Free No Footprints by Susan Dunlap Page A

made her, like, insanely happy last week. Just last week.”
    â€ŸWhat?”
    â€ŸA Campagnolo Mirage.”
    â€ŸShe got a racing bike?” Boy, was that not the answer I’d been expecting. And yet, there’d been a bike on the bridge that was gone after she disappeared. And she’d sure disappeared fast. ‟You saw it?”
    â€Ÿâ€™Course. You don’t leave a bike like that outside, even chained. It was a bitch, though, the way it took up space against the wall over there. Us trying to stack copies, move them, check them, not crash into it. Any other time, like, she’d’ve been going crazy with something impeding a rush
order, but last week she just laughed. She actually said—I would’ve bet real money these words would never come from her mouth—‛If it’s late, it’s late. They’ll live.’ Then she grabbed the bike for a half an hour ride, in the middle of a rush job!”
    â€ŸBut why all of a sudden the bike?”
    â€ŸDidn’t say.”
    â€ŸBut you think . . .?”
    â€ŸI figured it had something to do with college. She’d go on the college website, Dickinson College in some little town in Pennsylvania, and I dunno, it was like somehow the bike connected to it. Like maybe she was getting the bike to go back to school. But, you know, that’s wrong. She was caught up in the college thing, intense about it. But with the bike, she was just happy. It’d make more sense to say she was going to college in order to ride her bike.”
    â€ŸThat’s so weird. It makes no sense. And it won’t until I find her.”
    â€ŸWell, I’m not her keeper. I like Tessa, but I don’t see her outside work. I sure don’t follow her home.”
    â€ŸThere’s got to be something around here with her address on it? Like her pay stub.”
    â€ŸYeah, but she didn’t leave her checks here. She stuck them in her purse like any sane person.”
    â€ŸThere’s got to be something,” I said, desperately. You don’t work with a woman and not at least wonder where she lives. That’s just normal. ‟Oh wait, the owner, he’ll know,” I said triumphantly. ‟How can I find him?”
    â€ŸAre you sure—”
    â€ŸKristi, she tried to kill herself!”
    She hesitated before pulling out a card and handing it to me.
    When I saw it I understood.

12
    Her stomach’s clawing at her innards; it’s the feeling she had before when things went bad, when all that mattered was riding fast. Before, she’d either been starved or stuffed—in food, in life. Back then mornings had started with hangovers and Turkish coffee and ended with who-remembered? The first few miles were always hell till she’d burned through the bad. Then it’d been like sailing.
    She waits now for the end-of-the-hour feel-good story to air. She’s in the repair shop, inches from the TV, leaning forward to punch up the sound. She still can’t believe she’ll get to see it. The ceremony was at 10:00 am. She’d been invited. She’d never have gone anyway, even if she hadn’t had the world’s best reason: Tessa Jurovik regrets she must decline your kind invitation because she will be dead. Now, seeing it on TV will be perfect.
    She is about to see Ginger Rampono walk across the stage.
    The station is coming out of commercial, back to the news set. Three minutes before the hour. Now!
    But there’s no stage, no Ginger, nothing. Just a recap of the headline stories. Didn’t they get the film in time? They had an hour and a half, plenty of time even if they had to drive it back to Oakland through traffic. Maybe—

    She pulls out the phone that isn’t hers, turns it on. There’s another message. She ignores it, gets the station number, hits it in. When the receptionist answers she realizes she doesn’t know who to ask for or how to make them talk to