christopher.

Abner gyrates wildly with his hands, gesturing like an orchestral conductor, whereas Christopher paces with hands in his pockets, hanging intently on Abner’s every word. Abner looks like a water-logged version of Christopher, inflated and stretched beyond his normal proportions, as if he were a figure sketched on a balloon before being blown up.

Abner disappears inside, but Christopher hangs outside for a moment, typing into his phone. Against my better judgment, I stroll by and steal a glance at his screen. He writes a few short sentences into an email template and with a click, sends it through the internet to wherever it is going.

I slip around the corner unnoticed with a new idea percolating through my brain.

—

The internet is vast. It doesn’t take me long to find her.

She lives on the second floor of the JFK Apartment Building in Frederick, Maryland. The door is guarded by a keypad. I stand outside and lean on Lilly’s van as I smoke a cigarette, until I see an older lady carrying two large grocery bags towards the building.

Perfect, I think, flicking the burning butt to the ground.

“Ma’am,” I say, rushing over to the encumbered woman, “Let me help you with those.”

“Oh, why, thank you, young man,” She gushes, handing over the brown paper bags, “I live just over here, on the fifth floor. It’s awful enough on my back walking up and down those stops without groceries, don’t you know.” I smile, “Of course.”

“There’s not enough young people in the world today like yourself,” She says as she taps the pass-code into the keypad and the air from inside escapes in a hissing rush, “Honest, I mean. Everyone’s always up to something, you know?”

“I’m not so young anymore,” I reply, walking through the building entrance into the dim light of the apartment lobby.

“Compared to me, you’re a spring chicken,” She winks at me, “You’ve still got a few good years left, trust me. Soon enough you’ll be old and useless like me.”

“I should be so lucky,” I say, “You don’t look a day over twenty.”

She laughs, “Oh, I like this one.”

We creep up the stairwell. I match pace with the woman’s hobbled steps. She asks me, “So what do you do, young man?”

“I’m-uh,” I briefly consider lying, an instinct as automatic as breathing, “A private investigator.” She eyes me curiously, “There’s something you don’t hear every day. What do you investigate?”

I sigh and respond, “Well, to be honest, the last eight years, it’s been one infidelity after another. Spouses asking me to spy on other spouses. But, now…”

“Now what?”

“Now,” I say, rounding the final length of stair, “I have a case bigger than anything I’ve ever had and…”

“Yes?” The woman asks, stopping to look at me. Her crooked back makes her peer up at me from an angle.

“Lives are at stake,” I tell her simply, leaving it at that.

She worries over my words, “Have you gone to the police?”

“I have,” I explain, remembering McMullen limping down the street with Remender, “But sometimes you have to do things yourself or else they won’t get done.”

She hums approvingly, “That’s the God’s honest truth.”

I help the lady into her apartment, and she thanks me. After the door is shut, I go to work. Down the stairs three floors, I find apartment 25. The door is locked, but I came prepared. I jam an icepick into the lock and let myself in.

—

A few hours later, the door opens. The lights come on and a man walks inside, absentmindedly tossing his keys into a bowl on a stand next to the door and throwing his jacket across the couch. He walks right by without noticing me.

“That’s far enough,” I say.

The man whips around and freezes in place when he sees my gun pointed at his stomach.

“Who are you?” He asks, offering me the flat of his palms as he backs towards the wall, “What are you doing here?”

“Why don’t you come have a seat?” I order, waving my gun at the recliner across from me. He doesn’t move. I add, “That wasn’t a request.” After a moment’s consideration, he hesitantly obeys. I ask, “Where’s Lynn?”

He gapes and stutters through a response, “Listen, just take whatever you want. Leave her out of this.”

I snort with amusement, “I understand how this looks, buddy, but you’ve got the wrong idea.”

“George–” Another voice interrupts. A bag of fruit spills across the floor, lopsided pears tumbling around the next entrant’s feet. Lynn Martin asks, “What’s going on?”

“Lynn, get out–” The man starts.

“Lynn,” I cut him off, “So nice to meet you. Why don’t you join us? We’re having a party.”

Unmoved, she stares at me. An invisible calculus shunts thought through her head. Finally, she says, “I’m surprised it took this long,” Her voice is monotone, strangely undisturbed by my presence, “I almost thought this day would never come. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Getting me fired wasn’t enough for you people.”

“Who do you think I am?” I ask.

“Who else?” She says with perfect nonchalance, sitting on the armrest of her husband’s chair, “One of the Hart lackeys.”

I laugh, “You couldn’t be further from the truth.”

She studies me with hard eyes, “Who are you then?”

I stand up and holster my gun in my belt. From my bag, I retrieve a stack of paper. I set the stack down on the kitchenette counter. The front page reads Empire Lost. I ask, tapping the stack with a sturdy index finger, “Why did you write this?”

Lynn wanders over to the counter and studies the papers with a cocked head. Her eyes go wide and then narrow into suspicious slits. She thumbs through the pages, her lips tracing a faint smile, “I thought I was going to change the world with this. Did you read it?”

“Most of it.”

“I think you’re the only one,” She replies with melancholy, “All that work for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing if you can tell me one thing,” I ask the one question begging for an answer, “Who are the Harts?”

More confusion muddies her expression. She gulps and thinks on her response for a moment before asking, “What are you asking exactly?”

“I know you pulled the Rachel Walters police report.”

“I-yes, I did.”

“Why?”

Biting her lips, she replies, “How much do you know?”

“I know there’s a trail of missing girls that leads right to the Hart family.”

“You know about Diana, then,” She says with a hint of sadness. Her husband approaches from behind and places a hand on her shoulder. She grimaces but doesn’t pull away.

“I do.”

“Do you know what they did with her?”

I nod.

“There was another, years before that. Same story. Mary-Jane Witmer. Another student at Hart State College. They found her in a dumpster.”

“I didn’t know about that one.”

She replies, “There’s probably more, but that’s all I could find. All of them blonde-haired and blue-eyed.”

“Why? What’s the significance of that?”

“I don’t know, but Rachel fit the description. That’s why I pulled her police report. I take it you know Brandon Hart was a teacher at her school?”

“I do,” I reply, “I’ve met him on several occasions.”

Her lips press into a solid line and turn white.

“Why didn’t you write about them in your article?” I ask.

“And do what? Accuse public figures of a crime without evidence?” She sighs, “No editor in their right mind would have let me print that.”

“I see,” I reply, “I need to find Rachel. Do you understand?”

She nods.

“Do you have any idea where she might be?”

She shakes her head, “I wish I knew.”

I hand her the photograph from Remender’s safe, “What do you make of this?”

Her eyes widen, “Where did you get this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, “The important thing is I have it. And now you do. Tell me, what do you think it is?”

“If I had to guess, blackmail,” She sighs, waving the photo, “Remender just withdrew from the New Harford mayoral race. This is probably why.”

I pause, wondering if this plan will even work, “I have request.”

She laughs, “Oh, this should be a good.”

“Look, I’m sorry I broke in, but I can’t take any chances,” I explain, “I need help and you are one of the only people I can trust.”

She furrows her brow but says nothing.

“Do you know anyone who’s good with computers?”

“I might,” She replies, “Why?”

I continue, “Let’s say I had access to Hart’s campaign servers. How would a person go about reading everyone’s emails?”

She stares at me with licorice pupils brimmed in milky white, “That’s very illegal.”

“Sure,” I say, “So how would you do it?”

She bites her lip and looks around her apartment, “Who are you, exactly? What’s your name?”

“No names,” I reply, “It’s easier that way.”

“You know mine.”

My eyebrows jump and I grin.

“Uh huh,” She replies, “You’re not making it easy to trust you.”

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” I explain, “I’m asking you to help me.”

A resigned sigh, “Fine. George, can you go get the address book?”

The man glances back and forth between me and Lynn. Finally, he throws his arms up in exasperation, “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I’ll explain later,” She insists, “Just go get the goddamn book.”

With a mixture of worry and confusion painting his face, George disappears down the hallway, leaving me and Lynn to stand in silence, tension boiling between us.

“What are you going to do?” She finally asks.

“Whatever I need to,” I explain, “I’m going to find Rachel Walters, even if I have to break every law on the books to do it.”

“And when you find her,” She says, skipping the criminal implications of my statement, “What happens to the Harts?”

Her question throws me through a loop; with everything happening so fast, I haven’t given any thought to what happens after I find Rachel, dead or alive. Suddenly, I am aware of the gun in my belt. Involuntarily, I graze the grip with my fingertips. I say, “I’ll worry about that after.”

“You should worry about that now,” She states simply.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I need evidence. Give me what I need,” She explains, “And I will bring them down.”

“Why do you care so much?” I ask.

Her lip snarl in response, “Do you know what my maiden name is?”

I shake my head.

“Ah, something you don’t know,” She frowns, “My birth name is Lynn Hofstetler.”

—

“It’s a worm,” Bethany explains as she slides the USB thumb drive across the diner booth table with a tattooed hand, “It will hijack their domain, pull a list of everyone’s IPs and replicate its codebase on each machine–”

“I don’t need to understand how it works,” I cut her off, “I just need to know what to do with it.” Saddened at being unable to share her enthusiasm for minutia, Bethany frowns. The chains on her ears that loop around her face and connect to her nose rings sway with the motion of words as she talks, “Whatever you say, mister. You need to find one of the computers on their network and plug it in. Open the file explorer and execute the program that’s on there. It will run in the background.”

“That’s it?” I pluck the tiny device from the table and appraise it like a gold carat watch, “Do I need to leave it plugged in or anything?”

She cocks her head and squints through heavy eyeshadow, “Do you even understand how computers work?”

“It’s a miracle I can even dress myself,” I retort, “So what happens after I have it up and running?”

“Then you come see me again and we’ll take a peek,” Her black lipsticks dissolves her smile into a void, a scar of emptiness slashed across her face.

—

Lilly’s van pulls into the shopping plaza. The engine putters to halt. I crawl into the backseat to go to sleep. Hours seem to go by as I toss and turn, but my wristwatch assures me only ten minutes have elapsed. With so much energy kneading my muscles, I sit up and look around at the neon signs starting to shut off along the sidewalks. One lone sign remains glowing in the night.

I buy a fifth of vodka from the liquor store and chug until vertigo sweeps me onto my back. Across closed eyelids, I see phantoms of lives past and present, all muddled into one. A girl I couldn’t save no matter how hard I tried. A city so corrupt it’s spilling into the corners, puddling into pools of scum.

And a girl. My daughter. My baby girl.

Every night, every dream, I think of you, Jules. My life ended when yours did. I have nothing left. Nothing but Rachel Please let me find her. Please, Jules. I won’t be able to live myself if she’s dead. She’s all I have. The weight of a gun pulls me down into the depths of sleep.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29th

I fiddle with the thumb-drive in my pocket as I wait for Ralph in the sunken cushions of a vinyl booth. A glass mosaic lamp hangs overhead casting jeweled rays of multicolored light. The hour hand of the clock on the wall edges barely past 8, but already the campaign headquarters is buzzing with activity. Chirpy voices bleat into telephone receivers in between sips of coffee. Three people in various states of distress fret over a map of New Harford, moving and swapping pins as they compare the distribution to a printout.

“Mr. Spade, I presume?” A ragged voice rasps. The voice belongs to a heavyset man bulging against his button up shirt, a drooping stomach spilling over his beltline, “We need to find you a phone.”

He leads me back into the office Judy showed me yesterday. On the desk where I saw Henrietta Vander-Strauss doing her crossword, my eyes are instantly drawn to the screen saver ping-ponging across the computer monitor. With scrying eyes, I follow the cords coming out of a monitor to their source: a computer tower sitting between a modem and printer on a countertop.

