The Amateurs

by Sara Shepard

  ‘Some party, huh?’ She sipped the Mike’s Hard Lemonade she’d grabbed from the ice chest, wincing at its sickly-sweet flavor. She should have gone for a Corona.

  Owen’s fingers twitched around his beer. ‘I wish I lived in Dexby. This place rocks.’

  ‘Not if you live here,’ Aerin said with a shrug.

  She gazed out the screened windows at Tori’s immense backyard. Even though Mr. and Mrs. Gates had explicitly told Tori to stay away from the fire pit when they were out of town, there was a big bonfire blazing. A bunch of kids were dancing tribally around it, drunk or stoned or both. On the court, guys from Windemere, Aerin’s stuffy prep school, were playing basketball, tripping over three cackling girls who’d decided to lie down and stargaze. Pitbull was blaring, someone was throwing up in the bushes, and Aerin was pretty sure she’d seen Kurt Schultz back Mr. Gates’s Porsche out of the driveway. A typical night in Dexby, Aerin thought wryly. People here did everything to excess – especially parties.

  She gave Owen her sexiest smile. He was an out-of-town cousin of Cooper Templeton, who was probably smoking out of the gravity bong he brought with him, because that’s what Cooper always did at parties. Earlier, Aerin had noticed Owen across the crowded, trashed great room. He’d looked kind of adrift, so she’d sidled over. Let’s find somewhere quiet to talk, she’d said, taking his hand. On her way out, Quinn McNulty, Aerin’s friend from homeroom, had given her a thumbs-up. He’s cute, Quinn had murmured, but Aerin had chosen Owen mostly because he didn’t know her … or her baggage.

  Owen’s gaze drifted to Aerin’s fingers, which were tiptoeing up his arm. He laughed nervously. ‘What do kids do around here? I saw there’s a ski slope close by. You into that?’

  ‘I used to be,’ Aerin said, ‘but I got bored.’ It was the same lie she’d told her parents.

  She wasn’t in the mood to talk, so she stood up and pulled her T-shirt over her head, revealing a pale purple lace bra. The sun porch was empty and private. Sort of. Though plenty of guys here had already seen her bra anyway. Owen’s jaw dropped. ‘Whoa.’

  ‘Your turn,’ she demanded, pointing at him and lowering her lashes.

  Owen pulled his oversized Sunkist T-shirt over his head and dropped it on the gazebo floor, too. It was so easy to divert a guy’s attention.

  Aerin looked him up and down. He had tanned skin and tight abs. The bright yellow waistband of his boxers peeked out over his shorts. There was a quarter-sized scar to the right of his belly button. All details she’d forget within the hour. He reached out his hands and pulled her close. ‘Mmm,’ he groaned, pressing his lips to her clavicle. ‘Wow.’

  Aerin made an mmm sound, too, trying to feel a flutter of … well, something. But really, Owen could have been anyone. She just needed an outlet to forget about posting that crazy-ass thing on that crazy-ass crime-solving website.

  They made out for a while, Owen’s hands moving to the clasp of her bra. Aerin gave him a few attentive kisses and pressed her hands against his smooth, bare chest. His fingers moved down to the waistband of her skirt. She felt him fumble for the button and popped up.

  ‘Wait. No,’ she said, moving backward.

  Owen stared at her. His hair was mussed, and his lips were parted. Then he smiled. ‘C’mon,’ he urged, kissing her neck.

  His hands eased toward her waistband again. Aerin felt the old panic, and she heard that familiar voice. Don’t. ‘I said no,’ she said, lurching away from him.

  He sat back, hands on his knees. Someone let out a scream from the party. The basketball loudly thumped against the pavement. Owen looked stunned. ‘Seriously?’

  Aerin stood and almost tripped over her shoes, which she’d kicked off. Owen’s eyes searched for an answer as she tugged on her shirt. ‘Did I miss something?’

  She stiffened. ‘I changed my mind.’

  He grabbed his T-shirt from the carpet and put it back on. He drained the rest of his Coors Light in one gulp. ‘Psycho.’

  She watched as he slammed off the porch to the backyard, wove toward the fire pit, and plopped sulkily on one of the wooden chairs. You are such a freak, she said to herself.

