26
The next morning, Joshua left his parents’ house early. He had much to do, and he had to get home to start.
The day was overcast and chilly, with a knife-sharp wind that reminded him that it was the middle of December. Christmas was less than a week away. This would have been his and Rachel’s first Christmas together as a married couple.
His heart clutched painfully. He had to stop thinking about stuff like that.
He pulled into the garage, and found Rachel’s spot empty. He’d imagined that her Acura would be sitting there, that everything would be back to normal and yesterday would prove to have been only a bad dream.
He walked Coco around the yard for a few minutes to let her potty, and then he went inside.
The house was as he had left it last night. Although everything looked the same, it all seemed vacant and cold to him, as if it were a museum displaying relics of a life that he had once lived.
He checked voice mail on the landline, and e-mail on his computer. There were no messages from anyone, not even potential or current clients. It was as if the whole world had abandoned him.
He was in no shape to work, anyway. Graphic design demanded concentration and imagination, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rachel’s face and felt a sick fluttering in his stomach.
He ate a breakfast of cereal, fruit, and orange juice that tasted like cardboard. He tried to follow the morning news on TV as he ate, but found it difficult to concentrate.
After putting away the dishes, he entered Rachel’s study. The room smelled of her: sweet, clean, feminine. It was almost too much to bear.
He sat in the spring-backed chair, adjusting the height to keep his knees from bumping against the edge of the desk.
He tried to view the room as if he were seeing it for the first time, in the hope that a clue would jump out at him. He looked at the colorful wall hanging that read,
Too Anointed to Be Disappointed.
Her collection of novels shelved in the bookcase: Alice Walker was a favorite author of hers. Her assortment of ceramic dog figurines. Photos from their wedding. A picture of an unnamed, white-sand beach.
The beach photograph brought to mind last night’s dream. He felt a coiling of emotion in his gut.
Nothing in the room sparked any inspiration. Back to square one: the computer.
He raised the lid of the laptop and powered it on.
An inch-long strand of hair lay on the keyboard, atop the space bar. He plucked it off the key, held it between his thumb and forefinger.
Ever since he’d known her, Rachel had had dark hair. This strand was lighter, closer to auburn.
In his dream, Rachel’s hair had been auburn, too.
DON’T EVER TELL 155
He’d never seen her color her hair. But she owned a hair salon, and it would have been easy for her to dye her hair at work, and keep her true hair color a secret.
He pulled a Kleenex from a box on the desk, and set the strand of hair on the tissue, for later consideration.
The laptop had finished its boot-up cycle and brought him to the sign-on screen, where he’d been flummoxed yesterday. He stared at the display, big hands resting on the keyboard.
Combing through the files on Rachel’s computer seemed a logical step to learning more about what she’d hidden. But again, a password eluded him.
Thinking of what he knew about her background, he typed in a few Chicago-related words—
Chicago, the windy city
,
the sears tower
—and all of them proved fruitless.
There had to be a better way to gain access to the system. This was going nowhere.
He turned off the computer, unplugged it, and wrapped the power cord around the plastic casing. He carried the machine downstairs and slid it inside a canvas satchel.
He remembered Rachel’s cell phone. Her address book or call history might also yield valuable information. He took the phone out of its charger on the kitchen counter, and pressed the On button.
The first screen on the tiny LCD display requested a pass code to proceed.
The security precautions seemed extreme. This was her personal cell, and she only used the laptop at home, for the most part.
What have you been hiding from me, Rachel?
He switched off the phone, and dropped it into the bag, too.
27
Tim was watching television behind the counter when Joshua entered the shop. He was smoking a cigarette and sipping a cup of coffee.
“You back already?” Tim asked.
That day, Tim wore a long black T-shirt that read, in giant
red and green text,
IT
’
S A BLACK THING
—
YOU WOULDN
’
T UNDER
-
STAND
.
“Interesting shirt,” Joshua said.
“It’s a vintage shirt, dude. From like the eighties. Classic.”
Joshua heard a Public Enemy song playing on the stereo at low volume. His memory of the track’s title was fuzzy, but he thought it was “Fight the Power.”
“Is this Black Pride Day in Price Electronics?” Joshua asked.
“I appreciate all cultures, my brother,” Tim said and nodded sagely. He blew out a ring of smoke and grinned.
“Whatever, man. I need your help again.”
“With?”
Joshua placed the satchel on the counter and opened it. He withdrew the laptop and the cell phone.
“First, I need access to this computer. When I turn it on, I get stuck at the log on screen when it asks me for a password.”
Tim took a puff on his smoke, frowned.