Ralph curses and bends over into a series of cabinet doors, shuffling through their contents in search of a telephone. With his head buried underneath the counter, I saddle up to the computer tower and plug the thumb-drive into one of the outlets on its backside. The mouse awakens the screen. I hurriedly click onto the idled account, but a password prompt prevents me from getting onto the desktop.

“Ah,” Ralph exclaims, struggling to his feet with an old rotary phone in his hands as I retreat back into place, “This will have to do until we can you get a newer one. Come on, let’s get you set up.”

He starts back into the bar. Thoughts race through my head as the opportunity slips through my fingers, “Say, I just remembered, my electric bill is due today,” The lie assembles itself from a random clutch of half-formed ideas, “Would it be alright if I used your computer to pay it real quick?”

He shrugs, “Don’t see why not. Hold on, let me log you on.”

His pudgy fingers push on the keyboard like fat sausages. A bell chimes from a speaker somewhere and he offers me the mouse. While he distracts himself with the rotary phone, I load up Bethany’s program. An electric poison spreads invisible through its wires.

As I follow Ralph back to the bar, I slip into a hallway adorned with bathrooms on either side. The hallway leads to an exit that I push open. I disappear back into the city.

—

After a quick phone call, I pry my cellphone battery from its place and shove it back into my pocket. I meet my conspiracy of accomplices at the diner on Pagoda.

“I pulled a little over three thousand emails from their server database,” Bethany explains as she navigates a plate of nachos piled high with meat and cheese, “They’ve had this domain for a few years, it seems,” She shovels foods down her throat with all the grace of backhoe and continues with a full mouth, “They must have bought it after the last mayoral last election.”

My stomach sinks, “I don’t have time to read three thousand emails.”

“Don’t worry,” Lynn reassures me, the reflection of her laptop inverted across her eyeglasses, “I’ve had her filter it by the recipient’s name and isolate all the ones that involve Abner, Christopher or Brandon. I’ve been combing through them all morning. I’ve found a few interesting ones so far. Here, take a look.”

Lynn spins her laptop around and pushes it towards me. She clicks an arrow key and the screen fills with pixelated words,

To: ahart@hart2020.com From: jeffreye@bmail.com Subject: fishing Date: 03/30/2018

found a good spot to fish. sent B the details.

“How is this interesting?” I ask, frustration squeezing my muscles into tight knots, “Who cares about fishing?”

“Trust me,” Lynn grimaces, tapping the arrow key again, “Keep reading.”

To: ahart@hart2020.com

From: speerhead12345@cbz.com

Subject: <blank>

Date: 06/15/2019

fish was fantastic! spoiled in the fridge tho, can we get another order of tuna for the weekend? -L

“Anything suspicious?” Lynn asks, clicking to another email, “Anything at all?”

To: ahart@hart2020.com

From: kentucky_gentlemen22@buzz.net

Subject: re: last order

Date: 07/24/2019

catfish was not to our liking. can we return for mahi-mahi?

> catfish is on ice and en route.

“They’re not–” I stutter, “What are they talking about?”

“You tell me,” Lynn retorts, “You’re the guy who knows everything.”

To: ahart@hart2020.com

From: bhart@calvert.edu

Subject: re: re: re: re: <blank>

Date: 09/07/2019

i’m doing the best i can. should be done by end of month.

> hes impatient. It’s never taken you this long before.

>> tell him fishing takes time.*

>>> chris wants to know how long*

“They’re not talking about fish,” The realization hits me like a speeding train. Before I have a chance to fully process anything, my body is in motion, gathering up my jacket and standing up to leave.

“Where are you going?” Bethany asks.

Lynn grabs my sleeves and refines the question, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m tired of grasping at straws,” I say, pulling free, “It’s time to do something drastic.”

—

This is a mistake. Go somewhere else, Elliot. Even though I know there’s nowhere else for three states that has what I need. I let the mayor’s press conference distract me the other day, but now there’s no excuse.

The cobbled avenue is blocked off from traffic, only open to pedestrians. Along the red brick walkways, a buffet of stores entices crowds of shoppers. I can see her reading a book on the other side of the music store window. I sit on a bench sheltered from view by a patch of trees growing from a plot of soil. The music store is exactly where I remember, although I don’t know where else I expected it to be. It sits sandwiched in between a cafe and the old bookstore. The bookstore is now a nail salon, but the converted shelves that now hold beauty supplies reveal its true history. The music store sign burns in my vision.

The Tone Town Tune Store.

I used to own half of this store. Still do, I suppose. On paper, at least.

I’m on my fourth cigarette by the time I muster up the courage to walk up to the store front, but my courage falters when she brushes her hair behind her ear the way she used to, so I duck back behind the trees before she spots me. I’m a coward. A sniveling coward.

A passing couple stares at me, muttering to themselves.

Remember why you’re doing this. Think about Rachel. There isn’t much time left, if any at all. They’ve killed Dakota just for poking his nose around. They tried to kill you. You need to be quick before anyone else dies.

I switch off. My feet do the walking for me. A door swings open. Chimes sing my entrance. An eternity passes as I stand before an altar of guitars and accordions.

“What are you doing here?” She sneers.

“Hi, Leah.”

“Get the fuck out of my store.”

“Nice to see you too.”

“I’m not kidding,” Even when she’s fuming angry, she can’t help but be beautiful, even these nine years removed, “Get the fuck out of my store.”

I knew this wouldn’t be easy, just get it over with already, “I need to buy sound proofing foam.”

“What do you think you are doing?” Her stare is drawn from the depths of hell, “Who do you think you are?”

My shaking hands retrieve a photo from my jacket pocket, a souvenir from Lilly. I hand Rachel’s photo to Leah.

“What is this?” She asks, snatching the photo from my palsied grip, “Some kind of joke?”

“I just need to buy–”

“I know. You said.”

“I’ll leave,” I add, “After.”

She looks down at the photo again. A moment to stare in wonder at her. My loving wife. I want her, even now, looking at her, knowing she can’t stand the sight of me. She’s still the woman I fell in love with, if only I could get past this gap, if only I could make her see–

Old thoughts that lead nowhere.

The photo crinkles beneath her fingertips. She hisses, “Get what you need and get out.”

—

It takes me two hours to get everything to my liking. The stage is set, I decide, looking around at my work; now all that remains is to gather the players. On my way back into town, I take the last exit and pull onto Lilly’s street. I park around the block and wish I still had my binoculars.

I measure the minutes in lengths of tobaccos. Fifteen burn down to butts without any hint of activity coming from the house. I step out of the van and stroll down the street. The world is unaware of the trouble simmering beneath its surface; a speed-walking stay-at-home mom trots down the sidewalk hoisting tiny dumbbells with each stride, a striped mutt keeping pace at her side; a hunched elderly man sprays his lawn by clamping his thumb over the end of a hose; Each person I pass is another incongruent life in the puzzle of this city. I wonder how many of them know. A man picks up his newspaper from his stoop and glares over the headlines at me, the unfamiliar stranger in his neighborhood. He retreats inside when I nod a greeting at him.

When I get to Lilly’s house, anxious thoughts burrow out of my head into my stomach, where they churn and churn. Something’s not right, I think. I climb the stairs to her porch and feel goosebumps prick my skin.

The door to Lilly’s house opens, unlocked. My eyes sink into their sockets and peer into the lightless interior through narrow slits. Inside, the entire house has been tossed; couches overturned, and cushions sliced open, their stuffing pooling around them like puddles of blood. Photos are strewn about, a thin layer of shattered glass scattered over everything.

I find Lilly’s rifle setting next to the entrance. Cocking back the bolt, I peer into the barrel and find it loaded. Shouldering the rifle, I creep through the house, my finger hovering above the trigger. My footsteps crunch against the glass shards.

Someone’s been here, that much is obvious. I have no time to parse this mystery. Get what you came for and get out, Elliot. You shouldn’t have come here in the first place; There’s no telling who is watching this house.

In the garage, I grab a tool bag and empty it on the bench. Nails and screws clatter against the cold concrete. Searching through Lilly’s garage cabinets, I stuff as much rope and chain as I can find inside, throwing in a few padlocks in as well.

I try to leave, but my feet lead me to Rachel’s room, as if of their own accord. Whoever tossed the house left no stone unturned. Rachel’s room looks like a tornado has hit it. Her bed has been upended against a wall and shredded. The bookshelf lay face down, its contents scattered over the flow. Her dresser drawers are pulled out and her clothes shoveled into a pile in the center of the room.

Creeping around the mess, I find a folder embossed with silver butterflies landing on the gold outlines of flowers. Across the top of the folder, Rachel’s handwriting spells out English in permanent marker*.* Inside, I find a stack of homework assignments and class hands-out. My fingers pluck a sheet of loose-leaf from the interior pocket and gaze down at the scrawled remains of one of Mrs. Ratchet’s essays,

–Catherine and Frederic deserved to be happy, but no matter how hard they tried, life kept getting in the way. Everywhere they went, it seemed like fate had it out for them. After I finished the book, I cried the whole rest of the day. Why would someone write something so sad? Why would someone want to make other people sad? I kept thinking about these questions throughout the week as I started this essay.

I think I understand now what Hemingway is trying to say with this book. The world is always at war. Death and despair are never far behind you. Everyone knows they and everyone they love is going to die. That’s what it means to be human. But there are things that make it worth the suffering. You spend your life looking for those things, like a lover’s kiss or your mom clapping at your clarinet recital, and all those little moments, no matter how tiny and insignificant they seem when stacked up against the infinite anguish of life, make everything worth it.

The essay falls from my hands. A weight heavier than any I’ve ever known crashes down on my shoulders. I taste blood in my mouth. I leave the rifle standing next to the front door. Lilly’s van waits for me around the corner.

—

The yellow pages list his residence on Park Street, a posh suburb within walking distance of Calvert Catholic. I park three houses down the street from Brandon Hart’s house, immediately struck by how lavish his dwelling is. A tower crowns the steeple of his two-story house. A well-groomed yard surrounds the walls with bushes trimmed to resemble teardrops. Somehow, gazing up at the towers’ blacked out-windows, I don’t think he affords this place on a teacher’s salary.

What are you hiding in there, Brandon?

I wait an hour and see no signs of life from the inside. With Mr. Hart safely at school for another two hours, I don’t expect to find anyone in there, but I can’t be too sure, things being what they are.

I approach from the backyard, weaving through the shrubbery and climbing onto the veranda. I knock on the door. After several moments without a response, I check the handle. It’s locked. I look around for windows and see the kitchen through a pane of curtained glass. The latches prove open. I slide the window open and shimmy through the entrance into the kitchen. The kitchen is as sterile as a surgery dressing room. I walk around a cold stainless-steel counter and pass through an arch into the rest of the house.

Up the stairs and down a hallway, I find Brandon’s bedroom. Inside, a well-made bed sits tucked against the corner and the closest hangs open revealing a color-sorted collection of collared shirts. An abstract painting hangs on the wall above the bed, splatters hinting at shapes. Neatly folded shirts all the same shade of navy blue greet me as I open the dresser drawer.

His computer is guarded by a password. The hint on the bottom of the screen pops up when I click it, “Peter Sellers.” It’s not a name I recognize. I try a few random words. I type every possible variant of RachelWalters, but my attempts are fruitless. I check the desk drawers but find only blank printer paper and markers.

The bathroom is tiled and clean. Toiletries stand around the sink bowl in orderly repose. I open the mirrored cabinets and peer through a gallery of prescription drugs. Oxycontin. Xanax. Vyvanse. A myriad of barbiturates, amphetamines and opioids. Either the science teacher is deathly ill, or he’s been hiding a drug habit from everyone. I gulp and feel the itch burrowing through my intestines.

