Christmas
Nashville, Tennessee
Mercy Lounge. Heaving masses of bodies writhing back and forth in time with the heavy bass beat, yelling and screaming, happy faces locked on the stage, eyes lit up and mouths stretched into manic grins. It smells like teen spirit, and brimstone, and cold iron from the overhead girders, which are sprinkled with fake frost, all overlaid with the thick, sweet scent of liquor. Guilty Pleasures are playing a Christmas show. I am drinking. Heavily.
I hate Christmas.
It’s not only the weather. Christmas in the South is hit or miss. Some years, it’s eighty degrees and we’re playing football in the backyard. Others it’s cold enough for snow, light dustings of white crystals shadowing everything. Most years, though, it’s freezing cold, and bleak, and empty. Slate skies with nothing falling but the temperature and my mood. What’s the point of Christmas without snow?
But that’s Nashville for you. Utterly unpredictable. Especially during the holidays, when the kids are off from school and the parents are high on rage and champagne and tinsel and greed, loaded with murderous intent.
Thinking about it, maybe hate isn’t a strong enough word. I loathe Christmas. I despise it. I would rather dig a hole the first weekend of December and emerge again with that poor groundhog in February, when the insanity and water-cooler talk of the holidays are truly over.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have a family nearby, and I’m not religious, and as low man on the totem pole, I usually get stuck on call. There’s nothing like being an undercover cop on Christmas. You see everything humanity has to give at the holidays. It’s like the full moon: it brings out the worst in people, and it brings out the best in others. I rarely see the best, though. Nature of the beast.
Maybe it’s because people are harried, tired of the year and the demands of their lives, or because they’re ready to turn over a new leaf, to start fresh, start again. It does feel like we’re all simply going through the motions.
And not maybe, truth: spending the holidays alone sucks.
What I do sort of like are the days after Christmas. That time when all goes quiet: silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. A certain peace steals over the city, as if everyone’s breath is held in anticipation of the new year.
The calendar didn’t used to have an exact number of days, and it ran according to the sun. The long nights and shorter days of winter meant there were always a few days at the end of the sun year that didn’t fit in with the calendar. This is a mystical time. If you look at your Greek, Norse, or Roman mythology, this is when legends are born, when gods and goddesses spring forth, crossing the veil of the two worlds, blurring the lines between mortal and immortal. This is where the twelve days of Christmas really comes from—not silly gifts of French hens and lords leaping and partridges. It’s those lost days at the end of the year.
The Omen Days.
I think it would be better if we called them by their true title. It’s more fitting, really. You can figure out a lot about your life in those twelve days after Christmas, when the old year dies and all its highs and lows become a memory.
But whatever you call it, or I call it, I can’t find the joy in the season. Not anymore. It hasn’t been a real Christmas since I lost her.
So I count the days until the season draws to a close and do everything I can to distract myself. Like tonight’s bacchanalia on Cannery Row.
Grimey shouts something and the band switches gears, going full bore into “Cruel Summer,” and the girls from behind the bar jump on the stage and dance. I’m dancing now too, throwing my left arm in the air, trying not to spill the drink in my right hand. I have enough whiskey in my system to let me relax a bit. The band plays on and on, mining the best hits from a bygone era. With each new tune, I scream the words at the top of my lungs, feel the enmity leave. The crowd melts together into the most raucous sing-along yet. “And I’m gonna keep on loving you . . . ”
I gulp more of my old buddy Jack with its tiny splash of Coke for fizz, let the blessed numbness calm my tortured soul.
The band shifts to Journey, and I’m believing, all right. I’m taken back to our first prom. The whiskey threatens to come up, so I have some more. I’m rocked now, completely drunk, limbs loose, vision off. On stage, if I’m not mistaken, someone has joined the band and is wearing a codpiece. Ballsy.
My shift today was long and sad and full of unhappy people doing stupid things, and tonight I am trying to disappear into the fabric of the city and let it consume me. I order another drink. I will feel exactly like hell tomorrow, but tonight . . . tonight, I can try to forget.
I’m here with my two best friends, Stephen and Jim. We used to be roommates until my undercover gig made it awkward for me and too dangerous for them. I needed room to be by myself, roaming town as the lone wolf, busting drug dealers and pimps, but I miss the days at the townhouse, the three of us howling at the moon together.
Friends are a good thing to have when you’re alone.
Jim is a patient advocate lawyer, and Stephen is a writer. They’re both good at their jobs: Stephen won an award for his debut novel this spring and is writing a new book, and Jim got a partner offer last week. The three of us couldn’t be more different. We met at Vanderbilt freshman year, in Dr. Tichi’s English Comp, and have been thick as thieves ever since. They got me through the breakup, for which I’m usually grateful. Usually.
These two men are good to their cores. I wouldn’t be the man I am without them. Though at this moment, their actions are questionable. They are dancing, unsteady and silly, jumping up and down, heads bobbing. Jim is carelessly spilling beer down his arm, soaking his blue Brooks Brothers button-down, but he’s too drunk to care. Stephen is drinking whiskey, like me, but at a slower pace. He has to meet up with family tomorrow and doesn’t want to spend the day puking and green. He is sliding around from side to side, creating enough space in the crowd to do the moonwalk, the “Thriller” dance, the works. He looks like an idiot. I love him. I love both of them.
We are moving as one, the crowd and the guys, and the music is pumping and I’m almost, almost, at a place I could call happy when I turn my head to shout at Stephen’s antics. . . and that’s when I see her. The world screeches to a halt. The music fades. The room stops heaving.
Autumn is here.
Autumn Cleary was my first everything: friend, kiss, car ride, football game, dinner date, blow job, sex. We met in kindergarten and spent the next eighteen years either fighting or kissing, and sometimes both at once. We had plans, man. White picket fences and two point five kids and a dog. The whole American dream.
But soon after we graduated from college, Autumn broke my heart.
It was a clean break. She looked at me one night two weeks before Christmas, when we were getting ready for bed, and said, “I’m leaving in the morning. I thought you should know, in case you wanted to talk about it.”
“What do you mean you’re leaving? On a trip? To where?”
Brilliant of me, I know. No one ever said I was smart.
She sat down on the side of the bed, her blond hair falling in waves around her shoulders. She’d gotten it cut two days earlier, taking her waist-length hair to a long bob, a lob, she called it, and it was so different. She was so different.
She must have seen some sort of recognition of that in my eyes, because she smiled sadly and touched her hair self-consciously. “I know it’s strange. I needed a change, and this wasn’t enough. I need to do something else. I love you. I’ll always love you. But I want to be by myself for a while.”
A desperate wave of fear and hurt and panic started to rise in my chest. I wanted to roar, to scream, to beg and plead. My worst fears were being realized, my very worst nightmares coming alive. Losing Autumn would kill me dead, as sure as a bullet. My heart rattled against my ribs, and I took a deep breath, somehow managed to hold the tidal wave at bay.
