The Last to Vanish(67)

So I was ready and watching the clock, waiting until eight, when I knew Georgia would be up. On Sundays, we held breakfast later and skipped happy hour, but I knew she’d be getting ready for work by now.

I would have to confront her. I would have to ask why—why she’d gone to Landon, and not me or Celeste or the sheriff. Why she’d panicked and hidden everything in a locker with my name back in April. What she thought I was truly capable of.

There was a safety in the daylight, in talking to her in public, outside the confines of this basement. I stepped out into the hall, and there was no music coming from her room. She must’ve already been upstairs.

But when I pushed out the employee door into the main floor hall, the lobby was eerily still. There was only the older couple who’d been staying at Eagle’s Nest, early, even, for checkout. The man turned at my approach, keys to his room held out in his hand. “Oh, hi. I was just going to leave this on the desk,” he said.

“Thank you, that’s fine,” I said, even as I was taking the key from him. “I hope you had a nice stay,” I said, peering around the lobby. It was otherwise empty. The back office door was shut, nothing set out for the day just yet.

“We did,” he said as they pulled their two wheeled suitcases behind them, through the front doors.

As soon as they were gone, I used my master key to check the back office—empty, lights off, register and safe still untouched in the closet.

I swallowed my panic at the empty space where Georgia should be. The things she should’ve done. Maybe I was wrong; maybe Georgia was still in her apartment after all.

I could feel the beating of my own heart, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. My hand trembled as I held my employee badge to the lock on the stairwell.

Back downstairs, I knocked on the door to her apartment. The silence was unsettling. The sinking feeling in my gut growing stronger.

These are the signs of a disappearance: A gap. Silence. Emptiness. The realization that something else should be there. Music playing, footsteps, breathing. A tremor in your hand, your body understanding before you have time to make sense of it.

They were signs, not unlike when Landon went missing, when I could see the wobble of her step, the tension of her shoulders. The moment before realization fully set in.

“Georgia?” I called through the door, imagining all the ways I could be wrong. Georgia, sick in the bathroom, unable to make it upstairs. Georgia, out for an early-morning run, on her way back right this moment; Georgia, who had fallen in the dark, hit her head, and needed my help.

Only Celeste and I had the master keys for this, and I debated using them now, knowing how I would feel if someone had stepped into my apartment, uninvited. I remembered the rage clawing its way out when I saw Cory standing inside my apartment last night—that sharp betrayal, that breach of my privacy.

But then I imagined the ways Georgia might need help now, and I didn’t think again. I just did it. Key in the lock, a twist to the side—but that turned out to be unnecessary. Her apartment was unlocked.

“Hello?” I called as I pushed open the door. “Georgia? It’s me. It’s Abby.”

I was accustomed to the scent of toast in the morning, or coffee from her single serve. But there was nothing here—the kitchen was spotless, every surface bare. I didn’t like the feeling I got, standing in her space.

The living area had a few throw pillows scattered on the couch, and a teal ceramic bowl on the coffee table. Nothing else. I checked the rest of the rooms: the bedroom (bed made, room otherwise empty); the bathroom (door ajar, no humidity clinging to the mirror). The ceramic toothbrush holder, empty.

Shit. I started moving faster, the feeling gaining force. Pulling open the drawers under the bed—empty. Checking inside the closet—empty, except for the bare wire hangers. I stood in the middle of the living room, hands on hips, trying to process the scene. There was a corner of white visible inside the ceramic bowl on the coffee table, the one thing it seemed she hadn’t taken with her. I walked closer: a folded piece of white paper.

On top lay the gold key to her apartment, and her rectangular employee badge. There was only one word when I unfolded the page, written in her familiar print: Sorry

I dropped the contents back into the bowl, stormed out the apartment, out the basement exit, trudging over to the employee lot, even though I knew what I would see: Her car was gone. Georgia was gone.

Had she realized I’d been to the locker and bailed? Had she been afraid of what I would say, what I would do? Had she been afraid of something else?

I walked up the incline of the drive to where I could get the best signal. But my call to her went straight to voice mail, over and over.

I sent her a text, out of desperation: Please call me. I just want to know what’s going on. And then, I added: I just want to know you’re okay.

But the message didn’t show as delivered. As if she’d turned off her phone as she ran.

“Abby?” Celeste was standing just inside the front door of the carriage house. She was wearing an orange flowy top, and her long hair was in a braid draped over her shoulder. I assumed she was waiting for her ride to church, as she did most Sunday mornings.

She stepped out of the shadows as I walked down the drive. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Georgia’s gone,” I said. I saw it on her face, the concern, the flash of panic. Gone was a word that could mean many different things here. “She left,” I added.