Crash & Burn (16 page)

“Buys the person's favorite bottle of scotch?”

“Or something significant to both of them.”

“And heads out into the parking lot.”

“Where she must ultimately locate him or her, right?” Wyatt continued. “Because she purchases the scotch at ten, but her accident isn't until five
A.M.
Meaning there's seven hours unaccounted for.”

Kevin looked around. At the relatively quiet plaza, near-empty parking lot. “According to cashier Marlene, the liquor store was busy that night. But the plaza as a whole, the mall parking lot . . . Bet it was mostly quiet. Bet you could sit in a car, chat all you wanted without anyone caring.”

“So who'd she meet?” Wyatt asked him.

“Lover? Long-lost friend? Used some social media site to reconnect with a former flame, then came out here to take things up close and personal?”

Wyatt shrugged. “What woman grabs old sneakers and a baseball cap for a booty call?”

“One I'd like to meet,” Kevin assured him.

“If that's what it was about, they'd pick a hotel, someplace more . . . suitable. This feels more . . .
Magnum, P.I.
”

“
Magnum, P.I.
?”

“You know. Meet with the undercover investigator in the parking lot of the grocery store to receive the surveillance photos of your cheating spouse. That sort of thing.”

Kevin rolled his eyes, then gestured with his head toward their out-of-commission charge.

“We should take her home,” he said again.

But Wyatt just couldn't do it. They were pushing their luck. With the case, with Nicky's fragile mental state.

He still heard himself say, “Not just yet.”

V
ERO
IS
IN
the closet. She is wedged back as far as she can go, knees clutched tight against her chest, while the woman piles blankets on her.

“Don't make a sound,” the woman orders, voice low, tone fearful. “He's had a bad day; that's all. Temper's a little hot. So be good. Stay out of the way. Understand me, child?”

Vero nods. She's afraid of the dark. She doesn't want to be trapped alone in a cramped, smelly closet. But by now she understands there are worse things than abstract terrors. For example, why worry about the monster beneath the bed when a very real bogeyman sleeps on top of it?

I want to comfort her. I feel her growing dread as my own. But when I reach out my hand, nothing happens. I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm the outsider looking in. And I keep my attention on Vero because the woman . . . the woman hurts too much.

The woman steps back. She's done the best she can. It won't be enough; I know that. But at least she tried, and for a woman leading her life, that's something.

Footsteps, down the hall. The sounding board of my life, I think. Footsteps thudding down corridors, menacing me.

The woman closes the closet door. Not all the way; she leaves a faint sliver of light because once Vero had panicked in the
pitch-black and had started to scream. The man hadn't liked that. He'd beaten them both until their faces were bloody and Vero had lost consciousness. The woman had had to wait until he finally rolled over, snoring loudly, before she could ease out of the bed and curl up around her daughter's motionless form.

She'd held her all night long, rocking soundlessly, begging her baby girl not to die, because she was all she had, her only hope, her one bright light. Without her, she'd be lost in the dark, and though the woman couldn't say it out loud, all of her life, she'd been afraid of the dark, too.

Vero had survived. Another night, another day, another week, another month. The woman survived, too, and so they rolled along in this seedy little apartment, both living in dread of footsteps down the hall.

Tonight, the man staggers into the bedroom. His shirt is already off, his hairy belly rolling over the waistband of his sagging jeans.

“Woman,” he roars, reaching for his belt. “Why the fuck aren't you naked?”

In the back of the closet, Vero whimpers.

I'm sorry, I try to tell her. You shouldn't be seeing this. You shouldn't be living this.

But we both know this is nothing new, and the worst is yet to come. Outside these walls. In an entirely different place with scores of footsteps tramping down floorboards. The woman isn't perfect, but at least she tries. Soon, sooner than Vero realizes, the woman will be gone and all she'll have is a rosebush with bloody thorns climbing up a wall. Then this dirty closet will seem like paradise, if only Vero had known it at the time.

The woman strips off her stained blue housecoat. Best to do as he says. No only makes things worse.

The man grunts in approval. Kicks his pants off. Demands the now-naked woman come over, get to work.

Vero closes her eyes. She doesn't like to see, but there is nothing she can do about the sounds. Once she tried humming, but he found her and beat her again.

