They're Gone Page 9

  Levi spoke easily, matter-of-factly, as if this was a story he’d told many times before. The words “they took him out” were nonchalant. And his body seemed relaxed, his posture looser, hand no longer tight on the wheel.

  “How old was he?”

  “Same age as me. We were twins.”

  “How did your parents take it?” Like most parents, the thought of losing her child left Deb raw. There had even been times since Grant’s death when Deb thought—and she hated herself for this thought—that at least it hadn’t been Kim. But it did help, gave her a touch of perspective, something to grasp. Something to live for.

  “My parents didn’t take it well,” Levi said. Deb didn’t follow up.

  The cars started moving again.

  “How’d you end up working in PR?” Levi asked her.

  “You know I do PR?”

  Levi allowed himself a slight smile. Deb thought it was nice, in the surprising way it often is with men since they rarely smile. “I’m FBI. It’s what we do. Find out things.”

  That didn’t bother Deb. “It’s not that exciting a story.”

  “You didn’t have a twin sister who did PR and was killed by criminals?”

  That made her laugh. “Not exactly. I studied communications at GMU and then got a job after college. Switched to part-time freelance after Kim was born.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I do. But I haven’t been able to find work since Grant passed, so I don’t like that.”

  Levi shifted into the far-left lane as they started to hit the Arlington exits. “How have you been feeling lately?”

  “About Grant?”

  “About everything.”

  “I keep thinking I’m out of the hardest part, and then a day passes and it feels like I’m right back in.”

  They crossed the bridge from Virginia to DC. Aside from work or occasional dinners, Deb didn’t often head into the district and, like outsiders do in all cities, she immediately felt a little lost. It wasn’t like she was in New York City, with its clustered buildings and pushy crowds. The wide roads and monuments of Washington, DC, provided a sense of space most cities lacked, but Deb still found the city impenetrable.

  “Are your parents close to you and Kim?” Levi asked.

  Deb didn’t know if Levi meant geographically or emotionally, but the same response answered both. “It was just my mom.”

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t ask, but Deb knew she had to explain further. “My mom was single when she adopted me. And she never married.”

  “You’re adopted?”

  “Yeah.” Deb could hear the change in his tone, a change she was so used to that it didn’t bother her anymore. As if he suddenly felt that her life had been remarkably different from his, harder. Less filled with love.

  Sometimes it annoyed her.

  Now she just let it go.

  “And it was just you and your mother?”

  Deb nodded. “She always wanted a child, but not necessarily a husband. So she raised me on her own.”

  “Is she still around?”

  “She passed away years ago. Cancer.”

  Levin grimaced. “I’m sorry. Cancer’s awful.”

  “It was.” Deb didn’t elaborate, didn’t want to revisit that long year, in her late twenties, when she’d traveled back and forth every weekend to Roanoke until, months before the end, her mother came up north to live with her and Grant and Kim. The countless trips to doctors, the pained weariness of chemotherapy, her mother’s slow disintegration of strength and will until she begged to die.

  “You don’t hear about many single women adopting kids,” Levi said.

  “I was the only adopted kid in my town,” Deb replied.

  “How was that?”

  “Lonely.”

  They passed from the long streets and tourists and historic buildings to a crowded residential neighborhood.

  “You said she lives in Capitol Hill?” Deb asked, hoping to change the subject. “Here?”

  Levi frowned, nodded. “Strange, right? Not really the neighborhood you’d expect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s kind of a nice area. You’d assume her clients live here. Not her.”

  “I see your point,” Deb said as she looked at a street lined with row houses and postage-stamp yards. The houses were large and colonial and, in the gray mist of the overcast afternoon, had an intimate feel.

  “A lot of the people who live here work on Capitol Hill,” Levi told her. “And then you have some people who like the idea of living in DC but staying on the outskirts.”

  “Do you live in the city?”

  “No, I’m in Arlington.”

  “Why not in DC?” Deb was only mildly curious, but she wanted the conversation. Wanted a distraction from her nerves, from what she was about to do.

  From what she might find out.

  “The city’s just never done it for me,” Levi said. “I mean, I like cities, just not this one.” He paused. “It doesn’t feel real to me. Too many transients, too many tourists. Other cities have their own culture, their own accents. You can tell when someone’s from Boston or Philly or New York or Jersey just by their voice. I never get that with DC. It has no personality. Like it’s too guarded to reveal one.”

  “So you like suburban culture?”

  A sharp laugh. “Not exactly. But I do like how close I am to work.”

  Deb nodded, trying to concentrate on the conversation, trying to tamp down her rising nerves.

  Levi slowed to a stop near a squarish, brown brick building.

  “This is where Maria lives.”

  They stared at an apartment building called Capitol Hill Lofts. A young white couple, legs and arms covered in tattoos, pushed a stroller past the car.

  “Remember what I told you,” Levi said. “She’s in apartment three-oh-four, and you can’t tell her anything about me. All she can know is that you’re Grant’s wife, and you have some questions about their relationship.”

