Finding a place to live with no income was a difficult task. Not that people weren’t sympathetic, but as one woman put it, “Rules are rules.”
After a couple of days of looking, Macy went to a Realtor on the town square, thinking that she might find a small house she and Finn could rent. She was standing outside the Barbara Sullivan Realty office looking at pictures of homes for sale when Linda Gail Graeber interrupted her. “Macy, I am so glad to see you,” she said, looking a little frantic.
“Hi, Linda Gail,” Macy said warily.
“Have you seen Wyatt?”
Macy blushed. She could not erase from her mind the image of Wyatt and Sam in bed together. “Not for a couple of days.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Linda Gail said. “He didn’t come to work yesterday or today. I went by the house this morning and it’s standing wide open, but there’s no sign of him.”
“Did you ask Sam Delaney?” Macy asked.
“Sam?”
Linda Gail said, confused. “Sam’s working. She hasn’t seen him.”
Linda Gail was obviously flustered, and Macy had to agree—this wasn’t like Wyatt. But then again, Wyatt had hardly been himself lately. “What about Milo?”
“The dog is gone, too.”
Macy pushed down a tic of alarm. “Maybe he’s out looking at land?” she suggested.
“No,” Linda Gail said. “The newspapers are in the yard and he won’t answer his cell.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Oh, I told Chief Ham, but he said Wyatt is a grown man and no family had reported him missing. I’ll be honest, Macy—I am really worried about him. He hasn’t been himself since…since all this happened. He just loves you something awful.”
Exactly what Macy was thinking. Her tic of alarm grew to a spasm. She could not forget the look in his eyes when she told him she was pregnant but leaving him for Finn. It haunted her, made her doubt herself. What had she done? In making sure she was happy, she’d pushed Wyatt to…to what? To harm himself?
Linda Gail was right—this wasn’t like him. He hadn’t been himself in a month all because she had knocked the foundation out from beneath him. He needed her. He’d been there for her, but she hadn’t been there for him.
Everything will be all right.
Macy thought of his blood pressure medicine. Reminding him to take it was one of the things she always did for him. She thought of all the things he’d done for her. Could she have been so wrong?
She looked at Linda Gail. “Let’s go make some calls,” she said.
At JFK Airport, Brodie came back from the gate and told Finn the flight had been delayed indefinitely. Again.
“Maybe we could rent a car and drive somewhere—Philadelphia, maybe?” Finn suggested.
“No,” Brodie said. “We can’t get out of there, either. There’s a huge storm between us and Texas, and flights all up and down the eastern seaboard are delayed or canceled.”
Finn nodded and clenched his jaw. He felt anxious in the crowded hallways and looked around for an escape. Any escape.
“Hey,” Brodie said. “Nothing’s going to happen here. Breathe, remember?”
Finn tried very hard to do just that, but it seemed like more and more people were streaming into the halls and milling about, and he felt utterly and helplessly exposed.
In the summer heat, sitting around the campfire in Pace Bend Park, Wyatt felt like he was sitting at the gates of hell, which he thought was an appropriate way to describe his life. And it was the best way to keep mosquitoes off of him. Not that Wyatt really felt the mosquitoes anymore—he was drunk, had been drunk the last couple of days.
Wyatt had hooked up with a merry little band of hippies at a Texaco station. He’d had a flat—probably from something he’d run over while driving all over Cowboy Bob’s ranch—and D.J. had offered to help. He later learned that D.J. and Mariah, and Phil and Wendy, went back and forth between Hippie Hollow, where they would swim, and Pace Bend Park, where they camped. “It’s a mellow existence,” D.J., a small man who favored bandanas, had said. “Come eat some dogs with us, man.”
That’s exactly what Wyatt did.
The little group lived out of an old van and camped out. Wyatt had the impression they were all determined to be unemployed, but after the last couple of days of just hanging out and drinking, he was beginning to see the appeal.
They talked about moving southwest, to Garner State Park. “More for the kids to do,” D.J. explained. D.J. and Mariah had two kids under the age of ten, Serafina and Apollo. Phil and Wendy had a baby that never cried, which Wyatt thought was a little odd, but every time he saw the little thing up close—Rocky, they said his name was—he looked happy and healthy. The two families were related somehow. Wyatt was certain they’d explained how, but he didn’t remember.