“Kids are to be seen, not heard!” he'd roared at her, which Vero had found confusing, because best she could tell, she wasn't allowed to be seen either. She reappeared in the apartment only once the man went to work. Then she and her mother were together, and briefly, all was well. Until the sound of footsteps in the outside hall. The jiggle of a key in the apartment's front door.

This is Vero's life. At six, who is she to argue?

The noises finally stop. The woman is crying softly, but that's nothing new. Vero is rocking back and forth. She's hungry. She needs to pee. But she waits for the sound of snoring. That's the all clear, the signal it's safe to come out.

Eventually, after it seems forever has passed, the man falls asleep. The closet door eases open. The woman stands there.

Her right eye is swollen. She moves gingerly, as if her entire body aches. But neither she nor the girl comments. This is the woman's life, too, and she learned long ago not to argue.

The woman helps Vero out of the closet. They tiptoe out of the bedroom, into the cramped family room, the tiny kitchenette. Vero finally pees, but doesn't flush the toilet. For the next few hours she and the woman share the same goal: Don't wake the slumbering beast.

The woman makes Vero a bowl of cereal. She doesn't eat herself, just lights a cigarette, stares tiredly at the far wall. Sometimes, the woman goes quiet for so long, Vero worries she's dead, eyes open but unseeing.

Then Vero will climb onto the woman's lap and hug her tight. And generally, after a moment or two, the woman will sigh. Long and sad. Like she has years, lifetimes, oceans, of sad to let out. Vero cannot make the sad go away. She just sits there and lets it envelop
her, too, until eventually, the woman gets up and lights another cigarette.

Vero eats her Cheerios. She carries her bowl to the sink, rinses it carefully, places it in the drying rack.

“Can we go to the park?” Vero asks.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay, Mommy. Love you.”

“Love you, too, child. Love you, too.”

*   *   *

S
HE
IS
GONE
.
Six-year-old Vero disappears. Six-year-old Vero never stood a chance. And now it is me and old and wiser Vero, back in the princess bedroom, drinking scotch out of teacups, watching the roses bleed.

“You should've killed me sooner,” Vero says.

I pick up my china cup, take another sip of scotch. And I remember. The woman. The park. What will happen next.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

Then we sit in silence, one lost child and woman, twice returned from the dead.

*   *   *

A
KNOCK
ON
the window. It forces me to open my eyes, get my bearings. I'm lying across the bench seat in the back of the sheriff's SUV. My mouth tastes chalky and foul, and I'm clutching the yellow
quilt against my chest. It makes a crinkling sound as I sit up, set it on the seat beside me.

The other detective, Kevin, is standing outside the vehicle, looking in. “You okay?” he asks through the window.

I nod. He pops open the door, and now both him and the sergeant in charge, Wyatt, study me.

“Can we get you something?” Wyatt asks.

“Water.” I hesitate. “I think I'll go inside. Freshen up in the ladies' room.”

They don't outright exchange glances, but still take a minute to consider my request.

“I'll walk you in,” Wyatt says at last. “Kevin can buy you a bottle of water.”

“Don't trust me in a liquor store alone?” I ask him.

He says, “No.”

When I get out of the car, my legs are shaky. If I'm being truly honest, my head still throbs dully and the glare from the overhead parking lot lights makes me want to scream. I'm weak, faintly nauseous and completely disoriented. I have to focus on the cold to remember I'm now in New Hampshire and not in some tower bedroom. I have to study my shoes to remind myself I'm a fully functioning adult and not a child, still crammed into the back of a closet.

“Headache better?” Wyatt asks, as if reading my mind.

“No.”

“What works best?”

“An ice pack. A dark, quiet room.”

“Well, we'll get you home soon enough.”

We're back at the liquor store. The automatic doors swoosh open. I wince immediately at the influx of too many lights.

Wyatt takes my arm and physically guides me along one wall
toward the sign that reads
RESTROOMS
.
I can't help myself; I look for the cashier, the one who was nice to me before I threw up. I want to see her again. I'm running low on acts of kindness tonight.

But I don't detect any sign of her. Some bored kid is manning the register now. I wouldn't buy scotch from him, I think immediately. I wouldn't want to deal with his knowing snicker.

Wyatt stands outside the family restroom while I clean up. My color is horrible, completely washed out, except, of course, for the nasty patchwork of stitches and bruising. I look like a crack addict. This is your brain on scotch, I think. Except I haven't had a drink in at least . . . forty-eight hours? I wonder, if I'm truly an alcoholic, shouldn't I be detoxing? Maybe that's why I got sick, why my head hurts so damn much.