  “So, the truth, basically?”

  “Basically.”

  “Got it.” Deb pushed open the door, stepped outside, wrapped her arms tight around herself. Colder than she expected. She looked up the building, counted six stories.

  The passenger window slid down, and she turned back toward the sedan. Levi was leaning over from the driver’s seat.

  “Be careful.”

  Deb nodded.

  The passenger window rose.

  Deb headed up the sidewalk to the door. It was locked. A buzzer was next to it, and Deb had a sinking feeling when she realized she’d need to buzz Maria’s apartment.

  She’d been so focused on the questions she was going to ask about Grant that Deb hadn’t even thought what she’d say as an introduction.

  Fortunately, the front door opened. A man emerged. He smiled briefly at Deb, said a quick “Hey,” and held the door open.

  Deb walked up a dark, narrow staircase with brick walls on either side, saw room 304 directly off the third-floor landing. Heard loud music and female voices inside.

  Deb knocked on the door. The voices stopped. The music didn’t.

  The door opened a crack. A woman with short, boyishly cut blonde hair glanced out, eyed Deb up and down disdainfully.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m–I’m looking for Maria.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Is this about your husband?”

  It took Deb a moment to recover. “Well, yeah. I was—”

  The door slammed shut. The conversation inside resumed.

  Deb glanced up and down the hallway and knocked again.

  An audible sigh from inside, even over the voices and the music.

  No response.

  Deb tried the knob and then knocked harder.

  The door flew open. The same woman stood in front of her. “Listen, eggroll, you’re not the first chick to come here asking about your husband. Whoever he is, he’s not here and never was.”
>
  “Eggroll?” Deb replied, confused. “Because I’m Asian?”

  The woman smiled wickedly. Woman, Deb realized, might be stretching it. If she was twenty-one, then she’d just turned. Her face was young.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Because you’re Asian.”

  The door started to close again, but Deb caught it with her hand. Surprise took over the woman’s insouciance.

  The music stopped.

  Deb was also a little surprised that she’d caught the door. “Listen,” she said, “is Maria here or not?”

  “It’s okay,” another female voice said from inside, “let her in.”

  The woman at the door grabbed Deb’s hand and yanked her inside. Slammed the door behind her.

  The small apartment reminded Deb of Kim’s dorm. Three girls sat on a twin-sized bed against the far wall, catty-corner from a tall dresser. A thin hall to her right showed glimpses of a bathroom and kitchen.

  The other thing Deb immediately noticed was that there were five women in the room—potentially women, she checked herself, but probably girls. Any of them could have been in their late teens. Their bodies and clothes were youthful, but there was a hardness to them, a sadness that aged them. They were dyed blondes and one brunette, wearing sweats and yoga pants and loose T-shirts. Deb could see that their clothes were casual, but their hair and makeup was done. It wouldn’t take much for any of them to be ready to go out. Almost like they were waiting for a call.

  Deb wondered if that was how their lives worked.

  And then she worried they could tell how intensely she was studying them.

  “Eggroll,” one of them repeated, and laughed.

  The others didn’t join in. They just stared at Deb, their expressions guarded.

  Deb felt like she was back in high school, a time when she’d once walked into the bathroom and saw a pair of popular girls getting high and laughing together in an open stall. The laughter stopped when they’d seen her, and the two girls had each given her the same look, an unwelcome look.

  It wasn’t just that Deb hadn’t been as popular as those girls; it was that she wasn’t white. Her defining element, to everyone back then, had been her ethnicity. When those two girls stared at her from that open stall, she could feel the contempt in their gaze. The stretching sense of difference.

  And in this room with these five girls, she felt it again.

  But then she remembered that she was nearly twice as old as any of these girls.

  And she had a federal agent parked outside.

  And she needed answers.

  And fuck them.

  “So who’s Maria?” she asked.

  “She’s definitely one of us,” a girl said.

  “But which one?” the girl who’d answered the door asked. “Ooh, we’re tricky.”

  “I don’t know this for sure,” Deb said, “but this Maria may have been sleeping with my husband.”

  “Shocking.”

  “And he died,” Deb added.

  A change in the room, a sense of fear.

  “From what?” one of them asked. “He catch something?”

  For a second, Deb realized she could trap them. Lie and say he’d died of some disease. Syphilis had driven him insane. AIDS had ravaged him. See which girl started to panic.

  But something about that approach seemed too cruel.

  “He was shot to death. An ATM robbery.”

  That fear disappeared.

  “So why are you here?” one of them said. “Shouldn’t you be wearing black and lighting candles or some shit?”

  “You know us eggrolls,” Deb said. “We multitask really well. I want to find out more about what he was doing.”

  “Thought you knew what he was doing.”

  “I want to know more.”

  One of the girls, Deb noticed, wasn’t quite as unfazed as the others. The brunette sitting between two blondes on the bed. She was slowly rubbing her hands together, as if she was cold. Her mouth was a thin line, but her eyes were big.

  And afraid.

  “Grant Thomas,” Deb said, watching the brunette. “His name was Grant Thomas.”

