Headlights(40)

David Chen’s voice. Get out there and do your job because— “Right,” I say.

We get on the road, the sun starting to lower behind the mountains. “Wright’s assistant’s getting back to us tomorrow,” I tell him. “But I say we just stop by if we don’t hear—”

“Holy shit!” Tillman exclaims.

I swerve, heart pounding.

Enemy fire, Dad in the mirror, Scan the road for danger, the car.

“Oh, hey now—”

Blood, bullets, glass raining down, land mine blowing, sand, screams and blood and— “Hey, hey,” Tillman says. “Sorry, brother, didn’t mean to—”

Truck coming from the side, Marianne’s head slamming into the window “Whoa. Do you wanna pull over?”

“You can’t,” I say. I breathe, do the breathing. I make myself say, “You can’t fuckin’ do that. Not in my car.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Can I drive, or—”

“I’m fine, just gimme a sec.”

I calm, make myself. The podcast talks about the haunting of Cheesman Park and the bodies buried there.

“Why did you yell?” I say after a minute, gripping the wheel. “Did you see something?”

“In the sky,” Tillman says. “Saw a light, didn’t look like a plane … thought it might be a … Sorry, dude. I didn’t realize…”

I feel him watching me, getting a whole picture. How fucked up I am, how much I can’t get past anything in my life. How Josie dodged a big fuckin’ bullet by getting away from me. He’ll want to talk about it in bed tonight with her, my episode in the car, what it must have been like for her to be with me for so many years. She’ll volunteer some anecdote, more than one, moments when the past hit me in the face while I was with her and I couldn’t deal with it.

“What is your deal with the UFOs?” I say. “Seriously, what the fuck is it about them that you need to see? There’s all kinds of shit in the skies, all the time. Who fucking cares.”

He doesn’t answer. For once he shuts his mouth. We listen to the podcast, and the sun disappears, leaving us with another cold blue fade into night.

I drop him off in front of the house I bought back when my life was still mine.

I turn off the podcast and drive.





10



I drive, up and down 85, where Kimberly Chen would have been when she got off the phone with her brother, his words echoing in my ears. I drive past the victims’ houses, the killers’, from the last three murders. All of them. I think of the sound David Chen talked about. I think of the one piece of all this that most seems to stick out, the one total break in the pattern.

I pull her card out of my pocket while driving. The fox she drew. I try to picture her in the cabin now. A lamp on, sketching. In the quiet? With that radio playing? Living alone for so long, away from people, does something to you. Changes you. Shifts how you relate to other humans. The way I felt looking at her. The way I still feel. My heart still fucking pounding. I have to stop with whatever this is. I gotta get myself together.

Daphne still won’t reply to my texts. I wonder if I’ll find her at Mama Tried. Maybe I shouldn’t if she doesn’t want to see me. I don’t know. I call Murphy. “You home or out?” I say.

“Home, but come over.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Daniel,” he says. “Come to the front door, they want to see you.”



* * *



I pull into the driveway ten minutes later. Jack’s wife, Emily, stands in the doorway with a hand on her hip and the other in front of her face to block the shine from my headlights. I cut the engine. Grab the flowers I picked up on the way and go to greet her. Her red hair is tied back, a little more gray in it than before, and she’s wearing a turtleneck and jeans.

“Only been waitin’ here for four years,” she says, the light from their house shining behind her.

Jack, like Daphne. I haven’t seen his family in so long. I spent all this time so relieved that I wasn’t here, all this time grateful to stay away. If I’m being honest I just didn’t let myself think about everything I was leaving behind, the people I wasn’t showing up for. Convinced myself somehow that they’d be happier with me gone—maybe they were. Shit agent, shit husband, shit friend, shit person. I run my hand through my hair, look down at the flowers, clear my throat. “I’m sorry,” I say, meeting her eye. “I just … couldn’t face it,” I say. “No excuse.”

She looks me up and down. “You look healthy.”

I shrug.

“Happy?”

“Not really.”

She barks out a laugh and pulls me into a hug. I put my arms around her too.

“He’s missed you,” she says in my ear. “We all have.” Then she releases me and takes the flowers. “C’mon,” she says. “Kids are excited to see you. It’ll only take a second.”

She closes the door on the night.

Their house smells like home-cooked dinner and pine needles. Soft glowing lights. A carpeted, wood-paneled living room with framed family photographs, trophies, awards, art projects. One half of the room is a mess of half-opened boxes, ornaments. Christmas lights and tinsel spilling out onto the floor, a tree already sitting in the corner by the front window.