Page 22 of I Will Find You

But did Rachel have the right to make that call?

Rachel was staying at the Briggs Motor Lodge of Maine, famed, she imagined, for having walls made of some kind of gauze or cotton mesh. Right now, she could hear her neighbors fervently and lustily enjoying their stay as though they were sharing this bed with her. The woman kept yelling out “Oh, Kevin,” and “Go, Kevin,” and “Yes, Kevin,” and even—oh, how Rachel hoped this was something the woman shouted lost in the throes of passion rather than trying to be cute or funny—“Take me to Heaven, Kevin.”

A little afternoon delight, Rachel mused somewhat bitterly. It must be nice.

When was the last time she’d had an afternoon like that?

It wasn’t worth thinking about. Rachel was still coming down from a full-fledged panic attack brought on, she assumed, by the combination of seeing David and going off her antianxiety medicine. The medicine didn’t work for her. Not really. She took the Xanax or whatever, hoping to deaden the pain of being responsible for another human being’s death, but while it may have put some of the guilt at a distance—made it feel more elusive—the guilt clung on.

She blinked her eyes and tried to focus on doing the right thing here.

She should call her sister and tell her. That was what Rachel would want if their roles were reversed and Cheryl was the one holding this photo. Rachel picked up her mobile. Service was spotty up here in rural Maine. This was a prison town. Everyone staying at this motor lodge was somehow connected to Briggs Penitentiary—visitors, vendors, suppliers, deliverers, that kind of thing.

She had enough bars to make the call. Her fingers clicked the Contacts icon and scrolled to Cheryl’s name. Her finger hovered above the call button.

Don’t do it.

She’d promised herself that she would keep this from Cheryl—protect her sister—until she knew for certain. Right now, when you stripped out the emotion, she still knew nothing. She had a photograph of a boy who resembled her dead nephew. Period. The end. David’s enthusiasm notwithstanding, they had diddly-squat.

She flicked on the motor lodge’s television. On the sign outside, the Briggs Motor Lodge of Maine actually boasted that all rooms had a COLOR TV, spelling out each letter in a different color—the C was in orange, the O in green, the L in blue—to emphasize that fact, though Rachel figured that the real draw would be if the motor lodge still had black-and-white televisions. She flicked through the stations. Mostly daytime talk shows and bad-take cable news. The commercials—buy gold, get a second mortgage, consolidate your debt, invest in crypto—all seemed like legal versions of Ponzi schemes to her.

The American economy relies more on the con than we like to think.

The festivities next door reached a crescendo when Kevin repeatedly announced with great gusto that he was nearing the finish line. A few seconds later, the symbolic cymbals crashed and then all went quiet. Rachel was tempted to applaud. David had asked her about her journalism career, and she’d balked at answering. There was no reason to get into how she’d messed up and destroyed herself, how she’d been fired and humiliated and how, in truth, a story like this might be the only chance to resurrect her career. It wasn’t worth discussing. It was a distraction. She would be here anyway. That was what she told herself, and it was probably true.

Her phone was on the bed.

The hell with it.

She picked it up and before she could talk herself out of it, Rachel hit her sister’s number, the top one in her favorites. She put the phone to her ear. No ring yet. Still time to hang up. She closed her eyes as the first ring sounded. Still time. On the second ring, Rachel heard the phone being answered. A clipped voice, not her sister’s, said, “Hello?”

It was Ronald, Cheryl’s new husband.

“Hello, Ronald,” Rachel said. And then, even though the phone undoubtedly had caller ID, she added, “It’s Rachel.”

“Good afternoon, Rachel. How are you?”

“Fine,” she said. Then: “Isn’t this Cheryl’s phone?”

“It is,” Ronald said. He was always Ronald, never Ron or Ronny or the Ronster, which told you everything you need to know about his diction and affect. “Your sister is just getting out of the shower, so I took the liberty of answering for her.”

Silence.

“If you’d like to hold a moment,” Ronald continued, “she will be with you soon.”

“I’ll hold.”

She could hear him put the phone down. Rachel’s skull had a touch of the alcohol swirls going on, but she felt pretty firmly in control. There were mumbled voices before Cheryl got on the line sounding a little frazzled.

“Hey, Rach.”

Rachel realized that some might view her distaste for Ronald Dreason as either overblown or unfair. That was probably accurate, of course. Cheryl’s fault. Her introducing this new man into her life had been poorly timed.

“Hi,” Rachel managed to say.

She could almost see her sister’s frown. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

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