Travis Kasperbauer smoked all the time.
He smoked when he was bored. He smoked when he was angry. He smoked when he woke up in the mornings. He smoked when he was feeling uninspired. He smoked when he was sad. He smoked when he couldn’t sleep. He smoked when he was stressed. He smoked when he was hungry. He smoked when he was cold.
Most of all, though, Travis smoked when he was anxious.

He had been chain smoking outside of Casa de Waffles for nearly half an hour. He had already gone through eight cigarettes, and was about to light up his ninth when Missy gave him the look.
“Okay. I think you’ve had enough,” she said as though he was consuming whiskey rather than smoke.
Travis stared down at the little stick of tobacco in his hand. He knew he was just stalling. He kept trying to imagine what he would do if he saw the man who attacked him, but he genuinely had no clue.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he said softly.
“Don’t be a pussy,” said Missy. “He may not be there. Hell, he may not even be your guy. But you have to know for sure, right?”
Travis nodded, sliding the cigarette behind his ear for safekeeping.
“Fine,” he sighed.

It was about noon, just in time for the lunch rush, so the place was packed. As Travis scanned the room for his attacker, a familiar voice called his name.
“Travis Kasperbuer. What are you, a smoker now?”
He followed the voice to a nearby booth where Bridget sat with some guy he didn’t recognize.
“Yeah I guess,” he replied, still surveying the restaurant.
“That’s hot,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “Where’d you run off to yesterday? We were having such a good conversation,” she said with a sort of pouty-face.
“Were we?” Travis asked. He genuinely didn’t remember speaking to her.
Missy snorted a little laugh.
“Missy. How good to see you,” Bridget said flatly.
“Likewise,” Missy replied. “And who is this?” She motioned at the man sitting next to Bridget.
“Oh. This is Mike. He’s a graphic design major. Mike, these are my friends Missy and Travis.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mike nodded.
Then Travis saw her. The woman who made a scene when that bus stalled out on Poplar a few months ago. Two enormous, gold door knocker earrings hung from her ears, just like Kindra described.
“Shaniqua,” he whispered.
“What?” Mike asked, confused.
“Who?” Bridget said.
“Is that her?” Missy asked, following his gaze.
Travis nodded and walked away. Missy followed.
“Seriously?” Bridget said. “Again?”