  Sighing, she walked into Tori’s downstairs powder room, which was littered with toilet paper and had a condom wrapper in the sink. She turned on the tap anyway and splashed water on her face. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, mascara streaky, lipstick smudged. Her highlighted blonde hair was straight, thanks to a hot iron, and her skin was flawless from her forty-five-minute make-up routine. Her boobs, which had grown significantly in the past five years, spilled out of her purple bra. What had gotten into her, seducing that poor kid and then blowing him off? It wasn’t just that today was the anniversary of her sister’s bones being found. It wasn’t just about that post she’d put up on that site. This had happened many times before.

  The first time had been on the two-year anniversary of her sister’s disappearance. She’d been thirteen. She and James Ladd were in line for morning chapel at school, and he’d been looking at her, probably feeling sorry for her. ‘Want me to take my top off?’ she’d blurted.

  They’d snuck into the school’s theater and hid behind the big Christmas tree on the stage. There, she’d pulled up her shirt. James had looked at her with such … appreciation. It felt good to be in control of a situation instead of the other way around. It felt good to feel something after two years of numbness.

  So she kept going. There was Kennett McKenzie, the boy she kissed at an Upper West Side town-house party when she was supposed to be visiting her dad. And Landon Howe, the boy she showed her panties to at a garden brunch. Or that time exactly a year ago when Aerin made out with Brayden Shapiro on the ninth tee at the Dexby Country Club. That same day, her mom had gotten the call about her sister’s remains in that park in Tolland County, two hours away. Aerin had tried hard not to faint when the CSI people spoke of the blunt-force trauma to Helena’s pelvis, still apparent after almost five years of decomposition.

  Suddenly, there was commotion outside. Aerin peered through the window. Blue and red police lights whirled in the front yard. A siren’s whoop pierced the air. As she opened the powder-room door, kids stampeded past, tossing beer cans and plastic cups over their shoulders. ‘The woods!’ Ben Wilder yelled. ‘Grab your purse!’ Rebecca Hodges hissed to Greta Atkinson. ‘Otherwise they’ll find your license and know you were here!’

  Aerin grabbed a Dorito from a bowl in the foyer and walked calmly into the front yard. She’d had one sip of Mike’s. Let the cops bust her. She didn’t care.

  Police officers were giving Breathalyzers. Tori was crying on the porch. Aerin considered consoling her, but it wasn’t like it would solve anything. ‘You can’t leave!’ a gruff voice shouted at Aerin. A cop shone a harsh light in her face, but after a moment he lowered the light to the grass. ‘Aerin Kelly?’

  The young officer stepped toward her. He had such smooth, pale skin; Aerin wondered if he even shaved yet. His uniform hung on his skinny frame.

  ‘It’s Thomas.’ There was a slight tremor in his voice. ‘Thomas Grove? We met at the, um, Easter Bunny party last year?’

  Aerin looked closer. ‘Oh shit.’

  The Easter Bunny party was an annual thing in Dexby. It was held on the Chester Morgenthau Estate on Easter Sunday night – in fact, this year’s Easter Bunny party was next weekend. The adults dressed up, schmoozed, bragged about their net worth, bid on stuff in the silent auction, blah-di-blah. One of the traditions was that it was totally appropriate for girls to show up dressed as half hooker, half Easter Bunny, complete with a woven basket.

  Last year had been Aerin’s first foray into the Easter Bunny party world, and she hadn’t been surprised to see fistfights in the wine cellar and people practically having sex on the cashmere rugs. Not one to be left out, Aerin had dragged a random Windemere senior into the walk-in pantry. Not that she ever really had to drag anyone.

  And here he was: Thomas Grove. If she’d had a million c
hances to guess his name, she never would have picked it.

  Thomas stepped toward her, but not in a menacing way. His smile was surprisingly sweet and shy, and he was the first guy in a while, Aerin noticed, who was not staring at her chest. ‘You’re a cop now?’

  ‘Yeah, can you believe it?’ Thomas said in a conspiratorial tone, as if he’d pulled something over on his superiors. ‘I’ve been on the force for a couple of months. It’s a huge score to get a job here. Most guys start out in Clearview or Rhode. I didn’t even have to move.’

  Aerin was still thinking about the Easter Bunny party. After making out – he hadn’t pushed any further – she and Thomas had sat in the guesthouse’s pantry, looking around. There were a dozen tins of Spam, whole pallets of SpaghettiOs, and boxes of Cream of Wheat. The idea of Mr. and Mrs. Morgenthau eating gruel was hilarious, and she and Thomas had laughed together, picturing it. For a few minutes, Aerin had felt almost … normal, like a regular, tipsy Easter Bunny party attendee.

