When I think back on that dark season—a brighter light than that of today—I think of the arguments, the fact we were perennially angry with one another over the most trivial things. One of us forgot to pay the car insurance? The other one was mad. Someone forgot to put the trashcans out for the week? The other one was angry as hell. Left a trail of bread crumbs in the margarine tub? That would be me, and Allison was markedly pissed.
And now, in the light of a very scary day, none of it seems to matter. If I could go back and bask in the glory of those barbed wire lined days, it would be a pleasure. But I didn’t bask in anything at the time. Instead, I became a willing party to Hailey Oden’s own insecurities, always asking if her jeans made her ass look wide, if that sweater she wore enhanced her figure or hid it? We played fashion trivia for so long I felt like her personal stylist. And then one sweltering Southern California day when the temperature hit triple digits, she invited me over for a swim. Allison had driven upstate with her parents to visit Jane—Faulk was out of town on business, and it was so damn hot. She wore a red bikini, bright red. It reminded me of the Hawaiian Punch my mother used to give us out of the big can back when I was a kid. There was nothing as thirst-quenching on a horribly hot day. And when she asked if I could tighten her bikini top for her, of course, I said yes. Who the hell was going to help her out if it wasn’t me? She stood at the foot of the pool, toes pointed to the water as my fumbling fingers did the honors, but as soon as I untied the knot, her top slipped south and she grabbed my hands, landing them right over those store-bought tits. That’s what Allison used to call them, store-bought. She was right, of course, but at the moment I didn’t care. I had a painful hard-on that couldn’t be quenched. I had already tossed off to her so often it only felt like an inch past the crime I had already committed. We dove into the pool, me hoping to cool off, and her in an effort to lose her bottoms, too. And she did. And we did. Right there in the pool. We spent the weekend together. After that, anytime I saw Faulk swimming in that semen-infested water, I felt bad for the guy. Bad for me. Bad for Allison. It went on for three long bad weeks. That’s when he caught us. And that’s when I woke up and realized I was horrifically at fault for a crime against my marriage. I prayed it wasn’t too late—and with therapy, our move to Concordia, we somehow miraculously patched ourselves back together—only to blow to pieces again the night I sent our daughter to the wolves.
My phone burps, alerting me to the fact I’ve gotten another text.
I glance at the phone, thankful for once that my father is demanding to make Allison a nice steaming cup of tea.
“You’re not going anywhere, missy,” he scolds her playfully. “You sit right here.”
The message above stops my heart cold. Hannigan is having a baby.
“Shit,” I hiss. My fingers fumble to delete the entire message thread as if I were deactivating a bomb.
“What’s that?” Allison pads her slippers in this direction, and I flip on the television and turn up the volume.
“Give me that.” She snaps up the remote before landing on the sofa adjacent to me.
My heart pounds erratically, a bite of heat erupts underneath my arms—my crotch the scene of the crime. Didn’t Hailey mention something about Faulk getting snipped years ago when he left his first wife? Faulk Oden had a pile of money when Hailey first dug her claws into his hairy back, but no sooner did they tie the knot than things went south for him in a series of bad real estate investments.
Shit. I can’t have a kid. I have a kid. One that I badly misplaced.
My fingers grip the hair at my temples before I can stop them.
“Can you believe this?” Allison turns up the volume, and I glance over to find the two of us miniaturized in a freeze frame between a panel of talking heads. “I hate this show. They routinely mock justice and—” before she can get another word out, a picture of a blonde, frumpy, beak-nosed woman pops up with the caption Heather Evans.
“A GoFundMe was set up by a close family friend who claims James and Allison Price need all the money they can get their hands on, but public real estate transactions show that the Price family had more than four hundred thousand dollars between the sale of their old house and that of their new.”
“People are talking,” the man in a bow tie next to her pipes up. “Some people wonder if this was a ploy for money.”
“What?” I lean in, momentarily distracted from the phone in my hand.
The redhead in the middle holds up a finger in an effort to interrupt the bickering between the other two. “People are talking, and it’s not just about that GoFundMe page that’s sucking in the hard-earned cash from innocent people. Allison Price’s sister is currently serving a sixty-five-year sentence at Welders Correctional Facility.”
Allison drops her head in her hand. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
But the redhead goes on. “And what about the information that’s surfaced about Mr. Price’s siblings? Three died before the age of twenty? One of which he shot to death himself in what was deemed as an accidental discharge.”
“Shit.” I gulp down my next breath.
The redhead tosses up a hand, exasperated. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. I’m telling you, none of this would have been unearthed—nor would this case have garnered half the public interest it has if it weren’t for the fact they claim there is a little girl who goes by the nickname Ota who disappeared along with their daughter. Who is this little girl, and why has nobody claimed her?” She holds up the police composite of the smiling little brat, the one I commissioned with my own bad thoughts, and I’d swear on my life it’s grimacing at me.
“My God.” Allison drops to her knees, her nose tipped to the screen. “They don’t believe us.”
“No, they don’t.” My father comes in with two steaming cups of tea and settles them on the coffee table, right over the bare wood, a crime in another lifetime. His chipper attitude stops up the room with its stench. “They’re convinced we are all a bunch of killers.” He clicks his tongue. “I’m not paying it no mind, and neither should you. This kind of social behavior is the norm for times like these. Our society is full of hate. Nothing good ever comes from it if you ask me.”
I get up and pull Allison off the floor. “Don’t worry about it. It will all blow over,” I say as I bypass the tea and help her upstairs.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No, but you should.”
No sooner do I get her settled in bed than my phone buzzes for my attention once again. My gut cinches until I spot Richard’s name.
“Who’s that?” Her voice is thick with grief and a week and a half’s worth of fatigue.
“Rich.” His name flies from my lips with a sigh of relief. “He wants me to give him a call—something about paperwork.”
Her affect goes from hopeful to hellish. That sums up this nightmare in a nutshell.
I head back downstairs and give him a call.
“What’s up?” I frown over at the television set with a blowup picture of myself on the screen. I look old, bedraggled, like a bona fide lunatic. If these are my fifteen minutes, I want every damn one of them back.
“You busy?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Because you’re going to want to get down here.”
* * *
The Concordia Police Department is stale, sized down from what you might expect in a county this big, cartoonish, something out of a black and white show from the sixties.
I find Rich standing by the front desk and he walks me wordlessly down the hall to his office. For some reason the chicken wire embedded in the glass of his window reminds me of my elementary school years.
“Take a seat.” He shuts the door behind me, sealing us in, and my ears fill up with a strange echoing silence as if we were in a fishbowl. “What’s going on? You need my help with anything?”