Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

When he finally untied the lace, her foot drifted free. Just as it did, there was a flood of light. And she seemed to lift away from him, pulled from the water by unseen hands. Was it the current taking her down the river? Where was the light coming from?

He let her go because he didn’t have any strength left, and he was bone tired suddenly, numb with cold. And it was so easy to just stop moving. He’d always heard that drowning was a peaceful way to die, though that seemed like a strange idea. How could anyone ever know such a thing? But as the darkness closed around him in a cold embrace, he knew it was right.

It was the light that brought him back. It was not a soft and heavenly light, beckoning him to the great beyond. It was the harsh white of a floodlight. There was someone pumping mercilessly on his chest and then breathing hard down his throat. He choked up a river of water and bile, took in a ragged breath that felt like swallowed razor blades. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see the face of God. It was Chuck Ferrigno, looking like some combination of determined and desperate. Behind Chuck stood Eloise Montgomery, holding a gigantic police-issue flashlight. Her expression was serene, as though the outcome of everything were already well known to her. Or possibly she just didn’t care. It was hard to tell which.

“Jones,” the other man said, kneeling back. “Christ. You are too old to be jumping into the river like that.”

All Jones felt was cold. “Where’s the girl?”

“She’s here,” said Chuck. “She’s okay.”

The kids sat under the tree, all three of them wrapped in a blanket. Willow Graves was soaking wet. She leaned her head on the shoulder of the other girl, who held her tight. Cole Carr just looked lost beside them, blank and staring off at nothing. The rain had slowed to little more than a drizzle.

“You pulled us out?”

Chuck, too, was soaked and shivering. “You wouldn’t have thought I had it in me, right? I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Henry and the kid. They held me. I grabbed the girl, then you.”

“How did you find us?” Jones asked. But he supposed he already knew the answer. Chuck glanced back at Eloise.

“Eloise came to my house. She said there was trouble.”

“And you believed her?” Jones was irrationally angry at this. How could someone like Chuck, so grounded and pragmatic, listen to Eloise Montgomery?

Chuck offered a quick lift of his shoulders. “Hey, I’m a New Yorker. Nothing surprises me. Anyway, she wouldn’t leave unless I came with her, said I’d have to arrest her. I’d rather go out in a storm than spend all night filing paperwork against the town psychic.”

Jones looked at Eloise in her giant yellow slicker and big flashlight. He supposed he should thank her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Wasn’t it her fault he was here in the first place?

“I told you that you wouldn’t be able to manage the risk,” she said. She wasn’t smug, but almost.

Up above them they heard voices, saw lights. Jones hauled himself to his feet, fighting nausea and light-headedness. He didn’t want people to find him lying on the bank of a river. From where he sat now, it didn’t look that wild. It certainly didn’t seem like the churning, rushing nightmare to which he’d nearly surrendered.

“You called for backup?”

“I did. The kids said they saw Michael Holt up at the dig site. He chased them down here. That’s why they were running along the bank.”

“Where’s Henry?”

“He went back to get the girl’s mother,” said Chuck. “And to call Maggie.”

Jones made his way over to the kids. Cole had his arm around both the girls, and they leaned into him.

“Are you okay, Willow?”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of fatigue and sadness. “You almost died trying to save me. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t even be here.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, and she pressed her cheek against it. “Thank you,” she said again.

“Thanks for helping to get us out of there, kid,” Jones said to Cole. Cole gave him a shy nod, looked down at the ground as though he were embarrassed.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Jones said.

The boy glanced up at him quickly, startled. “For me?”

“I saw your mother today.”

Cole leaned forward. Jones saw how young he was then. Teenagers looked like grown-ups sometimes. They occupied such an awkward, uncomfortable space between childhood and adulthood. In that moment, wet and scared, Cole Carr looked far closer to boyhood than manhood. “My mom? Where?”

“I thought you told us your mom was in Iraq,” said Jolie. Willow shushed her.

Cole stood up. “Where did you see her?”

A young man walked up behind Jones and wrapped a blanket around him. The paramedics and other officers had clambered down the hill and were forming a group around Chuck. The dark night was filled with light and voices.

“Sir, you should have a seat,” the paramedic said. Jones recognized him from his time on the job but couldn’t place his name. He looked just like Ricky, with spiky dark hair and a ring in his nose.

“Okay,” said Jones. “In a second.”

Between breaths he told Cole about his mother, where she was and what had happened. Jones told Cole how much his mother missed him and wanted him to come home. He thought the boy would cry, but he didn’t. He just looked at the ground and hunched his shoulders forward in a protective stance.

“Do you want to go back to her, son?”

“I do,” he said. “I want to go back to my mom.”

“I’m going to take you to her,” Jones said. “Do you know where your father is?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. I think he went looking for my stepmother. She’s been gone for a couple of days.”

“Did he know where she was?” Jones felt a surge of fear for Paula.

“I don’t know. He was watching her credit card online, to see if she charged anything.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t know.”

Jones put his hand into a jacket pocket filled with water and retrieved his phone, which was ruined. He stared at it, helpless. Then he let the paramedic lead him over to a large, flat rock, where he sat while the young man shone a penlight in his eyes. Above him the thick cloud cover that had persisted for days preceding the rain was breaking apart, and Jones could see the white of the moon. He called Chuck over and told him about Paula.

“I’m going to get someone on it right now,” Chuck said.

“I’ve got a contact at the credit bureau who’s been watching her card for me,” he said. Jones gave Chuck the name.

“I know Jack,” said Chuck. “We’ll find her.”

“Find her fast,” said Jones. He kept looking up at the path, expecting to see Henry and Bethany. But no one came. What was taking them so long?

“How did you wind up in the middle of all this, Jones?” said Chuck. “I thought you retired.”

But Jones didn’t get a chance to answer, because Chuck’s call went through. He walked off, and Jones heard him inquiring about Paula Carr’s credit-card charges. Jones heard Chuck say, “Jones Cooper said he was working with you.”

Eloise walked toward him.

“You like it,” said Eloise. “All of this. You’re happier today, having nearly drowned, than you were the day I first came to see you.”

He was about to argue with her. But what was the point? “I guess we all have our calling. This happens to be mine.”

“I know what you mean.”

He watched her then. She looked as small as a child in her big rain slicker. Her hair was matted with the wet. The lines on her face were as deep and dark as valleys. But he noticed for the first time that there was a light to her skin, an odd youthfulness. She seemed lit from within. He remembered the pictures he’d seen in her home from a time when she was young and happy. He could still see that prettiness in her. He’d Googled Eloise. He knew now that she’d lost her husband and child in a terrible accident, nearly died herself. He knew now that people from all over the world consulted her on their cases, for the sight that seemed to come after surviving the car wreck. He found himself with a grudging respect for her.