“You don’t know your own password? Even when I’m at my
most
stoned, I remember my freakin’ passwords, dude.”
“This isn’t my computer. It’s my wife’s.”
“Then why not ask her the password?”
He was not about to tell Tim what had happened. Although Tim was a friend, they had never shared details of their private lives with each other. Theirs was mostly a friendship that revolved around their work lives.
“She’s not around for me to ask,” Joshua said.
“Your lady creeping around on you?”
“What?”
“Okay, it’s none of my business. But if you want some ad- vice...”
“You ever been married, Tim?”
“You crazy? Hell, no, that’s like, legalized bondage.”
“Exactly. So no, I don’t want any advice.”
“Suit yourself.” Tim shrugged, slid the laptop toward him and raised the lid. “What’re you looking for on here?”
“I need to look through some files. I’m not exactly sure which ones yet.”
“This is highly unethical, you know,” Tim said. “Invading your wife’s privacy and all. You one of those ultra-jealous, stalker husbands? Like that guy in that Julia Roberts movie,
Sleeping with the Enemy
or whatever?”
“It’s for a good reason, Tim, I promise.”
Squinting at Joshua, Tim tapped ashes into a tray that looked like a hollowed-out mouse pad.
DON’T EVER TELL 159
“All right, look,” he said. “I can probably get in, but it’s not gonna help you much if she trashed all the files. She might’ve covered her tracks or whatever. I can recover deleted files, but that can get a little hairy.”
“Let’s deal with that later. I just want to get on the system and see what I find.”
Tim pointed at the cell phone with his cigarette. “What about that?”
“It has a password, too.”
“Damn, your wife is like, super private with her stuff. Who puts a password on a freakin’ cell phone?”
“She did.”
“What the heck is she hiding, man? Like, government secrets or something?”
“Wish I knew. Can you hack it?”
“Piece of cake, both of ’em. Come back around . . .” Tim studied his watch. It had a 3-D image of Barney on the face.
“Barney?” Joshua asked.
“He was my childhood hero. Don’t knock him.”
“We were teenagers when Barney came out.”
“So? He’s always so happy. He makes me laugh.”
“To each his own.” Joshua shook his head. “What time should I come back?”
“About sevenish. I’d get to it earlier, but I’ve got a lot of crapola on my plate today.”
“No problem. I owe you.”
“One of these days, you need to let me come break bread with the brothers.”
“There you go.”
As Joshua was walking back to his Explorer, his cell rang. It was Tanisha.
“Can you come to the salon, honey?” she asked. “Rachel wants me to give you something.”
His heart slammed.
“You talked to her? When?”
“She called me about five minutes ago. I don’t understand what’s going on, but you need to come to the salon. When can you get here?”
28
Driving all night without sleep, Dexter arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday morning.
He’d visited the city many times. During his early twenties, he’d made the annual sojourn to Freaknic, the nowdefunct, legendary spring break party that invariably would degenerate into a sort of Bacchanalian bash: people dancing in the streets, falling down drunk, and fucking with wild abandon.
Needless to say, he had fond memories of the ATL.
It had been several years since he’d been to the city, and it had grown. As he wove through the heart of downtown on Interstate 75/85 South, new, gleaming skyscrapers dominated the skyline, reminding him of Chicago. Giant electronic billboards advertised airlines and athletic events. The day was young, but traffic clogged the roadways, too, crawling at a maddening pace.
In a metro area so vast and populous, tracking down his wife would prove a challenge. Undoubtedly, she had chosen to relocate here because she doubted he could find her in an unfamiliar city.
What she failed to realize was that while he didn’t know the city intimately, he knew
her
intimately. Knew her habits, her idiosyncrasies. Her likes and dislikes. Her particular way of viewing the world. It would not have mattered if she’d chartered a boat to sail to the most remote island on the high seas. He possessed the map to her soul, and it would eventually lead him to her.
Exiting the highway past downtown, he found a Waffle House, an inexpensive diner that specialized in artery clogging food. He ordered a huge breakfast. Five scrambled eggs. Two sides of sausage, two sides of bacon. A side of hash browns, scattered, smothered, and covered. A bowl of grits. A pot of coffee.
He didn’t plan on slowing down the search, and he had to keep his energy level up.
“You real hungry this morning, huh?” the waitress asked, after delivering the hot plates to his table.
He looked up. She was a chunky sister with streaks of red in her permed hair, a gold tooth, and a tattoo of a rose on her forearm. Her name tag read Vernethia.
“Where’s the closest library, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Hmm.” Her gaze was fuzzy. “Umm...I don’t know.”
What a travesty. A grown woman didn’t know the location of the nearest public library. He hoped she didn’t have any children—stupidity was often an inherited trait.
