Already Gone

ISBN: 9781370852680

Already Gone

by

Myanne Shelley

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Myanne Shelley at Smashwords

Already Gone

Copyright © 2017 by Anne Shelley

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1

Sometimes you can pinpoint the place in your life when paths diverge, when the ripples from one decision impact everything that follows. If you’ve got the fortitude, you can make the best of it. If you’re lucky – or maybe unlucky – it’s also world news.

News reports said the shooting only lasted 20 seconds. The suicide bomb blast, the frantic shouting man running crazily as he yanked the detonator on his vest, came within another minute. The fire inside the club roared immediately, devouring the gasoline they’d poured there, shooting flames through the roof and incinerating the whole building. It burned fast; firefighters had it out within a couple hours. Miraculous, in retrospect, how few people were killed and injured.

Rachel Voight, who had missed being a witness by just about an hour herself, recalled a much longer time frame. She was close enough to have heard the sirens racing towards the fire from her hotel room and then smelled smoke wafting through the evening air. Nervously watching it unfold on the TV news at first, as they obsessively played and replayed someone’s grainy footage of the terrorist’s rush into the night club. Next, a security feed from across the street of people running, screaming and ducking for cover from the gunfire.

Rachel had had an intuition, a bad feeling, about their whole trip. Of course, who doesn’t make such a claim, right after they’ve found themselves thousands of miles from home on the night of a terrorist attack? But her misgivings had been real. It seemed a waste to fly that far, San Francisco to New York, for a five day vacation, even if it was on miles. She had felt as if standing on a precipice just before they departed, as if she would fall or be pushed toward something dangerous and unknown far below.

She had, in fact, mentioned something of this to Glen, but then laughed it off. They both did. Together, the way you do long married, aware of the each others’ foibles. Rachel, always worried to leave home (the stove is off, the cats will be fine, sleeping the day away as usual). And Glen, desperately staving off late middle age with his insistence that new is better and fun is to be had always elsewhere (never mind he was most likely to fall asleep if the amazing, groundbreaking show ran past 10 o’clock).

That night – it would always be that night in her mind, frightening, an absolute demarcation between what came before and what since – Rachel had fought her demons firmly at first. Sensibly, just as she had sensibly returned to the hotel to rest before their fashionably late dinner and avant garde theatre experience. They had parted ways with the most unmemorable cheek peck, her to gather her energy, he to sightsee, check out new places, drink in the city the way he did, like an impenetrable force that kept moving in the same direction, never wanting to slow down.

After a few minutes of watching, listening to the raw fear even from the professional young news people calling in their unedited reports, she had called him. Obviously just to make sure he was okay, and to remind him of their reservation time in case he was down there somewhere caught up in the drama. Possibly he had taken the subway off someplace else, hadn’t even heard the news.

She got no answer. But still, Glen was like anyone of their generation, likely to have turned off his phone or unable to hear it in a crowd. So she had stayed put. Her own habit, her way of dealing with a situation, her own physics: an immovable object.

Oh, she had waited quietly and alone for far too long, that was apparent later. Stewing a bit, annoyed that he had pushed to take this trip and then gone off without her. His little punishment for her having needed a short nap – she asked for an hour, and away he went for two, then three, then four.

She had left a half dozen messages, the final one being that she was ordering room service for dinner since they had missed their reservation and she did not care to dine publicly alone. (Later, how quaint that would seem.)

The overpriced, over salted, pretentious meal, presented with a flourish from under its gleaming metal lid, went down like so much sawdust. Rachel had finished as much as she could manage, her parents’ own child in abhorring waste even under trying circumstance. She had put the TV back on, thinking she would just settle in and watch a movie, a romance or comedy, something Glen would dislike but be obligated to watch with her when he finally returned.

But before she figured out how to launch the movies, the ongoing news story, still on all the regular channels, took over again. And he didn’t return.

Sometime after 10 o’clock she phoned Hannah in Seattle. Glen’s daughter, but whom she had known and loved for almost 20 years. Hannah, now an independent young woman in her mid-20s, had a level head, and of course she would be awake, it being early still on the west coast.

Their first conversation was brief, reasonable. Hannah had heard about the nightclub bombing? Of course, it was all over the news and social media. Her dad hadn’t by any chance called her? No. Was she being silly to worry; it had been hours now and he had not shown up or called. Hannah, honest girl she was, here hesitated. It was odd, especially since they had plans. All the family knew of Glen’s tendency to get caught up in whatever he was doing, to lose track of the time. But he was generally good, well trained by his first wife and again by Rachel, about at least checking in, offering some sort of plausible excuse.

He might easily have let his phone run out of juice, they speculated together. Or even had it stolen, he was wandering around New York City at night. Glen might think himself invincible, but he was in fact a 58 year old man with thinning salt and pepper hair and a slight limp from an old biking accident. He could have been mugged, had his phone and his laptop taken.

Just as a precaution, Rachel suggested, maybe she should call around to the local hospitals? Even saying this out loud filled her with dread. She was in a hotel room, Glen had the laptop, she could barely read the tiny screen on her phone. Hannah calmly agreed, gently offering to quickly google names and numbers and send her a list. In light of the attack, it could be slow going trying to track down someone who might or might not have been mugged or God forbid had a heart attack or something.

It was eleven o’clock when she finally left her room. Thankful for her nap and for still being on west coast time, she made her way down to the front desk, and presented her problem to the receptionist: husband now hours overdue, not picking up calls, hadn’t been checked in to any local hospital, was there a message for her here possibly? Should she call the police?

The young man was trained to be gracious and polite, would have been anyway, was all the more so in light of the attack. Which was still playing out – the news feed, just visible on his computer screen below the counter was now showing clips from bystanders and talking head speculating on possible motives. He asked what Rachel was afraid to say: was it possible that her husband was in the club? They didn’t even have a body count yet, but the first responders reported a scene of carnage and badly burned corpses.

Rachel held onto the counter to steady herself. I can’t imagine that he would have been, she said. Not the sort of place he would go, I don’t think. We were in the vicinity. Though I don’t know the neighborhood very well.

Well, the police will say someone isn’t missing until it’s been 24 hours, the young man explained. But maybe, with this bombing and everything, they would circulate a picture? Do you have one I can send?

It took her a confused minute, envisioning photo albums, to realize he meant an image on her phone. Trying not to feel like a complete luddite, she poked around to the camera icon. Her hands were shaking, she realized. Like her body knew before her mind would let her go there.

The hotel guy took the lead, got the cops on the phone, got the photo to the cops, and even offered to get a cab for her if she wanted to go try to get to the scene of the shooting and fire.

She shook her head at that – she was feeling panicky enough without actually being out in the night trying to duck between crime scene tape at a place where people had been shot and burned.

Do you think he might have, um, met somebody, the fellow asked, eyes downcast and awkward, I mean, sometimes people hook up in the city, or have affairs. He trailed off. I mean is this a pattern like?

I don’t think he would have dragged me across the country with him if he was having an affair, Rachel answered, confident of that much at least. A middle aged woman who had joined her at the counter snickered at this, and the bit of humor restored her. How could something bad have happened if we can stand in this ornate lobby and joke about husbands and affairs?

She returned to her room, the receptionist assuring her he would call with any news. Rachel phoned Hannah, apologetic and feeling oddly guilty, as if the fact she was making the call implicated her as well. A good night’s sleep would help, they told each other.

But Rachel lay in the dark room, eyes blinking awake every few minutes, tracking the lights and shadows on the windows and walls. Mind buzzing, furious at Glen,