The Missing Place (29 page)

“I don't think it's going to do any good, though. I've got to figure out how to get to the programming director, or whatever they call it.” Colleen had her phone out and was tapping away.

“Who are you texting?”

“I'm not. I found an app for taking notes this morning. I'm writing down the anchors' names.” She glanced up. “Don't look at me like that, Shay. You're the one who inspired me to figure it out.”

When Colleen had come out of the shower this morning with the thick white towel wrapped around her head, smelling of the fancy soap the hotel provided, she'd looked not so much relaxed as relieved. As if she was finally back in her own skin. She'd called someone to come up to their room to get their laundry, something Shay hadn't even known you could do, and showed him the rip in her pants and told him she was happy to pay a surcharge for them to be repaired right away, and then she'd given him a ten-dollar bill.

Shay, who had been sitting at the desk writing Mack an email, pretended not to pay attention to the conversation. But she added her own laundry to the pile and wondered what it would be like to live that way. She could see that it would be a comfort, but the risk was that you would be helpless if it was taken away from you.

She was finally understanding how much farther Colleen had had to fall.

And not just because she'd had to sleep on a table for two nights or wear dirty underwear. Somehow, seeing her in her own environment—the Hyatt that was probably the closest thing in Lawton to what felt like home to Colleen—Shay got a glimpse into what it must have been like at home, for her and her husband, and also for Paul. When Taylor came home, as often as not trailing a couple of guys from the team, or his study group from Spanish, Shay didn't make them take their shoes off at the door or call her “Mrs. Capparelli.” They helped themselves to whatever was in the fridge and didn't seem to care that the dinette chairs didn't match, and when the pizza came they all threw in a few bucks unless Shay had just gotten paid, in which case she'd send one of them to the Freshway down the block with money for sodas and a salad from the deli, and give the pizza guy a big tip.

She guessed that in the Mitchell home, you paid for the thick carpet and the gourmet groceries and the maid by never causing a fuss. Never leaving crumbs on the coffee table or the toilet seat up or yelling during a football game on TV.

Taking Colleen out of her environment had shaken her badly. But for Paul, maybe it had been his first taste of real freedom. Taylor had told her how happy Paul was in the camp. He sang dirty songs in the shower, changing the lyrics and getting people to sing along. He loved when they all gathered around the big-screen TV to watch games, half of them on the floor because there weren't enough chairs, almost getting into fistfights when Alabama played LSU. He even loved when the girls at the desk got mad when they tracked mud in and made them all go back outside and put the little booties on.

“Look, there's something you need to know,” Shay said, when Colleen finally put her phone back in her purse.

“Please don't tell me anything technical, because I swear to you I
can't learn one more new thing right now.” Colleen gave Shay the little self-deprecating half smile that Shay had finally figured out indicated her most confident moments.

She took in Colleen's carefully drawn-on eyebrows, her hair sprayed in place. She knew that Colleen felt like she finally looked decent again, but to Shay she looked like the moms who'd never talk to her in the pickup lines at the school, the ones who stared at her when she took Leila to the park, not because Shay was too old to have a two-year-old but because Leila was biracial.

She missed the woman who'd first stumbled into the motor home, with her mascara smudged from crying and her hair standing up. But that wasn't the version of Colleen who was sitting with her in the car, and she had no choice but to make things right with this one.

“What I said about Paul. What Taylor told me. It was true. When he first got there, he did have trouble fitting in. But not the way I made it sound.”

She peeked at Colleen. Her face was a mask; she'd gone rigid.
Keep breathing
, Shay wanted to say.
Honey, just stay with me
here.

“They just didn't know what to make of him, is all, and he was shy, and every time he'd do something that they made fun of, he'd get all embarrassed and go back to his room. Like even if it was a little thing, like I guess he had this belt with anchors all the way around it, nobody had ever seen anything like that. And you know how guys are.”

Colleen's lips trembled and Shay knew she was going to cry if she didn't get this out right.

“Okay, look, the one who gave him that nickname? Who got everyone calling him Whale? It was
Taylor.
But he wasn't making fun of him, he was trying to give him something to hang on to. And all of this was just the first week. Taylor said the minute Paul figured out
that everyone didn't hate him, he was like a different guy. He went to Walmart and got all new clothes and wore them with the wrinkles from the package still in them, he started joking around with the desk girls, he played poker . . . Taylor said he always won at poker. What I'm saying is, everybody
liked
him.”

Colleen was crying now, silently shaking while tears tracked down her cheeks. She took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “You can't know,” she whispered. “You just can't know.”

“It's okay,” Shay said, and then she really needed Colleen to stop because there was still that other part, that thin, dark shadow behind the friendship between their sons.

The boy with his skull caved in. The boy in the locker room. And because of that boy, the gift she had just given Colleen was tainted, it was spoiled at the core.

But let Colleen hold on to that solace for now. Because if she found out that Paul had gone crazy again, there would be ample time for her to pay. And pay and pay for the rest of her life.

“Okay,” Shay said. “We'd better get back to town.”

“No, wait. Before we do . . . there's something I haven't told you, either. Kristine . . . she's pregnant. With Paul's baby.”

“
What?
How do you know?”

“I didn't tell you because . . . I guess because I was embarrassed. The girl at the truck stop, the one who gave me her number, she told me. And when Kristine came and I asked her about it, she didn't deny it. Oh, Shay, listen, if Paul knew his girlfriend was having a baby, there's no way he'd do anything to jeopardize his job.”

Maybe
, Shay thought darkly. She herself had had to tell a man that she was carrying his unplanned child. His response gave her little confidence in men's ability to absorb that kind of news. “How do you feel about it?” she asked carefully.

