A wave of emotion sweeps over me and my insides buck in lieu of weeping.
And just like that, I forget how to breathe. I cheated on my wife and now my child is missing. My father’s favorite words come back to me—the wages of sin is death. I’ve done this. My randy balls and I have effectively taken down my entire family, and the most innocent party of all is suffering greatly for it.
A deep, guttural twist of grief envelops me. It churns inside of me until I can no longer breathe under its weight.
“So tell us about it.” Allison gives something just this side of a wink to Monica. A sign of eminent danger. That partial ocular twitch is what she likes to invoke while she’s sharpening the claws, out for blood. Her enemy just doesn’t know it yet. “Lay it all out. How did it go down? Was there a messy breakup involved?” Her voice is jubilant and light, but I see her ready to pounce and eviscerate. She’s just as pissed at Monica as I am.
Monica bucks with a laugh.
Shit.
“The prince and I dated for almost four years.” A smug look crosses her face with something vindictive layered just beneath. She pulls a comb from the drawer and rakes it over my scalp, hard, like razor blades.
“Four years?” Allison leans over to get a good look at me, her eyes wild with disbelief. “That’s incredible. You’ve never mentioned her. We’ve been married for six.”
“Almost seven.” I glower up at Monica. Obviously, she’s getting her sick little jollies off while extracting a little revenge.
“It was like a marriage.” The words strum from her lips almost catatonic. “At least it was to me. I appreciated every carnal inch of this boy.” Her eyes gloss over and she blinks back tears. “But then he was off to Wake. A college man. He didn’t have a need for a hometown girl. She dabs the sponge in pink powder before bouncing it over my cheeks. “Dumb ol’ girl like me. He wanted something fresh, something blonde, something only California could deliver in some spray tan—peroxide little package.”
“I was a blonde for a time.” Ally presses her lips together before giving a mock kiss to the mirror.
“Never wrote, never called.” Monica dips the sponge back into the ruddy powder, then dab, dab, dab right over my flesh. I can feel my flesh lighting up like a rash. “I came out once, but he was already with you.”
I shoot a look to her. I have zero recollection of this trip. But then again, my mind has settled down in a very dark place and sleep is essentially a stranger to me. Monica could have camped out in my dorm for all I remember.
“I saw the two of you having fun.” She shakes her head, staring intently at my features. “Him sticking his hands up your shirt as if you were a common street whore.”
“Monica, enough!” the petite brunette working on Allison finally pipes up. Her face is flustered, and she says exactly what I’m dying to say. “We’d better get them on set.”
Monica spins me toward the mirror and I’m greeted with a clown’s face, pale, doughy, with cheeks that look as if someone spent a solid year slapping. Nice touch. It’s nice to know, despite the morbid facts surrounding my life, revenge still isn’t off the table. I head to the restroom and tone it down, smearing that strawberry stained crap all over the place. I look like hell. Infected. Disease-ridden. I probably should. My heart has been diseased for some time now.
I can’t help but note the studio is smaller than anticipated as they hook Allison and me up with mics. The morning hosts, two women who look interchangeable with their painted-on smiles, short blonde hair, have a chuckle over a parade of kids in Halloween costumes before losing their smiles as they segue into our segment.
They ask the routine questions who, what, where, when, and why. We offer our sparse answers, Reagan, missing, two weeks and counting, and we do not know why. That is the million-dollar question.
“As you’re aware, we have Dolla Chetney here, world-famous psychic who claims she does have news regarding your daughter.” Blonde number one looks into the camera. “We’ll be right back to hear just what that is.”
Allison lets out a sigh as if she’s been holding her breath and gives my hand a quick squeeze. “How did we do?”
“We did good,” I assure her. “We’re likable, normal people. This ends well for us.” I hope to God it’s true.
The makeup brigade stomps onto the set. Allison gets a quick swath of lip gloss applied while Monica slaps my forehead with a brush, the powder pluming from it like fog.
An older woman with gray hair yellowing at the tips, deep lines cut into her upper lip, a testament to the tobacco industry, takes a seat next to us. She offers a somber hello, and for once it feels as if we’re being paid the due respect we deserve after having our child vacuumed out of our lives by the devil himself.
Allison gives a tired huff her way. Neither of us believes in psychics, fortune-tellers, or any other charlatan who claims to have a third eye into the unknown. We certainly don’t look to the stars to determine whether or not we should leave the house or take a crap. This is simply a formality. A means to an end. We have to pander to the American public in an effort to get off the naughty list, and to do so we listen to this monster spin a yarn about our baby girl. She should be arrested right along with whoever the hell did this. On second thought, whoever gave this nutcase the green light to be here should be convicted. That’s the real nutcase. I’m betting it was Monica.
Lights, camera, action. Blonde One introduces Ms. Chetney. “The world is waiting to hear what you have to say, but before that”—the blonde squints a tight smile my way—“do you have any words you’d like to share with Mr. and Mrs. Price?”
Blonde Two leans in. “A reading! Something that might shed light on the case, of course.”
I cringe at how convenient it was for her to use my daughter to backpedal.
“Yes, I would love to.” Ms. Chetney sheds a matronly smile, dull, no joy in her eyes to support it. “First, let me preface this by saying I am so sorry for the hell the two of you are in. Nobody on this planet should have to face what the two of you are going through.” Those milk-coated eyes settle over mine. “Mr. Price, you are a very affable fellow—usually. But, unfortunately, this season of your life has been very trying for you—and I’m talking about before the abduction.”
My stomach clenches for two reasons: one, she’s right, and two, the word abduction sounds like a grenade going off in my ear each time I hear it. But there’s something about those pale soulless pits staring me down that unnerves me. Whatever the hell she thinks she knows about me, she’s wrong. I glare at her a moment before softening.
“You”—she squints into me as if she were a voyeur into parts unknown—“have some unsettled issues in your past.” I swallow hard. She doesn’t know anything real. She’s a charlatan, a fake, nothing but a wrinkled up fraud. She squints hard. “Something that you’ve done has yet to come to light.” She holds a hand out to the two blondes seated at the edge of their seats. I offer a quick glance to Allison who looks less than fazed. “Again, this is prior to the event. But I really do see this coming to a head very soon in your life. There is something you’re either hiding from yourself or you’re working very hard to hide from somebody else. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s something very good. A blessing.”
A blessing. My body heat spikes unnaturally. They say a baby is a blessing—only in my case it will amount to a death sentence. The women in Ally’s family are known to be historically brutal. My wife may smell like roses, but she’s a briar patch under that smile.
I take a deep breath.
“And you.” Dolla Chetney sags contently toward Ally as if she were her favorite niece. “There is something from your past as well.” Her brows hike as she doles out a knowing look.