Wyatt and Milo slept in the back of his pickup with a borrowed sleeping bag. He’d made a couple of runs into a convenience store for beer and food. “Great!” Mariah had said, as if the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, hot dogs, and breakfast tacos solved some serious supply dilemma.
What Wyatt liked about the hippies was that they didn’t ask for his story. They were content to let him just be, for which he was grateful. They could sit for many hours smoking pot. Wyatt wasn’t a pot smoker, but he’d become one over those two days. He found that when he was stoned, his anxiety about Macy faded quietly and smoothly into the background.
On the third day, Wyatt was sitting next to D.J., watching Phil down at the water’s edge with the kids and Milo. Mariah and Wendy were putting together the meal for the night. Wyatt and D.J. had smoked “a little weed,” as D.J. put it, but Wyatt wasn’t feeling quite so tranquil. He was feeling antsy and paranoid.
“We’re moving on to Garner tomorrow,” D.J. said. “Why don’t you come with?”
“Yeah, okay,” Wyatt said without thinking.
“Did you bring a change of clothes, man?” D.J. asked. “You look like you ran away from home.” He laughed.
Wyatt looked down. His white shirt was filthy, as were his khakis. “I, ah…I was just taking a little break.”
“Everyone needs a break now and then,” D.J. said. “Got any beer?”
“Yep.” Wyatt handed him a beer and opened one for himself.
“Hey, Mariah,” D.J. called. “Wyatt’s going to Garner with us.”
“Cool.” Mariah floated into their midst wearing a bikini top and a peasant skirt. She had a green snake tattooed around her shoulders. “You’re going with us?”
“Yep. This is the life,” Wyatt said, settling in. “Too bad not everyone can enjoy it.”
“Ah, man, anyone can enjoy it,” said D.J. “You’ve just got to choose this life.”
“My brother can’t,” Mariah said. “He’s in Afghanistan. What’s he enjoying?”
“Right,” D.J. said, and to Wyatt he said, “Mariah’s brother is a big, tough Marine. He used to hang out with us before he signed up.”
“He was home six weeks before he was redeployed. That’s it! He could really use some downtime,” Mariah said. She leaned over, picked up a beer, and wandered back to the picnic table.
“I don’t know about her brother, but some of those soldiers come back and get some downtime and just milk it,” Wyatt scoffed.
“What do you mean?” D.J. asked as he offered Wyatt a cigarette. Wyatt shook his head.
“I know of this one guy who came back from Afghanistan. I mean, yeah, he was a captive, but he came back, and he’s done nothing but milk it.” Wyatt tossed his empty beer can aside and picked up another beer. He was drinking fast. Marijuana made him thirsty. He wondered if D.J. had any more marijuana.
“That guy who was a prisoner of the Taliban?” D.J. asked. “I heard about him. How’d he milk it?”
“You know, he came back and became the big hero around Austin,” Wyatt said, waving his hand. “Ma—his wife had remarried, but he didn’t care. He just took her back, like he had a right. Took the dog, took it
all
,” he said, waving loosely at all. “And the guy doesn’t work a
lick.
He just milks it, walks around being the hero, getting everyone’s sympathy.”
“No, now, I heard about this,” Mariah said, appearing on their right again. “That guy went through a
lot
. Give me a cigarette, babe.” D.J. handed her the cigarette he’d just lit. Mariah took a drag and looked at Wyatt, pointing the cigarette at him. “He was a prisoner, and he lost his job and his land and his wife,” she said, letting the smoke escape with her words. “That’s not right. He shouldn’t have lost all that after what he did for this country.”
“If you ask me, I think she should have left that jerk she was married to right off,” D.J. said.
“Jerk!” Wyatt said, quickly angered by that. “Why’s
he
the jerk? What’d
he
do?”
“It’s obvious,” Mariah said before walking off again.
“What’s so damn obvious?” Wyatt called after her.
“Hey, peace, brother,” D.J. said. “It’s obvious because the wife wouldn’t have been with the second guy if she thought the first guy was alive.”
“Yeah, well, she thought the first guy was dead and fell in love again. Is that so hard to believe?”
“No. But she obviously loved the first guy, and when he came back, she had no graceful way out of the second marriage. Think about it. There’d be no smooth way out of that situation. The second husband should have been a man about it.”
