“No. She didn’t, and I haven’t been able to reach her since she left. Why didn’t you go with her?” I asked curiously.
“Well, someone’s gotta stay and run The Shell Shop. Your mom was real excited though. I haven’t had any problems reaching her. In fact, she’s been texting me non-stop since she got there, telling me all about the crazy people she’s seen in costumes on Bourbon Street, and the wonderful crawfish she ate last night…”
“Wait. My mom’s been texting you?” Like I said, my mom’s not a texter, so this was news to me.
“Yeah. Like, constantly. She’s been too busy to talk, honey. She’s in meetings, discussing sales figures, and the costs of hiring at least a couple employees to run the shop there for us. You should shoot her a text…” Shelley went on, but I wasn’t really listening. I was just relieved to know my mom was safe, and actually went to New Orleans as George claimed.
Chapter Twelve
I contemplated taking a bike ride, but settled for a bath instead. There was a freestanding claw foot tub in the downstairs bathroom. I filled its deep belly with hot water and suds, and then dove below the surface. With so much room, I was able to stretch out my long, gangly legs and arms. I floated on my back, eyes closed. I loved the feeling of weightlessness.
Maybe I’d been overreacting. So, the house had a history. But it’d been rebuilt. Mom was safe and sound in New Orleans. There were two boys who liked me. And even though I missed my friends in Ohio, the truth was, they weren’t the greatest friends to begin with. I’d start school in a month at Plainview High. It’d be a brand new place, with new opportunities to meet people. And even if I didn’t meet anybody special, I’d be heading off to college soon anyway. All of this was temporary.
I washed my hair with Mom’s shampoo and used George’s comb to pull the tangles out. After I’d dried my hair and brushed my teeth, I set to work plucking my eyebrows and painting my nails. I wanted to look good for the next time I saw Sam. Or Lou.
Around mid-afternoon, I got my wish. I was warming up more leftovers when the doorbell rang. I was thrilled to see Sam standing on my porch. Unfortunately, his mood didn’t match mine. “Christa’s gone,” he said, letting himself inside. I stared at him, dumbfounded.
I led him to the kitchen, offered him some beans. He scrunched his nose up at the three-day old leftovers. “I just saw her yesterday, at the boat ramp. She isn’t missing,” I said, handing him a can of Coke. He took a swig.
“She didn’t come home last night. My mom and dad asked me if I’d seen her. I told her that I saw her at the diner, where we ate, but that was it,” Sam said.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine. She probably stayed at Lou and Lexi’s house.”
“Nope. Lou and Lexi haven’t seen her either. After boating, Christa went home. Although, she didn’t actually go home because nobody saw her after that,” Sam said.
I scraped the remaining food particles into the garbage. I’d had my fill of Mom’s leftovers. “That is a little strange,” I admitted. “But it’s only been a day. She probably went off with some guy, or she’s hanging out with other friends.”
“Well, that’s what Lou and Lexi said too. But nobody can reach her. Her cell phone is going straight to voicemail. Her mom is worried sick that something terrible has happened. Said she feels it in her gut.”
I, for one, was a big believer in gut feelings. Intuition was a natural gift we shouldn’t ignore, at least that’s my opinion. “What do you think? Do you think something bad has happened?” I asked, sitting down next to him.
“Not sure. But I told her parents I’d come talk to you, since you’re the only other person she hangs out with around here.” I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed…I’d hoped he was stopping by because he wanted to hang out with me, but that seemed like a selfish thought when Christa was missing.
“Tell them I haven’t seen her, but if I do, I’ll let them know right away. And if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know,” I told him.
As though sensing my thoughts from earlier, he said, “I also wanted to see if you’d like to hang out.” He stumbled over his words nervously.
“Of course,” I said, smiling at him. He smiled back, flashing that goofy half-grin of his.
“Actually, there’s something you can help me with. A mystery of sorts,” I said. He raised his eyebrows, intrigued. I started to explain, but thought better of it. “Let me just show you what I’m talking about.”
