Her cold hands at my elbows. Her breath in my ear. Bailey’s laughter, tight and nervous, in the background. The scent of Corinne’s spearmint gum. Her fingers dancing across my skin. Jump, she said.
She told me to jump.
The Day Before
DAY 6
I had a few hours before I needed to be at Laura’s baby shower in the church basement. But every time I thought of that room, I pictured Officer Fraize organizing us into search parties, and I saw the pictures of Annaleise and Corinne hanging from the walls, interchangeable in my mind now.
“So you’ll be there at noon?” Daniel was outside the house with a pressure washer, two steps up a ladder leaning against the siding.
“I said I would.”
“Give me the list,” he said, hand extended.
“Seriously? You’re just going to work on the house now? Get it ready to sell?”
He jerked his hand forward a second time. “Come on, I’m not allowed to be there anyway.”
I reached up to hand him the paper, and he skimmed the page. “Pressure washer, got it. Okay, I’ll do the grouting after, and the painting if Tyler comes to help.”
“Tyler’s coming?”
“I don’t know. He was going to, but I haven’t heard from him,” he said, cutting his eyes to me. “So do me a favor and pull all the furniture you can away from the walls. I’ll handle the bigger pieces. Go get the plastic sheets out of the trunk.”
He went back to spraying the house. We were really doing this. Selling the house. Getting it ready. Going about our lives. Moving on.
“Nic,” he said. “Trunk. Go.”
I felt ungrounded as I walked to his car, as if in a daze. Sleep had been hard to come by the last few nights, and it was doing something to my head—like there was too much space to sort through and I couldn’t get a grip on any one solid thing. I pulled the sheets of plastic from the trunk, the smell slightly nauseating, held them against my chest so they billowed up in front of my face. I imagined suffocating inside them, draping them across crime scenes. My mother used to lay plastic sheets across the floor so Daniel and I could paint on easels in the kitchen, and after, they’d be covered in spills and drips, speckles of colors—a beautiful accident.
I couldn’t breathe. I dropped them at the bottom of the porch steps, and Daniel turned to look at me. “Nic, really,” he said, like I was the colossal disappointment of his life.
“I don’t feel good.”
He turned off the machine, walked down the ladder. “Well, if you’re not gonna help here,” he said, “then get to the church and help there.”
I nodded. “I’ll probably be back late. I have plans after.”
“You have plans after?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have plans.” Plans that consisted of wanting to be anywhere but here.
“You can stay with me and Laura tonight. The paint fumes. I wouldn’t want to breathe them in, either.”
“Maybe,” I said.
He nodded. “Good. See you later, then.”
* * *
MAYBE IT WAS THE church’s proximity to the police station, or maybe it was the graveyard behind it, where my mother was buried beside my grandparents, but there was something unsettling about this place, with the wooden pews smelling like earth, and the way you had to walk down the narrow aisle and over the altar to get to the basement steps beyond. I’d spent every Sunday here as a kid, but I’d stopped attending after my mom died, as did Daniel. My dad wasn’t usually there, either. Too busy sleeping off the Saturday binge—or just sleeping. And Tyler went only if I asked him to go with me. There was nothing for me under this steepled roof anymore.
Church was just another part of my life here. The thing you did on Sunday mornings, followed by snacks from CVS with Corinne and Bailey and whoever else was hanging out with us at the time. We’d sit on the top of car hoods in the summer, or huddle inside the store when the weather turned, Luke Aberdeen usually behind the cash register, keeping an extra-close eye on us, for good reason.
The last time I’d been to church here was for Daniel and Laura’s wedding, three years ago. I had that unsettled feeling back then, too. Standing up beside the altar in a watermelon-pink dress Laura had picked out and guessed my measurements on, because I’d never sent them to her. It was a little too long—hitting at shin level instead of just below the knee—too tight across the top, and gaped at the armholes. I felt out of place. I looked out of place.
I’d sneaked into this basement after, waiting out the crowd. Tyler had found me playing darts by myself in the rec room. I’d heard his footsteps rounding the corner, heard him toss his blazer on the nearest chair, while I took aim at the target with one eye closed. “Nice dress,” he’d said.
“Shut up.”
“Want to get out of here?” He showed me a secret way out—a set of steps through a closet in the back, a storm shutter, a chain with a master lock holding it closed. But Tyler had the code from when he worked down here after a flood. He had a way out of everything.
Daniel did not forgive me for missing the reception.
* * *
“NIC!” LAURA SQUEALED WHEN she saw me, waddling away from her older sister and mother, who were hanging decorations.
I smiled. “Daniel said you could use some help here.”
“Oh my God, yes,” she said. She leaned in closer. “My mother is crazy. Katie’s trying to keep her occupied, but she’s gone off the deep end. I can’t tell whether she’s excited or terrified of becoming a grandmother.”
I nodded too quickly. There were tiny moments, like this, when the grief came on strong out of nowhere. It was sneaky, and tricky, and you couldn’t see it coming until it was already there. It came with the mundane, simple tasks: My mother would never be hanging pink streamers at my shower. I would never lean over to someone and conspiratorially whisper, My mother is crazy. She would never become a grandmother.
