Reid
“I’m heading upstairs to take a shower,” I say, after I glance at the clock and realise the time’s going just as slowly as it has been all night. It’s only a quarter past ten, and even though I’ve been pacing a track from the lounge room to the dining room table for what seems like hours, I learn it’s been mere minutes.
Detective Dyson tips her head to the side and eyes me briefly. “That’s probably a good idea.” Her glossed lips offer me a half smile before she’s back focusing on the screen of the large laptop open in front of her. In the short time she’s been here, I’ve figured she’s not much of a talker. She’s quiet, yet observant. Her hand curls around the back of her neck just below the black bob tucked behind her ears. She hunches her shoulders and squeezes her eyes tightly shut as she rotates her neck in a large circle. Tonight is going to be a long night for everyone.
I pause at the bottom of the staircase and strain to hear Maloney talking. He must be on a call. I can’t make out anything except, “He’s definitely restless. He hasn’t sat down for ages. To be honest sir, he looks like he might throw up.” If by he, he is referencing me, then Maloney’s not wrong. My stomach is knotted into a million tight pieces of rope balled together. I could vomit at any second from the nausea this is creating.
Dragging my feet up the staircase, has me looking down the dark hallway leading to Morgan’s and my bedroom. First, I pass by Brax’s room, and then Aleeha’s. Both their doors are closed since Ron and Kylee are utilising them for a place to sleep tonight. I wonder if they’re doing any sleeping, or if they’re blankly staring at the ceiling above them, lost in their own torturous thoughts. My mind won’t stop racing. Where is Morgan? And who the fuck has her? play on a constant loop.
Clutching the handle of our bedroom door, I take two drawn-out breaths as I pull it down and push forwards. I run my hand over the wall just inside the entrance, and fumble with the light switch. Everything looks exactly how we left it yesterday morning. The bed’s unmade, Morgan’s cotton pyjamas are thrown over her pillow, her T-shirt still inside out after taking it off and discarding it. The only thing out of place is the towel I’d thrown on the bed after the shower I took earlier today. God, how Morgan hates when I leave my wet towel on the bed. It’s one of her biggest pet peeves. I race over to it and swiftly remove it with one flick of my wrist.
The walk to the bathroom has untameable worry growing heavily in my chest. This is how I felt last night when Morgan still hadn’t come home. An hour later, the police were inside my house, downstairs, talking with me. Not long after, I raced off in anger to find Morgan, but all I’d uncovered was her SUV.
Twenty-four hours has almost past, and apart from some fucked up calls from a mechanical voice and then one with a British accent, it doesn’t appear like anyone has any leads on Morgan’s whereabouts. Isn’t it if they haven’t found someone in the first twenty-four hours, the chance of their survival decreases? Or is it the first forty-eight? I can’t be sure. This is a question for Maloney.
Hanging the towel on the rack above Morgan’s, I reach into the open shower and turn over the taps before shedding my clothes and stepping in. Lukewarm water runs over my skin as I rest my forehead against the wall behind the shower’s spout. The feeling of the soft sprays against my shoulders calms my senses for a moment, but it doesn’t last long because Morgan’s face displays like a stilled image in my mind. She’s more than beautiful — she’s angelic.
I roll my head from side to side as my throat constricts and then burns from the sadness I’m trying to rein in. Where is the money? Why is this happening to us? I can’t figure out the answer to either of these questions.
I don’t bother to use the liquid soap to wash myself. I don’t do anything but ask myself a million questions that right now nobody has answers to. This is bullshit. I reef the taps off, and step out, being mindful to stand on the bathmat I always miss standing on. This also pisses Morgan off. Maybe if I don’t make the floor all wet and slippery, and maybe if I don’t do all the things she nags at me about, she’ll come home.
Morgan’s towel is embroidered with her name, pink lettering on white towelling. Taking it into my possession, I still with it rested below my nostrils. It smells clean, freshly washed, and not at all like Morgan. I hate this.
