Ashes (4 page)

The picture was the best he'd caught of her. It's because she didn't know he had taken it. A game of chess always kept her attention far better than he ever could. Right when she made her move and looked up to see his reaction, her eyes flashed with the light of the camera. It caught those eyes so poetically that Joel thought he was hearing song lyrics whenever he looked at the picture.

It was one of the few times when Emery had come out of her mask. He wasn't sure what made her come out that night, what made her feel safe again for no more than an hour, but he was thankful. She truly was beautiful, in spite of her scars. Those eyes, innocent and just longing to be loved, found him now as they had then. Their warmth took root inside his fallow chest.

If Joel didn't cover up the image, he'd drive this car into the store.
Myrtle would love that,
his mind hummed.

It was a terrible time for a joke or sick antics. But then again, he wasn't laughing.

5

 

EMERY FINALLY CAME TO. A migraine trampled through her head. All she could do was hope that her body would keep awake long enough for her to catch a glimpse of the unusual shadow from the other side. Quite a few came and went, but one in particular—she could tell which shadow, based on how long it stayed in one spot and how its feet danced behind the door as it listened to her breathe—was curious, and she wanted to know it.
If it had a name.
She wanted to know why it was here, haunting her. She spent hour after hour wishing it were Arson finally coming to rescue her. He'd take her back home.
Anywhere but here.

The taste of rust filled her mouth. The putrid soak of damp concrete stifled the air in her nostrils. It was the taste of no control.
 

She spent the next uncounted moments raking bent fingers through the greasy knots in her hair then leaned back against the wall and tried to hide from the darkness. “No,” she said, shaking her eyes open again. “Stay awake.”
Where is the food?
she
wondered, hungry as ever. She fought to catch a clearer glimpse of the shadow lurking outside. Was it the one she'd been hoping for? She wanted it to come back and keep her company.

Emery held her head between her knees as blood began to rush. The sudden flood to her brain forced her mind to want to go black and stay lost somewhere. Head up, head down. She didn't even have shoelaces. Someone had dressed her, fitted these rags on her. What had she done to be treated like such a criminal? “I'm a person. A human being!” she yelled at the walls. They didn't seem to care. “Let me out!” She bashed once, twice, several more times against the
concrete
surface. The ridge of her hand leaked red.

Something suddenly moved across her feet. In the dark, she couldn't tell what it was. But a splinter of light invaded from the bottom slit in the door just then, long enough for the light to reveal that the creature had sharp nails for teeth and a slimy, hairy sack for a stomach. A thin, pink tail dragged behind it. She screamed, before kicking the rat across the room, praying it didn't find her again. She heard the creature squeal when it smacked against the ground.
Maybe it broke its little neck.

Suddenly, there was new movement outside the door. She swore she heard breathing. Then footsteps.
Then a deeper breathing.
Closer and farther away; then closer again.
Who was it? What did they want?

“Hey, if you can hear me, I need to get outta here. Hello? Can you help me, please?” She crawled toward the door, somewhat apprehensive about the furry villain that might still be lurking close by. “Please, help me.”

The begging became sobs that were never heard. Or worse, were ignored. If there were a living, breathing human being outside, how could they keep her here, locked away from the world?

She listened carefully as the footsteps once more escaped her. No food this time
;
maybe dinner was later, or breakfast. It was easy to misplace hours in a room with no clock.

“Come back,” she begged the cold sounds outside her door. “Come back to me.” Her slippery mouth brushed up next to the wall. She tasted dirt, wanting to throw up.

Too late.
She wondered if, because she hadn't eaten anything, particles of
her
were coming up out of the dead space inside.
Parts of
her
erupting and splattering disgusting mess on the ground.

Emery scraped the wall with her nails like a lunatic. She hoped to find a hole, a stitch of brighter light, something real to hold onto. Then she pounded her forehead against the wintry surface. Once was enough to knock her out cold.

6

 

THE BACKGROUND HUM OF the television sounded like a swarm of hornets. Joel hadn't changed the channel in a few hours. He let the station play and play as he tried to filter out thoughts. He wondered where the people who took his daughter were from. Questioned what they'd want with a scarred teenage girl anyhow. The notions he gathered were sick and perverse, horrible things no father would ever dream his daughter might be forced to endure.

He remembered seeing a black sedan parked outside the ER and a van full of roses being peddled by a clean-shaven yuppie in his twenties. The whole thing didn't feel right. Did they have anything to do with it, or was he just reaching?

