All the Missing Girls(28)

“I already stopped by the police station on the way here. Delivered the paperwork and demanded they cease all questioning with your father, pending evaluation.”

I felt my entire body relax, my muscles turning languid. “Oh, God, I love you.”

He stood in the middle of the living room, taking it all in: the boxes stacked around the dining room and foyer, the rickety table and the screen door that creaked. The floor that had seen better days, the furniture that had been awkwardly pulled away from the walls for painting. And me. He was definitely looking at me. I pressed my palms to my hips to keep them still.

“I told you I’d take care of it,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

And then it was just Everett and me in this place I thought he’d never see, and I wasn’t sure what to do next.

His eyes skimmed over me one more time. “It’ll be okay, Nicolette.”

I nodded.

“Are you okay?”

I tried to imagine what he must be seeing: me, a mess. I hadn’t showered since yesterday, and I’d been digging through closets all night. I’d had way too much coffee, and my hands kept shaking if they weren’t holding on to something. “It’s been stressful,” I said.

“I know. I could hear it in your voice yesterday.”

“Oh, crap, don’t you have work?” What day was it again? Thursday? No, Friday. Definitely Friday. “How did you get away?”

“I brought it with me. I hate to do this, but I’ll be working most of the weekend.”

“How long are you staying?” I asked, brushing by him to drag his suitcase—bigger than an overnight bag—away from the screen door.

“We’ll see your dad’s doctors today, and hopefully they’ll have the papers we need by Monday. But I’ll have to go after that.”

I thought of the notebooks in the vents. The door that wouldn’t lock. The missing people, then and now. “We should stay in a hotel. This place has no air, and you’re going to hate it.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “The nearest hotel is at least twenty--five miles away.” So he had checked, and he wasn’t counting the budget motel that definitely had vacancy on the road between this town and the next.

“So, show me the place,” he said.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to. I shrugged, marginalizing the house and all it represented—no longer thinking, That’s my dad’s chair, and my mom’s table, that once belonged to my grandparents, that she stripped down and refinished—instead turning it into a box of wood, trying to see it through Everett’s eyes.

“It isn’t much. Dining room, living room, kitchen, laundry. Bathroom down that hall and a porch out back, but the furniture’s gone and the mosquitoes are killer.”

Everett looked like he was searching for a place to put his laptop, specifically, the dining room table. “Here,” I said, shuffling the receipts and papers into piles, scooping things up and dumping them into the kitchen drawers I’d just emptied.

He put his laptop on the cleared table, along with his accordion-style briefcase. “Can I work here?”

“Sure. But there’s no Internet.”

He made a face, then picked up a receipt I’d missed—Home Depot, the nearly illegible date highlighted in bright yellow—and frowned at it.

I took it from his hands and balled it up like it was inconsequential. “Nobody’s lived here in over a year. Kind of wasteful to pay for Internet.” Not to mention we didn’t have an Internet line before that. Around here, service cut in and out from the satellite if there was an inkling of bad weather, and it wasn’t worth the annoyance for my dad. Most everyone could check email on a phone, but only one service provider worked, and it wasn’t Everett’s. “You could use the library? It’s near the police station. Not too far. I could drive you.”

“This is fine, Nicolette. But maybe we can hit the library on the way to see your dad, so I can send a file.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I’m here to see you,” he said. “Not sit in a library. I missed you.”

Now that he mentioned it, we hadn’t been apart for this long. Not like we went out of our way to never be separated, but I wondered if we’d just been stuck in the pull of forward momentum, never taking a step back or a step away. What would happen if we paused the track, took a breath?

He missed me, sure. He wanted to help, sure. But I also had the feeling that his case was getting to him. Maybe he needed a break. Distance. I could hear that in his voice on the phone.

“What did the police say?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Not much they can say. They didn’t look too happy to see me, but it doesn’t seem to be their top priority at the moment. I’m not sure his statement will help with the current situation.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye as he set up his work on the table. “Tell me about this missing girl. The posters are everywhere.”

“I wouldn’t call her a girl, exactly, but her name is Annaleise Carter. Her brother saw her walk into the woods, and she wasn’t home the next morning. Nobody’s seen her since.” My eyes involuntarily strayed to the backyard, toward her property.

“You know her?”