In the study, I find shelves of old textbooks, subjects I could never understand if I had a lifetime: The Classical Theory of Fields. Optics and Electromagnetism. Statistical Mechanics. Mr. Hart doesn’t appear to enjoy fiction; the entire library is made up of technical journals and textbooks. I inspect his degrees hanging on the walls. A Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics. A Bachelor’s Degree in Pure Mathematics. A litany of publications on a subject called Diophantine Equations. I rifle through a paper written by Brandon Hart himself, arcane gibberish I couldn’t penetrate with a jackhammer.

I inspect a wall of photos, the first picture showing him standing with an aged mathematician, a chalk board between them scribbled with incomprehensible symbols. A line of pictures follows with Mr. Hart shaking hands with various politicians, like a comic strip where he visibly ages from one photo to the next. I recognize a few: past Maryland governors and state senators. More famous people I don’t recognize.

You’re no high school teacher, Mr. Hart.

There is no obvious way to the tower I saw outside sitting atop the house. I tap on the walls up and down the upstairs hallway, listening for a hollow echo, but hearing only dull thuds. There must be a way into the attic. For a mad moment, I consider scaling the side of the house, but the passing cars out front dissuade me of that notion.

After another sweep, I find the entrance. I pop open the hidden panel in the ceiling and pull down the collapsible stairs. I climb up into the tower at the top of the house. Dust hangs frozen in rays of golden sunlight that seep around the edges of the black paper plastered against windows. Cabinets fill three of the pentagonal walls. The rest of the room is occupied by a television with several chairs scattered around it.

Thoughts overflow in my head and spill out in waves of rushing anxiety.

With unsteady hands, I open one of the cabinets and see shelves of DVDs, ordered by dates. I swallow a mouthful of fear. I run my hand along the edge, searching the titles. My hand stops at October 1st. The day after Rachel went missing. I feel a shiver go down my spine.

My body moves of its own accord. I am a passenger to myself. I see myself put the DVD into the player and turn the television on. I feel myself blink. Time no longer exists, only me and this moment, lost outside of everything.

The screen flickers to life.

I see her.

Julia.

No, Rachel. She’s alive.

Two men stand in the foreground, only their torsos revealed to the camera. They are in a room without windows. Not a room in this house, I realize.

A voice, maybe from one of the two men, asks, “What are you going to do, Chris?”

Rachel cowers on a sheet-less mattress. Her eyes are wide. She doesn’t understand what is happening to her. She’s been dressed in a pink negligee with beaded frills. She quivers beneath the thin lace.

The figure on the left turns towards the camera, revealing a button-down shirt and plaid tie. He unbuckles his belt, “I’m going to fuck–”

I quickly turn the video off with useless hands and grab the trashcan beside the television stand, stumbling out of my body and into a sea of horror. I vomit through a haze of tears. My stomach rips open and I feel everything flowing through me, all of the memories flooding back to the front of my attention. I live through that night again a million times in a single second.

Oh God, I think. Oh God. It’s happening again.

It takes me several moments to collect myself. With vacant eyes, I watch three more DVDs. The last one is marked October 17th. The day I questioned the teacher. Its contents are a searing iron pressed into my memory.

When I leave, I take a stack of DVDs and the trashcan with me.

—

My dumb fingers fumble with a pack of cigarettes. I’m shaking. I try to guide the cigarette to my lips, but it falls from my fingertips and rolls under the front seat. I feel tears on my cheeks burning rivulets down my face. I’m shaking.

I don’t know what to do. I’m in over my head.

Elroy Hart. Abner Hart. Christopher Hart. The whole twisted brood. All of them. I can’t begin to fathom the depths I now plumb.

Brandon Hart. A high school science teacher. The name sinks like a stone through my thoughts.

Do I go to the cops? To the newspapers? Who do I trust when everyone is comprised, when every option risks Rachel’s life? I can’t let the Harts know I know. I have to stay in front of them at all costs.

I rock back and forth. All the old emotions are back. The fear. The void eating my insides. It’s like I’m there again, like that moment is replaying itself. It’s ten years ago all over again. There’s a frightened girl out there somewhere. No one can be trusted. And every second spent doing nothing is another second wasted. History cycles through itself and feeds old events back into the fray. A delirious calm suddenly descends on me.

So, it begins again anew, and I am given a second chance.

—

The lock is easy enough to jimmy. Mr. Hart’s predilection for classic cars proves to be his undoing. The mechanical locks on his Charger pop open at my slightest imposition. I glance around the school parking lot, making sure no witnesses are privy to my misdeeds. I crawl into the back and set my bag down on the floor. There’s a blanket covering the backseat. I lay flat on the floor and pull it over me, prepared to wait.

—

An hour later, the car door slams shut, and the engine rumbles awake. The speakers blare classic rock. I hold my breathe. Long minutes pass as I feel the push and pull of traffic through the floor. I hear Mr. Hart humming along with a song on the radio, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

He pulls to a stop and shuts off the car. I steel myself. The clink of keys pulled from the ignition. It’s now or never. I jump up. Mr. Hart cranes his head around in surprise, but it’s too late. He shrieks in an inhuman voice as I wrap my arms around the headrest and squeeze. I curse when I realize we’re parked in the super-market parking lot, not his driveway. Stupid, I tell myself, as Mr. Hart struggles against my headlock. Stupid, but you’re already committed.

Gurgling gasps escape his throat. He punches me in the head. There’s nothing to be done. I take it. He claws at my face and I feel my flesh tear. I squeeze harder. Pass out, goddamn you.

He blasts the car horn, an uneven sequence of shrill squeals. I squeeze so hard I think his head will pop off.

It feels like an eternity before he goes limp in my grasp. My face feels like pizza dough by the time it’s done. Warm blood drips down my cheek and almost splatters on the carpet. Reflexes seize control and catch a falling drop with my disembodied hand. I wipe my face against the front of my shirt and inspect the smear of blood. My cheek pulses with waves of pain.

I glance around. Luck is with me. No curious bystanders.

I quickly pull Mr. Hart’s body into the back seat. I uncoil a length of rope and deftly hogtie him nice and tight. He starts coming to as I tie the final knot. The rope grows taut as he strains against it. A word slips out of his mouth, but I snuff it out with a sock stuffed into his mouth. I wrap his head in duct tape. He struggles the whole time, but it’s useless. He’s good and fucked. I own him now.

Once I’m satisfied, he won’t be causing any trouble, I climb into the front seat. The key coaxes the engine back to life. I wipe my cheek again. More blood stains the front of my shirt.

I’ll being need new clothes, but first to deposit my prize.

The car squeals out of the parking lot.

I’ve done it now, Jules. The die is cast.

—

By the time I get to the storage shed, my shirt is a bloody rag and my face is a ruin. I turn the car off and wait. Mr. Hart is still struggling in the back seat. I listen to his rasping breath.

I finally get a moment to examine my wounds from the rear-view mirror. The science teacher has some bite to him, I’ll give him that. I run my finger over the rubbery blood congealing in a pit on my cheek. It stings like a million hot needles. I dab it with my shirt again but end up with more blood on face than I had before.

A quarter hour burns through dashboard clock. The storage lot is deserted.

I drag him from the backseat and pull him kicking through the gravel. With a giant heave, I toss him into the shed. He lands with a thud. I slide the door shut behind us. The bolt lock clicks into place and then it’s just us, me and Mr. Hart, with the long night stretching out before us. I look around at the work I completed this afternoon, the soft white soundproofed walls stitched into a seamless bubble.

I set my bag down and rummage through my supplies. I return to the sprawled and struggling Mr. Hart. I cocoon him in chains and complete the circuit with a padlock.

Kneeling before his wriggling form, I watch and wait. The fight goes out of him after several moments.

“Are you done?” I ask.

He looks at me with terrified eyes.

I smile, “Good. I have a question for you. I’m hoping you’ll be honest with me this time.”

The color drains from his skin. I rip the duct tape from his face, leaving raw red marks across his white cheeks.

“Where is she?” I pull the sock out of his mouth.

“I don’t know–”

I punch him in the face. He spits pink goop onto the floor.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” He says, his lip already swelling. His eyes flutter in their sockets, crazed, “You’re not a cop–”

I punch him.

“Where is she?”

“What are you–”

I punch him. I feel my fingers pop from their sockets.

“Where is she?”

“They’ll find you–”

I punch him. His head bounces against the floor. He grunts in pain.

“Where is she?”

He snorts. Snot dribbles from his nostrils, “Fuck you.”

Again. And again. And again.

“Where is she? Where is Rachel Walters?”

His face is a crater when I am done. He’s not handsome anymore. My hand aches. I think I’ve broken my fingers. I stand up and flick my wrist and know I’ve definitely broken my fingers. The pitiful creature at my feet is crying. My heart is stone.

“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking–”

“I saw the recordings. In your attic,” His pupils are tiny marbles in oceans of white, “I know she’s alive. You’re going to tell me where.”

“I-”

“Yes, you. You are going to tell me.”

He breathes uneven breaths, “I never–”

“You never what?”

“I never touched her. It-it was the others,” The words are slurred, but there it is. The confession. He knows he’s finished. More nervous sentences slip away from him, “I-I only watched.”

An hour goes by. When the evening air greets me again, I have the whole story. My hands are covered in blood that’s not mine. The shaking returns.

It’s worse than I could have ever imagined.

—

Sitting in the parking lot of the storage place, I slip my cellphone battery into place. I’m debating whether or not to call Lilly, whether I should let the Cleaner secret her away from this horror, when Lilly calls me. Her voice is a revelation, a joy I never thought until this moment I would ever know, “Lilly,” I say.

“Elliot,” She replies, her voice drizzled with warmth. After the unthinkable span spent in the shed, happiness seizes me. It is good to hear her voice.

“She’s alive.”

Silence is my reply.

“Lilly?”

I hear her tears through the static, “Where is she?”

“I know where she is, but Lilly,” I pause. I don’t know what to say.

“Please, Elliot. Tell me.”

“It’s bad, Lilly. It’s really bad.”

Her voice splits and crackles, “I need to know.”

“They-” I begin, but the words falter. It takes everything I have to keep going, “They have her in a basement. I saw a video. Videos. There were two men, maybe three,” I try, but I can’t finish.

Her shallow breathing fills the pause.

“Who were they?”

I close my eyes and see the smiling specters of the Hart brothers on the back of my eyelids. Standing over them, the imposing figure of Elroy Hart, five term United States Senator, revered in the halls of power.

“Elliot?”

“You have to trust me, Lilly,” I say, “It’s better if you don’t know. Listen to me. I’m going to get her back. I promise you. Stay where you are.

“I’m going to get her back.”

—

I knew what address Brandon Hart was going to give me before he said a word. I stare at the address scrawled on the back of a receipt for cigarettes. The Hart Compound. The clock is ticking. I’ll have a day or two tops before people started getting suspicious about Brandon. After the hounds are on my scent, what happens after that I cannot say. I may have endangered Rachel’s life with this little ploy of mine. There can be no hesitation now.

I take a midnight drive to a parking garage in Baltimore. The long, dark miles give me time to think. Time to plot and scheme. Time for my hand to throb in near-blinding pain.

I pull over and wrap my fingers together with a strip torn from my bloody shirt. If a state trooper saw me now, I wouldn’t know where to begin. There’s no time for this. No time at all. You’re old, Elliot. Old and slow when you need to be young and quick.

The van is where I asked for it to be delivered. The cable company decal looks passable enough. Money well spent. I exchange cars after wiping down Mr. Hart’s Charger. The drive back through the same endless leagues is bereft of thought. The plan is sealed. I know exactly what I have to do.