“Did I do something? Say something? What in the name of fuck is wrong, Autumn?”
She smelled of cinnamon. She’d been decorating the apartment—why would you decorate if you were planning to leave, Autumn?—and I had the insane urge to push her down and roll on her body like a dog, get her scent all over me before it was too late: cinnamon and cloves and lavender and that soap she used on our clothes, the organic stuff that was safe for the environment and smelled like rain. It was a heady perfume, and I didn’t want to forget it.
Perched on the edge of our big bed, she said the words that tore us asunder. “Baby, if I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have to leave. Something’s wrong. I don’t know if it’s you or me, but I’m going to give us some space and find out. I don’t want to end up like our parents. I refuse to do that. You remember how . . .”
Remember? How could I not? Autumn’s mom had pretty severe clinical depression one year, got sadder and sadder, and she started to drink, and her dad ignored them both, spent all his time in the basement or the golf course, until her mom finally decided enough was enough and hung herself in the bathroom. Autumn was eight. She never got over it. Not that anyone expected her to.
Autumn was still talking. “ . . . and I don’t want that to happen to us. I’d rather remember us as perfect than spend a minute unhappy.”
“You’re unhappy?” I’d whispered, confused, so confused.
“Yeah, I think I am.” She’d reached out a hand and grabbed mine, her long white fingers so elegant and soft against my blunt ones. “You’re not happy either. You just don’t want to admit it. Trust me. This is for the best.”
Then she drew me down and kissed me, and we made love, hard and wet and furious and desperate, and in the morning, when I woke up, she was gone. My soul was broken in two, and nothing, nothing, could ever fix it.
All I’ve dreamed about for the past seven years is finding her again. Holding her in my arms, warm and fragrant. Having the life I’d always envisioned, the one where we’re together with our kids and our dog, our happy, perfect dream. It was always us against the world.
And here she is. She’s standing by the door, a drink in her hand. As far as I know, she hasn’t been back to Nashville since she left. She wasn’t close to her dad after her mom’s death, had bounced around her girlfriends’ houses and mine until she moved in with me permanently sophomore year of college, our first apartment.
I assume she still has friends here. No one speaks Autumn’s name to me. Ever. It is an understanding I have with my whole world. We were the “Most Likely” couple. Prom king and queen, most likely to get married, most likely to get pregnant in college, everything. When we broke up, it was like a bubble of hope and comfort burst for everyone who knew us. Everyone hates her for what she did to me, how she left me—all of a sudden, with no real warning, and no real explanations. No one understands what happened, least of all me.
From what little I know, Autumn has gotten on with her life. I haven’t, not really. Don’t think I’ve lived a monk for seven years. There have been other women . None have touched my soul the way Autumn did. No one ever will.
Face it: I’m a heartbroken asshole who can’t get over his first love.
A first love who is now moving toward me. Almost like she’s making sure I see her. She’s getting closer.
Is she going to come over here and talk to me?
Panic rises in me. I have the insane urge to run away. I don’t know what I’ll do if she tries to talk to me. I’m torn between hugging her and hitting her, which is a very bad way to feel when I’ve consumed half a bottle of Jack.
I’m not a volatile guy, but this woman ruined me.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She’s watching me. She looks sad. Thin. The blond hair is even shorter now than when I saw her last. It grazes her chin, the front longer than the back, the ends flipping toward me like a ski jump.
Stephen and Jim notice me staring away from the stage. Stephen says, “Dude, what is your damage?”
“Autumn,” I manage to spit out.
Jim overhears this news, sobers immediately, puts a hand on my arm as if to hold me back. He cranes his neck to see over the crowd. “Where? I don’t see her.”
“By the door. Her hair’s short.”
“I still don’t see her. I’m going over.”
“Shit, no. Don’t. Stay here. If anyone should go over, it’s me.”
Autumn is still staring at me. I take one step toward her, ignoring the cries of my friends. Another. Then a big guy wearing a flannel shirt and Dr. Martens steps to her side. She smiles up at him, gratefully, I think, casts one last glance at me, almost as if she wants to be sure I’m watching, and leaves with the lumberjack.
Autumn leaves. She walks out without saying anything to me, and I am struck dumb and nearly blind by the pain.
The guys shuffle me over to the bar, dump me on a stool covered in questionable stains, and shove another drink in my hand. Seconds later, it is gone and another replaces it.
One of them asks, “You okay, dude?”
“Did you see her?” I choke out. “Who was that douche she left with?” I am slurring. I am making no sense.
Stephen’s eyes are grave. “I didn’t see her, man.”
“Me neither,” Jim adds. “She must have chickened out when she saw you. I didn’t know she was back in town. I thought I would have heard.”
If anyone would have, it was Jim. He’d always had his finger on the pulse of our crowd, and his girlfriend Joy had been Autumn’s best friend back in the day. They’d kept in touch for a few years, probably more, but I’d asked not to be informed when they heard from her. It hurt too damn much.
Stephen is looking at me with concern. “You’re pretty fucked up. Maybe we should bail.”
“You stay. I want to be alone.” I manage to stand up, though my legs are wobbly. I hear Jim murmur, “Is he carrying?” and Stephen say, “Is he ever not?” and Jim comes to my side and says quietly, the word a demand, “Gun.”
A pretty girl with wads of blond dreadlocks whips her heads around. A wave of patchouli stings my nose. She’s gone white, instantly terrified, is staring at Jim, ready to spring away to save herself.
“Fun!” Jim yells, waving her off, then walks me to the door. I see Stephen eyeing Patchouli; he’s always gone for the hippy types. Good. I like it when he’s occupied. He’ll go home with the girl instead of sleeping on my couch. I wasn’t kidding when I said I want to be alone right now.
Down the stairs, out the doors. Half the crowd is out on the sidewalk and balcony smoking. I slur my way into bumming one. Jim helps me light it, then walks me into the parking lot.
He makes sure we’re alone. I use a vintage Beetle covered in stickers to hold myself up.
He points to my ankle holster, hidden beneath my jeans and boot. “Do you need to leave that with me?”
“Naw, no reason to. There’s more where that came from.”
“Not funny, dude. I don’t want you doing anything stupid.”
“You’re a good friend, man.” I slap at his chest, missing, hitting his bicep instead. “Yeah, I’m good. Gonna walk. Walk it off.”
Jim looks worried. He’s thinking he should make sure I get home in one piece.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I’m a grown man. I’ve grown up, man.” This strikes me as funny, and I start to giggle. Jim purses his lips like a teacher about to scold me, and it sets me off in gales of laughter. He rolls his eyes. He’s not sober, not by a long shot, or else he’d never send me off alone, but I am in luck. He’s drunk enough to let me go.
“Okay, tough guy. Call me in the morning. Don’t be a dummy. Walk straight home. Don’t drink anything more.”
