CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The kitchen shrank around me as I stared out the window. The woman on the phone hadn’t been able to offer me any more information. She swore to me that Seth had not been called to active duty.
And I believed her. There was no reason not to.
Beyond that, I didn’t know what to think. None of it made sense.
A flash of the morning in Seth’s bed came back to me. Tangled up with him in the sheets… and then in the car, his eyes glistening with tears. He hadn’t wanted to go.
So why had he?
His pain over leaving had been real. I’d felt it. I hadn’t imagined it.
And yet he’d still left. But where to? And why had he lied about it?
I’d dropped him off and driven away, crying and wiping tears from my eyes. Meanwhile, he what? Waited for me to disappear so he could sneak back outside? All the while I was being torn in half.
And he’d let me feel that way. He’d let me go through that pain.
No, a voice from deep inside said. He didn’t want to hurt you.
Something else was going on. Seth had plans he hadn’t shared. The story about Afghanistan, the emails, even the picture. Were they all part of a carefully concocted plan to cover up the truth?
If so, his falling out of touch hadn’t been part of the plan.
I wrote Phil back, telling him it was important and giving him my number.
Because I couldn’t bear to wait around for his call, I grabbed my laptop, settled in on the couch and started doing some detective work. I didn’t know Seth’s mother’s last name, but perhaps she hadn’t changed it after getting divorced. There was a small chance she still went by Allman.
Ellen Allman.
I did a few searches for her number or an address. Nothing.
“Damn it,” I cursed, furiously hitting the mouse.
There was only one choice. If I wanted to talk to Seth’s mom, I would have to find her. Somehow, I would have to remember the route to her house. I knew the exit, but beyond that, I was at a loss.
I licked my lips, thinking hard. Seth had driven us there, and it had been at night. Everything would look different during the day. There was a big possibility that I might not find Ellen’s house.
But I had to try.
“Come on, Starlet. We’re going for a ride.”
She ran eagerly to the front door, all wagging tail and ignorance, the dire quality of the situation completely lost on her.
I gripped the steering wheel as I drove, focused on nothing other than getting out of Chicago. When I finally got to the right exit, I relaxed a bit. This was the right town. I knew that much.
The exit ramp took me to a stop sign. I hit the brakes and looked desperately in both directions. Which way?
I closed my eyes, took myself back to that night. I’d been on my phone when Seth took the exit, writing an email to Stafford Scientific. But when the car stopped I’d looked up.
My eyes flew open. Right. We had turned right.
I went slowly down the road, studying the scenery around me. Houses close to the road. A shopping center. I found myself on downtown streets, which wasn’t right. I would have noticed if Seth and I had driven through a downtown area.
Pulling into a driveway, I turned around and headed back in the direction of the highway. Coming back, everything looked different, and it was even harder to remember what street we’d turned on.
Then I saw it. Magnolia. A flash came back to me. I remembered the name of the street because I loved the smell of magnolias. When I was a kid, I would visit my grandparents in South Carolina and climb up in the big magnolia tree in their back yard.
Nearly ecstatic, I turned onto Magnolia Street. Now I knew where I was. I was almost certain of it. One block and then a right…
There it was. The two-story brick house.
“Yes,” I hissed. “Thank God.”
There were no cars in the driveway, but the garage was closed. I pulled into the drive and rolled the window down slightly for Starlet.
“Stay here, girl,” I told her. “Be right back.”
Leaving her in the car, I ran to the front door and knocked. Starlet whined from the car, wanting me to come back. I knocked again, this time as loud as I could. I waited another minute. Maybe Ellen was in the shower and on her way out. I knocked again.
“Shit.”
Jumping off the porch, I jogged to the garage door. If I stood on my tiptoes, I could just see in through the little windows. The garage was empty. Ellen wasn’t home.
I took a deep breath to center myself. That was all right. She probably went out to do some errands or something. Or maybe she was at work. Seth had never told me what she did, so I had no clue whether she was retired, working a regular nine-to-five job, or what.
I would wait.
I got Starlet out of the car and walked her down the block a bit, not going so far that I couldn’t see Ellen’s house.
As we walked back toward my car, the front door of the house next to Ellen’s opened. An older woman carrying a trash bag came out and ambled toward the curb.
“Excuse me,” I called.
She looked around in confusion then spotted me and waved. Starlet and I jogged up to her.
“Hi,” I smiled. “Let me help you with that.” I took the bag that probably weighed twice as much as her and tossed it into the trash bin.
“Thank you.” She smiled, but I could tell she was wondering just what the hell I was doing.
“My name is Quinn,” I started. “Do you know the woman who lives next door to you? She’s Ellen, my boyfriend’s mother.”
A spark lit in the woman’s eyes. “Oh, yes! Of course I know Ellen. That’s so sweet that you’re dating Jeff.”
I didn’t correct her. “Do you know when she might be home?”
