Kill You Last (3 page)

I WAITED, HOPING Dad would say something reassuring, something that would make me believe him, but instead he said, “Hey, what about Sarah Lawrence? Wasn’t the interview this morning?”

“It was okay,” I said. “I still—”

Before I could finish, Dad interrupted. “Hold on a second?” He was gone, then returned. “They need me in the studio, sweetheart. Talk later?”

“Sure.” I made no effort to hide my frustration and disappointment. If he didn’t have time and wasn’t going to be completely honest with me, I almost didn’t want to speak to him.

Feeling upset, I headed back into the cafeteria. I’d always felt closer to him than I had to Mom. Closer to him than anyone else, period. My earliest childhood memories were of him tucking me in every night. Sometimes Mom came into my bedroom, but sometimes she didn’t. Even back then, I sensed her absenses had something to do with my little brother, who’d died of pneumonia when he was only six weeks old. But I could always count on Dad being there every night. If I couldn’t trust him, who could I trust?

“Uh, excuse me. Hello?” I was passing a table when a voice stopped me. It was Tara Kraus, a loud, aggressive, politically active type. The other girls at the table were sort of emo-punk, with an emphasis on black mascara and piercings.

“How does it feel to have a creep for a father?” Tara asked.

To say I was flabbergasted was an understatement. I was blown away. It was such a nasty, bizarre, and unexpected question that I couldn’t even begin to figure out how to answer it. Instead, I went around them and back to my table.

“What was
that
all about?” Roman whispered when I sat down.

I told her what had happened.

“You’re shaking,” Roman said.

She was right. I hadn’t realized it, but I wasn’t surprised. Only now, shock and outrage were giving way to the emotional turmoil that always spelled tears. Thank God my back was to those girls.

Getting through the rest of the day at school wasn’t easy. There were moments when I felt angry, others when I felt scared. Mostly, I just couldn’t wait for the day to end so that I could be alone. Finally, the last bell rang, and I rushed toward freedom.

In the car, I thought about stopping by the studio, but I decided against it. I was too upset by Dad’s evasiveness. When I turned onto my street and saw cars and vans parked along the curb, it didn’t register. Sometimes people had parties, and caterers came with vans. And there were always workmen around who drove vans, too. It wasn’t until I was in front of my house that I realized they weren’t caterers or workmen. They were journalists and camera people hunting for a story.

And I was their prey.

ESCAPE WAS IMPOSIBLE. The media crowded around my Jeep, just barely leaving enough room for me to pull into my driveway. I parked, and they surrounded the car like a swarm of hungry pigeons fighting for bread crumbs. Not that they were banging on the windows. They just pressed close with their cameras and microphones.

For a few moments I sat with the doors locked, frozen with apprehension and disbelief, totally unnerved by the faces staring in at me. It felt like a standoff. They couldn’t get in, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get out. But I couldn’t stay in my car forever.

I got out and they moved in, shoving microphones at me, blinding me with flashes, and overwhelming me with questions.

“What did your father have to do with those missing girls?”

“Does he know what happened to them?”

“Do
you
know where they are?”

Backed against the Jeep, I was scared and bewildered. After all the stress of the afternoon at school, it was too much. The whirlwind of emotions was like a cloudburst, and tears began to pour down my cheeks. Some of the reporters sympathetically backed off, but others pressed forward with more questions, as if sensing that my weakness was their opportunity.

“Did you ever see the girls at his studio?”

“Is it true that he promised them modeling jobs?”

Wiping the tears away, I tried to come up with some way to defend Dad, but it was impossible to think clearly. Was I required to answer? Would it be better if I didn’t? What if I said the wrong thing?

Then I became aware of a commotion. Someone was pushing his way through the crowd. Reporters were complaining, warning him to back off, but he was taller and bigger than the others and plowed through with an odd combination of apologies and determination. “Excuse me. Sorry, but I’m coming through.” He positioned himself in front of me, and I braced for a new barrage of questions.

“You don’t have to put up with this,” he said.

I looked up into pale green eyes beneath sandy blond hair, wondering if I’d misheard what he’d said. He seemed younger than the others and was broad through the shoulders and chest, like a football player. He might have been handsome were it not for a bumpy and slightly bent nose.

“Do you want to go into your house?” he asked.

Still rubbing tears away, I nodded and felt an arm go around my shoulders as he led me through the crowd, holding his other arm straight out to keep anyone from getting too close.

“Hey! What are you doing?” someone in the crowd complained.

“Let her talk!”