Wyatt snorted. “So if Mariah’s first husband came back from the dead, you’d just let her go, huh?”
“Yeah,” D.J. said, frowning. “That’s what it’s all about. Hey, it sucks, but sometimes, life sucks. I just think if the dude really loved her, he would have walked in her shoes and let her go. That’s what love is. It’s letting go.”
Great. Wyatt wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if D.J. suddenly busted out a guitar and started singing while little flowers popped up and budded and birds gathered round to chirp along. He didn’t want to hear this hippie’s opinion. What the hell did he know?
The next morning, Wyatt told D.J. he wasn’t going to Garner with them after all.
“No?” D.J. asked, but he didn’t seem too disappointed.
“No. I think I’m done.”
“Done with what?”
Wyatt had to think about that a minute. “This,” he said, gesturing to the space around him. “Everything.”
That afternoon, he drove up to a closed Boy Scout camp near Pedernales Falls. It was locked up, but not too tightly. Wyatt looked at Milo. “What do you think, boy? Maybe this is as good a place as any to end this thing.”
Macy had called everyone she could think of, had talked to every law enforcement agency she could find. “The problem,” the police chief told her again, “is that he’s not really missing. He can go off for a few days if he wants. His truck hasn’t turned up; nothing looks strange.”
“You don’t think he’d call Linda Gail?” Macy asked. “Or lock his house?”
“Lots of people around here don’t lock up their houses, Macy. And by Linda Gail’s own admission, things really slow down in late July and early August. Now if he hasn’t shown up by Monday, we’ll get worried.”
“You may be worried on Monday, but I am worried
now
,” Macy said shortly. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and she felt awfully guilty. She’d done this. She was the reason Wyatt had left. And she would never forgive herself if something happened to him.
When Finn called to tell her they wouldn’t be able to get out of New York until tomorrow morning and tried to explain the anxiety he was feeling, Macy couldn’t concentrate. She was thinking that Wyatt had a friend in Dallas. What was his name? Jim, John…
“Macy?”
“Sorry, sorry,” she said. “So the deal is a good one, huh?”
There was a pause on the other end. “It’s a good deal. I’ve already told you that. I was just telling you how nervous I got at the airport. Macy, what is going on?”
She couldn’t hide it. “Something…something awful has happened.”
“The baby—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” she quickly reassured him. “It’s Wyatt—he’s missing.”
“Missing?”
“He took off with Milo.”
Finn said nothing for a moment. “Okay, so…?”
“So it’s my fault, Finn. Who knows where he is or what he’s done to himself?”
“Macy, he doesn’t need you to keep tabs on him.”
She was really getting very tired of people telling her not to worry. She knew Wyatt better than anyone. She was becoming increasingly frustrated with the world at large. Her head was killing her, she was starving, and she had more calls to make. “This is different. I know it. Something is wrong.”
“Let his family worry about it.”
“I
am
his family!” she cried. “He isn’t close to his parents and I am all he has, okay? And I am the reason he is out there, doing God knows what!”
“Calm down, baby,” Finn said softly.
Two wishes: Finn would understand and Wyatt would come back safe and sound. “Please don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not telling you what to do.”
“I need to make some phone calls. You’ll be home tomorrow? Can we talk then?”
There was a long pause before Finn said, “Sure.”
Macy didn’t belabor the point. She said good-bye and hung up.
The first thing Finn did when they finally made it back to Austin—surprisingly, no worse for the wear—was drop off Brodie at his house. The second thing was to drive directly to Laru’s house because Macy wouldn’t answer her phone.
Jesse answered the door and told him that Macy was in town, at Wyatt’s office. Finn turned the truck around and drove back to town.
He strode into Wyatt’s offices, startling the woman behind the desk. “My name is Finn Lockhart. I’m looking for Macy Lockhart.”
“Clark,” the woman said. “She’s in Wyatt’s office. I’ll let her know you’re—”
Finn didn’t wait for her to finish. He strode across the front office to the one in back, walking through the open door and startling Macy.
She was standing at the table, looking through some papers. “Finn!” she cried, hurrying forward to greet him. She hugged him, kissed him fully, then leaned back to look at him. “It’s so good to see you.”