The Forbidder

           Twenty-four hours, on the dot, after he’d last seen his daughter, he entered the office of Detective Aaron Grant. He fell rather than lowered himself into one of the burgundy burlap-upholstered chairs before the bulky cherry desk. His stomach knotted, and he dug his nails into the arms of his chair; the only way he could think of to keep himself from bolting.

*         *         *

           Similar desk and chairs. Different time. Different city. Different detective: a man whose name he didn’t remember, with whom he and Noemie exchanged perfunctory introductions he’d forgotten. On the other hand, the image of her beside him, hugging herself, and her heart-piercing sobs would stick with him for life.

           He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, obligated, as her husband, to comfort her, knowing that he couldn’t. Gulping, she explained, “Chandler told me that park isn’t safe. I…I didn’t listen. I was stupid.”

           He couldn’t argue, but he also couldn’t criticize, for his actions—letting her go when she’d insisted that he had nothing to worry about—had proven just as foolish.

            “I looked away for a second,” she said. “Just a second—and then she was gone.” She burst into a new round of sobs. Chandler rubbed her arm, feeling as if a red-hot poker had stabbed him and begun twisting, flaying him from the inside out.

           He wouldn’t forget that, either.

*         *         *

           The next few weeks made it clear that he had to do something about Noemie. Around eleven o’clock on the morning he’d chosen, he found her at the kitchen table, fingers whose nails she’d chewed to nubs curled around a mug of coffee. Her hair stuck out like a lion’s mane, her mascara-stained robe hanging open to reveal bones that now protruded from her chest. Taking as deep a breath as his lungs would admit, he said, “You really should see someone, Noe.”

           The glare she flashed him could have speared solid concrete. “I’m not crazy.”

           “It doesn’t mean you’re crazy. You’re going through a lot, and—“

           “And I’m fine,” she snapped. “Leave it.”

           Like an idiot, he did.

The comeuppance came the following week, when he came home from work to find her lying on their bed, as pale as the sheet resting over her rock-still form. Her lips had slightly parted, and her eyes had closed, as if she had simply slipped into the gossamer folds of death, rather than had life prematurely snatched from her. OxyContin, the empty pill bottles on the nightstand said.  The means to her end, but not the cause—that honor, again, belonged to him.

           If she’d waited just three more days, the ordeal would have had a very different ending. A passerby had found Jenna tucked into a stroller on the sidewalk outside a McDonald’s, safe and sound. That the cops hadn’t identified, let alone caught, the perp nagged him, as it would have her, but they could have lived with that, together.

           As it was, he confided in no one. He moved himself and Jenna across the country and didn’t tell her about the ordeal even when he thought her old enough to understand it. Yes, he wanted her to exercise caution, and he did everything in his power to make her do so, but he also didn’t want her to live in fear of whoever had taken her coming back. And he did not want to saddle her with the weight of a death like her mother’s. Instead, he told her that Noemie had died in an accident caused by a drunk driver who had, himself, perished in the crash. No loose ends. No wondering. No possibility of vengeance that would keep her from getting on with her life. He had failed to protect her once.

           He would not, he vowed, do it again.

*         *         *

           Now, he had broken that promise. The only question remaining: How? By letting her hang out with someone who, unbeknownst to them, wanted to hurt her? By choosing a home conducive to someone breaking in and snatching her without his knowing? By failing to provide her with tools sufficient for defending herself (perhaps she needed more than the black belt he’d made her earn and super-strength pepper spray he made her carry at all times)?

           He prayed that Grant could help him find the answer before whichever it was proved yet another fatal mistake.

           “Coordinate with the Carmichael PD, and look into who took her the first time,” he told the detective. “They might be behind this, too.

           “Check with everybody—family, friends, acquaintances. I’ve already reached out to everybody I could think of, and they haven’t seen her, but maybe you’ll have better luck.

           “Canvas places she liked to go. Stores. Restaurants. Cafés. The park. The woods behind our house, too—she could’ve gone for a walk and gotten lost. And—“

           “Mr. Winfield,” Grant interrupted, a vein twitching in his forehead, “I don’t need instructions. I assure you, I’m very good at my job.”

           Could Chandler believe that? His peers hadn’t done a single helpful thing the first time—he didn’t know who or what deserved credit for Jenna’s recovery, but it sure as hell wasn’t they. If Grant didn’t want him telling him how to do his job, he should know how to do it himself.

            “I’m gonna ask you some questions,” Grant said, grabbing a small notepad and pen.

           “What more do you have to know? I told you, she—“

           “We need to go over the timeline before she went missing. You said she was gone yesterday morning. What was she doing the night before?”

            “Just hanging out at home.”

More specifically, telling Chandler that she wanted to dye her hair pink.

           “Absolutely not,” Chandler had said.

