The Last to See Her

by Courtney Evan Tate

  “Call us back in twenty-four hours if she doesn’t turn up,” the officer said curtly before hanging up.

  “Twenty-four hours from when? From now, or from midnight of last night?” Meg asked, but, of course, the officer was already off the phone.

  Meg went back upstairs and paced the hotel suite, back and forth. She picked up her phone again, but laid it down. Should she really call and alarm people so soon? She waffled back and forth, trying to think logically. People who are severely emotionally distraught don’t act like themselves at times. Perhaps Gen really did just want time to herself.

  But Meg didn’t think so. Deep in the pit of her belly, she felt like something was wrong. It was an instinct that had served her well in dozens of surgeries gone wrong. She usually listened to it and ended up saving a life that way. In the operating room, Meg was God. She called the shots. She always knew exactly what to do, because she had learned every contingency through a thousand surgeries on a thousand days, in a thousand different ways.

  But this was different.

  This wasn’t something they trained you for, and she didn’t have control over it.

  Besides, as mercurial as Gen could be, this wasn’t in her wheelhouse.

  Even still, Meg paced all the way out to the balcony, and though she was afraid, she pressed her belly against the cold railing and looked down. The sidewalks were bustling, and her sister was nowhere in sight.

  “Where are you?” Meg whispered. “Come back.”

  She threw on a heavy sweater, pausing only for a minute to scribble a note to her sister before she went out to look again.

  CALL ME IF YOU COME BACK. IMMEDIATELY!!!

  She walked for several city blocks, checking every bench, every hidden set of stairs, every shadowy crevice. She checked her phone every few minutes.

  Gen didn’t call.

  She tried to call Gen, but got her voice mail, over and over. You’ve reached Genevieve Thibault. Leave a message, and when I find my phone, I’ll call you back. Or you could just text me. That would be better.

  “Gen, call me back. Now,” Meg demanded. “I mean it. This isn’t cool. You’re scaring me.”

  She looked at the picture they’d taken the night before, the one in the cab when their eyes were slightly unfocused and their cheeks were pink from alcohol. They were so happy, so delighted with life in general, in spite of everything. And now Gen was gone.

  “What happened?” Meg whispered, as she stood there, her heart pounding.

  She ducked inside several twenty-four-hour pharmacies, asking the clerks if they’d seen her sister the night before or early that morning. But they hadn’t. At the last one, she bought ibuprofen, and tossed three down her throat. Her head was pounding.

  There was another homeless man at the end of the block. She approached him with a photo of Gen on her phone, but he wouldn’t talk to her at all. He grunted and turned away with a snarl.

  She was growing more frantic and more alarmed by the minute.

  She stopped to question the day doorman. “Are you sure you haven’t seen my sister since she left around midnight?” she asked firmly, waving a photo of Gen from her phone at him. Her hands were shaking, and she hoped no one noticed.

  The solemn man nodded. “I’m quite sure, ma’am. But I talked to Peter—he was the doorman on duty last night. He said he told her to be careful and saw her walk down the street. When he looked again, she was gone. He doesn’t know what direction she went after that. I’m sorry.”

  He did look sorry. He was sympathetic.

  “If I text you this picture, can you show it to guests and see if anyone saw anything?”

  He started to nod, but the manager at the desk spoke up.

  “No, we can’t do that, ma’am. I’m sorry. We can’t interfere in an investigation until the police instruct us.”

  “But there’s not an investigation yet.” She turned, confused. “I can’t officially file a report until midnight. Plus, helping to find someone isn’t interfering.”

  “After it becomes an investigation, we’ll do anything the police want us to do. In the meantime, we can’t disrupt our guests.” The manager’s face was stoic.

  “Gen is your guest,” she replied slowly. “And she’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” the manager said, but he was still firm. “We don’t want to alarm our other guests unnecessarily. We’ll be happy to cooperate with the police when they request it.”

  She was hitting a stone wall here. Annoyed, Meg returned to her room and sat on her bed.

  She hadn’t seen her sister since 12:30 a.m. It was now 10:04 a.m. The first session of the convention she came here to attend would be well underway. She couldn’t imagine sitting through panels about advances in medical devices while Gen was missing. All she could do was sit in the hotel room, and watch the clock, and wait. The time passed from 11:04 a.m. to 12:04 p.m., then 1:04 p.m., to 2:04 p.m., and finally, when it was 4:04 p.m. and her sister hadn’t come back, she knew she had to call someone.

  Anyone.