The night still reigns as I arrive back in town.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30th

I wake up in an alley outside of a bar. The sun beats down on my curled form. Flies from a dumpster swirl above my semi-conscious body. My head is screwed on backwards. My eyes burn with the phantoms of withdrawal. The dream fades back into the shadows of my mind.

My legs are Jell-O. People cross the street to get out of my way as I stumble down the sidewalk, alcohol still pumping through my veins, pulling me sideways. I look a mess as I see my reflection in a store front window. My new shirt is ruffled and stained with a rainbow of colors. My hair looks like a wild animal has taken up residence on my head. I spit in my hand and slick my hair back, gazing at the stranger I see in my reflection.

Sweat pours from my face even though a chill is rising on the lazy autumn wind. My hands shake. One moment I am unbearably hot, the next I am shivering cold. Dry, cracked eyes peer out into the world, straining against the bright morning light. I lean against a wall and gather myself.

Are you ready for this, Elliot? There’s no going back now. It’s moving fast now. Faster than you can control. You have to stay in front of it at all costs.

Flashes of a television screen. A scared, innocent girl.

I give up wrestling my hangover into submission and get a drink at the bar. I find my head again as alcohol kneads its calming hands over my body. I barely notice my hand throbbing, my cheek pulsing, the battering Goose gave me aching all over. I am a wraith, a hollow man, drifting through this life until my purpose is complete, and I can rest. I will suffer, I will destroy my body, before I find succor.

I will find Rachel Walters and then I am free to die.

—

Boyd nearly loses his head when I enter the diner.

“What in the flying fuck is going on?” He demands, hysterical.

“I need your help,” I reply, sitting down. My face has been bandaged. Boyd stares at me with hard eyes. If he is suspicious about my wound, it’s buried deep underneath his bristling anger.

“I need answers first,” Boyd stonewalls, “I have a likely arson at the old Diplomat motel on route forty and a dead cop the papers are saying died in a car accident, but the entire station knows his brakes were cut. All within hours of one another. Guess whose car was parked at the motel? And guess whose number was the last call on Dakota’s phone before he died?” His eyes bore into mine, twitching with anger, “Now I’m getting calls the science teacher from Calvert Catholic is missing. The same science teacher you questioned the other day. The science teacher whose last name is Hart. Related to Abner Hart, which I’m sure is no coincidence. Abner Hart, our new boss come next year. The same man who came to the station the other day and asked me about you by name.”

“They know my name?”

Boyd nods.

“What did you tell him?”

“That you’ve been asking around about the Walters girls.”

“Boyd, you fucking moron,” I shout, drawing every eye in the place towards us, “You’ve killed me.”

“Keep your voice down,” Boyd replies, looking askance, “You never know who’s listening,” He glares at me with pure hatred, “Tell me why I shouldn’t haul your ass to the station right now.”

“Because I’d like to think there’s enough between us that you’d prefer not to see me dead,” I explain. Boyd sighs, “Are you going to give me anything at all?”

“It’s the girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have her. The Harts.”

Boyd looks at me in disbelief, “You’re serious?”

“I am.”

He shakes his head, “You’re out of your mind. Listen, I know you’ve been through a lot, but just because of what happened to Julia–”

“This has nothing to do with Julia.”

“Now who’s the moron?” He asks, “Of course it does.”

“Boyd–”

“States,” Boyd interrupts, “Listen to me. Why in the world would the Harts toss away an empire for a girl?”

A waitress interrupts us and pours me a cup of coffee. Boyd and I stare at each other in silence as she asks, “Can I get you guys anything to eat?”

“Fuck off,” Boyd growls. A look of shock blossoms on the waitress’s face as she scampers away.

I swirl my cup of coffee, “He confessed.”

Boyd stares at me, astonished, “What are you saying?”

“I have the science teacher.”

“Elliot,” Boyd reaches across the table and grasps my forearm. His eyes are on fire with fear, “What the fuck are you saying?”

“I took him yesterday,” I explain simply, flexing my broken fingers as best I can, ignoring the pain beating through my body, “He confessed.”

Boyd is thunderstruck, “What–?”

“They have her on the Hart estate, up on Big Savage Mountain.”

Boyd opens his mouth, but his words tangle on his tongue.

“I need to spoof a call,” I tell him, “I have a plan, but for it to work, I have to be able to fake a phone number. Do you remember the Wharton killings out near the old airport on Dry Creek Run?”

Boyd continues to stare dumbfounded at me.

“We had a search warrant, but the place was a fortress. They would have flushed or destroyed anything they had before we even brought up the battering ram, plus whatever casualties we would have taken storming the place. They had a murder-hole, for Christ’s sakes. Probably boiling oil too. Do you remember?”

Boyd slowly nods his head.

“Scarpelli had a stroke of genius. That kid was unnatural, best cop I’ve ever seen. Shame the Bureau sniped him from us. I could use him right now,” I remember bright eyes and a quick wit, “Anyway, he got a box of bedbugs from the university and explained his plan to us. We intercepted a package headed to the place on Dry Creek in the post office and filled it with the little fuckers and resealed it. Then we tapped into the phone line and sat on it for a week. We caught the outgoing call to the pest people and rerouted it to our burner. They let the entire SWAT team through the door before they realized who we were.

“Boyd, I need that equipment.”

More threats to throw me in cuffs and drag me to a dank cell somewhere in the bowels of the city, but I know he’s already acquiesced. We’re just haggling over the details.

—

After the line is cut, we sit in Boyd’s car for hours, saying nothing to each other. It’s just like old times. Boyd takes off the construction helmet and sets it in the backseat, muttering to himself, “I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this,” and that’s the last I hear from him for a while. He looks dapper in his overalls and disguise, despite his scowl. The device clutches near the base of a metal box atop one of the telephone lines. In the distance, the Hart estate rises on a hill. While Boyd was ascending the ladder to install the device, I swung around the edge of the estate with a pair of sheers.

I peel the gloves off my hands, tenderly tugging at my throbbing right hand. I have control of my index finger and thumb, but the other three are useless, mangled and broken. I’d go to a hospital if I didn’t think I’d wind up with a severe case of bullet-through-head. I’ll live. It’s enough to pull a trigger and that’s all that matters.

“What if they use a cellphone?” Boyd asks.

“Then we’re fucked,” I respond bluntly, “That place is ancient, though. It must have a land-line–”

The burner rings, cutting me off. Boyd and I look at one another. He offers me the electronic recorder. I answer and hit play on the recorder.

“Thank you for calling Comcast,” The computerized voice begins, “Please listen to our menu options, as they may have changed.”

Several beeps later, I guide the call to me, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Please wait on the line for the next available customer service associate to assist you.”

I play the waiting music. An old Ozzy song roars out of the car speakers on the trail of a blazing electric guitar. Boyd’s idea; our old battle hymn, probably has never left the tape deck since the last time I was in his squad car. I wait for the chorus before I come on the line, “Comcast Cable. Jordan speaking. May I please have the name and address on the account you are calling us about today?”

It’s Henrietta. She gives me the address as if I don’t already know. Her thick German accent obscures her voice over the line, “Yes, I will be needing service. The internet has gone out.”

“Indeed, ma’am. I am not picking up any signals on my end. There seems to be a technical issue on your end,” I lay the trap, “We can get a technician out there this evening at 4 pm.

“That is…poor timing. We currently have bit of a family emergency. Will tomorrow work?”

I grit my teeth and silently curse. Unintended consequences, I think. Ripples in the pond. More waiting. More long hours where Rachel’s life hangs by a thread. I improvise, “I can get a man out there by 10 am. Will that work?”

“That will be fine. They will have to check in at the gate.”

“Very good. I will have someone out at that time. If you could have someone there to leave him in, we will get this problem resolved in no time.”

The bait is taken. The trap is set.

—

I have Boyd drop me off on the Strip. He looks at me with inquisitive eyes but doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he refuses to let me go alone tomorrow. I tell him to meet at the diner again in the morning and we can head out together. I still haven’t decided if I’ll actually show up tomorrow morning as I wander down the Strip, avoiding the cat calls from the industrious, early morning hookers hanging from door frames, their makeup still fresh and un-befouled.

I watch a man in a business suit buy a small plastic bag from a hoodlum. Further down, a huddle of older men on a stoop pass a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor between them. I skirt the edges of a quarrel they are egging on, the screaming parties arguing over a woman not in attendance. Down the street, I hear the slap of flesh and the smack of pavement, but I’m already around the corner.

The sleeping Havana greets me with its dead neon signs and empty parking lot. The club won’t be open for a few hours yet, but I know Big Wally’s in there. I push open the pair of doors and step into the rank air left over from last night’s debauchery. A man pushes a broom across the dance floor and stops to look up at me, “Can I help you? We’re not open yet.”

“I’m here to see Mr. Bigelow,” I lie, “He’s expecting me.”

Big Wally is hiding in the same corner I left him in. This time he is accompanied by a pile of documents and receipts. A paper trail I once would have paid a fortune to have in my hands.

“States,” My name is acid on his tongue, “I had a feeling I’d see you again.”

“Here I am.”

“Did I leave any doubt as to where we stood on our last parting?”

“I heard you loud and clear, Albert.”

He winches at his real name. I remember he hates it, a name thrown at him by schoolyard bullies. Instead he prefers to wear the moniker he won in the city’s underbelly, a fact I discovered interviewing his childhood friends a lifetime ago, when Big Wally was still a mystery to me. Those days are long gone; this man is no longer an enigma. I understand his brand of evil; greed and vice, motives I can wrap my head around. It is those other, darker impulses I now grope blindly after that leave me gasping for air. Big Wally is talking, “Out with it, States. Why are you here?”

“I require your services,” I say, sitting down.

“You want to book a room here for a party?” He smiles.

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” I reply, “I have need of your…illicit connections.”

“I didn’t know you were a comedian now,” He says, sliding his flat palms across the table, “It’s a piss poor joke, this one. I surely don’t know what you’re implying. I’m just an honest businessman, trying to make my way in this crazy, mixed up world.”

“I’m not wearing a wire, Wally.”

He smirks, “Show me.”

I do. He waves at someone. A guard materializes from the shadows. I realize I’m skating on thin ice here, glancing at the other shadows that may hide similar foes. A wand passes over the length of my body. Big Wally is satisfied. I sit back down.

“What’s this about, States? You turn your cloak while I wasn’t looking?”

“I found the girl.”

His eyes go wide, “The Walters girl?”

I nod.

“Where is she?”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s not why I need you.”

“Enough suspense, States. Tell me why you’re here or I’ll go get Goose again.”

“I need protection,” I say.

Big Wally laughs, “Go fuck yourself, States.”

“Not for me,” I explain, “Someone else.”

He leans in, “You’re a cop. Get your cop friends to do it.”

“I can’t trust them with this. Everyone on the force is comprised. I don’t know who to trust.”

His grin grows wide, “And what makes you think you can trust me?”

“Money,” I reply, “I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

He shakes his head, “You can’t afford me.”

“Name a price.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he replies, “A quarter million dollars.”

Despite my best efforts, I can’t help but cringe at the number.

“I told you,” Big Wally says.

“Fine,” I reply, “A quarter million.”

Like a lagged reflection of my own shock, Wally’s jaw drops, and he scrutinizes me with renewed interest, “Who is so important that you’d drop a quarter million just like that?”

“My wife. Leah,” I reply, “I want someone watching her at all hours for the next few months. Someone armed. Do you understand?”

Wally licks his lips and leans closer, “What the fuck is going on, States?”

I shrug, “Watch the news tomorrow.”

“Is this about the Walters girl?”

“I’ll get you your money,” I stand up to leave without answering his question, “Just make sure you have someone watching her. Do you understand?”