Travis took a seat at the counter. Missy sat beside him.
Shaniqua passed by them at least three times before Travis found the courage to speak to her.
“What can I do you for?” She asked once he finally flagged her down.
“Weird question,” he said pulling his sketchbook from his backpack. “Do you recognize this man?” He held up one of his lighter, less disturbing sketches.
Shaniqua squinted at the picture for a second and then nodded confidently.
“Yeah, I know him. That’s James, James Reid. He works in the kitchen. Why?”
Travis shot Missy a nervous look. “Is he here? Could I speak to him please?”
“Sure thing.” Shaniqua smiled and walked into the kitchen. A few moments later, she opened the door, pointed to Travis, and continued with her duties.
The man, who actually looked more like a boy now that his face was fully visible, approached the counter, wiping his hands on his apron. When he looked up, he froze.
Neither he or Travis spoke for a while, so Missy, of course, took the liberty to start the conversation herself.
“Hi. You don’t know me, but I think you may know my friend, here. His name is Travis and I’m pretty sure you beat the shit out of him twice in the same day a few months ago. Correct me if I’m wrong,” she began. “I also think you may have something to do with the kidnapping of a little orphan girl. Laney, is it?”
Travis nodded, still locked in a stare-down with James.
“Anyway, James, Travis has had a really rough time since then. He gets these killer headaches pretty often and has terrible nightmares almost every night. Were you aware that you gave him a concussion? You must have hit him pretty fuckin’ hard. Then there’s the sprained wrist and dislocated shoulder, but we can address those later. At least all of the bruises and scratches have healed.” Missy leaned back in her bar stool and sighed.
“So here’s the thing: you can either turn yourself in to the police for kidnapping and assault–maybe if you plead guilty your sentence won’t be too long–or you can do nothing and wait for the cops to show up at your house with a warrant for your arrest. It’s completely up to you.”
James stood paralyzed before them looking so much smaller and weaker than Travis remembered. Maybe it was the change in environment or attire. Maybe Travis just imaged him bigger and more ominous. Regardless, the terrified look on his face almost made Travis feel bad for him.
“Please,” said James. “Let me explain.”
Missy nodded, giving him a look that said ‘I’m waiting.’
“...let me explain somewhere less crowded,” he clarified.
Travis and Missy agreed and followed James around to the side of the building. Travis half expected him to whip out a gun and blow their brains out, but no such gun appeared.
Instead, James leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He looked like he was trying to phrase something in his head but it wasn’t sounding right. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Laney is my sister,” he said.
Travis’s jaw actually dropped.
“I was just released from juvi about five months ago. Now that I’m 18, I don’t have to go back to that godforsaken orphanage, but I couldn’t just leave Laney there,” he said. “I had to get her out. She’s better off with me anyway, I’m the only family she’s got left––”
“Wait wait wait wait,” Missy interrupted. “Why were you in prison?”
James sighed. “I was fifteen. I was stupid...” he began. Missy rolled her eyes. “I tried to rob Ray’s Liquor store down on Sobchack Street. I just wanted to get some money so Laney and I could run away, but...” he trailed off.
“But you got caught,” Travis said.
“Right,” James nodded, staring down at his hands. Travis could hear the shame in his voice.
Then he looked up at Travis with those piercing light brown eyes. He didn’t need to say anything–his expression said it all–but he went on anyway.
“I’m so sorry for... for attacking you, I guess. For everything,” he confessed. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t let anyone find out about Laney. I had to make it look like she really disappeared. I didn’t think anyone would try all that hard to find her.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t think anybody cared.”
Travis looked away. It occurred to him that he never actually knew Laney, that he got involved with her disappearance more for himself than for her. He recognized that he had been so bored with his life that he would have done just about anything to stray from his daily routine, to experience something new. Laney’s disappearance was the perfect opportunity.
“Wait a second,” Missy said, interrupting Travis’s thoughts. “Where is Laney now?”
James sighed. “In the shed behind the old sawmill theater, where you found me” he looked at Travis. Before anyone could react, he continued. “I know, she’s way too young to be by herself like that, but I don’t have any other options. As soon as I get some money saved up, we’re out of here. We’ll go some place where she won’t have to hide in a locked shed all day, some place with a real school for her to go to with real, teachers, not a bunch of crazy nuns.” He looked almost like he was in pain as he spoke. “You’ve got to understand, I hate that it’s like this for her. She was only three when I got arrested, so she barely knows me. This is going to be her first memory of me.”

“Where did you get that?” Travis Kasperbauer snatched the drawing from her hand.
Missy glared at him. “This is really weird, Travis.”
“It’s also none of your business,” he snapped, rolling up the paper into a tube.
“Actually, as your friend and roommate, it kind of is my business if you’ve been obsessively sketching some guy who attacked you four months ago.” She stood up. “I’m no psychologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s unhealthy.”
Travis ran his fingers through his sloppy hair. He always did that when he was frustrated. Or nervous. Or embarrassed. This time, though, he accidentally ripped out a few hairs in the process. He didn’t appear to notice. “You’re right, you aren’t a psychologist, so stop trying to psychoanalyze me––”
“233,” she said bluntly. “That’s how many drawings of this guy you have in your room. 233. Now tell me that’s not a little weird to you.”
“Shut up! You don’t understand...”
“So talk to me! Tell me what’s going on! How am I supposed to understand if you won’t let me?”
Travis paced around the little room, trying to figure out what to say. Missy waited patiently.
“I... I... it’s just that...” Travis was panicking. He couldn’t explain what was going on with him because he didn’t understand it himself. As he paced, he felt his palms begin to sweat, which only made him more conscious of the growing silence in the room. He looked up and, seeing Missy still staring at him, immediately looked away again. Her eyes were like lasers boring into the side of his head. His pulse picked up and his toes tingled. He thought he might pass out, and almost wished he would.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Travis sighed with relief.
“I’ll get it,” he said abruptly. Missy rolled her eyes.

