“While I have you here,” Greaves adds, too casually, “do you know a Shanté Williams?”
My circle of friends, loved ones, and co-workers is small. “No.”
“You sure?”
“I think so.”
He types on his keyboard, a painstaking, two-finger approach, and then turns the monitor so I can see it. It’s a mug shot, familiar dark skin, pretty eyes. This time her hair is loose and curly, no braids, no pearls around her neck.
“Oh,” I say as Greaves nods, like he knew all along. “I do know her. Well, sort of. I met her at a funeral.”
“You just met her there?”
I think of the night Becca and I approached Shanté in the alley behind Spark. I’m not going to try to explain. “Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Then I drove her back here, to Brampton. Her and her friend Laurel. Why?”
Greaves hits a few keys, and the screen goes dark. “Because she’s missing, too,” he says.
Chapter 8
I go home. It hardly seems like the safe thing to do, but if Becca was right and Footloose gets his kicks from toying with me, then the blood in the bath and making my sister disappear and watching me flounder should provide entertainment for a while. At least, that’s what I’m hoping as I crouch on my front step and study the welcome mat, now decidedly out of line with its dots. It’s hardly a foolproof method to determine if someone’s entered the house; the mailman could have moved it or a door-to-door salesman or a neighborhood kid asking for donations for a school fundraiser.
Or a serial killer.
I turn the key in the lock and slowly open the door, letting my senses kick in. My eyes scan the dim interior, grateful for the smidgen of sun filtering through the window, confirming everything inside looks the way it should. A bit sad and shabby, but in order. I sniff, but this time it doesn’t smell like blood. It smells like…bleach. And it’s cold.
The baseball bat is where I left it, propped against the closet door, so I step inside and kick off my boots, leaving the door unlocked in case I need to make a quick exit. I hang my coat on the banister and scoop up the bat, creeping down the hall in my funeral dress and stockings. I don’t know why I’m creeping. If Footloose is here, he’s already heard me come in. Same for Becca. And if there’s another morbid disaster waiting for me in the bathroom, there’s nothing a baseball bat will do to help.
Still, I swing it in a careful arc as I enter the kitchen, which doesn’t matter at all because it’s empty. There are no creaks and groans from upstairs, the back door is locked, there are no cereal bowls on the counter. There’s no sign anyone has been here since I last left, but I don’t feel safe. I’m not sure I ever will.
I head back toward the stairs, the cold and the odor of bleach wafting down the steps. “Becca?” I call as I start up. I don’t actually think she’ll answer me, but maybe my voice will mask the sound of my footsteps and give me a split-second advantage over anyone lurking.
I reach the landing and swing the bat again, this time careful not to whack the wall. The hole is still there from last time, but the dusting of plaster on the ground is gone. And the smell of bleach is much stronger up here.
I do a quick scan of my bedroom, but it’s as I left it, the closet empty. Now, however, the window is wide open, icy wind whipping in, the curtains flapping. I return to the hall, approaching the bathroom. The door is open, the smell of bleach strong enough to make my eyes water. I hold my breath and flip the light switch, expecting the worst.
But it’s not worse. It’s…better. The bathtub is a gleaming white, the tiles polished, the silver fixtures shining. It’s clean.
For a moment, I wonder if I imagined the whole bloody tub thing in the first place. Because less likely than a serial killer filling my bathtub with blood is Becca cleaning the tub. And she’s the only one who could have because she’s the only one—besides Footloose—who knew it was dirty. I hadn’t given her a new key to my house, but she was still pretending to be asleep when I left the other day so she could have done it anytime between then and leaving me the voice message about finding Footloose. And then…
Wiping away tears at the unknown horror waiting at the end of that unfinished sentence, I force myself to keep moving, anything to not think of what I believe to be true. I change out of my dress and into a pair of sweats, splash cold water on my face and comb my hair, but it doesn’t hold the nagging thoughts at bay. Much like Becca, they keep resurfacing, circling the perimeter, looking for weaknesses in my defenses. I try to tell myself I’ve done what I could, I filed a report with the police, but I hear the emptiness in that excuse. For all her wretchedness, if Footloose had captured me, Becca would turn over every stone in this town to find me, if only to get a better look at my corpse.
