Aidan was in a photography club with Joey . . .
Abandoning the drinks, I head for the phone.
I pull Chase’s number out of my pocket and pray his mom doesn’t answer as I dial. Chase picks up on the fifth ring. When he hears my voice, he hands Aidan the phone without being asked.
“You were in a photography club with Joey, right?”
“Hello to you, too.” There’s an undercurrent of what sounds like exhaustion and annoyance beneath Aidan’s usual charm.
I guess I can’t blame him for being tired and upset. “I’m sorry about Aunt Jet,” I say. “She’s not being fair.”
“I did introduce you to a serial killer, take you to a party where there was underage drinking, and compromise your virtue. I can sort of understand why she’s pissed.”
Despite the situation, I blush. Stupidly, I’m glad Noah is upstairs. “Pretty sure the compromising was fifty-fifty.”
“Let it never be said that I don’t find strong women incredibly attractive.”
Maybe the kiss wasn’t so horrible after all.
I can hear Chase in the background, asking how Aidan can flirt at a time like this. Aidan tells him to be quiet and then focuses back on me. “What were you saying about the photo club?”
“You were in it with Joey, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The pictures in the trailer—the really big ones—where would you get them printed? How would you get them printed?”
“The copy center could do it. Or someone with a big enough printer.”
“But not a regular printer?”
“Nah. The paper is too big. Someone with access to a darkroom could do it, too, I guess. They’d need an enlarger and the right supplies. And they’d have to know what they were doing.”
I start to pace. Four steps forward—as far as the phone cord allows. Four steps back. Repeat. “Does Joey have one of those special printers?”
“No. They’d be expensive.”
“And Joey doesn’t have the money?”
“Cat . . . Joey’s parents run a video rental store in the age of streaming.”
“What about a darkroom? Could he use a darkroom?”
“Maybe, I guess. The guy who runs the photo club used to give Joey private lessons. He has this whole darkroom setup in his house. He told Joey he was wasting his talent by wanting to write. He even tried to talk to Joey’s parents about it, but they thought there was something weird about the whole thing. Like he was taking too much of an interest in Joey or something. Joey crashed at Chase’s for a week after that.”
A weight settles in my stomach. “The photographer—is his name Harding?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
Instead of answering, I ask, “Does he ever let Joey use his darkroom?”
Aidan is quiet for a minute. “I don’t think so,” he says finally.
“Where else could Joey go?”
“The high school has an old darkroom, but the equipment is crap and it’s locked up for the summer. The university might have one.”
“So that’s it? The copy place or Harding’s house or maybe the university? Those are the only three places Joey could have gotten photos like that printed?”
Aidan lets out a long sigh. Sounding a little exasperated, he says, “I don’t know, Cat. I mean, he could have gone down to Saint John. There are probably a bunch of places down there that could do it—hell, I’m pretty sure Saint John has a Walmart and maybe even a Costco. I think both of those places might let you upload photos and pick up prints. They might let you do oversized ones, for all I know.”
“Does Joey go to Saint John a lot?”
“He and Skylar take road trips sometimes. They took one a few days ago.”
Right. Skylar had asked me to go.
“What makes you think any of this is important?” Aidan asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.” I stop pacing and twist the phone cord around my finger. “Chase said you went to talk to Skylar. Is she okay?”
“She’s in complete denial. Guess I can’t blame her.” A relieved note creeps into his voice at the slight shift in topic. I think about how miserable Chase looked when I saw him. Joey is Aidan’s friend, too. I can’t imagine how hard this whole thing is for him.
A floorboard squeaks. I glance up. Noah is standing in the doorway, folder in hand. “Aidan, I gotta go. I’ll work on Aunt Jet, okay?”
He starts to say something else, but whatever it is comes too late as I hang up and turn to Noah.
“What did Aidan want?”
“Nothing. I called him.” There’s a small, bluish circle around my index finger from wrapping the phone cord too tightly. “I was thinking about those photos. The big ones. Aidan was in a photography club with Joey. I called to ask him where Joey could have had them printed.”
“And?”
“The copy shop or a darkroom if he got them done around here. But Aidan also said Joey could have had them printed in Saint John. Joey was there with Skylar a few days ago.”
I try to remember the exact images of myself in the trailer. What I was wearing. Where I was standing. I think all of them must have been taken at least a week ago, but I’m not certain. “There’s something else . . . maybe nothing . . .”
I sit at the table. Marie had slipped out of the kitchen while I was on the phone, but she’d left her dirty plate behind.
Noah sits across from me. “What is it?”
“Aidan said Harding took Joey on as a sort of protégé, that he gave him private photo lessons. He said that Joey’s parents thought there was something strange about it. And he said Harding has a darkroom in his house. I keep thinking it’s weird that the police department would use him to photograph the spot where we found Rachel and then use someone from Saint John to photograph the trailer.” I swallow. “What if Harding wasn’t at the riverbank because the police sent him? What if he was there because he knew what had happened the night before? Because Joey told him or because he’s some sort of creepy serial killer mentor . . . What if I was wrong about the hellfire stuff I saw not meaning anything?”
