Lovely Girls(52)

PART TWO

After She Died





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE




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KATE

The house was dark and silent. Joe had fallen asleep on the couch, his head tilted back, his mouth slightly agape, his arms crossed over his chest. He was snoring softly. I wondered whether I should wake him and send him home, or at least let him lie down in a more comfortable position. But I couldn’t bring myself to disturb him. And, selfishly, I didn’t want him to leave. Joe’s presence helped, even if he was asleep. It calmed and steadied me, even as I watched the clock tick forward. The moments strung together, one after another after another. And in each one, I still didn’t know where Alex was, or whether she was safe.

I checked my phone for the umpteenth time that night. In the past forty-three seconds, Alex still hadn’t called or responded to any of the many texts I’d sent her.

Where are you? I asked silently.

“What time is it?” Joe asked, stirring next to me.

“Just after one.”

He shifted, stretching his back. “You shouldn’t have let me fall asleep.”

I lifted one shoulder. “I should have made you go home so you could get a proper night’s sleep.”

“I’ll stay until Alex gets back.”

A sob caught at the back of my throat. “If she comes back.”

“Don’t say that. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s just being a teenager. Pushing the boundaries. She probably sneaked out to a friend’s and ended up crashing there.”

I would normally have agreed with him. It was typical rebellious teen behavior. Except that Alex didn’t have any friends here. At least not any that I knew about. I thought of all the true-crime television shows I’d watched over the years. Stories about pretty young girls who vanished, never to be seen again. Every single one of those stories started like this. With a girl who didn’t come home.

Joe and I looked at one another, me wild eyed, and his dark-brown eyes clouded with fatigue.

“Maybe you should call the police,” Joe said.

I nodded. It was now late enough that the police would have to take me seriously. “I think you’re right.”

And then we heard a sound. A scraping sound coming from outside, followed by a metallic clatter. Joe and I both leaped up. I made it to the front door first and threw it open.

It was Alex. She was struggling to pick up her bike, which had fallen on the front path. It hadn’t occurred to me to check to see whether her bike was in the garage. She never rode it.

“Where have you been?” I asked, my voice shrill with fear and relief.

Alex straightened slowly and then turned to look at me. Lit by the outdoor wall sconce, her face looked sickly white, and her clothes were filthy. Her knees, bare in her running shorts, were blackened, as if she’d been kneeling in dirt. She stared at me mutely. I wasn’t even sure she’d heard my question.

“Alex, where have you been?” I demanded. “It’s the middle of the night!”

Alex’s gaze flickered toward Joe and then down to the ground. She shook her head but remained silent.

“I should probably go,” Joe said.

I turned toward him, relief and gratitude flooding through me. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Anytime.” Joe leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Get some sleep. Bye, Alex.”

I opened the front door and ushered Alex inside, lit by the headlights on Joe’s car as he reversed out of our driveway. Alex was shivering.

“You’re freezing!” I exclaimed. I could see goose bumps on her arms. “It isn’t even cold out.”

Alex shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. She still hadn’t spoken, and I wondered whether it was possible she was in shock. I gently rested my hands on her shoulders.

“Alex, you need to tell me. Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

“N-no,” Alex finally said.

“Where have you been?”

“I just went for a bike ride.”

“In the middle of the night? Why on earth would you do that? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Alex just shook her head again, staring down at the ground.

I sighed. “Go take a shower and get to bed. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Alex nodded stiffly and turned away from me.

“Alex?”

She glanced back at me. Her expression was haunted. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

Alex stared at me for a long moment. Her dark-brown eyes were wide. For a moment, I thought she was going to tell me what had happened. Where she’d been. But in the end, she just said, “I’m fine.”



I let Alex sleep in late the next morning. It was a school day, but I figured the conversation she and I were going to have was more important than school, so I called the attendance office and told them she wasn’t feeling well. I spent the morning taking care of paperwork, the sort of mindless tasks that I could accomplish while my eyes were scratchy with fatigue and my thoughts skittered between fear of what could have happened and anger at what Alex had done.

In the midst of the paperwork, I found the flyer for the commercial rental space I’d looked at with Joe. Where I’d stood in the middle of the empty space and imagined a newer, better version of my shop springing up around me. A foothold in my new life here in Shoreham. I crumpled up the advertisement and threw it in the garbage.