The media people objected loudly, but he ignored them and guided me to the front door, where he stood like a shield while I unlocked it. I twisted around one last time to look at him and say “Thanks” before I let myself inside.

“Feel better,” he said.

IT WAS A huge relief to lock the door behind me. Thank God the kitchen was in the back of the house, so I could sit without feeling all those eyes staring in. Mom wasn’t home; she was probably out shopping. I had to warn her, but when I called her cell, I got her voice mail. Still shaking, I poured myself a glass of cold water and sipped slowly. A tight, throbbing pain had started to grow along the sides of my head. I have this bad habit of clenching my teeth when I’m tense, and it causes the muscles above my ears to cramp. If I catch it early and make a conscious effort to relax, I can usually make the pain subside. But sometimes I forget.

The countertop TV came into focus. I turned it on, half expecting to see a video of me in my car, but of course it was too soon for that. Instead, the channels were filled with the typical afternoon talk and cooking shows.

Then, even though I was still upset with him, I called Dad.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he answered, sounding weary.

I told him about the media outside our house.

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of them hanging around here, too,” he said. “Feels like we’re defending the Alamo.”

The line grew quiet. I wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Well, at least you’re safe,” he said.

It felt like he was ready to get off the phone. But I wasn’t finished yet. “Have you talked to the others?”

“What others? Other girls?”

“No, Janet, Gabriel, and Mercedes. Maybe they have some ideas.”

“I spoke to them. We’re all in the dark. Nobody even remembers those girls. We’ve probably done close to a thousand head shots in the past three years. We looked at the photos the detectives had, and none of us recognized them. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. If the girls had all come from the same town, you might think they got together and ran off to Hollywood or something. But they live so far away from each other. It’s crazy.”

It felt and sounded like he was being completely honest, and I was relieved. In a way, it was reassuring. No matter what anyone else said, I could tell that he wasn’t hiding anything.

“Oh, so let me tell you about our escape plan,” Dad said.

“We’re going to disguise Gabe and let him take the Ferrari. Hopefully, the media will think it’s me and follow him.”

“Meanwhile, you’ll sneak out?” I guessed.

“Right. Janet will give me a ride home.”

“You’re really going to let Gabriel have the Ferrari?”

“Yeah. He’s thrilled. You know how he’s always wanted to drive it.”

I did. And I also knew how protective Dad was of his car.

Just the idea that he was willing to let someone else use it was a measure of how crazy things had become.

“We’re going to wait until it gets dark,” Dad said. “Otherwise, someone may notice that it’s Gabe in a disguise. So I’ll see you at home later, okay, sweetheart?”

“Sure.”

He got off the phone, and I speed-dialed Mom again. This time I got her and warned her about the crowd in front of our house. “Maybe you could park in front of the Sisks’ house and then cut through the backyards and come in the back door.”

Twenty minutes later, Mom came in through the kitchen door and put her shopping bags on the table. “This is unbelievable,” she muttered.

“At least you got in without being surrounded,” I said.

Mom frowned. She was such a quiet, orderly person; she must’ve hated the media circus trampling the lawn outside.

“You heard about the third missing girl also being one of Dad’s clients?” I asked.

She nodded.

“It’s freaky, Mom. What do you think’s going on?”

Her eyebrows rose with surprise. “Don’t jump to conclusions, Shelby. They’re only missing.”

“I know, but it’s still weird. I talked to Dad before. It really sounds like he doesn’t have a clue, either.”

Mom glanced away and didn’t respond. I wished I could get her to open up and tell me what was on her mind.

“You believe that, don’t you?” I asked. “That he doesn’t have a clue?”

Mom’s forehead wrinkled, and she placed a reassuring hand over mine. “Of course I do. Your father wouldn’t hurt a fly. Those girls will probably turn up somewhere in a day or two.”

I wanted to believe her, but I knew she was better than most when it came to sticking her head in the sand and avoiding upsetting topics. Sensing that I wouldn’t get any further, I changed the subject. “I went to that interview at Sarah Lawrence this morning. It’s a nice school.”

Mom brightened. “I’m so glad.”

“But I still want to visit some bigger campuses. Someplace with a real college town around it.”

She pressed her lips together. The smile vanished. “There’s no place like that nearby.”

“Mom, even if I went to Sarah Lawrence, I’d want to live in a dorm. I wouldn’t live at home.”

