Whisper to Me(88)

“No. Well, a foot.”

“Yeah. But who knows what he does with them before he kills them?”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling sick. “You just made it awful again.”

“Sorry. But … what if she’s alive? Maybe we can find her together. I mean, if you want my help. If you want … we could try.”

There you went again, using that little word. That dangerous, beautiful little word.

We.

It even clouded out my doubts—the terrible, selfish little part of me that was still thinking, Is this because he likes Paris? Is that why he wants to save her?

But another part of me, a voice inside me, but not THE voice, said: No, he likes you. That’s why he wants to help you.

Anyway.

You know what? You may have planned it all along. You may have just intended it as a distraction, to get me over my grief. If so, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the **** it got you into. I’m sorry for everything that happened after THIS. FATAL. MOMENT. IN THE STORY.

The one where I turned to you, and I held your hand in mine, as we sat there in the baking heat by the susurrating shore, and I said, “Deal. We’ll find her together. You and me.”

I AM. SO. SORRY.



INT. A TEENAGE GIRL’S BEDROOM. BUT YOU CAN’T REALLY TELL THAT BECAUSE IT’S PITCH-BLACK. YOU CAN’T SEE ANYTHING, IN FACT. YOU CAN ONLY HEAR VOICES. VOICES WITH NO BODIES. I WOULD TELL YOU TO CLOSE YOUR EYES, BUT THEN YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO READ THIS. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO IMAGINE VOICES IN THE DARKNESS.

AND THEN, NOT INCONSEQUENTIALLY, YOU WILL GET AN IDEA OF WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE ME.



Oh no, wait.

Before the voices—you hear a phone being dialed, and then a ringing tone, okay? A ringing tone in the darkness.

Let’s start again.



INT. A TEENAGE GIRL’S BEDROOM. IT IS PITCH-BLACK. YOU HEAR A BEEPING THAT YOU SOON IDENTIFY AS A CELL PHONE BEING DIALED. IT RINGS.

A GIRL’S VOICE BLURRED BY TIREDNESS ANSWERS.

ME: Julie?

JULIE: Cass? Cass, it’s like two a.m.

ME: Did I wake you?

JULIE: No.

ME: I’m sorry. I’ve been trying you and trying you. You were out, or you weren’t answering the phone or something.

JULIE: (in a small voice) I was at my mom’s.

ME: Oh.

JULIE: What is it, Cass? What’s up?

ME: It’s the car.

JULIE: What car?

ME: The one you heard. You know, the one that woke you up? I was wondering … Where were you parked?

JULIE: Huh?

ME: I mean, which side of the street? And were there any cross streets?

JULIE: The right side of the street. Facing north? Toward the Cape. No cross streets.

ME: No way a car could turn onto the road?

JULIE: Um …

ME: I mean, a car passing you, it would have to just be going down the street, north or south? It couldn’t be coming from a cross street, because there were no cross streets.

JULIE: Uh, yeah.

ME: But you said the car turned. You said a car turned in front of you, and it washed you with its headlights, and that’s what woke you up.

JULIE: Yeah. ****** had his brights on.

ME: But it turned. Right?

JULIE: Oh …

ME: You see where I’m going with this? It turned, on a street with no cross streets.

JULIE: So it must have come from a driveway. Or a garage …

ME: The house she went into. It was right beside you?

JULIE: Yeah. Like twenty feet.

ME: So the car could have come from the garage.

JULIE: I guess.

ME: And something else. You said the line was bad? Like, shhhhing like the ocean?

JULIE: Yeah.

ME: Or like car wheels? Like she might have been in a car? Already?

JULIE: Oh ****.

ME: Picture something. Imagine Paris in the trunk of a car. She has her cell in her pocket. She makes a call. To you. That’s the shhhhing, right? But then the driver of the car realizes. He stops. The line goes dead—you said that, didn’t you? Then there’s a … what did you call it?

JULIE: (flatly) A heavy metal sound.

ME: The trunk opening.

JULIE: And then a thunk. And the line went dead.

ME: Yeah.

Silence.

JULIE: I need to call Agent Horowitz.

ME: Wait. What kind of car?

JULIE: Huh?

ME: The car. What was it?

JULIE: A Jeep.

ME: Like, a 4x4? Or a Jeep, the brand?

JULIE: The brand. I saw the logo.

ME: A Wrangler?

JULIE: Maybe. One of those big, fast ones. You know, with blacked-out windows? Like rappers drive.

ME: (grateful for Dad’s car magazines) An SRT8?

JULIE: I don’t know.

ME: Air channels down the sides? Four exhausts?

JULIE: Yeah! Yeah.

ME: That’s an SRT8. Color?

JULIE: I don’t know. It was night.

ME: Hmm. Did you catch any of the license plate?

JULIE: I wasn’t … No. Wait.

ME: (leaning forward on my bed) Yes?

JULIE: No. Nothing. I thought … it’s like there’s something there, like something on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t know what it is.

ME: Okay.

JULIE: Sorry.

ME: Don’t be sorry.