All the Missing Girls(52)

Tyler was the only answer that was safe. Please be Tyler.

I turned the AC dial down and listened to the walls. Nothing. No catch, no whoosh, no rattling vents.

Daniel’s knuckles were white. He was right beside me, and his voice was eerily low. “Tyler works. He doesn’t need to sneak around or use a key when we’re out. I’m sure he can talk his way in here pretty easily. Bet he doesn’t even have to talk.”

I pushed him in the chest, gently, just for space. Another inch. So we were going to fight about Tyler again. That, at least, was an argument we knew the lines of already.

“He’d call first,” he said. “Did he call you?” At my silence: “Did he?”

“No, but we’re not . . . he’s not really talking to me right now.”

Daniel let out a bark of laughter. “Un-f*cking-believable. You’ve actually done it, Nic. You’ve pissed off the one person who seemed immune. You’ve finally gone too far. Congratulations.”

“You’re an *.”

“And you’re so f*cking stupid sometimes, it’s infuriating.”

He stared at me and I stared back, my head tilted to the side—his cheeks bright red, his neck splotchy, his fists balled up, something dark and ugly coursing through my veins. “Are you going to hit me now?” I asked.

He breathed heavily, furiously, and whatever fragile ground we stood on shattered.

One question, creating so much distance between us yet pulling us right there. His knuckles colliding with my cheek and the beginning of the end of everything.

Daniel walked around me in a wide berth. He left the front door ajar.



* * *



I SLOUCHED AGAINST THE wall, cradling my phone to my chest.

This place messed with me. Made me forget myself. I called Everett, but his cell went to voicemail. I called the office and kept my voice practiced and steady as I talked to the secretary, Olivia, who’d become one of my closest friends. A tied-to-Everett friend but a friend.

“He’s prepping witnesses,” she said. “I’d love to chat, but this place is falling apart this week. Can you hear that?” And I could: the ringing phones in the background, the low hum of voices. She went on, “Jesus Christ, I need a girls’ night so bad. When are you coming back? Shit. I gotta go. I’ll tell him you called.”

I stared at my phone, wondering whom to call to ground myself. The truth is, I’m not good at close friends. I’m great at casual, at meeting up after work and bringing lasagna to the potluck. I’m excellent at being friends with Everett’s friends. But not at exchanging numbers and calling up just to talk.

I always leave people behind. Holiday greeting cards last one apartment, and then I move, no forwarding address. Emails go unanswered. Phone calls unreturned. It’s a habit. It’s easier. I’m the friend in the group they’ll throw a going-away party for but never keep in touch with. I had ladder rungs to climb, debts to repay, a life to create.

And whom did I have after so many moves? Everett, for a year. My college roommate, Arden, but she was a doctor, and busy, and every decision she made was life-or-death, which made everything I said seem trivial. My thesis adviser, Marcus. I could call him, vent my issues in a normal way. Surface level. Not like this: My best friend disappeared when I was eighteen, and it’s all coming back, and I’m losing my dad, and someone’s been in this house. Maybe the cops, but maybe not.

They were the people you called with news: I met a guy. I’m engaged. I got a new job. To share the highs and the lows. But friends to call for the deep things, the things that live in the dark spaces of our hearts? Those people didn’t exist for me any longer. Not since I’d left Cooley Ridge.



* * *



EVERETT CALLED BACK AT night, when I was cleaning the house—guilted into action by Daniel’s disapproval. I heard voices in the background, fading as he walked away. “Hey, sorry. I thought it was earlier. You weren’t sleeping, were you?”

“Nope,” I said. “What’s going on there?”

“Boring legal stuff. Boring but relentless.” He sighed. “I miss you. How’s it going with the filing?”

“Papers have been submitted, and we’re waiting for a court date. Working on the house. How’s the case?”

“Oh, you know. Be glad you’re not here. I’m still at the office. You’d be furious.”

I checked the clock, saw that it was nearly ten. “I’d show up and bring you dinner.”

“God, I miss you.” And then another voice—a woman’s. Mara Cross. “Hold on,” he said. His hand was over the speaker. “Uh, the Pad Thai. Yeah. Thanks.” Then to me: “Sorry. We’re ordering food.”

“Mara’s there?” I asked.

“Everyone’s here,” he said, not missing a beat. Everett had a painfully healthy relationship with his ex—at least he thought so. But her smile was too forced when she looked at me, and everything about her was too stiff when she walked by him, knees to shoulders to neck. They weren’t really friends, despite what Everett wanted to believe. Olivia couldn’t stand Mara, the way she talked down to her and then to me. It’s probably how we became friends.

I’d asked Everett ages ago why he and Mara had broken up, because she was always smiling and attractive and smart and there. “We weren’t compatible,” he’d said, which made no sense to me at first. They seemed perfectly compatible. Equals, even. She had strong opinions and worked even longer hours than he did, and they could talk about the same things: torts and motions and appellate courts. Words that I understood but that held no real meaning for me.