All the Missing Girls (24 page)

“I always thought she was quiet,” I said.

“Annaleise? I guess. But also not. She was loud with her art. Like, she did the murals for our school play, and she hid all these tiny sick details in them. We didn't notice until after. It was like a tribute to everyone she hated at school.” Seth laughed, but Britt wasn't smiling. “It was so subtle—enough to deny. And for us to point it out meant admitting to something, you know? She walked the halls with this obnoxious smile all the time, like she was getting away with something and we all knew it. She had a meanness in her.”

We all do. Corinne had shown us that.

“So, no,” Seth added, “we weren't friends.”

“Any clue where she'd go?”

Seth chewed the candy between his back teeth, grinding as he spoke. “Bet she was never even in the woods,” he said.

“Her brother said—” I started.

“Her brother,” Seth said. “Useless piece of crap. Want to know why Bryce was hanging out his window after midnight on a Monday night? Probably because he didn't want his mom to smell the pot.”

“Heard he's dropping out,” Britt added.

A kid with no promise, the opposite of his sister. Watching her image disappear through the smoke.

“Nobody really trusts him, but it's not like there's anything else to go by,” Seth said.

“You don't believe it? That she wandered off into the woods?”

“After midnight? She goes for a walk into the woods with her purse? Come on,” Britt said.

“Then why are you here?”

Seth shrugged, unwrapped another candy. “Because we were given the day off if we did this instead.”

Britt must've noticed the look on my face. “Besides, there are helicopters. If she's out here, they'll find her.”

I looked up at the canopy of leaves, and down at the water rushing by, and hoped that was a lie she was telling herself to feel better about not caring.

You could get lost in these woods so easily. You could lose yourself in them. You could live an entire secret history inside of them, a decade's worth, with no witnesses.

I HAD COME DOWN
to this river the winter after I left, the first time I was home.

I'd enrolled in a school a hundred miles east, used Daniel's money to find a cheap place with three roommates. Got a job in the registration office, which would turn full-time in the summer. Went home for a week over Christmas break, which turned into two because a snowstorm came and I couldn't leave.

I'd put on my snow boots and my down jacket, pulled a hat over my newly red hair. Trudged down to the river, where my lungs burned with deep breaths and the icicles shone against the bank.

And I saw that I was not alone.

We walked slowly down the bank on opposite sides until we reached the log thrown across at the narrow gap. I watched as Tyler
balanced on the trunk, and I laughed when he slipped, catching himself with his gloved fingers.

I smiled when he made it all the way across. “I like your hair,” he said.

“You don't have to lie.”

His gloves smelled like wool and chafed at my skin, just like the scruff of his jawline. His lips were cracked and thirsty, and his skin was warm against the cold. We made a pact that day in our silence. That we would not speak of the things that had happened, we would not speak of all we had lost.

BRITT AND SETH FOLLOWED
the river until it branched, which was the mark on the map for the end of our search area. Seth spun on his heel, but I stared at the two different paths, remembering where they led. One behind the caverns. The other snaked around the open fields of the fair, cutting close to Riverfall Motel, in all its run-down glory.

“Hey, Nic,” Britt said. Had I given her my name? Did she know who I was? “Snap out of it, sister.”

“I'm gonna keep going,” I said.

“Like hell,” she said. “Didn't you get a copy of the rules? We stay together. We return together. We report together.”

I followed them back to the road. Followed them back to check in with Officer Fraize. Then took one of the Missing flyers and drove down to Riverfall Motel by myself.

RIVERFALL MOTEL WAS A
strip of twenty identical rooms, set just back from the road, with a parking lot of slanted spaces in front of each door. It was yellow and falling to disrepair, but there were cars
out front. Probably because of the fair. Maybe some of the workers. This was where Hannah Pardot had been stationed for the summer ten years ago. I used to drive by sometimes, just to see if her car was still here.

I parked in front of the office, let myself in, watched the man behind the counter tear his gaze from a soap opera that he didn't bother turning off. “Can I help you?” he asked.

