Heart of Briar

Glory worked in the UK; they had met through a “women in tech” mailing list back when those were the hot thing, and when the list died, they stayed friends. That didn’t mean they always approved of each other’s choices, though.

Jan couldn’t help herself: “Some day you’re not going to find another job.” The economy still hadn’t entirely recovered, and she knew Glory didn’t have any savings left.

“Ah, I’m too good at my job to not find work, and hiring a black woman fills two slots on their to-do list. But you, you’re not looking good, and you’re doing that keening thing again. Sweetie, stop it, it makes my stomach hurt watching you. What’s wrong?”

Saying it made it real. “Tyler’s missing.”

“What?” Glory’s coffee mug slammed down on her desk hard enough to slosh the liquid over the side, unnoticed. “Did that SOB dump you? I swear...”

“No! No, I mean, he’s missing, he’s gone. He didn’t go to work, and it’s been twenty-four hours, and I haven’t heard a thing from him.”

Jan leaned forward, and then back again, unable to stop the slow rhythmic rocking motion that bothered Glory. “He’s never not responded for this long. We talk every day, Glor, every day we’re not together. And he’s never once missed a good morning.”

“Yeah, I know. But, sweetie, you’ve only been together, what, three months? Guy’s what, thirty-two? He probably has a lot of bad habits he hasn’t shown you yet.”

Jan tried to still herself, focusing on the screen where her friend’s image was looking out at her. Miles away in distance, but Glory was still one of her best friends, the person she’d told about Tyler, punch-happy from their first date, when she’d finally thought that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t doomed to go through life alone. And then again after the third date, when he’d told her he’d felt the same way.

Glory had always given her good advice.

“Janny, listen to me. One day? That’s nothing. Boys will be boys, and Tyler-boy is probably just fine. If you spank him when he comes back, he’ll promise never to do it again. He’ll be lying, but he’ll promise, and you’ll feel better. That’s how happy relationships stay happy.”

Jan rocked back and forth again, but more slowly. “Says the woman who’s been single for how long now?”

“Thirteen years, and loving every minute of it. Look, sweetie, give him a little space, then call his mom, or something, see if he’s been in touch with her.”

“He hasn’t talked to his stepmom in two years. His dad is dead, his sister’s off somewhere on a fishing boat or something....”

Their lack of any real family had been one of the things to bind them: her mother was gone, her father was in a nursing home, didn’t even recognize her anymore, and she’d been an only child. “Us together against the storm, Jan,” Tyler had said after one of his sister’s infrequent phone calls, holding her while they’d listened to a thunderstorm rage overhead. They had fallen asleep tangled together on the sofa, her last conscious memory him humming contentedly under his breath.

Jan felt her body sway forward again and tried to halt the backward motion without success. It normally calmed her, the back and forth almost a meditation, but no matter what she did, the thready feeling of panic wouldn’t subside. It was like her dream the night before: no air, and nobody coming to the rescue.

“Jan! Sweetie, breathe. Where’s your inhaler?”

“No, I’m okay.” She held up a hand, then patted the inhaler on her desk by the keyboard to reassure Glory. “I’m just...I’m okay.”

“All right.” Glory regrouped, focusing on the problem at hand. “So he skipped work, isn’t answering his phone. You need a guy’s take on this—what did Steverino say?”

“The same thing you did,” Jan admitted, not surprised that Glory knew she’d already asked him. Steve worked out of her company’s main office down in New York and had been the one to hire her. He was somewhere between big brother and mentor, and she’d asked him last night, via email, for advice. “He said that I was suffering from early onset relationship jitters, and not to freak out for at least forty-eight hours.”

“Uh-huh. But you’re still worried. Did you call the police?”

Jan nodded. “I called last night, and they pretty much told me to chill. I’m not a relative, I’m not a long-time companion, and Tyler’s well over eighteen, so I can’t file a missing person’s report without cause.” And the local cops had more important things to worry about than one adult who hadn’t checked in with his girlfriend; that vibe had come through loud and clear. Considering the scandals that had rocked the local P.D.s in the three years since she’d moved to the New Haven area, she wasn’t surprised.