The woman’s eyes and mouth both went wide. “Oh, now… she won’t be home for days. She went on a trip to Pennsylvania. Or Connecticut. I don’t really know,, honey. She went to visit her sister.”
My stomach fell all the way to my feet. “Do you know how to get in touch with her?”
She shook her head. “No, honey, I’m sorry I don’t. Ellen doesn’t need anyone to take care of her house.” She chuckled slightly. “There are no plants or animals in there as far as I can tell.”
I rammed my hand up in the back of my hair and clutched at my hair line. I was seriously about to lose my mind. This poor old woman did not need to be a witness to it.
“Can I give you my number?” I asked. “Just in case she comes home early or something? Or whenever that is, as soon as you see her, will you please tell her to call me?”
“Sure, honey. Sure thing.”
I ran to my car for a scrap piece of paper and wrote down my number, as well as a quick note stating that the matter was extremely important, then handed the message over. I watched as the woman shuffled back into her house, then went back to my car, wrote the message a second time and slipped it under Ellen’s door. Better safe than sorry. I couldn’t let this whole situation rest on the shoulders of one older lady who may or may not remember to give Ellen my note.
With nothing left to do, Starlet and I left, burning rubber all the way back to Chicago. Phil still hadn’t gotten in touch with me, and the only emails in my inbox were work related.
There was one more person I could try to get in touch with, and it was a long shot. At that point, it was the only one I had.
At home, I rushed into the kitchen and turned my laptop on. My fingers flew on the keys as I performed Google search after Google search. All I had were the smallest clues to go by. The town Seth grew up in. His full name.
A few articles from high school popped up, mentioning Seth’s name as part of a winning basketball team. I scanned them, looking for more. The last person who could bring me any hope was Seth’s dad, but I didn’t even know the man’s name.
Which — considering I was Seth’s girlfriend — suddenly seemed so weird. Things between us had transpired so fast. We hadn’t planned for a catastrophe, hadn’t set things up for an emergency in the life we suddenly shared together.
Because he had a secret life. Whatever it was Seth hid, it had pulled him away from me. As tormented as he was over his relationship with his father, he’d never once said the man’s name in my presence.
Finally, I found it. Mention of his father as one of Seth’s high school basketball team’s benefactors. Colin Allman.
“Colin Allman, Colin Allman,” I repeated over and over as I did another search. Seth had said he was something akin to a drifter, never staying in one place for long.
In between digging for contact info, I periodically checked my Facebook and phone. Nothing from Phil.
The time was slipping by, Seth getting further and further away from me.
Then, finally! I found it. A number for his father. A Chicago one at that.
Praying the digits still belonged to Colin, I made the call.
“Hello?”
I nearly cried out from relief, having been half afraid no one would answer. “Is this Colin Allman?”
A pause. “Who is this?”
“Sir, my name is Quinn Laurent. I’m calling about Seth. He’s… he’s gone missing.”
“Are you from the police?”
“No, sir. I’m his… girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Another long pause. “That’s right… I remember your name now. He mentioned you.”
“Really?” The news surprised me. I had assumed Seth and his father didn’t schmooze over personal stuff. “Have you talked to him at all in the last couple weeks?”
“No,” he said, then cleared his throat.
I paused to collect myself. I could sense the man’s mood through the line, and it wasn’t a good one. I needed to tread carefully around him, or I might lose him. At the moment, Colin was my last hope for finding out any information.
“I’m worried about Seth,” I explained. “He left a couple weeks ago. He told me he was being deployed to Afghanistan. You saw him about three weeks ago, right? Did he say anything about this to you?”
“Seth doesn’t tell me much of anything, Miss Laurent.”
I bit my bottom lip. “I got in touch with the army, and they told me Seth hasn’t been deployed. He’s gone off somewhere else, and I don’t know where. I’m worried about him. That weekend before… he didn’t seem right. Something was bothering him.”
The weekend he saw you, I wanted to say, but couldn’t. I didn’t want Colin to think I blamed him for Seth’s vanishing.
Colin sighed. “All right. How about you and I meet somewhere? We can discuss this further.”
“You really don’t know where he could be? There’s nothing you can tell me right now?”
“I’d rather speak in person.”
I shut my eyes and took a moment. No one, it seemed, took this issue as seriously as I did. “Okay,” I said. “All right. Are you in Chicago right now?”
“I am.”
“There’s this bar named Reparations.”
I gave him the address, and we agreed to meet there in a couple of hours, right when it opened. Though Rory’s workplace was a bar, it could also pass as a pub since it served a limited menu of fried foods. I picked the place because Rory was working the early shift and, no matter what went down, I would need the emotional support of one of my friends.
I got to Reparations fifteen minutes early. Rory was just pulling the last of the stools down from the counters.
“Hey,” she said, clearly surprised to see me.
“Hi.”
“Have you heard from...”
“No,” I answered tartly. She knew all about Seth’s going MIA, but I’d yet to tell her or my other friends about the rest of it. “He’s not in Afghanistan.” I nearly sobbed.