“Yes, Mom. I will not pass Go. I will not collect two hundred dollars. I will not eat pancakes with a fox. I will not linger with the lox.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.” Jim starts to say something else, then squeezes my shoulder and heads back inside. It feels good to be alone.
A chick in angel wings and thigh-high boots walks past me, smoking.
“Hey. Can I buy your pack off you?”
She gives me a look, then tosses it to me. “Looks like you need them more than me. Merry Christmas, beeyotch.”
I nod gratefully. Merry fucking Christmas, indeed.
I walk. The city is quiet, and there’s glory in this.
I head toward Broadway, past Cummins Station, giving it a dirty look as I go. They’re ruining the historical building, and it hurts to see my town growing and changing the way it has in the past few years. We’re being overrun. I think the crane-to-person ratio is at an all-time high. They have T-shirts with cranes in the Nashville skyline now. We have totally jumped the shark with all the new construction. Soon enough it will be a ghost town again, the new buildings only partially full, because the millennials are getting knocked up and moving to the suburbs for better schools. Wax and wane. The story of any city.
When I pass the Frist and step onto the sidewalk on Broadway, I realize I don’t want to be out anymore. Seeing the changes is going to depress me. I want to go home, climb into bed, pass out. Say goodbye to this fuck-awful night. I turn back, swing over to Demonbreun, walk down 11th, barely keeping my balance on the decline.
My apartment in is the Gulch, in a one-way alley behind Bar Louie and The Pub. I’m right in the midst of the action, and it’s usually packed with people, but tonight, it’s empty, quiet, eerie. One brave soul is out walking her dog, a big-ass Aleutian something that I’ve seen around before. I give her a little wave, then head into my building.
My apartment is cold and quiet. I grab a beer from the fridge and sit down, hard, on the couch. I slug down the beer, toss the can toward the kitchen, then half fall, half roll onto my side, cheek against the cheap leather. The lights outside blink incessantly, and I put my hand over my eyes.
Autumn.
Even the thought of her name sends a spike of pain through my body so intense it numbs me.
And then I’m gone. Gone. Spinning and drifting and trying like hell to get her out of my mind, slipping into sleep when I hear a voice, soft and elegant, saying my name, over and over, like a prayer.
Zachary. Zachary. Zachary.
I open my eyes and she’s there, sitting on the coffee table. Autumn still looks sad, but she’s alone.
God, I am so drunk I’m manifesting my ex-girlfriend in my living room. What was in that whiskey?
“Zack. Wake up.”
And . . . bonus. She talks, too. Great. Okay. Maybe this is a dream. Maybe it’s a dream come true.
I sit up, wiping my lips. I taste awful, cigarettes and beer and whiskey. She smells good, like cinnamon and cloves. Yep, it’s a dream. I’m going to wake up with my hand wrapped around my cock, like I do so often when I dream about Autumn. I play along.
“Autumn?”
“Hey.” She reaches over and brushes a strand of my too-long hair off my forehead. She used to do that when we were together, and she’s done it in all the dreams I’ve had of her since.
Except this isn’t a dream.
I sit bolt upright and scramble back into the couch.
“Jesus Christ. You’re here. How’d you find me?”
“Calm down. I followed you from the bar. You left your door unlocked. For a cop, you aren’t very cautious.” She looks around, smiling. “This is a nice place. I’m surprised you live alone.”
“The guys were sick of me.”
“I meant without a girlfriend. Or a wife.”
Silence. She smiles again. Her hand drops back into her lap. She’s sitting on the coffee table, facing me, smiling and talking, and I can’t decide whether I’ve gone round the bend or she’s actually here.
“I’m glad,” she says. “I would have been jealous.”
“You don’t have the right to be jealous. Not about this.”
She nods, her hair flipping with the movement. “You’re right. I don’t. Honestly, I’d be happier if you did have someone. I wouldn’t feel as bad about . . . everything.”
“Oh, you mean bailing on me, on us, on our life and plans? Now you feel bad?”
I stand up, brushing past her, and go into the kitchen. My apartment is pretty nice. Reclaimed wood, exposed brick, lots of glass. The kitchen is a decent size. I like to cook, like to nest. Autumn gave me those gifts. She showed me how important it was to have a home, not a place to crash at night.
I grab another beer from the fridge. Slam the door. She’s watching me. With a sigh, I gesture to the beer. She nods. I hand it to her. Our hands brush, and it’s like a lightning strike. I jump back and move to a stool at my breakfast bar, keeping fifteen feet between us.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see you and—”
“You don’t get to make arbitrary decisions with my life anymore, Autumn. Showing up out of the blue isn’t cool.”
She ignores my interruption. “—and say that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left. It was a dumb mistake, made by a dumb kid who didn’t know herself very well. You deserved better. Deserve better. I am so sorry, Zack. I know you are furious with me, and you should be. But I couldn’t let things end on such a horrible note. I had to tell you how much I miss you. How sad I’ve been without you.”
I am floored by this speech. Floored and angry. “Seven years? And now you decide to show up and throw this at me?”
“My dad died. Did you know?”
“No.”
“It was a couple of years after I left. He didn’t want a funeral or anything, was cremated. I came back for the ashes, drove around. I’d been miserable since I left, and I wanted to come back. I went by your place with the guys that night. You were with someone, a girl with black hair. On the front porch. You were smiling, holding her hand. You seemed happy. I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”
“She meant nothing.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” She’s being snappish, and I almost laugh. Almost.
“What would you have done if I was alone that night?”
“I would have thrown myself on the floor at your feet and begged you to take me back.”
The pain of this admission is almost too much to bear. “So you disappeared again, didn’t even bother to try and reach out?”
“Yeah. I went back to Austin—that’s where I am now, outside of Austin—and tried to get on with my life. Dated a couple of guys, nothing serious. I couldn’t get you out of my head, that moment in time with you holding another girl’s hand. Who was she?”
“Honestly? I have no idea. No one’s ever mattered to me but you.”
She sighs then, and it’s a happy sound. A sigh of relief, I think. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ve missed you so much. I felt so stupid, and I didn’t know how to come back, how to ask for forgiveness. And then, time passed. The days went faster and faster. I got a job I liked, met some friends, real friends. I told myself you were my past, that Austin held my future. I was wrong. I was so wrong. Without you, I have no future.”
She begins to cry, soft and gentle. I go to her without thought, pull her into my arms. She feels so thin, so insubstantial. It’s weird, but I figure it’s been seven years and I’ve had a lot to drink, and besides, this is a whopper of a dream—I’ve changed my mind, it is a dream—so I tuck her head under my chin and hold on tighter.