—

I close my IRA and transfer it into my savings account, paying a fortune in fees. I squander years of investments with a single phone call. The bank representative fumes on the other end of the line.

“Sir,” The customer service associate explains anxiously, “We can’t possibly withdraw that much money with such short notice. It will take at least three days before we have sufficient funds on hand.”

“That’s too long,” I reply, “I need that money now.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, “Can I have someone make the withdrawal for me in three days?”

“Certainly, sir. We just need to add a certified user to your account,” She says, “Can I get the name of the party you will be authorizing to make a withdrawal on your behalf?”

Boyd, you son of a bitch. How much can I actually trust you? I’m about to find out.

—

The wait is all that remains. It drives me mad with its long moments stretching into eternity. Every second that passes is another coin toss and the outcome is Rachel’s life. I wander through the city, leaving a trail of cigarette butts behind me. My feet lead me down streets I walked in a different life. I remember a tiny hand in mine. Ice cream cones dripping from a summer heat wave. Fire hydrants pouring water into the street.

I shake the memory off. A drink at a bar steadies my hand.

The avenues are long and twisted. The city was built before automobiles transformed the country’s topology. Streets wind around corners and end in dead ends without rhyme or reason. In forgotten corners, pavement recedes and exposes the brick and mortar heart of the old city.

I know where I’m going, but I won’t let myself think about my destination. I walk down a residential street a mile, the houses petering out around me. I walk past fields and forests. I pass a church and cross the street. I trace my left hand across the gigantic concrete walls that protect the graveyard.

I wander through the gates and float like a ghost through the headstones and monuments. Statues of goddesses and saints, weathered and beaten down by the elements, haunt the spaces between graves. The entire history of the city decomposes underneath my feet.

A familiar lane leads me to a low curving hill and the shade of an apple blossom. Pink petals gliding on the breeze fall on my hair. I reach down and touch the grass, wet blades sliding through my fingers. The inscription blurs in my eyes.

Julia Amber States, 2002 – 2010.

“I knew you’d come eventually,” Leah materializes underneath the apple blossom. She stands and my heart is on a high wire, suspended above a void. Her voice leads me over the yawning gap, “Shirley told me you were back a few days ago.”

She glides over the ground, a wisp of smoke caught in the wind.

“I never thought to see you at the store.”

I can’t find any words. They are all gone.

“I’m sorry,” She says sadly, passing within my grasp.

She continues on, crouching down by Julia’s grave, “I come here every morning.”

“She loved apple blossoms,” I reply, grasping at straws.

She frowns. I cry.

“I loved you,” I find myself saying. I’m not in control of my mouth, “I love you.”

“I know,” She replies without looking at me.

Silence sits between us.

“I can’t look at you,” Leah tells me, “Without seeing her.”

“I know,” It’s my turn to reply.

“Why did you come back?”

I hesitate, knowing it will hurt, but the truth pours out regardless, “I came back to find Rachel Walters.”

She stares at me and swallows a reply. A pause then a whisper, “Was that her photo?”

I nod.

“She looks just like…”

“…she would have,” I finish her thought.

Tears form in the corners of her eyes. She quietly asks, “Did you find her this time?”

I look at my wife and see looks back. I finally see her for the first time in nine years, “I think so, but there’s something I need to do. Something I might not come back from.”

She pauses, lost in thought, “Will it save her?”

I nod, “I hope so.”

She steps forward, cups my cheek in her hand and whispers, “Then do it.”

Leah turns and walks away. The silence she leaves me standing in is furious in its depth. This moment turns into the next and I am alone with only one thing left to do. I’m coming, Rachel. Just be alive. That’s all I ask. Give me that one thing.

As I leave, I know with a dreadful certainty that I will never see my wife again.

—

Lilly’s number sits on my phone screen. My hand hovers over the call button, idling. Thoughts turn over in my head. I pry the battery out and toss the phone aside. The van veers into the vehicle impound lot. My car sits on the other side of the chain link fence.

I get out of the van and duck into an alley. After climbing onto a dumpster and hopping the fence, I dart around through the maze of impounded cars. Crouching against the back wheel of my car, I pat blindly around, finding the spare trunk key magnetically attached to the undercarriage. The trunk pops open. I grab my binoculars, a bag stuffed with supplies and my notebook. My eyes fall on a book sitting in the back seat, For Whom The Bell Tolls.

I hear dogs barking. I grab the book and dash back over the fence.

In a shopping mall parking lot, I shut off the van and begin to examine my hand. I don’t know what else to do but to wrap my three fingers in all the gauze I can find. I eat a mouthful of aspirin and find myself with nothing to do. I numbly flip through my notebook, but there’s nothing for me there anymore. The book from the library burns in my periphery.

I spend the next eight hours reading Hemingway by the light of a streetlamp. The Bandidos are making their final stand against the Fascists when sleep finally finds me.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31st

The sun dawns on my first sober morning in a decade. My hands shake, not from withdrawal, but with nervous energy overflowing from the pit of my stomach. The new day finds me a different man. I crawl from the backseat of Lilly’s van and peer through the fogged windows out into the shopping mall parking lot.

I exchange Lilly’s van for the decoy van stashed at a nearby hotel. I don’t bother to wipe Lilly’s van down. By the time anyone finds it, fingerprints will be the least of my worries. Besides, I’m already a marked man. Boyd’s incompetence saw to that.

The dumb bastard waits for me outside of the diner, with our disguises in a duffel bag at his feet. When he gets into the van, I hand him a notebook.

“What’s this?” He asks as he crawls into the passenger seat.

“That’s the whole case,” I explain, “If something should go wrong–”

“Right, right, spare me,” Boyd cuts me off, “I get it.”

“Just listen to me, Boyd,” I implore, “There’s a name in there. Lynn Martin. Find her. She will know what to do with these,” I set a stack of three DVD cases on the armrest between us.

Boyd picks one of the blank cases up and examines it, “What’s on it?”

“Evidence,” I reply, snatching it from his grip and replacing it in the stack, “She needs hard evidence to accuse any of the Harts publicly and there it is.”

Boyd nods, “Who is she? A lawyer?”

“She’s a journalist.”

He smirks, “I thought you hated journalists.”

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” I mutter.

“Huh?”

“Forget it. There’s more,” I say, passing him a slip of paper. He unfolds the note and studies the series of letters and numbers hidden inside. I explain, “That’s a bank account at First United. By Monday, you should be able to empty it.”

He waves the note back at me, “Care to explain yourself?”

“I need you to make a delivery for me.”

His face scrunches into confusion. I continue, “There should be roughly three hundred and twenty thousand dollars in there. Take the twenty and change for yourself and let’s call it three hundred thousand.”

He licks his bottom lip with the slightest hint of greed and inquires, “What’s the rest for?”

I stare into his eyes, “Do you trust me?”

Boyd frowns, “Why else would I be here”

I grit my teeth and brace myself, “I need you to take two hundred and fifty-grand to Albert Bigelow at the Havana.”

The air leaves the van. His reply comes after a wordless moment, “I don’t want to know.”

“No, you don’t,” I retort.

“That still leaves another fifty thousand. What’s that for?”

I smile, remembering a green dress, “It’s for someone else.”

—

Before leaving New Hartford’s city limits, we pull the van off the side of the road and change into costume. Boyd insists on driving once we’re done. When he takes a left at Saratoga Street, I realize why. I know where he is taking me.

I begin, “Why are you–”

Boyd interrupts, “Just a slight detour. Don’t worry. It won’t take but a minute.”

The road leads over the train tracks and into the ghetto of Old Harford, where centuries old houses now abandoned crumble into the street for want of repair and apartment high-rises grow in clusters from their desiccated remains. We navigate a maze of one-way streets looping around boarded up buildings in a chaotic squiggle, until we arrive at a Chinese take-out restaurant slotted into a wall between a deli and a liquor store. We pull into an adjacent gravel lot growing back into wilderness and he shuts the van off.

“We don’t have time for this,” I say.

“I told you, it’ll be quick,” Boyd replies, “I promise.”

“What could you possibly need in here?” I ask, wary, “Why didn’t you get it before you came?”

Boyd gulps and states in a measured tone, “I thought we could use this time to talk.”

“Boyd–”

“We need to talk, Elliot.”

“There’s no time. It’s already 8:30–” The words marching from my mouth halt on my tongue with his reply.

“Hart,” Boyd states, his hands planted on the steering wheel. He stares ahead, puzzling over phantoms unknown to me with a furrowed brow. He states more than asks, “He’s the one that did Dakota.”

He catches me off guard and I have no other response but to nod.

Boyd sneers, “Then McMullen knows.”

I glance over at Boyd, my skin prickling with gooseflesh. I reply, “I don’t see how he can’t. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. They’ve got to have someone in the department. Someone who knew Dakota was helping me.”

Boyd sighs and closes his eyes. After a moment of silent contemplation, he turns back to me, “Come inside. Trust me.”

I shrug and concede to Boyd. We exit the van. Knee high weeds force us to hopscotch through the vacant lot. The morning sun reflects off something metallic hidden in the grass and catches my eye. I push aside the brush with my foot and find an engraved plaque bolted to a stone block embedded in the ground and overgrown with weeds. Some of the words on the plaque hook into my thoughts and pull my attention towards the inscription. The bronze words read,

Here stood the Old Harford Courthouse. The building was destroyed in a fire started by British forces in 1813 during the two-day battle known to history as the Burning of Harford*. Overwhelmed American forces were driven back on the first day and found refuge inside the Courthouse. All who did perished in the fire started on the morning of the second day. This monument commemorates those unknown soldiers who died defending the United States of America. Let no building stand here until the end of time so their sacrifice will not be forgotten.*

The inscription recalls Lynn’s article in my mind. Two hundred years ago, this is where the Harts conquered Harford and rebuilt it in their image, where they finally passed the apex and ascended to the heights of empire. I gaze around at the desolate emptiness that remains in their wake.

Across the street, a passage leads us between hunched brick buildings leaning against one another and into the shadows of the city’s perpetual darkness. At the other end of an alley, he pushes open a heavy steel door and suddenly we are in a kitchen. The wafting scent of scallions and boiling peanut oil drift through the air. Men in stained aprons chop vegetables on cutting boards. They don’t acknowledge us. I follow Boyd past the manager’s office, back through a dark, gurgling room with a water heater and furnace, and up a flight of narrow stairs. The door to his apartment swings open and he ushers me inside.

Boyd’s apartment has no furniture. He sleeps on a sheet thrown over a wooden floor with a few flat pillows and a ratty blanket that probably hasn’t been washed since the day it was bought. The kitchenette is an array of emptied boxes and overturned take-out cartons. Bottles of booze are everywhere. Piles of documents and folders stacked against the far wall threaten to topple, teetering as I walk by. Down the only hallway in the cramped apartment, I find Boyd rummaging through the bathroom linen closet by the light of a shade-less lamp.

“You still like those old 38s?” He asks me, peaking behind his shoulder as he wrestles with something wedged in the back of the top shelf.

I nod, “What’s this about?”

“I know what you’re planning,” He says, pulling down from the top shelf a polished wooden box.

“I hope so,” I reply, “We’ve only gone over the plan at least twenty times,”

“No,” Boyd replies, “That’s not what I mean.”

He opens the box and pulls out a curled-up leather satchel fastened with a belt. He looks at me. I have no idea what is going on, what he is going to pull from that satchel.

“Boyd,” I ask, “What is that?”

“Don’t forget,” Boyd states plainly, ignoring my question, “We have history, Elliot.”

“What are you talking about?”

He frowns, “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

I freeze in place. A vault of memories long sealed cracks open. Another night, one that has been erased from history. One without dreams to accompany it.

