Already Gone by John Rector

again.”
    “I need to know about Diane, and you’re the only one who can help me.”
    “Out of the question,” she says. “It’s a matter of confidentiality, and I take it very seriously. Now please don’t call here again—”
    “Diane is dead.”
    Lisa stops talking, and for a while the only sound is the slow cycle of my breathing. The next time she speaks, her voice is soft, a whisper.
    “She’s dead?”
    “Car accident,” I say. “But I think she was killed.”
    Lisa makes a small choking sound in the back of her throat. “When?”
    I start at the beginning with the attack in the parking lot, and I end with the car accident and driving up to Fairplay to identify her body.
    Lisa listens, quiet, not hanging up.
    When I finish I say, “I want to know if she said anything about us. I need to know if she was happy.”
    For a long time there’s just silence, and then Lisa starts mumbling on the other end of the phone. I start to wonder if she heard me at all.
    I ask her again.
    This time she speaks.
    She says, “That son of a bitch.”

     
    I stand in my kitchen with the phone pressed against my ear, saying the same thing over and over.
    “What are you talking about?”
    Lisa, still mumbling, isn’t answering.
    “Do you know what happened?”
    She says she doesn’t know anything, but it’s a lie.
    “I’m getting on the first flight I can find. I’m coming down to see you—”
    This gets her attention.
    “No!” Her voice is cold. “You’re not.”
    “Then tell me what’s going on.”
    “You can’t come down here. If they—”
    She stops.
    I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t.
    “Who is ‘they’?”
    “Mr. Reese, I can’t help you. I just can’t, and I’m sorry. Believe me.”
    “Don’t do this,” I say. “Tell me what happened to my wife. Did someone kill her?”
    Lisa tells me she doesn’t know anything, and even though I know it’s a lie, I don’t argue. She’s not going to tell me, no matter how much I beg, at least not tonight.
    It’s time to cut my losses.
    “Will you take my number and call me if you change your mind?”
    “I have your number,” she says. “Your messages.”
    I tell her it’ll make me feel better if she writes it down. She hesitates, then agrees.
    After she hangs up, I stay at the kitchen table for a while and try to figure out my next move. I know Lisa isn’t going to call me back, so if I want to find out what she knows, I’ll have to go to her.
    She won’t like it, but I don’t care.

     
    I find a flight leaving for Phoenix in the morning. I buy a ticket, then call and reserve a car. Sedona is a few hours’ drive from the airport. If things go smoothly, I should be there by early afternoon.
    Once the trip is booked, I grab my backpack from the closet and fill it with a change of clothes and a couple books to keep my mind busy on the plane. I look around for anything I might’ve forgotten, then zip the bag and slide it over my shoulder and turn out the light.
    The phone rings.
    My breath catches in my throat.
    I carry the backpack to the kitchen and set it on the table. When I reach for the phone, the idea I might’ve been wrong about Lisa is right up front. She changed her mind and decided to talk to me after all.
    Then I pick up the phone.
    “Jake?”
    It’s not Lisa.
    For a second, I can’t find my voice. When I do speak, all I manage to say is, “Yeah?”
    There’s a pause, then the unmistakable scrape of a cigarette lighter and a long inhale.
    I hear my heartbeat, and feel each second pass.
    Gabby exhales smoke into the phone, and when he speaks, his voice sounds flat, tired.
    He says, “We’ve got ’em.”

– 17 –
     
    At first, I’m not nervous, but that changes once I pull off the highway and cross under the Nineteenth Street viaduct into the warehouse district. I feel my pulse echoing in my head, and a dull ache building in the middle of my chest.
    I remind myself that Gabby is a friend.
    It helps a