Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

He walked over to the bench… tiny drawers filled with every possible nail and screw, a hammer and a set of screwdrivers hanging, still gleaming. Beside the bench a circular saw, a cabinet with a selection of blades, a power drill with every bit. Everything he needed was there to build anything he cared to build. He just didn’t know what he wanted to construct. But for the first time, he didn’t feel guilty looking at it; it didn’t stare back accusingly, neglected.

As he lifted his hand to touch the work area, the garage flooded with a blinding halogen light, the rumble of an engine. He shaded his eyes against the glare and walked outside. A giant maroon SUV had pulled up beside Ricky’s car. The door opened, and out climbed Chuck Ferrigno. He looked a little heavier, a little more haggard than the last time Jones had seen him, not quite a year ago.

“I know,” said Chuck when he caught sight of Jones. “I look like shit.”

Jones had always really liked Chuck, was glad that the post he’d resigned as head detective at Hollows PD had been given to the other man. Chuck deserved it. He might be the last of the real cops, someone who didn’t come to the job because of a crime show he’d seen on television.

“The job takes its toll,” said Jones. He gave Chuck a hearty slap on the shoulder as they shook hands.

“You look good, Jones. Rested. Retirement agrees with you.”

I’m in therapy. My wife hates me. And I have no fucking idea what to do with whatever amount of time I have left. Oh, and I’m obsessed with death. Wake up every night with the sweats just thinking about it .

“Can’t complain,” Jones said. “Life is good.”

“My wife wants me to retire,” Chuck said. He issued a snort of disdain. “I told her she needs to pull down six figures like Maggie and I’ll think about it.”

Chuck rubbed his forehead, and Jones noticed that he’d lost the little hair he used to have on top. Chuck’s crown gleamed in the light over the garage. He still kept that ring of hair around his ears, though, like a friar. Jones thought he should shave it, grow a goatee, make it work for him. But real men didn’t talk about hair.

“What brings you out?” asked Jones.

“Ah,” said Chuck. He glanced up at the sky, then around the yard, as though looking for something he’d lost. “I need to talk. Have some time?”

Buddy, I’ve got nothing but time .

“Sure. Come on in. I’ll put on some coffee.”

Jones was embarrassed to acknowledge a giddy rush of excitement as he led Chuck inside.

He couldn’t breathe, but it was okay-a relief even. He almost could believe it, how close was the edge of darkness. One minute he’d been standing on the bank, the great rushing river a roar in his head. Then he saw her, a floating reed of a girl, motionless but for the current sweeping her along. There was no thought. He was only action. He was only the blast of the frigid water all around him. Then there was a blissful silence, a peaceful, all-consuming quiet. He almost let it take him. But then he saw her floating ahead of him. Her hair was a halo. Her arms were outstretched like wings.

Come on, girl. I’ll take you home .

Her thin body was in his hands. He could feel her ribs against his palms as he lifted her, kicking them both toward the milky distant light of the surface. How were they so deep? How did they get so far down?

Don’t give up .

Then something powerful lifted her from his grasp, and she rose, pulled like a puppet on strings. He watched her go, and as she got farther from him, he felt his will waning. The pull of the cold water was so strong. And now that he had no one to save, his desire to reach the surface was fading. His legs felt heavy, his arms too tired to stroke. So he simply stopped moving, pushing, struggling. It was just that easy.

“Jones.”

Maggie. I’m sorry .

Then he was in his own home, lying on the couch. The television filled the dark room with its flickering light. Maggie sat beside him, looking small and pale in her white nightgown.

“You were howling.” Her voice wobbled in the sentence; her eyes were wide.

“Was I?” He sat up, wiped some drool from the side of his face. Being embarrassed in front of his wife was a new feeling. He didn’t like it, how awkward they were with each other. When had it happened? How long had it taken him to notice?

“I thought it was an animal-in pain,” she said. “In terrible pain.”

That’s not too far from the truth, actually .

“What were you dreaming about?” she asked.

He shook his head. Already the dream was slipping away from his consciousness. “I don’t remember,” he lied.

He hadn’t told Maggie about Eloise Montgomery’s visit or her premonition. But obviously she’d unsettled him more than he would have been willing to admit.

Maggie curled her legs under her. He’d decided to sleep on the couch tonight and give her the bed rather than continue to wake up to notice her absence, to lie awake and wonder why she didn’t want to sleep beside him.

She was looking at him in a way that he realized had become familiar, as though her husband were a confounding puzzle she was unsure she wanted to solve.

“What did Chuck want?” she asked. “I saw him pull into the driveway.”

Jones sat up and turned on the lamp beside the couch, grabbed the remote control, and turned off the television. The stack of files Chuck had left sat on the end table. It seemed like a week ago that he’d been there; it had been only a few hours.

“Do you remember Marla Holt?” Jones asked.

Maggie cocked her head, stared up at the ceiling. “The name is vaguely familiar.”

“You were still in graduate school at the time.”

Maggie had left for New York City right after high school, earning her undergraduate degree at New York University and then going on to Columbia for her master’s in family and adolescent psychology. When her father was dying from lung cancer, she’d returned to The Hollows to help her mother. During that time Jones and Maggie connected for the first time since Hollows High and fell in love. She came home, they got married, and she opened a private practice. They’d been in The Hollows ever since.

“Maybe my mother mentioned it,” she said. There was very little that Maggie’s mother, Elizabeth, failed to mention. The former principal of Hollows High, Elizabeth was, in her retirement, an information hub. She would have known everything there was to know about the Marla Holt case and everything else that went on in The Hollows. “But I don’t remember the details.”

“Marla was a woman in her late thirties with a fourteen-year-old son and a small daughter when she went missing in 1987,” he said. “Her husband, Mack Holt, said she ran off with another guy. We suspected foul play, but we could never prove anything. Eventually the Holt disappearance went into the unsolved file.”

“It was your case?” She was leaning toward him now. He remembered this-how she’d always loved talking about his work and how he’d loved talking to her about his cases. Her ideas, her psychological insights, her knowledge of human nature made her an invaluable resource. He relied on her so much, for everything. He wouldn’t have been half as good at his job without her.

“One of my first after making detective,” he said. He got up and bent back to stretch out his spine. He heard a sharp succession of pops, but there was little relief from the ache that had settled there.

“What happened to the children?”

“Funny you should ask. I’m not sure about the girl, but the boy is in his thirties now. And he’s still looking for answers.”

“He wants to reopen the case?” she asked.