Lena was sitting on the couch watching the television when I walked in. She glanced over at me, then back to the screen.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
“Actually, I feel pretty good.”
She clicked off the TV with the remote and patted the cushion on the couch next to her.
“Talk.”
“Well, for starters, Tyler isn’t missing, even though he wants people to think he is.”
“What?”
“I saw him, just standing on the sidewalk. Told me to stop looking for him and to stay out of it. And something about a house over the hill. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Anyway, he said he was in trouble, that he’d screwed up, and because of whatever he did, Earl was in trouble, too.”
“What house?”
“Don’t know. I never met any of Earl’s neighbors.”
“And what kind of trouble?”
“Don’t know that either. But the police say I can find out.”
“What officer of the law would ever say something like that?”
“Inspector Burrell from the SFPD. Remember her?”
“You know a lot of police officers. I get them confused.”
“Funny. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll figure this out and then Tyler can ‘reappear’ and Earl can relax.”
“You want to go over that again for me? Maybe it’s my mom brain, but when you stormed out of here, I don’t know, four or five hours ago, you were incredibly mad. Now you’re all smiles because a police officer—”
“An inspector—”
“—An inspector has led you to believe you can solve this little problem on your own?”
“Most of that’s right.”
“Well, I know you. You’re going to do what you want no matter what I say.” She hesitated and then, “By the way, why don’t you want to meet Jon’s family?”
My pulse jumped about thirty points. I sat up straight on the couch. “We were talking about Tyler and Earl.”
“Sorry. I thought we’d finished with that topic. It’s only a question, Trisha. Don’t go ballistic on me again,” she appealed.
I stood up and started to walk around the living room, looking everywhere but at her.
“It’s a simple question, Trisha.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
I walked back over to the couch and picked up the photograph of me, Lena, our mom and dad at the Marin County Fair. Our family, before everything fell apart.
“You just don’t get it,” I said to my sister.
“Yes, I do. You’ve got all kinds of abandonment shit. I understand. First Dad, then your husband. I can see why you’d be gun shy. But Jon—Jon is great. And you’re just pissing it all away because you’re scared. Is that what you want? To be alone for the rest of your life?”
“Everybody leaves, ok? Jon will be next. It’s only a matter of a time. I’ve thought about it over and over. No matter how hard I try, deep inside, I feel it’s all my fault, that they left because of me. But I don’t know what I did to make them leave. I don’t know how to fix it. So, stop. Just stop.”
“I’m here. I didn’t leave.”
“Oh, Lee, I know, and I’m grateful for that.”
“And here comes the but.”
Before I could continue, she walked out of the living room, down the hall to her bedroom. Her door closed.
Nothing is ever easy when it comes to Lena and me. Even with everything we’d been through together, it was like we spoke different languages sometimes. I clicked on my phone, checked my email. The final-final results from the open water swim had been sent. I was immediately drawn in, leaving Lena, Jon, and past life experiences behind me.
I’d come in thirty-fifth out of fifty women swimmers in my age group. Not bad for my first attempt while battling a serious case of open-water anxiety. I searched through the men’s results. Burk wasn’t listed. I checked the disqualified swimmers. Nothing there either. I combed through the overall set of results that combined both men and women of all age groups. No Burk. I tried to picture the last moments of the race, again. He’d followed me out of the water and ran through the finish line. Hadn’t he? I couldn’t remember. Had he been wearing a cap with his race number printed on it, his arms and legs marked with a thick black sharpie with those same numbers? Possibly. My fear had so completely overwhelmed me that I’d failed to register these suddenly-important details. I hit reply and composed a quick email to the event director, asking for any info about a swimmer named Burk, a tall guy in his late forties.
Now there were two quasi-missing men on my radar. Tyler and Burk. They were so different. Skinny, slight Tyler had frizzy black hair and a keen mind for sports statistics but wasn’t athletic by any stretch of the imagination. Burk. Well, I didn’t know much about him. Easy on the eyes, that was for sure. But also confident, a solid swimmer, and possibly a partner in Coyote Ridge. His anonymity irked me. I couldn’t fit him into a neat little box, tied up with a bow, put in his proper place on the shelf of my mind. To be honest, I liked the way he had looked at me, how he’d talked to me in the water. I wouldn’t have made it through the swim without him. But something seemed odd, and I didn’t know what. Another gut feeling. In my mind, Lena’s words ran through my mind, “You always find the weirdest guys to get involved with.” I glanced at my sister’s closed door and sighed.
I headed to Timmy’s bedroom, scooted around the baby changing table and stood for a minute, staring out of the window into the darkness. Why aren’t things easier now? I thought they would be. I had a nice, semi-permanent place to live, a solid part-time seasonal job, a relationship with my father and a boyfriend. At least, I hoped I had a boyfriend. Three years ago, I couldn’t have dreamed of this existence. But living the dream hadn’t filled the void, that developed when my husband left. It took working a case to get the blood flowing.
I’d turned into a danger junkie. Throw in some risk, uncertainty, verbal dynamite, a little physical danger, and I felt alive. No wonder everything else bored me. Normalcy could never compare to peril and crisis. In those moments, I could feel my mind growing sharper, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I loved solving puzzles, often dangerous puzzles. Maybe that’s why Burk piqued my interest. He was an unknown quantity, a hot enigma, a puzzle to solve. Something is wrong with me.
I sank down into the single bed, turned off the light and promptly fell asleep.