He recalled being in the lobby of hospital where Emery had been ripped from his life. The stink of the air was enough to suffocate him. Not clean, not filthy, just something gross and weak in between. He was aggressively tapping his fingers on the Formica countertop, waiting for someone—anyone—to tell him where his daughter had gone. And that strange boy she kept company with. While he was waiting for the police to arrive, Carlos Pena's eyes met with his, but only for an instant. The look on that scumbag's face was something Joel could not describe with words or even feelings. It just kind of hung there, apathetic, removed. Joel wanted to tear each particle of skin from the man's bones slowly, rip the flesh from his weak carcass and send his body to the pit of hell for luring his wife away at the apex of his weakness. But he didn't. Instead he stood back and let the doctor walk away down the hallway.

His mind had been so busy that day, still reeling from the night before, when he'd taken off, inebriated and hopeless; tried to run out on his family, the only thing he wanted now more than ever. If only he'd known. If only he could go back to spend that last night with Emery.

No form of rationalization could help. He was there in that hospital in the flesh, but his mind wasn't. His mind was cloudy, angry and frustrated and confused.

A still unfinished sermon now lay amidst the clutter of scattered thoughts scribbled onto paper. Beside that were his ambitious lists of conspiracy theories and phone numbers to agencies that had yielded no leads. He remembered the search parties, the agents and officers assigned to their case before they were eventually pulled away from it all to attend to more promising endeavors. The world had given up.

He was convinced even God had given up.

No matter what he did,
who
he called, or how hard he searched, he had gotten no closer to finding Emery. The idea that she'd become another lost face on the profile wall of missing children at Wal-Mart terrified him. Could he really exist in a world she was not in?

As a last attempt at hope, Joel reached into his pocket to find the card with the name
Redd Casey
on it. Redd was an odd first name, he thought now, as he did when the schmuck of a lawyer handed it to him saying, “We've done all we can do for you, Mr. Phoenix.” How easily someone could give up on him, force him to look for a new private investigator. How easily they could all wash their hands of it and pretend his Emery wasn't still out there. Joel wanted to call this one. He really did. But there was a clamor in his chest that wouldn't subside.
He
was Emery's father. He had to find her. But could he, on his own, bring her back? He put the card away. Didn't fit right in his hands now.

Feeling his skin, Joel realized it seemed more like leather, worn and creased. New wrinkles. He never knew anyone could age so quickly in mere months.
 

Joel got up to stretch his legs. Then he lingered in the hallway, on his way toward the kitchen. He scanned the guest bedroom, thankful that his stomach was growling; it allowed him to abandon the other infuriating ideas for a short while.

The guest bedroom was empty. It was where he slept, at night anyway. He'd given Aimee the master, thought she'd be more comfortable. That, and he didn't like being in there anymore. But most of the time Aimee complained that the bedroom's emptiness bothered her, made her fear the dark even more. That was familiar to him too, only he never voiced it.

When would Aimee come home? It was late. He missed her footsteps. Her nagging. He wanted to talk to her, even if it meant a fight might come because of it. He dug his nails into his hands. He wanted to be close to her, hold her again, that woman he called whore and wife. The smell of her skin seemed like a fading memory now, one he sought to relive over and over. But he never could quite get it right.

It was a mystery how close two people could be but how far they really were.

In no time, his mind drifted. He imagined Aimee and Carlos making love.
Loud, almost violent passion.
The kind that makes your feet
go
numb and your lower back tingle. He blinked
twice,
to make sure the picture went away.

Love.
Odd how a four-letter word seemed so long, so stretched and out of reach. The truth was, he longed for that kind of passion, that forsaken romance. He looked down at his left hand, pulled off the ring, and was prepared to throw it out the window. But when he looked back at his hand, the ring finger now bleached
white,
he began to wonder if the stain was enough.
 

The front door slammed all of a sudden, shocking him awake to the reality in which he found himself stuck. Aimee shuffled in with a bag of fast food. He realized he had never made it to the kitchen.

She tossed him the bag, some fries spilling onto the floor.

Joel reached in. “Fries are cold.”
 

“Coulda let you starve. Took me a little longer to get back tonight. Had a long day, something you really wouldn't know anything about.” She took off her jacket. “What's the matter, Joel? A ‘
thank
you' too much?”

He shrugged. “How was your day?”

“I told you. Long.”

Joel's eyes dropped to Aimee's hands. He hadn't looked at them in a while. She'd taken off her ring. When, he didn't know. But it was gone. He put his back on, hoping it would be noticed.

Aimee walked by him, asking how his day was, more out of obligation than concern.

“Tiring,” came his weak reply.

“It must put a real a strain on the body walking to and from the kitchen,” she jeered, no doubt anticipating a reaction. “You're drinking again too, aren't you? I can see why you're tired. You stink. Too much time alone in this miserable place. When would you find time to bathe?”