I chuck on a tight-fitted black T-shirt and long cotton pyjama bottoms, and remake the bed, taking extra care to do it neatly like Morgan would have liked me to do more often. “It’s tightly tucked edges … and the top needs to be turned down for God sake. How hard is this to master, Reid?” A small crinkle would invade her forehead as she glared at me from her side of the bed. “The pillows, just stack them neatly.” Morgan’s little quirks. Once I thought of these nit-picking things as Type A bullshit, but now I see how it’s as important to me in this moment as it was to Morgan every day. Why did I give her such a hard time about all these tiny unimportant things? If that’s how she liked the bedding, I should have just fucking made it that way. You’re a prick, Reid.
I sigh. It’s a deep heavy sound, and the result of dread. I’m now dreading I’ll never see Morgan perform these little rituals for the rest of my life and that scares me.
The open blind catches my attention and when I move towards it, I stare out of the window into the darkness of the night, feeling dazed, lost and alone.
“Morgan,” I whisper.
The glare of the television screen as Maloney flicks through multiple channels annoys me.
“Just pick something already,” I groan.
“Mate, I’m trying to find the local news station. I just received a message from Detective West to turn on the television and to have you come sit down.”
“What for?”
“There’s about to be a breaking news story regarding Morgan’s disappearance.”
My mouth forms an oversized ‘O’, even though no sound projects with it.
“There we go. It should be on in a moment.” He lays the remote on the glass coffee table and leans back into the navy corner lounge.
I don’t get comfortable. Instead I sit on the edge of the seat and wait nervously. My legs jiggle as I push from the balls of my feet. I just can’t seem to stop moving.
“Breaking News.” Big white letters across a red banner appears on the screen. The tune that accompanies breaking new headlines plays. I swallow excessively as vomit is seduced from my stomach to the back of my tongue. I think I’m going to throw up.
“We interrupt this programming to bring you the latest headlines and breaking news stories throughout Rockhampton, Gladstone, Mackay and the Keppel Bay Region.”
A picture of Morgan takes up half of the television screen. Her hair is tied to the side and pinned. Her big browns eyes are wide and filled with joy. Her lips are pulled into a smile. She looks so happy, so content. I notice the soft pink dress she’s wearing is the one she wore when Cruise and Natalie got married last year. “How did you get that picture?” I didn’t give it to them.
“Linda,” Maloney says softly. “She went through your albums and picked it out before she left to go home tonight.”
I nod.
“Local Rockhampton woman, Morgan Banks, mother of two, and wife to local architect Reid Banks, has been reported missing. She was last seen leaving her place of work, Tactor Finance and Appraisals, early yesterday evening. Morgan is reported to be around 168 centimetres tall. She has a slim athletic build with long brown hair and brown eyes. It’s been reported Morgan was wearing a pink blouse and black business skirt at the time of her disappearance. Police are urging anyone with information to the whereabouts of Morgan Banks, to come forward and call either the Police Link or Crime Stoppers on the numbers displayed at the bottom of your screen. Today, local SES volunteers have searched bushland around the fourth access road between Rockhampton and Yeppoon, but police are yet to report if this search has led to any more information.”
Morgan’s photograph fades and is replaced with that of the courthouse building.
“In other news, Brendon Carter Johnston will appear in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court tomorrow morning for his alleged involvement in the stabbing of local teenager Christopher Keelage. The family of the victim are expected to be present for his plea entry.”
Maloney must mute the volume because the presenter’s lips are moving, yet there’s no sound.
“You know, I never dreamt in my entire life, I’d be seeing my wife’s photo as a missing person. I don’t understand why this is happening?”
“Bad things happen to good people all over the world, every day of the week, Reid. We’ll find her.”
“Alive?” I close my eyes.
“It’s the outcome we are hoping for. They really are doing everything to help your wife.”
“I know.” I pause. “Do you think it’s someone we know?” I say, turning my attention to Maloney.
“I’d say there’s a high chance it is, but it could also be someone Morgan’s never met before.”
“I just need for her to be alive.”
“We know. All evidence so far is pointing to the fact that she is Reid.”
“He’ll call again, right? That bastard who has her?”
“I have no doubt he will.”