All the Missing Girls

by Megan Miranda

  “Is everything okay?” I said.

  The man wasn’t in uniform, and he was bigger than I’d thought, and younger, given his voice. About my age or younger—­Annaleise’s age—which made him too young to be part of Corinne’s investigation. The way he spoke made me think he wasn’t from here. Not this town, anyway. An hour east was all it took to make a difference. The mountains and the single winding road kept this place separate, insular.

  “Nicolette”—he checked his notepad—“Farrell?” Definitely not from here. Even if he was too young to know me personally, the names go with the houses. It wouldn’t be a mystery. The Carter property backs to the Farrell property, and the McElrays own land on both sides, though neither was built on yet. The Lawsons made a bid for the house and land across the lane when Marty Piper, the last of the Pipers, passed on after his third and final heart attack, but the house and the land were unoccupied, tangled in legalese and court paperwork.

  I was staring off through the woods, in the direction of Marty’s place, when the cop said, “Miss?”

  “Yes?” I said.

  Daniel rolled his neck and came to stand beside me on the porch.

  “You’re Nicolette Farrell?”

  “I am.”

  “My name is Detective Charles. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Tyler Ellison.” He seemed to be waiting for something—maybe for me to be the Southern hostess, like Laura, open the screen door and beckon him inside, offering him some tea. Outsiders only come in when the investigation shifts. Detective Charles, I was sure, was the new Hannah Pardot.

  After he took a few hesitant strides toward the house, I walked down the porch steps, meeting him in the middle of the yard, my feet sinking into the ground, moist from last night’s rain.

  “How’s the motel?” I asked, just to check. “Or are they putting you up someplace nicer?”

  His mouth twisted. “I’m sorry, have we met?” he asked.

  “You’re not from here, are you?” I countered.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, flipping through his pad. He towered over me, so I couldn’t see the writing. He cleared his throat, pen poised over the paper. “This will just take a moment. I’m following up on some questions, here. Heard this might be a good place to start.” He didn’t look up the entire time he spoke. Not until he said, “Please describe your relationship with Tyler Ellison.”

  “This will be really fast, Detective. We have no relationship. Sorry you wasted your time coming out here.”

  His eyes flicked up to mine, then back to his paper. “How about in the past, then?”

  “He was my high school boyfriend,” I said. “I’m twenty-eight.”

  He flipped pages back and forth, umm-ing and uhh-ing, before finding what he was looking for. “You’ve been together since?” he asked. “It’s my understanding that you’ve been seen with him since then.”

  I smiled up at him. “I live in Philadelphia. But when I used to come visit, sure.”

  “Not anymore?” he asked.

  “I’m engaged,” I said, and I saw his eyes drift to my bare finger.

  He flipped the pages again. “Uh, he’s been seen around your house. More recently. Very recently.”

  I was getting irritated, and I didn’t make any attempt to hide it. “He’s been helping—”

  Daniel stepped forward, cut me off. “I asked him to. He runs a construction business. We’re fixing up the house. Nic’s only home for a little while. He’s helping me as a favor.”

  Detective Charles faced my brother. “You’re friends?”

  The briefest of pauses, but I felt it. “Yes,” Daniel said. Be smart. Give the most finite possible answer. Close the loop, don’t make unnecessary openings, because they will seize them. They will fill them.

  “So, the thing is . . .” Detective Charles flipped pages, and I caught a glimpse of a blank sheet. The jerk was playing me—­playing us both. The pages were nothing. A few words scribbled in the margins. It was an act to pretend he didn’t know who we were and all our history. In truth, he had it filed away in his head. He’d been studying us, and he was playing his angle. God, how long had he been here?

  I put a hand on Daniel’s arm and applied the faintest pressure before Detective Charles looked back up. “The thing is, we can’t find Annaleise’s cell—and it appears to be off. But we did get a look at her phone records. And the very last call she answered, the night before she was reported missing, was from Tyler Ellison. Around one A.M.”

  “It’s my understanding that they were seeing each other,” I said.

  He tapped his pen on the page. “No, see, that’s the other thing. Tyler said they broke up. And when I looked into why that might be—because that’s an awful big coincidence, break up with a girl and then she goes missing—talk around town is that it probably has something to do with you. And why do you think that might be?”

  I felt my jaw tighten, my hands tighten. “Because historically, that’s what happened. And in this town, what happened in the past is all that will ever happen, Detective. If you were from here, you’d know that.”

  “No need to get defensive. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “Then ask Tyler.”

  “I did,” he said. “Though he’s a hard man to track down.”

  There was a time when all I had to do was conjure him to mind—just the wisp of a thought—and there he’d be in the flesh, as if I had summoned him. But now I had to agree. Tyler was starting to feel like a ghost, like if I blinked for too long, he might slip away for good.

  Detective Charles tapped his pad. “He says he called Annaleise at one A.M. and that, let me see, he decided to break it off. Because, quote, ‘She wanted more than I was willing to give her.’ What do you suppose that means?”

  “I’m assuming exactly what he said. He doesn’t like to be tied down.”

