Dark Debts by Karen Hall

fake sangria.
    T he door to Cam’s apartment looked perfectly normal. Randa had expected there to be police tape, or at least some kind of note. She opened the door with the key she had never returned (not that he’d ever asked her to) and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and locked it.
    Nothing had changed. It looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen it. She was sure that if she looked hard enough, she’d see signs of Nora’s having passed through, but she didn’t plan to look that hard.
    She had decided to come here halfway through the second pitcher of sangria. She told herself she wanted to pick up the things that were hers, but she knew the real reason had little to do with two Pyrex casserole dishes and a spare hair dryer. Now that she was here, she realized that all she really wanted was some sort of closure. She had lived without it for the last year, but she couldn’t go on without it for the rest of her life.
    She did have one real quest. There were a couple of scrapbooks—the last remaining vestiges of Cam’s family, except for Jack, assuming he was still alive. Randa didn’t know what she’d do with them, but she knew she’d make sure they were kept safe. She didn’t know why that felt so important, but it did. Just the thought that generations of people had been whittled down to two tattered books of yellowed paper and faded black-and-white photos. The books seemed sacred to her; they were the only remaining evidence that any of these people had ever lived.
    Randa looked around, trying to remember where Cam had kept the scrapbooks. She checked the hall closets, but all they contained were clothes and boxes of old magazines. She would have to check the bedroom, something she’d hoped to avoid at all costs—she was sure she would find the scrapbooks there.
    The bedroom looked the same, too. The door to one of the closets was open, and there were clothes strewn on the floor in front of it, where the cops had plowed through. They’d obviously found the gun without much trouble. She didn’t see any sign of the scrapbooks. Without giving it a lot of thought, she went over and opened the door to the other closet. A couple of shirts hung on a hook inside the door; they brushed her face as the door opened. They smelled like Cam. She hadn’t expected this, and the full force of the pain made its way through the wine and the denial. She bent over, as a sob hit her, and let herself sink to the floor, and gave herself up to the misery.
    When Randa finally stopped, she felt as if something inside her had given way, like a fever breaking. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of one of the shirts—a faded red brushed silk, from Traffic at the Beverly Center. She had been with Cam the day he bought it. ( “Randa, what about this red one? It matches my eyes.” ) She took a couple of deep breaths and was about to stand when she saw the scrapbooks on the floor next to her. She gathered them in her arms and pulled herself to her feet.
    On her way out, she noticed something on the nightstand: a pen and a sheet of paper. The paper was covered with doodles: trees; dollar signs; a skull atop a mound of bones. A couple of phone numbers. One was hers. The other was an 800 number. Unable to resist, she picked up the phone and dialed it.
    â€œThank you for calling Delta Airlines. All of our agents are busy at this time . . .”
    Randa hung up. She looked at the pad again. Cam had written #178 in the middle of all the pictures and circled it. Randa dialed Delta again. When she got an agent, she was informed that 178 was one of the morning flights from LA to Atlanta.
    Why would Cam have been planning a trip to Atlanta? He hadn’t been home since his mother’s funeral, and he’d always sworn he’d never go there again. She folded the sheet of paper and tucked it into one of the scrapbooks. She could figure it