My laptop is on the bed, and now I stare at it, an idea forming. If the police aren’t going to help me find my sister, I’ll have to do it myself. And the only clue I have to Footloose’s identity is Becca’s voice message. I found him! I can’t believe this fucking worked, but I found him! He’s on your tape and my tape…
I have access to all the funeral footage, and the name of the program—FaceKnown—Becca was using to compare the faces. I grab the laptop and jog downstairs, snagging the baseball bat and heading into the kitchen. Sitting with my back to the jammed door so I can see the entrance to the living room, I hunt online for FaceKnown and download it. Becca had texted me her account details so I log in and navigate to the folder she’d named Funeral Fun.
I’d sent Becca my videos from Ron Anderson’s and Marcy Lennox’s funerals, and she’d uploaded both of ours to the site. The footage from Angelica’s funeral is too dark and distant, so I select the film Becca got at the funeral a couple of days ago and run it through the program to identify the faces. It takes about fifteen minutes to analyze everything, and the screen fills with a collage of strangers, all with little yellow markers mapping their facial features.
I connect my phone and upload the film I took at Jacinda’s funeral and scan it next. Twenty minutes later, it’s done, and I have another page of faces ready to analyze. It takes a few minutes for me to figure out how to get the software to compare the pictures, but I eventually get it working, watching a little hourglass rotate on the screen as it goes through the motions. Soon after, a green checkmark appears, confirming the process is done. A dialog box pops up and informs me I have six matches.
All at once, I’m flushed and anxious. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, but I don’t expect this will be as easy as simply spotting the same murderous face making an appearance at every funeral. I know there will be familiar faces from the police, as well as interlopers like me and Becca, cluttering up the results. But something Becca saw convinced her she knew Footloose when she saw him, and while I lack her killer instinct, I’m hoping I can see it, too.
I click on the results, and the screen populates with six sets of photos, the analytical data displayed next to each. Immediately, I see Greaves and delete him. Next is the female detective I recognize from her visit to our office the day Greaves questioned us about Angelica; I delete her, too. There are two elderly women, pictured together in each shot, and I figure they’re just busybodies too old for murder and eliminate them. That leaves me with a middle-aged Asian man who doesn’t have the same dead, hazel eyes I saw in my closet, and a redheaded woman it takes me a moment to identify as the mother of the missing girl, Fiona McBride. I keep them on the list of possible suspects, if only so it has something on it.
Next I view the video I took at Ron Anderson’s funeral, a considerably shorter clip with considerably fewer people. Again, Greaves is there, but he’s the only match. I eliminate him and, just to be sure, download the second video, the film Becca took at Angelica’s funeral. It’s much longer than the others, and the hourglass spins interminably as FaceKnown scans and analyzes, comparing it with the others. Zero matches. Despite the fact that I know Greaves was there, the footage is too dark
to provide an accurate result.
I contemplate the images of the unknown Asian man and Fiona McBride’s mother. We attended five funerals, took video of four, with only three clips being useful. This is the only footage we have. Assuming Becca wasn’t lying in her message, what did she see that made her think she’d identified Footloose?
Again when I think of Becca, my mind goes blank. My brain has unplugged from whatever data source it used to predict and prepare for the behavior of a psychopath. Somewhere deep down I’ve already accepted that Becca is dead, and my mind has started deleting a lifetime of self-preservation strategies.
The sound of the front door easing open makes me jump out of my chair. I fumble for the baseball bat, knocking it over and out of reach. I’d forgotten to lock the door when I came back down, and—
“Hello? Carrie?”
I slump into my seat, gripping the edge of the table and trying to catch my breath. Graham. It’s just Graham.