The woman on the other side of the door looked about as stressed as Travis felt. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily. It then occurred to Travis that his apartment was on the top floor and just about everyone looked like that once they climbed all 12 flights of stairs to get there. Still, her presence comforted him somehow.
“Are you Travis?” She asked flatly.
Then he recognized her.
“Kindra,” he said.
“Yes. You have my wallet?”
“Yeah,” he unzipped his backpack. “It’s in here somewhere.”
Nobody said anything for a moment, so Kindra spoke up. “I feel like such an idiot. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was on my way to the airport. But you can’t get very far there without an ID, so it didn’t take me long to figure out that I had lost it,” she said as Travis rummaged through the bag. “I’m just glad someone like you found it instead of some creepy guy––”
Kindra was interrupted when Travis’s sketchbook suddenly fell out of his backpack and hit the floor. It landed open, revealing yet another sketch of the dark, hooded man.
“...like him,” Kindra joked, pointing at the picture.
Nobody laughed, though. Instead, Travis avoided Missy’s glare as he hurriedly scooped up the book.
“Oh, there’s more?” Missy spat. “Because 233 isn’t enough.”
Travis fumbled with the book, trying to shove it back into his bag, but Missy snatched it from him. Kindra, confused, just watched.
“Oh my god. This is so not okay,” Missy said as she flipped through the book, seeing that Travis had drawn some variation of the attacker’s face on every page.
“Stop! Give it back!” Travis reached for the book, but Missy pushed his hand away.

To Kindra, the scene resembled one of those big-brother-little-brother fights where the big brother holds something above the little brother’s head, knowing he is too short to reach it, but the kid keeps jumping anyway. It was a little bizarre that Missy, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, played the role of the big brother, while Travis, who couldn’t have been less than six feet tall, played that of the little brother, but she said nothing.

A ridiculous game of tug-of-war ensued, which resulted in Travis accidentally ripping out a few of the pages and scattering them through the air.
Catching one, Kindra examined the man in the drawing. “Who is this?” She asked without diverting her eyes from the page.
Forgetting that they had a guest, Travis and Missy froze at the sound of her voice.
“What did you say?” Missy asked, casually brushing her messy hair back into place with her free hand.
Kindra looked up. “Who is this guy? He looks really familiar.”
Travis and Missy exchanged a skeptical look. “I don’t know his name. He attacked me a few months ago,” Travis said. “So I’ve kind of been drawing him a lot lately.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Missy mumbled under her breath.
“Shut up,” Travis elbowed Missy in the ribs and turned back to Kindra. “Do you know him?”
“Not personally,” Kindra replied. “But I’ve definitely seen him before...” She continued to study the picture. Nobody spoke. Then she looked up, a look of recognition on her face.
“I think he works at Casa de Waffles,” she said softly, not entirely confident in her statement. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him and Shaniqua talking there.”
Kindra noticed the similar confused expressions on their faces and, realizing neither of them knew Shaniqua, she clarified. “Shaniqua is a friend of mine who works there. She’s the tall, black woman who always wears those giant, gold door-knocker earrings. You can’t miss her.”
Travis and Missy stared at each other.
Assuming that they were a couple, Kindra thought they were doing that annoying mind-reading thing couples sometimes do.
And although they most certainly were not a couple, they did actually exchange a sort of are-you-thinking-what-I’m-thinking look.
“Uhh, can I have my wallet back?” Kindra interrupted the silent conversation.
“Oh, sorry,” Travis said. He dug through his backpack once more and quickly pulled out the wallet. “Here.”
“Thank you so much. And this is yours.” She handed him the drawing. “Good luck with... that, I guess.”
“Thanks,” Travis replied, attempting a friendly smile.
Kindra left, closing the door behind her. She stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to take in what she just witnessed.
“Strange people,” she said to herself.
Then she walked away.

Three months had passed and there was still no sign of Laney.
Travis Kasperbauer did go to the police station back in December to report the attack, but the woman who he spoke to didn’t seem that interested. The next week, he learned from Vinny Johnson that the police officially closed the investigation without ever having pursued his lead.

