A Flicker in the Dark

by Stacy Willingham

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. —Friedrich Nietzsche

“She might still be alive,” he says. “They haven’t found her body yet. It’s been a week now.” “That’s true.” “And the other girl … she was missing for, what, three days before they found her?” “Yeah,” I say, swirling the wine in my glass. “Yeah, three days. So it sounds like you’ve been following all of this, then?” “Yeah, you know. It’s been on the news. Kind of hard to avoid.” “Even in New Orleans?”

“Ethan Walker’s restraining order, the one he filed after you broke into his apartment. He mentioned that you had some substance abuse problems in college. You were reckless with prescription Diazepam, mixing it with alcohol.” “I don’t do that anymore,” I say, my pill drawer radiating against my leg. We found heavy traces of Diazepam in her hair. “I’m sure you know that those drugs can have some pretty serious side effects. Paranoia, confusion. It can be tough to separate reality from fantasy.” Sometimes it’s hard for me to determine what’s real and what’s not.

“My name is Dianne Briggs. And my daughter, Sophie, went missing twenty years ago.”

“Chloe,” Aaron says again, but I ignore him. Instead, I take a deep breath and stick my nail into the crack, flipping the pages open. I look down and feel that same twist in my chest as my eyes scan a name. Only this time, it’s not Daniel’s name. And it’s not a business card. It’s a collection of old newspaper clippings, pushed flat from two decades of being wedged between these pages. My hands are shaking, but I force myself to pick them up. To read the first headline that stretches across the top in boldfaced print. RICHARD DAVIS NAMED AS BREAUX BRIDGE SERIAL KILLER, BODIES STILL UNFOUND And there, staring back at me, is a picture of my father.

“This is my daughter’s ring,” she says again, louder, her eyes drilling into the ring once more, the oval cut diamond and halo of stones. The cloudy 14-karat band that sits slightly too large on my thin, bony finger. “This ring has been in my family for generations. It was my engagement ring, and when Sophie turned thirteen, I gave it to her. She always wore this ring. Always. She was wearing it the day she…” She looks at me now, her eyes wide, terrified. “The day she disappeared.”

The way I had wanted to call him that night on the couch when I was drunk and alone. I can tell he wants to keep talking, so I lean forward and kiss him once before he can say anything else. Before this feeling is gone.