Already Gone (9 page)

After the campus clears and the sun drops behind the mountains, I pack a couple stacks of ungraded papers into my bag then grab my keys and head home. When I get there, I go straight to the kitchen and check my voice mail.

There’s a message, but it’s not the one I was hoping to hear.

“Mr. Reese. This is Adam Fisher at Pearson’s Funeral home. I’m calling to let you know we’ve received your wife’s remains, and if you’d like to come by and select an urn, we can have them placed—”

I delete the message.

I stay at the table for a while, staring at nothing, trying not to think about Diane. I feel the tears pressing at the back of my eyes, and I fight to keep them there.

At first it works, then it doesn’t.

I consider getting in my car and driving, no idea where, just away.

I don’t want to be inside the house anymore. The rooms seem too big, too quiet, too full of ghosts.

I reach into my pocket and pull out Lisa’s card. I think about the conversation I had with Doug in my office, how he’d asked why I wanted to talk to Lisa.

I didn’t have an answer then, and I still don’t.

Even if I did convince her to talk to me, what were the chances she’d tell me something I didn’t already know? Diane was scared and confused and looking for answers.

Nothing new there.

It’s more likely I’ll make things worse. Lisa will hang up on me again, and I’ll still be sitting in the kitchen, still bleeding for a drink, still wondering why my wife left and where she was going and what exactly happened to her on that empty road leading toward the desert.

But what if she doesn’t hang up?

The possibility is all I need.

I pick up the phone and dial the number off the card.

The line rings, and I wait.

I tell myself I’m not going to leave another message. If the machine picks up, I’m going to hang up.

The line clicks. I wait for the familiar message asking me to leave my name and number, but it doesn’t come.

This time, someone answers.

The woman on the other end of the line is all sunshine and smiles, until I tell her who I am.

“Mr. Reese, I don’t want you to call here again.”

“I need to know about Diane, and you’re the only one who can help me.”

“Out of the question,” she says. “It’s a matter of confidentiality, and I take it very seriously. Now please don’t call here again—”

“Diane is dead.”

Lisa stops talking, and for a while the only sound is the slow cycle of my breathing. The next time she speaks, her voice is soft, a whisper.

“She’s dead?”

“Car accident,” I say. “But I think she was killed.”

Lisa makes a small choking sound in the back of her throat. “When?”

I start at the beginning with the attack in the parking lot, and I end with the car accident and driving up to Fairplay to identify her body.

Lisa listens, quiet, not hanging up.

When I finish I say, “I want to know if she said anything about us. I need to know if she was happy.”

For a long time there’s just silence, and then Lisa starts mumbling on the other end of the phone. I start to wonder if she heard me at all.

I ask her again.

This time she speaks.

She says, “That son of a bitch.”

I stand in my kitchen with the phone pressed against my ear, saying the same thing over and over.

“What are you talking about?”

Lisa, still mumbling, isn’t answering.

“Do you know what happened?”

She says she doesn’t know anything, but it’s a lie.

“I’m getting on the first flight I can find. I’m coming down to see you—”

This gets her attention.

“No!” Her voice is cold. “You’re not.”

“Then tell me what’s going on.”

“You can’t come down here. If they—”

She stops.

I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t.

“Who is ‘they’?”

“Mr. Reese, I can’t help you. I just can’t, and I’m sorry. Believe me.”

“Don’t do this,” I say. “Tell me what happened to my wife. Did someone kill her?”

Lisa tells me she doesn’t know anything, and even though I know it’s a lie, I don’t argue. She’s not going to tell me, no matter how much I beg, at least not tonight.

It’s time to cut my losses.

“Will you take my number and call me if you change your mind?”

“I have your number,” she says. “Your messages.”

I tell her it’ll make me feel better if she writes it down. She hesitates, then agrees.

After she hangs up, I stay at the kitchen table for a while and try to figure out my next move. I know Lisa isn’t going to call me back, so if I want to find out what she knows, I’ll have to go to her.

She won’t like it, but I don’t care.

I find a flight leaving for Phoenix in the morning. I buy a ticket, then call and reserve a car. Sedona is a few hours’ drive from the airport. If things go smoothly, I should be there by early afternoon.

Once the trip is booked, I grab my backpack from the closet and fill it with a change of clothes and a couple books to keep my mind busy on the plane. I look around for anything I might’ve forgotten, then zip the bag and slide it over my shoulder and turn out the light.

The phone rings.

My breath catches in my throat.

I carry the backpack to the kitchen and set it on the table. When I reach for the phone, the idea I might’ve been wrong about Lisa is right up front. She changed her mind and decided to talk to me after all.

Then I pick up the phone.

“Jake?”

It’s not Lisa.

For a second, I can’t find my voice. When I do speak, all I manage to say is, “Yeah?”

There’s a pause, then the unmistakable scrape of a cigarette lighter and a long inhale.

I hear my heartbeat, and feel each second pass.

Gabby exhales smoke into the phone, and when he speaks, his voice sounds flat, tired.

He says, “We’ve got ’em.”

