picket fence ran around the side property lot, but once you got into the wooded area, the barrier became wire mesh. It was cheaper and less aesthetic, but back here, mixed in with branches and thicket, what did it matter?
Myron was pretty sure what he would find now.
It was not unlike the Horowitz-Seiden border near his own home. He put his hand on top of the fence and kept moving through the brush. Erik followed. Myron wore Nikes. Erik had on tasseled loafers without socks.
Myron’s hand dipped down near an overgrown pine bush.
Bingo, this was the spot. The fence had caved in here. He shined the penlight. From the rusted-out look of it, the post had buckled years ago. Myron pulled down on the mesh a little and stepped over. Erik did likewise.
The cut-through was easier to find. It ran no more than five, six yards. It had probably been a longer path years ago, but with the value of land, only the thinnest clump of brush was now used for privacy. If your land could be made usable, you made sure that it was.
He and Erik ended up between two backyards on another cul-de-sac.
“You think Aimee went this way?”
Myron nodded. “I do.”
“So what now?”
“We find out who lives on this street. We try to see if there’s a connection to Aimee.”
“I’ll call the police,” Erik said.
“You can try that. They might care, they might not. If someone she knows lives here, it might just further back up the theory that she’s a runaway.”
“I’ll try anyway.”
Myron nodded. If he were in Erik’s shoes, he would do that too. They moved through the yard and stood on the cul-de-sac. Myron studied the homes as if they might give him answers.
“Myron?”
He looked at Erik.
“I think Aimee ran away,” he said. “And I think it’s my fault.”
There were tears on his cheek.
“She’s changed. Claire and I, we’ve both seen that. Something happened with Randy. I really like that boy. He was so good with her. I tried to talk to her about it. But she wouldn’t tell me. I… this is going to sound so stupid. I thought maybe Randy had tried to pressure her. You know. Sexually.”
Myron nodded.
“But what decade do I think we’re living in? They’d been together two years already.”
“So you don’t think that was it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.” He went silent.
“You said it was your fault.”
Erik nodded.
“When I drove Aimee here,” Myron said, “she begged me not to say anything to you and Claire. She said that things weren’t good with you two.”
“I started spying on her,” Erik said.
That wasn’t a direct answer to the question, but Myron let it go. Erik was working up to something. Myron would need to give him room.
“But Aimee… she’s a teenage girl. Remember those years? You learn how to hide things. So she was careful. I guess that she was more practiced than I was. It’s not that I didn’t trust her. But it’s part of a parent’s job to keep tabs on their children. It doesn’t do much good because they know it.”
They stood in the dark, staring at the houses.
“But what you don’t realize is that even while you’re spying on them, maybe every once in a while, they turn the tables on you. Maybe they suspect something’s wrong and they want to help. And maybe the child ends up keeping tabs on the parent.”
“Aimee spied on you?”
He nodded.
“What did she find, Erik?”
“That I’m having an affair.”
Erik almost collapsed with relief when he said it. Myron felt blank for a second, totally empty. Then he thought about Claire, about how she was in high school, about the way she’d nervously pluck her bottom lip in the back of Mr. Lampf’s English class. A surge of anger coursed through him.
“Does Claire know?”
“I don’t know. If she does, she’s never said anything.”
“This affair. Is it serious?”
“Yes.”
“How did Aimee find out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know for sure that she did.”
“Aimee never said anything to you?”
“No. But… like I said. There were changes. I would go to kiss her cheek and she’d pull back. Almost involuntarily. Like I repulsed her.”
“That might be normal teenage stuff.”
Erik hung his head, shook it.
“So when you were spying on her, trying to check her e-mails, besides wanting to know what she was up to…”
“I wanted to see if she knew, yes.”
Again Myron flashed to Claire, this time to her face on her wedding day, starting a new life with this guy, smiling like Esperanza had on Saturday, no doubts about Erik even though Myron had never warmed to him.
As if reading his mind, Erik said, “You’ve never been married. You don’t know.”
Myron wanted to punch him in the nose. “You say so.”
“It doesn’t just happen all at once,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“It just starts to slip away. All of it. It happens to everyone. You grow apart. You care but in a different way. You’re about your job, your family, your house. You’re about everything but the two of you. And then one day you wake up and you want that feeling back. Forget the sex. That’s not really it. You want the passion. And you know you’re never going to get it from the woman you love.”
“Erik?”
“What?”
“I really don’t want to hear this.”
He nodded. “You’re the only one I’ve told.”
“Yeah, well, I must live under a lucky star then.”
“I just wanted… I mean, I just needed…”
Myron held up a hand. “You and Claire are none of my business. I’m here to find Aimee, not play marriage counselor. But let me just make something clear because I want you to know exactly where I stand: If you hurt Claire, I’ll…”
He stopped. Stupid to go that far.
“You’ll what?”
“Nothing.”
Erik almost smiled. “Still her knight in shining armor, eh, Myron?”
Man, Myron
Myron froze.
“What?” Erik said.
He quickly averted his gaze. “I need your help.”
