First Girl Gone(91)
The white numbers came to life on the black screen, glowing for a beat before receding once more. It was 8:03 p.m. now, meaning they were still an hour away from the rendezvous time they’d set at the gazebo.
Her eyes flicked to the dark structure at that thought. Found it empty, of course. A spindly silhouette of stick-like beams with a wedge of darker, thicker roof hung above, the gazebo was a well-chosen stakeout location. Rising out of a clearing at the center of the park, they should be able to see anyone approaching it, even in the dark.
“You there, Aardvark?” Zoe’s voice crackled again.
Charlie picked up the walkie, depressing the button on the side.
“Aardvark?”
“I decided we needed code names,” Zoe explained. “You’re Aardvark. I’m The Jackal.”
“Wait a minute. Why do you get a cool code name, but mine is super nerdy?”
“I don’t make the rules, Aardvark. You and I both know this kind of thing comes from higher up the chain. Also, please keep this channel clear unless you have pertinent information. I don’t think I need to tell you that this is neither the time nor the place for idle chatter. Over.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun with this,” Charlie said. “I can tell you’re really taking it all very seriously.”
In reality, Charlie was glad Zoe had agreed to follow along with her ridiculous plan. She’d done enough work like this on her own that she knew having someone to talk to made it way less boring. Especially with Allie still out of commission.
On cue, Zoe’s voice came over the speaker again.
“What was the name of the science class everyone had to take freshman year? It wasn’t biology or chemistry or anything like that. It had some super generic name.”
“Physical science?”
“Yes! I was just thinking about the time Mr. Olson had the class read this chapter about biomes out loud and then fell asleep. It wasn’t the first time it happened, and we always liked to see how long we could go before he woke up. So the reading got around to Allie, and instead of ‘organisms’ she said ‘orgasms.’ There were a few chuckles, but we were trying so hard to be quiet, and I think everyone thought it was an accident, at first. A slip of the tongue, you know? But the word was in there like eight times, and she said it every time. With a completely straight face. Nelson Wong was next up, and he kept it going. Orgasm this, orgasm that. Then it was my turn, and I couldn’t not do it. By the time the bell rang at the end of class, everyone was in on it. We were all dying.”
A few puffs of laughter exited Charlie’s nose. The influx of warm breath made her realize how cold the tip had gotten.
“Oh yeah. That’s classic Allie.”
As she spoke, some part of her thought that surely Allie would take the bait, come back to bask in the glow of her accomplishments. She couldn’t resist, could she? But the lull when Charlie finished talking, the prolonged moment of quiet, did all of Allie’s speaking for her.
“I’ve just been thinking about her a lot lately,” Zoe said. “Probably because of Kara and Amber, I guess. More missing girls on Salem Island after all this time. It has a way of dredging things up. All the old memories come flooding back… That feeling probably never really goes away for you, huh?”
Charlie’s throat tightened when she tried to answer, that pink flesh beyond her mouth constricting as though trying to choke her. When her lips opened, no words came out. She stared at the walkie-talkie clenched in her fingers, the black segmented panel where the tiny speaker lay beyond a thin layer of mesh seeming to stare right back at her. She wanted only to press the stupid button on the side, mumble some reassuring words into the thing, be a normal human being having a normal conversation, but she couldn’t. Not now.
When the silence stretched out for too long, Zoe piped up again.
“Charlie? You there?”
Charlie’s eyelids fluttered. She cleared her throat. Pressed the button on the walkie-talkie at last.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry about that. Dropped my walkie there for a second and had to fumble around for it.”
Zoe chuckled at that, and Charlie took another sip of her coffee, trying to wash that strange moment off her palate. It was starting to cool just the faintest bit, no longer the near-scalding temperature that she preferred. Hot enough to set her lips and tongue to tingling. Still, she couldn’t complain.
Her eyes snapped back to the gazebo, the paranoid part of her once again expecting to see activity there. A shifting in the shadows. A silhouette. A flickering flashlight dancing over the snowy sidewalk. Something. Anything.
The octagonal structure stood as empty and motionless as ever. The park was as dead as the streets out here. Vacant and lifeless. Just a quiet, peaceful night on Salem Island, save for the murderer out there somewhere, and the girl he may be holding captive even still. Charlie imagined a spider wrapping a moth in its web, saving it for later.
She swallowed, something clicking deep in her throat. It occurred to her for the first time that she could feel the blood surging along in her neck. The veins punched at the muscles there with each beat of her heart, making the flesh twitch.
The mounting tension made sense, Charlie thought. One way or the other, this night would play out from here, probably within the next hour or so. The guy would show at the gazebo, or he wouldn’t. They’d crack the case open like a hardboiled egg, or they’d fail.