Headlights(15)

She narrows her eyes and looks up at the sky. “Wanna know what I think?”

“Guessin’ I’m gonna hear it either way.”

“No,” she says, turning her attention back to the items in front of her. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

I lean to the side, just enough so our shoulders touch. Just enough to say I missed her. And I realize I really did. Not once in four years did I reach out to her. When I left, I said I needed a clean break. And I did, I think, in the beginning. But then, I just … didn’t call. Time kept moving, and I sort of just … I guess I disappeared on her. My friend.

“You okay?” I ask. “These days, I mean.” God, what kind of dickhead has to ask that? What kind of dickhead asks that in a moment like this?

Her dimples show, just for a second. Then she nods toward the drainpipe, the trail she cleared in the mud leading out from it. Officers spread out through the field, on the other side of the highway, redoubling efforts. “Go be useful, Stansfield,” she says.

I hesitate, want to say more, but she’s right. We have to keep moving.

I step away from Daphne. Crouch down, to where the ground’s already been tilled, closer to the road. I touch the mud, the cold dankness of it. Inhale. It rained hard. Water would have pushed things out pretty far. I ask Daphne what each of the yellow tents and their numbers represent. Try to imagine that hard heavy rain washing it all from the pipe. Hands, feet, T-shirt, jeans, all the trash. Unfocus my eyes and try to follow. Not the path the others dug, but the one that’s intuitive, the one that feels … right. Out into the grass.

A few paces out, I bend down, stretch my hands in the earth, the mud. Move forward a few more steps, drop to my hands and knees. Grope in the mud.

Again. Forward, deeper into the night.

Again. Forward, dig. Crawl, search. Away from the road, away from the light. Dig, crawl, search.

Until I sit back on my heels. There’s nothing here. At least not in this spot.

And why would there be? Why would I of all people find it?

My shining boy.

Of course there’s nothing. Some washed-up asshole digging in the dirt, playing make-believe that he can somehow sense things, know things that other people can’t. The truth is, I was a scared kid who always thought there were things going bump in the night. And in my twenties, I was just … lucky. That’s what it all came down to, just shit-all luck. Luck that put Josie and me in the same town after training. Luck that got my whole squadron out when we were surrounded by enemy fire, holed up in a lookout tower. Luck that led me to solving a few big cases young. And part of that was just knowing how to read people. Just … watching. Survival mechanism, probably. But the problem is when people start to put too much faith in you. The problem is when your luck runs out and you’re no longer the guy everyone thinks you are. The guy they were all counting on you to be.

I stand, knees wet, hands and clothes filthy. Head swimming with lights and voices and the day that will never end. Daphne stands now at the edge of the road. I’m not gonna find anything. I’m tired. I finally have my life in my own hands, and today I just … I don’t know. I lost control, and it’s time to get it back. Boots squelching in Colorado mud.

Daphne, by the road in her new glasses, studying something. I fucked up. She doesn’t have anything to do with Josie, or Jack, or any of it. I was so desperate to get away from this, away from everything. And now I’ve missed out on four years of a friend’s life. And I’m shipping out, may not even get a chance. Maybe this proves I’m making the right move. I don’t make anyone’s life better, haven’t in a long time. My notice is already in. I don’t work here, and I can walk away right now, just step out into the night and call a fuckin’ car to come and pick me up and— Snap.

I stop. A feeling, beneath my boot.

Something breaking.

I step back, put my foot down again.

Another snap. Plastic.

More trash? But Daphne wouldn’t have missed it. Maybe something I dropped … Or maybe she just hasn’t come this far out yet.

I step back, bend down. Reach my hand out for the item in the grass—red, maybe pink. Hard to tell with mud on it, here in the strange foggy dark. I can tell I broke it though. Two, no, three items. Or one item, but now in three pieces. Two matching halves, and one of them broken in two. I pick them up, the three pieces, hold them before my face in the floodlights. Start to wipe the mud from them. And— Sweat. The humidity.

No.

I’m cracking.

Voom.

That pressure, that strange …

The lights are too bright. The air too close, everything.

“Daniel?” Daphne’s voice. But the whole of the world is turning, and I feel it. I feel the motion in this vast empty darkness that only gets darker every day.

I look up at her walking toward me, the floodlights behind her nearly blinding. I ask, “Am I dreaming?”

She picks up her pace. “Hey, are you—”

John Denver’s voice floats to me on the wind. The other song, the worst song.

No.

A dream. All of this has to be …

This plastic in my hand, twenty-nine years ago.

This plastic in my hand now. It’s not red. Not pink.

Voom.

It’s orange. Orange, with a yellow smiling clown on one side.