Mike Omer - In the Darkness

“You think she was taken like Nicole Medina, near her home?”

Lyons shrugged. “Maribel Howe wasn’t Nicole Medina. She was twenty-two, lived alone. Her friend told us she hated this city, hated her job, always talked about leaving. She didn’t get along with her parents; she left home when she was eighteen. And she disappeared soon after two of the detectives from the division had retired, so we were seriously understaffed. I’m not saying I stopped searching, but I had half a dozen cases to juggle, and when push came to shove, it was easy to assume she just decided to skip town.”

Lyons put her half-eaten chocolate doughnut back in the box. “I checked her Instagram page occasionally,” she said after a few seconds, her voice thick. “She used to update it all the time . Like, a few photos every day. But after she went missing, there was nothing.” She took out her phone, tapped it a few times, and handed it to Zoe.

It was Maribel’s Instagram account, and the last image was from July 29. Maribel and another girl, smiling at the camera, their heads tilted slightly toward each other. The caption read, “Alexander Skarsgard, here we come.”

Zoe glanced at Lyons. “Who’s Alexander—”

“Hot movie actor.”

Maribel was beautiful. She was one of those girls who knew how to put on makeup so it looked effortless and perfect, her lips glistening red, long thick eyelashes that seemed almost natural, her black hair cut short and pixie-like. She wore a strapless green top and had a mischievous smile, as if hinting that when Alexander finally met her, he’d forget about Hollywood and move to San Angelo.

“Her mother still calls me every week,” Lyons said. “She wants an update, and I have nothing. But you know what I think now?”

Zoe didn’t answer.

Lyons’s eyes were misty. “I think she’s buried somewhere around here.”

Delia Howe was doing the dishes, scrubbing furiously. Every day the same thing, Frank with his damn bacon and eggs. She kept telling him to rinse the dish once he was done. It’s not rocket science. You put the dish half a second under the faucet, and that’s it. But she was lucky if he even bothered to put the plate in the sink once he was done. And by the time she got to it, the egg leftovers hardened, becoming a discolored yellow stain, and she had to scrub it endlessly to get it off the plate. Tomorrow, she’d let Frank eat off a dirty dish; maybe he’d finally get the damn message.

He probably wouldn’t even notice. She shook her head, her lips pressed to a fine line.

Frank was hardly even talking to her since Maribel had disappeared. He acted as if it was all her fault. Her fault Maribel had left home. Her fault Maribel didn’t watch out for herself. Her fault that—

The plate she was washing hit the edge of the sink hard, with all the force of Delia’s angry scrubbing. It cracked and split into three pieces. Delia clutched a third of the plate, a triangular pie-shaped fragment, and for a moment, just gaped at it stupidly.

Then she noticed the blood running from her palm. Mixing with the soapsuds and the water, a pink trickle of blood dripping on the sink.

She let go of the plate and wrapped her hand with a nearby towel, which quickly turned red. Her palm tingled with pain, but she didn’t mind. Pain had become a friend these recent weeks. Pain drove the hollowness away.

A knock on the door. She trudged over and opened it. Detective Lyons stood on the welcome mat, her expression severe. An unfamiliar woman stood by her. Another detective? Delia had been discouraged when she’d found out that a woman had investigated her daughter’s disappearance. Sure, women were great, and they deserved equality and all that. But it was basic evolution, wasn’t it? Men were hunters; women were gatherers. She wanted a hunter to find her daughter.

And now here was another woman involved. Perfect.

“Detective Lyons,” she said dryly. “What a surprise.”

She could inject meaning to her words like the best of them. What a surprise , in this case, meant she knew that the police didn’t take the disappearance of her daughter seriously. Half the questions they’d asked her had been if Maribel had a reason to leave town without telling her. As if Maribel would just disappear.

“Any news about Maribel?” she asked after a second. Because she couldn’t not ask it. Because even after all these weeks, after all the false hopes and deep disappointments, she still dared to have faith.

Two weeks ago, her cousin had called her to tell her he’d seen Maribel in New York. She worked as a clerk in the nearby supermarket. Delia hadn’t even asked her cousin to make sure, to send her a photo. She’d bought plane tickets and was about to fly over when her cousin had called again apologizing. He’d been sure it was Maribel. But it had been a trick of the light.

She hadn’t been able to get a refund on the flight tickets. Frank was probably furious about the tickets’ price, but he hadn’t said anything.

“No,” Lyons said. “Not yet. I’m sorry. Mrs. Howe, this is Zoe Bentley, from the FBI.”

Delia blinked and regarded Bentley. The FBI? The woman didn’t look like she was from the FBI. She was short and thin, her cheeks pink. Her neck was so scrawny it could probably break with one twist.

Her eyes, though—for a second Delia found herself staring into the woman’s eyes. Then she looked away, her heart pounding. What was the FBI doing here? Was this about Maribel?

“Mrs. Howe, can we come in and—are you okay? You’re bleeding!”

For a second Delia glanced down at her shirt, as if the dull hollow throb in her chest had finally developed into a bleeding wound. But no, the detective was talking about her hand. “I’m fine,” she said, taking a step back, gesturing for them to come inside. “I cut myself on a broken plate.”

“Let me see that,” the fed said, and before Delia could react, she grabbed her hand, removing the towel. It was a long gash, and Delia stared at it vacantly, then realized it was near the burn marks, and she snatched her hand away.

“It’s nothing.” Had the woman seen the marks?

“You should put some disinfectant on that,” Bentley said.

“Are you here about Maribel?” Delia resisted the urge to hide the hand behind her back.

“Yes,” Bentley answered. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about her.”

Lyons shut the door behind her and walked past Delia to the living room. Delia followed her, feeling out of place in her own house. She vindictively decided not to offer them anything to drink. Lyons took the armchair, and Bentley sat on one side of the couch, leaving the other side for Delia. It was the only place left to sit, and Delia took it, made uncomfortable by the close proximity of the fed.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Did your daughter go out a lot?”

“She went out sometimes,” Delia answered guardedly. “She isn’t some sort of slut, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything, Mrs. Howe. She went out with friends? In the evening?”

“I guess so. She doesn’t live here anymore. She has her own home.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she’s stubborn. I told her endless times to come back. I didn’t want her out of the house.”

“Why did she leave in the first place?”

“We argued a lot. She said we were . . . that I was driving her insane. I was just looking out for her.” The arguments popped in Delia’s mind, like they often did lately. She and Maribel couldn’t seem to agree on anything . The way Maribel dressed, the people she met, the way she kept staying out late. They often argued about food. She’d tell Maribel to slow down, not to eat too much, to watch her figure, and Maribel would suddenly lose her temper. Or she’d talk nicely about Jackie’s daughter and how thin she was, and Maribel would flip out, as if she’d said it to make a point. If Maribel had only listened, if she’d have been less sensitive about everything . . .