“When we found him, I knew what we were going to do,” Boyd explains, unwrapping the satchel, “There wasn’t even any question of letting it go to trial.”

Vertigo sweeps me into the past.

A drop into nothingness, back to the night my old life ended. Boyd pulls the keys from the ignition, switches off his radio and closes the door to the squad car. I am motion without awareness. A set of blank eyes carried by feet I don’t control. A motel room with a red door looms in my vision. The door hinges shatter with a thundering kick from Boyd. The man inside scrambles, but Boyd is faster. The man is in cuffs in seconds, but I don’t care. I am looking. Searching.

Where are you, baby girl?

“Where is she?” Boyd screams, spittle flying from his mouth.

The man replies through broken teeth and the memory dissolves, replaced by another.

An empty dirt road. Boyd leans on the hood of the squad car, smoking a cigarette. I am already dead. The man in my body stands off the side of the road and stares into the horizon, with only a single thought to accompany him. A deranged thought that twists him around its base, coiling like a spring.

A pair of headlights crest the hill. Boyd tosses his cigarette to the ground. A plain black sedan pulls up and its driver-side window winds down. Boyd exchanges words with the driver, but I don’t hear anything that is said. I am not here, not really, not anymore.

Boyd pulls the man from the backseat of the black sedan and tosses him at my feet. I bend down and peer into his eyes.

“Please,” He cries, words constricting in his throat as realization dawns on him, “You don’t have to do this.” My lip twitches.

Baby girl. Jules. I would set the world on fire to get you back.

“It’s already done.”

A gun taken from my hands and then the deafening silence of a gunshot.

“Boyd, what we did, it isn’t on you,” I explain, back in the present, “It’s on me.”

“No, Elliot, that’s where you’re wrong,” Boyd says, “I made it sure it was on me. What I did that night,” He stares at his hands, “That was all me.

“Whatever else you might think of me,” Boyd says, “You’re my friend, Elliot. I wasn’t going to let you do that.”

“Boyd—”

“Just listen to me,” He says, sitting down and placing the leather satchel on his lap, “I’m not particularly smart, not like you or Scarpelli, but I understand some things. I know what this world is. It don’t favor right or wrong. It’s got no dog in the fight. Evil exists right alongside good and the universe don’t mind one bit. That’s just the way it is. If you want things set right in this life, you have to do it yourself. They won’t just work out if you leave them be.

“But setting things right,” Boyd flexes his fingers, “It don’t work the way you think.

“When we—when I,” Boyd stutters, trying to find the correct words, “When we found him and he told us where Julia was, I knew I had to be one to do it. It couldn’t be you.

“He would have gotten life at the penitentiary, and God knows what they would have done to him in there, but that wasn’t enough. Not for what he did to her.

“So, I did it. I did it. And I don’t regret it.

“But it took something from me. Some part of me that made me whole. Nothing’s ever been the same. I don’t—I can’t be with people anymore. That’s why Angelina left. I know what they are, and I know what I am, and I know those two things don’t mix.

“And, Elliot, what you’re about to do, it’s going to take everything you have. It’s going to leave you empty and alone. Just like me.”

Silence.

“Boyd, if you’re trying to talk me out of this—”

“Not at all,” Boyd replies, unrolling the leather satchel, “The opposite in fact,” From inside the satchel, he retrieves a bundle. He delicately unwraps tissue paper. He holds the revealed contents in the palm of his hands, cradling the hollow metal cylinder.

He hands me a silencer for my gun, “I just want you to know the stakes.”

—

Into the mountains, we ascend. The rocky heights wear fallen clouds like scarfs. We careen through the mist, leaving swirling eddies in our wake. The crackling radio signal dissolves into low, humming static and then ceases altogether another mile up the incline. An eerie quiet engulfs everything.

“You’re sure she’s in the basement?” Boyd asks for the hundredth time.

“No, but that’s what Brandon told me,” I reply for the hundredth time.

The van zigzags up the switchback carved into the face of the alpine heights of Big Savage Mountain. The air thins and ours ears pop. The forest grows dense, filtering the sunlight down into dew that leaves everything wet and dripping. Our windshield accumulates a translucent layer of moisture so Boyd flips on the wipers. The rubber blades squeak against the glass.

Out of nowhere, Boyd turns to me and says, “So my girlfriend’s dog died the other day–”

“You’re still with Angelina?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Christ no, not for eight years,” Boyd replies, rubbing his forehead with one hand while driving with other, “I was trying to tell a joke. You know, break the tension,” He sighs, “You always make shit difficult.”

“Ah,” I say, “Well, go ahead. Get it over with.”

Boyd snorts, “So anyway, like I was saying, my girlfriend’s dog died the other day, so to make her feel better, I went out and got an identical dog for her. I give it to her, and she says me, ‘What am I supposed to do with two dead dogs?’”

I cock a bemused eyebrow in his direction, “I’d tell you to keep your day job, but you’re fucking awful at that too.”

“I don’t care what you say,” He chuckles, “That shit’s hilarious.”

A litany of insults are forming in my mind, but we crest a hump in the dirt road and the Hart Estate appears in the distance, standing on an outcrop above the layer of fog, as if disconnected from the surface of the Earth, floating in the clouds like the kingdom of Heaven. We lose sight of the mansion as we dip back into fog.

Our conversation evaporates, replaced by an all-consuming anxiety. The seconds pass in slow motion. We arrive at the gate and wait. A guard in a black suit and tie approaches the driver side. The window screeches as Boyd winds it down.

“We’re the cable guys,” Boyd says, swallowing a lump in his throat. The guard checks a clipboard and then peers over his glasses at me. I put on my best smile.

I know what the men huddled in the belly of the Trojan Horse felt like now. The guard waves us through the front entrance of the Hart Estate. Boyd is drenched in sweat. I haven’t felt in my hands in five minutes. At least I’m not shaking.

“Stay in the van,” I tell him, “Abner knows you.”

He shakes his head, “I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“You can,” I explain, “And you will. We’ve been over this a hundred time already and we don’t have time again now. Be ready to leave. I’ll be coming out in the hurry”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, shove your thumb up your ass and count to ten,” I offer, “That ought to keep you occupied for a while.”

“I would, but it’s still sore from your mother’s tongue. Tell her to shave it next time.”

I smile. Exactly like old times.

“Thirty minutes,” I say, now deadly serious, banishing all levity, “Thirty minutes and then you leave, no matter what. Find Lynn. Call every fucking newspaper in the country. Ring the bell from every tower. Burn this place to the ground if you have to.”

Boyd solemnly nods. He places a hand on my shoulder. We share a silent moment.

The overalls don’t fit, but no one notices. The bandage on my face gets a curious glance, but they let it go without question. A guard escorts me under the marble arches of the mansion’s front entrance. The scale of everything dwarfs us as we pass across lacquered stone. I get the sense I am entering another realm of existence, where elder beings dwell and decide the fate of mortals. I am sneaking into God’s bedroom to smother him with a pillow and steal a soul stuck in limbo from his clutches.

Warm light simmers in elegant copper lamps hanging from the walls of the foyer. The floors are polished marble where inverted reflections skate at my feet. Standing on a small island of carpet, a blonde-haired woman in a blouse buttoned up to her neck greets me, “You must be the cable man.”

I nod, swallowing a taste of fear to hide my surprise at seeing her. I never accounted for this woman when I cased the place, never included her in the mental arithmetic of the plan. I reply, trying to stave off doubts and maintain course, “Yes, ma’am. If you could just point me to the modem, I’ll get to work.”

She smiles back at me, “Of course. One moment please. We just need to get the keys.”

The guard disappears up a flight of stairs that wind around the foyer, leading into the heart of the mansion. The woman turns to me and indicates to follow her, “This way please.”

She leads me to the left, through a double door, into an enormous room with high ceilings that disappear into darkness. Rows of shelves and books break the room into avenues. The air reeks with the must of old paper. The woman says, “Emile will be back shortly. We shall wait here in the meantime.”

After a moment of awkward silence, the woman claps her hands and offers, “Would you like to see the family portraits?”

“—what?” I stutter.

“While Emile fetches the keys to the study,” She explains, “To pass the time, I mean”

“Oh,” I reply, groping for a response. The woman is an unexpected variable, throwing off my balance. Not knowing what to make of her, I venture blindly, hoping my response sounds natural enough, “Sure, why not?”

“This way,” She says, leading me to a wall of portraits. Lightheaded, I glide across the floor. With her back to me, my frantic eyes skitter across the library, searching for an opportunity to slip away.

“Ah, here we are,” The woman says, stopping in front of an ancient painting faded with age, “The first Hart, as far as we know, John Hart.”

The man in the portrait grimaces down at us with the face of a hollowed corpse. A wound he suffered in life left one side of his face lacerated with scars and a milky cataract in place of an eye.

“Do you work for the Harts?”

Her head cocks to the side and answers hesitantly, “I—yes, I do.”

I follow a line of portraits down a wall, old paintings of past Harts. The whole history of their family is contained in these pictures, I realize, as I pass the portrait of Jeremiah Hart, George Hart, all the way down to Elroy Hart. The senator stares at me from fifty years ago, a young man. His dark eyes peer out from the painting and find mine. Muscles clench. A fire burns in my stomach.

Where did this twisted story begin? Which one of these portraits marks the beginning of the Harts’ downward spiral into the abyss of sadism?

The painting next to Elroy sends my head spinning. A blonde woman in a white dress leaning against a velvet armchair. Her blue eyes pierce through the canvas and leave me stranded in their gravity, with pupils like stained glass revealing the interior of her thoughts.

Victoria Eleanor Hart. Elroy’s first wife. The brood mare who birthed these monsters into the world. She’s been dead for nearly four decades, but if she stepped out of the painting right now and touched me, somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised. Something wiggles in my brain, an implication begging to be uncovered. I stare at the phantom in the painting. Why does she look so familiar?

The woman acting as my escort materializes at my side, “Ah, this would be the late Victoria Hart, the love of Elroy’s life.”

I turn from the painting and find myself looking at a live rendition of it. The woman standing next to me looks exactly like the portrait, I realize. The same eyes, the same hair, the same everything.

“Are you—” I stutter, words drippling over my lips, “Do you—”

“Sir,” The woman asks, “Are you okay?”

Wide-eyed, I blurt, grabbing her arm, “Are you?”

She pulls away from me, “Sir, get off—”

“Do you need help—”

“Alice?” A voice calls from the entrance of the library, interrupting our slipshod argument. It echoes through the shelves, “Is anyone in here?”

It’s him.

I skate through a haze and find myself in front of Abner Hart.

“Ah, yes,” Abner says, his voice thick and slurred through his blubbering jowls, “My mother called you yesterday. I wish she would have consulted me first. We really don’t have time for this right now.”

He talks about Henrietta as if she were his real mother. Revulsion crawls up my throat, but I swallow it and nod. Abner continues talking, unaware of the hatred boiling through my body, “But you’re already here, so do what you can I suppose,” He continues, waving me through the double doors, leading me down hallways, “The modem is in the study down the hall here.”

A guard meets us in the study. Abner explains, “I must attend to my mother. Emile here will see to your needs,” He leaves me with the guard. Emile leads me to a mahogany desk and shows me the computer and the router. I pretend to have the slightest clue what I’m doing, unhooking the router and looking at the wires plugged into the back of the computer.

“It looks like the cable here goes down into the basement,” I explain, assembling the best lie I can, “Can you show me where it comes out?”

A fog descends on me. I am vaguely aware of doors opening and long hallways. Emile leads me over paneled floors, down a flight of stairs into the stark white of a basement. Bright lights disperse shadows so that corners bleed into one another without definition. I step into the shapeless white of an infinite space. I am in a dream.