It doesn’t take long for her to stop crying. She raises her head and looks up at me with those intense blue eyes. I do the only thing I know to do. I touch my lips to hers, gently at first, but when her arms go around my waist and she sinks into the kiss, I let go. Seven years of pain and fury and love and fear and loneliness go into that kiss. It is epic. We have never kissed this way before, as if we know stopping will untether us forever.
She’s small, Autumn, and I easily scoop her into my arms and carry her to my bed, all without breaking the kiss. Her shirt buttons down the front and they come free with a single pinch. The soft cotton slips back over her pure white shoulders. She isn’t wearing a bra, and my hands find the warmth of her breasts.
She has the buttons on my jeans undone now, and I am inching hers down. I don’t want to rush; it’s been so long, but she’s yanking down the fabric, running her hands along my thighs and grabbing ahold of me. She breaks the kiss with a gasp and drops to her knees. Soft, so soft. I gather her hair in my hand and do everything in my power not to give up, not yet.
She laughs when she feels me tense, and that sends me over the edge. I pull her up, stumble backward to the bed with her in my arms, my lips locked on her again. She wraps her legs around me and slides onto me.
Time stops.
There is something about the way we fit together when we’re making love that I’ve never experienced with another woman. I’ve also never dreamed about it. This feeling, this sensation that I’m buried in the depths of the universe, hasn’t happened since the night she left me.
My hands are in her hair, and she’s going faster and faster until we’re both out of control. It lasts a long time. I am not ready to give up, to give in. I want this to go on forever.
The sky is lightening when Autumn untangles herself from me and goes to the bag she left on the coffee table. We haven’t slept a wink. I am sore and she is sore, and we’ve laughed and loved together for hours. She’s back, she’s back with me, and I am complete once more.
I watch her small body cross the room.
“Get back here,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“I can’t. I have to go back.”
“To Texas? Not without me.”
She drags on her jeans and her top, steps into her shoes. She returns to the bed, sits on the edge. I feel the familiar horror of the situation, know the happiness we’ve shared tonight is about to come to an end.
“Don’t leave. God, Autumn, don’t leave me again.”
She leans over and kisses me, fragrant and lovely. When she draws back, she’s no longer smiling. “There’s something I have to do. This is not over, you and I. I promise.” She reaches into her leather bag and draws out a watch. It is a nice watch, a dark blue face with heavy silver links. There is a logo on the top, but I don’t recognize the brand.
“I want you to wear this until I get back. Promise me you won’t take it off. It’s important, Zack. You can’t take it off.”
“Hey, you haven’t given me a gift in a long time. I won’t ever take it off.” I take the watch and snap it onto my wrist. It is a perfect fit.
She looks relieved, as if she were worried the watch wouldn’t fit or I wouldn’t like it. And it’s a little weird, that she’s making me promise not to take it off, but I love this woman, and it seems like a simple request. If it makes her happy, I’ll comply. But I don’t want her to go.
“Give me a minute to pack a bag, and I’ll go with you.”
She hugs me, hard and long, then steps back. “I have to do this alone. I love you, Zack. Always have, always will.”
She heads toward the door. I’m out of the bed now, striding after her. “Wait!”
She has her hand on the doorknob. She turns and blows me a kiss.
“I’ll see you soon. Promise.” And the door shuts behind her.
The sun is coming up in earnest now. There are flashes on the sterile buildings opposite me; the intense glare of glass and metal makes me squint. I run my fingers over my lips, glance at the watch. I feel good. Better than I have in years.
I check the time on the watch against my phone. It’s almost 7:00 a.m. I have three missed calls, all from the past hour. I guess I turned the ringer off when we went to bed, or maybe when I got home. Whatever. Jim and Stephen both have called to check on me.
I go into the kitchen, make a cup of coffee. Take it with me to the bedroom. The sheets are rumpled. The room smells of Autumn. The weight of the watch is heavy on my wrist. It wasn’t a dream. She was actually here. She loves me.
I wish she hadn’t run out of here like she needed to do the walk of shame. But the things we talked about in the night come back to me. I trust her. She said she’ll be back, and I’m sure she will.
All is right in the world. Or it will be, as soon as I have her in my arms again.
My phone rings. Jim, yet again. This time I answer.
“Dude, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m . . .”
“Shut up and listen to me. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I got a call. Autumn Cleary is missing.”
“Yeah, about that. She was here most of the night. She followed me home from the bar. Felt bad. Wanted to talk. And other things.”
There was silence.
“What? Don’t even tell me I shouldn’t have done it. She followed me home, man. We’re getting back together.”
“Zack, she lives in Texas. She went missing from a bar last night. In Austin.”
“I know, she told me. That she lives in Austin, I mean.”
“She wasn’t in Nashville. She was in Austin last night.”
“Then she drives like a bat out of hell, to get here so fast.”
“Dude, you aren’t hearing me. She went missing at midnight. Walked to the bathroom, didn’t come back. Her friends are going wild.”
I suddenly have a headache, and the pain pulses like a gong. “But that’s impossible. We saw her at midnight. She was at Mercy Lounge with that big motherfucker.”
Silence again. “We didn’t see her, man. And you were really drunk.”
“This is ridiculous. There’s been a mistake. I saw her clear as day. And she’s been here for hours. She gave me a watch, for God’s sake. An apology watch.” I tap the metal. Yes, the watch is very real. “Someone’s made a mistake.” I am repeating myself, as if saying it multiple times will make it true. I don’t have any other words. Can’t think any other thoughts. There must be a mistake.
“I think I should come over,” Jim said in the tone he usually reserves for the mentally ill clients he represents.
The watch catches the light from the sunrise, sending graceful beams dancing across the apartment. “This is too weird for me, man. There’s some sort of mistake.”
“Zack, it’s all over the Internet. She’s some sort of bigwig in Austin now, does merchandising for a record company that has all kinds of musicians through there. The label has put up a reward for news of her.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know, man. You tell me. You claim you saw her, you spent time talking, but at the same time, in another state, twelve hours away, she was hanging out with some girlfriends at a bar, and went missing. She couldn’t get here that fast, there’s no way. And she can’t be in two places at once. Something’s not right.”
“No kidding. Fine, whatever. Come over. I’ll prove she was here.” I hang up.
Either I’m losing my mind, or . . . no. That’s not possible. Not at all.
I ran a hand across my mouth. The taste of her lingers on my lips.
I flip open my laptop, scroll to Google News. My heart stops. Literally skips and stops beating. I suck in a breath and refresh the page, my heart hammering as fast as a Thoroughbred’s hooves thundering down a racetrack.
The picture of Autumn is current, based on what I saw last night. The haircut, the impossibly big blue eyes, the thin frame, the tender smile.
Above it, in huge, 24-point font, the headline screams:
I shake my head. This is impossible. She was here. There is no question in my mind that Autumn spent the night in my apartment, in my bed, in my arms.
I am a police officer. I am a logical, realistic human being. The love of my life spent the night in my apartment, but she also is missing from her hometown.
