The Night My Sister Went Missing (2 page)

I knew that last line was less than true, and probably the only reason I was stone-cold sober was that the parents were away, and something kept eating at me to act like an adult. As much as possible. It had seemed like a sacrifice to the party gods not to have my usual two and a half beers, which is all you can have if you're a puker. At seventeen you're too old to be puking in bushes after a six-pack. Time to grow up. And I had just never smoked pot. Call me boring. Casey had, though, and I tried to remember if she'd smoked any tonight. It seemed to me the last time I looked at her, maybe five minutes before the little pistol crack, I had seen her with something lit, but I thought it was her biweekly cigarette-at-a-party.

I had been on the other side of the pier, talking to, of all people, Billy Nast, science gleep extraordinaire. I still hadn't figured out who had brought him to this party. But I'd latched on to his talk about just having finished a month at Purdue, and these summer engineering courses he'd actually taken there. Girls kept coming up and doing that thing with their knees, trying to collapse my knees from behind—their way of telling me I was acting very strange. But I hadn't wanted to leave Nast alone in a crowd that was drinking and could potentially get, um, pointed.

And besides, I'd been having secret qualms about the Naval Academy. My getting accepted there had made me famous around Mystic. Between my parents, relatives, teachers,
coaches, and the newspapers, I didn't feel I could think aloud to anyone about my qualms—and I wasn't even sure why I would pick such a time to start dwelling on nauseating concepts such as "killing people for a living." All I'd thought about for two years before the acceptance letter arrived was getting in. So I felt a little whacked out, like, wondering if I was schizoid, or if there is a devil that likes to embarrass you. Anyway, there was Billy Nast, talking enthusiastically about becoming an astronaut, giving alternatives in case I totally needed one.

I'd been hypnotized, not only by his enthusiasm for taking college classes during the summer but also with the thought that he really wasn't all that gleepy. I sat there listening to him, wondering,
What is a gleep, anyway? What does that mean?

That was all before Casey fell. Afterward I wanted to throttle him. If I'd been doing the same old fooling around with the same old friends, maybe I could have been closer to Casey. Maybe I could have grabbed her arm. Maybe I would have seen whether this blood-rushing-through-her-fingers thing was truth or moonlight. I knew it was stupid to blame Billy Nast, and I tried not to. But the bottom line was, I hadn't been close at all, hadn't even heard Casey hit the water in the long, wily, unforgettable silence before people started screaming.

"Why do people party?" I asked Cecilly and True. I wanted to blame someone, though it was too soon to blame individuals, so society in general seemed appropriate.

They said nothing. Some questions aren't worth trying to answer.

"We'll straighten the cops out." Cecilly rubbed my back some more, though her normally dead-on gaze dropped a little. "Huh, True?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about anything, Kurt."

Their lowered eyes spoke volumes, yet no way was I ready to start filling in the void. Missing from it was the ever-important question:
What did you guys see?
Their tones implied they had seen a lot. Their tones implied what they'd seen was not good—if an accident, a stupid one; a gun had been fired, and someone ought to go to jail for attempted manslaughter, at least. Their tones said they were prepared to tell the truth to the cops.

I appreciated that, as well as the fact that they weren't sitting here spewing the details into my face yet. You would think that if your sister fell off a pier after a gun had been fired, you would want every little morsel of information, and as quickly as possible. But there are times you really feel like you need the police or some adult company to give you some adult wisdom, or you might wind up going crazy.

I felt a slight breeze run over me and looked down the long corridor. The double doors were not visible from way back here where Captain Lutz had sat me down, but I knew they had opened. I walked out there, and True and Cecilly followed. Lutz came toward us with sand all over his shoes. The cuffs of his uniform trousers were wet and sandy, also.

"Nothing yet. Hang steady." He put his hands on his hips and watched me breathlessly. I searched his eyes for some sort of judgment, some I-told-you-so glare, because, in school and out, he was always blowing smoke about kids on the pier. But he looked distracted by other things, including Cecilly and True being on either side of me. His eyes bounced back and forth.