  The brunette’s eyes flicked up at her, then back down. Not enough for Deb to figure out if it was a definitive tell.

  “So here’s what you think,” the girl who’d opened the door said. “You think your husband was sleeping with a hooker, got killed, and you’re digging around for more info. Like we might know something about it. Or about him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Seems like whoever did it gave you an answer.”

  Deb was confused. The confusion must have shown on her face.

  One of the blondes sighed. “If someone really did kill your husband, then maybe you should just deal with it.”

  “I have to know the truth,” Deb said.

  The brunette finally spoke. “Not a good idea to chase bad people,” she said, her voice low. “They get tired of running.”

  The rest of the girls stayed quiet.

  * * *

  Deb was at the bottom of the stairs, about to close the door to the stairwell, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She wasn’t startled. It was almost as if she expected the brunette.

  “You’re Maria, aren’t you?” Deb asked.

  The brunette glanced up the stairs before she answered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know my husband?”

  Maria nodded.

  A deep sadness filled Deb, weighed her down.

  “You slept with him?”

  Another nod.

  Deb leaned against the wall, rested the back of her head against it, closed her eyes. Her hands felt heavy.

  Any shred of hope for Grant’s innocence was gone.

  “I’m sorry,” Maria said uncomfortably. “But I have to ask, how’d you find me?”

  Deb lifted her hands to her face, her eyes, pressed her fingers against them. Felt tears tumble down.

  “Grant had your name and address in some old papers. With a note that he’d paid you.”

  “Oh.” Maria paused. “It was just a couple of times.”

  “Just with you?”

  “He said it was just me. And he felt really bad about it.”

  It didn’t make Deb feel any better. She wondered if Maria had thought it would.

  If anything, hearing the details made Deb sadder. And angrier.

  Maria seemed like she was able to tell Deb’s mood. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you came here because you wanted to know.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “Last year. Around Christmas.”

  Last Christmas. Deb ran through her memories. Everything had been fine with their relationship. She thought they’d been happy.

  Something else was building inside Deb besides anger. Disgust.

  This girl was so young.

  That almost pushed her over the edge. Deb felt bile rise up her throat, steadied herself.

  It took her a moment to realize she was sitting on the cold stone stairs.

  “Are you okay?” Maria asked.

  Deb wanted to leave. She wanted to stand and rush down the stairs and out of this building and head home and pack and move. She wanted to move far away from this life. Run from the truth of what had happened, the undeniable truth, the embarrassing stain.

  “Miss?” Maria asked.

  “How old are you?”

  “What?”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  Christ, Grant.

  “You look younger than nineteen.”

  “Men like that. Me looking young.”

  The two women were quiet. Deb still cried, but she’d stopped wiping the tears away. She let them run freely down her face.

  Maria sat down on the same stair as Deb, but on the far end, pressed against the wall.

  “How do you even remember him,” Deb asked, “from a year ago?”

  “I don’t know h
ow much to tell you,” Maria said hesitantly. “I mean, like I said, we only did it a couple of times. But I also saw him after that.”

  “Why?”

  Maria tugged a strand of her hair and stared at it. “He gave me more money.”

  “Why?” Deb asked again.

  “The guys who run me … run us … they say I can stop working if I pay off what I owe them.”

  “What do you owe them for?”

  “A place to live, food. Clothes. They take care of us.”

  “You and the other girls in there?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t think they ever meant it. I think we’ll always owe them.”

  Deb stood. She didn’t want to share the same space as Maria, didn’t even want to do the same actions. If Maria was going to sit, she’d stand.

  “Look,” Maria said quietly, “I haven’t been doing this that long, but Grant was the only one who ever came back to talk to me. He’s the only one who ever cared about me. That’s why I remember him.”

  “Awesome.”

  “I know you’re not going to care about that. But he wasn’t like the others. And he never stopped feeling bad for what happened.”

  “Why did it happen?”

  Deb watched the girl shrug. “He never told me.”

  It wasn’t a fair question to ask. Deb wanted to know if it was because Maria was younger. Or prettier. If Grant had been unhappy. If she was bad in bed. If he secretly hated their life together. If he wanted something she couldn’t give.

  If she’d done something wrong.

  “Did he ever mention me?” Deb asked.

  “No. But, honestly, they almost never do.”

  They.

  Grant was part of they.

  “Did he ask you to do something weird, or different, or did he say …” Deb let the questions die off.

  “I don’t really know why some of them come here,” Maria told her. “I think it’s the danger? But I don’t know.”

  “The danger?”

  “Yeah. Of being with someone like me.”

  That last line was said without sadness, but it still affected Deb. She tried not to think about it, tried to avoid any trace of empathy or pity.

  She wanted to hate this woman, this girl. Wanted to hate her as much as she hated Grant. Even more.

  Another woman should understand the pain of what she’d done.

  “Grant told me he was sorry about what happened,” Maria said. “I haven’t been doing this for that long, but no one had ever done that; literally, no one. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done to his family.”