Girls Without Tears

by T. L. Finlay

Genres: General Fiction; Small Town & Rural; Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

When six-year-old Skye disappears from Everglades City, Noa is hesitant to return to her hometown to help with the search effort. Skye is the daughter of Noa’s ex, Zack, and Taylor, the girl he dumped her for. Going home also means facing the townspeople who have always misunderstood Noa’s medical condition, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, and dealing with more of their ignorant comments. But returning home is just the beginning of Noa's painful journey. When her childhood friend, Jamie, is assaulted by a vagrant, Noa intervenes in a violent counterattack—and the man’s fingerprints are found near Skye’s DNA. As Noa gets closer to the truth of who kidnapped Skye, she starts to uncover secrets about her hometown that she didn’t expect. Nothing and no one is what they seem in this small Florida backwater—and any good friend can quickly become a deadly enemy.

Release date: August 9, 2022

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

CHAPTER
1

BLOOD IS EVERYWHERE. Splattered on the countertops, the tile flooring, like a horror movie. It streams into the kitchen sink, flowing down dishes and puddling in a glob of congealed duck fat. I haven’t been paying attention, been too consumed in my thoughts. Too busy loading the dishwasher.

I drop the glass back in the sink and scour my hands—right first. Fingers, check. Palm, check. Heart line, sun line, life line—check.

It’s my left hand that’s the problem. My marriage line—the one a palm reader once said would render me a spinster—is no longer a line, but a deep, jagged valley with a red river flowing off my skin.

I’ve sliced my hand wide open.

Grabbing a kitchen towel, I sop my blood-soaked hand and wrap it tightly before navigating to Uber and punching in Miami Regional Hospital as my destination.

Four minutes is all I have before Hilda the Uber driver arrives in her silver Toyota Camry. But my curiosity as to why my kitchen is now painted in blood is piqued, and I retrieve the dropped glass to inspect it.

A lopsided V disrupts the circular flow of the rim, and I gaze into the sink to behold the matching triangle of glass. I hate these cheap glasses from Home Goods. This is the second one that’s broken in the last week.

My phone pings Hilda’s impending arrival, and I haven’t even informed my boss that I’ll be late to work today.

I don’t have time for this.

I wrap a second towel around it, securing it with a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and a flimsy rubber band.

Locking the door to my one-bedroom beach condo with one hand is no easy feat, and I race toward the elevator to avoid a low rating from Hilda. I am nothing if not a courteous rider.

The elevator doors slide open in the lobby, and Vladimir, the maintenance worker, is pushing a cart of groceries with an older lady next to him. “Noa! How are—why your hand is bagged?” he asks in a thick accent.

“I’ll explain later!” I jog through the white marble lobby and past the security desk. The security guard—a ninety-year-old man with an electrolarynx and a Napoleon complex—is fast asleep at his station. I’m sure he’s exhausted from his three AMannouncement over the building’s intercom—assuring the tenants that this is a test, this is only a test—and causing all two thousand of us to shoot straight up in bed with our hearts pounding and ears ringing.

Upon exiting the revolving doors, I pan across the entrance for a silver Camry and spot it at the bottom of the driveway, partially hidden behind some newly planted palm trees. “Good afternoon, Hilda,” I say as I slip into the back seat.

Hilda is a young girl, college age maybe, and she smiles at me in her rearview mirror. “Noa, right? You’re headed to Miami Regional Hospital?” She turns around and starts when she sees my bandaged hand. “Oh, no! What happened to you? You sure you don’t need an ambulance?”

I cradle my hand as she merges back into traffic on A1A. “I’m okay. I cut myself on a broken glass.”

Hilda looks at me in the rearview mirror like I’m a hitchhiker who just wielded a gun. “Doesn’t that hurt? I know cuts like that bleed a lot. Thanks for wrapping it, by the way. I’d hate to have blood all over my car.”

“You’re welcome.”

We’re silent, and I gaze out the window toward the Atlantic Ocean. Parasailers glide through the atmosphere as tourists scoot along the sidewalks on their Segways and locals jog through the sands of South Beach. The pace of the city will soon shift from this leisurely one to speedy and desperate—thanks to the thunderclouds hovering over the ocean like a massive gray ghost. It won’t haunt us for long; storms in Miami are more of a nuisance, lasting ten minutes before the sun returns and erases them from our memories. Hilda says something, but I can’t hear it over the thumping bass of a Bugatti behind us.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I yell.

