She's Not There (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

His eyes burned, like someone had poured kerosene on his lids, and when he finally opened them, all he saw was an orange fireball.

The sun . . . it was just the sun filtering through the orange drapes, turning the motel room into his own little version of hell.

But it was ice cold in the room. And slowly it came to him that beneath the thin stiff bedspread he was naked. Had he even tried to turn on the heat? Where was he? The whole of last night was gone, lost in the tornado of pain.

Buchanan squinted toward the drapes.

Or was it last night? How long had he been out? Just one night or longer? His head was throbbing, and he couldn’t think straight, like someone had pushed a button in his brain and erased his memory.

Except . . .

It was coming back now, the hard ride into the Iowa night, the pimply kid with the comic book, the burn down to his bones as he poured whiskey over his wound, and the helpless feeling as his knees buckled in the bathtub.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

He brought his wrist up and squinted at his watch. Eight ten. He squinted hard at the inset date display—SAT 12.

Okay . . . he had only been out about eleven hours. Good, that was good at least. But he had to see how bad the wound was, and that meant he had to move.

When he tried to turn over, the pain came, a hard throb in his left shoulder, radiating down the length of his body, coming in waves that made his toes curl.

He gritted his teeth and used his good right arm to push up to a sitting position, trying to ignore the bloodstains on the sheet. When he looked down at the entry wound, he was relieved to see it was puffy and red but not bleeding. He stood up, staggered into the bathroom, and slapped the wall switch on.

He let out a long breath as he turned to look at the exit wound. It was ragged and raw, bigger than the front wound, but it was crusted and seeping only a pale pink bit of blood.

Which meant he was probably going to make it. If the damn thing didn’t get infected.

He turned the spigot on and waited until the water got hot and then splashed his face. When he looked up into the mirror, he almost didn’t recognize the man who looked back—whiskered jaw as gray as the winter sky, hair like tamped-down dead cornstalks, and eyes as empty and flat as the road that had brought him to this place.

You tried to kill her, Bucky.

He shut his eyes.

You can’t do it.

If I don’t, I can’t get you back.

But I’m gone.

I failed. I failed you. I didn’t find you. I can’t do anything good in my life. I can’t even do anything bad.

No, you can’t, Bucky.

He squeezed his eyes tighter. Her voice was gone, but her words were still in his head. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t kill anyone. Not even to get his daughter back. Not even to save himself.

It was over. He was going back to Nashville.

He looked back at his reflection. What a fucking irony. He wouldn’t go to jail for trying to kill Amelia Tobias. But he might go to prison for killing his wife.

The sky was huge and blue, but the wind cut across the back of his neck as he made his way across the hotel parking lot and to the Kum & Go. His plan was simple. Get some food and supplies, gas up the Toyota, and head back east on Highway 9.

There was no one in the store except an old woman behind the register who gave him a glance before going back to reading the
National Enquirer
spread out on the counter.

Buchanan grabbed a breakfast burrito and, stomach rumbling, he unwrapped it and started to eat as he roamed the aisles. He was looking for first aid stuff to dress his wounds but there was nothing but tins of Band-Aids.

His eyes went left to the baby stuff. He grabbed a package of Pampers, detoured to the automotive shelf, and picked up a roll of duct tape. Adding some Tylenol and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a large black coffee, and two more burritos, he went up to the counter.

As the old lady started to ring up his stuff, Buchanan’s eyes roamed over the display of cheap wine.

“Do you sell whiskey?” he asked.

“Nope. You gotta go to a liquor store,” she said. “Nearest one is in Arnolds Park.”

He let out a long breath.

“Or you can head north up 86 to Grovers Lake.”

“Where’s that?”

“Minnesota.”

His burner phone chirped. He grabbed it from his pocket and looked at the screen. McCall again. He hit “Decline” and stowed the cell. After paying for his supplies, he headed back out into the cold sunshine. He was halfway to the motel when the cell rang again.

Shit!

