Every Street, Chapter 13

--see previous chapters for notes--

That night, he lay on the bed in his room and let his gaze go beyond the plain white ceiling, to a higher place in his focus. So much ran around his mind: fears, questions, pain, worry. She'd become untraceable. The final stinging words Helen had yelled - "You take my daughter away," had set red lights flashing before his eyes and warning chimes ringing in his ears. She didn't know where Carol was either. She thought he'd taken her away. Mark didn't know where she was - he hadn't known for a year. Had it been a year since she'd gone missing from the face of the planet? And no one had even seemed to question it? Why would she go, where would she go, how would she go? How could he find her? How could he tell her he still loved her? He felt like he was going to implode with frustration, and leave only the imprints of his questions behind in a bloody mess on the hotel walls. Then the sudden burst of inspiration, the flash of a path of discovery burst into his brain from nowhere as his focus returned to the soft glean of the white paint on the ceiling above him. So stark-staringly obvious, he sat up quickly and gave himself head rush. The police. Surely someone, Helen, Mark, someone else at the hospital would have contacted the police when they failed to get in touch with Carol? There was no way that they wouldn't have reported it, was there? He reached for the phone once again and leafed through the phonebook for the appropriate number. He dialled the number slowly and was not happy when the connection jumped to an automated voice asking him to press a number for the service he required. Three numbers later, while waiting to be connected to a genuine human being, they started playing elevator music and he stabbed a hole in the phone book with his pen out of frustration. He was just about ready to snap the whole pen in half when a voice answered.
"Chicago PD, how can I help you?"
"Uh, hi. I wanted to know if you could tell me if someone had been reported missing?"
There was a short silence
"Sorry sir?"
"I've got a...friend, and she seems to have disappeared. But I've been away from Chicago for a while and I wondered if she'd been reported missing by anyone..."
"What's your friend's name, please?"
"Carol Hathaway."
He heard sounds of typing, and other voices in the background. It sounded like a giant call centre.
"Can you hold on one moment, please sir?"
"Sure."
The typing had stopped, and he heard a slight clunk as the phone receiver, or mouthpiece, or whatever it is they wore in these places, got put down on the desk. A few minutes later, he heard two voices murmuring, and shortly after that the phone attendant came back.
"Hello sir?"
"Hi."
"I'm sorry about that. I had to go and talk to my supervisor about whether we're allowed to release information to you."
"Okay..."
"We do have a Missing Persons Report on file for a Miss Carol Hathaway, but I'm afraid I can't tell you any more than that, because it's confidential police information."
"Can you tell me who filed the report?"
"No, sir."
"And she's still missing?"
"If we still have the report, then yes. That's all I can tell you, sir."
"Okay, okay. Thanks for your help. If I find her, do I just contact the police again?"
"Yes, just give us a call."
"Okay. Thanks."
"Bye now."
Doug hung up and sat back down on the bed with a soft thump. Someone had reported her missing. So it was real. She really had just gone. Before this confirmation, he had wondered if maybe she'd just done what he did - tried to move on by going as far away as possible. But now, now it seemed not. Now Carol Hathaway was a missing person and that scared him. The fact that the police were involved. You never heard anything good come of a missing person; they were usually either teenage runaways, or senile old people who had wandered off. When it was someone so young, so beautiful...he sighed and rubbed his eyes hard. Whatever had happened, he was going to find out. He had to find her. This was more than just an apology now. He was filled with a sudden desperation as he realised that now there was nothing more in the world he wanted but to see her face again. He didn't care if she pushed him away, but just to know she was okay, just to know that she was safe would satisfy him. He sat there, his brow furrowed and his face lined from the last year of his life, the scar that ran up his neck aching slightly as he ran a finger down it unconsciously.

