I reached for the landline phone on the nightstand, its faded beige pigment blending in with the drab walls of my room at the Nickelback motel. Its mylar heft added solidarity the Nokia couldn’t provide. 

The Nickelback’s neon sign glowed through the window, casting a red hue over the barren space. Confusion, despair, disappointment, disillusionment, anger— all of these emotions irradiated by a blood-red glow gave the moment a sacrificial tone. 

I squeezed the phone handset until pain amplified my concentration on the task. Simply tell Nansi I found the child, but I might not make it home for Thanksgiving dinner. Do this without mentioning Lorna’s sexual advances or getting thumped in the noggin.

Smooth coolness from the earpiece pressed into my skull, creating a pseudo sense of control. The steadiness of a dial tone resonated. I punched in Nansi’s number, comforted by the familiar tonal melody of the sequence. Rapid staccato notes of the ring notifier bombarded my ear, a lifeline tossed onto stormy waves from a marooned island.

“So you’ll be home for Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked, once she realized it was me on the line. Musty aromas of an aging motel combined with stale air, cutting the oxygen supply by half. Odors of plastic and battery acid persisted as I held the phone close to my face.

I deflected. “You’re not going to ask about the child?” A metallic taste covered my tongue, the taste of fear and adrenaline. I licked my dry lips, failing to ease the tightness in my throat.

The wind went out of her demand. “I’m sorry. She’s okay, then?”

“I found her.”

“Good,” she said, regaining steam. “Then you can come home.”

“I’m doing the best I can under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances? You just come home to your own family. Easy.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I said. In fact, it’s an intricate web of intentions, a tightrope walk between honesty and diplomacy, heavy with the weight of familial obligations on the one side, tipped near the balance with a desire to protect and shield on the other. Wow, here I was using a Scales of Justice metaphor to warrant deceit. With a little more work, I might dig my way right into Hell.

“Complicated?” she said with suspicion. “That’s what they say on television before a big breakup.” Steam puffed out of the phone receiver.

“I can’t exactly leave.”

“What, exactly then, is going on up there, Connor?”

“I’m just trying to make us some money for Christmas, Woman.” That last was a mistake that bounced back and slapped me on the hind of the head.

“I’m going to hang up, Connor. No more games.”

If she did, I’d be off the hook for the night. “Isn’t that cheating?” I asked. “To just hang up on the other guy. Isn’t that what the therapist told us?”

“Talk about cheating.” Her voice squeaked. “Emotional manipulation is the height of cheating.” I could hear the break in her voice. “Just keep it up, Connor Pierce. Who’s cheating who just might change.” The garbled pitch change of her words left no doubt she was crying.

“How can you expect me to leave Renée in jail?”

This seemed to damn the flow of tears. “Jail?” she blurted.

“She’s been arrested.”

“Arrested?”

“Are you just going to repeat every word I say?” The clock on the wall was my only friend. Every second I had her on the line gave me more time to explain. The instinctive bristle of my neck hairs warned against that foolish idea. It told me to get the hell off the line before I said something stupid. 

Ha! declared brain. Beat you to that one, tick tock. 

“For crying out loud, Connor. It’s one shock after another. What am I supposed to say?” The pitch of her voice gave some indication of the feelings she’d like to communicate. To her credit, she held back. “Do you think she’ll be out for Thanksgiving? We’ve got a beautiful spread planned. Your mother whipped up that carrot cake. You know, the one Renée loves?”

Nansi’s anger was righteous. I’d dropped the ball on this case. More than that, I’d dropped a bombshell on her. This was supposed to be a short trip into the mountains to find a small child, then get home and have Thanksgiving dinner with family. Instead, my sister sat in the slammer, our family business teetered on the brink and I still had a hearing at the courthouse tomorrow with no way to make it in time. 

I clenched my eyes shut against the shame. Images of the little girl watching her father murdered in front of her, Renée abandoned in a dank, godforsaken jail cell. The weight of my failures pressed me deeper into the bed springs. Soon, I’d be swallowed by incompetence. I was way out of my element. 

“Connor?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not handling things well. It’s not likely that I’ll make it home for Thanksgiving.”

Her deep breathing filled the line. 

I waited.

“The kids are going to want to talk to you. Call tonight.” It was final.

“I will.”

“Get this worked out, Connor. I need you here. We need you here.” She didn’t leave time for a lame answer from me.

I kept the phone pressed against my ear for a full minute. Listening to a dead line. 

Dead silence. Silence filled with details. 

My hand was shaking. Strange. 

No, it wasn’t my hand shaking. My whole body was shaking. Sobbing. Kayla’s traumatic silence crying for release. My chest bursting with it.

When the moment passed, exhaustion pushed me onto the bed. The world went dark.

Whirlwind memories blended, tangled and twisted, like a jumbo puzzle caught in a dust devil. The image of my father merged with that of the strange Deputy Spiesz, causing me to jolt awake. 

The dream left me with the uncomfortable feeling that people are rarely as they appear. They are more complex than they first seem, true intentions hidden beneath carefully crafted masks.

Dixon Pierce was a successful business man who could sell a steaming Datsun to an American in the Sonoran Desert. People loved to hear him talk. They trusted him. But, behind the veil, he chased skirts without caution. Indiscretions that ultimately got him killed.

Deputy Stan Spiesz was a goofball, a doofus with a powerful friend in the background who’d helped him get a job carrying a loaded weapon. But, what else was he? An American Indian, possibly born in these mountains, who grew up back East and wanted to reconnect with his heritage? And how did that happen exactly? Deputy doofus Stan Spiesz presented with wide gaps in his story, and they dangled like a fragmented spiderweb in my mind.

First things first, I needed to talk to a man about Renée’s alibi.