I put Annaleise's flyer down on the counter, felt her eyes staring up at me, twisted the paper around so it was facing him. “Have you seen this woman?”

“Annaleise Carter? The police have already been here. Nope. Never seen her.” He was already facing the television again.

“Okay, thanks.”

I knocked on each door, getting no response from most, even some with cars out front. People wanting privacy, people who had secrets to keep.

At the third room, I heard footsteps, saw a shadow under the door, knew someone was looking out the peephole back at me, but the doorknob didn't turn. I flipped the flyer around, holding it up to the peephole. “I'm looking for this girl,” I said. The door cracked open. The room smelled stale and sour, as if alcohol and milk had been ground into the carpet.

The world was full of people who wanted to give information, who sometimes fabricated it in the hope that it would lead somewhere. But the world was also full of people who had no intention of going anywhere near the police. Who saw things and kept them hidden. A group of people who could piece together the truth if they were so inclined. The man didn't open the door all the way, but I could see his face, bearded and pockmarked. I didn't know why he was here, and I didn't honestly care.

“I'm not with the police,” I said. “I'm just her friend. Just looking for her. I thought maybe she'd come here. Have you seen her?”

His eyes scanned me slowly, taking it all in, from my sneakers caked in mud to my old T-shirt and my hair falling from my ponytail. He tilted his head, leaning closer. “Maybe,” he said through the crack in the door. “A friend, you say?” Pressing his face closer, his eyes fixed on mine.

I met his stare, refusing to step back. “No,” I said. “Not a friend. But I need to find her.”

He smiled then, his teeth yellowed but straight, like he'd had braces once. “Maybe there was a girl I saw running from the woods. Maybe she slid open the window to the room at the end down there. Maybe she went inside. None of my business, though.”

“Thank you,” I said as the door closed. “Thank you.”

See, Annaleise? Someone is always watching.

I walked around back and tried the window, which wasn't locked. I shimmied through the motel window and found myself in an empty room with no sign of Annaleise. I checked the shower, the closet, under the bed. There was nothing. I closed my eyes and pictured her sprinting through the woods, shimmying inside this room like I'd just done. Why was she here? What did she want?

A place to breathe. A place to gather her thoughts. A place to make a plan. There was no impression in the mattress, no towel askew in the bathroom.

I picked up the phone, listened to the dial tone. Information. I'd call an operator. If I didn't have my phone, I'd call for a number. I checked the pad of paper beside the phone and could make out a few pressure points but nothing more. Couldn't see a number if she'd written one.

I hit redial.

The phone rang four times, and then:
You've reached the Farrells. We're not home right now, but we'll get back to you just as soon as we're in.
Laura's voice. Annaleise had called my brother's house. She'd
been at this motel, and she'd called my brother, and then she'd disappeared.

I DROVE HOME. FOUND
Daniel working on the house, hosing down the ground beside the garage, loading up his car with debris.

“Any word?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the glare in the front yard.

“Nothing.” He rolled the free hose on a reel, following the trail toward the side of the house.

I shifted from foot to foot. “What haven't you told me about Annaleise, Daniel?”

He stopped moving, dropped the reel, cut his eyes to me. “Are you saying you don't believe me?”

What haven't you told me about Corinne?
Would he tell me? Or would he stick to his official statement?

“You can talk to me,” I said.

He picked up the reel again. There were voices coming from the woods, and his head whipped in that direction. “The police are in the woods,” he said. “Have you eaten? Laura sent me with leftovers. Go on in the house, Nic.”

I nodded, went inside. Reheated the stew in a pot on the stove, watched Daniel through the window. Realizing how he knew it was the police just out of sight: He had been watching. Standing out there, watching the woods, and listening.

What haven't you told me, Daniel?

We communicated in the space between words. And I wondered: What was he saying now?