Laura sucked in a quick breath, rubbing her upper stomach as if working out a kink. “Let me get you some punch.”
“No, thanks. Just put me to work.”
“Okay. Um, Katie?” she called over her shoulder. “What can Nic do?”
I let Katie sweep me up in the details. Hanging a sign, setting up the games, placing the cupcakes just so on the folding tables. Her eyes kept drifting to the board the cops had used in the corner—Annaleise’s picture was still pinned to the wall, along with a white grid sheet sectioning off the woods, each box with an assigned letter. Bricks and Officer Fraize had met us all here and organized us into groups. I had been on Team C, which searched the Carter property, stretching to the river. Daniel got A, which was Piper (including the abandoned house—nothing there, he’d told us after), McElray, and us. Tyler was in E, which was nowhere near the Carter place—he had the neighborhoods and property behind the elementary school. And don’t think we didn’t notice.
I took it upon myself to pull everything off the wall, storing it all facedown under the table.
“Thank you,” Katie said. “I felt bad taking them down, but who wants to look at that during a baby shower?” She shook her head. She had hair like her sister’s, long and fine, but hers was loaded with material that made it poof up near the top. Katie was twice divorced already, but I saw a ring on her finger.
“Congratulations,” I said.
“Third time’s the charm,” she said in a singsongy voice. “What about you? I hear you’re engaged to some hotshot lawyer up north?”
I felt the burn of her gaze on my empty finger. “Yes. The ring’s getting cleaned, though.”
“If you ever need wedding advice, you know who to ask.” She laughed to herself.
“Thanks, Katie.”
An hour later and the place looked like a tribute to cotton candy as the guests began to arrive. “Oh!” Katie said. “The present table.” She thrust a fe
w wrapped boxes on top of the table in the corner, with pink-and-green-wrapped mints scattered around.
“I left my present in the rec room,” I said. The rec room was through the kitchen, attached to the bathrooms, and I heard the toilet flush just as I grabbed my gift bag. I closed my eyes and reached inside to feel it one last time.
I’d gone to Babies “R” Us with the intention of finding the perfect gift, but I’d been completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the place. Aisles upon aisles—an entire industry devoted to the production and growth of tiny humans—and I had absolutely no idea where to start. And I didn’t know what Daniel and Laura wanted or needed. I checked the kiosk near the door for their registry, but they didn’t seem to have one. So I bought a tiny outfit—a tiny pink gingham dress with a tiny pink hat and tiny pink socks. Later, I asked one of the teachers at work what her favorite baby gift had been. “A breast pump,” she’d said. “Oh, and don’t get clothes.”
That night, as I was boxing up my things for storage, I opened the one bin I’d taken from home. My mother’s things, just sitting there, boxed away. Things I’d rifle through and never use. Things I took with me after all. I’d left them inside a gray plastic bin the whole time, too scared that I’d ruin them or that someone would break into my crappy apartment and take them.
And now I realized I’d forgotten a card. Son of a bitch.
Laura came out of the restroom, head tilted to the side, her hair falling over both shoulders. “For me?” she asked.
“I forgot a card,” I said.
“Oh, that’s okay.” She went to take the bag from me, but I couldn’t do it—couldn’t lose it in the sea of gifts on the table. She moved her hands to my arms. “Can I open it now?”
I nodded, and she smiled. I held the bag while she moved the tissue paper aside, first pulling out the tiny pink outfit, her smile stretching wide. Then she reached deeper, her face twisting as she felt the cold metal, maybe her fingers brushing over the engraving. She pulled out the silver jewelry box with my mother’s name engraved on top. It had been a gift from my father on their wedding day. Shana Farrell, it said in this perfect script—fancy but easy to read; formal but not pretentious.
Laura didn’t say anything. A tear rolled down her cheek as she watched the light catch the name on the surface. “Oh, Nic,” she said, her hand up to her mouth and then down to her belly.
“Oh, don’t do that. Oh, God. Don’t have the baby now. I’m not equipped.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “I can’t take this. It’s yours.”
“I’ll never have a Shana Farrell,” I said. “Please. She would’ve given it to you if she were here. I know it.” It was true. I could picture her doing this, feel her standing in this very spot, reaching for Laura, smoothing her hair.
She shook her head again but kept the box in her hands. “Thank you,” she said.
“Laura?” Katie poked her head in back. “The guests are here, babe. You okay?”
Laura wiped her cheeks, held my hand, and squeezed. “We will take good care of this, Nic,” she said. “Are you coming?”
“In a minute. Go ahead,” I said.
I spent a few moments in the bathroom, which had always been my favorite place for a good cry.
* * *
THE SHOWER WAS IN full-on party mode, Laura’s friends holding punch, grouped together with cupcakes and miniature sandwiches. Her mom and sister restocking the trays and moving effortlessly from group to group. People placing bets on the birth date on a sheet of paper hung over the gift table. I leaned against the entrance, readying myself for the show. Smile. Be friendly. For Laura.
