The Reappearance of Rachel Price

The light danced around the inside of the container, bringing it to life in flashes and shadows, moving as Bel did, stepping up into it.

The walls and ceiling were lined with some kind of insulation, panels of corrugated foam. The floor too, underneath rugs and blankets.

There was a mattress in the far corner, pillows and more blankets. A camping toilet the other side, with a removable tank. An electric fan, cable wound around its base. A lamp too, unplugged. Piles of ragged clothes and old towels. Giant vats of bottled water, some empty. A chaotic orbit of food; packets and cans and boxes. A lonely fork lying across an opened can of sweet corn. Toiletries, wet wipes, a box of batteries.

And Dad sitting against the far wall, between the toilet and the bed. There was a metal cuff around one of his ankles, a chain that snaked around him, disappearing through a small hole in the container wall, attached outside somewhere.

“Bel.” He stood up, chain hissing as he did, unraveling, following him. He only got two-thirds of the way to her before it pulled tight, stopping him.

A dark shape in his hand. He clicked it on. A flashlight, much brighter than hers. He rested it against a box of crackers, pointed at the ceiling, lighting up the room.

“It is you,” Dad said, voice steadier now, a shadow of dark stubble on his face that the light couldn’t touch. “Thank God it’s you, Bel. Not her.” Another shadow crossed his eyes. “Thought I heard voices. Talking. Is someone with you?”

“It’s Ash.” She looked back for him. He was peering inside, a slow blink, like this all might disappear if he didn’t look too long.

“Who?”

“Ash, from the film crew,” Bel said, louder, finding her voice.

Dad’s face shifted, a strange and unfamiliar look, lit from below. “Send him away, Bel. He needs to leave, now.”

Bel glanced between the two of them, pinned in the middle.

“You need to leave,” Dad barked at Ash instead. “Go away, you hear? And do not call the police. No police. This is family business.”

Ash looked at Bel. “I don’t think I should leave you.”

“Go!” Dad pointed with a ragged finger, his wedding band missing from that hand.

“Wait.” Bel held up her own finger. “Ash, come with me.”

She stepped out of the container, down the steps made of old tires, Ash at her side.

“Bel,” he whispered. “What the fuck? I’m not leaving y—”

“I can do this on my own.” She took his hand. “He’s my dad. They’re my parents. My family. I need the truth, all of it.”

Bel couldn’t hide behind the film crew forever.

“I can’t leave you alone with him, wha—”

“I’ve been alone with him my whole life. Me and Dad, just the two of us. He’s lied to me, Ash. I have to know what he did, what part he played. He owes me the truth, no one else. He won’t talk with you here, but maybe he’s finally ready to talk to me.”

Ash glanced up at the container, glowing in the middle of the metal maze. “Are you sure?”

“Family first, huh,” she said. The trouble was knowing who deserved to be family at the end of it all. “I’ll be OK. I need to do this. Can you find your way back to the car?”

He slid his fingers between hers. “I’m not worried about me.”

“Don’t call the police, Ash,” Bel said, not because Dad had told them. She needed the truth first, before she decided what to do with it. Her family. Her parents. Her decision. “Go back to the hotel. I’ll call you when it’s done. OK?”

Ash didn’t answer. He pulled her into him, arms tight, the camera trapped between them. She rested her head against his chest, listening to the tick of his heart. “Be safe,” he whispered, lips grazing her ear.

“I will.” Dad was chained up; he couldn’t do anything to her. Then another thought, overlapping that one: Dad wouldn’t ever do anything to her anyway, right?

Ash’s fingers trailed down her arm as he turned away, raising his phone, lighting up the hulking shapes of saws and rusted-out cars, picking his way through.

Bel watched him disappear, the maze swallowing him.

She inhaled the darkness. She was ready, counting herself down as she climbed up.

Inside the container, across from her dad.

“He’s gone.”

“No police?” Dad said, the question urgent enough to reach his eyes.

“He won’t call the police.”

“Good.” He shifted, the chain singing as he did. “God am I glad to see you, kiddo. Don’t know how you found me, but you’ve got to get me out of here.”

“Dad—” Bel began, but he cut her off.

“She’s crazy. Rachel,” he said, spitting the name, eyes wide with panic. “She locked me in here for no reason. Told me in the middle of the night she had something to show me. Brought me here, into the truck. Before I knew what was happening, she locked this cuff around my ankle. How long has it been, kiddo? She’s brought food and water a couple times, but won’t tell me why she did this, said that giving me any answers would be a kindness. You’ve got to help me. Rachel has the key to this.” He gestured at his ankle, raw where the metal hugged the skin. “Maybe you can find a handsaw in the junk. Help me, kiddo.”