What if it wasn’t really her? What if Jim’s right?
An eerie sense of loss fills me as I do the math.
There’s only one way a woman could be in two places at once.
And Autumn couldn’t be a ghost.
Could she?
The news of Autumn’s disappearance goes national two days later, when the Austin police find a traffic cam that shows her walking out of the bar, down the street, and disappearing into the night. Moments later, a tan Camry can be seen peeling away from the dark spot in the video. The police surmised she either got into the car willingly or was forced into it by an assailant. There are BOLOs out on the car, but without a license plate, it is going to be hard narrowing it down. All the sex offenders are being checked on, par for the course when a young woman goes missing. So far, there is nothing. Autumn has vanished into thin air.
I’ve been trying to work, but my heart isn’t in it. I can’t get my mind off the blond goddess who’d visited me Christmas night. The things she’d said. The way she’d moved. The feeling of her lips pressed against mine, her legs wrapped around my waist.
She hasn’t been back, but I am still wearing the watch she gave me and begged me not to take off.
There are many strange things about our time together, yes, but I am in pretty hefty denial until Stephen and Jim sit me down and force me to watch the time-stamped video.
Seeing the incontrovertible evidence makes me break down and admit they are right. I have to trust the forensics. Everything, from witness statements to fingerprints to DNA swabs to this video, is telling me that Autumn was in Austin on Christmas night.
So how the hell was she with me? Have I finally lost my mind, been driven crazy by grief? Did I have some sort of acid trip flashback? I swear to God the woman was with me, in my apartment, in my living room, in my bed. I am wearing the watch she gave me.
Nothing makes sense. I’m a rational guy. Yes, I was drunk, totally-wasted drunk. But I have a tangible item on my wrist. Proof that she’s been to my place.
There is only one other explanation, and I don’t think I rolled someone on my way home from Mercy Lounge on Christmas night. I am slowly coming to grips with the idea that maybe, just maybe, something I can’t explain is happening.
The guys treat me like I’m some sort of mental patient for the next couple of days. The search for Autumn is heating up. Autumn’s friends are all over television, doing very serious, heartfelt interviews. And still, there is nothing.
Time keeps passing.
A week into the search, on New Year’s Eve, the 24/7 news cycle finds another juicy murder story to latch onto, and Autumn Cleary disappears from television sets nationwide as well.
Though I am really not in the mood, I agree to go out on New Year’s Eve with Stephen and Jim. We start the night in awkward silence, have a couple of drinks at my place, then walk down to Lower Broad and watch the guitar drop. It is cold and dreary, the skies overcast, the early dark oppressive. I can smell snow. Usually New Year’s in LoBro is a blast, but I’m not feeling it. There is a sense of dread hanging over the evening. Nothing seems right. I can’t have fun. Not when I don’t know what’s happened to Autumn. I am back at my apartment by 12:30 a.m., sober as a judge, the TV on but muted, staring out the window at the chilly night. Thinking. Again.
I’d like to think Autumn and I have some sort of connection, that even though we haven’t seen each other in seven years, I’d know if she were in trouble, or hurt, or dead. I can’t help but obsess about her visit. Since there are no rational explanations, I finally allow myself to think in less realistic terms. If she were a ghost, and she appeared to me, that means she must be dead.
The very idea squeezes my heart and makes my breath come short. Losing her all over again is killing me.
Accepting I am probably on my way to a straight-jacket, I take the watch off my wrist and stare at it. I don’t know anything about watches, except they tell time. This is a nice timepiece, not gaudy. It looks expensive. I pull out my phone and finally Google the brand: TAG Heuer.
Shit. These fuckers are expensive. Where in the world did Autumn come up with the money to buy me a gift like this? I turn it over and realize the back is engraved. I feel a little better now. She got it used. I’m glad. I wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing she’d spent six months rent on a present for me.
Engraved in the silver back is a stylized star, and inside its borders there is a monogram with the initials TWH. The W is bigger than the other two, it must be the last name. T is the first, H the middle. I wonder who owned the watch before, why they gave it up, where she found it. Do ghosts wear watches? Do they need to tell time?
I don’t know, if I were going to spend eternity floating through life, I don’t think I’d want a watch constantly reminding me of time’s never-ending passage.
I put it back on my wrist. Try to wrap my head around my thought process. If she’s a ghost, she’s dead, and the last thing she did was bring me a present. Not only the watch. She gave me forgiveness. She gave me love, her body. She gave me closure.
And I finally understand what’s happened. She is gone. But she found a way to let me know she still loved me and regretted what happened between us.
I can’t believe what a gift Autumn has given me. Despite myself, I start to cry. I have to find out where she is, what happened to her. She’s counting on me. I know she is.
And then it hits me.
The watch isn’t a present. It’s a clue.
Day ten after Autumn went missing, I take a few days of vacation, happily sanctioned by my boss, who is (rightly so) concerned about me getting myself shot on the streets if I don’t get my head back into the game. I drive to Austin, fast. It takes me a little over twelve hours, with two breaks.
This is even more confirmation I had some sort of drunken vision the night Autumn disappeared. There’s no way she could have gotten to me in the timeframe we’re talking about. Not as a human, that is.
I’ve never been to Austin before. It reminds me of Nashville. Thumping music downtown, tony neighborhoods, restaurants galore. My GPS takes me to police headquarters on 8th Street, and I go inside, show my badge, and ask to speak to the detective working Autumn’s case, Mario Torres.
He comes out of the bullpen immediately, hand outstretched. Torres is a big guy, barrel-chested, with jet-black hair and a luxurious mustache. When he speaks, it is with a sense of contained joviality. He reminds me of one of the sergeants I work with in Nashville, Bob Parks.
“I’m Torres. You Aukey?”
“Yes. Call me Zack.”
“Zack. Don’t know how much help I can give you, this is a local case, you know. But come on back, and let’s chat.”
Torres is humoring me as a fellow cop, and I can’t say I blame him one bit. It’s not usual for cops from other jurisdictions, other states, to come in on a case without first being asked, and without anything to add to the mix.
We walk by a break room and he gestures to the coffeepot. I nod and he pours me a cup, thick and black. I dump in four sugars; I need the boost. I am tired. So tired.
He leads me to his desk, pulls me up a chair, and drops a pen on a clean yellow legal pad.
“So, Zack, tell me what Austin PD can do for you, now that you’ve come all the way from Nashville. I take it you used to date Ms. Cleary?”
Go careful, Zack.
“That’s right. We broke up several years ago.” I take a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, but I saw Autumn in Nashville Christmas night. Around the same time that she went missing, as a matter of fact.”
Torres leans forward, his dark eyes searching mine. I can tell exactly what he’s thinking, which he confirms a second later.
“Is there something you need to tell me, Zack?”
Boom. In one fell swoop, I’ve made myself a suspect in her disappearance.