She rolls down her window to flick him off and purposely slams on her brakes. He lays on his horn and she darts down a side street, passing a bright pink boutique hotel and a parking garage. “Morons in this town. All of them. Miami is full of morons. I asked you why you’re not screaming in pain. I’m getting the heebie-jeebies right now, and you’re acting so calm.”

I chuckle and think to myself, Here we go … “Oh, yeah. That. No, I’m not in pain. I don’t feel pain.”

I shrug when I catch her eye in the rearview mirror again.

“What are you, Wonder Woman?”

No, I tell her, I’m not Wonder Woman. And I launch into the tale of Noa Romwell and Her Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis—or for short, CIPA. It’s a rare condition, I say, where my body just doesn’t feel pain. Nor does it allow me to sweat.

Hilda shakes her head thoughtfully as if pulling herself from a trance. “You don’t feel pain? That’s … amazing. My life would be a lot easier if I didn’t feel pain.”

This is why I generally don’t tell people about my condition. They never understand. I thought Hilda would, though; she has kind, trusting eyes. But kind and trusting doesn’t always translate to empathy.

I breathe deeply before responding. “Most people think that, but it’s not a good thing.” I share with Hilda part two of my story: when I almost died as a toddler because I had an ear infection for two weeks and no one knew. Followed by part three: when I was eleven, I broke my ankle and had no idea. To this day I don’t know how I broke it. But because we didn’t get it set early, I ended up having to have three surgeries on it.

My mother knew of one other woman with CIPA; she met her when I was a toddler, shortly after my diagnosis, at a hospital in Jacksonville during a case study. Her name was Jenny, and they kept in touch for a few years until we learned that Jenny had passed away from a ruptured appendix—she never felt the foreboding pain of appendicitis. It cost her her life.

I watch Hilda, this new information mulling behind her eyes, and I appreciate the small nod it results in. For a moment, a tiny sense of satisfaction settles in my belly.

But then her eyes turn to me in the rearview mirror again, squinting and inquisitive. “So if you can’t feel pain and you can’t produce sweat, does that mean you can’t cry?”

It was a mistake to trust Hilda. People like Hilda think there’s so much about life I don’t understand. I think it’s the other way around. Pain comes in many shapes and sizes. It disguises itself and penetrates senses outside of physical touch, senses most people don’t know exist. I would know. “I do cry. I’m not a robot,” I respond. Ironic, the truth behind those words when they’re spoken so robotically often.

I don’t want to continue this conversation with Hilda, so I take a moment to call my boss. I’m formulating what I should tell her during the handful of rings before I’m sent to her voice mail. “Hi Janna, I have to go to the doctor this morning—kind of an emergency, er, last-minute thing. I’ll be at the office as soon as I’m done. Don’t worry—I’ll be there for our eleven thirty.”

I end the call just as Hilda pulls into the hospital grounds and follows the signs for the ER. “I have so many questions. But we’re here. Run. Don’t walk.” The first round of thunder rumbles overhead.

I thank her and step out into the ominous weather, heading through the doors and toward registration.

The blood. It’s dripping onto my pants now.

---

The seats in the waiting room are plush, upholstered in blue vinyl and connected by a solitary metal pole running along the bottom. I’m seated next to an artificial plant, drinking black coffee from a paper cup. Rain now lashes against the windows in monotonous waves, lightning sporadically illuminating the wind-tossed palm trees. Across from me is a small girl curled up on her father’s lap; she’s shivering. I wonder if it’s because she has a fever or because it’s cold in here. I think—I think—it might be cold in here. But I never know. I can only guess by the weight of the air in my mouth as I breathe it in.

Gauging the temperature by how it tastes. That’s rich! My high school science teacher said that once. I’d have told him that comment hurt me, but no one would believe me. Because, you know, I can’t feel pain and all.