“Do you have a phone book here, Vernethia?” he asked. “In the back office, perhaps?”
Her dumb eyes brightened.
“Lemme check.”
She returned with a Yellow Pages directory. He placed it beside his plates and thumbed through it until he found what he was looking for.
DON’T EVER TELL 163
An hour later, with the aid of the StreetPilot, he arrived at Southwest Regional Library on Cascade Road.
Inside, a bank of several, free-to-use computers stood against a wall. He settled in front of one of the machines and logged onto the Internet.
As a narcotics detective, being technologically savvy had given him an advantage over his colleagues. Any narc could rough up a suspect or shake down a dealer. But he’d made full use of police technology in chasing down leads, researching, or conducting surveillance, and had amassed an arrest rate that had blown many of his peers in the dust.
Inmates weren’t allowed access to the Internet. It would have given them contact with Outside, and restricting exposure to the outside world was one of the primary purposes of imprisoning someone in the first place. But certain correctional officers who appreciated a quality bribe had enabled him to enjoy regular Web access, to stay abreast of the everchanging realm of cyberspace.
He went to a Web site called Omega Search. Omega Search was a free search engine for people. It pulled data from public records and government sources: court documents, county and state property records, and the like. You could find a person’s addresses for the past ten years, their phone numbers during the same period, and date of birth. Another feature allowed you to see an overhead satellite photo of the target’s residence.
In the Information Age, nothing was private. Many companies were in the business of compiling, generating, storing, and selling confidential personal data. Even an unlisted phone number, while not accessible in directory assistance or a phone book, could be sold for other uses.
He’d narrowed his wife’s location to Atlanta. All he needed was her home address, and the key to finding her address on Omega Search was her name.
He entered “Rachel Hall” in the search field, and restricted results to the state of Georgia.
The site returned eight hits. Five of them were “R. Hall,” which could have stood for anyone with a first name that began with the letter “r.” Of the remaining three, one of them used the alternate spelling of Rachel, “Rachael.” There were two Rachel Halls.
All of the entries included street addresses and phone numbers.
He sent the document to the printer.
As he stood at the printer waiting for the document, a young woman strolled past. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but then she wrinkled her nose, as if she smelled something putrid.
“The fuck is her problem?” he said, watching her wander away.
He gave his armpit a whiff, and grimaced. He’d been so focused on his work that he’d neglected his personal hygiene.
He took the print-out to the Chevy, and then returned inside the library with his duffel bag. He holed up in the men’s restroom, where he washed with soapy water, changed into fresh clothes, brushed his teeth and hair, applied deodorant, and shaved.
Afterward, he checked himself out in the mirror. He looked like a clean-cut, upstanding member of society again.
Back in the car, he entered the address for the first entry into the StreetPilot. When in doubt, start from the beginning.
With only eight possibilities to explore, he would find her by that evening.
29
Driving fast enough to risk a speeding ticket, Joshua arrived at Belle Coiffure.
It was late morning, and almost every chair in the salon was occupied. The air had been filled with the chatter of the stylists and their clients, but at his entrance, the women turned, almost as one, and checked him out, the volume in the room lowering during their impromptu inspection.
He cleared his throat. Entering Rachel’s salon—or any place inhabited exclusively by women—had always made him nervous. Because of his height and broad build, he tended to attract a lot of female attention, and their appraising looks brought back his memories of being an ungainly kid, the tallest one in his class, a target of merciless teasing from boys and nervous giggling from girls.
His unanswered questions added to his discomfort. What did these women know about Rachel? Did they know she had left? Did they think she had run away because of him? Did they think she had left him for another man? He cleared his throat again. “Is Tanisha here?”
“She’s in the back making a call,” a young stylist on his left said. She smiled. “You can go on back there. We know you.”
He felt their gazes on him as he went down the center of the room. He knocked on the
STAFF ONLY
door.
Tanisha answered. She was talking on the phone, but she said to him, “Hey, honey. Come on in.”
She indicated a sofa for him to sit on, but he remained on his feet. He was too wound up to sit.
He looked around the back office. He’d been in there a few times before when visiting Rachel, but he tried to view the space with fresh eyes.
The area was furnished with a sofa, a handful of chairs, a television, and a coffee table on which were scattered magazines such as
Essence
and
Black Hair
. In an office enclosure, there was a file cabinet and two desks, one for Tanisha, the other for Rachel, a desktop computer sitting on each.
He doubted Rachel would have stored any files of a personal nature on her work computer, since Tanisha probably had access to it. She would have been more cautious.
