Long Gone

On the Daily News Web site, she was happy to see that the story of a missing girl in Dover, New Jersey, had replaced the gallery for top billing. No surprise. Alabaster skin, full lips, a few freckles for good measure. Becca Stevenson’s photo beneath a banner declaration—MISSING—made good newspaper copy. Alice felt a pang of guilt as she registered her hope that the media vultures would latch on to the missing girl story instead of her own saga.

She moved her cursor back to the search window. This time, she searched for her own name, plus the words “Highline Gallery.” Maybe Channel 7 would be the only outlet to play up her family background.

Despite her hopes, she found story after story identifying the gallery’s manager as the daughter of Frank Humphrey and Rose Sampson. Almost all of them alluded to the controversies her father had created with his own work. Most also mentioned his recently exposed infidelities—the “casting couch” allegations, the scandalous ages of the women involved. Then she reached a news update that she found herself rereading.

Alice Humphrey is only the latest member of her family to find herself at the center of controversy. In addition to her father’s reported extramarital and perhaps even coerced sexual activity going back decades, her brother, Ben, was arrested last weekend for drug possession. According to two separate NYPD sources, Ben Humphrey, 41, was arrested after police found marijuana in his possession while investigating a noise complaint outside of a West Village bar.

She remembered Ben’s unexplained absence from the gallery opening. Recalled her parents’ anxious expressions, wondering whether he was back to his old ways.

She quickly pulled up his number on her cell, but heard only his familiar outgoing message: “This is Ben. You know the drill.” Even when he was clean, Ben was not the type to answer a phone this early in the morning.

As she disconnected the call, she caught the time displayed on the screen: 6:34. Shit. Time to meet Drew. Her brother’s problems would have to wait.

She found herself working the metal of the gallery key between her bare fingers inside her coat pocket like a worry stone. If it weren’t for those ridiculous protesters, she would have had time yesterday to pick up a new pair of gloves to replace the ones that were still missing. One more reason to hate the fuckers.

Alice wasn’t proud of this aspect of her personality, the complete inability to harness free-floating anxieties. She was the kind of person who could not sit still once she realized an unsent piece of mail still lingered on her desk, who would wake in the middle of the night with a recollection of an unreturned phone call.

Her relationship with stress was one of the reasons she had never felt at ease with the acting career her mother had so desperately sought for her. The standing around, biding time before the next scene. Wondering if the director was going to alter the dialogue or the order of filming. Waiting to know whether the powers that be would pick up the pilot or approve the dailies. The constant uncertainty had left her feeling unfocused and insecure, never able to find peace within herself.

The irony that she had chosen a safer path only to find herself out of work for nearly a year was not lost on her. Now she had finally landed not only a job, but a fabulous one at that, and once again she found herself trying to anticipate what would happen next.

As she continued to rub that key between her fingers, she resolved that her involvement in this nightmare would end today. She would not spend another night as she had the last, tossing and turning in bed while those awful images rushed through her mind. She would take control of this situation, or at least her role in it. She was through with Drew’s middleman smokescreen. She would simply refuse to end this morning’s meeting until he put her in direct contact with Schuler. And if he couldn’t connect her to Schuler, she’d insist on speaking with the gallery’s owner. And if all else failed, she would quit. She’d go back to being jobless. She’d break down and ask her parents to help, if it became necessary.

But no matter what happened, her anxiety about those photographs would be assuaged. Hopefully, it would be a simple matter of verifying the model’s age and identity. A quickie press release, and all would be forgotten. And if the verification didn’t come, she’d take the omission as a sign that the Reverend Harvey might actually be onto something, and she would walk away. Regardless, she would no longer be part of this story by the time the day ended.

She found comfort in that knowledge. She’d found a small element of control.

As she approached the gallery, she spotted brown butcher paper lining the previously unobstructed glass. Drew had been quite the busy bee this morning. She let out a frustrated sigh. She was as upset about the protesters’ allegations as anyone, but covering the windows like some seedy peep-show emporium was a little over the top. Knowing—okay, not knowing at all—but based on her assumptions about Hans Schuler, she wondered if this was the artist’s way of generating even more controversy, along with the attendant publicity.

