by Nicole Maggi
“Well, it’s pretty much the same thing—”
“No, it’s not,” said a voice from the doorway. I turned. It was the woman I’d practically tripped over in the hallway. She edged into the room. Michelle shrank into the corner, her face tight as she listened to the conversation.
“Are you eavesdropping again, Lucy?” Lowell kept his voice light but I could hear the undercurrent of annoyance.
Lucy laughed, either not noticing Lowell’s attitude or choosing to ignore it. “Yeah, well, you know me. I never met a trafficking case I didn’t want to crack.” She crossed the room, holding her hand out to me. “Detective Lucy Russell.”
“Georgie Kendrick.” I shook her hand. Her palm was warm and calloused.
“Detective Russell works on our sex crimes unit,” Lowell said.
“I’m trying to establish a protocol here that treats the girls like the victims they are, instead of criminals,” Lucy said. “But it’s hard to get the old guard to change their ways,” she added with a wink to Lowell.
“The prostitutes are still breaking the law,” he said. The undercurrent of annoyance in his voice came to the surface.
“But many of them are underage,” I said. Lucy raised her eyebrows. “And none of them are choosing to be there. What little girl do you know that wants to grow up to sell herself on the street?”
“Exactly,” Lucy said.
Lowell gripped the edge of his desk. “So what does this have to do with the article you’re writing, Georgie?”
“Oh. Well, um, I did a little digging and I think…” I took a deep breath and looked back and forth between him and Lucy. Somehow having her in the room made this easier to say. “I don’t think she committed suicide. I think she was murdered.”
Lucy whistled low under her breath and leaned over to pick the paper up off the desk. Lowell scrunched his face up and said, “Why do you think that?”
I hunched my shoulders. I couldn’t answer the question honestly without sounding insane. “Just from talking to the people who knew her at FAIR Girls, she didn’t seem suicidal.”
“She was a prostitute.” We all started and turned to the corner where Michelle stood, her back as straight as a wooden totem. “That alone would make someone suicidal.”
“I have to agree with Michelle,” Lowell said. I wanted to roll my eyes. Of course he’d agree with his perfect little 3.9-GPA daughter. “This case wasn’t in our jurisdiction, but I remember it. Everything at the crime scene indicated a suicide.”
“Well, if she’d been pushed, that would be hard to tell, right?” I looked to Lucy for confirmation.
She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Possibly. I mean, in this case, it would be hard to tell. Especially now that there’s no longer a body to examine.”
Without thinking, I touched my scar. If it wasn’t for me, there might still be a body to examine. Instead she’d been carved up, her organs recovered for those whose lives they could still save. Lowell leaned forward. “Are you okay, Georgie?” he asked.
“What? Oh, I’m fine.” I dropped my hand into my lap. “It’s just become a habit.”
“Well, you should probably go home and rest. I’d hate for your parents to think I was slowing your recovery.” He glanced at Lucy. “Georgie had a heart transplant several weeks ago.”
“Really? You look great,” Lucy said.
“I’m doing fine,” I said. My cheeks prickled with heat at being reminded, once again, how not normal I was. I pointed at the article that Lucy still held in her hands. “So, you’ll look into it?”
“Sure. By the way, when is your Juilliard audition?” Lowell stood and came around the desk. “It’s coming up, isn’t it?”
“It’s in a couple of weeks—”
“Shouldn’t you be focusing on that instead of writing this article?” Michelle said.
I really wished she’d keep her mouth shut and her nose out of my business. “Well, I’m not in school right now so I have time to do both.”
I buttoned up my coat and swallowed hard as I looked at both of them. Other than delivering Michelle’s recommendation letter, this had been a waste. Nate was right, I thought with an ache in my chest. And Char. You see how far that gets you, she’d told me. Yeah, it hadn’t gotten me very far at all.
“Um, it was nice to see you both,” I lied. “Good luck with the internship,” I told Michelle and bolted out of the office.