At first, I’m not nervous, but that changes once I pull off the highway and cross under the Nineteenth Street viaduct into the warehouse district. I feel my pulse echoing in my head, and a dull ache building in the middle of my chest.

I remind myself that Gabby is a friend.

It helps a little.

There are no streetlights down here, and the buildings fade in and out of darkness as I drive. My instructions were to head west until I crossed the railroad tracks, then turn north and look for the sign.

He said it would be easy to find.

When I was a kid, Gabby owned a junkyard thirty miles outside the city. He had a homemade sign out front that said you could find anything you wanted inside, and he was probably right.

The yard seemed to go on forever.

I’d spend hours out there, wandering through a sea of crushed cars and mountains of rusted appliances. There were always new places to explore and treasures to find.

When I was a few years older, my father told me that besides being able to find whatever you wanted at Gabby’s junkyard, you could also dispose of anything you wanted.

For a price.

“There are more bodies buried out there than over at Fairview Cemetery,” he said. “One day, that place is going to be all over the news, you just watch.”

He laughed when he told me, but I didn’t.

There was nothing funny about Gabby.

Even as a kid, I knew something wasn’t right about him, but my father didn’t seem to notice. If he had one true friend in his life, it was Gabby, and he trusted him completely. So, when I was twelve and my dad went to prison for the first time, Gabby took me in.

I lived with him for four years before I found my own trouble and they sent me into juvenile detention.

Gabby would visit from time to time, and once he even told me he considered me a son. Now, driving through this deserted part of the city, all I can do is hope he still feels the same way.

I cross over the railroad tracks and turn right, heading north until I see a two-story brick building with a hand-painted sign out front.

Gabriel’s Custom Wood Furniture.

Gabby was right. It was easy to find.

There’s a heavy steel gate along the side of the building surrounding a large paved lot and loading dock. I drive by for a closer look, then pull into the parking lot across the street and shut off the engine.

It’s quiet, and I can hear my heart beating against my ribs. I close my eyes for a moment, then open the door and step out. The wind sliding between the empty buildings is cold and smells like asphalt and oil.

I breathe it in deep and try to focus.

My feet don’t want to move.

The two men who cut off my finger are inside, which means the answers I’m looking for are inside. I don’t know if they’re the ones who killed Diane, but I’m going to find out tonight, no matter what.

I stay by my car for a while and stare up at the grid of dark windows on the buildings lining the street. I try to shake the feeling I’m being watched, but it’s hard.

Eventually, I cross the street to Gabby’s place and walk up to the front door. There’s a black button on the frame. I press it and hear a buzzer sound far away.

I hear a series of clicks from the locks, and then the door opens. The kid standing inside looks younger than my students. He is wearing a shoulder holster, and I see the handle of the gun by his armpit.

For a minute, we just stand there.

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Gabby.”

He stares at me, doesn’t move.

I look past him into the darkness. “Is he here or not?”

The kid’s eyes go wide, just for a second, then he smiles. I know the smile. He’s been assigned a job, and he thinks that makes him king. He knows he doesn’t have to put up with anyone’s shit.

I know this because ten years ago, that was me.

He opens his mouth to say something, but I interrupt and say, “No, don’t talk. Just go find him.”

The kid stops smiling. “Who the fuck are you?”

I start to tell him, and then I hear a door open somewhere behind him and a familiar voice say, “Hey, Jake.”

The kid doesn’t take his eyes off me, but the muscles in his face go loose. He waits until Gabby gets close, then he looks down and steps away from the door.

Gabby walks up with his arms out. He wraps them around me and pulls me in. For an instant, I feel my feet leave the floor. I can’t help but smile.

When he lets go, he steps back and holds me at arm’s length and says, “Holy shit, Jake.”

It’s the first time I’ve seen him in almost ten years, and I’m shocked at how little he’s changed. His hair is a bit thinner, and the lines on his face are deeper, but the eyes, cold and blue, are exactly the same.

“It’s good to see you,” I say.

He nods. “Show me.”

I hold up my left hand.

Gabby looks at the spot where my finger used to be, and something changes in his eyes. He grabs my hand and turns it over in his. I watch the jaw muscles twitch under his skin, and my heart starts to pound in my throat.

“Those two foreign fucks did this to you?”

I nod, don’t speak.

“And your wife?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

Gabby looks at me and smiles. “Don’t worry about that, kid.” He puts a hand behind my neck and squeezes. I try my best not to wince. “We’ll find out. Count on it.”

He lets go and motions for me to follow him.

“Come on in, I’ll show you what I’ve been up to in my golden years.” He slaps my chest. “You know I retired?”

“You retired?”

He holds up a hand, seesawing it back and forth. “I decided to give it a try after your old man went inside this last time. I thought it best to step out while I still had the legs to do it.”

“I didn’t know,” I say. “I wouldn’t have called.”

“Bullshit. You’re family, you and your dad.” Gabby stops and turns to me. The lines on his face deepen. “I was real sorry to hear about what happened to him. He was a good man, you know that?”

I lie and tell him I do.

Gabby nods and leaves it at that, instantly forgotten.

“Well, come on in. I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

He turns and walks on, not looking back.

I step inside and let the door close behind me.