“How's Carlos doing? Did you give him my best?” Joel asked, biting into his burger.
  

“I'm not doing this tonight.”

“C'mon, baby, don't you wanna fight? It's written right on your face.”

“Instead of acting like some moronic beggar, why aren't you out looking for her? Why haven't you brought her back to me?”

“Ding-ding-ding. We have a winner, folks. All of life's mysteries and consequences are Joel Phoenix's fault. Thanks for removing all doubt.”

“There's still a mystery I can't seem to crack, Joel. Just one.” Her eyes splintered before she said it. “Why I ever married you.”

He was quiet.

“You should be out there looking for her, not in here, hiding.”

“I have looked! We've looked. We've contacted half the state, for heaven's sake. I've called family and what little friends we still have. I've spent hours on the
internet
and on the phone, waiting for someone at those
elite
agencies to tell me they haven't found jack squat! Why am I not out looking for her? How do
you
sleep at night?”

Aimee hurried around the kitchen. She was searching for something. She yanked open cabinets and drawers, shoved items aside, broke a coffee maker in the process. Then she moved to the far end of the kitchen to the hutch they rarely used. There she found the box of wine. She poured herself a tall glass.

“He doesn't want you anymore, does he?” Joel asked, taking another bite. “Makes sense now. Your fantasy is over.” He knew he struck a nerve when she didn't reply but rather stared coldly at him, the way a cobra studies its prey.

“Bet it feels good to lose it all. Lose control and get tanked,” she eventually said. “I want to feel good, get stupid.
Like you.
That's what you want, right? You want me to feel like you.”

“Let loose, baby,”
Joel
snarled, but all he wanted was to pull the wine away from her lips. Tell her she didn't need it. But he was frozen in the situation his bitter words had created.

Aimee chugged the full glass and filled it once more. “Feels nice.”

“Stop it,” he asked finally, regretting egging her on. “The show's over. You don't need to impress anyone.”

“The control maniac rears his ugly head again. Punish me, Joel! Why don't you tie me up in the closet? Tape my mouth shut when I have an opinion. I'm just a helpless woman with no will of her own. Isn't that right?”

“I never said that.” He swallowed the rest of the burger and tossed the bag in the trash. “Be rational.”

Aimee bellowed. “You are asking
me
to be rational?
Priceless words of wisdom coming from a full-time drunk.
Who are you to tell me anything? You've been irrational for months. It's your fault we're in this mess. Your fault we even moved out here in the first place to this freaking cow town!”

“Yeah, and having you as a wife is a real trip.”

“I'm not your wife; I'm only a whore, remember?”

Joel chewed his lip, silent.

She was lit like a fire, blazing with anger and discontent. He watched her chug the glass until it was nearly empty. “I'm like this because of you. I'm tired of you! You can't even bring her back. You can't fix it, Joel. There's no miracle. There's no right word. It's your fault she's gone!”

“Is it my fault you went out and—” Joel stopped himself short.

“What, Joel?” she said, moving closer, aching for a response. “What are you dying to say?”

“I wasn't the one who had the affair, Aimee. Take a good hard look in the mirror. I have my sins, but you drove her away just as much as I did.”

“For your information, I didn't sleep with Carlos, you deluded creep.”

“But you wanted to.”

Aimee took another long sip and got close to his face. “Yeah,” she said, eyes taut. “I
really
did. Maybe I still do.”

Joel grabbed her neck and pulled her to his mouth. He kissed her with passion, with rage, with desperation. For that brief skip in time, she was his wife again, the woman he loved and who loved him back.

But Aimee ripped away from him, chest pushing out and caving in with every breath. She smacked him hard on the face, and then hit him once more. The second time her nails broke skin. “Don't touch me like that ever again.”

Once he caught his breath, he said, “We keep looking for the evil inside each other, Aimee. But the evil's out there. Someone took Emery away from us. I don't know why. I don't know how. But I swear to you I am trying. Don't you think I want her back as much as you do? I never stopped wanting it. I'll bring her back. I'll find her.”

“Empty words from an empty man.”

“Not this time, baby. Not this time.”

Aimee finished her glass and put it in the sink. Then she turned toward him before exiling herself to her bedroom. “It's been over three months, Joel. I can't keep living like this. I won't.”

His eyes felt paralyzed, his hands and feet cold. Joel reached for Redd's card again. He had little faith in what one person could do when all others had failed. But his hope hung on a chance, a thread that was soon to slip from his grip completely, he was almost certain.

He had no choice. He had to call before he went insane. Time was running out.