Lost Girls(18)

“Yes.”

I swallowed, thinking about Nicole, the one familiar name on my list, my throat raw as fear surged through me. I knew what I was going to ask next and, somehow, I already knew the answer. “Are any of them dead?”

A guarded expression filled his eyes. “I can’t talk to you about that.”

“This isn’t going to be a one-way street. You have to tell me.”

There was sadness in his eyes now, probably because he knew he had to tell me the truth and didn’t want to. His voice was hoarse, cracking in the middle of the single syllable that came out. “Yes.”

Even though that word had been spoken softly, it filled my ears. It rolled like thunder down the street, it drowned out every other sound in Santa Madre until it was all I could hear and all I could know. At least one girl was dead. Maybe more than one. Killed by whoever had taken me. And now that I’d lost my memory—now that I didn’t remember who the kidnappers were—they could slip back into my life, ready to kill me, too.

“I want you to start wearing a tracking device,” he said. “Something so small no one will notice. Just in case whoever took you comes back.”

I stopped walking and he did, too.

“At some point your memory will return,” he continued. “And when it does, you’ll remember who kidnapped you. To them, you’re a walking, talking liability.”

We stared at each other. The noise of the students and the cars faded until all I could hear was a flock of sparrows singing from those cherry trees, their high notes interspersed with trills and warbles.

“It was you lurking outside my house the other night, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“I was just doing my job.”

“How is a tracking device supposed to help?”

“We’ll know if you go anywhere unusual or if you don’t go home for long periods of time. We—I—want to prevent you from ending up in another ditch.” He paused, his eyes locked on mine. I remembered that expression on his face when he had looked down at the eight-by-ten glossies of the other kidnapped girls, as if those girls could have been his nieces or little sisters, girls he had taught how to play softball, girls he had teased at birthday parties and joked with while playing video games.

I got the feeling he had lost someone and wanted to make sure it never happened again.

“So far we’ve only found a few things that connect the missing girls.” He flipped up a finger for each item he named. “They were all about the same age, sixteen or seventeen. They were involved in either sports or dance.” He pulled something out of his pocket, an elastic kandi bracelet, similar to the ones that I’d found hidden in my closet. “And at least four of them were regularly going to raves. We found bracelets like this in two of the girls’ homes. The other two girls had written about PLUR in their journals.”

“You can make that five girls.”

His eyebrows raised.

“I don’t remember going, but there’s a bunch of rave stuff in my closet.”

He nodded slowly, then handed me the bracelet. “You think you could wear this without causing too much attention?”

A flush worked its way up my chest to my neck and settled on my cheeks. How much did he know about me? If he thought I could get away with wearing a bracelet like this, he already knew that I’d been going to raves. If his team had been going through those other girls’ bedrooms, looking for clues, did that mean they had gone through mine, too?

I took it and slipped it on. “Is this the tracking device?”

“Yes. You can take it off for showers or swimming, but it’d be best if you wore it or kept it with you as much as possible, even when you’re sleeping. And here.” He tugged a business card out of his wallet. While he was doing that, I saw his badge, but there was nothing personal inside. No photos, no Starbucks cards, no receipts. Completely different from Dad’s wallet, which brimmed with pictures of Mom, Kyle, and me, discount movie tickets, Disneyland passes, and frozen yogurt coupons. “I want you to call me if you remember anything or if something happens—like you get into a situation where you need help. Okay?”

I took his card and held it between my thumb and forefinger, squinting because the sun was breaking through the morning cloud cover.

“I want my life back,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure which life I wanted. The old one where I was a wannabe ballet dancer with a handful of friends and grades barely above C. Or the new one where I bleached my hair, dressed in black, had track marks, and a hot boyfriend. I toyed with that list of girls’ names in my pocket. “And I want answers. Was one of the missing girls named Nicole Hernandez?”

“Did you remember something?”

“Not yet.”

A heavy sigh lifted his chest and he stared over my head.

“Remember what I said about how this wasn’t going to be a one-way street?” I asked. I snapped the bracelet, making the plastic beads spin and twist. “I can take this thing off as easily as I can put it on.”

“Yes. Nicole Hernandez was one of the missing girls.” A long pause followed before he spoke again. “I’m not sure what you’re planning, but be careful. I can’t tell you everything about this investigation, except right now I’m the only one in my department who thinks these are all kidnappings. Personally, I think there are more than six girls missing. A lot more.”