Noah swears under his breath. He opens the folder, pulls out a sheet of paper, and slides it across the table. “Third line down.”
Paul Harding. My breath catches in my throat. I’ve looked at this sheet of paper before, but for some reason, Harding’s name never stood out to me. And yet there it is. He took photos of the basketball team the afternoon of March 19.
Paul Harding was one of the last people to see Riley on the day he disappeared.
Twenty-Nine
DITCHING OFFICER BUDDY IS A LOT EASIER IN THE BMW. “You know you’re going to get in trouble for this, right?” I ask, bracing myself with one hand against the dash as Noah takes a corner too sharply.
“Technically, I’m not running from the police: you are.”
“Fair point.”
We had called the copy place out by the industrial park. They did prints that size all the time, but the guy we spoke to couldn’t remember any pictures of girls taken through bedroom windows. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he had said, “but I wouldn’t go around taking photos like that. It sounds like a good way to get your ass kicked.”
The print shops in Saint John were a lot more difficult. We found six places that could do it, but citing customer privacy, each and every one refused to either confirm or deny that they had printed photos matching our descriptions.
While their loyalty to their customers was admirable, it was also really, really inconvenient. After that, Noah called the police station and chatted up the woman covering the front desk. He told her he was a criminology student at the university with a background in photography and asked if they ever used independent photographers. She told him they always used a photographer from Saint John and then asked for his website because she was looking for someone to take her engagement photos.
Noah turns onto a stretch of road that leads out of town. The houses are
spaced farther apart out here and eventually give way to undeveloped countryside. “I still don’t feel good about this,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “But it’ll be all right.”
Easy for him to say. I wanted to go straight to Harding’s and stake out his house while we came up with some sort of plan—to do what, I wasn’t sure—but Noah convinced me we should find and talk to Skylar first.
I slump a little farther down in the passenger seat.
“Cat . . .” He takes his eyes off the road, just for a second, and meets my anxious gaze with one that is uncannily calm and steady. “It will be okay. I promise. She doesn’t hate you.”
I swallow. “How did you know that’s what I’m afraid of?”
“Because for someone who spends so much time trying to keep everyone at a distance, you do get attached to people.”
“And how would you know that?”
“You have a remarkably bad poker face.”
Noah slows the car as we approach a sleek, angular house surrounded by acres of empty land and a tall wrought-iron fence. “I didn’t know that’s who lived here,” he says, pulling up to an intercom.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but a building that looks like it could grace the cover of Architectural Digest definitely wasn’t it. Nothing about Skylar suggests she comes from this kind of money. Not her clothes or her car—nice but lower end—or the fact that she works at the movie theater.
Noah leans out the window and presses a button on the intercom.
“Yes?” A sharp, masculine voice comes through with a crackle of static.
“Is Skylar home?”
“Who is asking?” There’s a hint of an accent around the words.
I unbuckle my seat belt and lean across Noah. I’m careful, but he still presses himself against the seat to minimize the chance of skin touching skin. It’s not personal, I tell myself, he’s just being considerate. For some reason, though, maybe because of how close we’d been just a few hours ago, the caution hurts. “My name is Cat—Cat Montgomery. I’m friends with Skylar.”
“My daughter isn’t here.”
“Do you know where she is or when she’ll be back?”
“Ms. Montgomery, Skylar snuck out an hour ago. She did not tell us where she was going. She did not ask permission.”
He doesn’t sound worried. He sounds angry.
Before I can even come up with a reply, the intercom disconnects with a click.
I settle back in my seat.
“Seems like a nice guy,” says Noah. “He didn’t even ask us to call him if we find her. Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“I don’t know.” I climb out of the car and follow the fence until it meets a ravine with sides so steep you’d need a grappling hook and a rope to make your way down. Slices of the house are visible through the fence. Sharp, hard angles and tinted windows. Even if Skylar’s father is lying, there isn’t any way to get close enough to the house to prove it.
I try to imagine Skylar living inside. Skylar with her boundless energy and the way she practically skips when she walks. It does not look like the kind of place where anyone ever skips. A heavy weight settles over me as I turn my back on the house.
“Okay,” says Noah once I’m back in the car, “you’ve just found out your boyfriend is a serial killer on the run. Where do you go?”
It occurs to me that everyone’s been throwing that phrase around. Serial killer. Even I’ve been doing it. But you can’t be a serial killer unless you’ve killed. Does that mean, on some level, I’ve accepted that Riley is really, really gone? I know there have been moments when I’ve felt close to accepting it—when I thought maybe I even had accepted it—but I’m not sure I ever truly let myself believe it.
“Cat?”
I swallow and rub my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. I force myself to focus, but it’s a minute before I trust myself to speak. “If you’re Skylar, you don’t think Joey did it. So I guess you try to find proof.”
Noah throws the car into reverse and pulls out of the driveway. “Let’s start with the riverbank.”