I was halfway down the hall when a voice stopped me. “Georgie, wait.” I turned to see Lucy half jogging to catch up with me. Behind her, Lowell’s office door was shut tight once more. She slid to a stop in front of me and held up the article. “Lowell could care less about this. Like I said, he’s old guard. But this is an issue that I’m very passionate about. I’ve been working with the CATW to institute an in-house program to help get the girls off the street instead of arresting them.”
“CATW?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Coalition Against Trafficking in Women,” Lucy said. She waved the article in front of my nose. “Do you by any chance know who this girl’s pimp was?”
“Some guy named Jules,” I said. “Some of the girls have talked about this place he runs called the Warehouse. Have you heard of it?”
Lucy looked off in the distance and nodded slowly. “Actually, yes. Another girl came in here several weeks ago and reported something similar. But when we went to investigate the address she told us, there was nothing there.”
Another girl. “Detective Russell,” I said, my words trying keep up with my brain, “I think that was her.” I pointed to the paper. “I think she knew too much, and her pimp killed her for it.”
She folded the paper into quarters and tucked into her jacket pocket. “I will look into this. And I’ll do a more thorough job than my ‘old guard’ colleagues.” She plucked a card out of the same pocket she’d put the article into and handed it to me. “If you find out anything else, call me.” Lucy took my elbow and walked me to the front door. “But Georgie, please don’t go looking for more information. It’s not safe.”
“I won’t.” I thanked her and stepped back out onto the street. The sun had come out by now, thin streams of light dappling the snowbanks. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my throat and headed to Zaftig’s to meet Ella and Toni. Maybe the trip to the cops hadn’t been a waste after all.
But at the end of the day, the cops didn’t know what I knew about Annabel. They could only go so far. I was the only one who could finish whatever it was she had started.
Chapter Twenty-One
Toni and Ella were already sitting at our favorite table by the window when I got to Zaftig’s. Toni half stood and waved but Ella stayed put, her eyes glued to her phone. I clenched my jaw. Really? They invited me, not the other way around. Fine, whatever. I squared my shoulders. If I had to play the part of the bigger person, so be it.
“Hi, guys,” I said when I got to the table. “Happy snow day.”
“Happy snow day!” Toni said, a little too loudly.
With a ridiculous flourish, Ella set down her phone and looked up. “Hey.”
With a sigh, I realized that I just didn’t have it in me to play this game. “Ella, if you didn’t want me to come, you shouldn’t have invited me.”
Ella folded her arms over her chest. “I didn’t. Toni did.”
“Fine. I’ll leave.” I started to get up but Toni put her hand on my arm.
“No, Georgie, stay.” She looked back and forth between me and Ella. “Come on, you guys. This is so middle school.” Ella looked out the window. I picked at a chip in the table. Toni sighed. “Look, both of you are right, okay? Ella, you need to be a little more sensitive to the fact that Georgie had a near-death experience.”
“I didn’t—” I started to say, but Toni kept right on going.
“I’ve read about heart transplants, and people a
re always changed afterward. So are we going to support her through this, or are we going to abandon her? Support her, right? And Georgie”—she turned to me—“you need to not shut us out, okay? We’re here for you. Use us.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Ella sighed melodramatically and faced me. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” There was an awkward silence while Toni grinned at both of us. I rolled my eyes at her. “Can we order already?”
I ordered oatmeal and herbal tea while the girls ordered jumbo omelets and lattes. “So how are you feeling about the audition?” Ella asked.
“Okay, I guess.” I took a sip of tea and dumped another packet of sugar into it. “Joel’s still nitpicky about my piece. What about you?”
“Ugh, I’m in panic mode.” Ella spooned a dollop of foam from her latte into her mouth. “I was practicing all last night and this morning. I’ve got a lesson later today too. I’ve been having them every other day.”
“You’ll be fine,” I assured her even as my own stomach fluttered. What had I been doing last night and this morning? Chasing Annabel’s ghost. With a jolt, I realized that old Georgie would’ve been panicking just like Ella. But new Georgie… “I mean, is it really the end of the world if we don’t get in?” I said before I could stop myself.