“Carrie?” he calls again. I hear his footsteps coming down the hall, toward the light.
“In here,” I say as he reaches the kitchen and spots me.
Relief washes over his handsome features, even as he smiles to cover his nerves. “There you are. Troy called me and said you didn’t show up for work, and I just…got in my car.”
I finally remember I have a job. It hadn’t even occurred to me. I’d slept on Becca’s couch and gone straight to the police station, forgetting I actually have a life of my own to lead.
“I totally forgot,” I say, shaking my head. “I—I just—”
“Are you okay?” Graham pulls the other chair closer and sits down. “You’re really pale, and it smells weird in here. What were you doing?”
“Um…” I definitely don’t want to go into detail about the bathtub, and it’s hardly the most important thing right now. “I think Becca’s missing,” I say finally. “I went to the police, and they—” My voice breaks. “They didn’t take me seriously because everyone is so paranoid.” Tears spill over before I know it’s happening. I’ve been to four funerals and barely shed a tear. My sister is the bane of my existence and she’s not even definitely dead, and I can’t stop crying.
“Hey,” Graham says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pressing a kiss to my temple. “Everything’s going to be okay. It’s been a really stressful few weeks, but Becca disappears all the time, you know that. Remember the night she was supposed to host your birthday party and you all got to the restaurant and she wasn’t there because she’d gone to Bangor? And she hadn’t even made a reservation so you ended up at Burger King?”
I sniffle and nod against his chest. There are a lot of times Becca disappeared because it suited her, but this time is different. This time we were investigating a serial killer who knows who we are, and probably what we’re doing. But of course I can’t say this to Graham. He hugs me, his head turned away from the laptop, and I carefully reach over and minimize FaceKnown so he can’t see what I’m up to.
“It just feels wrong,” I say finally, because I want someone to listen to me even if they can’t help. “In my gut. I know something happened.”
Graham pulls back, his concern sincere. “You think that something is Footloose?”
I shrug helplessly. “I know everyone is saying that right now, but—but I know it is.”
Graham stands and takes two glasses out of the cupboard, filling each with water from the tap. He sits back down and passes me one, the cup warm in my hand. “What did the police say?” he asks. “When you told them.”
Relief floods me. I know Graham can’t help me find Becca, but without her, there’s no one in my life I can talk to about any of this. Or parts of it. My co-workers, the police, my parents. I’m alone without Graham. “They said it hasn’t been forty-eight hours, and she’s an adult, and her phone probably died, and she’ll show up soon enough.” I swipe at a tear. “But I went to her apartment and her car wasn’t there, and it—”
“It looked like something had happened?”
I shake my head. “It looked normal. Too normal.”
Graham purses his lips, and I know he’s trying not to dismiss me the way the police did. “Did you tell the police that?”
“Yes. I told Detective Greaves, the one investigating Angelica’s murder. And he said he’d pass it on to someone, Detective—” I rack my brain. “Detective Schroeder. But they’re not going to do anything. I could tell from the way he said it.” Mostly I could tell from the way he mentioned Shanté’s disappearance and my connection to three missing-possibly-dead women. The only thing he’s likely to do next is issue an arrest warrant.
“Okay,” Graham says decisively. “You know what?”
I sit up a bit straighter at his authoritative tone. “What?”
“I’m going to take the day off work and spend it with you. And we’re going to make posters and hang them on every available surface in this town. Then we’re going to drive around until we find Becca’s car. Brampton’s not that big, and Becca doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends. If she’s passed out on a couch somewhere, we’ll find her. If she’s on a shopping spree, we’ll find her. And if she’s on a crazy bender, we’ll find her.”
I laugh through my tears. “You really think so?”
He uses a thumb to wipe my cheek. “I know so. I’m going to run upstairs to use the bathroom. You find a good picture of Becca for the poster, and we’ll make one and head out to get it copied. Sound good?”
I nod gratefully. “Yes.”