Photographs also cluttered Rachel’s desk. A couple of their wedding photos, and one of her beloved beach pictures. All shots that he had seen before, in their home.
Rachel’s desk had three drawers. As he wondered whether she had hidden something significant in one of them, Tanisha ended her phone call.
“You got here fast,” she said.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Rachel,” he said. “What did she say?”
“Not much.” Tanisha sat in one of the desk chairs, swiveled around to face him. “She said she was going to be away for a while, and asked if I could keep running things here at the salon.”
“Did she say how long she’d be gone?”
“I asked her. She wouldn’t tell me. I don’t think she knew herself, to be honest. She was real vague.”
“Where did she call you from?”
“I asked her, but she wouldn’t say, and nothing showed up on Caller ID.”
He ground his teeth. He sat on Rachel’s desk chair, pushed up his glasses on his nose.
“Did she tell you anything useful?” he asked.
“It was a really brief call, Josh. She didn’t answer any of my questions. She said she was fine, and she wanted you to know that she was safe—and she wanted me to give you something.”
“That was my next question.”
Tanisha produced a key from a ring that was clipped to her waist. She unlocked the bottom right drawer of Rachel’s desk and removed a black steel box that was about the size of a standard dictionary. A silver padlock secured the lid.
He took it from her. It weighed perhaps five pounds. He shook it, and something shifted inside.
“What is this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I thought you would know. I didn’t know she was keeping it in her desk.”
“Do you have a key to open it?”
“No, I looked.” She jangled her key ring. “None of these fit, either. I tried.” Redness flushed her fair complexion. “Sorry, I know I was out of line for that, but Rachel was talking so weird I was hoping to get some answers for myself, too.”
“And I was hoping to get some answers from you. I don’t know much more than you do.”
“This is probably none of my business,” Tanisha said, “but I know you’ve been treating Rachel well. I know you’re a good man. But...”
“But what?”
“But Rachel has always been so secretive. She’s my girl and all, and we work well together, but our friendship is kind of superficial. She doesn’t let people in, if you know what I mean.”
He was surprised that Tanisha had such insight into Rachel’s personality, but on retrospect, he shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Tanisha had known Rachel a couple of years longer than he had, and had worked with her daily. Her opinion of his wife was as valid as his.
“She’s very private,” he said.
“I could be way off base,” Tanisha said, “but in my experience, when someone tries to keep you from getting too close, it’s ’cause they have something to hide.”
“What do you think she was hiding?”
“I don’t know, but let me tell you what happened yesterday, around lunch. Rachel was doing a client’s hair, and all of a sudden, she gets a call on her cell and practically runs back here to take it. Like it was an emergency.”
“Any idea who called her?”
“I thought it was you, actually. Maybe fifteen minutes later, she left. She said she had to go to an appointment, but she looked to me like she’d been crying her eyes out. Of course, she wouldn’t admit it—she was keeping me at arm’s length, like she usually does.”
He thought about when he’d seen Rachel at home yesterday, and the bizarre bout of tears that she declined to explain.
What the hell had happened?
“So.” Tanisha clasped her hands together in her lap. “I don’t know what you can do with that information, but that’s what happened here. Whatever went down, it probably had something with her leaving so fast. When was the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday evening. I think she’s in some kind of trouble, but I’ve no idea from what, or who.” He added: “She left me a letter.”
She touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“She said she’s coming back. But she didn’t say when.”
“Take it from another woman,” Tanisha said. “If a woman’s in trouble, a man usually has something to do with it.”
“Has she ever mentioned another guy, anyone you can remember?”
“No way. In the three years I’ve known Rachel, you’re the only man she’d ever even
dated
. She’d say you were the most special guy she’d ever met.”
“Obviously, not special enough to tell the truth,” he said, under his breath.
“Come again?”
“Never mind. One more thing: did Rachel dye her hair?”
“Oh, yeah, all the time. Auburn was her natural color, but she liked to keep it dark. Why?”
“It was something I never knew about her,” he said softly.
“Between you and me, I get the feeling there’s a lot we don’t know about Rachel.” She smiled bitterly.
He stood, putting the box under his arm. “Thanks for giving this to me, whatever it is. And thanks for talking to me about Rachel. It’s helpful.”
“I wish I had more answers for you. You love that girl to death. It’s all in your eyes.”
“Yeah.”
“God’ll work it out.” Tanisha closed her fingers around the gold crucifix that dangled from her necklace. “Stay faithful, honey. Let go, and let God.”
He barely heard her last words—a ray of insight had struck him. He thanked Tanisha again and quickly left the salon, oblivious this time to the curious glances from the assembled women, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
He knew where he could find the key to open the box.