Page 26 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

It’s exactly like Riley said: if all leads are exhausted and there’s no reasonable hope that new information will come to light, that’s when you consider no longer actively investigating. Fair. So what will he do with this bank and phone information? Probably very little. Because Leo is not being actively pursued as the suspect in what happened to Shelby. There is zero proof, just a hunch and assumption by everyone including the police, and this evidence actually strengthens the argument that he left with all our money and doesn’t want to be found.

Well, guess what. I’m not calling Riley. I’m going to find that son of a bitch myself.

“Holy shit!” I yell out loud and leap from the sofa, spilling tea down the front of my sweater and all over the floor. “Oh my God,” I say, standing frozen for a moment, feeling a brief brush of disbelief. I can find him.

I’m shocked it took me the thirtysomething minutes since I found the bill until this second to remember I can look at our tracking app. Unless he turned it off himself, we all have tracker apps. I used to use it to keep tabs on Rowan when she was out as a teen, and it’s useful if you can’t find your phone, but spying is an additional perk I’ve never used it for. It should allow me to see where he is. I sit back down, and then I stand back up and shake out my hands. I’m trembling with nerves. I sit back down and take a breath and then wipe a few splashes of spilled tea off my phone screen and click the app…and there it is.

“Shut the fuck up,” I whisper to myself, cupping my hand over my mouth. His phone is moving southbound on highway 10, headed toward Fargo, North Dakota.

The doorbell rings. Shit. Billy.

I go and open the door, and I know the color has drained from my face and my eyes are wild and confused, and I’m covered in tea and my nerves are frayed. He doesn’t look me up and down or comment on how I don’t look remotely ready for dinner out. He just smiles, holding a bouquet of flowers to my surprise, and I feel terrible, but I don’t have time to feel terrible or worry about anyone’s feelings. I’m quaking with adrenaline and rage, and a little bit of terror at what I might find if I pursue this, so much so that I just blurt it out as I pull a coat on and practically push past him.

“Sorry. Shit. I’m so sorry, but I think my missing husband is alive and driving down the interstate as we speak and I have to go to Fargo. Sorry.”

“Oh. Right…now?”

“Yes. Right this second.”

“I’ll go with you,” he says.

“What? No. Why?”

“Because you should have someone with you. It could be dangerous,” he says, and I just stare at him and blink for a second. But I’m not thinking about danger or about him dropping everything to drive on slippery roads to goddamn North Dakota for someone he scarcely knows anymore, or how exhausted I am, or what I’ll say or do when I find Leo. I am just going. Right this second, before I lose him again.

“Let’s go,” I say, and within minutes we are driving through the inky blackness, fat snowflakes tapping the windshield, snow squeaking under the tires on the snow-packed roads as we drive into the night.

11

FLORENCE

“Just tell us where it is!”

“Oh, don’t shout, for God’s sake, Millie,” I say, realizing I’m also shouting. Millie decided she was tired of the winter so she made a pitcher of sangria and brought her lawn chair out into the common area. She’s been sitting there in a swimsuit and snow boots listening to bachata music all evening while we have been chatting over the next topic for the podcast and how to reach more people…and now we’ve received a call that Poppy has been in some sort of accident, and I need Millie to sober up. We are all awaiting Evan, who we’ve talked into taking us to the hospital in the resident van to see her. While he warms the van up, I don’t think it’s too much to ask of Heather, who used to work at the hospital, to tell us where they keep the visitor sign-in log.

“You’re all behaving very badly,” she says with crossed arms.“That would be unethical, and I think you’re getting too vainglorious for your own good. This podcast is going to your heads.” We all look at Mort.

“It means fame-seeking,” he says.

Then we all look back to Heather, and I must say, I have to mask my astonishment at her knowledge of that word. Maybe we’ve pegged our dim-witted caretaker a little bit unfairly.

“You’re obstructing justice,” I reply back, but she holds firm.

“Does Evan know he’s driving you to commit a crime or does he just think you’re visiting Poppy?” she asks.

“Wearevisiting Poppy,” Herb says, and then Evan comes in the front doors, banging snow off of his boots.

“All ready,” he says, and I can see through the glass that the Mystery Machine is warmed up and coughing out puffs of smoke from the tailpipe into the icy air.

“Aren’t you on till ten?” Heather asks Evan, not for any noble reason, but because she likes to flop on any furniture nearest to him in the common area and pick at her Coke can and twirl her hair as often as she gets a chance. His helping with the podcast is taking away from that.

“Shelby said if he ever needed to take off early for something that came up, he could. What more important thing could there be than to show our support for her now? Right, Evan?” I say, turning to him. He shrugs.

“I mean…” he says with an expression that reads “she has a point” but he doesn’t say anything else.

Heather chews on her lip and turns on her heel with a “Humph!”

Mort, Herb, Bernie, and I all file out the doors and Evan helps us into the van one by one. We sit and wait for Millie to change into something appropriate, and then we head to the hospital.

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