Riddles at the Bottom of the Pool

The pool behind the Elmwood Apartments hadn't held water in three years. Just a concrete crater gathering leaves and regret. That's where she found me—third night in a row, nursing whiskey from a paper cup, trying to remember why I'd bothered to get out of bed that morning.

"You're the Sphinx," she said, stepping through the gap in the chain-link fence. Her heels clicked against the cracked deck. "Everyone says you know things. Things that help people disappear."

I didn't look up. The cat—a battle-scarred tom with one ear—had taken to sleeping on my jacket. He blinked at her, unimpressed.

"The Sphinx didn't help people disappear," I said. "The Sphinx ate people who couldn't solve riddles. There's a difference."

"My husband's going to kill me." Her voice didn't waver. Just matter-of-fact, like she was remarketing on the weather. "He's got a temper and a life insurance policy with my name on it. I need to be gone by Friday."

I finally looked at her. Thirty-something, expensive clothes, the kind of careful makeup that hides bruises. She'd been sliding down this slope for a long time.

"You're swimming in the wrong pool, lady."

"I have money."

"Money doesn't buy clean breaks. It just buys deeper holes."

The cat stood, stretched, and wound around her ankles. She didn't flinch. That's when I knew she was desperate—animals sense when someone's backed into a corner, same way predators do.

"Please," she said.

The real question wasn't whether I could help her. The real question was whether I wanted to become part of someone else's darkness again. I'd spent years running from my own.

The dog whined from my apartment window upstairs. Old Max, waiting for me to come inside, stop staring into empty pools at women who smelled like trouble.

"There's a motel off I-95," I said. "Room 107 always has vacancies. Cash only, no questions. You can be there in an hour."

She took a card from her purse. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just go before I change my mind."

She left. The cat settled back down on my jacket. I finished the whiskey, thinking about riddles and disappearances and how some people spend their whole lives trying to vanish while others spend theirs trying to be found.

The pool was still empty. But for the first time in years, I thought maybe someday it might hold water again.