He jerked the phone out of his pocket and hit the button to answer.

“What?” he demanded.

Several seconds of silence, then McCall’s voice was in his ear, distant yet as close as a shadow. “Why haven’t you answered my calls?”

“I’ve been busy,” Buchanan said.

“Have you found her?”

“Yeah.”

“When’s it going to be over?”

“When it’s over. You’ll be the first to know.”

More silence on McCall’s end. “You having a problem with this?” he asked finally.

Buchanan stared out toward the highway.

“If you can’t do the job, I’ll find someone who can,” McCall said.

A semi barreled by, spraying up snow and noise.

“You hear me?” McCall asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Buchanan said. “We’re good. I’m good. I’m good.”

He hung up.

As he slipped the cell back in his jeans, it caught on his wallet. He took out the wallet, paused, then opened it and pulled out the small brass key. McCall had couriered to him back in Fort Lauderdale. The key to a locker somewhere, a locker that supposedly held two million dollars in cash.

He held the key up, and it glittered in the hard sunlight.

Two million gone. His chance to get Gillian back gone. Maybe his own life gone. What was left?

He stared hard at the key, thinking about McCall, thinking about why Amelia Tobias was such a threat to him, thinking that if he went back to Nashville now Amelia would be dead within a week.

I can’t do anything good in my life. I can’t even do anything bad.

No, you can’t, Bucky.

He put the key back in his wallet and squinted into the sun, so hard that his eyes began to water. He would find her. He would find Amelia and make sure she didn’t disappear.

“I’m good,” he said softly. “I’m good.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

If Clay Buchanan was dead, no one seemed to know about it.

Amelia folded the
Sioux City Journal
and punched the “Refresh” button for the web page on her iPad. The Internet newsfeed for KTIV out of Sioux City popped up again, with the same headlines that had been there all morning. A couple of robberies, a traffic fatality on I-29, and a tax increase for the people of Woodbury county.

No dead man on an Iowa beach.

That meant one of three things. Either the news had not yet reached the papers, in print or online, or they hadn’t found his body. Or Clay Buchanan had gotten up and walked away.

Amelia picked up a fork and cut her last sausage. As she popped it in her mouth, the door opened and a man in a brown and beige uniform walked in. The state trooper ordered a coffee from the hostess. Then, gloved hand on his holster, he looked around the diner.

Amelia averted her eyes, chewing her sausage and then taking a drink of her coffee. The trooper looked at her with mild interest, then his gaze returned to the hostess as she handed him a Styrofoam cup. With a jingle of the bell over the door, he was gone.

Amelia let out a breath.

No way could he miss her. Or the red Impala sitting out front. If there was any kind of alert out for her, she’d be in handcuffs by now.

Buchanan had not gone to the police. But of course, he couldn’t, she thought. He was a hired killer. How would he explain what he had done to get himself shot?

But if
she
went to the police, how could she explain what she had done? And would they believe her? She was a woman with a head injury who had bolted from a hospital room for no reason at all. She had hocked her wedding ring and hitchhiked across the country to a place she barely remembered. Then she took a shot at a stranger on a beach who had tried to strangle her.

She wasn’t sure she would believe herself.

It was moments like this when she most missed Ben. She had always been able to confide in him. He had been her compass. He had been the one who had told her to move away from Iowa.

Get out of Morning Sun, Mellie, don’t stay in this empty place.

Then another memory hit her like a hard slap, something he had written in one of his letters years later.

Don’t stay in an empty marriage, Mellie.

Her memories of Alex had been slowly re-forming over the last eight days, but some core thing was still missing and she knew what it was. Love. She had stopped loving Alex a long time ago. Or maybe she had never really loved him at all. But then, why had she married him? What had happened to make her give up the dancing she loved and marry a man she didn’t truly love?

She pushed her plate aside and laid her iPad on the table. She had searched the Internet for herself several times since that first day in the Brunswick Mall, but now she needed to know more about Alex.

