James Brogan: Missing Wife
The rain was doing that thing it does in this city—coming down sideways like it had a personal grudge. I was nursing a warm beer and a cold case file when she walked in.
She was the kind of woman who made cheap perfume smell expensive. Mid-thirties, red hair that looked like it had been set on fire by a jealous husband, and eyes that had already cried enough for one lifetime.
“Mr. Brogan?” she asked, voice husky.
“Last time I checked.”
She sat without being invited, which I liked. “My name is Claire Harlan. My husband, Richard, has been missing for six days.”
I leaned back, studying her. “Cops?”
“They think he ran off with his secretary. They’re not exactly tearing the city apart.”
“Secretary any good-looking?”
Claire gave a bitter little laugh. “Twenty-four. Legs up to her neck. But Richard’s not the type. He’s boring. Methodical. The kind of man who labels his sock drawer.”
I almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost.
She slid an envelope across the desk—thick with cash. “I want you to find him. Alive or… not. I need to know.”
I took the case. Partly for the money. Mostly because something in her voice didn’t sit right.
Three days later I was knee-deep in Richard Harlan’s boring life. Accountant at a mid-sized firm. Golf handicap of 18. Collected vintage fountain pens. The kind of guy who’d apologize to the mugger robbing him.
His secretary, Missy, was exactly as advertised: young, blonde, and terrified.
“I swear we never did anything,” she blurted out when I cornered her in the parking garage. “He was helping me with my taxes. That’s it. He kept saying Claire would kill him if she found out he was even talking to me after hours.”
Interesting choice of words.
I checked their shared credit cards. Nothing unusual until four days before he vanished—two plane tickets to Cancun booked under Richard’s name. One adult. One child.
Richard and Claire didn’t have kids.
I found him in a cheap motel out by the airport, the kind where they rent by the hour and don’t ask questions. He opened the door wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the expression of a man who’d just seen his own ghost.
“Mr. Harlan.”
He didn’t even try to run. Just sighed and let me in. A little girl, maybe seven, was coloring on the bed. She looked up at me with Claire’s eyes.
“My daughter,” Richard said quietly. “From before I met Claire. I never told her. Emily’s mother died last month. I was going to bring her home, introduce her properly… but Claire found the plane tickets.”
He sat down heavily. “She gave me an ultimatum. Her or Emily. Said she’d make sure I never saw either of them again if I brought a ‘bastard’ into her house.”
I lit a cigarette. “So you ran.”
“I was going to disappear. Start over somewhere. But I couldn’t do it. Not to Claire. Not really.”
The door behind me opened.
Claire Harlan stepped in, holding a small revolver like she’d been born with it in her hand.
“You couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you, Brogan?” she said calmly.
Richard stood up, moving in front of the little girl. “Claire, please—”
“Shut up, Richard.” Her eyes never left me. “I paid you to find him. Not to bring him back.”
I kept my hands visible. “You paid me to find out what happened to your husband. He’s right here. Alive. With his daughter.”
For a second I thought she might actually shoot all three of us. Then her shoulders dropped. The gun lowered.
“I built a perfect life,” she whispered. “Perfect house. Perfect husband. And then this… complication shows up.”
Richard looked at her with something like pity. “It was never perfect, Claire. It was just controlled.”
Two hours later I was back in my office, watching the rain again. Richard had taken Emily to his sister’s place upstate. Claire was talking to a lawyer. Probably the expensive kind.
The envelope of cash was still on my desk. I hadn’t touched it.
Some cases you solve by finding people.
Some cases you solve by making sure they stay lost.
I poured myself a real drink this time.
Tomorrow there’d be another knock on the door. Another missing wife, husband, pet, or piece of someone’s soul.
But tonight, the rain could have the city.
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