I follow Emile past a red-painted door floating in the void.

Around the corner, Emile opens another door and shows me an electrical room. Bundles of cords droop from above and weave into ceiling, the exposed roots of the Hart Estate stretching deep into the Earth below.

“Do you have a ladder?” I ask, pointing to the ceiling, “I need to get up there.” Emile grunts and disappears from the room. I wait several moments and then poke my head out the door. Glancing left and right, I find the hallway empty. My feet carry me into the blinding white, towards the looming red door. As I reach for the doorknob, a sudden clanging jolts me from my trajectory. I turn and see Emile jogging towards me, the ladder he dropped rattling against the cold white floors. He grabs me and pulls me back, sneering, “You can’t go in there.”

“I-” I stutter, pushing past him towards the red door, “It looks like the cables in the ceiling feed over into this room.”

He places a hand on my chest, preventing my forward progress, “You can’t go in there.”

“But I need to,” I say. My muscles tense. The moment approaches; the reveal is coming; I can feel it. I sidestep him and place my hand on the knob.

He grabs me by the shoulder and yanks me back, “I said you can’t go in there–”

“I can’t fix the cable unless I can get to it,” I lie through my teeth, “Do you want it fixed or not?”

Emile growls at me, “I guess we’re getting satellite.”

“Have it your way,” I tell the guard. In a flash, I have the gun in my hand and there are three bullets buried in his groin. He collapses into a groaning mess. Another shot puts him out of his misery. The silencer Boyd gave me muffles the thunderous clap down to a low angry grumble. I crouch and glance around, waiting. The stairs remain empty.

One, I think.

In another life, at another time, I would pause and consider the monumental thing I have just done. But there’s no time. The red door looms in my vision, begging to be opened. It’s locked, but I find the key on the guard’s body. I carefully step around the pool of blood growing around the motionless heap.

The door opens into pitch black.

I stumble through a haze of dizziness into the dark room. I hear breathing. Movement, metallic clinking, scrapping. I hit the light switch and I am greeted by a scene from a nightmare.

Five girls sit hunched against the far wall, draped in chains. They are linked together at the ankle, with both ends of the chain bolted to the wall. They all wear the same gray sweatpants and dirty white t-shirts. They all stare at me with the same blank expression of fear. They all have the same blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Rachel Walters,” I say. The girl on the far end peaks up from behind her knees. She bursts out crying and huddles deeper into the corner. Her hair is a mess. She looks nothing like her photos.

I creep closer. One of the other girls begin howling in a language I don’t understand. I glance at her with eyes of death and put my index finger to my lips, shushing her. She recoils in her chains and backs against the wall, retreating into silence.

I bend down in front of Rachel. Her eyes dart around in her skull like bouncing billiard balls.

“Are you Rachel Walters?”

She sobs, but otherwise doesn’t reply.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, reaching out. She flinches where I touch her. I pull my hand back, “Your mother sent me to find you. Your mother, Lilly.”

She doesn’t react. I look around, searching for some way to get her out of these chains.

“Rachel,” I say, turning back, “Where do they keep the keys?”

She’s catatonic; There’s no talking to her.

“Rachel,” I explain, holding her shoulders between my hands, “I am here to take you back to your mother, but I need to get you out of these chains first–”

“The keys are in a cabinet in the hallway,” One of the other girls replies. I look at the source of the reply, down through the series of girls, like a hallway of mirrors, each one the same, yet different. It’s uncanny, how similar they look, as if they were chosen for that very reason…

They all look like Victoria Eleanor Hart, I realize.

The unknown girl continues squeaking, “Are you really here to save us?”

I don’t reply, reeling from the sudden revelation of their appearances. I stagger into the hallway and trip over the corpse on the floor. A sharp pain jolts up my knees and sends daggers into my stomach. I stumble to my feet and crawl over the wall with my hands until I find the cabinet. I rip its door open and find a ring of keys, my fingers like alien digits balking at my suggestions.

I stumble back into the room in a near-drunken stupor.

Yanking the chains from Rachel’s ankles, she begins to emerge from her catatonia. She looks at me with an expression of sheer terror. I grab her and hug her. I speak softly into her ear, “It’s almost over. I need you to be brave for a little while longer. Can you do that for me?”

She meekly nods.

“Most of all,” I continue, “I need you to do exactly what I say, when I say it. Do you understand?”

She nods again.

“What about us?” The girl who told me about the keys inquires.

I look at the others. A herd of eyes looks at me expectantly. I hand the closest girl the ring of keys and explain, “You too. Do what I say, and I will get you out of here. First, get yourself out of these chains.” While the other girls begin to free themselves, I pick Rachel up and brush her off. I take off my jacket and wrap her in it, covering her hair. The other girls are unlocking the shackles from their legs. I hold Rachel tight. The foreign girls begin wailing. I tell them to shush, but they don’t seem to understand English. The moment the first of the wailing girls is free, she dashes for the door, but I grab her and push her back to the ground. The other girls look at me, frightened and uncertain of my intentions.

“You need to trust me,” I explain, “I’m going to help you. I promise.”

I gulp and glance around. I need to leave, I think. I need to get Rachel out of here. I pull her out into the hall, putting myself between her and the corpse crumbled on the floor.

“Stay here,” I tell the girls in the room as I close the door, “I have a van out front, but the way isn’t clear yet. I’ll be back.”

“You’re taking her!” One of them screams. I shut the door and lock it. I stuff the keys into my overalls and turn to face Rachel. I lead her around the corpse, hiding her face in my chest. She is crying, leaving a mess of snot and tears on my shirt.

A voice from upstairs. A shout. Hurried footsteps. A man in a suit sprints down the stairs. I hold Rachel tight with one hand and my gun in the other. I fire three shots blindly. The figure tumbles down the remaining steps. We step over the body and I push Rachel up the flight of stairs. We leave the man groaning in a puddle of his own blood.

Two.

Our shadows follow us down long hallways.

In the lobby now. Almost free. Classical music drifts from upstairs down into the voluminous acoustics of the lobby. I hear voices from the second floor. Laughter. Good. They have no idea what’s just happened. I open the door to outside and find myself face to face with a guard.

Rachel slams against the door as the guard tackles me to the floor. The gun clatters against the marble tiles and spins at Rachel’s feet. The guard head butts me, and I go blind. I have his throat in my good hand. With my broken hand, I dig a finger into his eye. He yelps in pain and then I have the advantage. We roll across the floor and I bury my fist in his mouth, grabbing his tongue. My broken hand shatters against his face. I bite his throat and feel his skin tear in my mouth. I taste a mouthful of his blood.

Then I have Rachel again. The guard is gurgling on the floor. My white overalls are red. I pick up my gun and then we are outside.

Outside the mansion, empty fields surround the house. I glance around, looking for more guards. On the driveway loop, Boyd stands beside the driver side door of the van with a gun drawn, staring at me in wide-eyed horror. I push Rachel into his hands.

“Take her,” I tell Boyd, “I’m going back in.”

Boyd’s voice is shrill, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“There were more girls.”

Boyd gapes at me, “What the fuck?”

I shake my head.

“Then go, Jesus,” Boyd is holding Rachel, looking in my eyes, “Get it done. We’ve got to go.”

I leave as Boyd ushers Rachel into the back of the van. I scan the fields, anxiety rippling through my body. After a moment, I duck back inside.

In the lobby of the mansion, I find a fork in the road. To the left, the basement and the other girls. To the right, laughter and the soft melodies of a piano.

A moment passes into an eternity as I stand there, unstuck in time. I am everywhere at once. I am standing by a river. Boyd is taking a gun out of my hands. Tiny arms clutch mine.

I follow the sound of classical music up a flight of stairs.

At the end of a hallway, I find a pair of doors cracked open. Light seeps from inside onto the carpet at my feet. I hear voices.

“–your brother?” A woman asks.

“Oh, mother,” Abner replies, “You know Brandon, always disappearing. I’m sure he’ll pop up eventually. Last time we found him in Texas shacked up with some seventeen-year-old boy. They had snorted or shot up at least a half million dollars before he had to use the credit card and we found him. That one was a mess. It was a good thing Father happened to know Governor Daimler or that could have turned into a situation.

“Besides,” Abner continues, “With Chris in Washington with father, now I have you all to myself.”

A wet kiss and then the whispered reply, “Oh, Abner,” More laughter and the unnerving sound of pursed lips sucking flesh, “You need to get ready.”

“Of course, mother,” He says. A door shuts. Moments later, the pipes in the walls begin to hum, rumbling under my feet. I press my hand against the door to the master bedroom and gently swing it open. Obscured through translucent curtains hanging from carved wooden posts, I find Henrietta naked on a bed, absently paging through a magazine, her back turned to me. She is an overturned hourglass, poured out onto satin sheets. I study her for a moment and then glance around the room. Walking over to the dresser, I pick up the needle from the record player and the music stops.

“My, but you are insatiable today,” She drawls. She licks a finger and flips a page with a single flowing twist of her wrist, “I’m tired, dear. Shall I have Alice fetch one of the girls?” She turns to reveal herself to me. She’s in her fifties, but money has halted the deterioration of age. Her body on another woman would be beautiful; I am repulsed by the sight of her. Surprise electrifies her eyes, “You—No, listen—please—”

She barely has time to cover herself before I put two slugs in her chest.

The deadened thumps from the silencer draw a response from a cracked bathroom door, “What’s all the commotion, mother? Are you being naughty?”

Abner Hart emerges from a cloud of steam wearing only a towel. The towel drops to the floor when he sees Henrietta drowning in a pool of her blood and me standing patiently by the bedside.

He turns to flee. I pull the trigger. Three flashes alight the room in rhythmic sequence.

I walk up to Abner’s twitching body. I unload my clip until he stops moving, but it’s useless. By the end, I might as well be treading water. I feel no relief. I tuck the gun into my belt, and I leave.

—

When the last girl is loaded into the van, I gaze around at the lifeless Hart Estate. A wind whistles through blades of yellow grass. To the west, the sun has started its downward trajectory through the sky, arcing towards its target: New Harford.

It’s over, I think, as I crawl into the passenger seat next to Boyd. But it doesn’t feel over. I peel off my blood-stained overalls and kick them under the seat. A few puddles have soaked through to my undershirt. I pull on Boyd’s jacket and button up, covering the evidence of my crime best I can. Boyd pretends not to notice.

The van creeps to a stop in front of the gate. Boyd waves to a guard watching television in the guardhouse. The guard, blissfully unaware of the carnage just unleashed in the mansion, lets us back through without issue. Boyd pulls onto the dirt roads and lets out of a gasp.

He looks behind him, where the girls have sheltered in one another’s arms. He shrugs and asks, “What are we supposed to do with the rest of them?”

I glance back at the gaggle of girls huddled in the back of the van. I reply, “You need to find their parents. Make sure they are safe, and no one can find them,” I explain, “It’s very important you make sure the girls are safe. There’s no telling who was involved with this, how high up they go. If they get the chance, they will silence them. Just like they did with Dakota. Do you understand?”

Boyd nods. After a moment, he looks at me askance and asks, “And what are you going to do?”

The landscape flies past the window as I stare out into the world, streaking pastels blurring into a muddy dream, churning green and brown rippling like a river. I reply, “I’m going to make sure this never happens again.”

He opens his mouth to reply but finds no suitable words.

“Don’t forget,” I explain, “In three days, get that money to Big Wally.”

Boyd finally finds his tongue, but I cut him off by slipping between the driver and passenger seats into the back of the van. I sit down beside Rachel. She clutches the sleeves of my jacket and pulls it snug around her shivering body. The other girls watch us.