Toni’s jaw dropped. Ella’s spoon froze halfway to her mouth. “Um…yes,” she said.
“Georgie, the first thing you ever said to me on the first day of sixth grade was ‘Hi, I’m Georgie Kendrick and I’m going to Juilliard,’” Toni said. “You’ve had this all planned out since you were ten. And we all know how you are about your plans.”
“We’ve been dreaming about Juilliard since fifth-grade wind ensemble,” Ella said. I could hear the hurt below her words, the frustration that once again “new Georgie” was interfering. “I know it’s stressful, but you are going to get in.”
The waitress came with our food, and I shoved a few huge spoonfuls of oatmeal into my mouth so I didn’t have to talk. It wasn’t stress that was making me talk like that. It was Annabel. “I just meant,” I said after a minute of tense silence as we all chewed our food, “that if I didn’t get in, I would survive. I’d figure something else out.” Like maybe not go into music at all. Like maybe do something to help girls like Annabel.
“Well, of course,” Ella said. “I mean, even if you don’t get into Juilliard, you’ll definitely get into Eastman or NEC.”
I ducked my head. Easier to let her believe that was what I meant than to reveal the truth.
“I’m so glad I already got my early acceptance into Brown,” Toni said. “I don’t think I could handle this pressure.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. My insides had started twisting the moment Juilliard had come up and now they were all knotted up tight. I tried to call up the feeling I had when I held my oboe, of my lifeline tethering me to my old self, but all that came up were the ache in my chest over Nate and the Catch. I was spending too much time in Annabel’s world. I was losing myself.
“What’s going on at school?” I asked quickly, trying to ground myself. “Did Sydney get into Yale?”
“She hasn’t heard yet. Not a lot of people have, except for the early admissions,” Toni said. “Oh, but now she thinks she wants to go to Princeton. Because of Kyle.”
“It’s so lame,” Ella said, “following a boy to college. As if they’re not going to break up during orientation anyway.”
“That’s if Kyle even gets in,” Toni said. “His SATs were not the best.”
“Yeah, but he’s a legacy,” Ella replied. She forked the last bit of omelet into her mouth. “All his dad needs to do is make a call and he’s in.”
Toni wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. He’s so spoiled.”
“Um, hello? Your mom went to Brown. Who’s spoiled now?” Ella laughed, snorting coffee out her nose. It splattered the table with little brown droplets.
“Ewww!” Toni yelled, throwing a handful of napkins at Ella, who was almost falling off her chair with laughter.
I watched them like I was watching a play, like they were onstage and I was the audience and a thick fourth wall separated us. It all seemed so trivial, this world of SATs and Ivy Leagues and legacies. Not when there was a world full of girls fighting for their lives and losing. I stared out the window while Toni and Ella bickered playfully back and forth. No matter how much I wanted to be normal again, I never would be. Our threesome would never be the same. I was like a warped puzzle piece now, unable to fit with the others anymore.
“—Colt’s birthday?”
Ella’s voice yanked me back. “Huh?”
“Isn’t it Colt’s birthday today?”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah. He and my dad and my grandma are all up skiing at Gunstock. I couldn’t go, of course.” I waved my hand in front of my chest.
“I can’t believe he’s fourteen,” Ella said. “You know, I actually remember when he was born.”
My stomach bottomed out as I stared at her. “You do?”
“Yeah.” She tilted her head. “It’s actually one of my earliest memories. But it’s very vivid. There was a snowstorm and your dad had to go to the airport to pick up your grandmother. He dropped you off at my house so my mom could watch you. And then later when he picked you up, your mom came into the house carrying this tiny baby, and I thought it was a doll.” Ella laughed. “I kept saying, ‘I want to play with the doll! I want to play with the doll!’ Isn’t that so weird that I remember that?”