The first search results gave her the same links and images she had seen in the Apple store at the mall. The beautiful home, her in a red dress smiling like a plastic doll for the camera. A photo of her and Alex at a charity event. She found articles about Alex’s law firm and pictures of him with other men in suits, none of whom looked remotely familiar.

A new face popped up on the screen, and she stared at it.

Owen McCall, senior partner at McCall and Tobias.

As she clicked through the images of McCall, some memories filtered back. McCall in her home, at the law offices. And one fuzzy memory of sharing wine with him and Alex in a small café as Italian words floated around them. This man would have been a friend, at least to Alex, but the sight of him left a sourness in her stomach, and she sensed he had been no friend to her.

Then more new faces—two blonde women; one young, one older. The caption identified them as Joanna McCall and her daughter, Megan. She knew these people, too.

Her eyes locked on the younger woman, and she stiffened, a memory coming into focus. An argument somewhere, this woman yelling at her, something about Alex.

Amelia looked to the mother, Joanna.

The emotions this face brought were softer, warmer. A vivid memory full of noise and color—sitting with Joanna McCall in poolside chairs at a yacht club, drinking martinis and making jokes about the old geezers having man-boobs.

Joanna was a friend, Amelia knew. But she also sensed there had been some uncomfortable space between them, like something genuine had been missing from the friendship or something had been in the way.

She was filled with a sudden sadness. Her mother and brother were gone. The Bird couldn’t remember her. Was there anyone left who cared about her?

Kiss a lover, dance a measure . . .

She blinked hard. Where had that come from? Who had said that to her?

Kiss a lover . . .

Had there been another man in her life?

This is for you, love, just a little thing to remember me by . . . kiss a lover, dance a measure.

Who had said that? And why couldn’t she remember who he was? And suddenly, she was so very sure it was “he.”

Amelia looked out the window, out at the flat white landscape beyond the parking lot. She felt so very alone. She needed to talk to someone.

Hannah . . .

Hannah was her friend, maybe her only friend. And Amelia had promised her she would check in.

Amelia spotted a pay phone on the wall and then looked down into the open duffel on the booth. She had Buchanan’s phone tap receiver, and she doubted there was a second one anywhere. She would take the chance that it was safe to call.

Amelia went to the counter, asked for five dollars in quarters and dropped them all into the phone. It rang a long time before Hannah answered.

“Hi Hannah. It’s me, Amelia.”

“Oh my goodness, where are you? Are you okay?”

Amelia hesitated. She couldn’t tell Hannah someone had tried to kill her and that she had shot him.

“I can’t tell you where I am, but yes, I’m okay.”

“Thank God, I thought he had found you.”

Amelia stiffened. “Who?”

“Your husband. He came here the night you left. Someone was watching you, all right. And you were right to leave here.”

“Are you sure it was my husband?” Amelia asked.

“He
said
he was your husband.”

“What did he look like?”

“Dark hair, fancy clothes. He kept calling you Mel.”

It couldn’t have been Buchanan posing as Alex.

“And the other guy called him Alex,” Hannah said.

“What other guy?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“Older guy, around sixty. Lots of white hair and reddish skin, like he drank too much. Like Ted Kennedy.”

Owen McCall. Why had he gone to Georgia with Alex?

“Are you sure you’re okay, hon?” Hannah asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, Hannah,” Amelia said softly. “There’s nothing you can do. I still can’t remember everything, and I can’t go home until I do.”

“Promise you’ll stay in touch,” Hannah said.

“I don’t think I should risk calling again, Hannah. At least not for a while.”

“Okay. Then you find another way. Maybe a postcard or a letter. And remember, you need to send me a real letter. I don’t do that e-mail stuff.”

“I have your address. I’ll write you from my next stop.”

“You take care of yourself, hon,” Hannah said. “Be smart.”

“I will.”

Amelia hung up and returned to her booth. It had been good hearing Hannah’s voice, but it had brought her no closer to knowing what she needed to do now or to finding someone who could help her.