We do not find Skylar at the riverbank. Or at the trailer in the woods—now roped off with police tape—or at the diner where Rachel works. With each stop, it feels more and more like we’re just chasing our tails.
Even if we do find her, I have no idea what we’ll say. If Aidan couldn’t get through to her, what are the chances she’ll listen to Noah and me?
“Where would she go if she was upset?” Noah asks as he steers us toward downtown.
“I have no idea.” The fact that I don’t have a clue bothers me. I feel useless.
Noah hangs a left, taking us past Aunt Jet’s church.
“Wait!”
He slams on the brakes. The driver behind us blares his horn and pulls around us, shouting obscenities, but Noah is too focused on scanning the street to respond. “Joey?”
“Skylar. She has keys to the church. She uses them to get in and set up for the Sunday school classes.”
“You’re joking.”
I shake my head. Noah checks to make sure there isn’t another car behind us and then pulls a U-turn into the parking lot.
The main door is locked, but a side door is open.
“Maybe you should wait out here?” I suggest. “If Skylar is in there, she might be more likely to talk if it’s just me.”
“And if Joey is in there?”
My stomach twists at the thought. “Good point.”
We slip inside and make our way down a carpeted hallway that smells like old hymnbooks and, slightly more improbably, day-old macaroni and cheese. The lights are off; the only illumination comes from frosted-glass windows as we pass empty offices and classrooms.
I’m starting to wonder if the church didn’t just happen to get left unlocked, if this isn’t just another dead end, when we reach the chapel. There, seven rows from the back, sitting in the middle of a pew, is Skylar. Her eyes are closed and her lips are moving; she has a pair of earbuds in her ears. There’s no sign of anyone else. Just Skylar and the stained-glass saints.
“Wait here?” I say softly. “Please?”
Noah opens his mouth to object, then lets out a weary sigh. Even he can see Skylar is alone in the chapel. He takes two steps back—just far enough that he won’t be seen. “If anything seems off, scream.”
“And you’ll come running to my rescue?”
“Given that I haven’t done a very good job of keeping you safe so far, it’s the least I can do.” He doesn’t look like he’s joking. He looks sad and serious.
I know it’s a bad idea, but on impulse, I rise up on tiptoe and brush my lips against his cheek. It’s been a day or two since he’s shaved, and the stubble is surprisingly rough. I don’t try to control what happens, and the contact is so brief that I catch only the barest hint of images and none last long enough for me to make any sense of them.
But while I can’t make sense of what I see, I know I don’t see myself. The realization falls into my stomach like a stone and sinks heavily to the bottom.
“What was that for?” he asks. Surprise gives way to concern as he studies my face. “What’s wrong? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” I say, which is the truth. It’s stupid, but until this moment—until the moment I didn’t see myself—I didn’t really understand just how much the way I feel about Noah has been changing.
I didn’t let myself understand.
Because he’s Riley’s brother.
Because I don’t let myself feel that way about anyone.
Because it’s big and scary and dangerous. For some reason, far, far scarier than the idea that Aidan might be into me.
A small headache builds, but the pain is nothing compared to what else I’m feeling.
I’m a little horrified to realize that Noah’s face is blurry.
“It’s nothing,” I say again, wiping my eyes roughly with the heel of my hand. And that’s what it has to be right now
. Nothing. “Stay here.”
I don’t give him a chance to ask any more questions; I just slip into the chapel and head down the aisle.
Skylar’s music is so loud that I can hear it while I’m still several feet away, but despite the deafening blare, she somehow senses my presence. Her eyes fly open and she lets out a small, startled gasp as her mouth forms a perfect O. She pushes herself a few inches down the bench, but doesn’t bolt.
That’s something, at least, I tell myself.
She fumbles with her phone, pausing her music. “You’re wasting your time. My parents and the police and Chase already tried to get me to tell them where Joey is.”
“Do you actually know?”
A blush creeps over her cheeks. The fact that she doesn’t answer is an answer in and of itself. “I wouldn’t take it personally. He’s probably trying to keep you from getting dragged into things.” Taking a chance that she won’t run, I slip into the pew and sit. I’m careful to leave a few feet of space between us—enough space, hopefully, that she feels like she has breathing room.
Her brows pull together as though she’s looking for some sort of lie in the words, but there isn’t one. Joey might be a monster, but he’s not an idiot. Keeping Skylar in the dark eliminates the chance the police can use her against him.
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Okay.”
She plays with a button on her jacket: the Bela Lugosi pin that had been on her uniform the first time we met. “You believe me?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
“Why are you here?”
“There were photos in the trailer. I was hoping you could tell me where Joey got them developed.”
“The police already asked me. There’s no proof Joey took them or that he was ever at that place.”
“You saw the pictures?”
Skylar is wearing a loose flannel shirt over a dark gray dress. Even though it’s warm in the church, she wraps the shirt a little more tightly around herself, clinging to the fabric with her fingertips. “They showed me the photos when they came to search the house. Some from the trailer and some they said they found in Joey’s room.”
“They found photos in Joey’s room?” That’s news.
You Were Never Here Page 24