Lisa Unger - Fragile

He expected to see his jacket by the trailhead where Sarah had shed it in her run from Travis. But it was gone. He followed the trail to the stone staircase. He stared at the place where they’d left her. But Sarah’s body wasn’t there.

With the light snow covering the ground, there was no evidence that any of them had ever been there. He felt a lift of hope in his heart. Had they been wrong? Had she gotten up from where she lay and found her way home? He walked to the edge of the staircase and looked down. He could see all the way to the bottom, but no one was standing there. He walked up the trail awhile, looking in the brush, wondering if, disoriented maybe, she’d gotten up and walked farther into the park. But he was alone. Finally, after a while, he left, the snow crunching beneath his feet, the wind picking up and moaning through the trees. As he walked back through the lot, the falling snow was already covering his tracks. By the time he’d returned to his car, his footprints were nearly gone.

It took a second for Jones to realize that he was on the ground, outside in the cold. He immediately reached for his gun, but his holster was empty. His hand flew to his waist for his cell phone next. That was gone, too. He felt more angry than afraid. How could he have turned his back on Travis Crosby? And then there was the pain-a burning ache in his side, a terrible tightness in his chest. He wondered coolly, Is this it? Would he meet his end as Sarah had, alone on the cold ground, miles from anyone who loved her? He knew he didn’t deserve better. But no, he wasn’t going like this. No way.

The Explorer was just twenty feet away. Inside the vehicle was the radio, of course. In the hatch there was a rifle, hidden in a locked compartment beneath the carpet. He heard voices, distant, outside. They carried up on the trees and into the air. It was hard to know from which way or how far. Then he heard a slicing scream, rage or agony, male or female, he couldn’t be sure. But it electrified him, shot adrenaline through his system, and he was up on all fours, crawling for the SUV.

Somewhere, he heard a cell phone start to ring; it sounded like his own. He didn’t have the time or the strength to try to find it. Travis must have tossed it into the woods nearby. Radio or gun? He decided to go for the gun first.

When he reached the back of the Explorer, he used the bumper to pull himself to his feet. The whole world tilted with his pain. His breath came ragged, and even that caused his chest, back, and abdomen to ache. His shirt and coat were soaked with blood. But he suspected that the bullet had just grazed the flesh of his belly. There were some advantages to being fat. He pulled the keys from his pocket and, with effort, pushed open the hatch. He flipped back the carpet easily and unlocked the compartment, removing the loaded gun. In his weakened state, it felt impossibly heavy. If he had to fire it, the recoil might do him in.

Now that he was armed, he was about to head to the radio, request backup. But another scream sliced the night, and Jones felt a chill down his spine, a painful throbbing in his chest. In its wake, the air seemed preternaturally quiet. Then, the sharp crack of a gunshot. Then another. Then nothing. Jones gripped his own gun and headed off into the woods behind the Crosby home.

Maggie watched Henry exit his front door and lock it behind him. She wondered how many times she’d watched him do that over the years of their friendship. He didn’t have a car in high school; she was always driving him somewhere in their senior year, often picking him up on her way to school. She felt a familiar wash of affection for him-and gratitude for their enduring friendship. Sometimes, like tonight, she felt closer to him than she did to her own husband.

I always thought you’d marry him , Elizabeth had said to Maggie just before she married Jones.

Henry? No .

Why not?

There’s no heat, Mom. No chemistry .

That’s what young people don’t understand. You don’t need heat. In fact, you’re better off without it .

What? You and Dad didn’t have heat?

Oh, we had heat , her mother said with a mischievous grin.

Mom!

At the time, Maggie had thought it was a ridiculous thing to say, that you don’t need passion. She was smart enough to know that chemistry didn’t sustain a marriage, but without it there was nothing. Even an eternal flame needs an igniting spark. But nearly twenty years into her marriage and her practice, she understood what her mother meant. Some people thought the spark was everything, kept wanting it again and again, leaving behind a wake of failed relationships. Her patients would have these steamy affairs, leave the relationships they were in, only to find that once real life-bills, blending families, work-crept in, it was the same old thing.

Henry jogged to the car and got in the passenger seat.

“What’s going on?” he asked. He reached over and fastened his seat belt.

She told him everything-about Jones and Ricky, about Angie Crosby’s claim that Marshall had stolen her guns. He took it all in with a careful nod, looking down at some point between them.

He was quiet for a moment after she’d finished. “So what are we going to do?”

She studied him, noticed the lines under his eyes, the gray at his temples. She thought he was better looking now than when they were kids, as though he had settled into his looks. When he looked up at her, she glanced away, embarrassed that she was thinking anything of the sort in a moment like this.

“I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

Henry tugged at each cuff on his jacket.

“Well, I went to the Crosby residence earlier today.” He told her about his encounter with Travis. She could tell it had disturbed him, stirred up old memories and feelings. But he kept his recounting neutral, and she didn’t dig.

“Marshall wouldn’t be with Leila and her family,” said Maggie, when he was done. “They’re distancing themselves from him. If he’d come to her, she’d have called me.”

She remembered her cell phone then and rooted around in her purse for it, plugged it into the charger that dangled from the cigarette lighter.

“I don’t know whether to look for Ricky or to look for Marshall,” she said, staring at the phone’s screen. The charge was so low that, even plugged in, it wasn’t coming on right away.

“Rick is smart and solid,” said Henry. “He’s not going to do anything stupid.”

She was grateful to hear him say it. She trusted her son; she was happy to know it wasn’t just a mother’s denial.

“Marshall, on the other hand, is in major trouble,” said Henry. “If the police find him with guns, that’s pretty much going to be the end of him.”

“Henry,” she said, looking at her friend. His brow was creased with worry. “The police finding him with guns is the best-case scenario. I’m worried about what will happen if they don’t find him. Soon.”

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “The only thing I can think to do is to go to Chief Crosby’s house. The property is totally isolated. It’s late. I know Marshall has a relationship with his grandfather. I can’t think of where else he would go.”

It made sense, though she dreaded an encounter with the chief. There was something about those milky blue eyes that always made her want to run from him. Maybe it was just her mother’s passionate dislike for the man. Maggie always found her mother’s opinions contagious. She started the engine.

“I was thinking Ricky might have gone to my mother’s house,” she said. She was really just thinking aloud. “But I can’t imagine him disturbing her in the middle of the night. And if he was there, she’d have called.”