“Yes, there is, but it’s not what you think. I’m not here to confess. I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance. I’d never hurt Autumn. I love her, man.”
Torres’s voice is thoughtful. He unconsciously plays with the snap on his cuffs. “Afraid I’m a bit confused, partner.”
“This is going to sound absolutely insane, and if you toss me out on my ear, or throw me in the pokey, I will completely understand. But roll with me.”
“I’m listening.”
“About an hour after Autumn was seen on the video, she showed up in my apartment in Nashville.”
I sit back in my chair and take a drink of the now cooled coffee. It is terrible. I set the cup down and wait for Torres to either cuff me or kick me out.
Instead, he’s looking at me with undisguised curiosity.
“What do you think this means, Zack?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, as my grandmother used to say.
“I think Autumn’s ghost came to visit me. And I think she’s given me a clue about where I can find her. I know it sounds crazy, but she was in my apartment. We were together for several hours, and she gave me a really expensive watch before she left.”
Torres is staring at me like I’m going to bite him. “Wow. That’s . . .”
Oh, it’s definitely time for me to leave. I stand up. “I get it. Sorry. Forget I was ever here.”
“Sit down, dummy.”
He gestures toward the chair and I’m startled by his tone. He sounds almost . . . friendly. I sit. I have nothing left to do.
“You say she touched you?” he asks.
“Yes. Several times.” She’d done a hell of a lot more than touch me, but I wasn’t going to tell a stranger I’d had sex with a ghost.
“And she gave you a watch?”
I unsnap it from my wrist and hand it over.
He looks at it, gives it back.
“Amazing.” And he means it.
I can’t help feeling surprised. “You believe me?”
“You’re talking to a guy who celebrates Día de los Muertos. Of course I believe you.”
“No idea what you just said, man. I took French in high school.”
“Idiot,” he replies companionably. “Día de los Muertos is the Day of the Dead. The first of November, the day after Halloween, we celebrate our ancestors who are no longer with us. The whole idea is to encourage a visit from them, to see them again. So yeah, I believe in ghosts.”
I must look shocked because Torres starts to laugh. “Dude, I’m Catholic and descended from Mayans. I believe in most everything, from miracles to visitations.” He stops smiling, and his voice is gentler now. “I’m sorry that things are shaking out like this, because if she’s a ghost, she’s . . .”
My chest squeezes tight. “Yeah. I’d figured out that part for myself. Unlike you, I don’t believe in this stuff, so I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I mean, we broke up years ago, and we haven’t talked or seen each other since. I’m kind of flattered she came to me.”
“You’re a cop, dude. She probably assumed you would try to investigate and find her body. That’s what cops do, you know.”
“Yeah. I figured that part out, too. So here I am. What can I do to help?”
Torres is staring at my wrist. “Let me see that again.”
I hand over the watch. My wrist feels cold without it there. “There’s an engraving on the back. Initials.”
Torres flips the watch over, puts on his glasses, holds the watch under the lamp. Hey, he’s older than me. Not everyone can have cat vision.
I’m about to make a joke about detectives and magnifying glasses when he turns white and lets off with a string of what I assume are curses in Spanish. He jumps up, out of his seat.
“What is it?”
“Come with me.”
“Wait, you recognize this?”
He doesn’t answer, marches toward the hall like a bull charging a red cape. I follow, heart starting to beat a rapid tattoo.
We bolt up a flight of stairs to the third floor and down a long hallway, into the quiet executive offices of the Austin PD.
Ignoring the protests of the chief’s young secretary, Torres opens the door and strides into his boss’s office.
The guy who I assume is Chief Acevedo is in a meeting with a three men in suits. They all look surprised, which is no wonder, considering the way Torres is advancing on them. He gets to the desk, tosses the watch to the chief, who catches it. Torres practically growls, “I know where Autumn Cleary is.”
On the last of the Omen Days, Epiphany, we drive west in a caravan of cars and trucks. It is before dawn, in the darkest hours of the night. The Texas skies are crystal clear, and out here, there are no lights, no city brightness to hide the stars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, this vast openness, the constellations easily discernible. Stars litter the sky, diamonds cast onto a black velvet canvas. The brightest star, Sirius, seems to have a halo of light around it. Polaris is to my right, giving me perspective on our travels.
I’m queasy worrying about what we might find. SWAT is already in position; they’ve been watching the ranch for the past twenty-four hours, trying to determine if Thomas Holden Winchester III is on site.
Winchester, it turns out, is a young guy who comes from some serious oil money. His grandfather was a famous wildcatter and struck oil on what is now their extensive property. Winchester II continued the tradition, but went missing a few years back. According to Torres, there have always been rumors that he was killed by his kid and dumped down a well on the property, but Austin PD never had any proof and they couldn’t get warrants to search.
Torres gives me the rest of the rundown as we drive.
“T.H. Winchester, as he’s known, is rich and ruthless. There’s always been this thing about him maybe bumping off Dear Old Dad, but we also think he’s running coke in from Mexico. He’s funding the coyotes who bring illegals across the border. They come in near Laredo, and Winchester’s people drive ‘em up to the ranch with the drugs. On his property, they can find food and shelter, but the price is hefty. No drugs and you’re dead. Considering the number of illegals we have coming through here? I’d say they’re happy to pay the price.”
“And you haven’t arrested him for it?”
“It’s a hard situation. We haven’t been able to get close enough to catch him in the act, and with a guy who has this much money, nothing less than the proverbial hand in the cookie jar will do.”
“But you were able to get a warrant easily this time. Why?”
“Judge Crater is hard on kidnapping. Had a daughter killed when she was a teenager. Body showed up after a few weeks on the side of the road. Dumped. She’d been killed elsewhere.”
“How?”
“Strangled. Raped.” He paused. “She had some broken bones. The works.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Nope. Not officially.”
And Torres goes quiet. A meaningful silence. He watches me with his dark eyes, made black by the empty sky, waiting for me to put the pieces together.
“Are you telling me Winchester might be involved in the Crater murder?”
He looks out the window.
“I’m telling you there are a fair number of girls who have gone missing from this area over the past ten years. Five have shown up again on the side of the road, broken and strangled, like Crater’s daughter Rose. The other three are still missing.”
“Is Autumn one of the three?”
“Yes.”
I take a deep breath, try to swallow the bile rising in my throat. “We’re talking a serial killer?”
“In my opinion, yes. The cases have been documented in ViCAP. A couple of FBI profilers gave us some leads a few years back. I’ve never bought their profile—one of the women was from Vermont, so they think it’s a truck driver dropping bodies during a long haul. I disagree. Whoever’s been doing this is smart and local. Crater’s daughter is the only victim who was a native. The rest of the women were all transplants to the area, without family nearby. I’ve always thought T.H. was involved. Call it a gut instinct.”
“And now you have his watch. Which we can’t explain.”
