Headlights(20)

I’m gonna say it, am about to. Somehow, I actually say, “Anyone look into that motel yet?”

Those are the words from my mouth. Those words, and nothing else. I stare at the cell phone, as if it somehow betrayed me. As if I don’t betray myself every fuckin’ day.

“Not sure. Why, you got something?”

“Yeah. I’ll … send you and the team all of it. I stayed there, one time. As a kid. That’s how I knew about the key. There was a murder, almost thirty years ago. You remember, the guy killing his wife?” My voice is steady, doesn’t break once. I’m doing this. Fuck, I’m doing this.

“Oh shit,” Jack says. “That was there? What were their names? Kacey?”

“Keller,” I say.

“Right. I remember, kind of. Same room?”

I say, “You know what, let me do the legwork. I’ll send everyone what I find.”

“So. You’ll stay then,” he says. Doing nothing to hide the eager hope in his voice.

Someone making me return to the Happy Inn. Someone using this to taunt me.

The look in that woman’s eyes.

Al-Anbar sand. Final tour. Forest cabin.

I don’t want to stay. Of course I don’t. But …

You fill up my senses, Maybe I need to. Maybe just long enough, once and for all.

Come fill me again.

To take this fucker down.

“Okay,” I say into an indifferent Denver morning. “Yeah … I’ll stay.”





II

HERE YOU COME AGAIN





1



I drive to the gated far section of Cherry Hills, where the land extends alongside the High Line Canal, sixty or seventy miles of trail that began as an irrigation project and then became a staple urban recreation path for the city. It moves through grasslands, wetlands, woodlands, host to all kinds of wildlife.

Whileago Manor is accessed by a private drive near Foxhill Road, surrounded by a seemingly spontaneous copse of trees so thick you can’t see past it. If a person didn’t know to look for the house, they would never even know it was here.

I take the turn for the drive, after very nearly missing it. The branches and leaves of the tree tunnel scratch at the edges of the car, so dense now that no sunlight permeates. My parents never let it get overgrown. At least, not like this.

I don’t want to be here. I’m sweating. Maybe it’s the drugs. I took a cab to Mama Tried to pick the car up, then drove here to shower, pull myself together. What a freakin’ joke.

I hit a downed branch, and the car jolts. I turn on my brights, shine the lights through the tree tunnel, can’t even see the end of it.

A figure runs across the tunnel through the headlights.

I squeeze my eyes. Breathe.

Just a shadow. Just a figment. I open my eyes again, and it’s like I’ve been swallowed by the earth itself. By the past. By every mistake I’ve ever made. The tunnel, stretching, pulling me.

I can feel more of them, the shadows. Sense them waiting just ahead beyond the trees. Waking at my approach. I’m six years old again. Driving through this tunnel for the first time, and the branches are reaching, reaching for me, and— My phone rings. I grab it. My breaths steady. I force them to.

“What’s your office ETA?” Jack says.

“Uh … five minutes,” I say, closing my eyes against something else moving through the trees.

“You’re not stopping by the house?”

“I—” I thought I was. But now, being here—

BOOM!

I swear, loudly.

“Jesus, Daniel, what?”

I breathe. Oh nothing, Jack, a shadow just slammed my goddamned window. No big deal. It doesn’t exist, but it scared the shit out of me.

I clear my throat. “Thought a bird hit my window.” I refuse to look to the left where the thing is. I put the car in reverse. This was a terrible idea.

“Right. Okay. Well, so … I gotta tell you something,” Jack says.

“Okay,” I say. I back out through the trees, keep my eyes on the light behind me through the rearview.

“As you know, uh, case is cold. Was cold, before this. And we kept it open, ’course. But uh, you know time passed, and…”

“Yeah.”

I’m almost out, almost back in the sun. Keep it steady, slow your heart.

“So I’m gonna have you workin’ with cold cases on it. Since they’ve been covering things.”

“Okay,” I say. Breathe. Just a little more, then I’m there. “I like Kowalski. That’s fine.”

“Kowalski quit. Retired, actually.”

Finally I break free of the trees, pull out away from Whileago Manor into the sun. I stop the car. Collect myself, hear what Jack said.

I try to run through that department, think of who might be next in line to take over. “So who am I working with?” I ask.

Jack doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“Hello?”

“Yeah … I’m here,” he says.

And then a terrible sinking feeling that has nothing to do with the giant haunted house that I couldn’t face today.

“Who’s in charge of cold cases now, Jack?”



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