Chapter 5
The apartment still smelled like her coffee from that morning, even though the mug on the counter had gone cold. I stood by the sink and didn't touch anything. He stood by the little table where Mom kept her charger, holding her phone like it might break if he held it wrong.
It wouldn't turn on at first. The screen stayed black when he pressed the side button. He breathed once through his nose, slow, and tried again, holding the button longer. My hands were stuck together the way they'd been at the cafe, fingers laced so tight my knuckles went white.
"It's dead," I said.
He didn't answer right away. He pulled his own phone out of his suit pocket, then looked around the apartment for an outlet. There was one behind the couch. He knelt - careful, his knees popping - and plugged her charger in, then connected her phone. The screen stayed black for a few seconds, then showed the little battery with a thin red line.
We waited. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, someone's car door slammed on the street.
When it had enough charge he pressed the button again. The screen lit up, gray and too bright in the dim apartment. Her background was a picture of me at the county fair last summer, holding a snow cone, my face sticky. He didn't comment on it. He just swiped up. It asked for a passcode.
"Do you know it?" he asked, his voice low.
I nodded. "Her birthday. And then my birthday."
He looked at me. "Tell me."
I did, and he typed it. Zero eight one four one two. The phone unlocked.
He went straight to the phone app. Recent calls. At the top, in red, was a missed call: 9:47 PM. No name, just a number with no caller ID, then right under it, the same number but now saved. M. Hargrove.
My chest got tight when I saw the name.
"That's the last call," he said, almost to himself. He tapped it. The details showed it was incoming, lasted eleven seconds. Underneath, a little badge said Voicemail.
He looked at me before he played it. "You ready?"
I didn't know what ready meant, but I nodded. He pressed speaker and kept the volume low, and we both leaned in.
There was static first, then breathing, fast. Then Mom's voice, but not her normal voice. She was whispering, like she was trying not to be heard. I could hear wind or traffic behind her.
" — he's here, tell him — " she said, and then a man's voice cut in, muffled, too far from the phone to make out words, but sharp. She sucked in a breath. Then the line cut off mid-word. Beep.
The voicemail was only six seconds long. He played it again without asking me. The second time I heard the way her whisper shook at the end, like she was holding the phone under her chin.
I knew that other voice. Even muffled.
"That's him," I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. "That's the man from the plaza."
He frowned, his brow pulling down the way it had when he looked at the card. "Are you sure? You said he was right there at the plaza. You saw him?"
I swallowed. "Not just there. He comes to the gas station where Mom works sometimes. He drives a dark truck. He'd come in for coffee and just stand there. Mom told me not to talk to him last time. She called him Mr. Hargrove when he left. She was mad after."
He stared at the phone in his hand. The name on the screen, M. Hargrove, reflected in his glasses.
"M. Hargrove," he repeated, quieter now. He said it like he was tasting the name to see if he recognized it, and then his face changed. Not to concerned anymore. To something tighter, like he'd put a piece together he didn't want to.
He sat down on the edge of Mom's bed, still holding her phone. His hands were shaking a little.
"I know that name," he said. "Michael Hargrove. He worked for the foundation. For me."
I didn't move. The refrigerator kept humming.
"He was a driver. For about two years. Then maintenance, when we cut the driving staff," he said. He was talking more to himself than to me, his eyes fixed on the floor. "He had keys to the service entrance. To the storage rooms. I let him go in the spring. There was... a problem with a delivery. Money missing. I didn't press it. I just let him go."
The way he said I didn't press it made my stomach turn. Mom's whisper was still in my ears - he's here, tell him -
"He took her because she knew something?" I asked.
He didn't answer that directly. He pressed the phone off, the screen going black again, but he kept holding it.
"I told her I'd handle it," he said, and his voice dropped so low I almost didn't hear it. "She called me two weeks ago. Elena did. She said someone from the old crew was pressuring her about paperwork. I told her I'd look into it. I didn't."
I looked at her pictures on the wall, the little mirror with her hair ties hanging on the corner, the jacket she'd left on the chair. The card was still in my pocket, folded, frayed edges against my leg.
The voicemail didn't tell us where she was. It just told us she was scared, and she was trying to reach him, and the man who scared her was the same man I'd seen standing by the stone building, watching while I knelt on the sidewalk.
"He's the one," I said again, because I needed him to hear it clearly. "That's his voice."
He finally looked up at me, and his eyes were wet. He didn't wipe them. He just nodded once, slow.
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"I know," he said. "I know who he is now."
The phone buzzed in his hand - a low battery warning - and neither of us moved to unplug it.
