Hold Tight

CeeJay8115: What did you tell her?

HockeyAdam1117: Nothing. I ran.

CeeJay8115: We will discuss tonight.

Tia read it again. Then she took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Mike?”

“What?”

“Find him. Find him no matter what.”

RON held the photograph.

He stared at it, but Betsy could tell he had stopped seeing it. His body language was beyond troubling. He twitched and stiffened. He put the picture on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. He picked it up again.

“What does this change?” he asked.

He started blinking rapidly, the way a stutterer might when he’s trying to get out a particularly difficult word. The sight terrified Betsy. Ron hadn’t done that rapid blink in years. Her mother-in-law had explained that Ron had gotten beaten up a lot when he was in second grade and hid it from her. That was when the blink started. It had gotten better as he’d gotten older. It barely surfaced now. Even after they heard about Spencer, Betsy hadn’t seen the blink.

She wished that she could take the picture back. Ron had come home and tried to reach out and she’d slapped his hand away.

“He wasn’t alone that night,” she said.

“So?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Maybe he went out with his friends first. So what?”

“Why didn’t they say anything?”

“Who knows? They were scared, maybe Spencer told them not to, or maybe, probably, you got the date wrong. Maybe he saw them briefly and then went out. Maybe this picture was taken earlier in the day.”

“No. I confronted Adam Baye at school—”

“You what?”

“I waited until school ended. I showed him the photograph.” Ron just shook his head.

“He ran away from me. There was definitely something there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But remember Spencer had a bruise by his eye when the police found him.”

“They explained that. He probably passed out and fell on his face.”

“Or maybe someone hit him.”

Ron’s voice grew soft. “No one hit him, Bets.”

Betsy said nothing. The blinking got worse. Tears started spilling down Ron’s cheeks. She reached for him but he pulled away.

“Spencer mixed pills and alcohol. Do you understand that, Betsy?”

She said nothing.

“Nobody forced him to steal that bottle of vodka from our cabinet. Nobody forced him to take those pills from my medicine chest. Where I left them. Just in view. We know that, right? That was my prescription bottle that, yes, I just left out. The ones I kept asking for renewals when, really, I should have been over the pain and moved on, right?”

“Ron, it’s not . . .”

“Not what? You don’t think I see it?”

“See what?” she asked. But she knew. “I don’t blame you, I swear.”

“Yeah, you do.”

She shook her head. But he never saw it. Ron was up and out the door.

12

NASH was ready to strike.

He waited in the lot at the Palisades Mall in Nyack. The mall was pure Americana ginormous. Yes, the Mall of America outside Minneapolis was bigger, but this mall was newer, crammed with huge megastores in a megamall, none of those cute little eighties-trendy boutiques. They had warehouse price clubs, expansive chain book-stores, an IMAX theater, an AMC with fifteen screens, a Best Buy, a Staples, a full-size Ferris wheel. The corridors were wide. Everything was big.

Reba Cordova had gone into Target.

She had parked her Aberdeen green Acura MDX far away from the entrance. That would help, but this would still be risky. They parked the van next to her Acura, on the driver’s side. Nash had come up with the plan. Pietra was currently inside following Reba Cordova. Nash had also gone into Target briefly—to make a quick purchase.

Now he waited for Pietra’s text.

He had considered the mustache, but no, that would not do here. Nash needed to look open and trusting. Mustaches did not do that. Mustaches, especially the bushy one he had used with Marianne, dominate a face. If you ask for a description, few witnesses go beyond the mustache. So it often worked.

But not for this.

Nash stayed in the car and prepared. He fixed his hair in the rearview mirror and ran the electric razor over his face.

Cassandra had liked it when he was clean-shaven. Nash’s beard had a tendency to get heavy and could scratch her by five o’clock.

“Please shave for me, handsome,” Cassandra would tell him with that sideways glance that made his toes curl. “Then I will cover your face with kisses.”

He thought about that now. He thought about her voice. His heart still ached. He had long ago accepted that it would always hurt. You live with pain. The hole would always be there.

He sat in the driver’s seat and watched the people walk back and forth in the mall parking lot. They were all alive and breathing while his Cassandra was dead. Her beauty had no doubt rotted away by now. It was hard to imagine.

His cell phone buzzed. A text from Pietra:At checkout. Leaving now.

He gave his eyes a quick swipe with his forefinger and thumb and climbed out of the car. He opened the back door of the van. His purchase, a Cosco Scenera 5-Point Convertible Car Seat, the cheapest in the store at forty bucks, was out of the box.

Nash glanced behind him.

Reba Cordova wheeled a red shopping cart with several plastic bags in it. She looked harried and happy, like so many of the suburban sheep. He wondered about that, about their happiness, if it was real or self-inflicted. They had everything they wanted. The nice house, two cars, financial security, children. He wondered if that was all women needed. He wondered about the men at the office who provided this life for them and if they felt likewise.

Behind Reba Cordova, he could see Pietra. She was keeping her distance. Nash took in the surroundings. An overweight man with hippie hair, a rat-nest beard, and a tie-dyed shirt hoisted up his plumber-butt jeans and started toward the entrance. Disgusting. Nash had seen him circle around in his beat-up Chevy Caprice, spending minutes searching for a closer space that would save him from walking ten seconds. America the Fat.

Nash had positioned the van’s side door to be near the Acura’s driver’s side. He leaned in and started fiddling with the car seat. The driver’s side mirror was positioned so he could see her approach. Reba clicked her remote control and the back hatch opened. He waited till she was close.

“Darn!” he said. He said it loud enough for Reba to hear but in a voice that seemed more amused than annoyed. He stood upright and scratched his head as if confused. He looked at Reba Cordova and smiled in the most nonthreatening manner possible.