I hug the shivering girl tight as Boyd steers the van, directing us down dirt roads, back towards civilization. I’m shaking again; It’s too much, this image pulled from a parallel universe. I’m holding a strange girl. I’m holding my daughter.

“You’re safe now,” I tell her, “We’re taking you to your mother.”

I reach into the front seat and retrieve my bag. A familiar object rests at the bottom. I hand Rachel back her diary. Her trembling grip matches mine. I add after a few seconds, “I prefer Stevie.”

The sound that escapes her lips is the stepchild of a laugh and a sob. The girl is broken, crazed. I hold her head against my chest and whisper delicately into her ear, “It’s okay. They’re gone.

“I saved you, baby girl.”

—

The girls in back nervously chatter to one another as I sit and wait.

From the windshield, I watch Boyd deliver Rachel to Esmeralda’s doorstep. Lilly materializes in the doorway. Her eyes go wide, and she collapses onto her knees, wrapping her arms around Rachel. An engulfing hug from a disbelieving mother. A trembling girl snatched from the jaws of death. Boyd awkwardly standing by the door, glancing back at me.

I crawl out behind the van and light up a cigarette, letting them have their moment in privacy. This is something that doesn’t belong to me. I am of a different world. A quiet minute where I collect my thoughts in the shadows of the city street, smoke hovering around my face in stringy clouds. One last thing to do. One more item on the list.

“Got one for me?” Lilly appears by my side.

I hand her a cigarette, conscious of the way her fingers graze mine as she takes it from me.

“You shouldn’t smoke, you know,” She says as she lights her cigarette up, “It’s bad for you.”

“Now you tell me.”

We both laugh uncontrollably, like a gaggle of a maniacs.

After a moment, I begin to explain the next few days to her, “Boyd’s stay with you for a while. He’s going to have some money for you in a few days and then he’s going to take you to see someone called the Cleaner. He’ll get you and Rachel out of the country under fake names,” She processes the news without reaction. I continue, “Leave, Lilly. Take Rachel and leave. Don’t come back.”

She steps closers, hovering near, her fingers touching mine again, working their way into the crook of my mangled digits, grasping, “Come with us.”

There it is. A doorway to another life, to a happy ending. An offer another version of me would happily accept. But that would be leaving things half-done. And that’s not who I am. I explain, “I can’t, Lilly. It’s not over yet. She’s still not safe.”

She chews on my response a moment, “Will I see you again?” She asks. Her face is inches from mine.

“I’ll find you when this is all I over,” I lie, “I promise.”

“How will you know where we are?”

I smile sadly, “It’s what I do.”

She kisses me. Her hand slides down my back. I feel the notches in her spine through my unbroken fingers. She pulls back and I taste her breath.

“Bring her back to life,” I say, grabbing her hand, “For me.”

Her lips draw close to mine again. Another moment to be conjured in the coming days. She says her name, “For Julia.”

—

Boyd drops me off at Lilly’s van. I glance back at the girls once last time, but I don’t say good-bye. Instead, I leave without a word. Boyd says something, but the door slams shut and then I am alone. We stare at each other through silent glass. He frowns. I spark up my last cigarette and turn to leave, walking down the dark streets of New Harford.

I buy an envelope from an all-night pharmacy. Inside, I deposit the stack of DVDs I took from Brandon’s house. My right hand is now entirely useless, palsied and paralyzed beyond feeling, so I make do scratching out an address on the front of it with an unsteady left hand.

To: Lynn Martin.

Someone has to tell this story and it can’t be me. Where I am going, there will be no justice.

—

A switch flips and light pours into the darkness of the storage shed. Mr. Hart is huddled in the corner with wild eyes. He’s managed to get a few strips of duct tape unwound from his face, but enough remains to keep the sock planted firmly in his mouth. Snot and mucus trail down his cheeks in slick streams. He’s been beating himself silly against the wall, but to no avail. He’s still mine.

He grunts and heaves as I approach, flopping helplessly on the ground like a beached fish.

“I have Rachel,” I tell him, lowering myself onto one knee so that I can address him at eye-level, “The other girls, too.”

His muffled reply chokes on the sock stuffed down his throat. I yank the slimy rag from his mouth and fling it aside. He gasps in between heavy breaths, “Water. Please”

I smile and cock my head at him, “I know the accommodations here are pretty lavish, but this isn’t a fucking hotel, Brandon.”

“You have her,” His rasping voice grates like sandpaper up his throat, “Let me go. My father will forget this ever happened, I promise,” His voice shatters into high-pitched shards, “Just let me walk away.”

I shake my head, “No.”

“What?” He stutters, “You don’t understand. You have to–”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Brandon,” I explain, “I don’t have to do anything. After what I did, there’s no walking away from any of this.”

His eyes go wide as dinner plates, “What did you do?”

I pause and smile at him.

“I killed your brother and your step-mother,” I reply, adding after a moment, “Some guards, too. Don’t think they’ll make the headlines, though.”

“You–what?” He stares at me in gaping disbelief.

For some inexplicable reason, perhaps because I know he’s already dead, but fate hasn’t had the chance to catch with him yet, I find myself explaining, “I gunned them down while they were defenseless. I could have left them alone. There was a moment where I could have…” I drift off, losing my train of thought. A stairwell or a hallway. A simple choice. Not even a choice, really.

Dredging myself from my thoughts, I reply without further explanation, “Anyway, it’s done.” He balks at my story and swallows hard through dry, cracked lips. He asks with delicate words, “Which brother?”

I arch an eyebrow at him curiously, “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Abner,” I shrug.

I glimpse fragments of mental arithmetic cascading behind his eyes as pinpoint pupils dart chaotically around in red-veined white. Filtering the information, I’ve given him down into its salient variables and processing it through cold logic gates, he remains silent for moments on end. At last, I realize, I am talking to the real Brandon Hart. He finally replies, “It’s not too late. For the girls, I mean. I trust you know you’re a dead man.”

I nod in grim affirmation.

“Let me go and I promise the girls will be safe,”

“No.”

“What do you want?” Flailing blindly, he probes at my defenses, falling against cold steel, “Money?”

“No.”

“The mother. Millie,” Another sortie, waiting at the gates to be slaughtered, “We can deposit eight figures in a Swiss bank account for her–”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the reply comes automatically, “No.”

“Don’t you understand?” He pleads frantically, “You don’t have a choice. You have no idea what you’re up against–”

“Oh, I have some idea,” I respond, “Don’t sell me short, Brandon. I know what you are. I see you.” He sneers, an ugly expression contorting his mangled face into a demonic avatar, “Then you know you won’t win. It wasn’t just me and my brothers. People in places of power that could crush you with a single phone call, a world you can’t imagine. We’re everywhere. The media, the police, the government. We own it all. There’s nowhere you can go.”

“I know,” I reply.

“Then what’s the point?” He breaks down, the menace dissolving from his face, “What are you trying to—to accomplish?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I sigh, rubbing my chin, “I thought it was about Rachel, but now that she’s safe, I know that isn’t true. I can’t justify it to myself anymore, but I know what I’m going to do. I know what I am now,” I pause, before adding, “I’m going to kill your entire family,” I explain with gritted teeth, peering down at the pathetic heap of a man at my feet, “All of them, until the Hart name is a distant memory, a footnote in a forgotten history book.”

My reply hangs thick in the air. Brandon Hart chokes.

Fear consumes him. He shivers and shakes. He fights against his constraints, pulling wildly at the knotted mess of chain and rope that sheathes his entire body. I let the moment stretch into long minutes, savoring it, watching him in a motionless daze, until it’s clear even to him that it’s pointless. His vain struggle peters out and he goes slack as a ragdoll. Tears pour over his cheeks in wheezing tremors. His garbled voice asks a single question, “Why?”

Standing up, I reply, “I thought about asking you the same,” I pull the 38 from my belt and turn it over in my palm, inspecting the dull gray metal, “But we’re different creatures, you and I. Incapable of communicating. You could tell me, explain in great detail, but I wouldn’t understand, no matter what you said. The same way I will never understand the barking of a dog. But everyone knows when a dog has to be put down,” I chamber a round and watch Brandon’s gutless, winching reaction, “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll throw you a bone before you have to go,” I lean closer. He flinches when I press the barrel of my gun into the meat of his gullet, but I grab a handful of hair with my good hand and pull his head tight against the cool concrete of the shed floor. I whisper into his ear, wet syllables poured into the brine of his final moments, “It’s no great mystery, Brandon,” I declare, “I’m just doing my job.” And then I put a bullet through his skull.

—

In Lilly’s van, with Brandon’s blood on my hands and face, I breakdown into tears. I rack my brain but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember what Julia looked like.

NOVEMBER

The television hanging from the ceiling corner of the bus station announces, “The fire at the Diplomat Motel on Route 40 last week has been ruled an arson. The police are looking for the following man in connection with the investigation.”

The news uses a picture of me from ten years ago. I don’t recognize the man on screen.

“If you have any information on this man or his whereabouts, please contact the New Harford Police Department immediately. Do not approach him. He is considered armed and dangerous.”

I glance around the bus station. A sleeping man nods through a dream with a hood pulled over his face. A mother corrals two restless toddlers into a corner. Other people mill around, reading magazines and chatting. No one pays attention to the broadcast.

“The following footage was released by the New Harford Police,” The television shows a grainy recording of me fleeing the motel. A camera angle that would have also caught the car peeling out of the parking lot that belonged to the thugs who actually set the fire, but the news makes no mention of them.

A flashing graphic cuts into the program, blaring Breaking News in bright white letters across the screen. A grim newscaster appears on screen and delivers the somber news, “Abner Hart, New Harford mayoral candidate and son of Maryland Senator Elroy Hart, and his stepmother, Henrietta Vander-Strauss, heiress to the Vander chocolate fortune and wife to Senator Hart, have been found murdered in their home in Allegany County.”

I lean towards the television, folded over my knees with my chin perched on closed fists.

“We go live to a press conference outside New Harford City Hall being given by city police commissioner Joseph McMullen for more details.”

On an impromptu dais, McMullen stands behind a podium in a crisp, pressed suit. Behind him stands a line of uniformed police officers, capped on each end with the United States and Maryland state flags. He explains to the crowd, talking over a waving field of raised hands and flashing camera lights, “–brutality suggests a disturbed mind. Beyond that I am not at liberty to say.”

“Commissioner! Do you have a suspect?”

“We have a suspect and several leads, but due to the nature of the crime, we are keeping this investigation secret until he has been apprehended–”

“So, it is a male–”

I duck into the public restroom. The news cast thuds against the door, muffled into dull words. I lock myself in a stall and search through my bag, sifting through the few remaining possessions I can still claim to own. Anxious thoughts chase me around in my head. As I pull a pair of scissors from the depths of the bag, I silently hope Boyd will be able to empty my bank account before they find and freeze all my assets, if they haven’t already.

The scissors sheer through my passport. Strips of paper swirls down the toilet like pinwheels caught in a breeze. Next, I grab fistfuls of hair and cut chunks from my head. Strands of hair dance atop the water in tangled constellations. A speaker hanging on the wall next to the restroom entrance blares, “The bus to Washington DC will depart in five minutes. Please proceed to the boarding area.”

I leave the bathroom with ribbons of hair still clinging to my scalp. Pulling a hood over my head, bristles of hair adhere to the soft cotton like Velcro. The bus driver clips my ticket and I find seat in the back, away from curious eyes. My mangled hand slips into the bag on my lap and finds a resting spot on the grip of my 38. With every passenger that steps on the bus, my one good finger grazes against the trigger, reassuring myself that I am in control. That I know what I am doing.

The bus pulls onto the road and then up a ramp onto the highway. New Harford dwindles in the distance, mountains pulling back across it like curtains on a stage.