Sam followed me out back to the alleyway. I pointed up at the bedroom windows. “How many windows do you see on the second floor?”
He raised his eyebrows again, but skeptically this time. “Trick question?” he asked. I shook my head. “I see three windows,” he answered. I led him around to the front, pointing at the second story on the other side of the house.
“How many do you see on this side?”
“Four,” he said, a hint of a question still in his voice.
“Okay, now let’s go upstairs to my room.”
Sam laughed. “I got the number right, so now you’re taking me to your room?” My face turned a dark shade of red.
“No, silly,” I said, recovering. “I want to show you how many rooms are up there. Because it’s not seven…”
He followed me back inside, saying, “You know, Marianna…I hate to state the obvious, but not all rooms have windows…”
“Just wait,” I said, chuckling.
When we reached the top of the stairs, I led him past my bedroom to the empty room at the end of the hall. “There’s the boarded up window,” I said, pointing at it with satisfaction. “It looks like a window, right? And we can see it’s boarded up, right? But why can’t we see it boarded up from outside the house?”
He stared at the boards, a look of confused interest on his face. He pushed up his glasses on his nose. Reaching out, he placed his hands on the boards. The boards fit together snugly, letting no light through. But there was a window sill beneath them and a frame around them, forming the perfect illusion of a window.
“I was going to check it out myself yesterday, but I was…too scared,” I admitted quietly.
“You got any tools? Let’s take them off and see if it leads outside. I mean, somebody might have bricked it in on the other side to make it look like there was never a window here,” he explained.
Hmmm. Why didn’t I think of that? “I don’t have tools, but my stepdad does. I don’t know where they’d be though, because everything is packed up. They might be in his room…”
Sam looked at me thoughtfully. “I could go home and get some,” he offered.
“Let’s go look for them. If they’re not in his and mom’s room, then they might be in a box,” I suggested.
We made our way back downstairs, making a beeline for Mom and George’s bedroom. I was surprised to find everything in its place. I guess George put most of the stuff away after all, I thought. Their room contained a king-sized bed, a nightstand on each side, and a dresser. Definitely no tools sitting out in the open. “Maybe in his closet?” Sam suggested behind me, making me jump with a start.
There were two his and hers closets. I opened both of them, looking on the closet floors and overhead shelves for anything that resembled tools. Nada. Clothes hung neatly in both closets. My mom’s purses, bags, suitcases, and shoes were lined up or hanging neatly. Had George put them all away for her? It was kind of nice, I supposed…
There was a roomy bathroom attached to their room. It was larger than the other bathroom—the one with the claw foot tub—but it contained a fancy shower featuring two shower heads on each side. Perfumes, makeup, deodorants, and men’s cologne neatly lined the counter space. We made our way out of the room, no closer to possessing the tools we needed.
“All I really need is a crowbar,” Sam commented, joining me in the living room. There were still nearly a dozen unpacked boxes, but none were labeled “Tools.” Most of them contained my mom’s stuff, based on the labels.
“At our house in Ohio, we had a storage shed outside. We don’t have one of those here…” I considered aloud. Where were George’s tools?
He never was much of a handyman, but at our old house, he’d always kept some basics, like hammers, nails, a drill, a crowbar, measuring tape…
“I got an idea. Why don’t we go grab some lunch? Something better than old baked beans…and while we’re out, we’ll stop at my house, get a crowbar, and swing by Christa’s to see if there’s any news,” Sam suggested.
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I said, grabbing my keys to lock up. Maybe we could solve two mysteries today: Christa’s disappearance and the bizarre window—or lack thereof—upstairs.
Chapter Thirteen
We chatted over fish and fry baskets at a cute and surprisingly trendy bistro on the corner of Saints Road. It looked freshly built with shiny white tiles and utilitarian slabs for tables.