The girl looks miserable, and I hope the nurse calls her back before me. I know emergency rooms cater to the more severe cases, but regardless of how severe my injuries are, my lack of emotion generally bumps me down a few spots on the priority list. Once, a woman claiming to be passing a kidney stone waited for twenty minutes, curled up in a tense ball with tears running down her cheeks. “There’s one person ahead of you,” the nurse said after the woman’s inquiry. That person was me. But when a concussed child came through the doors and was taken immediately to the back, the woman fell to the floor, screaming in pain. That conjured up an RN collecting her in a wheelchair, and her sobbing stopped the moment she was escorted to the back. I waited another half hour before being called.

It’s hard knowing when it’s appropriate to judge someone’s trauma, since thou shalt not judge. But in the ER, a little judgment from the staff is necessary, I suppose. I often wonder when that amendment can trickle into real-life scenarios, too.

The father is snuggling his daughter, his eyes locked complacently on the TV suspended from an adjacent wall. I follow his gaze to a news reporter standing outside an attorney’s office in Coconut Grove, according to the white block letters above the running ticker tape. A mugshot of a dark-haired woman is plastered in the upper left corner of the screen—Attorney Arrested for Forging Divorce Papers.

“… woman was about to remarry when she discovered that her recent divorce was, in fact, not final.”

The screen cuts to a woman—the victim, perhaps, or another attorney—but my phone alarm beeps a cheery tune. I glance at the screen. Restroom break. My finger swipes the phone silent, and I glance toward the restrooms, calculating the odds of going in and possibly missing them calling my name, or ignoring the alarm and potentially peeing myself in the examination room. I’ve never felt the uncomfortable ache of a full bladder, and by the time I feel the pressure, it’s often too late.

“Excuse me,” I say to the father as I stand. “If they call Noa Romwell, will you tell them I’m running into the restroom real quick?”

He nods, and the little girl rolls her head on his chest to look at me with glassy eyes. She’s chewing on her lower lip.

Noa, stop chewing on your lips. Stop! It’s bleeding now!

I catch myself before voicing my mother’s words and move to the restroom. This little girl doesn’t need to be told that. She knows when to stop. Her pain level monitors silly things like how hard to chew your lip before the skin breaks. When to stop biting your nails before tearing into the quick. She knows to move her tongue out of the way before clamping her teeth down. All things I had to manually teach myself.

It takes a little longer than usual in the restroom, thanks to my injured hand. But the extensive stream of urine tells me it’s a good thing I went now. That could’ve been embarrassing. When I return from the restroom, the girl and her father are gone. I sit back next to my stale coffee and continue watching the breaking news. Tara Alonso, twenty counts of criminal charges, nine Florida Bar discipline cases, and I’m wondering who decided this constitutes breaking news. Then for the second time during this news segment, my phone interrupts.

It’s my father calling. I consider my phone as it dances and jingles in my lap. He never calls. We aren’t estranged, but we aren’t entirely close, either. Thankfully, the door to the corridor opens and a pair of scrubs stands in the doorway. “Noa? Romwell?”

I silence my phone and beeline toward the nurse.

---

I’ve just pulled into the parking garage of my office now, complete with Dermabond, a stack of discharge papers, and a prescription for Extra Strength Tylenol that I crumpled up and threw in the back seat the moment I stepped into my car. I stopped telling ER doctors about my CIPA ten years ago when I was eighteen; they either don’t believe that I can’t feel pain, or they want to run a series of random tests to satisfy their own curiosity—but the only thing that ends up satisfied is my high deductible.

It’s closing in on eleven AM, and I’m intensely aware of a meeting in thirty minutes. My company, Thompson-Miller Corporation, just signed a multi-million-dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Transportation to be the official public relations firm for the road construction project on the Florida Turnpike in south Miami-Dade district six, which includes northern connections to the 878 highway heading east toward U.S. 1 and a westbound extension for Kendall residents to commute daily to downtown Miami. This project will take four years, and we will be the medium between the public and the eleven contractors who will make it happen.

My boss is designating a single public information officer for this project. This person is responsible for overseeing the subcontractors and enforcing equal employment opportunities as well as facilitating public meetings with companies and motorists affected by the construction, writing press releases and handling the media, monitoring safety hazards and implementing protection regulations, all with a smile and an enormous paycheck—double what I’m making now. And I’m a shoo-in.

I can’t stop smiling. This morning’s incident would normally cause a micro-type of spiral, where the reminder of my condition would crawl into my head and nestle like a parasite, effectively ruining my day. On the contrary, I’m about to walk into work now feeling as optimistic as ever.