  But then Thomas had taken her hand and said something about how pretty she was and then something about her sister – that he’d always thought Helena was nice. He’d had a study hall with her when he was in ninth and she was in twelfth, or something. Aerin had bolted.

  Aerin blinked away the memory and stood up straighter. Thomas was a cop now. She hated cops, especially Dexby cops. ‘So are you going to arrest me or what?’ she challenged.

  Thomas tugged at his collar, then glanced surreptitiously at a cop to the right who was cuffing Cooper Templeton. ‘Go. I’d hate for this to go on your record.’

  Aerin eyed him suspiciously. Why was he being so nice? Maybe it didn’t matter. She certainly didn’t want to hang around this clusterfuck. ‘Thanks,’ she said breezily, tossing her hair. ‘I owe you one.’

  ‘See you around?’ Thomas said, but Aerin didn’t answer.

  Safely inside her Audi, she counted the number of squad cars on Tori’s driveway. Four – no, five. Practically the whole Dexby force. Clearly they had nothing better to do on a Thursday night. That was because Dexby was super safe, right? Nothing bad ever happened here.

  Almost nothing. Sometimes Aerin felt she was the only one who remembered that.

  When she pulled into her driveway, the house was dark, and her mother’s car was still missing from its spot. No surprise there. She was probably still at one of the three Scoops ice-cream stores around Dexby, making sure the Rocky Road tasted rocky enough.

  Aerin often wondered how much her mom really knew. About the boys she made out with. How she hadn’t quit skiing because she was burned out. How it felt like she was the only person who thought about Helena anymore.

  That she’d put a cry for help on a ridiculous website.

  She slammed her car door, opened the garage, and blinked in the humid darkness, thinking. The old karaoke booth was still in the corner. Packed with 1,045 songs! read big pink letters on the side. Years ago, Aerin and Helena had been obsessed with the karaoke machine at the Dexby benefit carnival, and after enough begging, their dad had bought them one of their own. Not that Aerin asked her dad for anything these days. She barely visited him in his stark New York City apartment, where he’d moved after her parents split up. She hated its view of the Statue of Liberty’s armpit and its mostly empty fridge.

  She kicked aside a box of trash bags and pushed back the little curtain. It was hot and humid inside the karaoke booth, and so dark she could barely see her hand in front of her face. She hadn’t turned the machine on in five years, but if she closed her eyes, she could still almost hear the long arpeggios of a Mariah Carey song. The sweetness of ‘A Whole New World.’ How Helena sang Bruno Mars in monotone, but Aerin gave it all she had.

  Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, and she sniffed vigorously to stop them. She pulled out her phone. Hating herself, she typed Case Not Closed in the browser.

  Dedicated to investigating unsolved cases since 2010, read the poorly designed banner. There was a tab marked Visual Aids; when she’d first visited this site, she’d clicked on it, finding thumbnails of drawings entitled The killer’s path and Knife angles and Marks on the body = Satanic ritual? A blinking message that said Videos contained gems like a video of a body, bruised and totally naked, lying in a parking lot; a slow pan of a crime scene, bloody handprint smears on the walls; and a coroner standing over a body and blandly describing the cause of death. A link that read Media Accolades listed stories with titles like Amateur sleuthing group helps find missing girl in Arkansas and Cell phone pings tracked by online investigators uncover a murderer in West Virginia. And there were pages and pages of forums, with categories like The Rules, Ongoing Cases, The Missing, Sex Crimes, Webcam Feeds, and even one called Despicable.

  In Ongoing Cases, dozens of names popped up. There was Aerin’s sister’s name among the group: Helena Kelly, Dexby, CT. It was shocking to see it, even though Aerin had been the one to put it there. Muscles tensed, she clicked on her message. Her heart leapt. Seven responses!

  This is a tough one, XCalibur wrote. I’m not biting.

  Even the FBI couldn’t find a lead, wrote someone named RGR. I’m out, too.

  Five more messages said the same thing. Aerin drew in a breath, feeling like she’d been stabbed. The joyful feeling she’d had was instantly vacuumed away, leaving her vacant. So there it was. Her big cry for help – and the grim answer by idiotic strangers. She might as well accept it: she was never going to know the truth about Helena. What happened to her sister was going to remain a mystery – and a recurring nightmare – for the rest of her life.