           Her eyes had narrowed. “Seriously? I’m twenty years old—“

           “And still living under my roof, and I say, no.”

           She’d glared at him like she would have someone who had killed her best friend. Like she had when he’d forbidden her from wearing midi-shirts and mini-skirts and black lipstick and getting a second ear piercing. As if she didn’t know that looking like a “loose” young punk would make her world a helluva lot more dangerous.

           But Grant needn’t know all of that.

           Before they could move on, however, Chandler’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Excuse me,” he said, rising and heading for the door.

           In the hallway, he answered, “What’s up, Trent?”

           “I think I saw Jenna.”

           He almost dropped the phone. “Really? There?” Trenton had taken a business trip to Darby, nearly fifty miles away. How had she ended up there?

           “I’m not sure,” he said, voice tense. “I didn’t get that good a look at her, and she got lost in the crowd before I could chase her down, but it really did look like her…”

           “Was she with anybody?”

           “Not that I could see, but, like I said, there was a big crowd, so I don’t know for sure.”

           He glanced back at Grant, who had started clicking his pen impatiently. Should he tell him about this? He had to consider the possibility that she’d gone of her own volition—in which case, having the fuzz barreling toward her might scare her off.

           Of course, seeing Chandler may do the same. But he could tread carefully. Make sure that she didn’t see him until he got close enough to confront her. He couldn’t guarantee that Grant would accomplish this.

           “All right, I’m coming,” he said.

           “Train’s probably the fastest way,” Trenton said. “Want me to meet you at the station?”

He rolled his eyes; Trenton should know by now that he didn’t do trains, or taxis—virtual crapshoots whose benefits didn’t even begin to compensate for making one, essentially, a sitting duck. “No, I’m driving, and you don’t need to help.”

“I want to.”

“No—too many cooks in the kitchen. Thanks, though.” He hung up, dizziness buffeting him. He blinked it back and turned to Grant. “I’ve gotta go. We’ll pick it up another time.”

“Mr. Winfield,” Grant snapped, “I am the single most important player in finding your daughter. You’ll wanna make this a priority.”

Chandler ignored him. He strode out of the office, out of the station, into the parking lot, into his car. He stabbed the key into the ignition, turned it, and floored the gas.  

What business did a few signs have telling him how fast he could go?

*         *         *

           He and Noemie used to go into Sacramento on weekends to watch IMAX movies and eat at restaurants that served steak tar tar and cocktails with little umbrellas in them. They always had a good time. But, since her death, he had lost his taste for the city. Too many variables; too many moving parts. He had a recurring nightmare of a crowd boxing him in and dragging him to places he did not want to go—the dump, the DMV, an alleyway teeming with thugs eager to get their fingers on his wallet. Thus, he hadn’t ventured into an urban area since Jenna needed diapers. That this ordeal had forced him to defy that pattern, he could not take as a good sign.

           He tried not to let that bog him down as he combed Darby, a network of concrete teeth separated by streets clogged with traffic whose honks clashed with one another and pedestrians’ voices in smog-laden air. He checked shops. Restaurants. Diners. Cafés. Movie theaters. He stopped members of the suffocating crowds, showing them a photo of Jenna on his phone. No one had seen her.

           Darkness descended, and he decided to call it a night after this destination: an ice cream parlor that screamed its desire for hipness in tones of exposed brick, wall-length windows, and black marble counters. Entering through the glass double-doors, he surveyed the room.

           She stood in line behind a woman who apparently wanted the whole city to know that she would like mint chocolate chip, extra sprinkles. His heart stopped, not only because he had actually managed to find her, but, also, because of the changes she’d made. She’d dyed her hair fluorescent pink, one side tucked behind an ear sporting two new piercings. Black matte lipstick coated her lips. She wore a midi-shirt and skirt so short that the most minute twitch could have overexposed her. She’d done it; she’d done it all. A different kind of heat from that that he’d anticipated such a situation would bring singed his cheeks and the tips of his ears, both making him want to bolt and prohibiting him from doing so.   

           Instead, he braced himself and sidled up to her. When she saw him, her eyes nearly popped out of her skull. He expected her to take off, but she just stood there, looking at him.

            “We need to talk,” he said.

            “If, by, ‘talk,’ you mean, ‘lecture,’ then no, I’m not doing that.”

           “I’m not gonna lecture you,” he promised. “Please, just hear me out.”

Jenna’s jaw firmed. “Pay for our ice cream, and you get five minutes.”

           He exhaled.

The woman in front of them collected her order and headed for one of the dark maple tables. The server—a heavyset young woman with raspberry-red lips and eye liner as thick as ribbon—asked them, “What can I get you two?”

Jenna requested rocky road. The server dished it out, handed it to her, and turned to him. “And you, sir?”

           He glanced at the menu and then back at her. He took a breath.

           “Surprise me,” he said.