I’m striding toward the elevator when my phone vibrates in my purse, and I stop to pull it out. My father is calling again. I’d missed a second call from him while the doctor was gluing my hand; this makes three. I’m tempted to frown, as my father has never even called me three times in a year, let alone in one morning, but I can’t jinx this optimism. Whatever his news is can wait—and can serve to rival the news of my promotion when I return his calls later.

And so, because the third time’s the charm (I need all the luck I can get right now), I raise a Dermabond-laden hand and hit decline.

CHAPTER
2

AS AN ONLY child growing up, I entertained an imaginary friend. Her name was Millie, and she was my big sister. I pretended that we looked alike and dressed alike, only she was a bit taller because she was a year older.

Millie was my conscience of sorts. I always listened to her, because Millie was wise. She was the one who taught me how to react to others’ pain.

I was in first grade when I watched a girl fall from the monkey bars. I remember the loud crack her body made when she hit the ground. To me, it was louder than her screams that followed.

The second thing I remember is the odd bend in her arm when she rolled over. The incongruous bow in her forearm reminded me of the coral snake my dad found in our backyard after it had just swallowed a palm rat.

But most importantly, I noticed everyone’s reactions: the boy who screamed, “Oh my gosh!” and ran away, the girls who cried and covered their eyes, and the teachers who tried to hide their panic by telling everyone else to “remain calm.”

I watched the chaos quietly as I stood over the crying girl, drinking it all in like I was some sort of tragedy critic. Until a playground attendant grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. “Did you push her off the monkey bars?” she asked harshly.

Shocked, I simply shook my head.

She asked if I was lying, then angled me toward the building and said, “Well then, don’t just stand there! Go get the principal! Run!”

I sprinted through the halls, my mind baffled because she blamed me. Why me?

“Because you didn’t act like everyone else. You just stood there like you didn’t care,” Millie whispered to me.

By the time I was back at the monkey bars with the principal, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I felt ashamed for not helping sooner, for not understanding her pain. Millie taught me that day about sympathy.

I also learned that people react vicariously to pain. So throughout the years, I’ve taught myself to wince when someone falls, to gasp if someone bangs their head, to say “Ouch! Are you okay?” to the kid who falls off a bike. The judgmental stares have dissipated.

Then I started doing it for myself, when those same judgments started manifesting through people who witnessed my CIPA firsthand. I’d flinch when a doctor poked and prodded at my skin, shake my hand while inhaling through gritted teeth when I’d catch my finger in a door, and swear when I’d stub my toe.

Sometimes I feel like my whole life is a game of charades. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Pretending is what I do, lest I be judged.

I don’t remember how old I was when I let Millie fade away. I’m not sure why I conjured her up as a child, whether from debilitating loneliness or a wild imagination. But I owe my game face all to her.

I’m wearing that face, I realize, as I stand outside my boss’s office at 11:29. It’s the moment of truth. I’ve worked at Thompson-Miller for six years and am the epitome of working one’s way up the ladder. I work directly for Janna Miller, the co-owner who runs central and southern Florida while Madison Thompson works out of Tallahassee and oversees the northern districts into the panhandle.

Prior to stepping into Janna’s office, I tug on the crotch of my trousers and brush off my blazer. I feel the plasticky Dermabond when my hand forms a fist. I’m wondering how much of my ER trip I should reveal to Janna when I feel a hand squeeze my shoulder.

“Good luck” is whispered in my ear, and I turn to see Shelby Seville brisking down the hall, smiling at me over her shoulder. She seems genuine enough. She’s also applied for the position, but she’s only been working here two years and does mainly administrative work.

“Thanks,” I whisper back—mostly for obligatory condolences. I turn back to the door and focus on my breathing.

My knuckles rap three quick times before I enter, and Janna is seated at her desk in front of a wall of windows showcasing the business district of Brickell in downtown Miami.

“Noa! You’re here!” she gushes as she stands and greets me with the standard cheek kiss. “Have a seat. Everything went well at the doctor’s office?”

