The Night My Sister Went Missing (3 page)

I thought of my hand going around that little thing. I could almost close my fist around it—that's how small it was. If it had been some giant Luger, I would have been shouting, "What the fuck, moron! Get that thing away from us!" I might have secretly busted the person to Drew's dad—but then, a big gun like that would not have ended up at a party with us. The size, the almost-toy factor made it look so ...
holdable.
I had thought about holding it the right way—putting my finger on the trigger. It really had been tempting. But some things you just don't do. At least not when you're stone-cold sober. Some airhead hadn't been able to resist temptation, obviously.

"I don't want to know who was holding that thing when it went off, Drew."

"Well, I don't know that, anyway. I've heard five or six versions of the trail of hands it passed through. I don't know what to believe. I only know who owned it."

"I don't want to know yet."

"Okay." He blew air into his cheeks, puffing them out while staring at the floor.

With him acting like Mount Vesuvius, I plopped down, gripped the bottom of the chair, shut my eyes tight, and braced myself."Oh, for god's sake ... Just tell me."

I'd actually been hoping it was Mark Stern and I could get him put away, at least for possession of a deadly weapon. Eighteen-year-olds have no business going out with fifteen-year-olds, especially when the fifteen-year-old is your sister. And he had become what I call a fringe dweller of the
Mystic Marvels. In high school he'd been great—football and basketball starter, party comedian extraordinaire. But lately girls had started to call him sleazy, because he'd now had four girlfriends in our crowd. He hung with us every weekend like he was still in high school, and I was hearing drug rumors lately, too. Let's say he was on my nerves before he started in with my sister.

"Stacy Kearney owns it," Drew said.

I sat back, watching his eyes, wondering if he actually believed that, wondering if I should or I shouldn't.

"'Stacy Kearney.'" I repeated this morsel.

I watched Drew for a long time. Of course Stacy Kearney would stand as prime suspect if any tragedy actually happened on this island. What with feeling so restless lately, and like the Technicolor in my friends was fading slowly down to dusty gray, the suggestion left me a little defensive and insulted—like you might feel after guessing the end of a made-for-TV drama.

Stacy Kearney.
I'm trying to think up a title that would fit a girl like this, though the best I can probably come up with is the Fallen Queen type. I had seen her "fall" and had never been sure I approved of what was happening to her or not. She was a year younger than me but so noticeable that I knew her name on the first day of school my sophomore year. She was
too
perfect. Too blond, too outgoing and fun, a little too sure of herself for anyone to mess with. She fell into our crowd like she had one foot on a banana peel—despite having just moved here from Connecticut, like, two days before school started.

It takes a special talent, penetrating a crowd that included girls who, if not exactly vicious, weren't looking to play Welcome Wagon. It also was probably interesting to some people that she had the name DeWinter in her family.
Her mom's parents were DeWinters, and the DeWinters had owned almost all of Mystic, like, two generations back. Stacy's DeWinter grandparents still owned the last nine vacant lots on the island, and their house was in the dead center of town, taking up, like, half a block. If you know anything about beach houses, they're usually so smooshed in together, you can water your lawn just with a garden hose. I knew about how much money the DeWinters gave away to various causes, because my dad was a recipient: the DeWinter Grant for Artists with a Work-in-Progress. Ten thousand smackers, two years in a row. Dad would get those grants, and for at least a month I'd have cold cuts instead of peanut butter for lunch.

But I think most kids were drawn to Stacy for the more likely reasons. Pools, believe it or not, are a novelty to islanders. The DeWinters had a huge pool and a tennis court, and one of the few houses on the island that actually boasts a basement. The basement was finished and made for awesome parties, especially since the grandparents were getting too arthritic to come down the stairs.

