J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“You found him, so it was your fault?”

“Yeah.” He rolled his palms up on the steering wheel in a sort of baffled partial shrug. “We weren’t even friends. Still. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to brush my teeth that night.”

All I needed. Goading parables by innocent savants. “Who is it you think I can save, College Boy?”

He didn’t answer.

I stared out the window into the dark and the ghost of my own reflection.

Ainsley looked over at me, once, twice. Obviously, he wasn’t done.

“What?”

“Remember how you said, what we see when we look at something is ourselves? I can’t help wondering what an Amish person looks like to you.” He sounded curious, hardly flustered by my bad attitude.

We were still a good twenty minutes from civilization, such as you’ll find between a television station and suburbia. Street lights were few and far between but the autumn moon was fat and high. I could see the stumps of a broken, harvested field whip past my window and the darker ruffle of trees beyond. Farther out, almost at the horizon, I could see the glowing creep of monochrome homes, all constructed in the same shape like a Monopoly game run amok.

Empty farm land, or expanding home land, I’m not sure which image depressed me more. Without a disaster or a battle underway, I didn’t belong in either scene.

I never did answer him.

None of his damn business, anyway.

12:06:38 a.m.

Stupid bitch! What was she thinking? An open confrontation where anyone could see? Anyone could be watching?

He popped the glovebox and pulled out one of the blister packs he stashed for himself. He clutched the tablet in his hand and stared out the window at the darkened house.

What if a patrol car had rolled up in the middle of her little demonstration?

That’s all he needed. Curzon was all over him now for bullshitting his way onto the police lot to search Tom’s car. If Curzon had the slightest reason to think he was linked to Maddy O’Hara, there’d be a shit storm of questions.

He would have it out with Maddy O’Hara when he was ready.

Right now, he needed to find the things that belonged to him. He’d searched everywhere he could think, anywhere even remotely possible. He was nearly out of time.

Had he missed something when he searched Tom’s apartment? Unfortunately, that fat-assed VFD building super of Tom’s hadn’t called with the heads-up until after O’Hara and her gay boyfriend were already in there. She’d looked so satisfied, so fucking smug when she walked out. It made him itch to floor the accelerator again. He wasn’t going to run her down or anything, just put the fear of God into her. Remind her that everything can change in a second, just press a button and boom!

Christ, his head was pounding! He got out of the car and walked toward the house. He needed to calm down. Get on track. He tightened his grip on the tablet in his hand.

There were no street lights in the neighborhood and the light by the front door was on a timer. He’d watched it blink off a while ago. Nothing but dark out there.

There was a garden hose hanging near the garage door. The faucet squealed when he opened the valve. The rush of flowing water could probably be heard inside the house. It might even wake someone. He popped the pill and drank from the hose.

No lights came on. No one woke.

He stared at the empty windows, mapping the house in his head: bathroom, bedroom, another bedroom. That’s when he realized-there was someone who could help him, someone who would know Gina’s hiding places.

Jenny.

3:19:06 a.m.

Must have been close to 3 a.m. when Jenny came screaming awake. She hadn’t done it in a while, but I was on my feet and in her room before my head recognized what was happening.

“Don’t go! Don’t go. Don’t go.” Eyes popping with fear, she leapt out of the bed into my arms, half football tackle, half baby monkey in long-john pajamas.

“Easy, Jenny. Easy.” My hand went up and down her back on autopilot. She’d lost weight since I’d come. I could feel the vertebra of her spine. It gave me a hollow, sinking feeling.

I forced myself to speak softly. “Calm down. I’m here. I’m here.”

Clutching my T-shirt in her hands, the rest of her body relaxed. I stretched out beside her on the bed. My heart was thudding hard with the adrenaline rush of being woken from a sound sleep by terror. Jenny didn’t seem to notice. When my hand began to prickle from a lack of blood circulation, I pulled back slightly to shift her weight and she mewled a cry of despair that didn’t stop until I had my arm around her again.

We lay glued together most of the night, while I listened to her sleep and wrestled my familiar demons of fight and flight to the mat.

All I’d ever done was watch and point. I’d never had to fix anything.

Insecurities never hit harder than when they’re spliced into the black between dreams. Over and over, my head played an endless loop of mortification, you are fucking up. You are blowing it. Do something.

“Be okay,” I ordered Jenny through the darkness. “Please be okay.”

VIDEO AUDIO

Doctor Graham (log 2) small office. If you take a young teen, pull them out of school, concentrate their world experience into farm life, marriage and parenthood-it fundamentally changes the possibilities of their future.

Wide shot Amish family selling veggies, Centennial Park; boy licks ice cream. The life that looks like happiness to them will have a certain shape.

9:23:14 a.m.

“Good thing we worked so hard to make up with the sheriff yesterday,” Ainsley remarked. Our feet crunched on the crushed stone as we marched up the long driveway.

I was surprised he got out of the van at all, after the stink he’d thrown. “Why?”

“After they arrest us, Curzon’ll have to go easy on us.”

Worst thing first, is my motto. Quick stop at the office and back out this morning, straight to a visit at the Jost farm. Farmers kept early hours, right? I shifted the binocular box under my arm to the other side.

“You think?”

“He certainly won’t want to tell his granny he just put his new girlfriend in jail.”

“Right,” I drawled. “Quit your whining. It’s not like Uncle Richie would let you rot.”

“He would if Mom told him to.” Ainsley made it sound likely. “If Jost calls the police, I’m running for the truck.”

“How’s he gonna call the police, College Boy? He’s got to go all the way out to the phone hut on the other side of the yard. Give us plenty of time to sprint to our get-away vehicle. Not that we’ll need to,” I added with all the shiny confidence of a well-practiced bluff.

“Don’t remind me. I cannot run on an empty stomach.”

Ainsley hadn’t been employed long enough to realize Monday is the work day most likely to exceed safe-living speeds.

I had a list that started at my hairline and ended where my trouser-cuff broke. We’d managed to finagle another interview with the Amish psychologist, so I could ask her about Rachel Jost’s situation. We needed to squeeze in another attempt to speak with Pat-the-fireman. And I had a conference call with New York scheduled, along with rumors of another GM visit.

Ainsley’s to-do list seemed to hold one item at a time. Currently, it read doughnuts.

“Tell you what. If there’s time, we’ll get doughnuts before we hit the hospital.”

“If we have time?” he said. “We had time to run Jenny to school.”

It was still early and I was feeling mature, so I chose not to shoot back. Points for me.