Chapter Three
Zack
“Son of a bitch.” I rest my elbows on my desk, my head in my hands. “Where are you, Clove?”
Glancing up at the bulletin board in my office, I scan over every picture I have of my sister from the day she was born until the day she was kidnapped by that sick fucker. I’ve covered every base trying to find her. It’s not the cop in me that knows she’s alive; it’s the brother in me.
It’s been over a year since I last heard from her. The minute I knew she was gone, the department had an APB out on her and Trent Calloway quicker than flies on shit. Nothing, nada, not a trace of her since we walked into that house where I found my brother-in-law and James motherfucking Calloway both lying in pools of blood. We haven’t missed a thing, not a goddamn thing, and yet here I sit going over every piece of information – from blood samples, to tire tracks, and everything in between – over and over for more than a year making sure we haven’t missed a clue.
I have these weird epiphanies, flashes of her screaming, crying out for help. Every damn day when I climb out of bed, another piece of my heart has been chipped away not knowing where she is.
Whatever I am missing is staring me right in the face. It’s here on this board, goddamn it, or in this pile of files on my desk. Why in the hell can’t I see it?
Trent’s not smart enough to do this on his own; that much I have figured out. His dad wasn’t, either. Every stick has two ends; Trent and his dad are on one end, and someone else is on the other. But who? Who in the hell would want to do this?
“That’s the twenty million dollar question, isn’t it?”
Snapping my head away from the pictures, my attention focuses on the familiar voice of my partner Martinez, who has spent just as much time on this case as I have. He blames himself for my sister’s disappearance almost much as I do.
“Shit, I’m talking out loud again. I swear to God I’m losing it, man.”
“You look like a walking corpse, dude.”
“Thanks, motherfucker. Tell me something I don’t already know.” He pays no attention as he strides in, sitting opposite of me at my desk.
“You’ve been here for hours again haven’t you?”
I don’t bother to reply since he already knows I have. I simply shake my head in frustration.
“There has to be someone else in on it. For one, Trent is just not smart enough to disappear without a trace. For two, the fucker has no money.” I continue to rattle off all the different reasons why my training, as well as my gut, tells me someone else is behind this.
“We’ve been down this road before, man. The key is who, and why would someone want to hurt Turner and Clove in this way? And the biggest question of all is, how in the hell did this person find out about all that money Turner was set to inherit?” Martinez questions, then sets a fresh cup of coffee from the deli across the street on my desk.
“The only two people I can think of who would want to hurt Turner and Clove are the two we already know about, and one of those sons of bitches is dead, rotting away in fucking hell where he belongs.” I scrub my hands up and down my face, feeling my exhaustion kicking in. “Thanks for the coffee,” I add absently.
Picking up the cup, I take a sip of the welcoming hot liquid. For months now something has been eating away at me like a slow flesh-eating disease, waking me up throughout the night, making sleep nonexistent. My mind starts to race the minute I wake up, not only for Clove, but for my loving wife, who is grieving and hurting just as much as I am.
Krista and Clove are best friends. It kills me to see my wife crying every day. I love Krista so damn much. We’ve cried together so many nights, clinging onto each other. My wife has always had a smile on her face, but not anymore. She aches and bleeds for us all.
The worst and yet the best part is my son. He has no idea who is aunt is, or how much she loved him. He would have adored her. Her smile, her kind heart. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him, or any of us, and goddamn it, he’s losing out just like the rest of us. FUCK. He doesn’t know anything about the daily struggles his family is going through. I’m thankful he’s so young. Nolan doesn’t even realize he is the one blessing right now that is holding this family together. His innocent smile and laughter. The way he screams ‘dada’ when I walk into the house. The way he feels when I take him into my arms. For the briefest of moments, inhaling his sweetness gives me a sense of calm.
And then there’s my dad. He can hardly function. He shows up here every morning at eight a.m. sharp to see if we have any news, and when he’s not here, he calls several times a day. I have no words for what it feels like to watch him suffer.
I think about my baby boy, Nolan, again. How would I feel if he just vanished without a trace? I can’t even begin to imagine what my dad is going through.
“Fuck!” I stand, kicking my chair over and hearing the loud crash as it hits the floor. I twist my ball cap backwards on my head, then stalk over to the board and stand in front of it. Seeing my sister’s happy face everywhere guts me.
“I’ve… goddamn it! We’re overlooking something. We have to find her,” I whisper. “She needs me more than ever right now, Martinez. Don’t ask me how I know it, I just do.” I shake my head, turn, and look at my partner. “What the hell are we missing?”
“I don’t know, my friend. We can start from the beginning again and see if we overlooked something. Maybe get Fulton in here. A new set of eyes wouldn’t hurt.”
“Ask him,” I say, never taking my eyes off of the board.
“Let me take the files out to him. It’s almost eight, which means it’s time for your dad. You know I can’t handle seeing him like this.”
That makes two of us, Martinez. I watch as he grabs the stack of files and his coffee and walks out the door.
