Safe Haven(24)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

With that, she turned and left the bar, leaving Katie sitting at the table in stunned silence. It was only as she gotup to leave that she noticed that Jo hadn’t touched her wine.

24

Kevin Tierney didn’t go to Provincetown on the weekend he’d told Coffey and Ramirez that he would. Instead, hestayed home with the curtains closed, brooding over how close he’d come to finding her in Philadelphia.

He wouldn’t have succeeded in tracking her that far, except that she’d made a mistake in going to the busstation. He knew it was the only transportation choice she could have made. Tickets were cheap and identificationwasn’t necessary, and though he wasn’t sure how much she’d stolen from him, he knew it couldn’t have beenmuch. From the first day they were married, he’d controlled the money. He always made her keep receipts andgive him any change, but after she’d run away the second time, he’d also started locking his wallet in the gun boxwith his guns when he went to sleep. Sometimes, though, he fell asleep on the couch and he imagined herslipping the wallet from his pocket and stealing his money. He imagined the way she silently laughed at him as shedid it, and how, in the morning, she would make him breakfast and pretend that she’d done nothing wrong. Shewould smile and kiss him, but inside she was laughing. Laughing at him. She’d stolen from him and he knew thatwas wrong because the Bible says Thou shalt not steal .

In the darkness, he chewed his lips, remembering his initial hope that she might come back. It was snowingand she couldn’t get far; the first time she’d run away it had also been on a bitter cold night, and she’d called himwithin a few hours and asked him to pick her up because she had nowhere else to go. When she got home, sheapologized for what she’d done and he made her a cup of hot cocoa as she sat shivering on the couch. Hebrought her a blanket and watched as she covered herself, trying to get warm. She smiled at him and he smiled ather, but once she stopped shivering, he crossed the room and slapped her until she cried. By the time he rose forwork in the morning, she’d cleaned the spilled cocoa from the floor, though there was still a stain on the rug thatshe couldn’t get out, and sometimes the sight of it made him angry.

On the night he realized she was missing last January, he drank two glasses of vodka while he waited for her tocome back, but the phone didn’t ring and the front door stayed closed. He knew she hadn’t been gone long. He’dspoken to her less than an hour before and she’d told him she was making dinner. But there was no dinner on thestove. No sign of her in the house or in the cellar or in the garage. He stood on the porch and looked for footprintsin the snow, but it was obvious that she hadn’t left through the front door. But the snow in the backyard wasequally pristine, so she hadn’t left that way, either. It was as if she’d floated away or vanished into thin air. Whichmeant she had to be here… except that she wasn’t.

Two more vodkas later and another half hour passed. By then, he was in a rage and he punched a hole in thebedroom door. He stormed from the house and banged on the neighbors’ doors, asking if they’d noticed herleaving, but none of them could tell him anything. He hopped in his car and drove up and down the streets of theneighborhood, looking for traces of her, trying to figure out how she’d been able to leave the house withoutleaving any clues behind. By then, he figured she had a two-hour head start, but she was walking, and in thisweather she couldn’t have gotten far. Unless someone had come to pick her up. Someone she cared about. Aman.

He pounded the wheel, his face contorted in fury. Six blocks away was the commercial district. He went to thebusinesses there, flashing a wallet-size photograph and asking if anyone had seen her. No one had. He told themshe might have been with a man and still they shook their heads. The men he asked were adamant about it: A

pretty blond like that? they said. I would have noticed her, especially on a night like tonight.

He drove each and every road within five miles of the house two or three times before finally going back home.

It was three a.m. and the house was empty. After another vodka he cried himself to sleep.

In the morning, when he woke, he was enraged again, and with a hammer he smashed the flowerpots she keptin the backyard. Breathing hard, he went to the phone and called in sick, then went to the couch and tried to figureout how she’d gotten away. Someone had to have picked her up; someone must have driven her someplace.

Someone she knew. A friend from Atlantic City? Altoona? Possible, he supposed, except that he checked thephone bills every month. She never placed long-distance phone calls. Someone local, then. But who? She neverwent anywhere, never talked to anyone. He made sure of that.

