“No, no, no,” I scream, then wrap my hands around my lips and smother any further screams with my palms. My eyes bulge. My heart pumps dangerously fast. I can’t take my sight from it. I can’t look away from the skull.
"No," I murmur into my palms, flicking my eyes in every direction possible once more. Bones, so many bones, ones I believe are of human origin. Why are there so many of them littering the ground?
Oh, fuck!
I’m in his graveyard.
Reid
“You lied,” Linda and I both say simultaneously, standing behind the mango tree in my backyard.
“I didn’t lie.” I didn’t. Linda did.
“Reid, you did. Vactrim! Who the hell is even named Vactrim anyways? What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything. It’s you who has something to hide. Linda, that’s Vactrim from the fucking place I get my cars detailed.”
“It can’t be.” Linda shakes her head.
“You said no when West asked you if you knew the man in that picture, and since then you’ve been distracted and trying to avoid that Dusty, Dodger, whatever-his-name-is fellow … What’s going on? Why are you lying?”
“To protect you.” Her face strains as she keeps her voice to a soft projection. “The man in that picture is Winston Sampson, Falcon Sampson’s brother, just like the detective said it was. He may be older and more substantial than he was when I was in high school, and I know I only ever met him a few times since he was away with military training, but I swear it’s him.” Linda’s face scrunches, and she flares her nostrils. “Why did you … What are you …” She stops. “Reid, Falcon and Winston looked a lot alike. Both had wavy blond hair, and those piercing blue eyes you saw? Well, Falcon had them too. Like you and Cruise. You both have bright blue eyes, and you two have very similar characteristics.”
“No, we don’t,” I scoff. It’s preposterous Linda even thinks we do. Cruise is a fucking actor for God’s sake, admired throughout the country for his good looks and charm. I’m the brother who doesn’t even come close in the attraction department.
“Reid, you and your brother are very alike. You might not see it, but it’s true.”
“So this leads us to what? Can this guy be two people?
“I don’t know. Possibly. I guess. No. How?”
“Why didn’t you just tell West that you knew who he was when he asked you? Why didn’t you confirm it was him just like West was saying?”
She slaps my chest. “Obviously I thought you were trying to hide something and I didn’t know what it was, and I don’t trust these cops and … I just want Morgan to be found and for her to come home.”
“Linda, Morgan has been fucking missing for nearly forty-eight hours. I don’t give a shit if it looks like I’m hiding something. You need to tell the cops everything you know. I want Morgan back, today, right now.”
“I don’t trust these cops, Reid, and even though I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, you’ve already been set up once. Dusty said the guy who took Morgan also took the money from your safe, and from the beginning, you’ve been made to appear as the prime subject.”
“All husbands are the prime subjects. You’ve watched enough of those bloody cop shows with Morgan to know that.” I’m mad at Linda for not being honest right from the get-go with West.
“How would Falcon or Winston even know where you live, let alone know the combination of your safe?”
“How would the cops know the combination to my safe? I presume whoever it is used illegal means to do so. Plus, Vactrim knows our address. It would be on my file at the car dealership. If they’re the same person, then they’d know.”
“Morgan hadn’t seen Falcon since a few weeks after she met you.” Linda’s finger extends, and she pokes it into the air in front of me. “Why would he care what you two were doing anyway? Why would he care this long after the fact? He’s probably married with kids and living in the ’burbs somewhere.”
“Maybe I pissed Vactrim, or fucking Winston, or whatever his name is off. You said her ex was infatuated with her … borderline obsessive, I think is the term you used the very few times his name was brought up.” I wrap my hand around Linda’s finger and lower it to her side before letting go.
“He was a horny kid, but he understood they’d grown apart, that it was over. The last I heard about him was that he’d moved on, and so had Morgan with you.”
“Morgan never—”
“It just fizzled out. That’s what I understand regarding how it concluded.”
“Fizzled out?”
“It’s what she said months before she even started university … that it had lost its spark and she was slowly putting distance between them, and then they split. And that’s exactly what she did.”
“Why didn’t you tell this to the cops?”
“I was protecting you.”
“Or yourself.”
Linda shifts from foot to foot; she’s growing uncomfortable. “Pfft. Pull your head in. I’ve nothing to protect myself from. Morgan meeting you the week before they split was nothing but a coincidence.”
“Linda, you need to tell West and Gleaton everything you know. They’ll go digging around searching for shit, and you have information. They’ll figure it out with or without you. They’ll also know you lied through your teeth.”
“Fine,” she huffs.
“Maybe this Good Samaritan brother of his isn’t such an upstanding person after all.”
“My only question is, if Winston stopped to fix her tyre, and Dusty said they parted ways after the job was done...”
I'm not sure where Linda is going with this.
"Well, from your account ..." Linda continues before she stops speaking and taps a finger to her chin. "Does this mean Winston followed Morgan after they parted ways and then rammed her car?” Linda pauses. “The car that stopped on the side of the road that night was a small sedan from the police reports. The car that hit Morgan inside the estate was bigger, with a wider tyre track.”
“How the fuck do you know all of this stuff?”
“I have a cop on the inside, remember?” She rolls her eyes.
“I need you to tell me everything,” I bark.
“The searchers found something at the site where Morgan’s car was.”
“What?” My voice heightens on the word.
Linda’s eyes grow wide. She drops her head and mutters, “Reid, we have eyes on us. Astin is coming our way.”
I don’t shift my head to look over my shoulder because I can already tell Linda’s freaked out by how fast her shoulders launched upwards.
“Cry,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“It will seem like I’m comforting you.”
And just as quickly as the words leave my lips, Linda bursts into tears like any Hollywood actress could. “Why haven’t they found her? I can’t do this anymore. Why haven’t they found her?” she yells through her tears.
Slipping on sweatpants and a cotton T-shirt, I discard my sopping wet towel in the wash basket and replay the conversation between West and Linda over and over in my mind. Linda came clean after West interrupted us, and she gave him all the information she had on the photograph and the person she believed it to be, Winston Sampson. The man identified as the one who stopped and helped Morgan. The same man whose fingerprints were on the tyre in Morgan’s boot. I stood by my statement, that the man in the picture West supplied was Vactrim, the detailer at the company we use to service and clean our cars. Even though Linda and technology seem to dispute my claim, I know I’m right, and soon Detective Astin West will know I’m right, too, because he put out a call immediately for Detective Dyson to find Vactrim.