Blood Loss

She pulled off her white work shirt and skin-toned bra, and pushed them onto the pile in her locker. She grabbed the pink bra that matched her low-cut boy shorts, hooked it at the front, adjusted the contents, adjusted the straps. She pulled on a scoop-necked gray tank with black leather strips and small silver buckles on each shoulder. Her arms were leaner, the long muscles defined again. She could see veins. She applied more makeup: light base on sallow skin, extra liner, extra mascara, tan blush on cheeks that had hollowed under the bone.

Bones and veins, coming through.The surface.

Ren thought of the men who had gotten to know more. Paul Louderback, her former physical training instructor at Quantico. Her only unfinished business. It had been seventeen years since he first got inside her head. She was twenty years old, standing in boxing gloves in the gym at the Academy, knees bent, punching the focus pads he was holding up. His eyes were extraordinarily blue, sharp, intense. She missed a beat. He struck her hard on the side of the head.

‘Focus pads!’ he roared, ‘are for guess what?’

‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.

‘Then focus!’

‘Yes, sir.’ She punched. One, two.

‘And when you punch, you need to follow through! Punch like you’re aiming to go through the focus pads, or through the punchbag, or through the dirtbag!’

His eyes.

‘Follow through,’ he had roared. ‘You need to follow through!’

‘Yes, sir.’ One, two.

His eyes. Shit.

‘Focus pads!’ he roared again, ‘are for guess what?’

‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.

‘Then focus!’

‘Hard to do,’ Ren had told him months later. ‘When the instructor looks like—’

‘He wants to kiss you?’ said Paul.

But she had found out that Paul Louderback was married, and she wanted to grab those boxing gloves and use them on him again for not wearing a wedding band. So she had treated the ‘wants to kiss you’ like it had never been said. It was the first time, in words, he had made his feelings clear. For the seventeen years since it was hinted at in emails, and gifts, and rare phone calls that she knew were a secret from his wife. This simple contact meant that no matter who Ren was with, at times she would imagine what it would be like to walk down a beach or an aisle with Paul Louderback. But he had already done both with someone else, and Ren was no homewrecker, and no-one’s second best.

Just once they had dared to say more about what might have been, eighteen months earlier, in the shadow of Quandary Peak outside Breckenridge, in the aftermath of a murder investigation. Since then, there had been no contact. Paul Louderback had a life in D.C. with his wife and two daughters, and she had a life in Denver.

Then there were the men Ren had been with in the past ten years, since her mind was stamped with crazy: Vincent, everloving until she broke under the weight of his knowledge of her; Billy Waites, confidential informant, bright and brave, deep and tattooed, quietly concerned, secret. Then from the sawdust of the National Stock Show, came the extreme rider, riding fast toward her manic high, and roping her. Then a few more, scattered and grim, drawn to the same empty flame. Come to crazy: when Ren, fresh from sorrow, could feel her eyes dancing like fire, and her chest bursting with roving love, her glass and her wallet overflowing, her flesh showing, her smiles killing her jaw. Come to crazy. I’ll keep you up all night.

It would last for days, or weeks, or longer. If she was lucky – she thought – it would last for months. Her trickster mind would tell her that the high would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise. And then came the certain, slow, quicksand low: the knockdown, turnaround low. It would sidle up to her like a street-corner mime with an upright middle finger, rocking with silent laughter at the ridiculousness that it could still surprise. It would bring terrible things, silently. It carried thoughts with claws and teeth – thoughts that she may have fought before, and beaten. But her trickster mind would tell her that this low would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise.

‘Surpri-ise!’ it would mouth. ‘You fucking sucker.’ Rocking shoulders, silent laugh. ‘I. Always. Win.’

Ren leaned into the mirror, sliding red gloss across her lips with an upright middle finger.

Not this time, motherfucker. Not this time.

Erica Whaley leaned in and kissed her husband hard on the mouth, knocking his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. When it stopped on the third floor, she made a dash for the room. She went the wrong way, then spun around and, laughing, went back the right way. Mark moved slowly after her. He could not bear to be in the room with the sitter. As he came closer, he heard a terrible, agonizing scream. He ran through the open door.

‘Laurie,’ Erica was screaming. ‘Laurie!’

Little Leo was standing in the middle of the bedroom floor. He had wet his Spiderman pajamas.

‘What do you mean, Laurie?’ said Mark. ‘Where is she?’ He dashed past Erica into the kids’ bedroom. She followed him in. Her face was white.

‘She’s not here!’ screamed Erica. ‘Laurie’s gone.’

Mark Whaley shouted out his daughter’s name, pulling back the wardrobe doors, throwing himself onto the floor to check under the bed, running to the curtains, swinging them back and forth, as if his daughter would play a hiding game as her stepmother screamed. Maybe this is for attention, he thought. He ran back into Erica.

‘Where’s the sitter?’ he said.

Leo was now wailing, copying his parents. He plunged toward his father’s leg, and clung to it. In a trance, Mark bent down and picked him up, started patting his back, not even aware that Leo’s wet pajamas were soaking into his shirt. And still, Leo bawled.

‘I’m trying to think,’ Mark shouted. ‘Stop crying, Leo. For crying out loud!’

Leo cried harder, alarmed by the scene he had woken up to. ‘Laurie,’ he sobbed. ‘Laurie.’

‘Give him to me,’ said Erica.

Mark grabbed for the phone. He called reception. As he waited for them to pick up, he turned to Erica. ‘Call 911 from your cell phone,’ he shouted. ‘Call 911. And call Laurie’s cell.’

Jared Labati picked up the phone in reception. ‘Hey,’ he said, long and slow, as if he was talking to one of his best friends.

‘This is Mark Whaley, Room 304. My daughter is missing. My daughter’s gone. Call 911. Call the police. Where’s the sitter? Did you see the sitter leave?’

Jared stammered, ‘Uh … your daughter’s gone? Where?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Mark. ‘She’s gone! She’s taken my daughter. I don’t know where.’

‘Who?’ said Jared. ‘Who’s taken your daughter?’

‘Jesus Christ, I don’t care, my daughter’s gone. Shut down the hotel. Now. And get the police here. Now.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘What a fucking idiot.’

Erica was still on the phone to 911. Mark started answering the dispatcher’s questions along with her. She held her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop! You’re confusing me.’

‘You’re too slow!’ he said.

He got his cell phone and dialed Laurie’s number.

‘It’s ringing,’ he said. ‘It’s ringing. OK. It’s ringing. That’s good. Come on, Laurie, pick up, pick up.’

He became aware of a song playing in the room next door, a song he vaguely knew, one that Laurie had loaded onto Erica’s iPod, but he knew it wasn’t the iPod, it was the phone, and as he walked into the bedroom, there it was, flashing on the floor of the bedroom: Laurie’s little pink cell phone. He ended his call, picked up her phone and brought it into Erica.

‘I’m going to check the other rooms, I’ll check the other rooms, stay here, in case she …’ He ran from the room and down the hallway, hammering on every door, shouting for Laurie.

‘My daughter’s missing!’ he shouted. ‘My daughter’s gone! She’s eleven years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, seventy pounds, wearing … wearing … pajamas! Pajamas with … pink pajamas … with Jesus … just pink!’

Doors started to open along the hallway.