He went to the kitchen and was pouring himself another drink when he heard the phone ring. He lunged for it,hoping it was Erin. Strangely, however, the phone rang only once, and when he picked up he heard a dial tone. Hestared at the receiver, trying to figure it out before hanging up the phone.

How had she gotten away? He was missing something. Even if someone local had picked her up, how had shegotten to the road without leaving footprints? He stared out the window, trying to piece together the sequence ofevents. Something seemed off, though he couldn’t identify what it was. He turned away from the window andfound himself focused on the telephone. It was then that the pieces suddenly came together and he pulled out hiscell phone. He dialed his home number and listened as it rang once. The cell phone kept ringing. When he pickedup the landline, he heard a dial tone and realized that she’d forwarded the calls to a cell phone. Which meant shehadn’t been here when he’d called her last night. Which also explained the bad reception he’d noticed over thepast two days. And, of course, the lack of footprints in the snow. She’d been gone, he now knew, since Tuesdaymorning.

At the bus station, she made a mistake, even if she couldn’t really help it. She should have purchased her ticketsfrom a woman, since Erin was pretty and men always remembered pretty women. It didn’t matter whether theirhair was long and blond or short and dark. Nor did it matter if she’d pretended she was pregnant.

He went to the bus station. He showed his badge and carried a larger photograph of her. The first two times hevisited, none of the ticket sellers had recognized her. The third time, though, one of them hesitated and said that itmight have been her, except that her hair was short and brown and that she was pregnant. He didn’t, however,remember her destination. Back at home, Kevin found a photograph of her on the computer and used Photoshopto change her hair from blond to brown and then shortened it. He called in sick again on Friday. That’s her , theticket seller confirmed, and Kevin felt a surge of energy. She thought she was smarter than he was, but she wasstupid and careless and she’d made a mistake. He took a couple of vacation days the following week andcontinued to hang around the bus station, showing the new photograph to drivers. He arrived in the morning andleft late, since the drivers came and went all day long. There were two bottles in the car, and he poured the vodkainto a Styrofoam cup and sipped it with a straw.

On Saturday, eleven days after she’d left him, he found the driver. The driver had taken her to Philadelphia. Heremembered her, he said, because she was pretty and pregnant and she didn’t have any luggage.

Philadelphia. She might have left again from there to parts unknown, but it was the only lead he had. Plus, he knewshe didn’t have much money.

He’d packed a bag and hopped in his car and drove to Philadelphia. He parked at the bus station and tried tothink like her. He was a good detective and he knew that if he could think like her, he’d be able to find her. People,he’d learned, were predictable.

The bus had arrived a few minutes before four o’clock, and he stood in the bus station, looking from onedirection to the next. She had stood here days earlier, he thought, and he wondered what she would do in astrange city with no money and no friends and no place to go. Quarters and dimes and dollar bills wouldn’t go far,especially after purchasing a bus ticket.

It was cold, he remembered, and it would have been getting dark soon. She wouldn’t want to walk far and shewould need a place to stay. A place that took cash. But where? Not here, in this area. Too expensive. Where wouldshe go? She wouldn’t want to get lost or head in the wrong direction, which meant that she probably looked in thephone book. He went back inside the terminal and looked under hotels. Pages and pages, he realized. She mighthave picked one, but then what? She’d have to walk there. Which meant she’d need a map.

He went to the convenience store at the station and bought himself a map. He showed the clerk the photographbut he shook his head. He hadn’t been working on Tuesday, he said. But it felt right to Kevin. This, he knew, waswhat she did. He unfolded the map and located the station. It bordered on Chinatown and he guessed she hadheaded in that direction.

He got back in his car and drove the streets of Chinatown, and again it felt right. He drank his vodka and walkedthe streets. He started at those businesses closest to the bus station and showed her picture around. No oneknew anything but he had the sense that some of them were lying. He found cheap rooms, places he never wouldhave taken her, dirty places with dirty sheets, managed by men who spoke little English and took only cash. Heimplied that she was in danger if he couldn’t find her. He found the first place she’d stayed, but the owner didn’tknow where she’d gone after that. Kevin put a gun to the man’s head, but even though he cried, he couldn’t tellKevin anything more.