“I don’t think they’re related,” I heard one of her friends say as she pulled the papers out from underneath the table. She was in Laura’s high school class; I knew her. Knew of her, at least. Same shade of hair, dyed a deep red. Monica Duncan. At least that had been her maiden name. “Annaleise was nothing like Corinne Prescott.”
They hovered around the search-party grid and Annaleise’s picture, which I’d taken down and hidden to specifically avoid nosy hands, prying words—everything I hated about this place.
Laura stood on the other side of them, her back to us, but she looked over her shoulder and said, “Oh, hush now, Monica.”
They waited for Laura to turn back around, and Monica lowered her voice. “What?” she said. “It’s true. Don’t you remember? That girl used to come around to our parties when she was barely fourteen—fourteen—the bunch of them. Remember?” Laura looked over her shoulder again, and I saw her face turning red, her eyes scanning the room. I shrank back into the kitchen. “Hitting on our boyfriends, acting like they owned the town—I mean, what did they think was going to happen? If that was them at fourteen, imagine them at eighteen. Wait, we don’t even have to imagine. There were more than enough rumors.”
I couldn’t believe they were talking like this at Laura’s baby shower. Laura, who was married to Daniel, an unofficial suspect in that case. Laura, sister-in-law to Corinne’s best friend.
“Annaleise was such a sweet thing. Never made a stir. Knew her place. The Prescott girl, she was different. She was a disaster waiting to happen. Who here is really surprised?”
“I don’t know,” someone else said. “Annaleise was supposedly seeing Tyler Ellison.” I heard nervous laughter. “So maybe not so sweet after all.” They all laughed.
“Martin said the police showed up at Tyler’s place this morning. For questioning. But he wasn’t there,” a third woman in the group added.
God, the rumors, the conspiracy theories. This is how it starts. This is how people decide on innocence and guilt. Time for me to get out there, make them stop because of my presence, and because they have nice Southern manners, after all.
“Can we please not talk about this at my shower?” Laura asked.
“Oh, I don’t want to upset you, dear!” Monica said, a hand around Laura’s waist. “What I’m saying is, there’s nothing for us to worry about. It’s not the same thing. No pattern. No reason to think this is all connected,” she whispered. I guess they hadn’t heard about the text that Annaleise had sent to Officer Mark Stewart asking about Corinne’s case. It wouldn’t be long, though. I rounded the corner, heading for the punch. Monica added, “Corinne, she got what she deserved. Put them all in their place, didn’t it.”
Laura had gone pale and was looking directly at me. “Monica,” she said.
“What?” Monica said.
Laura pushed away from her toward me, but I backed out of the room again.
“Oh. Oops,” I heard Monica say.
There was no way to get through this shower without making a scene. By embarrassing either Laura or her friends.
Laura still looked pale as she followed me into the kitchen.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, searching for my purse. “I have to go.”
“Nic, don’t. Please.”
I found the strap to my black bag, swung it over my shoulder. “Congratulations, Laura,” I said.
They were right. This wasn’t my place. I knew my place, and it wasn’t here—wasn’t in Cooley Ridge.
Laura couldn’t keep up. I disappeared inside that storage room closet, walked up the back steps, and remembered the combination from three years earlier—Ten-ten-ten, people really are too trusting, Tyler had said—pushed through the unlocked storm cellar door, and was gone.
* * *
CORINNE WASN’T AT FAULT, but she wasn’t innocent. That’s what Monica—and everyone else—implied. Corinne incited passion and rage, lust and anger. Someone couldn’t help himself. But she brought it on herself, obviously. That’s what you say to convince yourself: It will never be me.
She didn’t know her place.
She incited too much passion.
It’s typically men who commit murder in the heat of passion. Their fingers tightening
of their own accord around our slender necks. Their practiced arm swinging forward in an arc, beyond their own intention, into our fragile cheekbones. Passion. Heat. Instinct.
Women are more deliberate. Adding to silent lists of slights, tallying the offenses, building a case, retreating inward.
Passion belongs to the men. Statistics say an unplanned attack will likely come from them. So the investigation started there: Jackson, Tyler, Daniel, her father.
But the police were wrong to start there, with statistics. They needed to start with Corinne, needed to know her first. Then they would’ve seen that perhaps there is nothing more passionate than loving someone in spite of yourself. Didn’t matter who you were. If you loved Corinne, it was all passion.
What the detectives wanted were facts. Names. Events. Grudges and slights that could boil over into a girl losing her life outside the county fair. Hannah Pardot exposed that Corinne—the real one. But I didn’t know whether it really mattered. Whether that one was any more real than the one I knew, the one living inside my head. A haunting, blurred image, twirling in a field of sunflowers. I never could grasp her, but she was the realest person I knew.
Jump, she’d said. And then she leaned in close, so only I could hear, and whispered, If I were you, I’d do it.
But I didn’t.
The facts. The facts were fluid, and changed, depending on the point of view. The facts were easily distorted. The facts were not always right.
What would she do? they should’ve asked.
After I said no.
After Daniel pushed her away.
After Jackson abandoned her.
What would she do if we all pushed her away in a single day? If she had nowhere else to go? What would she do?
I can feel her cold fingers at my elbows, and her whisper becomes a scream: Jump.
All the Missing Girls Page 21