The Missing Place (5 page)

“I don't know where Shay got her information,” she said, too tired to make the effort to protect his feelings. “But she said she'd read about all these accidents and workplace injuries. Things that weren't reported. Or weren't compensated, anyway.”

“All right,” Andy said, and in his tone Colleen detected the skepticism that had been present from the moment she first suggested coming out here. “Tell you what. Are you writing all of this down? If you email it to me, I'll keep it organized for Steve. He's supposed to call me today, he was going to make some calls to towns within a hundred-mile radius just double-checking on the hotel situation. Not that there are many to call—there's only a dozen towns in the whole state with more than a few thousand people.”

The door of the house opened, and a figure stepped out, pulling a knit cap down over his ears.
Her
ears, Colleen corrected herself, as
the flat-faced woman strode toward her more quickly than Colleen would have thought possible in unlaced Bean boots and a flapping parka. Her face was set in a determined scowl. In her bare hand was a wooden spoon.

“Listen, I need to go,” Colleen said. “I'll call you later today.”

She hung up and slipped her freezing hand into her pocket as the woman came to an indignant halt a few feet away, huffing white breath. She had a smear of something at one corner of her mouth, and graying blond hair pulled back in a plastic clip. She was around sixty and badly in need of a good moisturizer.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I'm Colleen Mitchell. I'm the—the other mom.” She extended her hand, but the woman made no move to shake it. “I'm sorry I arrived too late to introduce myself last night.”

“Jesus. I looked out and saw you out here, you could be anybody.” She looked only slightly mollified.

“I thought— Shay said you'd called over . . . Brenda, right?”

“Yeah, I called to say you were in
town
, after Lee called me. I didn't tell her you could
stay.
”

Colleen struggled to keep up, blushing. Lee: Dave's wife's sister, if she was remembering right. “There're no rooms. I tried, I was going to stay in a hotel room and I . . . I am very sorry to inconvenience you.”

Her voice sounded hollow even to herself, because really, how much inconvenience could she possibly be?

“Look. I'm real sorry for your loss, but—”

“My
loss
?” The word felt like a slap, and Colleen staggered back as she echoed it. “My son is
missing
, he's not—he's not—”

Brenda waved her hand. “Right, sorry. I meant I'm sorry for what you're going through, but it's a code issue. Having two people in there? With the generator and the tanks running like that?”

“I hardly imagine it's legal to have even one person living in your driveway, but I notice you took Shay's money,” Colleen snapped, too stunned by Brenda's remark to censor the haughtiness that was her first defense when she felt attacked. “So perhaps
codes
aren't the issue.”

Brenda crossed her arms over her chest, her scowl deepening. There was something stuck to the spoon, maybe oatmeal. “Look, you want to talk issues, let's talk about her smoking in there when I clearly told her not to, let's talk about the
cigarette butts
I found out here yesterday, let's talk about her running her computer and her hair dryer and I don't know what in there.”

“Look, I'm sorry. I'll talk to her. If my presence is an issue, I'll be glad to add a per diem.”

“A per what?”

“An increase in the rate you are charging her. To make up for the added use of your resources.”

“Well, all right, then, because tanks are going to have to be taken care of twice as fast, plus there's all that gas. And look, I could've called the cops on you. Almost did, look out my kitchen window and seen a stranger standing in my yard.”

Colleen bit back a retort and forced a tight smile on her face. “I'm so glad you didn't. I just had to call my husband, and I didn't want to disturb Shay.”

“That woman's still
asleep
?”

“Is it any of your business?”

They both turned to look at Shay, who'd come out into the yard with a plaid blanket draped around her shoulders, her cigarettes and lighter in her hands. Her hair was a wild halo around her face. Smudged makeup ringed her eyes. “I'm not paying you rent to keep track of when I sleep, Brenda.”

“I didn't tell you she could stay,” the woman huffed. “And I told you no smoking, it's a fire hazard.”

Shay walked to the alley that ran behind the house and calmly lit up. “Don't worry, I won't smoke on your property. 'Sides, the stove doesn't even work in this shitty tin can.”