Kevin had to go back to work on Monday, furious that she’d eluded him. But the following weekend, he wasback in Philadelphia. And the weekend after that. He expanded his search, but the problem was that there were toomany places and he was only one person and not everyone trusted an out-of-town cop.

But he was patient and diligent and he kept coming back and took more vacation days. Another weekendpassed. He widened his search, knowing she would need cash. He stopped in bars and restaurants and diners. Hewould check every one in the city if he had to. Finally, a week after Valentine’s Day, he met a waitress named Tracywho told him that Erin was working at a diner, except she was calling herself Erica. She was scheduled to workthe following day. The waitress trusted him because he was a detective, and she’d even flirted with him, handinghim her phone number before he left.

He rented a car and waited up the block from the diner the following morning, before the sun was up.

Employees entered through a door in the alley. He sipped from his Styrofoam cup in the front seat, watching forher. Eventually, he saw the owner and Tracy and another woman head down the alley. But Erin never showed, andshe didn’t show up the following day, either, and no one knew where she lived. She never came back to pick upher paycheck.

He found where she lived a few hours later. It was walking distance from the diner, a piece-of-crap hotel. Theman, who accepted only cash, knew nothing except that Erin had left the day before and come back and left againin a hurry. Kevin searched her room but there was nothing inside, and when he finally raced to the bus stationthere were only women in the ticket booths and none of them remembered her. Buses in the last two hours weretraveling north, south, east, and west, going everywhere.

She’d disappeared again, and in the car Kevin screamed and beat his fists against the wheel until they werebruised and swollen.

In the months that Erin had been gone, he felt the ache inside grow more poisonous and all-consuming,spreading like a cancer every day. He had returned to Philadelphia and questioned the drivers over the next fewweeks, but it hadn’t amounted to much. He eventually learned that she’d gone on to New York, but from there, thetrail went cold. Too many buses, too many drivers, too many passengers; too many days had passed since then.

Too many options. She could be anywhere, and the thought that she was gone tormented him. He flew into ragesand broke things; he cried himself to sleep. He was filled with despair and sometimes felt like he was losing hismind.

It wasn’t fair. He’d loved her since the first time they met in Atlantic City. And they’d been happy, hadn’t they?

Early on in the marriage, she used to sing to herself as she put on her makeup. He used to bring her to the libraryand she would check out eight or ten books. Sometimes she would read him passages and he would hear hervoice and watch the way she leaned against the counter and think to himself that she was the most beautifulwoman in the world.

He’d been a good husband. He bought her the house she wanted and the curtains she wanted and the furnitureshe wanted, even though he could barely afford it. After they were married, he often bought flowers from streetvendors on the way home, and Erin would put them in a vase on the table along with candles, and the two of themwould have romantic dinners. Sometimes, they ended up making love in the kitchen, her back pressed against thecounter.

He never made her work, either, and she didn’t know how good she had it. She didn’t understand the sacrificeshe made for her. She was spoiled and selfish and it used to make him so angry because she didn’t understandhow easyher life was. Clean the house and make a meal and she could spend the rest of her days reading stupidbooks she checked out from the library and watching television and taking naps and never having to worry abouta utility bill or mortgage payment or people who talked about him behind his back. She never had to see the facesof people who had been murdered. He kept that from her because he loved her, but it had made no difference. Henever told her about the children who’d been burned with irons or tossed from the roofs of buildings or womenstabbed in the alley and thrown in Dumpsters. He never told her that sometimes he had to scrape the blood fromhis shoes before he got in the car, and when he looked into the eyes of murderers he knew he was coming face-to-face with evil because the Bible says To kill a person is to kill a living being made in God’s image.

He loved her and she loved him and she had to come home because he couldn’t find her. She could have herhappy life again and he wouldn’t hit or punch or slap or kick her if she walked in the door because he’d alwaysbeen a good husband. He loved her and she loved him and he remembered that on the day he asked her to marryhim, she reminded him of the night they’d met outside the casino when the men were following her. Dangerousmen. He’d stopped them from hurting her that night, and in the morning they’d walked along the boardwalk and hetook her for coffee. She told him that of course she would marry him. She loved him, she’d said. He made her feelsafe.