“I don't know—so many things. I mean, shock, I guess, mostly. And worry. And—oh, I don't know, we just have to get through this and then I'll think about what comes next. I mean, it's new, she can't be very far along, they just met at the end of October.”

“Then she could be almost three months.”

“Well . . .” Colleen frowned, her forehead wrinkled. “I mean, if it happened . . . I don't know when it happened.”

Shay didn't say anything, letting Colleen reach the same conclusion, if she hadn't already. If the baby was only a few months along, it could still be made to go away.

“Maybe that's what she wants to talk about.” She told Shay about the text, about Kristine's insistence she come right at twelve twenty. “We still have plenty of time to get there.”

“Is it okay if I come along?”

“Of course. We . . . I could stand to have another set of ears. You know, to talk to her.”

“There's one more thing. Even though I feel like this is nothing, I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt to let someone know where we're going.”

“You mean like Andy?”

“Sure, that works. I just figure whenever we go somewhere, we should text someone, either Andy or Brittany or her husband, Robert, so there's a record. Not to be all paranoid, but we're stirring up some big shit now. Like at the rig, what if that guy had run you down?”

“Well, I guess you would have had to run faster.” Colleen's attempt at humor was forced.

“Yeah. Anyway, at least we'll be building a record you can give your detective or, like if they ever get
real
cops in on this. Or OSHA, or the Feds. You give your husband the names and numbers of everyone we've talked to, tell him not to use them unless . . . you know. Unless something happens.”

Colleen was silent for a moment. “This is crazy,” she said. “I came here to look for my son. All I wanted was to find him, not to get involved in some huge cover-up. And now I'm trying to leave a trail in case something happens to us too.”

“We didn't ask for any of this, Col,” Shay said. “But this is what we got.”

COLLEEN CALLED ANDY
on the way back to town. “I'll explain more tonight,” she said. “For now I just need you to write a few things down.”

“What the hell's going on there, Colleen? I got a call today from Hunter-Cole corporate. The
head
of Hunter-Cole. He says there was an incident yesterday where Shay assaulted an employee on one of their sites.”

“
What?
” Colleen hadn't told him the whole story in the message she'd left the night before, only that they'd gotten a chilly reception.

“He says they've turned up the heat on their own investigation, but they can't move forward until they have a guarantee that you'll stay off their property. Colleen, that woman is a menace. Have you given any more thought to me coming out there?”

“It's . . . complicated, Andy. But listen, I was there, Shay didn't do anything. I mean, not until after the guy hit
her
, anyway.”

“Look, Colleen.” She could hear the frustration in Andy's voice. “I understand you have feelings of loyalty to her, that you've been through something very emotional together. But I'm coming out there Thursday. Vicki's working on my flights. She's helping me sort through the calls we've been getting. And I talked to Steve—he'll fly out this weekend and use the other room you booked. Hunter-Cole has offered to work with Steve, to share their findings as the case progresses. And they're in full cooperation with the Lawton PD.”

He waited. Colleen knew he expected her to respond, but she was still stuck on something he'd said:
Vicki's working on my flights.
Not so much the words, but the
way
he said it. There was that . . . faint sense of intimacy, of arrogant familiarity. To Andy's credit, he lapsed into that tone only with his assistant . . . and with Colleen.

With the women he bedded.

Colleen sucked in her breath. Had she really just thought that? About her husband, about her best friend? She couldn't even prove the thing with the assistant, and she wasn't at the firm anymore—the girl had gone back to grad school—but
still.

“Listen, Col, I think you're too close to it,” Andy pressed. “You've been under a lot of stress, but I think you need to step back a little. Come on. Be reasonable.”

Colleen had said nothing when she found the texts from the assistant on Andy's phone a few years back. And since Vicki seemed to be spending most of her time trying to help find Paul, Colleen supposed she didn't care all that much if she screwed her husband on her breaks. And she had to admit that Andy would probably make more headway with the authorities than she ever could.

But this was the last time he would ever tell her to be reasonable.

“Are you ready to write these names down?” she asked coldly. “Otherwise, you can hang up and I'll just text them to you.”

“Colleen, come on, I—”

“I really don't have time for this.”

“
Fine.
”

Once she'd hung up, Shay glanced over. They were almost back to town, taking it slow on the icy roads. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Colleen didn't bother keeping the irritation out of her voice. “I didn't even get a chance to tell him about Kristine and the baby, because he lit into me about yesterday the minute he picked
up. Get this—he says that guy who hit you is thinking of filing assault charges.”

“Of course he is,” Shay said, rolling her eyes.

“And then I feel like he didn't even listen to my side. You ever feel like everyone in your life thinks you're incompetent?”

“Only most every day of my life,” Shay said. “Fuck 'em. You really need to get past that, Col. Tell you what. You can do the talking in there. Just keep repeating it to yourself—
fuck 'em.
”

“Hey, better slow down,” Colleen said. “Look at all that.”

At the intersection ahead, police and fire vehicles were taking the right turn, lights and sirens going.

“They're headed toward the Hunter-Cole rig,” Shay said.

“Not necessarily, they could be headed anywhere.”

“Seriously, what else is even out there? We didn't see a single damn house on the way to the rig.”

“We can't do anything about that now,” Colleen said. “We have to get to Kristine.”

“Kristine will be there later today. What if this is important? If we get there now—if there's been another accident, there's going to be chaos, no one will pay any attention to us. Maybe we can find something out.”

“No,” Colleen snapped. Panic clutched at her throat. She couldn't miss Kristine, couldn't miss the chance to find out the truth. “We can go as soon as I get done talking to Kristine, I
promise.
If it's any kind of big accident, the rig will be shut down for hours.”