Chapter Two:
I try to remember the exact moment when I fell in love with him. Maybe it doesn't exist on any certain plane of reality; maybe it's suspended above the flaws of my own soul, hiding beneath the surface and appearing, just as it did, when I least expect it. That's how I fell in love with Jack.
I suddenly started to forget the smaller, minute details of my work and the simple life I'd built around it. I suddenly felt largely and completely part of something that, at one time, I felt would give me nothing more than an ounce of temporary pleasure. Suddenly it became more than that. I felt bonded to a man beyond any normal realm of logic or thought. It became about not just the physical pleasure, but the mental pleasure as well.
So love came on the intake of breath and wrapped around the part of my heart I'd promised to never open again.
Love, elusive as it had always been, engulfed me and overtook my senses, making me believe that this moment of joy could last forever. My life became about wanting Jack and needing Jack, and soon, having to reconcile the fact that he could never be mine. So I've been steadily picking up the pieces to my shattered soul, despondent and disillusioned, clinging to a sliver of hope that my existence still lies somewhere within him and he need only to brush against my cheek in a certain way and all the pieces will fall back into place.
*
"Stephanie Beckett, age 27. Her husband, Kyle, came home from work, his wife was gone, he hasn't seen or heard from her since. She's been gone 18 hours now."
"What's the husband's story?"
Danny's voice rumbles behind my ear as his hand, resting comfortably on my shoulder, guides me to a seat at the conference table. Before I can protest, I'm sitting as close to Jack as I can get without our bodies physically touching. It's too close now, too close than I want to be. So I fake a smile to Danny as he reassures himself once more that I'm in no pain, and refocuses his attention to this new case at hand. I work on processing the information and deflecting Jack's unnerving gaze.
"He's a regular guy, job as a bartender. So far, no reason to suspect he had anything to do with her disappearance, but keep your eyes open. Viv, I want you and Martin to question the neighbors, the doorman, anyone in or around their apartment complex who might've seen anything suspicious. Danny, I want you to talk to the manager at the restaurant where he works, talk to his coworkers, get some background on this guy."
"Samantha, we're going to question Mr. Beckett."
Everyone stands and nods in affirmation of their appointed tasks. I wait for Jack's attention to leave my face before standing on my suddenly stiff leg. His arm goes beneath mine in support and I try for a moment to think of a way I can shrug him off without being impolite.
*
"Mr. Beckett, do you have a happy marriage?"
His head shoots up from his previously hunched position, and he throws me a glare.
"What kind of question is that?"
"It's a relevant one. We just have to explore all the possibilities."
"And one of those possibilities involves me having something to do with this, is that right?"
"Mr. Beckett-"
"Jesus Christ, can't a man be innocent until proven guilty anymore?"
"Sir, I haven't accused you of anything. Now, if you want us to help your wife, you're going to need to cooperate with me. I'll ask again, do you have a happy marriage?"
Jack appears in the doorway suddenly, catching my gaze and silently asking if he needs to interfere. I silently respond with a 'no' and wait as Kyle Beckett's face drowns once more beneath his hands as he laughs bitterly for a second before resurfacing once again.
He sighs and responds, "What's happy anyway? I -- geez, I don't know. We've been having problems. She uh, she's been really angry with me the last few weeks."
"Why is that sir?"
"I was -- I did something stupid, you know? We've been working on it and I just -- you don't think she would've left, do you?"
My eyes wander over the photographs adorning the walls, the timeline of a family from its beginning to its middle, through to its uncertain end. The canvas is painted with smiling newlyweds, proud parents, good times, and happy memories and places I've never been. I rest upon the figure of a little six-year-old girl, her face a mixture of sadness and worry, half visible from the shadows as she hides herself against a wall near her bedroom. I look at that child and the mother in the pictures whose joy must solely lie within the heart of this little girl.
So I answer with the only truth I can think of. "No sir, I don't believe she would."
*
"How are the kids?" I ask.
"Better, you know, but it's gonna take some time. For all of us."
I can't possibly know, but I nod anyway.
He pauses, waiting possibly for a reassurance, then turns to the whiteboard, scribbling some little tidbit beneath the smiling face of Stephanie Beckett. I lean against the window, staring out upon the expanse of the city. It scares me because I suddenly forget that the Towers are gone. I start to look for them in the skyline until I realize that they're never coming back. I don't hear his voice at first; it's muffled and foggy, but suddenly, it breaks through; concerned and worried and growing urgent.
"Samantha?"
He's behind me, so close his breath raises the hairs on my neck, and his hand brushes against my skin, bringing me back.
"Do you think Nicole was scared?"
"Who?"
We've had so many cases and so many names it's easy to forget just one single life. All of them were scared in some fraction of the word. All of them want to go home at some point, in some form. So it's easy to forget because so many are lost. It's easy to forget just one name. But I don't. Not ever. Not anymore. And certainly not hers.
"Nicole Mashburn. Do you think she was scared, do you think she knew she was going to die?"
"No. It was quick, Sam. She wasn't scared."
I can hear the slight uncertainty in his voice as he struggles to convince not only me, but himself of a lie we all hope is truth.
It was quick.
We spend our whole lives becoming certain people, growing into personalities, bonding to faces around us. We build a life and hopes and dreams and futures so fallible we can't even see the precarious line we walk with mortality until it's too late. Death is a thought, at least once to everyone; the hour of it, the day, the circumstances. We spend years building up to it and in mere seconds, minutes, it's over.
It was quick.
Suddenly I remember my leg, being trapped in that bookstore. It was hours, at least, hours I waited, alone, scared. I was scared, much like I worry Nicole would've been, Annie would've been, and Anwar Samir as he stared down the barrel of a gun. I was scared and it wasn't quick. I prayed for a release, an end, a resolution of some kind. I would've taken anything to escape the uncertainty, wondering if my next breath would be my last.
It wasn't quick.
I was scared. She was scared.
I hope to God she wasn't alone.
*
"So you loved him."
"Yes."
"Do you still love him?"
I think of the bookstore and my time in the hospital after it. I think of the wait, hoping he would come. I think of his divorce, his sudden freedom. I wonder if you reach a point where you can no longer hold on.
"I don't know."
"Do you think about him?"
"I try not to."
"Why?"
"Because I can't have him. Procedures and conduct codes-"
"Shouldn't love mean more than that?"
"Maybe it should."
"Do you think it means more to him?"
I wish it could mean more. But then we'd both have to sacrifice a job that holds its own depth beyond the disappointment of love.
"I wish it did."
*
"I saw the therapist today."
His head comes up from his desk.
"You did?"
"She asked me about love."
"And?"
My turn to laugh bitterly. "It was a short conversation. And depressing."
"I don't know what to say."
"If either of us did would we be in this place right now, Jack?"
"No."
He wants to say more, he always does. Words are petty sometimes, though. Inadequate and hollow. The sadness in his eyes tells me enough. This is going to be hell.
*
TBC...