you get a chance? I’d really like to talk … nothing urgent … just … something’s come up. But if you’re busy, don’t worry about it. Thanks so much. Bye.’
I am about to descend into my own private hell and it’s ‘nothing urgent’. What a loser.
Ren made coffee and went back to her desk. Cliff and Robbie were both on the phone. She sat and listened to them and it calmed her. This was her life, this was normal, these were good people. For several minutes, she just sat and drank her coffee.
Cliff and Robbie had a gift for getting people to talk to them, but their styles were completely different. Robbie would sound eager and excited by any piece of information he was given, making the person feel that they could possibly be the key to solving an entire investigation. Robbie played the role of Robbie. Cliff had an alter ego. He made people feel like he was their buddy, they could tell him anything and nothing would surprise him, that he’d been around the block and, really, the world’s a piece of shit and we’re all just grinding along. He called his colleagues ‘these people’. These people need to know if you’ve seen your bank-robber husband any time recently … as if it was all out of his hands and Cliff had as little interest in the whole thing as the person on the other end of the phone.
Ren glanced over at Colin frowning at his screen, the phone clenched to his ear. ‘You will send me this – I need these financials – What you’re gonna do is …’
Colin managed to be an even bigger asshole than he was with her.
Ren picked up the phone to do something – anything. She was beginning to get side-eyes from the others.
‘Let’s hear what Catherine Sarvas has to say about Diaz,’ said Ren to no one.
She dialed the number. ‘Catherine, it’s Ren Bryce. I have some news for you – Erubiel Diaz’s body has been found.’
Catherine gasped. ‘Oh, Lord. Where?’
‘In Nogales, Mexico. He was decapitated and his body was burned.’
Catherine paused. ‘That’s shocking. But … I’m relieved.’
‘This is not going to be easy, but I’d like to explore the possibility that your attack was linked to the death of your husband …’
Silence. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I don’t have any evidence,’ said Ren, ‘but your family was targeted twice in the space of two weeks and … do you have any links to Mexico? Have you vacationed there?’
‘No. The last time I was in Mexico was twenty years ago.’
‘And what about your husband?’
‘No,’ said Catherine. ‘And when he traveled for business, it was just within Texas.’
‘What about your sons? Did they have any reason to go to Mexico – maybe with friends’ families, field trips from school …?’
‘No. They always vacationed with us. Luke, our seventeen-year-old, went on his first solo trip at spring break, but that was to San Diego State to visit his college. He’s … was … starting at San Diego State. He’s going to study law.’ Her voice cracked.
‘So he went alone?’
‘No, I meant he went without the family, but he wasn’t alone – he went with three friends. They were checking out the facilities, the libraries … probably a few of the girls.’
‘No doubt,’ said Ren. ‘Can I get his friends’ names from you?’
‘Sure … but I don’t see how …’
‘Well, it won’t do any harm. Look, Catherine, Luke’s missing, and his friends know him best.’
‘OK,’ said Catherine. ‘His friends are … John Reiff, Ben Racono and Mark Bayne. I’ll get you their numbers if you’ll wait on the line.’
Ren sat staring at the boys’ names on the page. Three boys, aged between seventeen and nineteen, with so much of their lives ahead of them. All Ren could think about was Beau.
‘Guys, I’m taking an early lunch.’ She grabbed her coat. ‘Back in a half-hour – I’m just going to let Misty out in the yard.’
Ren barely remembered the drive home. As soon as she got in the door she went straight to the sofa and sat there, staring at the family photo on the living-room wall. Beau with his gorgeous smile and his long sandy hair and his skinny limbs and his piano fingers. And just his goodness. Ren wanted to stop there. Because she always stopped there. But this time, she broke through the pain barrier and she started to think about the rest: rushing to Beau’s bedroom when she heard her mother scream, her mother’s wild eyes as she turned to her in the doorway, her mother’s arm as she reached out and slammed the bedroom door on her hand, her mother screaming: ‘Orenda, no!’ Every vowel sound was stretched as far as her breath would take it. It was an extraordinary, life-changing scream. Ren’s scream fused with her mother’s, but it was at the shock of being hurt by her. She could not understand why her mother had slammed the door on her. And it was the searing pain of her crushed hand. Ren remembered looking down at the tips of two of her fingers hanging by an almost translucent scrap of skin and pumping blood on to the carpet.
Her mother was screaming for her son. Ren was screaming for her mother. And as she tried the door a second time, her mother screamed again: ‘Orenda, no!’
Ren had run to her parents’ bathroom. She had stood, bawling, at the sink, confused and horrified by her mother. There was no color left in the face looking back at her from the mirror, but all around her seemed to be red. Her hand was throbbing, still pumping out blood.
Why hasn’t Mom come to help me? What did I do? Where’s Beau? Why isn’t he helping? He must have heard me. Where is everyone?
She heard her mother call her again: Orendaaa! Orendaaa! Wrapping her hand in a towel, Ren had run toward her. This time, Beau’s door was open. She was afraid to walk in, as if it was a trap and her mother wanted to hurt her again. But Ren knew there was a reason why the whole world had suddenly turned upside down. She knew something was terribly wrong. Beau was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His mother was gripping her dead son by his face, kissing it and sobbing and wiping her tears from it.
‘He’s dead, Orenda. He’s dead. He’s …’
Ren ran to the kitchen, grabbed their Bakelite phone with the eight-foot cord and dialed 911, pacing up and down the length of the hallway as she told the dispatcher about her big brother. As she put the phone down, her mother was screaming for her again. And from that day on, Ren did not want to be called Orenda ever again.
Beau Bryce was dead. He had taken an overdose. He was nineteen years old, handsome, and smart. He was not selfish. He was not unloved. He was clinically depressed. Some people committed suicide and didn’t leave a note: Beau had written a short story, an allegory in which his family were different characters and Beau was the tortured hero on a quest for something that he had never been able to identify, therefore had never been able to find, no matter how much the other characters had tried to
