Lisa Unger - Smoke

“I want Lily Samuels and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get her back,” Matt said, leaning into Templar, putting his face so close to the lawyer that he could smell his cologne. He felt Jesamyn’s hand on his arm.

“Mount-” she started, looking uneasily at Templar and then back at him, but he lifted a hand.

“Be careful, Detective,” said Templar. “Be very careful.”

Templar reached for the phone he’d left on the desk, never taking his eyes off Matt. “I’ll wait outside until you’re done with your pointless, fruitless search. But our conversation is officially over. And, if you don’t stay away from me, so is your pathetic career.”

Matt pointed to the ceiling. “The roof,” he said. “Right the fuck off.”

Templar turned his back and left.

“Take it easy, Mount,” whispered Jez. “You coming unglued or what?”

He looked at her and she had genuine worry in her eyes.

“She was here,” he said to her. “I can feel it. She’s still alive.”

Jesamyn stared at him, opened her mouth like she was going to say something and then clamped it shut. They stared at each other for a second.

“If she was here, if she’s still alive, we’ll find her,” she said, her voice soothing and sure.

“How?” he yelled, causing Jesamyn to jump a little in surprise. “There’s nothing here. We’re too late.”

He looked at her a second, felt briefly bad for yelling at her, and then turned his back and walked away toward the breezeway. After a second, he heard her running after him.

“Maybe not,” she said. “You have to talk to some of these people.”

“Why,” he said, turning. “You got something?”

“I don’t know. They seem normal enough at first. But the longer you talk to them, the weirder they get. Mount, there’s something wrong with these people. Something really wrong with them.”

Usually when people woke up in a room with Dax, there was some kind of a powerful reaction. But Charley opened his eyes, registered Dax’s presence, and was as placid as a lamb. He sat up on the cot they’d placed him on, taking the ice pack off his face, and asked politely for some water. Dax complied.

“How are you feeling, Charley?” Dax asked when he returned with a frosty bottle of water. He removed the lid and handed it to Charley.

“Not very well,” he answered. He drank gingerly, as if the action pained him. “My head hurts.”

Charley looked like a raccoon. His eyes were so purple and swollen that Dax was surprised he could even open his lids. The ridge on his nose told Dax that Charley’s nose was broken and that he’d never be quite as pretty again.

“So let’s have a little chat,” said Dax, straddling a chair he’d placed beside the cot. Charley slid back on the cot, rested his back against the bare white wall and pulled his legs into a half-lotus position, as if nothing could please him more than having a little chat. He gave Dax a peaceful half-smile.

“Let’s start with the fact that your name’s not Charley,” said Dax, softly. “It’s James. James Rainer.”

Charley blinked slowly. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “My name is Charley.”

“Your name is James Rainer, known as Jamie to your friends. You’re twenty-two years old and were reported missing by your parents eight months ago. You were last seen leaving a party at the Tribeca loft belonging to your girlfriend. You were angry, upset, drunk.”

Two more long, slow blinks. He said calmly, “You’re mistaken.”

“Okay,” said Dax. “You tell me then, friend. Where were you born?”

He shook his head quickly and answered without hesitation.

“My New Day dawned on April 3rd of this year. I am reborn as the Universe intended me, free of attachments and addictions.”

Dax looked at him. Charley was calm, certain of his statement, his half-smile unwavering. He looked at Dax with clear blue eyes beneath the purple shiners. His skin had a milky quality to it and it was pulled taut over a jutting collarbone, shoulder knobs that pressed through the cotton on his tunic, pronounced cheekbones. His hands looked skeletal.

“And before that?”

“There is nothing before that.” He lifted a bony hand and ran it through his silky blonde hair; it fell like sand through his fingers. Dax saw Charley’s eyes shift down and to the right, as they tend to when a person is trying to remember something or to make sense of a confusing situation. There was something delicate, effeminate about him.

Dax smiled kindly, slid his chair in a little closer.

“Your girlfriend, Amanda Knight, told police that on the night you disappeared you admitted to her that you were gay. That the relationship you’d been carrying on with her was more of a sham for your parents than anything. And though you cared for her as a friend, you didn’t love her in the way she loved you.

“You told her, James, in a room full of the friends you shared, that the only way you could become aroused with her was to imagine that she was another man. You were drunk at the time, James, terribly drunk and furious with her, with yourself, with your parents. Friends tried to stop you from leaving, but you fought them off. They never saw you again.”

A slight quiver had started on Charley’s bottom lip.

“Do you remember?”

“You are mistaken.”

Dax waited a second and listened as Charley’s breathing became labored.

“I don’t know how you heard about The New Day,” Dax said, keeping his voice measured and calm. “Maybe the Internet, maybe an ad on the subway. But to someone who was as lost, as headlong into personal crisis as you were, James, it must have seemed like a safe haven. Maybe you went to them. Maybe they came to you.”

Charley didn’t say anything right away. His eyes had taken on a kind of glazed-over look, like he had disappeared into himself.

“I was lost,” he said. “I walked blindly for so long trying to make sense of all my pain. And then The New Day dawned. Everything that came before is darkness, like the time before birth.”

His words had the practiced quality of a mantra. He knew them by rote, like he’d spoken them a thousand times. Dax let a few beats pass before talking again.

“About two weeks after you dropped out of your life, you showed up at the bank and withdrew all your money. Cashed in your CDs and money market accounts, cleared out your savings and checking. You had quite a bit of money for a young guy, between a trust from your wealthy uncle and the money you were raking in as a trader on Wall Street. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars. You took a cashier’s check when they couldn’t give you cash.”

“I have no need for money any longer. It’s a drug, you only want more and more. There’s never enough, there’s nothing you won’t do for it. We’re junkies for the green stuff, all of us.”

Dax took a picture from his pocket and handed it to Charley. It was a picture of Mickey with his girlfriend Mariah.

“Do you know these people?”

Charley laid his eyes on the photo briefly and shook his head. He tried to rub his eyes then pulled his hand away quickly and groaned at the pain he caused himself. He reached for the ice pack that lay beside him and put it back to his forehead. Dax thought it was notable that the kid never once asked where he was, who Dax was, or what the hell had happened to his head. He seemed to accept his surroundings and situation without question.

“How about this girl?” Dax asked, handing him another photo, this time of Lily Samuels. Another quick shake of his head, a shift of the eyes.

“I’m tired,” he said.

“Okay, James. I’m going to give you a little time to think.”

He walked over to the table that sat in the center of the room and took the article he’d printed off the Internet, complete with a picture of James Rainer. He placed it next to Charley on the cot.