Wild Horses

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When two days had passed without a call from Emma, Jim told himself he worried too much. The third day, he called her cell phone from the kitchen while he grabbed a protein drink for breakfast. The call went straight to voice mail. Ippolita was also still on vacation. She had left a freezer full of casseroles for him, which he hadn't touched, subsisting on take-out as Emma had feared he would. He could almost hear her laughing. You work with all that high-tech stuff and you can't even be bothered to turn on a microwave?

At lunchtime on the third day, he decided a dish of Ippolita's enchiladas, even reheated frozen enchiladas, would be more appealing than the hospital lunchroom's fare. He drove home in Emma's car, imagining her lounging on the beach of that perfect little bay she had shown him from the travel website, sipping something mango-ish while Suzy dug in the sand. He called. She didn't pick up. Of course, she wouldn't want to take her phone to the beach.

In the freezer, he found a casserole labeled "con carne" in Ippolita's careful printing. He set it in the kitchen's microwave oven, considered getting a plate out of the cupboard, but discarded the thought. Why bother, when he'd only have to wash it afterward?

The microwave's timer dinged. Setting the casserole dish on the table, he dug out a forkful luscious with red sauce and melted cheese, which promptly dripped an enormous blob onto the front of his shirt. Several enchiladas later, he pushed his chair back with a satisfied sigh. Should he change shirts before going back to work or just hide the mess under a buttoned-up lab coat? But even under a lab coat, he'd still be able to smell the sauce. The fragrance of con carne and cheese all afternoon would drive him crazy. He ran upstairs for a clean shirt.

Rummaging through the drawers for a fresh, folded one, he clung to thoughts of Emma, trying to quiet his nagging sense of unease -- Emma adorably damp, her bare feet sand-dusted, her hair curing wildly in the seaside air. He fished his phone from a pocket of his trousers and called, tucking the phone against his shoulder while he buttoned and tucked the clean shirt.

Emma didn't pick up, but a muffled buzzing like the attack of June bugs on a screen door startled him. He ended the call. The buzzing stopped. He pressed redial and followed the sound to the nightstand on Emma's side of the bed. In the back of a drawer, under a stack of folded bras and panties, beneath the drawer's lining of honeysuckle-scented paper, her silenced phone vibrated.

He picked it up, looking at its list of missed calls. His own missed calls.

He called international directory assistance to get the number of Ippolita's cousin in Zihuantanejo, the cousin whose house Emma and Suzy were staying in. The phone rang five times before a woman's voice came on the voice mail, speaking Spanish too quickly for him to follow. He waited, saying nothing. The line went dead.