Conversation flowed easily. We talked about our favorite reads of the summer, the concerts we’d been to, and he told me a little about his school, which was soon to be my school too.
Sam told me which teachers to watch out for and filled me in on the who’s who of Plainview High. All in all, it sounded like any other high school in America.
“So, what’s the deal with you and Lou? Why don’t you get along?” I asked, dunking a fry in thick, peppery ketchup.
“Oh, him. Well, we used to be really good friends in elementary school.” He shrugged, leaning back to stretch his stomach muscles. The bottom of his shirt popped up, revealing a sexy happy trail below his belly button. I fought the urge to reach out and touch it.
He pulled his shirt down, acting shy again. “So, what happened then?” I asked. “If you guys were such good friends…?”
“Well, the thing about Lou is that he’s always changing his personality to suit whoever he’s with. For example, he used to be really into sports when he was young. He played flag football, always talked about sports teams, and all that nonsense. And then he went through a grunge phase, sporting black eyeliner and trying to play the guitar. He even went through a nerdy phase where he was obsessed with his grades and joined the math league…well, you get the idea.”
“But don’t you think everybody does that, to some degree? I mean, we’re all trying to figure out who we are. And trying to fit in with just one group seems a little ridiculous, don’t you think? Fitting in with different people seems a lot more likely, if you ask me…” I didn’t mean to sound defensive, but I sort of did, I must admit. “Sometimes I think people try so hard to be different, that they all just end up being the same,” I added.
Sam surprisingly nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I feel the same way. But that’s the problem with Lou. Instead of mixing with different groups of people, he would join one and then alienate everyone outside of that clique. He was cruel, a bully…downright evil sometimes, even to people who were supposed to be his best friend…”
I took it that Sam was the friend who got alienated and bullied by Lou’s identity crises. “I put up with him for a long time. Years and years, actually. But I finally got tired of being yanked around. Some days he was nice to me, and some days he was terrible. Honestly, it started to feel more like an abusive relationship than a friendship,” Sam explained.
I reached out, touching the tips of my fingers to his. “Sorry, Sam. I get it, I really do. I have friends back home the same way…a boyfriend, in fact, who acted that way. The hot and the cold…”
“You have a boyfriend?” Sam asked, nearly spitting soda out of his mouth. I laughed.
“No, he’s not my boyfriend. I meant to say that I did have a boyfriend like that before I moved here, but he’s not my boyfriend anymore. Actually, he hasn’t even called or texted since I moved away.”
“Sorry,” Sam said. But he didn’t look very sorry.
“You seemed pretty concerned about me having a boyfriend,” I teased. He blushed.
“Yeah, I really like you,” he admitted, reaching out to hold my hand.
“I like you too,” I said, smiling brightly.
I felt giddy. The fluttering sensation in my belly made me feel alive. And today we weren’t interrupted by my obnoxious new friends. At once, I regretted the thought. One of those new friends was missing.
We paid our bill, heading back outside. “Christa lives right down here. Only three doors down from my house,” Sam said. We walked on Saints Road, which suddenly seemed deserted. “Her mom and my mom are friends. That’s how I knew she was missing…her mom’s been a nervous wreck since early this morning.”
He walked over to a house on stilts and led me up a set of creaky, wooden stairs to the top level, which seemed to be where the residents lived. These houses were cool, but strange.
Sam knocked on the door. It was immediately opened by a thin man sporting a beard on his face but no hair up top. “I was hoping you were Christa,” he said, smiling despite his words.
“We haven’t seen her, Mr. Shankton. But when we do, we’ll let you know. I was hoping you had an update,” Sam said politely.
“Nope. Christa’s mom is worried sick, but I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably off getting in some sort of trouble. She used to be such a good girl till we moved here and she started hanging out with those hoodlum twins.”
He must be talking about Lou and Lexi, I thought, smirking. I had to admit, they were the sort of kids you could get in trouble with.