  He smiled and it was unsettling—the shark ready to play his winning card. “That’s quite the opposite of what I’ve been hearing. Looks like he’s tied down really good here.”

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “Look, up until last week, I hadn’t talked to Tyler in over a year. I have no insight into the inner workings of their relationship.” The detective caught the inflection in my voice, I was sure, and I fought to keep it steady as Daniel put a hand on my back. Calm down.

  “Ms. Farrell, I’m not trying to get him into trouble or anything. I just want to get a feel for Annaleise’s state of mind that night.”

  Lie.

  “When were you and Tyler Ellison last . . . together?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his notepad.

  “If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, that’s kind of a personal question.”

  “This is a missing persons investigation. Of course it’s personal. Think of the girl, Ms. Farrell.”

  Think of the girl. “Last year,” I said.

  “Not last week? Not when you returned home?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You return home, and Tyler allegedly breaks up with Annaleise the same night, and then she’s reported missing the following morning. You can see how this looks.”

  I could see what stories they had concocted, and the one they wanted me to feed back to them. But I’d been through this before. We all had. This kid, he didn’t have a fucking clue. “I understand that when the police have no leads, they become desperate, trying to find meaning where there’s nothing. Trying to connect unrelated dots into a picture they can understand. Whether it’s true or not.”

  Daniel’s phone rang and he answered it right then without excusing himself. “Hello?” he said. “What?” He continued listening, and I kept my eyes on his face so I wouldn’t have to look at Detective Charles, whose gaze I could feel burning a hole into the side of my skull. “I’ll be right there,” he said. Then, to the detectiv
e, “Our dad isn’t well. We have to go. Good luck with the case.” He turned to face me. “They need us to come in. Right now.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, running into the house, locking the doors, grabbing my shoes and purse. Daniel already had the car running by the time I was outside, on the phone with the insurance company he was working with as a field adjuster, explaining that he couldn’t make it to the site.

  Daniel assessed damages for a living. Worked out of his home, going wherever one of several companies sent him in the region. Everything was a checklist—there was a formula to disaster, misfortune, and tragedy. Everything had a value and a cost. I suppose he got accustomed to digging through facts, assigning blame, detecting fraud. Or he found out he was good at it. After he’d lived through Corinne’s case, maybe it was a comfort to him—finding the logic in the chaos. Finding the truth.

  “No,” he said, “I won’t make it out today at all. I’ll double up tomorrow. Yeah, call it a sick day.”

  He was calling Laura as we drove down the road. The detective was sitting in his car, making notes to himself, pretending not to watch us as we drove away.

  * * *

  DAD WAS IN RESTRAINTS, flat on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The room was full of people, all of whom worked there in one capacity or another. When Daniel and I barged in, the doctor made a show of placing his fingers on the inside of Dad’s wrist, which was limp and restrained by a thick ivory strap.

  “What the hell are you doing to him?” I asked, pushing past the doctor and working on a restraint that had been buckled around Dad’s other wrist.

  “Ms. Farrell.” There was a hand on my shoulder but the voice sounded farther away. “Ms. Farrell.” A woman’s voice, more forceful now, and then the hand moved to my wrist, restraining my own movement. “It’s for his safety. And ours.”

  I looked at the hand on my wrist, at the long fingers and cracked knuckles leading to the knobby wrist and the slender arm. Daniel.

  It was then that I got a good look at everyone in the room. A nurse looked shaken, half her hair pulled free from a bun. There were two men in the room who didn’t appear to be doctors or nurses, and were watching Dad carefully. And the woman who’d spoken my name, dressed in business attire and standing near the doorway.

  “He’s sedated now,” the woman said. “But we don’t know what shape he’ll be in when he wakes up.”

  The air was stale and cold and seemed so impersonal. No scents of home. Medicine, cleansers, bleach. It couldn’t be good for his memory. He needed to smell the wood floors and the forest behind our house. He needed the exhaust from his crappy car and the grease from Kelly’s Pub. “Well, when he wakes up to find himself physically restrained, I can tell you right now it won’t be good,” I said.

  She pressed her lips together and stuck her hand out in my direction, not giving me any choice but to take it. “I’m Karen Addelson, the director here. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you yet, Ms. Farrell. Come, please, to my office, both of you.” She didn’t let go of my hand, instead taking hold of my elbow with her other hand. “He’ll be fine. Someone will stay with him.” Her hand on my elbow moved to my lower back, and she led me out of the room, Daniel at my side.

  Karen Addelson was dressed smart, like how I modeled myself in Philadelphia. Pencil skirt, black trendy flats, blouse cut to look both professional and feminine. She dropped her hand as we walked in a straight line against the right side of the hall, making room for wheelchairs and service carts. Smiling tightly, she checked over her shoulder to make sure we were following. Her blouse was sheer with a camisole underneath, and it was so at odds with her makeup-free face and hair pulled into a severe bun that I couldn’t get a grasp on her.

