Girls Like Us(43)

Dad and Dorsey were both avid hunters. They enjoyed the sport of it, the thrill of the hunt, the victory of the catch. But were they just hunting fish and deer and birds? Or had they moved on to larger prey? Were they putting damaged girls down, freeing them from the burden of surviving alone in the wild?

I put the picture of them facedown on the desk. I can’t look at it anymore. I turn my attention to the file cabinet beneath it. It has a padlock on it, the kind that unclicks once you align four numbers correctly. I drop to my knees and begin to fidget with it. I try various iterations of my father’s birthday, then my own. Nothing works. When, as a last-ditch effort, I try my mother’s birthday, I feel the lock give in my hand. I pop it open. Jackpot.

Dad’s files are meticulously organized, each one labeled in his obsessively precise block-lettered handwriting. I flip through them, scroll past one labeled “WILL” and another that reads “BANK STATEMENTS.” I stop when I see a large accordion file labeled “GC LIMO SERVICES.”

I withdraw the file. It’s heavier than the rest. When I open it, a photograph slips out and flutters to the floor. I pick it up and stare at it, bile rising in my throat. It’s a photograph of Adriana Marques.

The photograph is taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Adriana is entering what looks like a warehouse. She’s dressed for a party. She’s wearing a tight blue dress that crisscrosses her body like a bandage, stiletto pumps, a large golden cross nestled in the hollow of her neck. Her lips are painted a deep shade of red. She looks back over her shoulder, her eyebrows furrowed. She knows someone is watching her. I turn the photograph over. On the back, my father has written: “A. Marques, 18, entering GC Limo Services on 8/29/18.” Two days before Adriana disappeared.

I pull open the folder. At the bottom is a burner phone. I have to believe it’s the one I’ve been looking for, the one Dad removed from Adriana’s room just after she was reported missing. Beside that is a gold cross, just like the one Adriana is wearing in the photograph.

I stand up. Blood rushes to my head. I close my eyes, steadying myself. I’m not well. It takes work for me to remain upright. My body screams for rest. I have to keep going, I tell myself. If I lie down now, I may never get back up again.

Why did he have her necklace?

When I open my eyes, I focus on the large map of Long Island. It runs the length of the office wall. It’s new; at least, it wasn’t there when I was a kid. I wonder why he put it up. I walk toward it, looking for any markings. Maybe the locations of the bodies had some kind of significance. My eyes linger for a moment on Sears Bellows County Park, where Dad and I camped the night my mother was murdered. I study the small green expanse before forcing myself to look away.

It strikes me for the first time that Long Island is shaped like a body. I wonder why I’ve never seen this before. It seems clear as day to me now: a woman, floating lifeless in the water. Brooklyn composes her head. Her face turns southward toward the ocean. Smithtown Bay rests in the small of her back. Her legs—the North and South Forks of the island—part at Riverhead. Between them flows Peconic Bay, where Dorsey and Dad would take me boating as a kid.

We’d pack lunch in a cooler—sandwiches and juice and beer—and take off in Dorsey’s boat, the same one we took out to scatter Dad’s ashes. It’s called Bout Time, an ironic name, now that I think of it. I still remember the spray of salt water on my face, and the way Dorsey would smile when I climbed up onto his lap so that I could pretend to steer. I’d wrap my hands around the wheel. For a few seconds, he’d let go and I’d feel free.

I walk up to the map and stare at the Pine Barrens Preserve. My eyes move south, to Shinnecock County Park, then back up to Sears Bellows County Park. The place we were camping when my mother was murdered.

Three state parks. All green, all wild, all a short drive from this house.

I sit down on the floor. The weekend my mother was murdered—that whole summer, in fact—comes to me in snapshots. They’re scattered, out of order. The details change. Sometimes I remember that it was raining when we arrived; other times I think the rain started later, once we were tucked inside our tent. In dreams, my father is always wearing army green; though later, I saw a photograph of us as we were packing up the car and he’s in a blue jacket. In my line of work, you learn quickly that memories—particularly traumatic ones—are mercurial. The longer you live with them, the more fallible you realize them to be.

We hiked for nearly an hour to get to the spot where we would pitch our tent for the night. It was drizzling and I was cold. We passed other places where it would be easy to stop, but my father marched on like he had a drill sergeant hot on his heels. I knew better than to complain or to question his choices. To keep up with him I had to trot, my little legs moving twice as fast as his just to stay on pace.

I stumbled over a tree branch and he stopped. My kneecap smarted and I clutched it, fighting back tears. Beneath my fingers, blood began to rise from where I’d cut the skin.

“Are you okay?” Dad asked, and knelt down beside me. He leaned over and kissed me on the knee, a rare act of physical affection.

“I’m fine. Where are we going?”

“There’s a pond a few minutes that way. I think you’ll like it. If you’re tired, we can turn back. It’s up to you.”

“How much farther?”