Every Street, Chapter 13

--see previous chapters for notes - they can all be found at
http://www.geocities.com/er_trig/triggersfics.html on the 'series' page.--


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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