“And you’ve gone over there and hammered on his door, demanding that he come out and explain himself?” Glory said.

Jan shook her head, biting her lip.

“No? Janny...” Glory leaned forward so that her face filled the screen. “Girl, if you’re that worried, why not?”

“I called his super—I met him once, when there was a problem with the heat. I asked him to check.” She hadn’t felt comfortable going over there, not if he hadn’t called; it was too...stalkery. She could worry in private, but letting him know she was worried...

“Oh, Jan. And?”

“And Tyler wasn’t there, and there was no sign of any forced entry, so...”

“So.” Glory sat back and idly twirled a pen in her fingers. “Back where we started, then.”

Jan reached out and touched her inhaler again, the way someone might touch a good-luck charm or a worry stone. “Yeah, I know, I know. Everyone’s giving me the same advice. You don’t think his silence is worrying, you don’t think there’s anything odd in someone going off-line for an entire day without calling or texting his girlfriend. And you all think I’m overreacting.”

“Janny...”

“No. I’m not pissed. Normally—normally I’d agree with you. I’d say, oh, he had something land overnight that he needed time away to deal with, and he forgot to email me. Maybe there’s an unsent email on his laptop, that says ‘going off-line for 24, dinner when I get back.’” She forced a smile for Glory’s sake. “You’re all probably right. Once I make him properly apologize, I’ll let you do all the toljasos in the world.”

“Damn straight,” Glory agreed. “Go back to work, girl. Let me know what happens, okay?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Jan ended the vid-call, and ran her hands along the surface of the desk, noting that new email had landed while she’d talked to Glory. One was from Steve, asking if there was any update.

All right, maybe she had overreacted a bit. Clicking on that email, she typed in a response.

Not yet. He so owes me dinner for this!

She studied her response, decided that it had just the right tone of aggrieved but not-worried girlfriend, and hit Send.

The other two emails were follow-ups on projects she’d closed out last week, her name on the cc list. She didn’t have any websites going live this week, and nothing else seemed currently to be on fire, so she had room to breathe.

Except she couldn’t. Despite what she’d said to Glory and to Steve, Tyler’s continued absence—the worry about his continued absence—was almost like an asthma attack, closing up her chest and making her feel a little weird, off balance and dizzy.

“It’s silly,” she said out loud. And it was. Everyone was right: she knew that. She and Tyler had only met four months ago, and, yes, they’d pretty much fallen into each other’s lives without a hitch, like the true love neither of them had claimed to believe in, but there were always surprises, bumps and revelations along the way, and twenty-four hours wasn’t all that long for an adult to be out of touch, especially since there wasn’t any indication there was anything wrong.

Except Jan knew. Deep inside, in some skittish reptile part of her brain, she knew. Something was wrong.

* * *

The rest of the day, Jan tried to take the excellent advice she had been given. She closed the text box in the corner of her monitor and cleared her in-box down to zero, then worked on a project with an extended deadline until she was actually ahead of schedule.

And if every ping of incoming mail or text message made her heart speed up in anticipation, she didn’t let it distract her. Too much.

She even left the apartment to have dinner downtown with a friend, didn’t mention anything to her about Tyler going missing, and tried not to think about going to bed alone. But when she woke up to a second day of silence, that sense of something being wrong began to chew on her nerves.

By midmorning, her nerves had gotten so bad, it was almost impossible to focus on her work. She opened the text box, closed it, and then opened it again, afraid that she would miss him when he did check in.

“Obsessive, much?” She clicked on the text box, closing it again. “Let it go.” But she couldn’t.

When afternoon rolled around, and there was still no word, Jan couldn’t just sit and wait and try to be patient. Sending an email to let the folks at the other end of her projects know that she would be off-line for a bit, she shut down her computer, shoved her cell phone, inhaler and wallet in her daypack, and headed across town. Glory was right, and she was a wimp. If the cops wouldn’t investigate, then she would.

It was only a twenty-minute bus ride downtown from her apartment building—but it took almost that long for a bus to actually show up. Jan tried to stay calm and not over-anticipate what she might find there.