I guess you could say Stacy seemed like the type of person you'd love to hate—except for the fact that her house was so supercharged with problems. Everyone knew about Stacy's mom and dad, and that itself probably kept people's jealousy buttons from getting pushed. Mrs. Kearney was known as the island "fling," and she was also rumored to be addicted to pain medication. Kids said that Mr. Kearney looked, smelled, and talked sort of like a lawn mower. We
said that probably because he had this little lawn service—he'd been cutting people's grass since he got out of high school. That was how the two of them met. Stacy's mom, the heir to the DeWinter fortune, took off to Connecticut with the guy who mowed their grass. It was a snicker-fest scandal that died way down about the time I was born. But it came back to life again with a vengeance when the Kearneys finally moved in with the DeWinters, when Stacy was fourteen. Due to all of this, I'd say it was hard for anyone to envy Stacy. I guess most people's parents are seen as embarrassing, but it's for acting goofy—not for being a sleaze bucket and a slob.

Stacy acted like neither of her parents existed, but you could tell if you knew her well enough that she could swelter in her own little hells. At least, I could see it. Maybe it was because of my dad, Mr. Insight, always prompting me: "The girl's probably confused about people and things she's got no control over. Be nice to her."

Being nice hadn't been too much of a problem. For two years she was one of those people you'd consider the life of the party.

Then this year a lot of girls in our crowd were suddenly bashing on her—or maybe
bashing
is the wrong word. They were rolling their eyes, rehashing this or that story about how mean Stacy had gotten. She still hung out with us, though it seemed like maybe half the time instead of all the time. Her best friend, Alisa Cox, still stuck up for her when any of these stories rolled her way. She would bat her eyelashes in
the sarcastic way only Alisa Cox could do, and say, "Stacy's like your average rock star: First, the public needs to build her up. Then, they need to knock her down."

The girls in our crowd could be thoughtless for sure, but they weren't evil people. I guess the stories being told about Stacy didn't seem worth the reaction that was forming, if that makes sense. The charges from the girls were hazy, things like, "She's just too much of a bitch. I can't hack it anymore."

"Stacy Kearney," I repeated again, and Drew lowered his head, drumming on his legs with his fingers.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. You're thinking that's more, um ... bitch speculation."

"It's awfully convenient." I squirmed under the concept of a made-for-TV ending. "These girls all decide they hate her, and suddenly she owns this pistol."

"Well, unfortunately, I heard she was the owner before it went off. Back when everybody still thought it was funny. You know how people are. They'd get it in their hands, and the first question would be, of course, 'Is it loaded?' Unfortunately, the answer was wrong. The second question would be, 'Whose is it?' When I asked it, Cecilly Holst answered: 'It's Stacy Kearney's.'"

I swallowed. Cecilly and Stacy were often pretty tense around each other, and they'd been dubbed by more insightful kids in our crowd as "too much alike." They were both highly opinionated, vocal, stubborn, never backing down from an argument. I always felt sorry for girls in one
of the quieter crowds if they somehow earned the shared wrath of these two. People who didn't hang with us were under the mistaken idea that Stacy and Cecilly were best friends. It was only those of us closest to them who saw that Cecilly and True were really best friends, and that Stacy and Alisa were, too. True and Alisa were quieter, and Stacy and Cecilly could light up a room.

I'd seen Stacy and Cecilly go as much as a couple of weeks without speaking to each other. Then one day they'd be hugging each other, and saying they were sorry and how much they loved each other. It was hills and valleys with those two.

I looked down at my thumbnail, seeing past it. "Tell me something. Did Stacy ever get in your face?"

"No," Drew said, rubbing the back of his neck and yawning. "I saw her lay a few girls to waste. Glad I'm not a girl. Why? She ever rip into you?"

I smiled just a little, wondering if I should just take off my watch. The temptation to keep looking at it made it weigh a hundred pounds.

"Not really." I dropped my wrist between my knees and forced myself to look away. "Well, once she did, but she apologized right after. About six weeks ago."

"What did she say?"

"It was a school night. I was walking home from baseball by myself, for once. She was coming up Central Avenue with three huge pillowcases full of what looked like wash. I had to do the Coin-Op routine with Mom once when our washer broke, so I sympathized. I just tried to take one of
the pillowcases to help her carry it in. She utterly jumped on me, all, 'Do I look crippled? Aren't you a little old to be a Boy Scout?'"

Drew shuddered. "Why does she get like that sometimes? It's so not PC to talk about girls and PMS, but sometimes I think the best thing we could get for her is a gift certificate to her GYN."

