8. Nash
NASH
The penthouse was dark when I got back.
I pushed the door open and stood there in the doorway, listening.
The city hummed below, forty-three floors down, a low constant noise I'd stopped noticing months ago.
But inside the apartment I heard nothing.
No footsteps. No music playing from the speaker in the kitchen.
No sound of Rae moving around, calling out to ask how the inspection went or whether I'd remembered to bring home the receipt from the parts supplier.
"Rae?"
My voice fell flat in the empty space, swallowed by the silence.
I stepped inside and set my keys on the table by the door, the metal clinking against glass louder than it should've been.
I waited, listening for her to answer from the bedroom or the bathroom, for the sound of water running or a door opening.
Nothing.
I crossed into the living room, my shoulders tight. "You home?"
The boxes were still there. Stacked against the wall where we'd left them three months ago when we moved in, brown cardboard towers that had been sitting untouched since the day the movers carried them up.
I'd told her we'd get to them once things settled down at the airline.
Once the FAA compliance deadline passed and the board meeting was done and I had time to breathe.
The tape on the nearest one was starting to peel at the corner, curling away from the cardboard like it had given up waiting.
I walked through to the kitchen. The counter was clean, bare except for the coffee maker and the dish rack. No plate set out for me. No note propped against the fridge. The light over the sink was off, and the room felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"Rae, you here?"
My chest tightened, just a little, a fist closing around something I didn't want to name yet. I pulled my phone out and checked the screen. Nothing. She hadn't answered my last text, the one I'd sent from the road asking if she wanted me to pick up dinner. Read an hour ago. No reply.
I turned and went down the hall to the bedroom, my boots loud on the hardwood.
The door was open. The bed was made, the quilt smooth and tight, pulled up over the pillows the way she always did it even when I told her it didn't matter, that we'd just mess it up again in a few hours.
Her side looked the same as it had this morning when I'd kissed her goodbye and told her I'd probably be late.
It was almost ten now.
I stepped inside and looked around. The dresser. The nightstand. The chair in the corner where she piled clothes she wasn't ready to put away yet. Everything looked normal. Everything looked wrong.
I crossed to the closet and slid the door open, the runners squeaking.
Half her clothes were still there. Shirts on hangers, a couple of jackets, the dress she wore to the airline's opening-day ceremony last year.
But the duffel bag we used for weekend trips was gone, and there were gaps on the shelf where she kept her jeans folded in neat stacks.
My stomach twisted. I went to the second bedroom, the one we'd talked about turning into an office and never did. The closet door stuck when I tried it, swollen the way it always was. I yanked it hard and it gave.
Her red toolbox was gone.
The space where it had sat was empty, just the faint outline of dust on the closet floor, a rectangle that hadn't been disturbed in months.
Ruben gave her that toolbox when she passed her A&P exam.
She'd started working at his shop in Cibolo Heights when she was nineteen, and when she qualified he gave her the tools.
She kept them close, always. Took them with her to every job, every site inspection, every time she needed to fix something at the hangar.
If she'd taken them somewhere, she would've told me.
Wouldn't she?
Dread settled in my chest.
I turned and went to the bathroom, flipping the light on.
Her toothbrush was gone. The little glass where she kept it next to mine was empty, just my brush standing there alone.
The bottle of lotion she used at night, the one that smelled like lavender and something else I could never place, wasn't on the counter.
I opened the medicine cabinet, the hinges creaking.
She'd taken her contact lens case. The bottle of ibuprofen she always kept for the headaches she got when she worked under the bright lights at the hangar.
The hair tie she left looped over the corner of the mirror.
Jesus.
I stood there with my hand on the cabinet door, staring at the empty shelf, and felt my pulse kick up hard and fast. This wasn't right. This wasn't her going to run an errand or spending the night at a friend's place. This was something else.
I went back to the kitchen, my chest tight now, my mind racing.
Maybe she went to see Enid. Maybe she'd just needed a night away, after I'd been stuck at the airline all damn day dealing with the FAA inspector and hadn't seen her when she came by.
Adriana said Rae had stopped in late in the afternoon, asked where I was, then left.
Said Rae had looked upset. I'd told Adriana she was wrong, that she didn't know what she was talking about, that Rae and I were fine.
But Rae had come and gone without saying a word.
And now she wasn't here.
I pulled my phone out again and opened her contact, my thumb moving before I'd decided to do it.
I pressed the call button and brought the phone to my ear.
The line rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
My jaw tightened with each ring, waiting for her voice, waiting for her to pick up and tell me she was fine, she'd just stepped out, she'd be back soon.
It went to voicemail.
"Hey, it's me," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and failing. "Just got back. Wondering where you are. Give me a call when you get this."
I hung up and stood there in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the boxes we'd never unpacked, the ones that had been sitting against the wall for three months like a promise I'd never kept. Something cold slid down my spine, a creeping dread that made my skin prickle.
She'd left.
Not for a few hours. Not to run an errand or grab something from the store. She'd packed a bag and taken her tools and walked out of the apartment without telling me where she was going or when she'd be back.
She'd left.
I didn't want to think that. I wanted to think this was ordinary, something I could laugh about later when she walked back in and told me I was being ridiculous, that she'd just needed some space and I was overreacting like I always did when I couldn't get hold of her.
But the toolbox was gone. Her toothbrush was gone.
Half her clothes were gone. She wasn't answering my calls.
This wasn't ordinary.