She nodded and looked a little crestfallen. Sometimes I felt like she wanted me to stay home and be her little girl forever. Part of me understood why. Beth once told me that before Mom lost my little brother, she’d been a gregarious, outdoorsy type who loved to go camping and take long hikes. But after he died, she’d retreated to the indoors, becoming overprotective and cautious, at times so introverted that it almost felt like she was living in her own world. Like the way she made a place setting for Dad every night despite the fact that he hardly ever ate dinner with us. How could she pretend that we were a happy family when Dad had moved into the guest bedroom four years ago? He said it was because of his snoring, but I wasn’t stupid. There was no affection between them, and they almost never went out together. Was that the reason Mom didn’t want me to go far away to college? Because without me, she had nothing?

I went upstairs and got online to tell Roman about being ambushed by the media.

“It’s like being famous, but for all the wrong reasons,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” I grumbled, and then I told her about Dad’s plan to sneak out of the studio after dark. “Gabriel’s going to take the Ferrari to his place.”

“If he doesn’t drive all over town first, showing off to his friends,” Roman quipped in a snarky tone.

I sensed that she was about to launch into a recitation of all the things she disliked about him, so I quickly changed the subject. “What else is going on? What are they saying at school?”

On the screen, Roman looked down at her keyboard, so all I saw was the part in her hair. When she looked back up, her lips were a flat, straight line. I knew the news wasn’t going to be good.

“It’s all they’re talking about. I was chatting with Sabrina and some girls from the
Bugle
, and they were comparing notes. Like things your father had said to them, or the way they sometimes caught him looking at them. The general feeling is that he’s probably responsible for whatever happened to those girls.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I still felt like I’d been stabbed in the gut. It was so unfair. Why didn’t Sabrina come to me in person? We’d been teammates on intramural volleyball for years.

“Mom says they probably ran away and will pop up in a day or two,” I said.

“Three girls from different states ran away together?” Roman repeated dubiously.

I winced at how dumb that must’ve sounded. On the screen, Roman’s eyebrows dipped with concern. “Should I not be saying this stuff?”

“No, it’s okay.…I guess.”

“If you ask me, it’s just plain sucky,” Roman said. “I mean, I like your dad, and I think it’s a ridiculous leap from catching someone staring at your cleavage to assuming he’s going around hurting people, but—”

“Wait,” I said. “Nobody said anyone’s been hurt. Maybe they didn’t run away
together
, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t go somewhere. They could have all joined a cult.”

“The Kirby Sloan head shot cult?”

I sighed. “Let’s talk about something else.” I told her about my interview at Sarah Lawrence that morning, and Roman told me that she’d decided to apply early decision to Skidmore, where she wanted to pursue art and dance. When we finished, I closed my laptop and sat on my bed, feeling really, really down about the rumors concerning Dad. Was it partly my fault for never saying anything to him about the way he sometimes acted around my friends? I guess there are parts of our lives that we’re aware of, but we try to make them go away by not thinking about them. I realized I was guilty of the same thing Mom was—we believe that if we don’t think about certain problems, they won’t be true. There’d been so many embarrassing things Dad had said over the years.…Like once he’d asked me what Courtney’s bra size was. And then there was the time he wanted to know what my friends and I talked about when we took showers after gym, and other times when he made sexist jokes that I found seriously distasteful. And then there was the Ferrari, and how before I was old enough to drive, he used to love to pick me up at school in it. Nothing seemed to make him happier than when one of my friends asked if he would take her for a ride around the block before we went home. And since it was a two-seater, that always meant going off with her alone.

If only I’d said something, told him that some of the things he did and said were borderline creepy…Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe he would have been more careful about the way he acted and we wouldn’t be in this situation now, where everyone assumed he was guilty of having something to do with those missing girls.

But like everything, there was another side to the story. Most of the fun times I’d had with my family had come because Dad had gotten us to go out and do something. And when I was upset, he’d always been the one I’d gone to, the one I could depend on to help me feel better. Mom never seemed to understand me the way he did, and for that reason I needed him and was a little afraid of doing anything that might make him angry. So as those moments came when maybe I should have said something about his behavior, I’d just tried to laugh it all off, saying things like “Oh, it’s just Dad being Dad” and “He’s harmless.” Because, I realized now, that’s what I wanted to believe.

My BlackBerry buzzed. I picked it up and felt my jaw tighten. It was another e-mail from [email protected]:
Wre I 2 die today, my dying wish would B 2 C Ur dad get what he deserves.

I sat up on the side of my bed, thinking I should show it to Mom, but then caught myself. She was already upset about what was happening with Dad and with imagining a life without me at home. Showing her another e-mail like this wouldn’t help. The best thing I could do about this latest e-mail, I decided, was to keep it to myself.

And there was something else: like the last one, this message had come as an e-mail, but was written like a text. What did that say about the person who’d sent it?