A cell phone chirped from the booth next to hers, and she looked over, watching as a teenager punched at his iPhone while he ate his hamburger. Suddenly he looked up, and his eyes met hers. He was maybe seventeen, with a pale freckled face and a blond buzz cut.

“Why are you watching me?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” Amelia said. “I was wondering what you were doing.”

“Answering e-mails. I got a situation going here. Why do you care?”

Amelia held up her iPad. “Can you help me with this? I need to get to my e-mails.”

He gave her a look like she was crazy. “You don’t know how?”

She hesitated. “I can’t remember my e-mail address. Do you know if there’s any way I can get it?”

The kid stared at her. “You like been locked up somewhere for the last ten years or something?”

Amelia forced a smile. “I was in an accident and lost part of my memory.”

The kid’s blue eyes warmed in sympathy, and he popped out of his booth and into hers.

“Sorry I was rude,” he said. “I thought you were just another Aunt Tillie.” When she gave him a blank stare, he smiled and added, “It’s what we call old people who don’t know how to use computers. Can I see your tab?”

She gave him her iPad. In a split second, he had a new screen up—EmailFinder.com.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Amelia Tobias.”

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“Florida.”

“There’s a listing in Fort Lauderdale for a female, age thirty-three. That sound like you?”

“Yes. Can I get my e-mail address from this?”

“Yeah, you can get a seven-day free trial but they’re asking for your credit card number.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Well, we can try to log into Gmail,” he said. “That’s what most people use nowadays. See if you can sign in using your name.”

When he slid the iPad back to her she looked down at the two blank sign-in fields. The first asked for an e-mail address. She typed “AmeliaTobias” and the curser jumped to the password.

She stared at the second blank field.

“I guess you don’t remember your password either,” the kid said.

She shook her head. “How can I find it?”

“Not much I can do for you there. Most people use dumb stuff like their birthdays, nicknames, their cat’s name, or where they were born. Like I used to use Mickeyhaha because my name is Mick and I was born in Minnehaha County. Get it? Mickey and Minnie? Ha-ha?”

Amelia gave him a smile.

“But ever since I got hacked I just use a bunch of numbers and letters and I change it every week. You don’t want black hats finding wormholes to go phishing for your addy.”

Amelia nodded. “No, you certainly don’t.”

The kid picked up his cell phone and rose. “Well, I gotta go, lady.”

“One last thing,” she said. “Can I get a cell phone without a credit card?”

He nodded. “Sure, you can buy a prepaid phone with cash. They sell them at the Walmart down by Storm Lake.”

“Thank you, Mick,” Amelia said.

“Watch out for the black hats,” he said, and left.

Amelia looked back at the blank password field on her iPad and then typed in B-R-O-D-Y.

The password you entered is incorrect. Try Again.

A-M-E-L-I-A1981

The password you entered is incorrect. Try Again.

M-E-L-L-I-E

T-H-E-B-I-R-D

B-A-L-L-E-T

Amelia sat back in the booth. This was impossible. Her password could be anything, anyone, any place. There were millions of possible combinations.

She drew a breath and looked to the window. The Impala was covered in snow and the sky was a steely gray. She couldn’t stay here forever, not in this diner, and not in Iowa. If Buchanan was alive, he would find her again.

And he wouldn’t stop until he did. It was what he did. She remembered his book—
Nowhere to Hide
. And the descriptions of him from her Internet search yesterday—
hunter of humans. Relentless. He can find anyone with secrets to hide.

Did she have secrets? Is that why Alex was looking for her? Is that why Owen McCall had been there at Hannah’s house? Is that why Buchanan had tried to kill her? But what did she know?

She looked back at the iPad. Everything about her life before the accident might be locked up inside the thin little tablet—her past, her friends, her conversations, and maybe even her secrets.

Kiss a lover, dance a measure.

Maybe even the “he” who wanted her to remember him.

She stared at the blank password box. And at the cursor, blinking, blinking, blinking.