Free Wild Horses by Brian Hodge

never learned of Madeline, he would have wanted it to be the two of them heading for L.A., together. But no, she’d had to force the situation prematurely, turn it vicious and ugly.
    It was a sorely punishing loss. Allison was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, except other women.
    The laptop’s liquid crystal display began to coalesce, warming up—
    And when he saw what she had done, Boyd began to scream. What a knife she’d thrust between his ribs.
    “This is a bitch!” he cried. “This is a bitch!”
    With pounding footsteps, Derek burst into the bedroom like a parent who’d heard his child awaken from nightmares. If only. Boyd pointed a trembling finger at the computer, told Derek what she’d done: dumped everything from the hard drive. Everything.
    “So let me get this straight,” said Derek. “You never made backups of any of the data?”
    Boyd crumpled Allison’s note and hurled it at him. “You’re so fucking smart, what do you think?”
    Derek hadn’t laughed this hard all day.
     
    *
     
    A poor night’s sleep, a toxic champagne headache, and one more trip across the godforsaken Vegas-L.A. conduit later, Boyd found himself reduced to pounding on his former landlord’s door, hope’s last refuge. Without question, this had to be the worst day in anyone’s life since the Crucifixion.
    Doug Powell answered, frumpy and quizzical in his doorway. No recognition whatsoever behind those little round glasses. He was a complete cipher.
    “It’s me, it’s Boyd Dobbins. From 2-C.”
    He realized the obvious when Doug pointed it out: the missing mustache. He’d rinsed it down the bathroom drain this morning, all the disguise he’d been able to muster, but effective. Clean-shaven, Boyd looked five or six years younger, his face more innocent and boyish than he’d seen since his mid-twenties, still blessed by smooth contours and that clear-eyed devil’s twinkle.
    After Doug let him in, Boyd explained the situation: He and Allison had had a minor little spat. Gone overnight to cool off, and now he comes back and lets himself in upstairs, to fix a nice apology dinner to surprise her when she gets home from day care, but the whole place is devoid of life.
    Doug’s eyebrows peaked into innocent arches; he hunched his shoulders. “What can I tell you, I don’t know anything.”
    Boyd took a step closer. “Allison wouldn’t move out without letting you know, without turning her keys back in. She wouldn’t . She works with kids, she’s responsible. So where’d she go?”
    “I told you already, I don’t know anything! I didn’t even … didn’t even know she was gone until you, until you told me.”
    Boyd sighed. Doug clearly had a freakish career ahead as the worst actor on the planet. Boyd slipped from his pocket a deck of cards and began to shuffle them into his palm.
    “Doug, Doug, you tell me this but you’re about as convincing as a drag queen with five-o’clock shadow. Come on, it’s me. It’s Boyd. No mustache, but I’m the same guy. Help me out here.”
    Plea after plea did virtually no good, the little butterball admitting finally that maybe Allison had moved out, very-spur-of-the-moment-like, very mysterious, but he didn’t know anything more than that. Believe him? Not really. Crack him in one lie and there were probably others.
    “Make you a wager,” Boyd offered. “I do this magic trick. You pick a card, but don’t let me see it, whatever you do, and if I guess what it is, you tell me everything Allison told you about where she’s going. I guess wrong and I’m out of here. Doesn’t this sound like a fair way to resolve our dispute?”
    “Oh, right.” Doug planted dimpled fists on his hips, playing the seasoned skeptic. Total putty. “And the check’s in the mail.”
    “Doug Powell, you are one tough nut to crack,” said Boyd. He shuffled the cards with a flourish, fanned them elegantly, offered them facedown. Doug tweezed one free and held it cupped in both