Missy encouraged him to keep trying, to keep working with Vinny to find the little girl, but Travis had had enough. He started getting headaches all the time, probably from the concussion, and no amount of Asprin could make them go away. The nightmares he had about that day woke him up almost every night, so he just stopped going to sleep altogether. He stayed up for days at a time, consuming nothing but coffee and Red Bull until he finally crashed again. He did most of his sleeping in class, and he would have flunked out of Character Design II if Missy hadn’t covered for him all the time. He also took up smoking and could go through a pack a day on weekends. He left the apartment only to buy more cigarettes and go to class; whenever he needed anything, he either ordered it on the internet or made Missy go get it.
She knew Travis was going through a hard time, so she didn’t mind picking up a few extra items at the grocery store, but his behavior was really starting to worry her. This was not the Travis she knew, not the Travis she used to watch Deadliest Warrior with on Friday nights because neither of them had plans. This kidnapping business had changed him.
The worst part, though, was his obsession with his attacker.

One day in late March, as Travis dozed off in his illustration class, Missy worked on a painting back at the apartment. She reached for her sable brush but couldn’t find it, so, knowing Travis had one, she ventured into his room for the first time since the attack.

One thing you should know about Missy is that she is not easily scared. She laughs at horror films, keeps her eyes open on roller coasters, and never, ever screams. Ever.

But when she opened the door to Travis’s room, a weak little scream escaped her mouth. Not loud enough for any neighbors to hear, but a scream nonetheless.
Nearly every surface in the room was covered with sketches of the same hooded man. Though some aspects of the image changed subtly from sketch to sketch–shading, stroke size, etc.– the eyes remained the same: dark, intense, and angry.


Meanwhile in Illustration class, Travis had woken up from his nap when Bridget took a seat beside him. For some reason, she had recently developed an interest in him again. He noticed, but didn’t really care. That’s how he felt about a lot of things lately; he just couldn’t make himself care.
And when Bridget started talking to him, he couldn’t make himself listen, either. Instead, he drew a picture.
He was sitting alone on a little island only big enough for some palm trees and a hammock. With a cold Miller Highlife in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Travis admired the magnificent sunset before him.
The picture was simple and seemed somewhat empty, but Travis liked it that way. He thought to himself: If I ever have the chance to go on a vacation, this is what I want to do. I want to be alone on a beach where no one can bother me or attack me or give me stupid homework assignments. More than anything, I want to get away from all of this and just be.
Bridget was still talking when his cell phone buzzed, waking him up from his daydream. He had two missed calls and a text from Missy. The text read: 
 

Call me when you get this. I really need to talk to you.

That’s my cue, Travis thought. My excuse to leave.
He grabbed his sketchbook, swung his backpack over his shoulder, and walked out of the classroom.
For the first time since she sat down next to him, Bridget was silent. She had been telling Travis how much she missed him and their late-night conversations, how he was so observant and such a good listener, how she really loved that about him.
But he didn’t hear a word she said.

As Travis stepped onto the bus, a woman named Kindra Lee stepped off. He didn’t know her name was Kindra Lee, though, until he sat on her wallet.
Before he could call after her, the bus jerked forward. As he watched her walk away, he noticed something slightly peculiar: she was carrying a cell phone and a pack of cigarettes and nothing else. Travis tried to think of a time when he saw a woman in public with so few possessions, but he drew a blank.
Odd, he thought.
Examining her driver’s license more thoroughly, he was pleasantly surprised to see that she also lived in Castle Apartments, so returning the wallet to her would be easy.

Travis knocked on the door of apt. #7083 and waited. No response. He knocked again, this time more loudly, and once more heard no response.
He then ripped a sheet out of his sketchbook and wrote:

Kindra,
I found your wallet on the bus. Just come up to apt. #1212 to pick it up when you get this.

-Travis K.

He folded the paper, slipped it under the door, and continued up the stairs.
During the two minutes it took him to get to the 12th floor, he wondered why Missy needed to talk to him. She never had anything to say that was so important that it couldn’t wait until he got out of class.
Once he entered the apartment, though, it didn’t take him long to figure it out.