Alix Ohlin - The Missing Person

“You can let us out if you want,” Berto said. In the rearview mirror I could see his glum, jowly face. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. If you’re, like, having doubts.”

“Berto,” Irina said.

“I’m just saying, man, she doesn’t have to come.”

“I want to be here.” And as I said it, I realized it was true. I wanted to know if they could get away with it, what would happen after, what conceivable difference any of it could make.

“We don’t even know her,” Berto blurted from the back. “Remember that last chick Angus brought along, Tiffany, when we were trying to break into the computer-chip plant that time? She was freakin’ crazy, man, running around screaming her head off about how we should free the planet, free the animals from the zoo, free the children from the schools. And Wylie was all ‘Shut that woman up!’”

“Berto,” Irina said.

“But Angus just laughed, ’cause he thought it was funny, right, like everything’s funny? Me and Wylie had to drag her away in the end, man.”

“This is different,” Irina said.

“How is it different?” Berto said. He saw me in the rearview mirror and looked away. “Nothing against you, like, specifically or anything.”

“It’s different,” Irina said sweetly, “because this is Lynn.”

Gratitude surged through me, and I turned to her and smiled. Psyche garbled her agreement. I caught Berto’s eye again, and held it. “I’m Wylie’s sister,” I told him.

The van finally pulled to the curb on a street canopied by a tall line of elms and serene with wealth. Porch lights glowed on the faces of tall, gabled houses, reflecting off large, gleaming vehicles parked in the driveways and casting faint circles on lush green lawns. I parked a few feet back and cut the engine. It was almost one in the morning, and I wondered if everybody else had taken naps. Angus, Wylie, and Stan were scurrying across someone’s front yard, keeping to the shadows, carrying a small blue machine I guessed was a pump. Berto scrambled out the back and set off after them, and soon they were climbing a fence at the side of the house, clanging the pump against it, a terrible noise. Down the street, a dog issued a warning howl.

“This is going to end badly,” I said.

“Everything will be fine,” Irina said. She got out of the car and stood beneath the trees, her two hands clasped beneath the base of the sling, and I joined her. In the driveway was a small, sporty Miata.

“Why this house, anyway?” I asked her. I could hear the sound of splashing, Berto cursing, Wylie hissing at him to shut up.

“All these families have two cars at the minimum,” she explained. “Usually one is a large SUV.”

“What if that’s parked in the garage and everybody’s home?”

Irina frowned. “I am thinking this has been part of Wylie’s research. Also the lights.” She reached into the sling and pulled out a piece of graph paper, a chart filled with scratchy handwriting I recognized as Wylie’s. Here he’d listed addresses, the presence of cars and their makes, the times lights went on and off.

“When the house lights follow the same pattern every day, that is when you know they’re on a timer,” Irina said. “And that no one is in the home.”

“Clever,” I said.

She beamed at me. “Yes!”

Then, from the backyard, I suddenly heard water rushing like a river. Glancing at my watch, I couldn’t understand why Irina wasn’t more nervous. Berto emerged from the shadows and fetched something from the back of the van, then dashed off again. It seemed like hours later when Angus and Wylie reappeared, carrying the pump between them, grinning like maniacs.

“Man,” Wylie said, “I wish we had more than one pump.”

“Only so much I could do,” Angus said.

Berto stuck a sign — this was what he’d pulled out of the van, an unfolded piece of cardboard taped to a little wooden cross — into the front lawn: DESERT, it said, in black marker.

Everybody was happy now. We drove on in a convoy to another house, where Irina and I set up at our posts again, the Caprice and the van parked in a cul-de-sac just around the corner. I was almost starting to enjoy myself when the problems started. I was listening to the loud suctioning of the pump — relieved that the houses were spread far apart — when there was a sudden crash, followed by whispers and soft laughter that clearly came from Angus. Berto came running around for some tool in the car, and I asked him what had happened.

“Something got stuck in the pump, man,” he said. “I don’t know why these assholes just let their kids leave toys in the pool.”

“Yeah, that’s really inconsiderate,” I muttered as he ran back. They were making an unbelievable amount of noise, and I wasn’t surprised when the lights in the house next door came on. “We need to get out of here,” I said, pacing around the car, trying to figure out how long it would take for everybody to pile into the vehicles and clear out of here. “Can you make the baby cry or something?”

“I am trying,” Irina said.

All she was doing, from what I could tell, was jiggling Psyche up and down. I paced over to her and shook the base of the sling. “What are you doing? Pinch her or something. Pinch her!”

Irina swiveled around, her back to me, and scowled over her shoulder. “She will cry in a minute. You keep away from her.”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling myself flush. “I’m panicking.”

Next door a middle-aged man in gray sweatpants and an NMSU T-shirt came out, squinting into the dark street. He looked to me like he was trying hard not to act frightened. I imagined his wife inside, goading him to see what the trouble was.

Irina didn’t bat an eye but ran right up to him, Psyche cutting loose with an angry screech.

“Excuse me, sir,” Irina said breathlessly, “I am having troubles. Can you help me please?”

He took one look at her pretty face and her crying baby and his expression softened.

I ran around the other side of the house into the backyard, hissing to Wylie that people were waking up. Angus was holding a long hose, from which enormous quantities of water were gushing out onto the lawn. The air stank of chlorine.

“We’re almost done,” Wylie said.

“We don’t have time.”

“Go back and start the car.”

“Hurry up, ” I said.

“The pump only goes so fast,” Angus said, not even bothering to whisper. He looked completely unconcerned. I could hear Psyche in the front, sobbing now, and Irina’s voice rising alongside hers. I hoped she was a good liar. Then I heard the neighbor say, loudly, “Maybe we should call the police,” as Irina protested—“No! Please, no police, I beg you!”—and I turned to Wylie again.

“I’m leaving,” I said, “in the car. And unless you want to get arrested, you’ll come too. Time’s up,” I said, “ now. ”

Everybody scurried into the cul-de-sac. Irina said to the neighbor, “No, the police cannot help us,” and her voice was as vexed and fretful as any wife’s; then she spun around, hurried down the sidewalk, and ducked into the shadows beside me.

Somehow I drove — suspended in a kind of adrenaline calm — and fifteen minutes later pulled into an empty strip-mall parking lot, with Wylie, Irina, and the baby in the backseat. The car reeked of chlorine and wet clothes. Psyche had stopped crying, and everything was silent.

My heartbeat was loud in my ears, but I let out a long breath — it felt like the first I’d taken in a long time — and then I started to laugh. “That was crazy,” I said. I glanced at Wylie, expecting to see him laughing too, but he was fidgeting and looking back and forth from Irina to me, his eyebrows twisted in thought.