My eye sockets ached with all the tears I was holding back. “Yeah…weird,” I whispered. I blinked fast and hard. Ella remembered my brother’s birthday.
Toni peered into my face. “Georgie? Are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair, praying they didn’t notice how much I was shaking. “I’m getting kinda tired, though. I should probably go home and rest. And practice,” I said with a forced smile.
“God, me too.” Ella checked her phone. “Crap, I didn’t realize how late it was.”
We paid the bill and ventured back out into the cold. I walked Ella home, numb while she chattered on about her audition and the dress she was planning to wear and whether she should wear heels or flats. I hugged her good-bye outside her house and watched her disappear through her front door. Fourteen years ago, I’d been in this very house, waiting for my parents to bring my baby brother home. It wasn’t fair that Ella got to keep that memory and not me.
I turned toward home but I couldn’t make myself go there. There were too many things in my own house that I didn’t remember, from the dream catcher to the pictures of last summer in Nantucket to my own brother’s birthday. And there was no one—no one—I could talk to about it.
The Catch whispered inside me, as loud as the wind through the bare trees. There was one person I could talk to. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to talk to me. I just needed to see him.
Before I could think it through, I was on the T to Hyde Park. I walked several blocks in the wrong direction before I found the purple and red Victorian. The downstairs apartment was dark. I checked my phone; it was only two-thirty, and Nate wouldn’t be off from Starbucks for another hour.
I sat down on the wooden bench on the porch and shrunk into my coat to wait. I knew this was stupid, that he’d probably just tell me to leave, but I didn’t know where else to go. I hugged myself to keep warm but the chill dug deep inside. How many memories made up a person? I tucked my knees up against my chest and rested my head on them. How many were you allowed to lose before you were no longer yourself anymore?
“Georgie?”
I looked up. Nate climbed the steps to me. My eyelids were heavy with icy tears. “I don’t remember my brother’s birthday.”
“What?” He was at the top of the steps. “What are you doing here?”
I sh
ook my head. “I don’t remember the day he was born. Fourteen years ago today. I should remember that. But I don’t. Not anymore.” I wasn’t sure I could move. My body felt frozen into this position.
“How long have you been sitting out here?”
“I mean, what makes you you?” I asked. I was so cold it hurt to breathe. “Is it our memories? Is it our past or our future? Because my past is slowly becoming Annabel’s.” I tightened my arms around my knees. “Pretty soon my future will belong to her too.”
“Georgie, I thought I made it clear last night—”
“I know you said you didn’t want to see me. I don’t blame you. I’m a mess. This whole thing is a mess. But I was out with my friends, and they were going on and on about things that I just don’t care about anymore. And then Ella said she remembers the day Colt was born and I don’t, not anymore. It got taken from me last night when I remembered the basement at the Sutton house and the apartment at 826 Emiline, and it just doesn’t seem fair, you know? You don’t know what it’s like to not remember something so important.”
I glanced up. Nate was standing right over me. “It’s like you’re a cabin built out of Lincoln Logs and someone keeps taking one log out at a time. And pretty soon, so many logs will be gone that the whole structure will just collapse in on itself.” I couldn’t breathe. “I should be the one to remember Colt’s birthday, not Ella. Me.” I pounded my fist against my chest with each word. “Me. Me. Georgie.”
“Okay, okay, stop.” Nate caught my arm before I could hit myself again. “Jesus, you’re freezing.” He pulled me up and helped me through the front door. The heat shocked me with such a jolt that I felt dizzy. Pain prickled my fingers and toes as blood stole back in. Nate unlocked his apartment and ushered me inside. When he closed the door, we stood staring at each other for a long moment.
“I–I shouldn’t have come.” My teeth chattered. “You d–don’t need to be involved in t–this.”
Nate rubbed his hand over his face and took off the navy woolen hat that brought out the blue in his eyes. “I’m already involved.” He threw the hat on the little table by the door. “I got involved the day Annabel walked through the door at All Saints.”