The Day Before

DAY
4

T
he rain had trickled
to a stop but continued to drip from the leaves, falling on the roof like it was keeping time:
Tick-tock, Nic.
The clock in the kitchen read five
A
.
M
., and there was still no sign of Daniel or Tyler's truck.

“Have you heard from him?” I asked, filling a glass from the sink tap.

“How would I hear from him, Nic?”

We stared at Daniel's phone, sitting on the kitchen table. My hands shook as I handed Tyler a glass of water. His fingers stained the base with powder as he gulped it down, rubbing his other hand across the back of his neck. The sky was starting to lighten on the horizon.

“I need to get home,” he said. He was covered in dirt and grime, and his hands were white, like mine. “I have to change before the search. I need a goddamn shower. Can I take your car? I'll swing by after, when Dan brings my truck back.”

He handed me the glass, and I drained the rest. “I'm not sure how that would look. My car at your place. People will talk.”

“People always talk,” he said.

“It's different now.”

“Why, because you're engaged? We can be friends, can't we?”

We'd never been friends. Not before and not after. I wouldn't even know how to start. “Because your girlfriend is missing,” I said. “Be smart, Tyler.”

His head snapped to attention.
Be smart.
Then he leaned back, so his head was resting against the freezer. “I can't believe this is happening. Tell me this isn't happening.”

“It's happening.”

“I'm going to be a suspect if she doesn't turn up, aren't I?” he asked.

“Tyler, you're going to be
the
suspect.” Like Jackson had been.
The Boyfriend
—it was the simplest explanation.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, press my thumbs into the base of his skull, like I used to do whenever his neck was stiff from work.

“Use my shower,” I said. “I can find something from my dad's room for you to wear. You shouldn't go home like this.”

He looked down at his clothes, at his legs, at his hands. “Yeah. Okay.”

I cleaned the floor with damp rags—trying to mop up all the streaks, all the footprints—and I tossed them into the washing machine after. I heard the groan of the pipes and then the sound of the shower curtain being pulled aside as I went to rifle through my dad's old things.

Dad's work clothes would be too small for Tyler; he'd have to settle for gray frayed sweatpants that didn't make the moving list, and an old stained shirt from the few times Dad worked in the yard.

I let myself into the bathroom, the moisture of the room clinging
to my skin, already coating the mirror. “It's just me,” I said, leaving the clothes on top of the sink.

“Hey,” he said. “Hold on.”

I stood with my back against the door, watching the gray-and-black-striped shower curtain move, the obscured outline of his shadow. It felt easier to talk with the curtain between us, without having to look directly at each other.

“I got a new place,” he said.

“Where?”

“Over Kelly's. It's not much. Just an apartment. But there's a couch and a blanket, and you can stay with me, Nic. No strings attached. You don't have to stay here.”

I laughed, and it sounded harsh. “That's a terrible idea, for so many reasons.”

“Wouldn't be the worst one this week,” he said as I scooped up his dirty pile of clothes.

I opened the bathroom door, felt the rush of cooler air as I stepped outside. “I'm washing your clothes. Save me some hot water.”

By the time I got back to my room, he was in my dad's clothes, rubbing my towel over his hair. He was looking out the window at the garage, and I stood beside him, doing the same. He turned to face me, used his thumb to wipe the residue from my face.

“I don't understand what's happening,” I said. I felt the tears rising unexpectedly, and Tyler tilted my face up. “How—”

“Hey,” he said. “Don't do this to yourself. It's taken care of. Okay?”

I tried to let his words work their way into my head—
I've got you,
at sixteen;
I love you,
at seventeen;
Forever,
at eighteen—but the distance was too great. I couldn't get back to it. Instead, the familiar sound of Tyler's truck turning in to the driveway jarred me into action. “Daniel's back,” I said, striding out of the room, racing down the stairs.

Daniel drove up the driveway as I hopped down the front steps, Tyler a step behind. Daniel slid out of the driver's seat without looking at us, tossed the keys to Tyler, and went straight for his own car. “I gotta go,” he said, not making eye contact.