Doug stood on the porch of the house in the dark, listening to the wind in the tree and the faint humming of the El in the distance. The house before him was in darkness, a sooty black colour inside, a deep misty grey on the outside. He brushed his hand over the wooden slats and watched the crisp paint flakes fall away to the floor. Some stuck to his hand and he tried to brush them off, but the static electricity he had created glued them to him and he gave up, instead reaching for the glass plates in the door. He wiped some dust off and tried to peer through to the inside, but it was so dark that he couldn't see anything. His head dropped for a moment as he took a breath and let it out, digging his hand deep into one pocket and finally pulling out a shiny key that glinted in the dim moonlight. He slowly slid it into the lock on the left of the door, and turned it at the same time as pressing gently against the wood. In one smooth action, the house opened up to him. The musty smell of damp filtered out, and a pile of mail crackled behind the door. Doug bent down to pick it up, slowly flicking from envelope to envelope, hoping to find maybe a clue or hint, but it seemed that it was a series of junk mail, bills, and free catalogues. Dropping the pile softly onto the small table by the door, he looked around at his own former home. Nothing had changed, the furniture was all in the same positions, the same rug was on the floor, the same magnets on the fridge. He moved lightly over the floor, tried flicking a light switch and for a moment he was rewarded by bright light that made him squint. The light bulb blew and left purple dots in his vision as he made he way across the den towards the kitchen. He touched little things on his way past, smoothing the quilt on the couch, feeling the frame of a painting on the wall. The kitchen light flipped on and gave out a dim golden glow that reached back out to the den, almost to the door. Doug looked around, blinking in the light, and lifted a layer of dust from the counter on one finger. He opened the fridge and found a carton of milk that smelt so bad that he closed the door again instantly. A solitary breakfast bowl lay upturned by the sink, alone and forlorn. The water refused to run from the taps, and he suspected that it had been cut off considering the bills that had littered the hallway floor. Underneath the cupboards on the far wall were the jars of pasta and rice that he remembered teasing her about, and a plant pot that had no plant inside it. A small piece of paper lay next to it, and he picked it up, shaking the year's worth of dust and grime from the surface. It was a photo of some sort, and he turned it over to find a series of black and grey swirls, patterns that were trying to form an image that he couldn't make out. The edges of the paper were hard and crispy, but jagged, as if they were cut from a larger photo, and Doug stared, mystified at it for some time. Wiping off his fingerprint with his coat sleeve, he dropped the photo into his pocket and looked out to the den.

He stood like that for some time, still trying to get everything straight in his mind - trying to accept the fact that Carol wasn't there and no one could find her. He wanted to leave the house now, it was too haunting, too echoey and silent. The smell of the damp crept into his senses, and it was destroying the memories he had had here, the smell of the soap she used, the smell of the cake she made once, the smell of her hair. It felt like a spear through his heart, the longing for her at that moment, that one instant. But before he could leave, he should check upstairs, just a quick glance. For he did not want to spend time in what had been their bedroom for fear of such brutal pain striking him down completely. He crept up the stairs, and creaked across the upstairs level, taking a brief look into every room. Nothing was out of place. Only a short stop in the room that Carol had used the wardrobe in confirmed that she had initially left out of choice - for few clothes were left on the rails, and the small suitcase she kept for travelling was gone. He shut the closet doors with a bang, forgetting how quickly they snapped into place, and the gust of air they created blew out scraps of paper from the floor of the closet, through the slats in the doors, to the carpet in front of Doug's feet. He picked them up and looked them over, mostly all blank and ripped at the edges where the paper had been torn. Half way through the small pile though, was a piece of paper that was different from the rest, lined like it was from a legal pad, and on it was scrawled a number in Carol's sloping handwriting. Doug rubbed his thumb over the ink, wondering whose phone number it was - a man's? - before stashing it into his pocket and leaving the room. He couldn't bear to be there any longer, and he left the house quickly, walking briskly away without a glance behind him.

It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that Doug fell into a short and fitful sleep. He had spent hours gazing at the photo, tracing patterns across the image with his finger, feeling a dim recognition something he'd seen like it before. But he couldn't place it at all, and figured it was probably due to lack of sleep. He let himself drop backwards on the bed, exhausted yet unable to sleep for all the activity in his brain. The final thought he could remember having before falling into a semi-conscious state was that maybe Helen knew the name from the piece of paper.