The security gate was unrolled over the glass entrance, but when she bent down to unlock it, she found it unsecured. Drew must have pulled it down behind him. She rolled the gate open and found the front door also unlocked. She pushed it open, ready to find Drew waiting for her at the desk. Instead, the lights were off. The space black.

“Drew?”

He must have stepped out for coffee. If she was going to continue to work here, she’d have to talk to him about leaving the place unattended, even at this early hour.

She made her way through the gallery space, struggling to adjust her vision to the dark, wondering who the genius was who installed the light switches in back. She was relieved when she finally felt the rear wall. She ran her hand along the now-familiar row of switches, but nothing happened.

Damn it. She had no idea where the fuse box was in this place.

She worked her way toward the fire exit, one hand against the wall. Fumbled with the bolt until she felt it release. She was disappointed when only a gray ray of morning light crept through the propped open door.

She knew immediately when she turned to face the interior of the gallery again that something was wrong. It was one of those unexpected realizations. A dawning of awareness at a cellular level. The rhythms of this space had already become ingrained. Even in the dark, her brain was wired to expect certain shaded forms—the low leather banquettes dividing the gallery in half, the glass-topped desk toward the front door, the very objects that she’d been careful to avoid bumping into as she’d worked her way to this place. But she saw nothing but evenness in her field of vision.

“Drew?”

Her voice sounded different in the room. Louder. With a touch of an echo.

Every sense was telling her that something had changed. She fumbled inside her purse for her cell phone and activated the screen for a tiny pocket of light. Did a 180-degree scan of the room. Saw an empty floor where the benches had been. Saw uninterrupted blank space on the wall where Hans Schuler’s First had hung.

Fuck. She had assumed the brown paper on the windows was a cheap publicity stunt—a very public effort to obscure their so-called pornography from public view—but now she realized Drew had been even busier this morning, and even more overreactive, than she’d first assumed. It looked like she wouldn’t be calling the shots about how the end would go down. Obviously the owner was pulling the plug.

She was tempted to walk out the door and leave the entire experiment behind her, but thought Drew owed her an explanation. She assumed, based on the open gate, that he’d be returning.

As she walked toward the front of the gallery, she noticed a shadow on the floor—some sort of pile. She took each step carefully, as if the sounds of her footsteps might disrupt it. Fifteen steps from the pile. Now ten. Five.

Despite her caution, she felt the sole of her boot slide beneath her on the floor. Felt her weight pulling her down backward. She reflexively stuck her hands beneath her, forgetting all those old ski lessons about protecting your wrists in a fall. She heard her cell phone tumble to the floor.

Her body hit the ground, palms first, and then slid against the tile. Wet. Warm. Sticky. Paint?

She pulled herself to her knees and crawled toward the form on the ground. Used a tentative hand to tap what she recognized upon touch as some kind of fabric. A rug? A large canvas?

She patted the form’s edges and jerked upright when she finally identified a texture with certainty. Hair. Coarse human hair.

She scrambled on the slick tile, fumbling for her phone. Found the button at the bottom. Aimed the tiny beam of light toward what she now suspected was a body.

Drew Campbell lay on his side, a magenta pool forming beneath him despite the bundling of his winter coat. Her hands and knees and shins and forearms were soaked in his fresh blood.

She felt her fingertips stick to the glass screen of her phone as she dialed 911.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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“God damn it.”

Detective Jason Morhart hit the enter key on his computer once again, this time so hard he thought it might not pop back into place.

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“Fuck.”

“Cursing’s for the uncreative. They say ‘Frack!’ on Battlestar Galactica, and everyone still knows what it means.”

Nancy had appeared at his desk about six presses of the return key ago. Her job was to process file requests. In her mind, that plus a few software classes at the community college made her the resident computer expert at the police department. No one had the heart to disabuse her of the notion. He knew for a fact that Nancy could out-cuss a cussing contest at a sailor’s convention, but that wasn’t going to stop her from ribbing him about his temper.