************
“Hey, son.”
My troubled father wanders into my office an hour later, looking crumpled. I have never dreaded seeing my dad, but the more days that pass not knowing where Clove is, the more I wish I didn’t have to see the grief and agony that has aged my father. My dad is slowly deteriorating right before my eyes.
“Dad.”
I come around to the front of my desk, my arms wrapping around him in the daily hug we both need.
“I take it you haven’t found anything new?”
His daily question stings like a son of a bitch every morning when I have to tell him no.
“Have a seat, Dad.” I pat the back of the chair and his tall, but much skinnier frame sits down. “Did you take your pills this morning?” I ask, leaning on my desk in front of him. He gave us quite the scare a few months back with major chest pains. Spent two days in the hospital having all kinds of tests done. His heart’s in perfectly good shape; his blood pressure not so much. His anxiety is not much better, either, so now he’s on medication for both.
“Of course I did, Zack. I may be losing my damn mind over not knowing where my daughter is, but I still know how...” He can’t even get the words out of his mouth before his shoulders slump forward, his head dips and tears drip down, falling on his wrinkled pants.
“Dad.” I squat down in front of him.
“I can’t do this anymore. This is absolutely killing me. I’m helpless, weak. It’s something I can’t describe, only feel. And I’m sick of feeling this way.”
His words come out mangled, yet I understand him through his choked-up sobs. My father has always been the strongest man I have ever known. Kind hearted, loving, and supportive to both my sister and me our entire lives. Seeing him deflated in front of me is my undoing.
“I know you’re doing everything you can to find her, son.”
He glances up, his red-rimmed eyes mirroring my own, with graying circles underneath. My dad’s heart may be in perfect condition, but he’s dying inside from a broken heart.
“We are, Dad. Why don’t we go get some breakfast? We can talk a bit and I’ll take you over to the house to see Nolan. Sound good?”
He bobs his head. My hand reaches out, into which he puts his so I can help him out of the chair.
“Let me make a call to Krista, let her know.”
“Zack.” He swipes the tears off of his face.
“Yeah, Dad?” He says nothing for a few intense moments. “Dad, what is it?”
I position myself beside him where he now stands facing the board containing all the evidence we have been able to find.
“She looks so much like your mother.” His words startle me. My dad hasn’t spoken about her in years. When my mother, Tina, came to visit Clove a few years ago, we never even told him about her coming by. We didn’t want to do or say anything to upset him. Clove said the bitch wasn’t worth it, and she’s not. Her memory has long been forgotten as far as I’m concerned.
“Your mother was always a self-centered bitch, Zack. Nothing I ever did was good enough for her. I tried so hard to make things work between us. Not because I loved her; any feelings I had for her died the first time I found out she cheated on me. I tried to make it work for you. Clove wasn’t even supposed to happen. I vowed to myself I would live the rest of my life without ever touching your mother again, but things happen. She begged, promised me she would never cheat on me again, if I would just give her one more chance.”
He pauses and shoves his hands into his pockets.
“The day she told me she was pregnant again, we both were so happy. Did a part of me second-guess whether this child was mine or not? Sure I did. It didn’t matter, though. The minute your sister was born, I fell in love with her just as much as I loved you. The both of you are mine, mine to protect, to take care of, to love, and I love you both but . . . I failed on the other two.”
“You have never failed us, Dad. Not once. Don’t blame yourself for this.”
His response is a mild shrug. Standing still, I watch him reach for a picture of Clove on her wedding day with shaky hands.
“Your mother though…” he swipes a tear, his voice dipping to an all-time low. Jesus. I’m watching my dad fall apart, reliving what had to be the hardest time of his life. My gut twists in a fucking knot, my fingers flex. I knew my mother was a cold-hearted bitch. I have never wanted to hit a woman in my life except her. I would love nothing more than to wrap my hands around her throat and strangle every ounce of oxygen she has in her. He wouldn’t be facing this alone, if she would have put the needs of the three of us before her own.
“Dad.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink for the longest time. He just stares at the picture.
“She hated your sister, Zack.”
“What?” My loud voice shocks him.
“I don’t know why. She never would tell me.”
He positions the photo in the exact spot he found it, running his index finger down the frame.
“I’ll never forget the look on your sister’s face the day she married Turner. My God, how happy she was. My baby girl.”
Bowing his head, he sighs.
“Yesterday, just like every day since she has been gone, I . . . I’ve looked through every photo of her life, and do you know what keeps haunting me? Taunting me something fierce? There’s not one single picture of your mother holding Clove. Not one. The day that bitch left, I had never felt so relieved in my entire life. She is a cunning, scheming bitch with an unreachable heart. I have no way of explaining it to you son, except to call it a parent’s intuition.”
He finally turns his head toward me. His eyes reflect something I don’t recognize, but his body language gives it all away; the tightness of his lips, flared nostrils, clenching of his jaw.
“Find your mother.”