I turned in a slow circle, scanning the apartment like I'd missed something, like there was some piece of this I hadn't seen yet that would make it all make sense.
The chair by the window caught my eye. There was a shirt draped over the back of it, charcoal grey, the one I'd worn yesterday when Adriana and Elias had come here to work at the dining table for hours.
Rae had ironed it for me. I walked over and picked it up, the fabric smooth under my fingers, still creased where she'd pressed it.
I brought it closer and saw a small mark on the collar. Faint, pale, like someone had brushed against it. I frowned, trying to place it, trying to remember what would've left a mark like that.
I couldn't.
I set the shirt back down on the chair and turned away, and that's when I saw it.
The ring.
It sat on the kitchen counter, next to the boxes, a small circle of gold catching the dim light from the street below. I crossed the room in three strides and stopped, my breath catching in my chest, staring down at it like it was something I'd never seen before.
Her wedding ring.
The band was thin, plain, the diamond small and set low in the gold. It was the ring I'd been able to afford after saving for three months. I'd proposed with it on the porch of the little house in Cibolo Heights, the boards creaking under us. She'd said yes before I'd even finished asking.
She'd worn it every day since. Seven years.
And now it was sitting here on the counter, next to a stack of boxes we'd never unpacked, like it didn't mean anything.
I picked it up. The metal was cold in my palm, light, almost nothing. I closed my fist around it and felt the edges press into my skin, sharp enough to hurt.
Why the hell would she take it off?
My stomach dropped, a sickening lurch that made my throat go tight.
I stood there holding the ring, staring at the empty space on the counter where it had been, and tried to make sense of it.
Tried to think of one good reason she'd leave it behind.
Tried to think of what I'd done or said or missed that would make her walk out on me without a word.
I couldn't.
God, what was happening?
I slipped the ring into my pocket, my hand shaking just a little. It settled there, a small weight against my leg, and I kept my hand on it like I was afraid it'd disappear if I let go.
My phone was still in my other hand. I pulled it out and called her again, my thumb stabbing at the screen harder than I needed to. It rang. And rang. And rang. Each ring felt like it stretched out longer than the last, like the line was mocking me, and I clenched my jaw so hard it ached.
Voicemail again.
"Rae, call me back." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to, sharp and jagged at the edges. "I don't know what's going on, but just — call me. Please."
I hung up and stood there, my jaw tight, my heart pounding against my ribs like it was trying to break out.
She had to be somewhere. She wouldn't just disappear, wouldn't just walk out and turn her phone off and leave me standing here in an empty apartment holding her wedding ring and wondering what the hell I'd done wrong.
I tried to think where she'd go. Not a hotel. She hated hotels. We'd spent eight months in them when the airline was starting, and she'd said she never wanted to see another hotel room.
Not her parents' place. She'd only go there if things were really bad.
Maybe Enid, her friend from Cibolo Heights. But Rae wouldn't want to be found, wouldn't want to explain herself to anyone.
And then it hit me, the answer so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it first.
Cibolo Heights.
The little house. The one we'd sold seven years ago to raise the startup capital for the airline, the one I'd bought back five years ago because I'd promised her we'd go home someday.
It stood empty now, waiting for us to move back in when things settled down and I had time to fix the porch and repaint the second bedroom and make it feel like ours again.
She had a key. She loved that house, loved it more than she'd ever loved the penthouse or any of the apartments we'd lived in since. If she'd gone anywhere, it'd be there.
I grabbed my keys off the table and headed for the door, my hand closing around the handle.
I stopped and looked back at the apartment one more time.
The boxes stacked against the wall. The empty space where her toolbox had been.
The shirt draped over the chair. The counter where the ring had sat, cold and small and abandoned.
The ring was in my pocket now, a small weight I could feel with every step. I wasn't leaving it behind. I wasn't leaving her behind, wherever the hell she'd gone.
I pulled the door open and stepped into the hall, letting it swing shut behind me.
Forty minutes to Cibolo Heights, maybe less if I pushed it.
I could be there before midnight. I could find her and talk to her and figure out what the hell had just happened, what I'd missed, what I'd done that made her pack a bag and walk out without a word.
I had to.
The elevator ride down felt like it took forever, the car descending slow and smooth while I stood there staring at my reflection in the polished steel doors.
My jaw was set, my shoulders tight, my hand in my pocket wrapped around the ring so hard the band dug into my palm.
The lobby was empty when I crossed it, just the night security guard behind the desk who nodded at me as I passed. I didn't nod back.
The night air hit me when I pushed through the doors to the street, cooler than I expected, carrying the smell of exhaust and concrete and something faintly sweet I couldn't name. I didn't stop walking until I reached the truck, parked at the curb where I'd left it an hour ago.
I got in, started the engine, and pulled out onto the road. The city lights blurred past, bright and indifferent, and I drove faster than I should've, my hands tight on the wheel, my mind racing. Trying to piece together what I'd missed. Trying to understand.
She'd come to the airline today. Adriana said she'd looked upset. I'd dismissed it, told Adriana to stop trying to explain my wife to me. I'd texted Rae from the road, asked if she wanted dinner. She'd read it. She hadn't answered.
And now she was gone.
I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand, frustration and something sharper — something that felt like fear but that I wouldn't name out loud — twisting in my chest. I didn't understand.
I didn't know what I'd done, or what she wanted, or why she'd left the ring behind like it didn't mean a damn thing.
But I knew where she was.
And I was going to find her.