“Well, we have one explanation. Your ex managed to get it to you the night she went missing. Let’s pray it’s not too late.”
Word has gone around about the way Torres and I came up with a suspect. The Austin cops seem nonplussed by the idea that a ghost visited me and gave me a watch belonging to her murderer. I’m thinking if they are this open-minded, and I ever need a change of scenery, Austin might not be a bad place to work.
“The thing about T.H.,” Torres continues, “is he won’t go easy. We’re T-minus ten minutes to the ranch. I want you out of the way, and out of the fray.”
I don’t argue. This is their rodeo. I’m lucky they’ve let me ride along, considering the tie I have to the case.
Torres’s phone rings. He answers it, listens, then hangs up and smiles, mean and sinister. He is a different man, one primed for action, serious and deadly. I am suddenly glad he’s on my side.
“SWAT confirms T.H. is on the property. They spied him walking to the barn.” He smacks me on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be our lucky day.”
It might be their lucky day. All I know is there is a better-than-average chance I’m going to see the love of my life dead and broken, and I don’t know if I want that image of her to be my last.
Suck it up, Aukey. If Autumn can manage to cross the veil to give you a clue, the least you can do is face whatever she went through to do it.
The sun is breaking in the east when we drive through the gates of the ranch. I’m not used to the openness of the land here, the vastness, the flat scrub brush and shifting sands. It feels too big, like there’s no way we’ll find a small woman like Autumn. I swallow back the fear and frustration, and hear a series of gunshots. Small arms fire.
Torres is on his phone immediately. “What happened, what’s going on? Son of a bitch!”
He slaps the cover closed and jacks a round into his Glock. “SWAT had to engage. T.H. saw them and ran.” He launches a volley of rapid-fire Spanish at the driver, a guy named Hernandez, and the man veers off the main road. A choking plume of dust follows us into the field.
“Where are we going?”
“Coming around back. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’s fleeing this way.”
I rearrange myself to look out the window. Adrenaline has started pumping through my system. I pull the .38 from my ankle holster. Torres watches impassively.
“Sorry, man, but I’m not walking in there unarmed.”
He nods, reaches over the back seat and yanks out a vest. “Put this on. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting dead, not on my watch.”
I shrug into the bulletproof vest and keep watch out the window as we bump and slide through the scrub. This is happening, and all my thoughts are for Autumn. Torres hands me a monocular. I jam it to my eye and start scanning the landscape.
“There,” I say, pointing. “Dust rising to the south.”
Hernandez jerks the wheel and we plot an intercept course. Torres is shouting into his phone.
After a few minutes the dust plume stops. “He’s gone on foot,” I call, but I see quickly that I’m wrong. There is a maze of buildings in the middle of this emptiness. Barns. I catch a glimpse of lush green land in front of us. There is a small lake, marshy with cattails and scrub.
“Out here, they only water the land they need to keep the stock alive,” Torres says in explanation. “Winchester’s always kept horses. Thoroughbreds. He races them, likes being the big playboy at the track. SWAT is coming. They want us to stay put.”
Hernandez pulls the truck over to the side of the road, one hundred yards from the barns. We wait. I am jittery and holding the gun too tightly in my hand. My knuckles are white. I release my fingers, try to relax.
Torres stiffens next to me and swears. “Did you see that? The fucker ran through the corral.”
Hernandez says, “SWAT’s five minutes away.”
“She could be in there,” I say, and my hand is on the door and then I’m out, into the chill, onto the marshy land, my legs pumping as I run toward the barns. Torres is right behind me, saying things in Spanish I assume aren’t complimentary. We run low and fast, trying to avoid getting ourselves shot.
When we draw closer, he grabs my arm and steps in front of me, starts signaling with his left hand. “Go around the front,” his gestures say, “I will cover you.”
I move slowly this time, my feet touching the ground lightly and quickly as I move to the entrance of the main building. There are six outbuildings. The bastard could be in any of them.
Torres signals he’s going right, I should go left. I do. I step into the barn, hugging the wall. There are horses, I can hear them nickering and the air is redolent with manure. There is a long cement channel in front of me, tack hanging on the walls, the stall doors shut all the way down.
The hair rises on my arms.
I am not alone. I can feel the eyes on me.
I dive to the left a second before the bullet hits the spot I was standing in. Torres ducks right, behind the door to one of the sixteen stalls in the barn.
I hear trucks and shouts. SWAT has arrived to save the day. But I know how they work. Set perimeters. Assess the situation. Time. Time. Time.
I don’t want to be a hero, but I don’t want to wait for hours, either. The bullet came from above me. I’ll be safer with the horses.
I run down the row, find the first empty stall, throw myself over the top. I land hard in fresh straw. But I am alone, and alive.
Turning back to the cement interior, I scan the area I’ve run from. I have a new perspective on the barn’s entrance. There is a ladder by the door. A hayloft. He must be up there.
There’s only one way to do this. Using the stall door as cover, I swing it open gently. A shot hits the wood, and another, and another. But now he’s given his position away. I can see him. T.H. Winchester has red hair; he looks like a strawberry in the hay.
He ducks his head back in and shoots again. But it’s too late for him. I step from behind the door, and I don’t hesitate. I walk forward, aiming for the spot I’ve seen him disappear into, hoping the flash of white and red I saw a second earlier is his forehead. I squeeze the trigger, and a muffled thud tells me I’ve found my mark. I shoot again, and once more. Winchester falls out of the loft at my feet, dead.
It is over, less than three minutes after it started.
Torres is there, pressing fingers into Winchester’s neck, knowing already there will be no heartbeat. He looks up at me with genuine respect.
“Nice shooting.”
“Yeah.” My hands are strangely cold. I’ve never killed anyone before. And now I’ve shot a man without ever saying a word to him, in anger or curiosity or fear. He is dead, and I am glad.
“Is that him?” I manage.
“It is.” Torres still has his gun out. “I need to tell SWAT and my boss what’s happening before they come in here cocked and loaded, and we need to search this place.”
“You talk. I’ll search.”
“You sure, man?”
His dark eyes are full of concern, but I nod. “I’d rather be the one who finds her.”
“Listen . . . stay here a minute. Let me brief them on what went down, then we’ll do it together.”
I nod, but the minute his back is turned, I start down the row of stalls again. There is a reason Winchester fled to this place. There is something here of value to him, something he wanted to protect.
Seven of the stalls have horses, spooked and stomping and white-eyed, all freaked by the shootings. The eighth confirms my deepest fears.
I open the stall door, and I see her in the gloom, on her back, her empty face staring at the heavens.
“Autumn!”
She doesn’t answer and I realize life as I know it is over. She is dead, lying in the hay in the Thoroughbred’s stall, her legs bent at a strange angle, as if she tried to ride one of the horses to safety but fell off. Or Winchester left her that way, arranged her awkwardly, as if he’d used her then forgotten her. I want to shoot him again, but I leave him to Torres and his crew and go to Autumn’s side, steeling myself.
