All the Missing Girls(40)

Nothing keeps in this town. Not in the bed, not over the dinner table, not at the bar, not between family and friends and neighbors. Not even between us.

I was full of panic, full of thoughts, full of a to-do list forming in my head, blurry and unreadable. Everett. Call Everett. “I owe you one. I don’t know how to thank you.” My words echoed through the bathroom, and I had to strain to hear Bailey under my own breathing.

A pause. And then, “Stay away from me.”

If these are my debts, if I’m paying them off, then maybe this is hers.



* * *



I CALLED EVERETT WITH a towel held to my body, dripping on the linoleum. “I was just getting ready to call you back. I’m sorry,” he said.

“I need advice,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “About the guardianship? You got the affidavits, right?”

“They’re trying to question my dad. About a crime. Everett, he’s not in his right mind.” My voice wavered. “I don’t know what he’s saying or what he’ll say. I have to stop it. Tell me how to stop it.”

“Back up. What’s happening?”

I told him fragments. A missing girl from ten years ago. Another missing person, dragging the case out for closer inspection. It all came out high-pitched and clipped. My voice was laced with tears.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“But what do I do? Who do I talk to?”

“I said I’ll take care of it. Call the facility, give them my number, tell them to call me if anyone, anyone, tries to talk to your father. Tell them we’ll sue if they don’t. We won’t have a case. But tell them anyway.”

I did what he said. Called Karen Addelson and left a firm and unwavering message on her voicemail which I’d practiced three times in the mirror. Then I called Daniel and told him what Bailey had told me and what Everett had said.

I tried Tyler again. I considered leaving a message but knew that would be a bad idea. Anything left could be used in an investigation when they broke us all open again, and they were already looking at Tyler for motive. It had happened before. I remembered one of the other things that had made it into the box in Corinne’s case:

A recording of a voicemail, Corinne to Jackson. I’m so sorry, she’d said, her voice choked, so unlike her. The detective from State played it for me to see if I knew what she was talking about. Please, Jackson. Please come back. I’ll be at the fair. Find me there. I’ll do anything. Just don’t do this. Don’t. Please.

Jackson swore they never met up. But if he had, if the last thing on record was Corinne and Jackson meeting up . . . It was enough: a pleading voicemail, and nobody saw her after. It was enough to convict in a place like this.



* * *



I HUNG UP WHEN Tyler’s voicemail picked up, and I started searching. I searched the house for skeletons. I had to get them. I had to get them first.





The Day Before





DAY 10

I couldn’t sleep in the house, worrying that there was something I was missing—someone who’d been in my house, possibly out there right now. I came out to the back porch sometime after midnight for the cooler air, the clearer head. I sat on the back steps but kept the outside lights off—I felt too exposed otherwise, with nothing but my dad’s words echoing in my head: The woods have eyes.

I stared off into the night—the shadows against the dark—-drifting in and out of consciousness. The shadows shifting as clouds passed in front of the moon. The dark shapes in my peripheral vision, creeping like monsters.



* * *



THE COPS HADN’T FOUND anything yet—no hard evidence. Or if they had, they weren’t talking. And that didn’t sound like them. Not the ones I knew.

Officer Fraize had been a cop ten years ago when Corinne disappeared. He’d told his wife about Jackson and Bailey and Tyler and me. His wife was the school secretary—maybe he thought she’d know something that would help with the case. Maybe he was looking for information, but he was really giving it away: Bailey and Jackson? Corinne and Tyler? Do you remember Daniel Farrell? Tell me about them. Tell me everything.

Jimmy Bricks had been a senior when Daniel was a freshman. In addition to being the first Bricks to attend college, he held the school record for most beers funneled at a time. The record remained unbroken by the time I graduated. We were too close in age. Our circles overlapped. We’d see him at parties when he was home from college. He told rumors about Corinne as if they were facts from a police investigation and not the other way around.

It wasn’t until they brought in Hannah Pardot from the State Bureau of Investigation that the case gained traction. Detective Hannah Pardot, who never smiled, not even when she was trying to play nice, with her piercing eyes and the bloodred lipstick that sometimes stained her teeth. She made me the most nervous, mostly because she was once an eighteen-year-old girl. She seemed to know there was more to Corinne than anyone could say.

She was in her thirties back then, with curly auburn hair and gray eyes that revealed nothing. Maybe she’d had kids and settled down by now. Maybe she took an early retirement. Or maybe the cases shuffled in and out and we didn’t last with her—not like she’d lasted with us.

Hannah was thorough and tight-lipped, concentrating on the cold, hard facts. If she’d been here from the beginning, maybe she would’ve discovered what had happened to Corinne.