She's Not There

A black pickup raced along a narrow road that twisted sharply left before crossing a bridge over a deep ravine, the river below marking the division between adjoining counties. Lit by the oncoming headlights, four pine crosses stood out in the ground fog shrouding the opposite riverbank. Faded to weather-beaten gray, they stood as a reminder of young lives foolishly lost, the flowers, candles and stuffed animals that were left in tribute, long gone.

Years back, four varsity football players from a nearby high school were killed when the car they were riding in left the road at an impossibly high speed in a mad attempt to cross the narrow river without traveling the bridge. The vehicle didn’t make it over the river. Airborne, the car wedged into the opposite bank, leaving no survivors. It was rumored that the same car had successfully completed the daredevil crossing many times before the deadly impact.

Imagining the impact of his vehicle against the riverbank, the driver of the pickup pressed hard on the accelerator as the truck approached the bridge. After tonight there would be five crosses on the riverbank. It was unlikely anyone would cover the fifth with sentimental memorabilia.

The driver’s last thoughts—and he was certain in that split second before the truck sailed over the river that they would be his last—were not of his life flashing before him. They were gratitude, rather, for a life ended.

Lisa Rayburn had hardly been able to focus on her class. She and Tyler didn’t get together all that often, but when they did, the magic she found in his arms kept her smiling for days. Knowing she’d be with him soon, her senses tingled as she stuffed the leftover handouts into her briefcase. She’d had one eye on the clock since she’d walked into the room.

The annual Autumn Leaves event for women offered classes on everything from money management to how to handle a divorce. For the third year running, Lisa Rayburn’s class on How To Prevent Domestic Abuse was well received by her audience. It was one of many things Lisa did in an effort to get her message out to women—don’t stay in an abusive relationship. Better yet, avoid beginning one. The early signs weren’t difficult to spot. The hard part was walking away.

Lisa looked up to see a young woman standing in front of her wearing a brown dress that covered her thin body to the ankles. She had a manila file-folder clutched to her chest as if she were afraid someone would snatch it from her.

In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, ”My name is Jennifer Hansen. I’m gathering statistics for my thesis on abused women. I need to talk to you.”

Lisa motioned her to the student desks. The girl appeared upset, frightened even, her pale hands tightly clenching the folder. When they were seated, Jennifer handed Lisa a sheet of paper. “I wanted you to see this.”

Lisa scanned the page, her eyes stopping on a line highlighted in fluorescent yellow. It revealed a dramatic rise in the percentage of abused women who’d gone missing in Milwaukee and its neighboring counties.

The line seemed to levitate from the paper—the number far too high to be a statistical aberration. If accurate, what was happening? A predator—targeting abused women? There had to be another explanation.

Her eyes could not leave the number. Lisa whispered, “Abused women were the topic of my dissertation too.”

“I know. I read it. I thought you’d know what I should do.” Jennifer’s honey-brown eyes looked to Lisa for guidance. “What’s happening to them?”

Lisa reviewed the testing method for accuracy. Everything seemed to be in order. “There has to be a mistake somewhere. I’d recommend you recount your data and run the numbers again.”

When she looked up, the girl had vanished from the room as silently as she’d arrived. Lisa squirmed in her seat. She’d dressed in anticipation of meeting Tyler. The new, yellow lace lingerie she was wearing under her sedate, gray pantsuit wasn’t meant for sitting in plastic classroom chairs. What she’d just learned had her heart racing but no longer with anticipatory lust. It seemed that Jennifer Hansen had dumped the matter into Lisa’s hands. 

A Dodge Magnum purred into a dark parking lot, its lowered chassis and darkened windows giving it a hearse-like appearance in the moonlight. A few yards downhill, Pewaukee Lake shimmered with the rays of the moon.

Across the parking lot, Jamie Denison eased slowly out of her sleek, red sports car, trying not to disturb a painful broken rib. She moved toward the door of the Sombrero Club, a popular bar and restaurant on the southwestern shore of Pewaukee Lake. The largest lake in Waukesha County, it was circled with expensive homes. The few remaining businesses clung to the edges of the small town of Pewaukee, located about twenty miles west of Milwaukee.

Jamie entered a large, noisy room with a country rock band playing loudly behind a crowded dance floor. Squeezing between a couple seated at the bar, Jamie ordered a glass of wine. While she sipped at the tart, fruity liquid, she watched the couples on the dance floor, remembering a time when she would have rejected every dance offer before she managed to entice the most attractive man in the place to her side. The lifestyle she’d enjoyed before she was married felt like it had been decades in the past. Coming here was probably a bad idea.