  CHAPTER 3

  By Sunday, after a few advisor meetings and an argument with a customer service rep at Storage Lockers 4 U, Seneca sat on a lumpy seat on Metro-North heading toward Dexby. The train car smelled like disinfectant and coffee. She was pretty sure she was in the quiet car, but she had her cell phone pressed to her ear anyway and was trying to calm down her father.

  ‘I really wanted to see you for spring break, too,’ she murmured. ‘But Annie went through a crisis at Berkeley and needs my help.’

  ‘I just hate the idea of you traveling alone,’ Seneca’s father said.

  ‘Dad. I’m nineteen. I can manage Amtrak by myself. Don’t worry.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, do I need to call Annie’s folks and thank them for having you?’

  ‘No!’ Seneca yelped, then worried that she sounded panicked. ‘I mean, I’ll handle it.’ She took a breath and looked around. There was a boy in an oversized hoodie, ridiculous-looking puffy gold shoes, and a pulled-down baseball cap a few seats ahead. She kept catching him looking at her. Across the aisle, an overly made-up girl moved her frosted lips as she read OK!

  ‘But you’ll definitely come home for a bit before you have to go to school, right?’ her father asked. ‘You go back … when? A week from Monday?’

  ‘A week from Tuesday.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back, praying that the University of Maryland advisors didn’t call home.

  ‘Have fun with Annie, Tweety Bird,’ her father said sadly, using Seneca’s nickname from when she was little, which gave her another guilty twinge. She hated lying to him. She knew how he stressed over her – it was amazing he’d even let her live in the dorms. He was wary about new people in her life, too, but when she’d told him about Annie Sipowitz, a girl she met at college, he seemed to trust her. How could he not? Annie was a driven musician slash math genius slash youth group leader who never got into trouble. But Seneca wasn’t really going to Annie’s this time. However, she couldn’t tell her dad what she was really doing.

  She placed her P-initial pendant in her mouth and sucked hard, something she did when she was nervous. Once again, she peered at Maddy’s text from a few minutes ago. It’s going to be epic. Btw, I said we were friends from track camp, so pretend you’re a runner!

  Seneca nodded, recalling how Maddy had mentioned that she was really into running. She typed on the screen. We just passed Stamford. Got you Krispy Krem
e. She glanced at the box of donuts sitting next to her. She appreciated that Maddy was the type of girl who was okay with indulging in a Krispy Kreme or two.

  Sweet, Maddy wrote back. I’ve got on a green jacket – I’ll be on the platform.

  Seneca smiled, pressed her home button, and called up Google Chrome. Last night, she’d reread the investigative reports about Helena Kelly’s case. Now she clicked a link to Helena’s senior-class yearbook from Windemere-Carruthers. There was the photo she used to look long and hard at of Helena walking down the hall in her plaid uniform, a fedora cocked rakishly on her head. She looked so carefree.

  On another page, each senior had written dedications beneath their photos. Helena’s, which had been submitted shortly before she died, was particularly sappy: I’ll miss Becky-bee, love is strong, you stay cool forever Kaylee, XOXO my ladies, LOL Samurai swordplay late nite.

  Finally, Seneca clicked over to the news blasts from when Helena’s remains were found last year. Kids had been playing in a creek in Charles County, Connecticut, when a boy came upon what he thought was a dog bone. His mom realized it wasn’t and called the police. It was soon clear that the dental records matched Helena’s.

  Seneca had to figure out who put her there.

  Within a few minutes, the train screeched into the station. Seneca pulled her vintage leather suitcase off the rack. The girl reading OK! stood in front of her in the exit line, talking in a syrupy voice on her iPhone. Up ahead, Gold Shoes gazed at Seneca, one eyebrow raised. Seneca glanced at her reflection in the window. With her honey-colored skin, light blue eyes, and wild, dark hair, she knew some guys found her ‘exotic’ – but she also wore little make-up, and her biker boots had steel tips. Wasn’t OK! girl more his type? When she looked up again, Gold Shoes was gone.

  There were swarms of people on the platform, and everyone seemed to be wearing preppy polos. Huge pines shaped like car air fresheners jutted on the horizon, and the crisp air smelled pure and had a chilly bite to it. So here I am, Seneca thought. Every news report had stressed Dexby’s wealth, so she’d expected castles on hills, Rolls-Royces in the parking lot. There was a small shopping district across the street featuring a Pure Barre, a wine and spirits store, and a Vineyard Vines. A ski-lodge-style hotel called Restful Inn was down the block; Seneca couldn’t decide if it was a total eyesore or adorably kitsch.