“You don't like it, good luck finding something else.”

The argument had an air of lifelong hostility, as though Shay and Brenda were sisters, not strangers. “We're grateful to be staying here,” Colleen said quickly. “If you'll just let me know about the per diem . . .”

“And make sure you don't run that generator all around the clock,” Brenda added, turning her back on Shay. “You don't have to have it on all the time. You're just wasting gas and it won't make it a speck warmer in there.”

“All right,” Colleen said. “Thanks so much.” She waited until Brenda went back inside to go stand with Shay in the alley.

“Fuckin' cold out here,” Shay said. “Look, I wish I could offer you some coffee, but the stove—”

“Doesn't work,” Colleen finished her sentence with a game smile. “Um, I know it's gauche to ask, but just how much are you paying her to stay here?”

“Well, I gave her two hundred on Tuesday and I told her I'd give her another couple hundred tomorrow. That's three hundred for the week plus a deposit on next week so she doesn't rent it out to someone else.”

“Three
hundred
a week?” Colleen was stunned.

“Yeah. Now you see why I hate that bitch? Here's the thing that makes it worse—it never even occurred to her to rent it out until I got here. Then the minute she sees she can make some cash on it, she jacks up the price.”

“How did you even find her?”

“So this is the best part. When I was on the road I started calling up here. Taylor had told me about the housing shortage, but I went ahead and tried the motels anyway.”

“I did too,” Colleen admitted.

“Yeah. Fat lot of good that did. Then I called city hall. Took me three tries to even get anyone to answer over there, and then they tell me I'm crazy to try. Suggested I try Minot. That's a good hour and a half from here, but by the time I hit Montana I was desperate enough I tried them too. Figured worst case I'd drive over during the day, drive back to sleep.”

“Let me guess—nothing there, either?”

“Nope. Only when I got hold of the chamber of commerce there, they told me that they got whole families sleeping in the basement of a church, and that gave me an idea. I pulled over the next place that had Wi-Fi and I started calling churches in Lawton. I got this one lady who sounded nice. Like she gave a shit, you know? And then I told her about Taylor, and . . .”

Her voice trailed off and she stared out past Colleen's shoulder. The day was slowly brightening, and a few rays of sunlight glinted off the windows on the opposite side of the street. “Well. It's hard, talking about him, you know? Yeah, you know. Anyway, this lady at the church is the mother-in-law of this girl Brenda works with, and she knew about the motor home because I guess Brenda's ex-husband used to hunt with her boyfriend. So she knew it had a generator and all, and she called Brenda up for me. 'Course I doubt she has any idea what Brenda's charging me.”

“Look, I'll be glad to pay it,” Colleen said briskly. “I mean, you did all the legwork, and you let me stay.” A thought occurred to her, and she flushed. “I'm sorry, that—I mean, is it all right if I stay? I'm
absolutely happy on the, um, table and I'll buy more blankets today, and I can—”

“Shut up,” Shay said. “Of course you can stay. What else are you going to do? Besides, we need to work together now. It doesn't make any sense for us to duplicate our efforts, you know? With two of us, it'll be harder for people to close doors in our faces.”

Colleen thought about her vague plan from yesterday, to rent a car, set up a headquarters for her search in her motel room. It all seemed ludicrously naïve now. “Do you already have next steps in mind?”

“I figure best thing is for us to get a shower and something to eat and go over what we both know. Maybe we'll come up with something that way. Then we can head over to the lodge. There's a guy there that might talk to us today—I got shut down when I tried yesterday. I figure someone over there has to know something. The Hunter-Cole crew, someone on the staff, something. And also they have Taylor's things; they were hunting them down for me. I bet they have Paul's too.”

Colleen flinched at the thought of collecting her son's belongings. Wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting he wouldn't be coming back for them? She could sense the despair slithering into the cracks in her composure. But that couldn't happen. She couldn't fall apart; she'd been in Lawton less than twelve hours.

