Free Then You Were Gone by Lauren Strasnick

this?”
    I grab a nail file off the nightstand and use it to jimmy one corner free. A satisfying pop . Julian wiggles the board back and forth. The whole thing comes loose. Inside, arranged neatly, a manila envelope folded lengthwise. An old photo of a pretty blonde holding a squirmy child. Three plastic Baggies wrapped tightly with tape and Saran wrap.
    “How’d you know?”
    “Saw her screwing with it once.” He grabs the plastic bags first. Pockets those.
    “Hey.”
    “Candy.” He picks up the picture. “Her mother,” he says, and on closer inspection I see it: same saucer eyes and wispy hair. Same bird bones and big boobs.
    “And baby Dakota?”
    “Looks like.” He passes the pic and goes for the envelope. Unfolds it. Out slide three shiny sheets of photo paper.
    “Proofs.”
    Dozens of tiny black-and-white images arranged side by side in neat little rows. I squint at a naked blonde rolling around on a bare mattress.
    “Wow,” Julian croaks.
    It’s her. She’s clutching a comforter. A few of the shots have X s and checks next to them. A man’s name, Mark Mills, isscribbled in blue ink along the side of each sheet. “Photographer?”
    “Manager,” Julian says, his face contorting.
    “Yours?”
    “No. Just, this, like, sketch guy that was always sniffing around after shows. He manages another Smell band.” Then: “ Christ . What the hell is this? Were they together?”
    He’s near tears.
    “This dude is so sleazy.”
    My heart pretty much explodes in my chest. “Hey, it’s okay,” I say, trying to touch him. He flinches. “Why not . . .” I scooch back a bit, giving him room to breathe. “I mean, do you know him? Could you call him? Let’s just call the guy and see what he knows.”
    “No, this dude—” He’s looking at me like I’m bat-shit insane. “Adrienne, no .” He shuffles through the proofs again. “August eighteenth.”
    “Hmm?”
    He points at some tiny lettering beneath the manager’s name. “August eighteenth.” Then grabs the jacket and points at the same date written on Dakota’s coat cuff. “They match.”
    I pick up the proofs. Look closely. Typed in diminutive print in the margins of each page is 8/18 . “No show that night?”
    “No show.”
    I scan the photos. Where the hell was she? Someone’sbedroom? A loft? The space looks industrial and bare.
    Then: one candid shot. Last image. Dakota: nude, no blanket, smoking. Her hips, hollow and pointy. I inhale and catch a whiff of something sad. “Can we go?”
    “Right now?”
    I sit up. Shove everything back in the envelope. “Yeah, you mind?” And, “Can I keep these?”
    “Wait, why ?”
    “Just for a few days. Please? I just—I want to see if there’s something we’re missing.”
    He sucks his upper lip. “Fine.” Slides the floorboard back into place.
    We stand. I scan the room one last time. Why no evidence of Julian, of band mates, of me ?
    “You ready?”
    “Yep.”
    Too typical. Her not needing anyone but needing everyone to need her.

29.
    “Shit, Knox, you’re blitzed.”
    True. Drank a quarter of Sam’s smoky scotch before I boarded the bus for Kate’s place.
    “What’s in the bag?” she asks, prying the soggy brown sack from my fingertips.
    “Blueberry pie.”
    She peeks inside. “You sit on it?”
    I laugh. Kate laughs. Purple filling oozes onto her dry, white hands.
    Walker, Yates, and Reed huddle around their supper plates, staring. And Lee? Lee’s at my side, peeling my coat off my body, yanking me into the kitchen.
    “You’re drunk?”
    “I’m hungry.” I pull myself up onto the sticky countertop. “When do we eat?”
    “What the hell happened to you? We ate already.”
    I dig into some leftover congealed artichoke dip with my pinkie. “Yum.”
    “Knox, look at me.” He grabs my chin. “You smell.”
    “That’s the scotch.”
    “Why are you like this?”
    “Like what?”
    “Because of her ?”
    “Because of her ?” I mimic.
    Kate appears, carrying a