"You girls want to give a statement?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

There was nervousness in both voices, as if they sensed they were breaking some code of ethics. I didn't exactly fault all the kids who ran. I was too numb to fault anyone yet, but I was slightly agog that even a pistol crack and someone falling wouldn't stop some of those people from their usual flight syndrome when the cops show up. I would think of that later. For now I was glad for these two.

Lutz gestured them to come with him to his office, a little farther down the hall, and he sounded grateful, if tense. "Great. There's two I won't have to round up. Kurt, wait out here. You girls can start filling out the statement form, and then I'll see you one at a time."

I watched him shut the door to the back offices, which were just cubicles in a big room. It wasn't big as police stations go.

Mystic, like most barrier islands, is pencil shaped and hugs the coast. It's seven miles long, but only the three-mile middle section is wide enough to be inhabitable. Even there,
every ten years or so, a northeast storm at full moon will send the ocean to meet the bay in the middle of Central Avenue. Water will run like a river up Bay Drive and Ocean Drive, which is why most of the island houses are built with nothing but concrete garages and a rec room on the first floor. Nearly every house has a waterline stain around the outside of the garage.

Total inhabitants: three thousand in the winter, eighteen thousand in the summer.

Usually in July someone would bring some summer person around to hang with us. We were nice and all, but the person rarely came back, sensing, I think, that life was established around here. We knew one another, one another's families, and we knew the islanders who would qualify as family because we'd seen them regularly on the street since we were born.

I suspected Lutz would find out who was on the pier and round up all twenty or so of the Mystic Marvels who had been present. That's what we called our clan around school—the Mystic Marvels. Casey had actually dreamed up that term last year as a freshmen and it kind of went everywhere and stuck. There were maybe five kids who were freshmen and a dozen kids in each of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes who seemed to qualify as Mystic Marvels—not too bad, not too good, not too smart, not too dumb, not too rich, not too poor, just "marvy all around," as Casey loved to say. We had a bad reputation with the too-smarts and too-goods. We were loathed by the too-bads, but
we figured some people are just jealous. Because the island only has one block of slum at the far south end, the too-poors are all but nonexistent, and the too-riches are usually summer people, who don't count as islanders.

We had our almost-riches, as my dad smilingly called them, which would include whatever types could make a decent living in an area that has no industry: doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, and because there was so much waterfront property, real estate agents. A lot of their kids were among my friends, but we melted in with some people like True, too, no questions asked. Her dad was the pastor of Mystic Baptist Church, and the family lived on church-basket collections. Casey and I are accepted, though my dad never ceased to remind me that midlist authors don't qualify as almost-riches. He says that because of his job, we're "novel" and can go anywhere. Hardy-har.

That's life around here. Because of it, Cecilly and True couldn't technically be accused of busting anyone if they gave names. The cops could drive up and down the streets, stopping at each house and asking to speak to so-and-so, like newspaper chuckers who have memorized a paper route.

I let myself spiral a little as the aloneness sent waves of panic into my gut. The minutes passing weighed on me, reminding me that it only takes four minutes to drown. This was not good,
not good,
and the thought drew a mouthful of spit I was forced to swallow. I jerked my head and fo
cused on the end of the corridor. A presence filled the doorway. I all but bounced to my feet seeing Drew Aikerman.

It wasn't Casey, but my best friend was all right, and I did what I had never done before. I dropped my head into his shoulder and didn't make any bullshit joke when his arms went around me. His hair was still wet, and a layer of beach sand found its way into my eyes and teeth—another thing that spoke volumes. Drew was a lifeguard, too, which maybe made him useful to the coast guard. He'd searched the tide with them until he'd probably collapsed in the sand before making his way here.

"Went to your house first, since all your lights were on," he said. It was an apology for not getting here sooner.

"I kept telling Casey to turn off the lights," I muttered, backing up. "She's so ... airy." I felt a tinge of guilt, cutting on her right now, but it made everything seem a little more normal.

Drew just looked me in the eye. "I think she's holed up in the back bay. Let's face it. She's a good swimmer, fantastic diver. And it would be like her to, you know..."He left the sentence dangling, as if it might go against his normal politeness to say, "pull a fast one on us."