  She didn’t want to worry her parents yet, especially her mother, so she called Gen’s husband, Thad.

  He answered quickly, his voice sharp.

  “Yes?”

  “Thad, it’s Meg.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “Gen’s gone,” she said without hesitating.

  There was a pause. “What do you mean, gone?” he asked.

  “She came to New York with me, and she went out for a walk late last night and she hasn’t come back to the hotel.”

  “How long has she been gone?” he asked calmly.

  “Since midnight.”

  “That’s not like her,” he admitted.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Of course. They said they can’t do anything for the first twenty-four hours.”

  “Okay. Well, call them at the twenty-four-hour mark.”

  “Are you coming? I think something is wrong. I mean, really wrong.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “No,” he replied finally. “She’s divorcing me, remember? She doesn’t want me involved.”

  “You don’t...” Her voice trailed off, and then she squared her shoulders. “You don’t think she...”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he answered.

  And he hung up.

  Meg stared at the phone in disbelief. How could Gen’s husband be so cold? She thought back to what the policeman had asked her. Is it an amicable divorce?

  Lord. Thad wouldn’t do anything to Gen. That was stupid.

  She shook the thoughts out of her head and took a shower.

  She had skipped the entire first day of her convention because this was so much more important. She felt like if she left the room, something terrible might happen to Genevieve. It was illogical, but her mind was past logic at this point. She couldn’t imagine carrying on business as usual until Gen came back. The convention was just not that important.

  She paced, and paced some more. Maybe Gen ran away. Maybe the divorce overwhelmed her all at once, and she’d snapped and just run away from it all.

  But that train of thought didn’t last long.

  Gen wasn’t that kind of person. She never ran away. She confronted everything head-on. Plus, Gen would never purposely worry her this way.

  By the evening, when she hadn’t heard anything yet, she finally called their mother.

  It wasn’t an easy phone call to make.

  “I don’t understand what is happening,” her mother said. “You sent that picture last night. She was so happy. You girls were drunk. She probably got lost.”

  “Mom, I think something might’ve happened,” Meg told her carefully. “This is New York City. It never sleeps, and crime never stops.
I don’t know...”

  “Don’t even say something like that,” her mother snapped. “She’s fine. I know she’s fine.”

  After promising to call when there was any news, Meg hung up. Her arm was limp. Her mind was fuzzy. She collapsed onto the bed, staring at the window. The emotional roller coaster of today hit her in a wave, exhausting her. All of the adrenaline spikes and panic collapsed upon her now.

  She didn’t even realize that she had fallen asleep until she woke up with a start.

  It was dark.

  She sat up, and looked around, finding the clock. It was 11:57 p.m.

  She grabbed her phone, only to find zero messages.

  She rushed through the suite, checking for Gen.

  But her sister’s bed was unrumpled and the rooms were empty. She hadn’t returned, and it had now been twenty-four hours.

  Meg decided not to call the police again—instead, she went downstairs and hopped into a taxi and went to the station in person.

  “I’m here to file a missing-person report,” she told the person at the front desk.

  She had to wait for over an hour for a detective to call for her.

  “Detective Nate Hawkins,” he said as he shook her hand curtly and led her back to his office.

  He was around her age, had two-day-old dark scruff on his jawline and eyes that had seen it all. He was unfazed as she answered his questions. What hotel are you staying at? Why are you here? Has she ever run away from loved ones before?

  But then...then...his questions took a strange turn.

  “Had you and Genevieve argued?” he asked, his blue eyes staring a hole in her.

  She stared. “Um. No. We’d been to dinner.”

  “You said you were talking about her divorce,” he corrected, glancing at his notes. “On the balcony.”

  “Well, yes. Afterward. We’d just come back from dinner.”

  “Were you angry with your sister?” His question was direct.

  “Of course not!” she replied indignantly. “I love her. We were having fun. We were tipsy. Drunk, actually.”

  “But you said that she was planning on leaving Chicago, and you clearly don’t agree with that decision.”

  “That has nothing to do with this. I mentioned that as an aside. It’s irrelevant.”

  “Never assume something is irrelevant,” he advised her. “In a situation like this one, any detail could be important.”

  “Well, here’s a good detail: She’s my sister, and I love her. I want you to find her.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said, almost soothingly. “Listen, Miss McCready...”

  “Dr. McCready,” she corrected him haughtily.

  “Dr. McCready,” he confirmed. “We have to cover all the bases, and I’m sorry if my questions offend you. But here are two very blunt and very important facts about missing-person cases that I want you to know. The first forty-eight hours are crucial.”