“When did Christa move here?” I asked. I’d assumed she was from around here, but thinking back…she had mentioned something about being fairly new to Flocksdale. She seemed to fit right in with Lexi and Lou, like they’d all been friends for years.
“We moved here two months ago,” Christa’s dad said, surprising me. “We wanted to be close to the water. Her brother’s got a boat and he’s been home from college.”
“Where is the boat?” I asked, wondering if Christa had taken it out on her own.
“Oh, it’s still at the docks last we checked. The reason Christa’s mom’s so worried is because her brother went back to Fairfield today. She adores him, and we’re a little surprised she didn’t come home to at least say bye to him. ’Course, I think she just forgot. She’ll turn up soon, guys, don’t worry,” he said. I couldn’t help wondering if he was trying to reassure us, or himself instead.
We thanked him and said our goodbyes. Sam and I, thinking the same thing, walked in the direction of the river. “Maybe she’s out on the boat now, or there’s some sort of clue on it about where she went,” I pondered aloud.
“All we can do is check,” Sam replied.
***
The boat was parked at the dock, blistering in the sun. We boarded it, looking around for clues. There were a few empty soda and beer cans, as well as some other garbage, but nothing out of the ordinary. We left the docks and headed back to town. By the time we’d searched the mall, park, and skating rink, we’d nearly forgotten about our original plan with the crowbar. Plus, nobody reported seeing Christa.
“We can go get the crowbar from my house,” Sam said, turning back in that direction. I shook my head.
“I’m done sleuthing for the day, seriously. And my stepdad’s probably home from work by now. I don’t think he’d be too crazy about me tearing out boards upstairs, or taking a boy to my room.”
Sam walked me back, stopping a block away from the house. “Thanks for walking me this far,” I said, smiling at him tiredly.
“Oh, I’m still going to walk you there. I just wanted to stop for…this,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me. I was a little startled, but then I relaxed, enjoying his sweet lips on mine. His eyes were a soft shade of brown, kind of like the muddy river, only prettier. I normally closed my eyes while kissing, but I couldn’t stop looking at him.
His hands rested on my hips, rubbing the fabric of my sundress. When he pulled away, we were both wearing loopy grins and my lips were tingling. He finished walking me home, hugging me tightly goodbye. I had to stop
myself from skipping up to the house. I felt a strange sensation, something I hadn’t felt since my dad took off…happiness.
Chapter Fourteen
Two days later, my sunny disposition evaporated. George was in the kitchen, drinking his morning coffee and reading the paper. I was sitting in the seat across from him, slopping strawberry jam on toast. That’s when I saw the front page headline:
Body of Missing Girl Found.
“Oh my god,” I said, emphasizing each word slowly. My teeth were instantly chattering. George closed the paper, looking at me blankly.
“Did you know her?” George asked.
I nodded, swallowing a massive lump in my throat. “I talked to the prosecutor this morning. If she was murdered, Tom’s going to nail that sucker to the wall…” George went on, but I was past the point of listening. I stared at the black and white photo, thinking about the cover of Wendi’s book. The laminated pages in the middle, with the faces of dead teens’ school photos and family portraits.
Christa stared back at me—her milky skin, sunken blue eyes, and wisps of dirty blonde hair. She was wearing that babyish smile of hers. I could almost imagine the lips of the photograph moving, “Please come on the boat with me,” she’d whined.
Her parents must be devastated. My chest filled with dread. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through. George set the paper on the table, finally flipping it over. Just like that, the photo was gone. Here one day, and gone the next…just like Christa, I thought drearily.
“What happened to her?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know the answer.
George cleared his throat, hesitant to share the details, but finally he said, “She was sprawled out in that small wooded clearing behind the skating rink. She was topless, facedown, no obvious signs of injury yet…I’m sorry, Marianna. I’m talking to you like I’m in a courtroom. I don’t mean to sound so cold.”
House of the Lost Girls (Flocksdale Files Book 2) Page 5