Still Mine (29 page)

“What’s the difference?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“If you’re not a cop, why did you come?”

“I can’t answer that. Honestly. I just can’t.” Clare repositions herself on the bed. “Your wife was missing.”

“She isn’t my wife. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t know. I got caught up.”

“Right. So you’re going home then? Once they spring you from here?”

“No.”

“But you’re not staying here.”

“No.”

Clare does not look at him.

“You’re a cold one, you know that? Just like Shayna. Whatever it takes to get what you need.”

Jared stands. Maybe Clare deserves his vitriol, but she will not give into it. She will not apologize or explain. All she wants is for him to leave. When he reaches the door, Clare meets his gaze. She lifts her chin in defiance or in good-bye, the only gesture she can muster.

The moment he is gone, the pain comes to her chest. Regret. When will she learn to steel herself? Even on the day she left, when she and her husband sat at the table having breakfast, she felt it, a kind of nostalgia, a pit in her stomach at leaving her home, even at leaving him. Because of course Jason knew nothing of it. It never would have crossed his mind that that morning would be the last time he’d ever see her.

The wave passes. Clare focuses on her breathing. Soon it takes effort to fend off the sleep, a familiar calm setting in. They must have given her morphine for the pain. Clare doesn’t even hear Eleanor come in. She stands over the bed, tinkering with Clare’s saline bag, fussing over the dressing. When she lifts away the bandage Clare can see the puncture wound clearly, a perfect cluster of dots pinched closed by flesh swollen and bruised. Her eyes meet Eleanor’s but she says nothing. Clare’s body feels heavy, pressing down into the bed. When Eleanor is done, she pats Clare’s arm and leaves.

Clare reaches for her phone. Its screen glows blue. This is the cell phone that Malcolm gave her that morning before she left for Blackmore, the only one she’s ever owned. Untraceable, he said. Encrypted. Its clock reads 11:00 a.m. At home, in the house where she grew up, the clock on the stove is probably still stuck at 4:01, as it has been for years, even though it would be early morning there now. Clare uses her good arm to key in her old phone number.

It rings seventeen times before she hangs up. Christopher was never one for answering machines. Next, she dials her own number. This time it rings only once before she hears the click.

“Hello?”

Clare tilts the mouthpiece away from her face so that he won’t hear her breathing.

“Hello?”

Jason. The rumble of his voice, the gruffness, the hello not a question but a statement. She hangs up and holds the phone to her pounding chest. I’m not dead, she thinks. And I won’t let you find me.

What feels like a blink must be a few hours of sleep, because when Clare hears the door open again, the angle of light through the window has changed. The sight of Malcolm floods her with a strange relief. He carries a plastic bag. For a brief moment he seems startled by her appearance, by what must be the bruises on her face.

“Jesus,” Malcolm says. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s your gun?”

“Nice to see you too.”

“We don’t have a lot of time.”

Clare presses her fingers into her forehead. The light seems suddenly blinding. “I think Steve has it. Steve Gorman. He must have my backpack too. But there was nothing in it. Maybe the camera but the roll was fresh. I’m not sure how the phone survived.”

“I couldn’t get to the trailer,” Malcolm says. “Police are swarming up there.”

“There’s nothing there,” Clare says. “Just some clothes. The darkroom kit. I burned the photographs and the fake ID.”

Malcolm pulls folded papers from the breast pocket of his shirt.

“I printed this off this morning. Have a look.”

Clare skims the article. “Missing Woman Found Alive in Abandoned Coal Mine.” On the first page is a stock photograph of the Blackmore mine, and then a shot of the egress, police tape zigzagged between the trees. Charlie’s mugshot. Clare skims the article. Shayna Fowles, 29. Addicted. Missing for three weeks and found alive. Kidnapped by her own father, a disgraced mine foreman who fed her methadone for weeks in an attempt to detoxify her. Charlie Merritt, known drug dealer, shot dead. Townspeople shocked. Little known about second woman found wounded in the mine. Clare O’Dey.

“How did this make the news so fast?” Clare says.

“It’s the Internet age. There’s a picture of you.”

“There can’t be.”

