Page 4 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“I’m good. Thanks.”

James didn’t press. He knew better than to think there was anything he could do to help.

Vince had hardly aged since James first met him. Or, more likely, James had always thought of him as older than he really was. Put a uniform on a guy, give him a sidearm, it makes him look mature. James had been about fifteen the first time he’d seen Officer Pollack. He realized now that the badge had been freshly minted, the uniform starched to sharp edges. Vince had stood front and center at the school assembly once a year to tell the kids not to do drugs.

Like his classmates, James had snickered at the straightlaced cop. Other than that, he never thought about Vince or anybody else in law enforcement. James wasn’t one to get involved in drugs or underage drinking. Only time he ever broke the law was when he and his friends would sneak past the No Trespassing sign and prowl the campground on summer evenings to play volleyball and swim at the beach. As they’d slipped from childhood into teens, they went not to play but to prowl for pretty girls.

Officer Vince had been an hour-a-year distraction almost all the way through high school.

Until James’s sister went missing.

Vince had been the first on the scene when Hallie’s body was found.

The chief had been around back then, the lead detective, lots of other cops, but it was Vince whom James remembered most from those days. An arm slung around his shoulders when James was too overwhelmed by grief to speak. A kind word for his mother. A shoulder-clasp for his father. Vince had been there.

What James had learned back then, the truth that had gotten him into town this morning, was that even if you could do nothing else, even if you had no idea what to say, you could be there.

He was trying to be there for Reid now. God knew Denise wouldn’t be. She’d filed for divorce and taken off just months after Ella’s birth.

James had caught Reid’s eye before the press conference, but Reid had hardly acknowledged him. Too much terror in there for much else. Would Reid ever be the same?

If Ella didn’t return, James knew the answer already. His own life was marked by one glaring before-and-after moment.

Before Hallie’d been kidnapped, James had been one of the popular kids. He’d played sports well enough that colleges had been talking scholarships. James’d had a lot of friends, good friends, or so he’d thought. He’d made good grades and goofed off. He’d been happy.

The kid he was before, that dumb arrogant jock, died the night his sister disappeared.

Most of the friendships he’d have sworn were strong fell apart. It wasn’t that his classmates and teammates didn’t care. But ever since Cassidy had started at Coventry High, rumors had swirled around her. With her mother in prison for beating her little sister to death, Cassidy had borne more tragedy than anybody else at the sheltered little school, and their classmates loved to speculate about the events surrounding the little girl’s death. Because Cassidy had been the one to call 911. She’d claimed their mother was abusive, and her testimony had sent the woman to prison.

Such juicy details for a bunch of teenagers with no real drama in their lives.

They hadn’t known the Cassidy he knew, the girl who was tender and gentle. Once Hallie died, the rumors had been too meaty, too nasty, to ignore.

High school was a time for hyperbole and melodrama. Everything seemed so big and so important, but James—and his friends, he thought—had believed, deep down, that the worries they dealt with were just kids’ stuff. Despite the vicious stories about Cassidy’s mother, nobody’d ever really believed Cassidy capable of violence. Their lives were too insulated for that.

James and those he’d gone to school with for twelve years had been fortunate. No suicides, no drug overdoses, no major crime. Sure, there were drugs, but no serious addictions, no runaways. There were a handful of teenage pregnancies and rumors of more. But, for the most part, life was simple.

Which was why Cassidy had been so intriguing.

When Hallie disappeared in the spring of his senior year, the fantasy of safety was snatched away.

The other kids hadn’t known how to deal with it. What was there to say to a guy whose girlfriend kidnapped and killed his little sister?

There were no pithy lines for that.

Only Reid had stuck around.

Every evening after baseball practice, Reid would come and knock on the door. James would tell him to go away, but Mom would welcome him in, offer him a Coke. No matter how painstakingly James ignored him, Reid would stay. Plop down on the couch beside him, tell him what he’d missed at practice, give him a rundown of every game James no longer cared to play. Tell him all the latest gossip—all that hadn’t been related to Cassidy, anyway.

They’d play video games, mostly in silence, for hours.

No matter how rude James was, Reid kept coming. Kept coming until, one day, James said, “Wanna go hit some balls?” And just like that, things started toward a new normal.

That was the thing about life’s befores and afters. There was an after. No matter how impossible it seemed, life went on.

Most of his before friendships had fallen away. But the after friendships were stronger. The old life was gone, but, no matter how little James wanted it to, a new life was formed.

A new James had emerged. Not better, necessarily, but wiser and more compassionate.