Читать книгу Whatever it takes - Paul Cleave - Страница 12

Seven

It’s midnight when I get home. I live on the top floor of an apartment building that’s six stories high, giving me a nice view out over the city. It’s a nice place. It has two bedrooms and an open-plan kitchen flowing into the dining room and lounge. I used the money from the sale of our house back in Acacia Pines to invest in the bar ten years ago, and since then business has been good. There’s a set of French doors that open onto a balcony, the one on the right with a cat door cut into it. My cat, Legolas, a rescue tabby who lost one of his back legs when he was a kitten, spends his days out there, jumping from the balcony onto the oak tree that reaches our floor, coming inside when he’s hungry or tired or wants cuddles. He comes in now and follows me into the bathroom and watches me wash up.

“You hungry, Lego?”

He meows. Yes. He’s hungry.

I fill his bowl and freshen up his water and sit down on the couch with a beer. I use a tea towel to wipe the blood off my cellphone. Then I have a drink and dial the number that reaches out over a thousand miles and takes me back twelve years to the last time I saw her. In the beginning we’d talk on the phone a little. Then she asked for a divorce. Then we sold the house. Then we stopped talking. In a way it was like she had died.

“Hello, Noah,” she says.

The line is so clear it sounds like she’s sitting next to me. I picture her on the couch we used to own in the house we used to own in the life we used to share. How have I let ten years go by without reaching out?

“Hey,” I say. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I was still awake,” she says. “I’m glad you called. I . . . I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Your message sounded important.” I had listened to it outside the apartment complex where the man who’d stolen my phone lived. Maggie had asked me to call her back as soon as I could, day or night. “I mean . . . I would have called you back even if it hadn’t.”

“It’s good to hear your voice,” she says.

“It’s good to hear yours,” I say, and it is. It really is.

“I’ve often thought of calling you,” she says, and I know that this isn’t a social call. She’s ringing to tell me something. Somebody has died. Either her mom, or her dad, or maybe it’s Sheriff Haggerty, or Drew, or any one of a number of people I used to know. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe a tornado came and swept everybody from my old life out to sea. “I’ve always hated the way things ended between us.”

“None of it was your fault,” I say, and it’s true. For years I blamed Conrad Haggerty. He was the reason I had to leave town, the reason my marriage fell apart, and it took time to admit the reason for those things wasn’t him, but me. It was never Maggie.

“Still . . . I’ve often thought of calling you to tell you how sorry I am about the way things turned out.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“Can you believe it’s been twelve years?” she asks.

“Feels like eleven.”

She laughs. It’s a little forced. Whatever is wrong, I want her to get to it on her own. I wonder if she’s been drinking. I hope so. I hope this is a melancholy call and nothing more. Legolas jumps up on the couch next to me and stretches out.

“I’m . . . I’m married,” she says.

My chest tightens. “I’m happy for you.”

“I have children too. A boy and a girl. Seven and five. My husband . . . his name is Stephen. You’d like him.”

“I’m sure I would,” I say, sure that I wouldn’t. Why would I?

“You?” she asks. “Are you with anybody? Do you have a family?”

“No,” I tell her, and I don’t elaborate because there’s nothing to elaborate on. I could tell her about my apartment, the nice view, the three-legged cat I adopted from a shelter when I moved in here since the place already came with a cat door. I could tell her that I just put a dent in somebody’s skull so I could get my phone back to hear the message she left me. I could tell her that the man I became twelve years ago didn’t stick around — that it took a man trying to kill me in my bar to bring him back.

“Are you happy?”

“Yeah, I am,” I tell her, because I am. I’ve had a few relationships that have ended amicably. Every couple of years I try to visit another small corner of the world. I like my bar, my apartment, my cat. I like my life. “Really happy.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry about the way everything went down. I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you back then. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I didn’t go with you.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s all in the past.”

“I thought . . . I thought you were going to come back, you know? After a few weeks or so, or maybe a month. I thought everybody would cool off and things would go back to normal, even though I knew they couldn’t.”

She’d made it clear before I left that she never wanted to see me again. I had no reason to come back. “Maggie, why are you calling me? It’s great to hear from you, it really is, but there’s a reason you’re calling me now, and as much as I love the idea of catching up, something must have happened.”

“It’s Alyssa,” she says. “Alyssa Stone.”

I’m back in the basement, walking down the stairs with my flashlight. I can smell the room and feel how warm the house is and I can see Alyssa huddled in the corner. I can see her swollen ankle, her black eye. My ex-wife isn’t ringing me to give me good news. She’s not ringing to tell me Alyssa graduated college or wrote a novel or won the lottery. I tighten my grip on the phone, take my feet off the coffee table and sit up straight. Legolas, who was dozing, can sense the change in atmosphere. He looks at me, concerned.

“She’s missing,” she says. “She’s been missing since Thursday, and I . . . I guess . . . I guess I thought you’d want to know. I . . . I guess . . . I don’t know,” she says, only she does know, and I know too. I was the one who found Alyssa all those years ago because I was willing to do whatever it took. Maggie is reaching out to ask me if I’m willing to do it all over.