  We followed her into an outer office with potted plants on either side of bay windows and a desk with a secretary who smiled absently in our direction. “Hold my calls,” Karen said as she strode past into her office. Three cushioned chairs and a couch on one side, her desk on the other. She gestured toward the couch. Daniel sank into the cushions, but I remained standing. Everett would never sit there—You’ll lose the upper hand, Nicolette, I could imagine him whispering into my ear. Everett was like that: always teaching me how to handle myself in situations, as if he could mold me into his equal. I imagined his father doing the same for him, teaching him that line to walk, and a miniature Everett nodding, learning, copying, becoming.

  Karen sat on the chair across from the couch, and I stood beside the couch, close to Daniel.

  “I’m concerned,” she said. “Your father had an episode this morning.”

  “What does that even mean?” Daniel said. “An episode?”

  “He became extremely agitated—”

  “It’s because there’s nothing here to help him remember,” I said. “I’d be agitated if I woke up in a place I didn’t know.”

  “That may be true, Ms. Farrell, I don’t deny his right to those feelings. But his outburst went beyond disorientation. I’m afraid I’d have to call it paranoia. And it makes me question whether this is the right facility for him. Perhaps he would be better suited to a place that can care for those specific needs.”

  “Paranoia?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes. He was yelling that someone was after his daughter, and he refused to remain here. He was unmanageable. He became violent, insisting that he had to get out, get to you. Help you.” She stared at me, and I looked away, imagining him yelling for his daughter—for me. My spine tingled, paranoia or not.

  “It took two men to restrain him so a doctor could sedate him. But all he kept saying was ‘My daughter’s not safe.’”

  I felt Daniel staring at my face. The chill moved up my spine, hollowing out the room and my stomach and my lungs.

  “If this was an event in the past, I could understand,” she continued. “That would be more in line with what we know of his condition. Was it? Were you once in danger, Ms. Farrell?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what’s happening to him.” His words echoing over and over, as if I’d heard them myself.

  “Well, as I said, the paranoid delusions make me question if he’s in the right facility,” she said, driving home the point of our meeting.

  “It’s my fault,” Daniel said.

  “Excuse me?” Karen said. We were both staring at him; his cheeks were burning as if he’d been working in the sun too long.

  “Our neighbor went missing. Annaleise Carter? Maybe you’ve seen it on the news? I told him. I realize in hindsight that was a mistake. It just slipped out. She disappeared in the woods behind our house, where my sister is staying. I wanted him to hear it from me and not the news. I shouldn’t have told him. I’m sorry. It’s not paranoia, though. It’s confusion. It’s a mistake.”

  Karen tilted her head to the side, assessing my brother’s words. She finally nodded. “That’s understandable. Upsetting, to say the least. We will need to continue to monitor him, however. If this becomes a pattern . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Let me,” I said. “I’m the one he was talking about.” I was glad that I was standing, glad for the confidence in my posture.

  Karen stood. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Without the restraints,” I said.

  * * *

  DANIEL WENT TO THE cafeteria to order three lunches to bring back to Dad’s room. I was sitting cross-legged on the chair in the corner, drinking a soda from the vending machine, when Dad finally woke. There was an orderly in the room near the door, per Karen’s request.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said tentatively.

  He rubbed absently at his wrists, and I could see the red chafing mark against his wrist bone. I leaned over his bed so he’d see me before he saw the room he didn’t own and the man he didn’t know.

  “You’re okay,” I said. “I’m okay.” />
  He pushed himself up and winced. “Nic?” he said, his eyes focusing, narrowing, roaming.

  “You’re at Grand Pines, and you’re fine, and I’m here, and I’m fine.”

  He reached his hand, placed it on the side of my face. “Nic, thank God. Nic. It’s not safe for you.”

  “Shh, Dad,” I said, looking at the man beside the door. “I’m fine.” Daniel walked in with our lunches at that moment, three stacked Styrofoam boxes. “And Daniel’s here, see? We’re fine.”

  Dad sat up like a child in bed after a nightmare, both relieved and terrified. He looked at Daniel, at me, at the man beside the door. “You’ll take care of her?” he said to Daniel.

  Daniel opened the boxes, looked inside each, and passed them out. “Yes, Dad,” he said, and I felt a lump rise in my throat. “You can’t let yourself get worked up, okay?”

  Dad rubbed at his wrists again, like he couldn’t remember if something was supposed to be there.

  “Dad,” Daniel said, “it’s important.”

  I leaned forward, spreading a napkin on Dad’s lap. “Dad, everything’s fine.”

  He stared at Daniel. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

  Daniel already had food in his mouth. Nothing could kill his appetite. He kept his eyes on Dad. “You know I will,” he said as he chewed.

  Karen Addelson came in with the doctor. “How’s everything going in here? Patrick? Are you feeling better?”

  “What? Oh, yes. Yes.” He grabbed his sandwich like he was playing a part. “This is my daughter. Have you met? Nic, meet the Lady in Charge. Lady in Charge, meet my daughter.”

  “Nice to meet you,” both Karen and I said. “Now, Patrick,” Karen went on, “how about we sleep this off? Have your lunch, and the doctor will give you something. We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Okay?”

  I nodded encouragingly. Daniel nodded. Dad looked between the two of us and nodded until she left the room. He gripped my wrist. “Promise me, Nic.”