I lower into a chair as she moves back behind her desk and retrieves a manila folder. “Oh! Yes, I’m fine, thank you. Just cut my hand, but it ends up it wasn’t as bad as it looked.” I flash my injured hand nonchalantly before falling silent, my back rigid and the hems of my pants quivering with nerves. Janna is the only person in Miami who knows about my condition, and that’s because I had to disclose it to her when filling out insurance forms. She tends to forget about it, which is fine with me, and I feel like it’s slipped her mind even now, because she doesn’t bring it up.

“I know we’ve been discussing this opportunity for a while …” Janna puts her glasses on and pushes a rogue strand of gray hair behind her ear as she surveys the contents of the folder. “You know what I think of you, Noa. You’ve been an outstanding employee. Your performance reviews have exceeded expectations for the last six years. You’ve implemented an optimal communication strategy between federal and municipal agencies, and you’ve formed strong, professional relationships with some of the biggest engineering and construction companies in Florida.”

“Thank you,” I say when she pauses.

Her eyes drop back down to the folder. “I would give you this position in a heartbeat. However …”

Both my jaw and my stomach drop.

“Madison and the shareholders disagree.”

“But why?” My voice shakes on those two simple words.

“This particular project is very … how do I say this … intense. It involves at least twenty hours a week on site, which you know is very dangerous. To be present at a construction site with angry motorists, comprehensive machinery, and accidents waiting to happen—not to mention the hours spent in the hot sun—they’re not sure you’re cut out for this with, you know, your … condition.” One corner of her mouth melts toward a frown.

I’m shocked that Madison Thompson, whom I’ve met once, even knows this information—let alone remembers it more effectively than my own boss. “I—but you know accidents can happen to anyone. I’m no more prone to an accident than the next person, and it’s actually a bonus because even if it’s hot or uncomfortable out there, I won’t even feel it! Ha! I can just keep on working!” I thrust my hands out like an infomercial model, telling myself this is not really happening.

Janna smiles sadly and closes her eyes. “I know you would continue plowing through even if your head fell off. But, Noa … they’re thinking of the liability. Even with your neon vest and your construction hat, imagine if you simply stumbled on some broken asphalt and sprained a wrist—you might not know for days! It’s … our attorneys mentioned—”

“You think I would sue you?”

Her hands come up defensively. “No. I don’t think that. I fought for you, Noa. I wanted you to have this position just as much as you did. But there are other criteria … Madison and the shareholders think it’s best to keep you away from potential hazards.”

I slouch in the most unprofessional manner. “So if someone else goes out there and gets hurt, it’s okay? Is this even legal? Isn’t this discrimination?” My voice is escalating, I know.

“You need to let me finish. We have a counteroffer for you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What is it?”

Janna sighs and rubs her forehead with an index finger. “I want you involved on this project. I want you to coordinate all the meetings and document EEO time logs, draft all the press releases, and handle all the office work that generally goes to the PIO.” She flips her wrist like she’d just abolished world hunger. “And you can work from home, if you want. For the next four years. Ten percent pay increase. How’s that sound?”

I blink. “So basically I’m a receptionist? I’m doing the public information officer’s bitch work? For half the pay of the public information officer?”

She drops her head and exhales loudly through her nose. “Noa … The stockholders denied your application. I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry.”

My hands grate against my face, and I drag them down until my skin is stretched and I look like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. “Who’s getting the position?”

She hesitates. “Off the record? Shelby Seville.”

It takes everything I am not to jump up and scream. “She’s only been here two years. Hasn’t even done any PIO work,” I say to the floor. “She’s the goddamn event planner.”

“What if I rally for you and Shelby to do it together? Huh? How’s that sound? You both can be PIOs for this project. I’ll request a twenty percent pay increase, and I’ll get you a corporate credit card. Maybe even a company car. What do you think?”

Twenty percent as opposed to double the salary is laughable. A credit card and a car are pointless if I’m working from home. She’s grasping at straws, and this conversation is over. I stand and finagle with my long, brunette ponytail. “That sounds great, Janna. Thanks.”

She’s quiet as I walk out the door.

---

Let’s meet for dinner, beautiful.

I met Hector at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival last month in February, and a text from him is the only thing that could get me to smile today. I relish this smile, shutting my eyes and rolling my head back. Where do you want to go? I respond.

Ch’i in Brickell City Centre.

Asian fusion cuisine. I could go for that. A glance at the wall clock in my office reveals it’s 4:53. Almost the end of this horrible day. ...