Bel didn’t move. “Rachel did this?” she said, using ignorance as a mask. She knew a lot more than Dad expected her to.

“Yes,” he said, voice pleading. “Rachel’s crazy. Something must have happened to her while she was gone, made her lose her mind. She locked me in here for no reason.”

“Why would she do that to you, lock you in here, if you didn’t do something to her first?”

Dad’s eyes snapped open. “What are you talking about, kiddo? I’ve never done anything to her. It doesn’t make sense.”

Bel chewed her lip. “Hm, you know what else doesn’t make sense?”

Dad stared at her.

“If Rachel is crazy, if she locked you up in here for no reason, why don’t you want me to call the police?”

He took a step back, eyes spinning. “Because,” he held on to the word, giving himself more time. “Because you know how the police in Gorham are. Dave Winter would probably find some way of making this my fault. Arrest me again.”

“Maybe he should.”

“What are you talking about, kiddo?” he said, that last word sharp enough to cut her. “Come on, you need to look for a way to get me out of this cuff. Force it open, cut the chain. Go look for something. Now!”

“No,” Bel said, wincing at the look on his face. She’d never said no to him like that before, she always relented, anything to keep him happy, to keep him from leaving because everyone left, eventually. Except maybe that was never true to begin with. “No, Dad. I’m sorry, but I need to know why Rachel put you in here.”

His mouth gaped, open and shut, shifting the shadows on the ceiling. “I don’t know, kiddo. That’s the honest truth. She must have lost her mind when she was gone, because this—”

“She wasn’t gone, Dad. Rachel was never gone. She was right here, in this red truck, in this container. Chained by the ankle. This is where she was all those years. Right here.”

Dad looked around like he was seeing it all for the first time. Bel couldn’t trust his eyes, not anymore.

“And I know who put her here.” Bel hardened her gaze.

Dad shook his head, the chain rattling behind. “Why are you looking at me like that? It wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with this.”

He lied too easily, rolling off the tongue. Maybe because he’d been practicing all her life.

“It was Grandpa.” Bel studied him, for any twitch of the truth. “Grandpa is the one who took Rachel. He kept her here, on his yard, in this container. Brought her food and water. Brought her books to read to pass the years. All that time she was right here.” She breathed out some of that darkness. “You knew.”

“No!” His voice cracked, eyes pulling wider, new folds in his skin. “I didn’t know. I swear to you, kiddo. You have to believe me.”

“I always believed you,” Bel said, hers trying to crack too. She built a new wall over it. “You were innocent. You were the only person who really cared about me, who would never leave. I did believe you. I defended you, told everyone they were wrong about you. Because you had an alibi, you couldn’t have had anything to do with Rachel’s disappearance, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Please. You have to get me out of here.”

“And it was almost a good alibi, wasn’t it?” Bel kept going, ignoring the plea in his eyes. “Almost worked. You cut your hand at work at exactly two o’clock. Because that’s the time you’d agreed with Grandpa, when he would abduct Rachel. A bad cut, needed stitches. Meaning you’d be at the hospital, on the security cameras there, a solid alibi for the next few hours so they could never suspect you.”

Dad was shaking his head, blinking.

“Only Grandpa didn’t take her at two o’clock, did he? He was late, because Rachel went to the mall in Berlin. Grandpa couldn’t intercept until Rachel got to that road where me and the car were found. He didn’t take her until six o’clock, right at the tail end of your good alibi. So it wasn’t so good anymore, was it? Left just enough time, a few spare minutes, for there to be some doubt, and the police jumped on it.” Bel’s hand dropped to her side, trigger finger ready. “You never planned to be arrested, but you were because Grandpa was late.”

“Bel, listen to me.”

“No, you listen! Someone overheard you, Dad. Talking to Grandpa.”

A twitch by his mouth, too late for him to hide it. He wanted to ask who, but he couldn’t do that, and they both knew it.

“You planned it all with Grandpa. Rachel’s disappearance. You knew she was here!”

“No!” he shouted, hands trembling as he held them up. “I didn’t. I didn’t know she was here!”

His eyes widened, slipping off her face, mouth dropping open. Couldn’t even look at her as he lied.

“Yes you—”

“He didn’t,” a voice said behind Bel, a voice so familiar it almost sounded like her own.