“A shower sounds good,” she said briskly. “Will Brenda let us come into the house to use hers?”

Shay laughed. She had an unexpectedly lush laugh, at odds with her voice, which was cigarette-rough and almost coarse. “She didn't offer. But I've got something better. You're in for an education.”

SHAY CARRIED HER
toiletries and a change of clothes in a pillowcase. Colleen used the laundry bag that matched her luggage. Shay gave her a washcloth she'd bought at Walmart, a thin orange one that she said was buy one, get one free.

“Now that's luck,” Shay said, and Colleen couldn't tell if she was kidding.

Shay's car turned out to be the old white Explorer parked across the street. As she worked on the windshield using an ice scraper with the price sticker still attached, Colleen noted a mismatched side panel and several dents that had been patched and primed but not painted.

She watched for a couple of minutes before she couldn't stand it anymore. “Will you let me do that?”

Shay handed her the scraper, eyebrows raised. Colleen, wishing she'd brought thicker gloves than her thin leather driving ones, scored a crosshatch of scratches in the ice with the point of the scraper, then chipped away the segmented areas with brief, hard jabs of the blade. A fine dusting of ice blew in her face as the ice came off in chunks, her body warming to the task.

“Damn,” Shay said admiringly.

“I didn't get to park my car in a garage until I was thirty,” Colleen said, feeling awkwardly proud. “I've been scraping windshields since I was a kid. My dad used to give me a quarter to do his before work.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Maine. Little inland town called Limerock. My dad worked for the railroad.”

Inside the car, they put their hands in the blast of the heating vents, waiting for the wipers to sweep away the last of the snow. Colleen tried not to look like she was checking out the interior. The leather seats were worn and split, the seams popped and the foam visible underneath. A feather-and-bead ornament swayed gently from the rearview mirror. In the console were a handful of coins, a half-empty pack of gum, and a cheap lighter. The cup holder bore a dried coffee ring.

But other than the ring, the car was surprisingly tidy. Colleen had anticipated crumpled fast-food bags, a smell of stale coffee and unwashed flesh, dirt in all the crevices. Instead, it was every bit as clean as her Lexus back home.

Shay eased the Explorer into drive and did a tight three-point turn, heading back into town.

“Jesus, how can you stand to drive in this stuff? I'm a nervous wreck,” she said, turning onto Fourth Avenue, Lawton's four-lane main street. Behind them, a truck bore down at what seemed an unsafe speed, tapping the horn as he passed.

“You get used to it, I guess,” Colleen said, watching the scenery go by. The town looked cleaner in the light of day, dusted with fresh snow, but also less appealing. The busy traffic didn't make up for the fact that the buildings they passed were run-down, low-slung brick and cinder-block shops appointed with modest signage and fronted with slushy parking lots. A huge billboard over a church parking lot advertised a cigarette shop. A school bus passed in the other direction, its wipers resolutely pushing off the swirling snow that had started up again.

Shay pulled into a massive gas station with two sets of bays, one for trucks and one for cars. Pickups mostly kept to the car side, but a jacked-up model with enormous tires idled next to the pumps on the truck side. A sign large enough to be seen from the other end of town said STAR SUPER PLAZA
FUEL—SHOWERS—DINER—HOT COFFEE—24 HOURS.
The word
CLEAN
flashed in neon underneath.

Shay found a space up next to the restaurant and cut the engine.

“Here?” Colleen asked.

“Yeah, what did you expect?”

“I don't know.” Actually she'd thought Shay might have found a health club, perhaps even a nice one. “Women can go in there? I mean—are there separate facilities for men and women?”

“Nope, it's just one big showerhead that sprays in every direction. You have to be aggressive, find yourself an opening and squeeze on in.” When Colleen was too horrified to respond, Shay flashed her a tight grin before opening her car door. “Come on, of course they have separate. You get your own private bathroom. Free shampoo and conditioner too, but I like to bring my own. And definitely you're going to need some shower shoes, because I don't trust them to disinfect enough after some of these guys, no matter how clean it looks in here.”