I didn't say anything, but the definition of "good swimmer, fantastic diver" gripped at me. You could fit a three-story house under the pilings at the end of the pier. And Casey had been wearing my new Naval Academy sweatshirt that, soaked in water, would have weighed her down if she'd
hit the water wrong and injured herself. She'd have been blatantly stupid to dive off that pier and risk her neck—then risk trying to stay afloat in my sweatshirt.

Just two years ago Casey had broken her neck in a fluke accident on water skis. You'd think after being in a halo for two months that she would never take another dare, never risk a dangerous prank. I hadn't seen Casey "risk her neck" for a prank since then, but she
had
gone back to mountain climbing, ski jumping, and was already cocaptain of the diving team at school, in spite of my mom being ripped up about it. Casey's cracked vertebra healed completely, but Mom says it's her carelessness that puts her in danger, not her skeletal system. Casey, of course, says she's not careless, and besides, swimmers are a dime a dozen but divers are hard to find. The scholarship money is awesome.

If she isn't outright careless, Casey loves to test the limits. She had talked a blue streak last summer about wanting to take a dive off the end of that pier. She'd spent many a dune party telling us that the water was at least forty feet deep at high tide, and that someday she would do it. But there were things to consider, like the halo, the scholarships at risk, and surfers who say the thrust of the surf around the pilings is like the Perfect Storm. The shelled-out remains of the pier vibrate when the surf is up. It had been up tonight. You just have to believe my sister would not be that much of a lunatic.

I sat across from Drew, staring at the hallway tiles under our bare feet.

"It's not time to worry yet," he said.

I looked over his wet sandiness. "Thanks. For everything."

"Don't be stupid. Cops still won't let you down there?"

"No."

"How did I guess that?" Sarcasm bounced through his voice. His dad was chief of police, so Drew was the cop behavior expert. He sat in a chair beside me and leaned his elbows on his knees. He fidgeted about six times before saying,"Um ... I didn't see it happen."

"Me neither. I basically just heard it."

"I thought it was a firecracker."

"Me, too. I was talking it up with Billy Nast, of all people. How the hell did he get there?"

"Um..."Drew raised his hand guiltily. "I was trying to help us out. You know, with that thing we've been talking about."

"What, our boredom thing?"

He nodded. "I knew exactly what you were talking about the other night when you said you felt all hemmed in, and you were suddenly 'seeing most of our friends in black-and-white.' That was profound."

I shifted uncomfortably. Drew and I would get to shooting the bull, but half the time I couldn't remember having said the things he quoted back at me. It's weird, having your best friend find you profound half the time.

"In fact, I took that one to
Madame School Teachaire,
" he said, which was his pet name for his mom, who teaches freshman English. "I said, 'Mom, Kurt and I are seeing our
friends in black-and-white. What's up with that?' She knew right away what I meant. She said that's normal. We're seniors. We're supposed to want to branch out, try a few new flavors. I saw Nast out on the fishing jetty this morning, just sitting there—without a fishing pole—like some dork. I dunno, it's like you said. Something sucked me toward him, and I just started talking to him. He wasn't
that
weird. To throw a Billy Nast type into a party, that isn't such a crime."

I sighed. "Tell that to the, um, ladies."

Drew bit on his lip and stared at the floor—enough time spent on small talk. "So ... you do know that was a real pistol. It wasn't a toy."

I nodded, swallowing. "Jeezus and Mary. This is the type of stuff you read about in a newspaper from, like, Omaha. Do me a favor. Don't tell me who was stupid enough to ... to own a real pistol, let alone bring it to a party. Sorry, I'm just not ready to be that angry yet."

"Okay."

"For one thing, first I have to get over being pissed at myself. I had the thing in my hand."

"So did everybody."

"It looked like a goddamned toy, Drew."

"That was the bottom line ... the stupid pill. Mark Stern passed it to me, and he said, 'Check this out. It's
not
a toy.' I mean, if he had said, 'This is a toy,' wouldn't you have been, like,
So?
' We wanted to touch it because it
wasn't
a toy."