First Girl Gone(71)

Her mind fumbled at the possibilities as she traversed the asphalt parking lot. She kept picturing a small cardboard box there on the bench, perhaps wrapped with twine. But what lay inside?

A clue. It had to be a clue, didn’t it? That was all she could think of.

Whoever was sending these emails clearly knew she was working the case of the missing girls. But if they were trying to help, they were being awfully cryptic about it. First the White Rabbit riddle and now this.

And yet the White Rabbit message had been a clue, one that pointed to the drugs, to the club, to Robbie. And even though they’d ruled Robbie out as a suspect, all of those strands still led back to Kara Dawkins and Amber Spadafore. It was a piece of the puzzle, if not the solution.

And if that logic held up here, the mystery package would be the same. She hoped.

Then again, who was to say the person sending the messages was trying to be helpful?

She stepped off the concrete and onto the moist sand along the shore. The tides kept the beach clear of snow, mercifully leaving her a path to walk. She passed a stand of windswept pines, their craggy trunks jutting up from the banks of sand.

A big gust of wind ripped off the water and gave Charlie a stiff shove. The force made her feet stutter-step beneath her. Almost like the wind meant to stop her progress, keep her from whatever lay ahead.

Then the cold rushed over her, clutched at the fleshy parts of her, penetrated the skin to touch her cheekbones and chin and knuckles. Goosebumps fattened everywhere, but they were no help in warming her, no use.

She pulled her hands up into her sleeves, hugged herself tighter, and pressed on, shivering. The wind didn’t let up. A constant gale blew into her face now, swirled a frigid mist at her. The breeze fluctuated, growing stronger and weaker by the second but never really stopping.

Charlie didn’t let up either. She leaned into it, fought through it. Persisted. Even with the wet and cold seeming to accumulate on her skin and clothes, she kept going.

The sky gradually lightened as she progressed, but she could sense no warmth accompanying the rising sun. If anything, the day seemed to grow colder.

The bench emerged from the void, taking shape little by little as she descended the slope toward the low point where the water and land meshed. Soon she could see the details of the steel bench, the outline of the concrete bed below.

She squinted as she got closer. Tried to see anything sitting on the bench. She was looking, she realized, for that cardboard box she’d pictured, the one with the twine coiling around it, the one that surely held some clue.

Instead she saw nothing. An empty park bench.

She stopped beside it. Brought her hand down, rested it on the back of the seat, touching it as though to reassure herself that her eyes weren’t betraying her somehow. It was really there and really empty.

That didn’t make sense.

She remembered the words of the email. Pictured the all-caps text in her head.

PACKAGE FOR YOU.



HARBOR BEACH.



BENCH ON THE BLUFFS.



YOU KNOW THE PLACE.





Part of her wanted to sweep her arm across the seat, to verify once again by touch that there was no package there. Nothing at all.

The cold seemed to sharpen then. A bitter chill sinking deeper into her flesh. And she realized that a creeping awareness accompanied this fresh sense of the cold. Something that left her feeling vulnerable and violated.

Her skin crawled. The goosebumps refreshing themselves.

She swiveled her head. Eyes scanning everywhere. Was someone watching her?

She saw no one. Not even so much as traffic lights or noise in the distance. No movement beyond the churning of the water and the shivering of the dry beach grass.

The goosebumps only intensified as she took in the desolation. She felt alone. Very alone.

The shadows elongated around her, their forms somehow turning sinister and strange. She swallowed.

Why had someone summoned her at this hour? Alone in the gloomy light of the morning.

Just as she turned to leave, she spotted it—the pale bulk lying on the sand in the distance—even if it took her eyes a moment to fully process what was there.

She swiveled her head back. Froze. Stared.

She felt something brush her bottom lip, realizing only after that she’d brought her hand to her mouth. It trembled there just shy of her face.

The hairs pricked up on the back of her neck, one by one. Quivering with some pulsing energy.

The bulk lay motionless. Sprawled and pallid.

Charlie’s shoulders heaved up and down with her breath now. Wind sucking in and out with a grating scrape.

The color around her shifted, all the drab gray going a couple shades brighter, as though she could instantly see the results of her pupils dilating.

She had to get closer. Had to know for sure.

She put one foot in front of the other, shoes sinking into the sand with each step.

The camera in her mind seemed to zoom in on the mass laid out on the beach. Naked and gray and lying right on the border of where the waves reached their apex and rolled back.

The details filled in one at a time.

Hair fanned out on the ground. Wet. Moving along with the water lapping up and retreating every few seconds.

Skin leached of color. Faded. Bleached. Gone so dull it almost seemed milky, save for that ashen tone underlying it all.

Eyes closed, the lashes thatched and dark and delicate. Some ephemeral beauty still present there.