All the Missing Girls(75)

“I’m not with the police,” I said. “I’m just her friend. Just looking for her. I thought maybe she’d come here. Have you seen her?”

His eyes scanned me slowly, taking it all in, from my sneakers caked in mud to my old T-shirt and my hair falling from my ponytail. He tilted his head, leaning closer. “Maybe,” he said through the crack in the door. “A friend, you say?” Pressing his face closer, his eyes fixed on mine.

I met his stare, refusing to step back. “No,” I said. “Not a friend. But I need to find her.”

He smiled then, his teeth yellowed but straight, like he’d had braces once. “Maybe there was a girl I saw running from the woods. Maybe she slid open the window to the room at the end down there. Maybe she went inside. None of my business, though.”

“Thank you,” I said as the door closed. “Thank you.”

See, Annaleise? Someone is always watching.

I walked around back and tried the window, which wasn’t locked. I shimmied through the motel window and found myself in an empty room with no sign of Annaleise. I checked the shower, the closet, under the bed. There was nothing. I closed my eyes and pictured her sprinting through the woods, shimmying inside this room like I’d just done. Why was she here? What did she want?

A place to breathe. A place to gather her thoughts. A place to make a plan. There was no impression in the mattress, no towel askew in the bathroom.

I picked up the phone, listened to the dial tone. Information. I’d call an operator. If I didn’t have my phone, I’d call for a number. I checked the pad of paper beside the phone and could make out a few pressure points but nothing more. Couldn’t see a number if she’d written one.

I hit redial.

The phone rang four times, and then: You’ve reached the Farrells. We’re not home right now, but we’ll get back to you just as soon as we’re in. Laura’s voice. Annaleise had called my brother’s house. She’d been at this motel, and she’d called my brother, and then she’d disappeared.



* * *



I DROVE HOME. FOUND Daniel working on the house, hosing down the ground beside the garage, loading up his car with debris.

“Any word?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the glare in the front yard.

“Nothing.” He rolled the free hose on a reel, following the trail toward the side of the house.

I shifted from foot to foot. “What haven’t you told me about Annaleise, Daniel?”

He stopped moving, dropped the reel, cut his eyes to me. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

What haven’t you told me about Corinne? Would he tell me? Or would he stick to his official statement?

“You can talk to me,” I said.

He picked up the reel again. There were voices coming from the woods, and his head whipped in that direction. “The police are in the woods,” he said. “Have you eaten? Laura sent me with leftovers. Go on in the house, Nic.”

I nodded, went inside. Reheated the stew in a pot on the stove, watched Daniel through the window. Realizing how he knew it was the police just out of sight: He had been watching. Standing out there, watching the woods, and listening.

What haven’t you told me, Daniel?

We communicated in the space between words. And I wondered: What was he saying now?





The Day Before





DAY 4

The rain had trickled to a stop but continued to drip from the leaves, falling on the roof like it was keeping time: Tick-tock, Nic. The clock in the kitchen read five A.M., and there was still no sign of Daniel or Tyler’s truck.

“Have you heard from him?” I asked, filling a glass from the sink tap.

“How would I hear from him, Nic?”

We stared at Daniel’s phone, sitting on the kitchen table. My hands shook as I handed Tyler a glass of water. His fingers stained the base with powder as he gulped it down, rubbing his other hand across the back of his neck. The sky was starting to lighten on the horizon.

“I need to get home,” he said. He was covered in dirt and grime, and his hands were white, like mine. “I have to change before the search. I need a goddamn shower. Can I take your car? I’ll swing by after, when Dan brings my truck back.”

He handed me the glass, and I drained the rest. “I’m not sure how that would look. My car at your place. People will talk.”

“People always talk,” he said.

“It’s different now.”

“Why, because you’re engaged? We can be friends, can’t we?”

We’d never been friends. Not before and not after. I wouldn’t even know how to start. “Because your girlfriend is missing,” I said. “Be smart, Tyler.”

His head snapped to attention. Be smart. Then he leaned back, so his head was resting against the freezer. “I can’t believe this is happening. Tell me this isn’t happening.”

“It’s happening.”

“I’m going to be a suspect if she doesn’t turn up, aren’t I?” he asked.

“Tyler, you’re going to be the suspect.” Like Jackson had been. The Boyfriend—it was the simplest explanation.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, press my thumbs into the base of his skull, like I used to do whenever his neck was stiff from work.