"Have you heard about the beached wolf?"


    "Beached wolf?"


    "It''s the wolf that doesn’t howl at the moon at night. Instead, it sits cross-legged on the beach, just beside the crashing waves, and stares into the sunset."


    I stared blankly at her face. Most of what she said that day didn’t make sense. At least, not in the moment. In hindsight, I could almost make out her story.


    "And what does this beached wolf do there?" I asked, waiting for a refill.


    Business was on the decline. The bar was usually empty. I was her only regular left. I always felt she was letting it die down on purpose. If I asked, she’d laugh in my face. But now that I think about it, I must have been right. She was letting it all sink, slowly, slowly floating toward the inevitable end.


    "That’s the end of the story, Mill," she said, serving me a cocktail. "No questions accepted."


    I sighed, watching her mix the drink with a vacant stare. I knew she wasn’t going to answer anything I asked that day, but I couldn’t help being full of questions.


    "How’d it go, Cynthia?" I dared. "At court today?"


    I’ve always had this horrible habit of being inconsiderate at the worst times.


    "Why don’t you just drink, Mill?" She tried to force a smile.


    "Well, it’s not like you’ve got anyone else to entertain," I muttered, never holding back my snide remarks.


    And I knew she hated that word—entertain. It made her sound like a showgirl. She wasn’t. She was just a bar mama.


    "And I’m not obligated to answer you either, Mill."


    She was furious. I could tell. I figured court hadn’t gone well. She’d divorced and lost custody of her child. I knew she did it on purpose, so I couldn’t see what was there to be so stressed about. She felt she couldn’t give her daughter a good life. But I think, more than anything, she was afraid of what people had to say about her. Having her daughter hear it must have been the last thing she wanted.


    "Look, I’m sorry, Mama. Why don’t you sit and have a drink with me? I know you’re mad, but let’s just talk, okay?" I smiled, trying to loosen her up.


    Despite everything, I didn’t believe in anything. I was new in town, and she’d been nothing but good to me. At first, I couldn’t understand all the crass comments about her, but then I remembered—she was a woman.


    In her youth, which wasn’t more than a couple of years gone, she had worked as an escort. She never told me when I asked, but I gathered she was a runaway. Her parents lived in the country. Clearly, she wasn’t happy with them.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    At some point, she got married and settled down—until her separation about two years ago. After that, she opened this bar and moved to this small part of town. Six months ago, when I arrived here after being appointed lead investigator in a case, business was still fairly good for her. I wondered what changed.


    "He’s not wrong about anything," she muttered, smoking as she sat next to me. "He’s always been right. I knew that."


    "Did you get a lawyer?"


    "No," she exhaled. "I figured it’s better this way."


    "Why?"


    "You don’t get it, Mill. It’s just this life. You’ve heard it all, haven’t you?" She hung her head.


    "Cynthia, I mean... really, why? You know you can just leave," I pressed her shoulder.


    She remained motionless, just smoking away until the cigarette burned down to the end.


    "You know... I was working in a host club somewhere in Kowloon. I was young then, I suppose. But I was broke. And a total bumpkin. I knew nothing. So I did the one thing anybody could do. I talked. That’s all I did all day. I talked to people, I laughed at their jokes, I poured their drinks... I guess I was fine with that." She chuckled weakly. "The club was right at the edge of the red-light district. We didn’t offer that service, but... there was a place right in front of us. When I was done working, I would just stare at it from the dressing room window upstairs."


    She paused. I sipped my drink.


    "I’d see these women... you know the type... most days, they’d just come out for a smoke or something. Disheveled sometimes, but always made up. I knew the kind of business they were in, of course. And I thought about how miserable they looked. Always." She lifted her head, staring at the wine cabinet behind the counter. "And I would wonder why they wouldn’t just leave. You know, if they just crossed the road, they could be on my side—the cleaner side. How hard could it be, right?"


    My glass was empty. She noticed but didn’t feel like getting up. I didn’t mind.


    "They would just smoke there and breathe what little air the Earth left for them, and then they’d disappear behind the neon lights of that shabby little place. I couldn’t understand. But I think... I do now."


    "Cynthia..." I paused for a good long while. "It might have been true for them, but it’s not for you. You’re still on the clean side."


    "Some days, I’m not so sure. I don’t feel it. I try to think, and I can’t remember if there was a road running between those two places or if I’m just imagining it. Maybe we were on the same side all that time. Maybe I was looking in the mirror."


    I watched the ice melt in my empty glass. She lit another cigarette, pressing it between her lips, hurriedly sucking in the smoke, as if trying to burn her insides.


    "You know that’s not true," I said.


    She seemed as lost as always.


    "It doesn’t matter, Mill," she smirked. "You know the holy church doesn’t hold funerals for our kind."


    "You aren’t Christian, are you?" I furrowed my brows.


    "I can buy God, Mill, but I can’t buy religion." She shifted her focus. "Besides, you know what we’re made of."


    "I wish you’d have a little more faith, at least," I smirked, asking for a refill.


    She was already behind the counter, fixing something up for me.


    "Right? Now there’s an itch you just can’t scratch, can you?" She grinned.


    Of course, I refused to believe it was a suicide. The evidence was there, sure, but I couldn’t accept it. If someone had sucked the ocean dry and I’d walked the entire seabed and seen for myself everything that it hid, then perhaps I could be convinced.


    As it stood, I was in complete denial.


    She''d left her bar that night after her court hearing. I waited for a few days but she didn''t show up. The bar remained close. I''d just stand outside of it, waiting for her, perhaps. Even though I was well aware she wasn''t coming back.


    I think I knew it when she talked about those girls in the red light district. I know I was the one that proposed it to her, but I should have been able to tell that she didn''t want anything in her life more than leaving.


    Escape is bittersweet. What we can’t stand the idea of is someone missing us so much, they wait outside our bars for hours, every evening.


    "What’s the problem then, Mill? All her stuff’s on the beach. It’s that famous suicide spot. And she set her shoes aside, all neat and tidy. Clearly a—"


    "It sounds like a load of bullshit to me, is what the problem is, Hick", my fellow investigator insisted I close the case, but I wanted every inch of the water laid out before me.


    "You''re not sending the divers in again, are you?", he was probably just sick of the weather.


    "I am. If there''s no body, there''s no suicide. We won''t issue a death certification. No one''s dead", I smoked the cigarettes that I''d snatched from her that night at the bar.


    "Well, she''s been missing for a few days, now. This all adds up. I don''t know why you''re obstructing police work, I mean, c''mon, you gotta understand", he patted down his thin wisp of hair that had been left at the mercy of the winds.


    "This one time, Hick", I patted his shoulder, getting quite sick of him, "I''m not giving this up."


    He shook his head, staring at me blankly, mumbling whatnot, and then making his way down towards the diving team. They were going in one more time. I suppose you could say, I wanted to see them return empty handed. I wanted to know I was right.


    I saw the storm brewing at the horizon. One more dive was all we were gonna get. I couldn''t stand the idea of letting her get away with this. I wasn''t gonna stand for a beached wolf.


    Her image rolled every which way inside my head as I kept trying to figure it out. Then I remembered what she''d said to me that night and froze, my shoulders slumped, listlessly waiting for the storm to come and swallow me.


    "Right? Now there’s an itch you just can’t scratch, can you?"