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Unlike the previous pseudovisions, so up Quail Hollow No houses had been built, but the lots were rass was freshly ns In the subdivision’s center, a perfectly circular lake had been dug and then, for some reason, drained As I drove up in the minivan, I could see it was about ten feet deep and several hundred feet in diameter A hose snaked across the bottom of the crater to the middle, where a steel-and-aluminum fountain rose fro thankful the lake was empty, so I wouldn’t have to stare into the water and wonder if she was in the bottoear to find her

I felt certain Margo could not be in Quail Hollow It abutted too ood place to hide, whether you were a person or a body But I looked anyway, and as I idled down the streets in the minivan, I felt so hopeless I wanted to be happy that it wasn’t here But if it wasn’t Quail Hollow, it would be the next place, or the one after that, or the one after that Or maybe I’d never find her Was that the better fate?

I finished hway I got lunch at a drive-thru and then ate as I drove out west toward thelot, I noticed that blue painters’ tape had been used to seal our hole in the board I wondered who could have been there after us

I drove around to the back and parked the arbage truck in decades I figured I could bust through the painters’ tape if I needed to, and I alking around toward the front when I noticed that the steel back doors to the stores didn’t have any visible hinges

I’d learned a thing or two about hinges thanks to Margo, and I realized e hadn’t had any luck pulling on all those doors: they opened in I walked up to the door to the e company office and pushed It opened with no resistance whatsoever God, ere such idiots Surely, whoever cared for the building knew about the unlocked door, which led out of the backpack I’d packed that lite and flashed it around the roo sizable in the rafters scurried I shivered Little lizards juht fro shone in the front corner of the rooht peeked out from behind the particleboard, but I ht I walked up and down the rows of desks, looking at the items we’d found in the drawers, which we’d left It was profoundly creepy to see desktop after desktop with the same unmarked calendar: February 1986 February 1986 February 1986 June 1986 February 1986 I spun around and shone the light on a desk in the very center of the rooed to June I leaned in close and looked at the paper of the calendar, hoping to see a jagged edge where previous e where a pen had pushed through the paper, but there was nothing different from the other calendars, save the date

With the flashlight crooked between h desk drawers again, paying special attention to the June desk: soes addressed to one Dennis McMahon, an ehts, and an alht in one hand and the nail polish in the other and stared at it closely So red it was almost black I’d seen this color before It had been on thein the rafters and the creaking in the building became irrelevant--I felt a perverted euphoria I couldn’t know if it was the same bottle, of course, but it was certainly the sauously, a tiny smear of blue spray paint on the outside of the bottle Froers I could be sure now She’d been here after we parted ways thathere Maybe she only showed up late at night Maybe she had taped up the particleboard to keep her privacy

I resolved right then to stay until o had slept here, I could, too And thus commenced a brief conversation with myself

Me: But the rats

Me: Yeah, but they see

Me: But the lizards

Me: Oh, come on You used to pull their tails off when you were little You’re not scared of lizards

Me: But the rats

Me: Rats can’t really hurt you anyway They’re more scared of you than you are of them

Me: Okay, but what about the rats?

Me: Shut up

In the end, the rats didn’t o had been alive I was in a place that saw her after I did, and the warmth of that made the minimall al held by Mo each ti comfortable, I found it easier to explore I knew there was more to find, and now, I felt ready to find it

I left the office, ducking through a Troll Hole into the room with the labyrinthine shelves I walked up and down the aisles for a while At the end of the rooh the next Troll Hole into the eainst the far wall The cracked white paint crunched against ed bea crept an inch along the floor as I let ot bored and crawled through the last Troll Hole into the souvenir shop I rifled through the T-shirts I pulled the box of tourist brochures out fro for so

I returned to the rooh the Reader’s Digests and found a stack of National Geographics from the 1960s, but the box was covered in so an to find evidence of huot back to the empty room On the ith the rolled-up carpet, I discovered nine thumbtack holes in the cracked and paint-peeled wall Four of the holes made an approximate square, and then there were five holes inside the square I thought perhaps Margo had stayed here long enough to hang up so from her room e searched it

I unrolled the carpet partway and i else: a flattened, empty box that had once contained twenty-four nutrition bars I found ainst the itha nutrition bar She is all alone, with only this to eat Maybe she drives once a day to a convenience store to buy a sandwich and some Mountain Dew, but most of every day is spent here, on or near this carpet This ie seemed too sad to be true--it all struck o But all the evidence of the past ten days accuo herself was--at least part of the tio

I rolled out the carpet farther and found a blue knit blanket, alrabbed it and held it to my face and there, God, yes Her smell The lilac shampoo and the almond in her skin lotion and beneath all of that the faint sweetness of the skin itself

And I could picture her again: she unravels the carpet halfway each night so her hip isn’t against bare concrete as she lies on her side She crawls beneath the blanket, uses the rest of the carpet as a pillow, and sleeps But why here? How is this better than hos I cannot iine theo I kne she smelled, and I kne she acted in front of me, and I kne she acted in front of others, and I knew that she liked Mountain Dew and adventure and draestures, and I knew that she was funny and senerally ht her here, or what kept her here, or what made her leave I didn’t knohy she owned thousands of records but never told anyone she even liked ht, with the shades doith the door locked, in the sealed privacy of her room