I shrugged. "It helps me, having a sister. I've got thick skin after Casey pulling that routine on me for years. I just muttered some, 'No, you don't look crippled, but you don't look like an octopus, either.' She let me help her. When we got inside she started apologizing, saying their washing machine had died, and everything she owned was dirty, and how annoying that was, blah-blah. She looked really sorry and tried, in her ... subtle way, to be nice for the next few days. I just forgot about it."

"She's like Eve White and Eve Black." Drew shuddered. "Or what's that saying about the little girl? 'And when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad—'"

"You gotta look at the circumstances," I said, responding from my gut. "The Coin-Op is hot and grimy. It smells. Your clothes come out wrinkled, and in the summer it's full of French Canadian tourists who all but dangle their thongs off the end of your nose. I was ready to bark at someone by the time we left."

"Yeah, but she was just going in, not coming out."

I watched him, thinking,
Let's not nitpick.

He finally smiled a little. "Believe me, I'm not trying to catch let's-crucify-Stacy disease. I can't find a really good reason for the girls to be acting the way they're acting. But I'm not a gossip hag, either. I don't go around asking questions about stuff like that. Still, I say, 'Where there's smoke, there's fire.'"

I didn't answer, and after checking my watch a couple more times, the room behind the gray glass turned suddenly bright. Captain Lutz and Cecilly Holst moved in there and took seats at the end of a conference table.

Drew froze as Lutz's voice blared, "Just have a seat right there. I'll be with you in a minute."

Drew blinked his tired eyes at me with some sort of amused confusion on his face. "Hel-
lo?
" he said at the ceiling, but neither silhouette in the inner room responded. He snorted out a laugh. "I'm not sure we're supposed to be hearing them. I'm not sure he remembers you're out here."

I didn't care. I was just freaked that he had moved into this little room, anyway. "What, he's going to question them in
there?
This is about a stupid accident; it's not an episode of
NYPD Blue.
"

"Simmer," Drew muttered. "Dad has said they added on this room because it's the state law now. You can no longer treat police statements like technology doesn't exist. They call it the questioning room. Whatever she says, Lutz will automatically tape it, too. He'll take notes, probably to keep from reminding her of the tape, but there will be a tape if he needs it."

"You're kidding," I said.

"Don't take it personally. I mean ... not entirely. He's not exactly asking her about some crabber's traps being emptied by poachers. There was a gun and ... If your sister dove off that pier as a joke, well, it's getting to be not funny."

"I don't like this," I stammered. "This is my podunk island, and people don't give secret testimonies in some 'questioning room.'"

"Yeah, you're from a place that will send every cop on the force down to the beach and leave nobody here to remind the police captain of who's sitting where, when he's busy focusing on technology that's probably over his head. Count your blessings, dude. It's your podunk island that could allow you to hear some of this. If you shut up and stay cool."

I wanted to shout,
My sister is a great diver! She's an airhead, but a great practical joker!
And then,
The gun was a toy!
You can almost believe what you know is not true when you really have to.

When Drew stuck his nose almost right up to the tinted glass without drawing any attention, I did it, too. The silhouettes cleared into perfect facial expressions, but in an odd reddish lighting. At times the whites of Cecilly's eyes seemed to glow.

"We
all
held it." Cecilly's voice floated gracefully through speakers, even though she leaned far sideways and bounced up like she had pretended to faint. "I'm sorry! Can I blame Eddie Van Doren's ghost? Or Kenny Fife's? The spooks made me do it."

Van Doren and Fife were the pier's two infamous suicides. Fife jumped in the eighties, and Van Doren blew his brains out up there four years ago. Lutz had transferred here after being a captain on the Atlantic City police force for years, because Mystic was supposed to be zero stress in
comparison. The night Van Doren died had been his first night on the job.

He only glared.

"No? Okay ... I just don't know what to say, then. True handed it to me, saying it wasn't a toy, and it looked so tiny ... And True is an angel! And Drew Aikerman handed it to her, and how good is he? You would have done the same thing, Captain Lutz!"