Stay Close (5 page)

Seventeen years later, despite learning some hard truths, Broome was still here. And the whereabouts of Sarah’s husband and soul mate was still very much a mystery.

Broome looked up at her now. “That’s good,” he said, hearing the babble in his own voice. “I mean, about your sister’s visiting. I know you like when your sister visits.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Sarah said, a voice flat enough to slip under a door crack. “Broome?”

“Yes?”

“You’re giving me small talk.”

Broome looked down at his hands. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“No. See, you don’t do just being nice, Broome. And you never do small talk.”

“Good point.”

“So?”

Despite all the trappings—bright yellow paint, fresh-cut flowers—all Broome could see was the decay. The years of not knowing had devastated the family. The kids had some hard years. Susie had two DUIs. Brandon had a drug bust. Broome had helped both of them get out of trouble. The house still looked as though their father had disappeared yesterday—frozen in time, waiting for his return.

Sarah’s eyes widened a little as if struck by a painful realization. “Did you find… ?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“It may be nothing,” Broome said.

“But?”

Broome sat resting his forearms on his thighs, his head in his hands. He took a deep breath and looked into the pained eyes. “Another local man vanished. You may have seen it on the news. His name is Carlton Flynn.”

Sarah looked confused. “When you say vanished—”

“Just like…” He stopped. “One moment Carlton Flynn was living his life, the next—poof—he was gone. Totally vanished.”

Sarah tried to process what he was saying. “But… like you told me from the start. People do vanish, right?”

Broome nodded.

“Sometimes of their own volition,” Sarah continued. “Sometimes not. But it happens.”

“Yes.”

“So seventeen years after my husband vanishes, another man, this Carlton Flynn, goes missing. I don’t see the connection.”

“There might be none,” Broome agreed.

She moved closer to him. “But?”

“But it’s why I missed the anniversary.”

“What does that mean?”

Broome didn’t know how much to say. He didn’t know how much he even knew for sure yet. He was working on a theory, one that gnawed at his belly and kept him up at night, but right now that was all it was.

“The day Carlton Flynn vanished,” he said.

“What about it?”

“It’s why I wasn’t here. He vanished on the anniversary. February eighteenth—exactly seventeen years to the day after your husband vanished.”

Sarah seemed stunned for a moment. “Seventeen years to the day.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean? Seventeen years. It might just be a coincidence. If it was five or ten or twenty years. But seventeen?”

He said nothing, letting her work on it herself for a few moments.

Sarah said, “So I assume, what, you checked for more missing people? To see if there was a pattern?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Those were the only two we know for certain who disappeared on a February eighteenth—your husband and Carlton Flynn.”

“We know for certain?” she repeated.

Broome let loose a deep breath. “Last year, on March fourteenth, another local man, Stephen Clarkson, was reported missing. Three years earlier, on February twenty-seventh, another was also reported missing.”

“Neither was found?”

“Right.”

Sarah swallowed. “So maybe it’s not the day. Maybe it’s February and March.”

“I don’t think so. Or at least, I didn’t. See, the other two men—Peter Berman and Gregg Wagman—could have disappeared a lot earlier. One was a drifter, the other a truck driver. Both men were single with not much family. If guys like that aren’t home in twenty-four
hours, well, who’d notice? You did, of course. But if a guy is single or divorced or travels a lot…”

“It could be days or weeks before it’s reported,” Sarah finished for him.

“Or even longer.”

“So these two men might have vanished on February eighteenth too.”

“It’s not that simple,” Broome said.

“Why not?”

“Because the more I look at it, the pattern gets even tougher to nail down. Wagman, for example, was from Buffalo—he’s not local. No one knows where or when he vanished, but I was able to trace his movements enough to know that he could have gone through Atlantic City sometime in February.”

Sarah considered that. “You’ve mentioned five men, including Stewart, in the past seventeen years. Any others?”

“Yes and no. Altogether, I’ve found nine men who sort of very loosely could fit the pattern. But there are cases where the theory takes a bit of a hit.”

“For example?”

“Two years ago, a man named Clyde Horner, who lived with his mother, was reported missing on February seventh.”

“So it’s not February eighteenth.”

“Probably not.”

“Maybe it’s the month of February.”

“Maybe. This is the problem with theories and patterns. They take time. I’m still gathering evidence.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. “I don’t get it. How did no one see this—with this many people missing?”

“See what?” Broome said. “Hell, I don’t even see it that clearly yet. Men go missing all the time. Most run away. Most of these guys go broke or have nothing or got creditors on their ass—so they start new lives. They move across the country. Sometimes they change their names. Sometimes they don’t. Many of these men… well, no one is looking for them. No one wants to find them. One wife I spoke to begged me not to find her husband. She had three kids with the guy. She thinks he ran off with some—as she put it—‘hootchy whore,’ and it was the best thing that ever happened to her family.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“What about before?” Sarah asked.

Broome knew what she meant, but he still said, “Before?”

“Before Stewart. Did anybody disappear before my husband?”

He ran his hand through his hair and raised his head. Their eyes locked. “Not that I could find,” Broome said. “If this is a pattern, then it started with Stewart.”

