Page 18 of Good and Gone

My eyes narrow. “What exactly do you mean by foul play?”

He looks away, this time toward Mrs. Levitt’s house. “You know…just anything out of the ordinary. Anything that would suggest your wife might be in danger.”

He glances back at me. “And if I were you,” he says, motioning to Mitzi’s house, “I’d start with a particular neighbor.”

His brows raise as my gaze follows his. “You catch my drift.”

“I think so.”

“Ten to one, that woman sees everything.”

He’s right. Mrs. Levitt knows everything about everything and everythingabout everyone. “I’d feel better if I could file a report. That way, y’all could be on the lookout. There would be a record. Hailey is not the type to—”

“With all due respect, sir, everyone says that. And nine times out of ten, their relatives turn up fine.”

“My wife is not a statistic.”

“Listen—” he replies, somewhat remorsefully. “If we took every report that could easily be related to a simple miscommunication—or say, a marital spat—we’d never get anything done. The department simply doesn’t have the resources to track down every spouse who didn’t do what they were supposed to do.”

Later, I relay the conversation to Jeannie and Bob as they sit at my kitchen table, hands folded, as if in prayer. Instantly, Jeannie says, “I think we should get a second opinion.”

“Dear Lord, Jean—” Bob pipes up. “This is not a medical condition or a car repair. If the officer said we wait, we wait.”

“No,” Jeannie replies bitterly. “It’s not. It’s ourdaughter.”

And then she properly breaks down. “Ouronlychild.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” I say, trying to comfort her. I lean over and squeeze her shoulder. “She’ll turn up.”

Jeannie dabs her eyes with the handkerchief Bob has handed her. Then she looks up at me with a dead stare. When she speaks, her voice is dripping with venom. “How can you say it will be fine? You can’t know that, Tyler.”

11

John Doe

The air is damp and heavy, as if the rain has not left at all. Outside, the ground is wet and muddy, and the smell of the wetness mingles with the scent of dirt and musty leaves.

In here, it's worse. The room smells like cleaning fluid and sweat. There's the hum of the generator and the scurrying of a mouse.

If you were listening, you'd hear a woman, drugged, yet coherent enough to speak. She leans against the wall. Her eyes cannot hold still; she wants to sleep. You'd hear the man. He's irritated. She wants to leave.

The pills he’s given her make her feel like she’s on a cloud. She has no strength, but can still feel everything.

She tasted blood before, but now her mouth is dry. She can't even move her lips. She can't smile. Because of him. Not that she would smile for him, anyway. Not after what he did to her earlier in the day; he’d hit her too hard, and she’d spat blood on his lapel. Not after what he’s done since then, either—he's been running tests on her while she sleeps. She doesn’t like the tests. None of them do. But she’s too out of it to put up a fight, and it’s likely she won’t even remember. He seems to think that if he can find out why she started crying at one point, then it will be easier to make her cry later on when he demands it of her again.

It will probably work, but not for the reason he thinks. They get desperate, and desperate people do all sorts of things.

I do my best to stay out of his way while he works. I don't like to get too close, but sometimes I have to when he needs my assistance. Like now.

My hands are tight around her arms, and she flinches in pain. They're rough and calloused, with little feeling of tenderness anymore. She tells me the room is cold; she inquires about the mild buzzing sound.

I ignore her questions. She’ll forget them anyhow, and like I said, it's best not to get too close. When she asks about the echo across the walls, I know the medication is doing its job. Lucky for her.

He gets what he came for, takes what he needs, and then he is gone.

Eventually, I return to my chair. It's hard plastic. There are no cushions. There is no table. Just the chair, a cot for her if she chooses to use it, and a makeshift toilet. It's not the worst accommodations I’ve seen, but it’s worse than any prison, that's for sure.

“They will find you,” she says, her words jumbled together. She speaks as though her tongue is too fat for her mouth to hold—and maybe it is. He clocked her harder than any man should. I think he broke her jaw. “There are cameras,” she says. “On all the houses.”

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