But I associate sweating and trembling with detox, and I don't see any beads of moisture dotting my skin. I'm mostly tired. A woman with a battered brain who should be resting, not gallivanting through liquor stores.

I rinse out my mouth. Splash water on my face. Wash my hands again and again. Then, this is it. I open the door, face my police escort.

“Are you going to take me home now?” I ask Wyatt.

“We'll work our way there,” he says.

Which means he's not.

*   *   *

K
EVIN
SITS
IN
the back of the SUV with me again. He purchased three bottles of water, one for each of us. Wyatt has his unopened in the cup holder up front. Both Kevin and I sip our bottles, riding in
silence. From time to time, I run my hand through the folds of the yellow quilt, feeling the edges of something that shouldn't be there.

But now is not the time or place. Later, when the detectives finally leave me alone . . .

We wind our way through long, looping back roads. No streetlights. No guardrails. No center divider. Welcome to northern New Hampshire. None of us can see beyond the glow of the headlights. We could be driving through deep woods, past scattered houses, through tiny villages. Anything is possible.

Wyatt is talking on his cell phone, but the words are too muted through the barricade for me to follow. I'm uncomfortable, though. The longer we drive, the deeper we head into the night, the more I think nothing good will come of this.

Finally, a gas station looms ahead. The vehicle slows. In the rearview mirror, Wyatt glances at me.

“Gonna top off,” he says.

He turns off the road, eases in front of a pump.

“Hungry?” Kevin asks me. “Want a snack or anything?”

Then, when I hesitate:

“Come on. Let's see if they have anything good inside.”

They're testing me, I realize. Just how many places did I stop that night? And will I vomit at all of them?

I climb down from the SUV, leaving my quilt only reluctantly. Wyatt goes to work with the gas pump. I follow Kevin into the gas station, wincing once at the bright lights, wishing I had my hat.

Inside is nothing special. I don't puke or grab my head and scream in agony. Instead, I follow Kevin up and down snack aisles. He settles on Pringles; I go with a pack of gum.

Up front, the bearded guy manning the register glances at me, studies Kevin, no doubt recognizing a county cop, then takes
Kevin's money without comment. Sitting on the countertop is a hunting magazine. As we leave, he picks it back up and resumes reading.

“Did I pass?” I ask Kevin as we return to the vehicle. Wyatt is already waiting for us, the SUV having obviously not needed that much gas.

“Nothing familiar?” Kevin presses. “Lights, smell, beer stains all over the floor?”

“I've never stopped here,” I tell him with certainty.

“Then where'd you go? Wednesday night. You purchased the bottle of scotch around ten
P
.
M
.
, from that store, eighteen miles back. You don't drive off the road for another seven hours. So where'd you go, Nicky? What did you do for all that time?”

Wyatt has joined us. He pins me with a matching stare. But I don't have anything to offer either detective. I open my mouth. I close my mouth.

“I have no idea,” I say at last.

“Who'd you meet?” Wyatt asks.

“I have no idea.”

“Lover? Private investigator? Why so many secrets, Nicky? If you and Thomas are leading such a charmed life, why all the subterfuge?”

“You'd have to ask him.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “You're sure you've never been here before?”

“I'm sure.”

“But the liquor store . . .”

“I stopped there.”

“Then what, Nicky? Where'd you go?”

I still can't answer.

Finally, Wyatt gives up. He says, “Let's drive.”

We pile once more into the car.

*   *   *

V
ERO
IS
LEARNING
to fly. I think of her. Can nearly feel her sitting in the SUV next to me. Vero is learning to fly. Because by the time she's six, she already understands this isn't the life she wants to live; this isn't the place she wants to be.

So she dashes around the cramped family room, childish hopes giving her wings.

The woman will take her to the park. There, she'll take a seat on a nearby bench. And then, because she's exhausted, beaten down, or maybe because she had two shots of cheap whiskey for breakfast, she'll fall asleep. She'll never see the other girl who appears in the park. Who joins Vero on the swings.

This girl is fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. She's dressed today to look like any other kid on the playground. Maybe an older sister, or a babysitter, entertaining her charges.

She strikes up a conversation with Vero. You like coming to the park? Me, too. What's your favorite thing to do, game to play? Do you like dolls? I have two dolls. Why don't you come with me? I'll grab them from the back of the car.