On the next page is a grainy photograph from Sara’s birthday at Ray’s. Clare remembers Sara taking it with her cell phone. In the picture Clare stands between Charlie and Jared at the bar. They both look straight into the lens, their eyes dewy with alcohol, but Clare’s head is tucked into Jared’s shoulder, so that only a profile can be discerned from under her hair.

“I turned away.”

“Barely. You can clearly see half your face. It’s in color online. The caption mentions you by name.”

“It mentions Clare O’Dey. That’s not my name.”

In the picture it is Jared who catches Clare, the way she is coiled into him, his look of perfect detachment, put on as it may be. Clare is too absorbed by the photo to notice Derek Meyer come in. He stands next to Malcolm at the foot of her bed in a white coat, the look of an actual doctor, a large bouquet in his hands, his face still bruised from the fight with Jared. He sets the flowers on the table next to Clare.

“These just arrived,” he says. “Someone drove them all the way up the mountain.”

“Who are they from?” Clare’s mouth feels dry.

“I don’t know.” Derek hands her the card. “I didn’t read it.”

Malcolm watches Clare intently. She makes a fist around the card, bending it.

“She needs a few days,” Derek says to Malcolm. “To recover. They’ll obviously want to question her.”

“Do you two know each other?” Clare asks.

“Derek was the one who hired us,” Malcolm says. “We just met in person for the first time. I’ve accepted payment.”

Clare lies back and attempts to absorb what Malcolm has just revealed.

“So you knew all along why I was here?” Clare asks.

“No,” Derek says. “I was expecting someone else. A man. An investigator. In our e-mails he said he works from the sidelines. So I didn’t put it together right away.”

“Not even the timing?” Clare says.

“After you left my place the other day, I went over it all. I figured it had to be you.”

“But you never said anything,” Clare says.

“I came to Charlie’s to talk to you. But you were a little distracted.”

“He was impressed by how well you fit in,” Malcolm says.

“Better than I do,” Derek says. “You certainly weren’t acting like someone investigating.”

Clare ignores this rebuke. “I found the book you gave Shayna,” she says. “The Hemingway stories.”

“That was a silly gift,” Derek says.

“I found the letters she wrote you too. Stuffed into the book. Louise was carrying it around with her.”

“It was meant to be part of her rehab. She liked to write. I’m told Wilfred gave her a journal in the mine. To calm her.”

“She was married.”

“Clare,” Malcolm says.

“I was trying to clean her up,” Derek says. “I had her on a program. Journaling. Exercise. I was trying. Methadone. I have no idea how Wilfred got his hands on so much of the stuff.”

“Why did you hire Malcolm? Why didn’t you look for her yourself?”

“I had no idea where to start. This is a small town. You can’t ask questions. I thought maybe an investigator could look into Jared, Charlie, follow up on things. Do what the police should have done in the first place.”

“You needed to be the hero,” Clare says.

“No. I needed to find her.”

“She’s clean now at least,” Malcolm says, glaring at Clare.

“She’s dehydrated, a bit undernourished, maybe. He kidnapped her, for chrissake. But she actually seems better.”

“And you love her,” Clare says.

“I’m not sure it matters if I do. She won’t speak to me. She’s asking for her mother.”

“It suited you that everyone thought Jared killed her.”

“Clare!” Malcolm says.

“I thought it was Jared,” Derek says. “So did everyone else. Who the hell else would it be? Who would ever think her own father would lock her in a hole?”

“Listen,” Malcolm says. “This could have ended really badly. Much worse than it has. By any measure this is a happy ending. Whatever comes next is up to you and Shayna. But Clare and I need to leave.”

“She can’t leave. She has a gunshot wound.”

“We need to go,” Malcolm says. “Now.”

Clare motions to the IV. “What about this?”

“Do you want your face all over the news?” Malcolm says. “Do you want to talk to the police?”

“No,” Clare says, tightening her grip on the card.

Malcolm comes to her side and motions to Derek to tug the needle out. Only a small bulge of blood appears. Derek jabs at the buttons on the IV machine until it powers down.

“Can you get us out?” Malcolm asks.

“I don’t know,” Derek says. “The two nurses are on shift change. You could probably just walk out the side door.”

“Can you leave us alone?”

“She’ll need pain medication. Dressings. Antibiotics.”

