All the Missing Girls(17)
How the hell did Annaleise get my pictures? She must’ve been in my house. She must’ve been in my room. Who was this girl I’d lived beside for years?
Annaleise was five years younger, and we barely noticed her back then. Noticed her even less because she was a quiet kid, and the times I remembered her, she’d been in that awkward phase between kid and adolescent, skinny and unsure of herself.
This was all I knew of her: Her parents sent her over with food for a solid three months after my mother died, and she never seemed to know what to say when she brought it over, so she never said anything at all; she didn’t have a lot of friends, I didn’t think, because any time I remembered seeing her, she’d been alone; she won that photography contest, but I’d known about it only because Bailey had entered it, too; and she liked strawberry ice cream. Or she liked it enough to be eating it at the county fair ten years ago.
She’d been standing by herself near the entrance as I ran from the Ferris wheel; I hadn’t seen her at first. I’d seen only Tyler, waiting for me. It wasn’t until Daniel hit me so hard that I dropped to my side, until I untwisted my arm and turned my head away and saw her face frozen behind a melting scoop of strawberry ice cream, her tongue still out, halfway up the cone.
I heard a fist collide with flesh—something snap—and I didn’t have to look to know exactly what it was. Annaleise’s ice cream scoop fell off the cone, and she ran out the front entrance. I turned my head the other way in time to see the drops of blood collecting on the ground as Daniel bent over, his hands cupped over his nose, and Tyler cursing to himself, shaking out his hand.
I slid the box back under the bed. But I folded the sketches of Corinne and tucked them inside the laptop. They were almost mine, anyway.
* * *
“NICOLETTE?” EVERETT WAS SITTING on the side of my bed this morning as I stared at the empty space where the pictures once hung on my walls. “What are you doing?”
“Just thinking.” I opened the top drawer and pulled out a change of clothes. I’d hidden the laptop and the sketches in my dad’s closet, along with that damn key, before sneaking back into bed. But his eyes had opened as I slid under the sheets, and I’d felt him staring at the side of my face as I rolled over.
“Did you sleep at all? I woke up, and you weren’t here.”
“A little. I couldn’t get to sleep for a while, so I did some more packing.” I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hoping Everett would drop it.
“I heard you,” he said. He was standing in the doorway, watching me squeeze toothpaste on my toothbrush.
I started brushing my teeth and raised my eyebrows at him, buying myself some time.
“I heard you come in. What were you doing out there?” He gestured through the walls to the woods. Everett grew up in a city where a girl wandering the streets at night wasn’t safe. Where woods were unfamiliar or dangerous or an adventure to be shared with friends and a tent and a six-pack of lukewarm beer.
I spat into the sink and said, “Just taking a walk. Clearing my mind.”
I felt him in the room, taking up space, and I held my breath. He knew how to get to the truth. It was his goddamn job. If he wanted, he could push from every different angle until I cracked in half. He was very good at what he did.
But he let it drop. “I need to spend the morning at the library,” he said. “Can I take the car?” Any time he needed the Internet, he had to go there. This house didn’t even have a phone line.
“No problem. I’ll drop you off.” I watched the water circling the sink drain, my mind on the other side of the trees, searching through Annaleise’s drawings.
Everett was beside me then, and he pulled my chin so I was facing him, the toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. I jerked back. “What?” I said.
His hand dropped, but his gaze held, the corners of his mouth tipping down. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Your eyes are all bloodshot.”
I looked away, put the toothbrush down, and started stripping for the shower, hoping he’d focus on something else.
“You know, you can take something to help. To sleep. We’ll go to the doctor tomorrow.”
In charge. Taking over. Making the plan. Averting the crisis.
The steam slowly began to fill the room. Even as he backed away, he was looking into my eyes.
* * *
I PULLED THE CAR up to the library entrance, which looked like a library only if you knew what you were looking for. It was once a Victorian home, two stories with bay windows and a wraparound porch. It had been partially renovated—walls knocked down to open up the spaces—but the creaky stairs and heavy banister and single bathrooms remained.
“How long do you need?” I asked.
“Sorry, I’ll probably be most of the day. We go to trial next week.”
“Didn’t take the plea?”
He cut his eyes to me. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”
I’m never supposed to know. Didn’t stop me from asking, though. A few nights before I left for here, I was trying to finish all the school counselor documentation for the end of the year. I’d sat across from Everett at the table while he worked, the contents of his briefcase strewn across the entire tabletop. I’d run my fingers across his papers, the highlighted lines, the notes in the margins. “Parlito case?” I’d asked. There was a phone trace he was trying to get thrown out. And if I was reading it right, there was a proposed plea bargain.