Chapter Eleven—Tim
BY THURSDAY EVENING, I have a county. I’ve been searching since Lorna disappeared, starting with the obvious places and working outward.
Old interviews, photographs, business filings, property references, every place she’s mentioned in years of interviews and content.
Charleston is useless. New York is worse. Asheville gives me too much territory.
I’ve gone through all of them anyway. Twice in some cases.
The new information changes that. It isn’t an address or even a town I can be certain about yet. It’s a county in western North Carolina, small enough to matter, and I stare at the name until the letters stop looking like letters.
I pull up a map.
Mountains. State roads. Smaller roads branching from them, then thinner lines disappearing toward forest and private land. I zoom in until town names appear, then farther until I can see individual roads.
She’s there. Maybe not inside the boundary I’m looking at this second, but close. For the first time since she disappeared, I have more than old photographs and dead accounts.
I shove away from the desk and pace to the kitchen. The coffee in the pot has been sitting there since this morning. I pour it anyway, take one swallow, and dump it into the sink.
She’s been gone nine days.
Her newsletter has resumed, which should have been enough to tell me she’s fine. New copy appeared Tuesday morning. A product feature yesterday. She is working somewhere, eating somewhere, sleeping somewhere, and every night I’ve sat in this apartment without knowing where.
Now I have a county.
I return to the desk before I make another cup of coffee. Lorna has talked about western North Carolina before, though never enough to give me a location. Autumn color. Old houses. A photograph of a creek years ago that could have been taken almost anywhere in the mountains.
I start searching again, with property records first. Her maiden name gives me too many results, most obviously wrong. I try variations. Married name. Initials. Companies associated with her business.
Nothing.
I go back and change the search but still find nothing useful.
The third time, the county website throws an error, and I hit the desk hard enough to make my coffee spoon jump against the saucer. The sound is sharp in the apartment.
“Come on.” I curse as the page finally reloads.
I know she’s there. The certainty isn’t logical yet, but it doesn’t need to be. The county fits too much of what I know about her. Lorna made real money young. She wouldn’t have spent all of it. She likes places that give her room to disappear when she’s tired of being watched.
I know that because I’ve watched her. The thought pleases me for half a second before the records page returns another list of names that aren’t hers.
I get up again, cursing once more. My keys are on the counter.
Six hours, maybe less this late. I could be inside the county before dawn and start driving the roads myself.
No. That would risk everything I’ve planned. Gas stations open early. People notice unfamiliar cars, but they also answer ordinary questions.
A photograph on a phone. Have you seen her? Do you know where this road goes?
People are nosy. They’ll ask questions of me and probably remember me.
I close my hand around the keys.
No.
I drop them back onto the counter.
Driving there without an address would be careless. I’ve spent years being careful with Lorna. Years learning when she travels, when she works, what she buys, and what she stops buying. I didn’t wait this long to ruin it because nine days without seeing her has made me impatient.
Eight and a half. I saw her Tuesday morning before she disappeared from Charleston.
I know exactly how long it’s been. I return to the computer.
The county map is still open. I start with towns this time, opening each in a separate tab. Images. Roads. Businesses. Real-estate listings. Anything that might resemble a background she’s used before.
An hour disappears.
Then another.
At ten-thirty, I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I go to the refrigerator, open it, and stare at food I don’t want. The door alarm starts chiming before I close it.
Back at the desk, I refresh her account.
Nothing new.
I refresh the newsletter archive even though I know there won’t be anything there.
Nothing.
Her business page.
Nothing.
I check the county records again and get the same results.
“Where are you?” I slam my fist against the desk.
Her photograph is open on the second monitor. Not one of the polished campaign images. I saved this one from a video years ago. She was sitting sideways at a kitchen table with her hair pulled up, laughing at whoever was behind the camera.
It was probably Aldren.
I enlarge it, focusing on her smile. She’ll look at me like that very soon. Years of planning are coming to fruition. The county is enough to tide me over tonight.
I write the name on a piece of paper even though I’ve already memorized it, then fold the paper and put it in my wallet. Five minutes later, I take it back out and open the map again.
One road leads north toward the parkway. Another curves west through a string of small communities. South takes me toward larger towns and more people than Lorna would want around her right now.
West.
I zoom in.
There are too many roads.
My teeth ache from grinding them, and I force my mouth open.
I could leave now. The keys are twelve steps away.
This time, I don’t get up. It isn’t because I don’t want to go. I want to badly enough that sitting in the chair has become physical work.
I need one more piece. A town, a road, a property record that doesn’t dead-end, anything that turns hundreds of square miles into somewhere I can reach.
I refresh the records page again and get nothing. I refresh again. Nothing.
The clock passes eleven. I tell myself I’ll stop at midnight, and I’m still searching when the clock moves past twelve.
I stare at another picture of her. This one has Aldren in the background. It’s one I printed out, so I snatch it off the corkboard and reach for the scissors. I drive them through Aldren’s face and instantly feel calmer.
By the time I cut all trace of him from the picture, my hands are steady. I’m no longer shaking and can think clearly again.
She’s mine. Aldren will pay for ever touching her, and when I get to her this time, I’ll never let her slip away again.