It’s been twelve days since she went missing. I expect there to be a strong stench around her. And while I catch the scent of ammonia and feces, there is no decomposition.
Her face is so white. I can see the veins running under her skin. She is thin, so thin.
Oh God, I pray, not knowing any more words. Oh, God.
And her eyes focus. Her head turns toward me. She looks at me and something like love flits across her face. Is she a spirit?
Her mouth moves. “Zack,” she whispers.
Dear God, she’s alive.
“She’s alive,” I scream, running to the stall window. “Torres, she’s alive! We need a medevac, STAT!”
Shouts go up around the ranch.
I fall to my knees by Autumn’s side. Her face is bruised from a beating, and it must hurt to do it, but she smiles.
“Zack. I knew you’d come.” Her voice is torn and thick, like she hasn’t had water in a very long time.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here. You’re safe now. Can you get up? I want to get you out of here.”
And it hits me, the way her legs are splayed, so unnatural, so odd. Her back is broken. He has broken her back so she can’t run away. Rage fills me. I am so glad I was the one to kill him. I am so glad I’ve taken some small measure of revenge for us both.
“I can’t walk,” she whispers, but her hand snakes up and touches my forehead, brushes back the hair from my eyes. “He made sure I couldn’t walk first thing. Don’t worry, Zack. It doesn’t even hurt.”
“That’s okay, baby. That’s okay. I’ll carry you. I’ll always carry you.”
We’re both crying, and I hear the whump whump whump of a helicopter’s rotors.
Seven years ago, I lost the love of my life. And now I have found her. She is cradled carefully, gently in my arms, pale and still, broken in two, but breathing, her chest lifting lightly. Autumn is alive. And I don’t know what to think about anything anymore.
The sun is shining, masking the bitter cold outside. I didn’t know Texas could get so cold, but I’m wearing a North Face fleece and damn glad I packed it, because it’s colder than a witch’s tit down here.
The Omen Days are over. There has been a requisite rebirth; the season’s requirements are met. My life has changed, altered. I will never be the same again.
Autumn is still in the hospital in Austin, but is better, much better. The break was lower than we first thought, and the doctors think the damage to her spinal cord is temporary, that she’ll be able to walk again. She’s already getting feeling back in her toes. They think the trauma of the broken vertebrae caused swelling, and that’s what’s shutting off the signals to her brain that her feet really do work. It is a miracle. Torres finally told me the details of the other bodies they’d found. They all had their backs broken. Winchester’s gruesome signature: he paralyzed his victims so they couldn’t run away or even fight him. He was a coward.
We haven’t discussed what he did to her over the course of the twelve days he had her. She’ll tell me when she’s ready, and I will listen, knowing I’ve meted out the justice she deserves.
Late that first night, I did ask how it all happened, how she managed to find me. I was holding her hand and she was trying, and failing, to sleep. We talked, quietly, low.
“How did you get me the watch?”
She looks distant and eternal, like she’s touched the sky and the stars and they’ve left a mark on her.
“I don’t know. Not really. It was like a dream. He took it off the . . . the first time, put it on the dresser. When he started to hurt me, I fought back. He slugged me, flipped me over onto the floor and stomped on my back, and I got all kinds of floaty. That’s when I had the dream. I dreamed of you, Zack. And I knew you could help me. I got up, walked away from him and the things he was doing, took the watch and . . . found you. I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t care if it makes sense or not. I am so proud of you, honey. So proud.”
I’m not kidding. It doesn’t matter how she managed to leave her body and find me. All that matters is that she’s going to be okay, and she’s going to be mine.
Torres and his team have already found six bodies buried on the ranch property, plus the bones of a male Caucasian in an abandoned well three miles from the barns. It will take a while to sort out who is who, and the ranch covers so many thousands of acres they will be searching for a while, but they are calling the mission a success. A sad success, but so many families will finally know what happened to their loved ones, their lost girls, because my brave Autumn found me, and gave me the piece of the puzzle they needed to take down a prolific, sick serial killer.
Autumn has made a request of me, so I’ve left her in the room and am off to fulfill her dearest wish at the moment, to find some obscure Austin ice cream she loves.
This morning, when I walked in, she was smiling and humming to herself. When she saw me, I swear there was a sparkle in her eyes again. Last night she told me she wants to come back home. Not only to Nashville, but home to me. Home to our interrupted life.
I don’t know what Christmas miracle has occurred between us, but I welcome every minute I get to spend with Autumn. Maybe being apart so long has given me a deeper appreciation of what love is, and how bleak life is without it. Maybe the girl outside Mercy Lounge really was an angel, and when she gave me her smokes, she gave me some sort of blessing, a new lease on life, or opened a plane that allowed Autumn through. I will never know.
I find the ice cream shop. It is next to a jewelry store.
The old me, the Zack who doesn’t believe in miracles, would walk right past. But I go inside, happy for the warmth of glassed-in store. A dark-haired woman is working behind the counter. She looks up and smiles as I approach.
“Looking for something special?”
“I am. Something pretty. It’s a late present. A very, very late Christmas present.”
Twenty minutes later, I have a small velvet box in my front pocket and a carton of salted caramel coffee crunch ice cream freezing my hand off. The walk back to the hospital isn’t quite as cold.
Autumn is clean and fresh, smiling widely when she sees me. Her hair is glistening. “The nurse let me have a shower. I had to stay lying down, but I feel human again.”
“I’m glad. I like your hair short, by the way.”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about growing it out again. For old time’s sake.” She spies the ice cream. “Oh, Zack, you found it!”
I present it to her, with the small wooden paddle spoon attached. “I am a miracle worker.”
Her eyes meet mine. The bruises are fading. Soon she’ll look like she always did, peaches and cream and freckles. There are a few new lines around her eyes. I like them. She’s gone to hell, and she’s come back. She’s going to get better, and I will love her no matter what happens, and what choices she makes.
Her hand reaches out and catches mine, and she squeezes, hard.
“Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“I never have, Autumn. And I never will. Now eat your ice cream.”
“I love you, Zack. I’ve always loved you. I want you to know that.” She nods once, as if resigning herself to her fate, then opens the top of the ice cream. It comes off easily. She gasps.
The ring is nestled in the ribbon of caramel. Hey, it’s an impromptu proposal, don’t judge. I’m thinking on my feet here.
Autumn is crying and laughing through her tears. I have never seen her look more beautiful. I drop to my knees by her bed and say the words I’ve wanted to utter for a decade.
“Merry Christmas, Autumn. Will you marry me?”
Oh, in case you were wondering, we got married on Christmas Day, at St. George’s in Belle Meade. Guilty Pleasures played the reception. Autumn and I danced all night.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love Christmas?