“Aw, Bridge, let me call it in. Take Taylor home,” Tripp said again softly. His teeth gleamed white in the purple twilight. He put his hand on Bridget’s elbow and she was reminded of the last time she saw Tripp, at Holden’s funeral, standing with the rest of the bar league softball team. Tripp had been a periodic fifth to their foursome, single and flaunting, a string of girlfriends at cookouts and barbecues. Girls, not women, merely twenty-five, perky breasted, and lean legged. A man-child with a badge.
Bridget ignored his request. “How do we even start to look?” It was four o’clock; the sun would be setting, the sky streaked bright red, plunging the mill into darkness. Close to nine hundred thousand square feet, the mill stretched out for what seemed like miles of broken windows and crumbling brick. The interior was likely to be treacherous. Bridget realized at once how stupid this was. Lucia could be anywhere. She looked at Taylor. If something happened to the girl, Bridget could lose her job, maybe her license.
“Let’s just do a quick perimeter search. If we don’t find her, we’ll call it in,” Tripp said, eyeing the pinkish sky. “But keep in mind, she’s eighteen. As long as she’s coming to school, they might not invest the time. They’re taking regular OD calls. It’s getting worse, you know? We’re a small force.”
They picked their way around the side of the mill and Tripp retrieved a mini magnum flashlight from his back pocket. He shone the light in the side windows and the beam bounced off giant spools and tables, the detritus of a decrepit industry. Aside from words scrawled on the walls in haphazard spray paint (Whore, Bitch), the place looked appropriately abandoned.
Bridget kicked a Miller Lite can and everyone jumped.
Tripp moved to the next window, then the next. He shone the light up to the second floor, then the third, but unless Lucia was crouched near a window, they’d never see her.
In the fourth set of windows, there was a crumpled red shirt in the corner, covered in dust. Been there awhile.
They moved on, Tripp leading the way, Bridget close behind. She held Taylor’s hand with one hand while gripping the back of Tripp’s jacket with the other, the slick nylon sliding between her fingertips. He smelled of cologne, and she wondered if he had a date later.
“Bridge, I see something.” Tripp stopped short and Bridget ran into the back of him, pulling Taylor with her. The light from the flashlight glinted off something metallic.
A kerosene heater.
Taylor dropped Bridget’s hand and ran. Toward the water, the dam, that loud rush. In a panic, she yelled, “Lucia! Lucia!”
Tripp chased her. “Taylor! Come back, she won’t hear you!”
One side of the double-door entrance to the mill had been kicked down years ago. Only one door hung creakily from a twenty-four-inch hinge.
Tripp stopped and swung the light between the interior and the outside, where Taylor had run, indecisive. The lure of Lucia won out, and he turned into the corridor of the concrete building.
“Lucia!” called Bridget, her skin alive, crawling. “She’s not out there. She wouldn’t hear you anyway.”
Taylor stopped, her back to the mill, staring in the direction of the dam, the mist collecting in her hair. She shrugged and turned back, pushing past Bridget and inside, after Tripp. Bridget followed.
Dust and beer cans, garbage and plastic bags, clothes, the makings of a campfire littered every room. It was a teenage party haven.
They got to the room with the heater, which was off. There was a small black backpack, the zipper tied with a rainbow braid, that Bridget recognized as Lucia’s. A journal, the pen between the pages like a bulbous bookmark.
Taylor came up behind them, breathing hard, her face red and sheened with sweat.
“Any luck?” Bridget asked, but Tripp already had his cell phone in hand, dialing.
“Nothing,” Taylor said.
Lucia was gone.
CHAPTER 8
Alecia, Saturday, April 25, 2015
“Do you think an affair with a student is something to laugh about?” Alecia stood in the living room, her hands on her hips. Gabe was in bed, finally asleep, and the story of the day came out fast and jumbled. She’d never had a poker face, never could play her cards close to the vest. The truth spewed out.
“It’s so ludicrous, that’s all.” He cocked his head. “You can’t believe it?”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.” Alecia shook the single sheet of paper—the bank statement with Deannie’s Motel—in front of his face. He cupped his forehead and stared at it.
“I did buy a hotel room for a student. Do you know Lucia Hamm? Have I talked about her?” He sat in the chair, choosing to avoid the couch where Alecia perched on the edge, brittle and nervous. “She’s troubled. I don’t know much about her home life, but she called me a month ago for God’s sake. Said she was sleeping in the paper mill. It was forty degrees at night. But she’d run to Honesdale and asked if I could meet her.”
“That was the day of Gabe’s kindergarten meeting.” Alecia tried to keep her voice calm. “You couldn’t just tell me?”
“Why? You’d flip shit, Alecia. You count every penny in this goddamn house, every single thing is budgeted, we eat generic oatmeal, like I can’t even have Quaker Oats, and you want me to tell you that I’m spending an hour’s worth of Reiki therapy on a random girl’s hotel room for one night?” His voice edged up; he was getting pissed now. “If I told you I spent that, I’d have heard about it forever.”
“Why there? Why Honesdale?” It felt illicit, like a tryst kept away from the community.
“I don’t know why!” Nate palmed both knees, the printout fluttering to the ground. He leaned forward, puffed out his cheeks and blew, like blowing out candles. “I didn’t ask many questions. I tried to keep her calm. She was crying, hysterical. I told her I’d help her for one night, and then told her I would call Tripp to get her the number of a shelter. She’s not a minor. The foster care system is useless to her.”
“How’d she have your number?” She yelped then, an aha, caught you.
“All the kids have my number. I give it to them.” He said this dismissively, waved his hand in her direction.
She ignored it. “So then what? Did you go back?” Her questions were a freight train, ramming into the front of her skull. She couldn’t ask them fast enough.
“No. She freaked out. Said that Tripp was looking for her. Officer Harris, she called him. That for some reason, Taylor and Officer Harris were together at the paper mill, going through her stuff. She was afraid of getting arrested.”
“Arrested? For what?” The entire story felt made up; nothing made sense.
“I don’t know! She just said she ran away, that she couldn’t trust anyone anymore, and would I help her? I said I would for one night, then she needed to go to a shelter. I asked her what happened at home but she wouldn’t talk about it. Only that she couldn’t live with her brother anymore.” Nate cleared his throat, his foot tapping. “This is stupid, Alecia. You can’t believe any of this. It’s like . . .” He searched for an analogy and came up empty.