“Daniel, wait,” I said.

“I need to go,” he said.

I crossed the yard after him but didn't know what to say once I had his attention. I looked to Tyler for help, but he was loading up his truck, carrying supplies and using a tarp to protect it all.

“What did you tell Laura?” I asked.

Daniel opened the car door. “That I was here. That we were working late.”

“See you at the search,” Tyler called, hopping in the truck.

I made it inside before throwing up, the kitchen sink coated with water and bile and fine white powder.

I cleaned the kitchen, took a scalding shower, and mopped the floors.

When the dryer finished, I folded Tyler's clothes and stuffed them in the bottom drawer of my empty dresser, out of sight.

WE MET IN THE
church basement. Everyone was there, nearly all of Cooley Ridge taking off from work, cramped together in the rec room, overflowing into the kitchen, crowding down the steps.

We rally in a crisis. We rise to the tragedy. Suffer a death and we will feed you for a year. Disappear and we will scour the earth until you are found.

Bricks was set up in front, standing on a chair. His hairline was starting to recede, which you could see because he kept his hair buzzed almost to the scalp.

I had to stand on my toes, pushing through the crowd, to see what he was gesturing toward. What was he talking about? I started
picking up snippets of conversation, losing Bricks's voice.
Disappeared. Corinne Prescott. Wandered off. Taken. Monsters.

“. . . in grids.” There was a hand on my shoulder. I needed to focus.
Laura
. I looked at her over my shoulder, and she raised an eyebrow.
Okay?
she mouthed.

I nodded. Bricks was pointing to a map of Cooley Ridge, the woods beyond, the river snaking through.

“What do they think?” Laura whispered. “That she got lost out there?”

I broke into a light sweat. I couldn't see Daniel, but he must've been nearby if Laura was here. I couldn't find Tyler, either. Bricks was holding up the clipboard we'd signed in on. “We've assigned you to a grid, each with a leader.” He held up a purple rectangle. “When I call your name, follow Officer Fraize here.”

He started breaking us into teams, and Laura leaned in. “Y'all are working too hard on that house. You really need to take it easier. Both of you.”

“I know,” I said, keeping my eyes on Bricks.

“Besides,” she said, “he's supposed to be painting the nursery. Honestly. I could give birth any moment now.”

I whipped my head around.

“Don't worry, I'm
not.
”

“Should you even be here?” I asked.

“Nic Farrell—”

I pushed through the crowd, following Officer Fraize, not knowing anyone else in my group other than by family association. There were eight of us on the team.

“The ground will be wet,” he said. “So watch your footing. And always keep a visual on the person to your side. Move as one, at the same rate. And make sure you're all accounted for on your way out. We don't have enough radios, so . . .” He eyed the group, handed the radio to an older man whom I recognized as the father
of someone I went to school with. “Radio back if you find anything.”

“Hey,” I said, and Officer Fraize half looked at me, heading toward the next group. If he recognized me, he didn't let on. “Did you contact her father? Her friends from college?”

“Yeah, we're on it. We know how to run an investigation. Or do you have something to add? Didn't realize you'd moved back, Nic.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “I didn't. I'm just in town for a little while.”

He paused, his mind grasping for something, sorting through the pieces. “You staying at your dad's old place?”

“Yes.”

“Happen to see anything in the woods night before last? Hear anything unusual? Anything like that?”

I shook my head.
No sir, no sir, no sir.

He focused on me for a moment too long. “Off you go, then,” he said. He scanned the crowd before moving on to the next group.

I knew exactly who he was looking for.

WE STARTED NEAR THE
back of Annaleise's house, heading in the direction of the river. The search ended up being tedious work, exacerbated by an older lady who couldn't keep up. We moved at a snail's pace, and then she'd stop to pick up anything that looked out of place. A rock that had been displaced, a pile of sticks, a marker on a tree. The man in charge of our group by decree of holding the radio kept reminding her, “We're looking for
her.
We're not investigating a crime scene.”