T
HE KNOCKS WOKE
R
AY.

He pried open one eye and immediately regretted it. The light worked like daggers. He grabbed hold of his head on either side because he feared that his skull would actually split in two from whatever was hammering on it from the inside.

“Open up, Ray.”

It was Fester.

“Ray?”

More knocks. Each one landed inside Ray’s temple like a two-by-four. He swung his legs out of bed and, head reeling, managed to work his way to a sitting position. Next to his right foot was an empty bottle of Jack. Ugh. He had passed out—no, alas, he had once again “blacked out”—on the couch without bothering to pull out the bed beneath it. No blanket. No pillow. His neck was probably aching too, but it was hard to find it through the pulsating pain.

“Ray?”

“Sec,” he said, because, really, he couldn’t get more sounds to come out.

This felt like a hangover raised to the tenth power. For a second, maybe two, Ray didn’t remember what had happened the night
before, what had caused this massive influx of discomfort. Instead he thought about the last time he had felt like this, back before it all ended for him. He had been a photojournalist back then, working for the AP, traveling with the twenty-fourth infantry in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War when the land mine exploded. Blackness—then pain. For a while it looked as though he would lose his leg.

“Ray?”

The pills were next to the bed. Pills and booze—the perfect late-night cocktail. He wondered how many he’d already taken and when, and then decided the hell with it. He downed two more, forced himself to stand, and stumbled toward the door.

When he opened it, Fester said, “Wow.”

“What?”

“You look like several large orangutans made you their love slave.”

Ah Fester. “What time is it?”

“Three.”

“What, in the afternoon?”

“Yes, Ray, in the afternoon. See the light outside?” Fester gestured behind him. He took on the voice of a kindergarten teacher. “At three in the afternoon, it is light out. At three
A.M.
, it is dark. I could draw you a chart if that would help.”

Like he needed the sarcasm. Weird. He never slept past eight, and now it was three? The blackout must have been a bad one. Ray slid to the side to let Fester in. “Is there a reason for your visit?”

Fester, who was huge, ducked inside the room. He took it in, nodded, and said, “Wow, what a dump.”

“Yeah,” Ray said. “On what you pay me you’d figure I’d have a mansion in a gated community.”

“Ha!” Fester pointed at him. “Got me there!”

“Something you wanted?”

“Here.”

Fester reached into his bag and handed Ray a camera.

“For you to use until you can buy a new one.”

“I’m touched,” Ray said.

“Well, you do good work. You’re also the only employee I have who isn’t on drugs, just booze. That makes you my best employee.”

“We’re sharing a tender moment, aren’t we, Fester?”

“That,” Fester said with a nod. “And I couldn’t find anyone else who could work the George Queller job tonight. Whoa, what have we got here?” Fester pointed to the pills. “So much for the not on drugs.”

“They’re pain pills. I was mugged last night, remember?”

“Right. But still.”

“Does this mean I lost employee of the month?”

“Not unless I find needles in here too.”

“I’m not up for working tonight, Fester.”

“What, you going to stay in bed all day?”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Change plans. I need you. And I’m paying time and a half.” He looked around, frowned. “Not that you need the cash or anything.”

Fester left. Ray put the water on to boil. Instant coffee. Loud Urdu-language voices were coming from upstairs. Sounded like the kids were coming home from school. Ray made his way to the shower and stayed under the spray until the hot water was gone.

Milo’s Deli on the corner made a mean BLT. Ray wolfed it down as though he feared it might try to escape. He tried to keep his mind on the task at hand without looking forward—asking Milo how his
back was holding up, reaching into his pocket for the money, smiling at another customer, buying the local newspaper. He tried to be Zen and stay in the moment and not look ahead because he didn’t want to think about the blood.

He checked the newspaper. The
LOCAL MAN MISSING
article featured the same photograph he had seen on the news last night. Carlton Flynn made a kissy face. Classic asswipe. He had dark hair spiked high; tattoos on gym-muscled, baby-smooth skin; and looked as though he belonged on one of those obnoxious Jersey reality shows that featured self-obsessed, arrested-development numb nuts referring to girls as “grenades.”

Carlton Flynn had a record—three assaults. He was twenty-six years old, divorced, and “worked for his father’s prominent supplies company.”

Ray folded the paper and jammed it under his arm. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about that photograph of Carlton Flynn on his computer or wonder why someone had attacked him to get it. He wanted to put it behind him, move on with life, day at a time, moment at a time.

Block, survive—just as he had for the past seventeen years.

How’s that been working for you, Ray?

He closed his eyes and let himself slip into a memory of Cassie. He was back at the club, balmy from the booze, watching her give some guy a lap dance—totally, positively in love with every fiber of his being—and yet not the least bit jealous. Cassie gave him a look over the man’s shoulder, a look that could melt teeth, and he’d just smiled back, waiting to get her alone, knowing that at the end of the day (or night) she was his.

The air had always crackled around Cassie. There was fun and
wildness and spontaneity, and there was warmth and kindness and intelligence. She made you want to rip off her clothes and throw her on the nearest bed, all while writing her a love sonnet. Sudden flashes, smolder, slow burn, hearth warmth—Cassie could do them all at the same time.