“So I picked up the folder and rushed out of there as fast I could. Texted Mark, but got no answer. Went to the Registrar’s Office and walked around campus for an hour. When I got back, the chief was gone. I finished up work and came home.” I finish telling the story to Elaine as we sit on her back deck and drink white wine.
She lets out a low whistle. It scares the tuxedo cat on her shoulder. He leaps off and into a small patch of rocks next to us.
“That’s freaky. Are you sure?” Elaine sees my empty wine glass and pours me another full one. She finishes off the bottle of wine and sits back, sipping her glass.
It’s that kind of day, and it’s only Thursday.
“I’m sure. I even went back in and scanned the photo. I thought for sure Claudia took it with her, but she didn’t.” I hold up a small thumb drive. “I’ve got the photo on here, and I emailed it to myself, too, for safety.”
Safety. Hah. I’m never safe anymore.
“I don’t remember her,” Elaine says, squinting. She looks like she’s literally trying to pull up a memory.
“The dean and Claudia moved here after she died,” I explain.
Elaine relaxes. “Oh. That explains it.” She drinks some more. A tabby climbs into her lap and she strokes it. The cat begins to purr. “The dean’s wife really looks that much like Amy?”
“So much that I thought a twenty-year-old picture was my best friend.”
Elaine shakes her head and grimaces. “That’s so…weird.”
“Too weird for my tastes,” I declare.
“Did you say anything to the chief?”
I pause. I can’t tell her the truth about Mark. And for some reason, I’m hesitating about going to the chief with the picture.
An ache burns inside me for Mark. I wish he were here. I can’t even text or call him. I crave the sound of his voice. The feel of his hot breath on my neck. The way his tongue sparks my flesh when he—
“Carrie! You look like you’re getting heat stroke!” Elaine says, concern on her face. “You turned fire engine red just now.”
“Must be the white wine,” I murmur.
“It can give people the flushes,” she says, nodding and stroking the kitty.
I say nothing. It’s for the best.
“What are you planning to do?” she asks.
“Do?”
“Are you going to tell the chief.”
I start to laugh. “Tell him what? That I think the dean of the local university is the one stealing all these women?”
“When you put it that way, it does sound pretty bizarre.”
“When you put it any way, Elaine, it’s completely bizarre.”
“I don’t understand what all these kidnappings have to do with your father and the drug operation, though.”
I bite my lips to keep from saying anything. This is hard. So hard. How does Mark do this? How does he live a life where he knows so much and can say so little?
For him it’s just life as usual. For me, it’s torture. I know the answer to so many of Elaine’s questions. Yet I can’t say a word.
Not one, single word.
“I hope his father’s okay,” Elaine murmurs.
I just nod. What else can I do?
“I’ll wait until Mark’s back in town. I’ll ask him what he thinks,” I finally say.
Elaine smiles at me. Her grin lights up my world. “Good plan. Good man, too.”
“Yes.”
“In bed?”
I nearly drop my wine glass. Maybe I misheard her.
“Excuse me?”
“Is he a good man in bed, too?” she repeats.
Nope. Didn’t mishear her. I go bright red again. I feel it. My face is like napalm.
“Oh, Carrie,” Elaine chortles. “We’re grown women. We can talk about sex.”
Redder. I’m turning into goo.
“Ummm…”
“I’m assuming you slept with him. You were in his cottage all night the other night and he said…”
“Yes. We, um, we’re together.” This is awkward.
“Biblically?”
“Elaine!”
“Just girl talk,” she says with a wink.
Girl talk. If Amy were here, that’s what we’d be doing. Having girl talk. My best friend’s gone and my version of girl talk is chatting about my sex life with the closest thing I have to a mom.
Bzzzz.
Saved by Elaine’s phone. Whew.
“Oh, my goodness. Mikey’s football game is about to start!” Elaine leaps up. The cat jumps off in a huff, glaring at her as she walks to the patio doors. “Brian!” she shouts. “We need to go!”
“All right, all right,” he harrumphs, wandering past the door, carrying the car keys. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Elaine turns back and gives me another wink.
I just shake my head.
The truck engine starts up and I hear them leave. I finish my wine and walk through the house, locking up. Despite what Mark said before he left, I haven’t been staying in his cottage. It feels too intimate. I want my own space, so I’ve been sleeping in my trailer.
And I’ve been perfectly safe.
As I walk back to the trailer, the mailbox catches my eye. I walk over and get the mail, then go back into the house as I sort it. One piece is for me, and the rest for Elaine and Brian.
That’s weird. My forwarding order hasn’t kicked in yet.
I look at the handwriting. It’s familiar, and the return address is my old address in Oklahoma City.
I open it. A letter in another envelope falls out.
That handwriting makes me nearly faint on the spot.
It’s my dad’s chicken scrawl.
I slowly lower myself to the tile floor in the foyer of Brian and Elaine’s house. How could my dad send me a letter?
A little note flutters out of the larger envelope.
Dear Carrie,
You gave me this address before you left. The day after you were gone, this arrived. I thought you’d want it. The new roommate sucks. She leaves her dirty dishes out and the ants are back. She also fucks her boyfriend all morning and he leaves condoms in the toilet. We miss you.
Janie
Well. Isn’t that a heaping dose of nostalgia?
My hands shake as I open the letter within a letter. The stationery is the same my dad always used. I had to send it to him, with self-addressed, stamped envelopes. I pause as I get to the actual letter.
This is the very last thing my daddy will ever say to me.
My nose and throat swell with tears. I ache to hug him one more time. He was my anchor. My champion. My only source of true, unconditional love.
And he’s gone.
I close my eyes, then slowly, painstakingly unfold the letter. Half the words are crossed out with thick, permanent marker. This has happened before, when the prison authorities censor stories Dad told about events in the prison, or law enforcement investigations.
Alarm shoots through me. I’ve never seen one this blacked out before.
Dear Carrie,
I have to tell you to be careful about ______. He’s part of the _________ and he’s going to act like he’s _________. Don’t be fooled by his power. He is corrupt. Stay away from him. Do not spend time alone with him, ever. If he tries to get you alone, do whatever you have to in order to get away.
Last week he ______________—
The next entire paragraph is blacked out. The whole thing.
I stop reading and rest my forehead against my knees.
Who is “he”?
And why is my father warning me from the grave about this unnamed man?