Rory’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about? He came home?”
I shook my head and pushed down the pain. This was not the time to break down. Not when Seth’s dad would be walking through the door any minute with, hopefully, answers. “No, it’s not that at all. I called the army, and he wasn’t deployed. I don’t know where he is, Rory.”
“Oh my God.” She looped her arms around me and pulled me close. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” I said into her shoulder. “But something’s up. He didn’t want to leave, but he had to.” I pulled back and wiped tears. “I think he went off somewhere because… I don’t know. I just don’t know. He was writing me these emails, and now he’s not. I’m meeting his dad here to see if he knows anything.”
“Okay. Let me know if I can help. Don’t worry. We’ll find him. We’ll get through this.”
I nodded sullenly and sat in one of the tall booths, making sure I had a good view of the front door. A middle-aged couple entered and sat at the bar, then a young man in a suit. The door opened for a third time, and I recognized Colin right away. Not only did he have the same build and thick brown hair as Seth, he also possessed the same stoic quality in his eyes. He wasn’t as fit, and there were threads of silver in his otherwise dark hair, but in his younger days, he might have been Seth’s doppelganger.
I stood and caught his eye. He nodded and walked to my table.
“Mr. Allman.” I offered my hand for a shake. He studied me warily, as if trying to decide what to make of me or what to make of this whole situation. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
He nodded again and pursed his lips, taking a seat in the booth across from me.
“I’m worried… I know I said that before, but I think something has happened to Seth. I—” I choked on the last word.
“I don’t know where he is,” Colin said. “I’m sorry.”
I stared at him, unable to accept the tight tone in his voice. “Aren’t you worried about him?”
He sighed and looked away. “Yes,” he finally said. “But Seth does what he wants to do. You must know that by now. If he’s gone off and gotten himself into a mess, there’s not much you can do about it.”
“I don’t believe that. I’m going to find him.”
Colin studied me silently, his lips turning up in the slightest, sad smile. “Did you ask his mother?”
“I went there, but her neighbor said she’s on vacation in Pennsylvania or Connecticut.” I leaned eagerly across the table. “Do you have her number?”
Colin shook his head in distaste. “No. She doesn’t want to talk to me. She changed it last year. Right before she said I was ruining her and told me never to call her again.”
I shrank back in my seat.
“It’ll be all right,” Colin said. “Don’t worry.”
“How can you say that? Something’s wrong.”
He studied me, then looked toward the bar and ran his hand over his mouth.
“Will you please think back and try to remember if he said anything to you the last time you saw him? Or the time before that? Was there anything bothering him? Or maybe he talked about going somewhere or doing something.”
Colin looked back at me, something new in his eyes. Sadness? Disgust? Pity? “There’s always something bothering Seth. There should be.”
“I...” I gazed back at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“How long have you been seeing him?”
“Um, I don’t know exactly… a couple months. Why are you asking? Why is that important?”
“I’m interested to know just how well you know him.”
I bristled at that. When had this meeting become about interviewing for the role of significant other in Seth’s life?
“I know him extremely well,” I told Colin.
His eyes narrowed. “You do? Are you sure about that?”
My jaw locked. No, of course I wasn’t sure about that. At this point, there wasn’t a whole lot I could be sure of. I’d had my doubts from the beginning about ever being able to fully know Seth. People who weren’t open books stayed that way. But I loved Seth, and I truly believed he loved me, despite anything he may have kept from me.
Colin’s face softened. Behind him, Rory was busy at the bar, muddling mint for a pair of mojitos. “It sounds like I’m guessing right,” he said, “when I say Seth hasn’t shared his past with you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked in a low voice.
Colin laced his hands together on top of the table and looked down at them. “He’s not a saint. I don’t know what he made you believe, but he’s not a saint.”
“I know that. He hasn’t tried to act like a perfect person.”
“He’s done things in the past that can’t be forgiven.”
A shiver went through me. Frozen solid in place, I stayed as still as stone and waited for more.
“I need to go,” Colin said brusquely. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“No! Please.” I reached across the table and gripped his arm to stop him. “What things did Seth do? Please, if they have anything to do with where he might be now, I need to know.”
Colin licked his lips and looked thoughtful. Finally, though, he just shook his head. “Seth wouldn’t go back there… I’m sorry. I just don’t know where he might be.”
“What do you mean ‘back there?’ Please just tell me what you’re talking about.”
“I just told you he wouldn’t do it, didn’t I? So, it doesn’t matter. Seth’s gone off somewhere, probably to find himself or something.” He stood and walked toward the door.
“Do what? What wouldn’t he do?” I shouted after him. All the heads in the bar turned toward me as the door slammed behind Colin.
“What happened?” Rory appeared behind me, a basket of fries in one hand.
I turned back toward the table so the strangers still watching wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. “More questions, that’s what happened.”