“If you could get us some,” Malcolm says. “Enough to tide her over for a few weeks. Then give us five minutes to get out.”

“People will be looking for you. The police are upstairs with Wilfred. They asked me to call them when Clare woke up. What do I say?”

“You say nothing. You have no idea where we went.”

Derek nods. It makes sense to Clare now why Malcolm didn’t tell her who’d hired them. Clare can’t be sure what she would have made of it, how it would have carried her differently. Once Derek has left the room, Malcolm dumps the contents of his bag onto the bed.

“I bought you some clothes. Not much women’s wear selection at the hardware store. I did what I could.”

“So you just leave? Just like that?”

“We just leave.”

“You feel no obligation?”

“I met my obligations. We met them. We found her. He should be happy with the outcome.”

Clare reaches for Malcolm’s arm. “Did you ever call him?”

“Who?”

“Jason.”

“No.”

“You just dropped contact?”

“Not exactly. After I left the trailer yesterday, I sent him an e-mail saying I had no leads and would be dropping the case. I told him that you were likely dead.”

Clare glances at the flowers on the side table. “Did he reply?”

“No,” Malcolm says. “Why don’t you open the card?”

“I don’t want to.”

“I don’t get the impression he’s particularly gullible.”

“How do you make enough money to live?” Clare asks. “If Jason didn’t pay you?”

“Clare. Not now. We need to go.”

“I’m not allowed to ask you why you do this?”

“You don’t need to know everything,” Malcolm says. “It doesn’t concern you.”

“You know my story.”

“I don’t know you, Clare.”

“But you knew I had a history with this stuff. That I’d been a user. Can you finally just answer me? Jason told you. You knew, didn’t you?”

“He alluded to it,” Malcolm says.

“Oh, come on. He
told
you. You sent me into Blackmore knowing what it might do to me. You see that, right?”

Malcolm edges to the door and looks both ways down the hall.

“We only have a few minutes.”

“You see that, right?” Clare says again. “Malcolm? You put my life on the line.”

“It was a better option than turning you in.”

“There was the option to let me go,” Clare says. “Let me keep running. But you didn’t.”

“I was giving you another way out.”

“You said before that I remind you of someone.”

“Listen. I’m leaving in two minutes with or without you.”

“At the trailer. You said that.”

Malcolm heaves a deep sigh, then pulls the curtain closed around the bed.

“You do,” he says.

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean by gone? Is she dead?”

“No. I don’t think so. She’s gone. Vanished.”

“What happened? Were you married to her?”

“Yes,” Malcolm says.

There is a sour taste in Clare’s mouth. Malcolm Boon, married. A wife disappeared. Gone. A story he refuses to tell.

“Do you know who sent the flowers?” Clare asks.

“Read the card,” Malcolm says, losing patience.

“I don’t want to read it. I’m not reading it. Was it him?”

“Listen,” Malcolm says. “I’m going to find Derek and get your supplies. Can you get dressed on your own?”

“I think so. Malcolm?”

“Clare. We have to go.”

“Where? Where will we go?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

They watch each other in silence, Clare exhausted and parched and propped up in this bed, Malcolm at the foot of it, ever composed. Clare thinks of Jared’s estimation of her, a cold one, how it fits Malcolm too, the sparseness of him, how he does not temper his words to account for her injured state. In all his coolness Malcolm is the only person with any sense of Clare’s true history, the only one to have glimpsed the indignity of her life before this one. Still, Clare cannot decode him, what his ulterior motives might be, whether he means to protect or discard her. But he is right. She cannot stay here, and Malcolm Boon is her only way out.

“Okay,” Clare says finally. “Let’s go.”

When he leaves the room Clare presses herself up, then swings her legs over the edge of the bed and stands. She will have to change quickly, ignore the shudders of pain that come with even small movements, whatever drugs she’d been given wearing off. It takes two tugs for the string of her hospital gown to come loose. Before she can grab hold of it, the gown drops to the floor. Clare wears only underwear, the chill set upon her instantly. She fumbles with the clothes on the bed, sitting to pull on the pants, tucking her head into the shirt. Malcolm even brought her a pair of shoes, a sort of tennis slipper one size too big.