We weren't close enough to talk to one another in quiet conversation; we were supposed to be listening, anyway. For calls for help or something. Every once in a while, the girl on the edge would call,
“Annaleise? Annaleise Carter?” Because there might be more than one Annaleise lost in these woods.

As we approached the river, we ran into another team. “We went too far,” I said.

Our leader, Brad, examined the map. “Nah, we've got to the edge of the river. They're out of their zone. Hey! You're out of zone!”

“What?” a man yelled back.

“I said you're in the wrong place!”

They yelled across the expanse, then the two leaders walked toward each other, their maps out, arguing. I sat on a tree stump, waiting it out. This was a waste. We had no idea if the teams were covering the right sections. Not everyone was familiar with the woods. Not everyone knew the right landmarks.

“I think I found something!” The old lady was crouched over a pile of leaves about ten feet from the river. The girl beside me rolled her eyes. The old lady picked up something that glinted in the sunlight, holding it over her head, squinting. “What is it?” she asked.

I rose, slowly making my way toward them.

“A buckle,” someone said. “For a fairy. It's tiny.”

“Oh,” she said. “Like from a bracelet, maybe?” She turned it over in her hands. It had two letters floating inside a circle, the edges coated in mud. “The initials are MK, so it can't be hers.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” I said. “Are we really pulling every piece of trash from the forest? This is ridiculous.”

“Should you be touching that?” said a teen who had probably seen one too many cop shows.

The old lady frowned, put it back down, moved the leaves around to make it look natural.

“That doesn't really work,” I said. I picked it back up, turned it over in my hand. “It's from a dog leash. Did she have a dog?”

“I don't think so,” the kid said.

Brad gestured for us to turn around. “Come on,” he said. “Let's start back.”

I trailed the others by a few feet, scanning the surrounding ground as we moved. I slid the buckle into my back pocket. It wasn't from a leash or a collar or a bracelet. I recognized that logo. It was from a purse.

I TOOK THE LONG
way home, stopping at CVS, buying a soda, using the bathroom, dumping the buckle in the trash can, waving to Luke Aberdeen on the way out.

I STOOD IN FRONT
of my house, tilting my head to the side, trying to see it as a stranger might. Nothing special, nothing to make someone look twice. My feet started sinking in a spot of mud, and I pulled them out, the suction gripping my sneakers before dislodging. I walked toward the porch, my steps slow and labored, as if my feet were sticking to the earth. I waited by the front porch, willing myself to go inside.

The secrets this house had kept locked away, mine included. Daniel's and my father's and those that belonged to the generation before. In the walls, under the floorboards, within the earth. I imagined Corinne shaking out a can of gasoline and me taking a match to the splintered edge of the porch, both of us standing too close as the wood warped and popped, the house igniting, turning to rubble, to smoke and ash. The flames jumping to the extended branch of a tree, taking the woods along with them.

“What are you doing?”

I peered over my shoulder, at Tyler walking from his truck, his legs moving as slowly as mine had.

I turned back to the house—to my window above the sloped roof. “Imagining a fire,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, his hand on the small of my back as he stood beside me. He watched the same splintered porch, the same window, and I could imagine him picturing the same thing. “When did you last eat?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Come on. I picked up dinner.”

THE BAR WAS SOMBER,
but it wasn't empty. Tyler stood between me and the door, obstructing the view as we walked past the entrance, the bag of Chinese takeout tucked under his arm. I followed him up the narrow stairwell, took the bag from him as he unlocked the door and held it open for me with his foot.

“So, this is it,” he said.

I left the bag of food on the kitchen island directly to my left. The place could use some upgraded appliances, a fresh coat of paint, a throw rug or two over the scuffed wood floors, but in other ways, it suited him perfectly. It had what he needed: couch, TV, kitchen, bedroom. If something didn't matter to Tyler, he didn't do it for the sake of anyone else. He unloaded the food, serving it on ceramic plates, while I wandered the apartment, checking out the details.