He jogs up the stairs, dodging the third howling step, and I hear the bathroom door close. I sip my lukewarm water and frown; I hate warm water. Graham knows this but says cold water is bad for digestion. I get up to grab ice, pulling open the freezer door and screeching. I fling it closed and leap back, water sloshing out of the glass and drenching my leg.
There’s a severed foot in my freezer.
There’s a severed foot in my fucking freezer.
I don’t know whether to scream or gag or laugh hysterically, and the only person who would know what to do is missing.
Upstairs, the toilet flushes, and I scramble to clean up the water on the floor, sticking my glass in the dishwasher, no longer thirsty. I look around in a panic like I might find a better spot to store a severed foot, but nothing presents itself. For most people, this would be cause for hysterics, but I’ve buried thirteen bodies. I’ve seen worse. I’ve done worse. And I do now as I did all those other times: absolutely nothing.
I hear water running as Graham washes his hands in a room that, just two days ago, held a basin of blood. I gag a little, thinking of my life, and then sit down, close FaceKnown, and scan my phone until Graham returns.
“What’d you find?” he asks, dropping into his chair.
For half a horrible second, I think he’s talking about the foot. Then I realize he’s referring to the photo I was supposed to choose.
“Oh. Um. I haven’t decided yet.” I scroll through the photos I have of Becca. My hands shake, and the screen struggles to decide which way is up, the pictures blurring. I try to focus, seeing the severed foot when I should be seeing my sister.
I don’t have many pictures of her because our most memorable moments together are better left undocumented, but eventually I find a couple of usable pictures. There’s one from Christmas when she’d spent the night and we’d worn silly pajamas and watched Bridget Jones’s Diary. There’s one of her trying and failing to catch a goose, her hair and arms twisting in the wind, laughing hysterically as the bird darted back to the safety of the pond. She’d been pretending to avenge my honor after I’d told her one had hissed at me the day before, but fortunately she never caught it.
Ultimately, I settle on a shot of Becca that I’d captured accidentally when she was watching an airplane in the sky, its smoke trailing like a sea serpent. I’d meant to take a picture of the clouds, but at the last moment Becca had turned her head and stared straight into the camera, her blue eyes wide and ungua
rded, her mouth slightly curved in amusement. For that one tiny second, she’d looked…human.
“How about this one?” I ask, showing Graham the picture on my phone.
He barely glances at it. “It’s perfect. What should we say in the description?” He turns the computer and starts typing as I email myself the photo so we can insert it into the poster. MISSING, he types at the top in a huge font, highlighting the text and coloring it bloodred.
My stomach turns, and my eyes slide unwillingly toward the refrigerator, to the foot inside, toenails painted bright pink, dark skin gray with cold. I was telling Greaves the truth this morning when I said I didn’t know what happened to Shanté.
But I know now.
* * *
We print three hundred posters, buy two heavy-duty staplers, and spend the first hour plastering the posters around town. Every telephone pole, every streetlamp, several trees, shop windows, and car windshields. We put a poster on every available bulletin board: the library, the grocery store, the bowling alley. At nearly every turn, there’s a faded, tattered poster of Fiona McBride staring back, the same red text, the same hopeful smile, the same desperate plea: any information, please call.
We spend the next two hours driving in circles, eyeballing every black car that could be Becca’s and coming up empty. We return home three hours later with nothing more than a bucket of fried chicken and a bottle of wine for dinner. Graham is intending to stay the night, but for the first time ever I really don’t want him to. Now that I’ve had three hours to process the fact that there’s a severed foot in my freezer and that Footloose has taken his love of toying with me to a gory new level, I need space to think. I’m angry and I’m worried, but mostly I’m terrified, and without Becca I don’t know what to do. For my whole life, Becca has been the opposite of my moral compass. Whatever she did, I’d do the opposite. But in this, dealing with someone on her same psychotic wavelength, she was the one pointing me in the right direction.
Look What You Made Me Do Page 17