He awoke to the demands of the cleaning lady several hours later, as she banged her vacuum cleaner into his door and started to open the lock. Grabbing the t-shirt he had thrown off the night before, Doug hurriedly dropped it over his head and grabbed the door handle.
"You want cleaning?" The woman, unstartled by the door swinging away from her and the dishevelled man behind it, said, in a thick foreign accent.
"Uh no thanks, not today."
He remembered when he was younger, during a time of more money rather than less, wondering why his mom spent hours cleaning the house up before the cleaning lady came. Now he could understand it, he thought, as he turned back round and closed the door behind him. During the course of the last couple of days, the room had changed from executive, smart, businessman to lonely, messy, single guy. There were old clothes scattered on the floor, half full cans of flat Pepsi on all surfaces, one of the pillows from the bed now sticking out from underneath it, and most of the covers on the floor. He should probably do something about it before the cleaners tried to come again tomorrow. But then his domestic inclinations were driven away by the sight of the torn little bit of paper on the nightstand. 'Call Helen', it seemed to scream at him, and he was thrown back into bitter reality. But he ignored the screams and instead took his trusty phone book, lying down with it on the bed, and looked up the name written in barely legible handwriting. That was something else he'd always teased her about - she was a lefty. God, he'd come up with lists of jokes about that, blamed all her minor accidents on it. But she'd never minded. Just laughed, maybe slapped his arm. He wanted these memories to stop, they were hurting him. Because he couldn't have them any more without wanting her so badly that he could cry. And if he started to cry, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stop. So instead, he frowned hard at the name and flicked through the book until he reached the correct alphabetic place. But it wasn't there. A name like that, it was unique, but there was no such thing listed. With frustration and despair, Doug threw the book to the floor and punched his fist into the bed's mattress. He'd have to call Helen to find out if maybe it was the name of a relative or friend. And she wasn't going to listen to him. It just meant he'd have to keep calling until she listened. He groaned a little and rubbed his forehead, pushing his hair back so it stood up in irregular peaks and spikes. Sighing, he picked up the telephone and dragged it to the bed and plugged in the number.
"Hello?" She answered very quickly.
"Hi, Mrs. Hathaway. Please don't hang-"
"Not you again. I told you, I don't want to speak to you."
"I know, I know, but I really need to know one thing."
"No, Doug Ross, I am not listening to you."
There, she hung up. 'This could be a long morning,' he thought to himself as he hit redial.
"Helen, do you know who Rudy Blenvor…uhm, Blenvorchek is?" He stumbled a little over the pronunciation.
"You speak terrible Russian."
She slammed down the phone again and Doug winced, holding the phone slightly away from his ear. He pressed redial once again.
"I am going to call the police if you do not stop calling me!"
"Please, Helen, please. Do you know the name? Just tell me and I promise I won't call you again."
There was a silence.
"What name?"
"Rudy Blenvorchek"
"No. I know no-one by that name."
"You're sur-"
Down went the phone once more, and he cursed out loud. Still, he'd got an answer. She didn't know the name. Who was it then? Someone she'd been dating? It made him angry considering that as an option. Sure, it was hypocritical, but for Carol to be fooling around...well, it seemed wrong. He looked at the paper. There was really only one option left. To call the number. He'd just picked the phone up and was trying to decipher the third number - it could have been a 5 or a 6 - when there was a knock on the door. Kicking a pair of jeans and an empty chip packet under the bed, he went to answer it. He stuck his head round the edge and kept most of his body behind the door as he opened it, and he was surprised to find Haleh Adams on the other side. He opened the door properly, and said "Haleh? Hi!"
"Doug. I heard you were at County recently..."
"Yeah, I just dropped in, I was looking for Mark but he's away. Do you want to come in?"
"Not really, I'm on my way to work. Look, I don't condone what you did, and I especially don't like you for what you did to Carol." She fixed him with a hard stare. "But she told me something and I think I should tell you. She's been gone so long and the police didn't find anything, but just before she went missing I ran into her down by the lake."
Doug leaned forward, sponging up all the information he could get. "Are you sure you don't want to come in?"
"I've only got 5 minutes."
"Sure, that's long enough, c'mon." He stepped aside and gestured her in, then closed the door behind her as she looked at the state of the room.
"Yeah, I, uhm. I've been out a lot, haven't had much of a chance to be...tidy." He moved quickly in front of her and took a bag off the desk chair so she could sit down. Shuffling around the room, he picked some more things off the floor and put them on the nightstands and the bed, as Haleh watched critically.
"Don't say anything."
"I didn't say a word."
He grinned at her, but her face remained stony. "Do you want to hear what I've got to say, or shall I just go now and leave you to clear up?"
"No, no. Go on." He sat down, eager to glean information from her.
"Carol was pregnant."
Doug didn't move for a minute. He simply raised his eyebrows and pushed his head forward, as if he was hard of hearing.
"Pregnant?"
"Yes. With your child."
"Mine?" The same expression lay over his face like a concrete blanket.
"She didn't say any more to me about it, just said she was having a baby and you were the father."
"I..." Doug moved his body weight back so he sat up straight and gazed at her in disbelief. "Where did she go? After you spoke to her?"
"I don't know. I just saw her on my way home from the store, she looking pale. Told me about the baby and then said she had to go."
"The baby..." He ran both hands through his hair, stretching his back out at the same time.
"I really have to go now. I'm going to be late for work." She stood up and walked to the door and opened it herself, leaving Doug sitting by himself, stunned. She closed the door quietly behind her as she went.

©Triggersaurus 2001