  “I know!” she snapped. “And you made me wait a full twenty-four to file this report.”

  “And second,” he continued, ignoring her, “is that in a high percentage of cases, someone the victim knows is involved.”

  She froze as she processed his words, and her mouth closed, as though it were on a hinge. He’d just referred to her sister as the victim. It suddenly seemed all too real. She stared at him without speaking.

  His next words chilled her to the bone.

  “You were the last to see her.”

  4

  Gen, Then

  Gen picked up her wineglass, and drew a long sip over her lips, glancing at the clock.

  Thad was late yet again. A pit had formed in her belly over a week ago when she’d realized it was becoming a pattern.

  In the earlier days of their marriage, he’d been late every once in a while. But he’d always called, was always apologetic.

  Now there was no such thing. No calls, no apologies. He didn’t even seem to care.

  She swigged the wine and then poured another glass.

  Their wedding portrait mocked her from the mantel. She squinted at it, at the happy smile on her face. Was that all a lie? Thad looked happy, too. He had his arm draped around her, his eyes crinkled as he laughed, and he’d pushed a tendril of her hair away from her face.

  He had loved her then.

  What the hell had happened?

  Gen got up and paced around the condo.

  She hated this condo, but she’d conceded on just about everything. She just wanted Thad to seem himself again, and tan wall colors didn’t seem a high price to pay.

  But they hadn’t worked.

  Nothing had.

  And here she was, pacing around her condo at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night, waiting for her husband.

  Her stocking feet slid with ease on the stone, making her skin cold.

  As cold as my heart is becoming, she thought sardonically. Thad was making her into a bitch. She felt it, more and more each day, and she resented it with all of her being. It wasn’t fair. He was out doing whatever he wanted to do, and she was stuck here, growing suspicious and bitter.

  Just as she was pondering what she could do to change that, a key turned in the lock.

  Her husband was home.

  She quickly dropped onto the couch and pretended she had been casually sitting there all along.

  Thad strode in, his shiny leather briefcase slung over his shoulder. His shirt was cleanly tucked in, his tie perfectly knotted. His dark brown hair was just brushing his shoulder, and she noted that he needed a haircut.

  He bent quickly and brushed a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled. An apology, but not really.

  She cocked her head.

  “What was it tonight?” she asked innocently. He shrugged.

  “Same old crap. Clients who don’t give a shit about my personal life. They want to meet for dinner to discuss their issues, then dinner turns into drinks, and I can’t get away, then here I am dragging myself home just in time for bed.”

  He was definitely making a point to stress how tired he was. How weary.

  Gen thought back in her head. When was the last time they’d had sex? A month ago? Two? It was a bad sign that she couldn’t remember. She hadn’t even shaved her legs in weeks. Why should she? Her husband sure as hell wouldn’t notice.

  Thad poured a scotch and stood at the window, staring down at the street far below.

  “I love this place,” he said quietly, and for just a minute, she heard the man she’d married.

  “I do, too,” she answered, and joined him. She lifted her hand and touched his back.

  He didn’t react.

  She tried again, brushing her hand against his shoulder.

  He didn’t notice. She cringed. When had this started happening? How had she not realized it?

  “Do you still love me?” she asked.

  Thad’s head snapped around, and he stared at her with wide eyes.

  “Of course. Why would you ask such a thing?”

  He seemed so startled, so appalled, that her stomach unclenched just a bit. He lifted an eyebrow. “Well?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and it did seem silly now. “You’re just so distant.”

  “Babe,” he said, and he pulled her to him. She inhaled the familiar scent of his skin, his shirt. “I’m just building a life for us. Everything I’m doing is for you. For us.”

  She nodded, and she truly felt silly now. Of course, he was right. He was a hard worker, an overachiever. He always had been.

  “I know,” she finally answered. A weight lifted off her shoulders at the finality in his voice. He meant it. She’d stake her life on it.

  “Okay.” He nodded. “Now. How about...we go to bed early.”

  “It’s not early,�
� she pointed out with a giggle.

  “Details,” he announced. “Let’s go to bed.”

  His voice was suggestive, and her belly twinged in response. It’d been a while since they’d made love. This was good. It was a definite good sign.

  They went to bed, and for the first time in weeks, Gen didn’t doubt her husband’s love.

  5

  Meg, Now

  “This is Dr. Meghan McCready, Jenny,” she spoke quickly into the phone. “I’m away at a convention in New York City, and I’ve been delayed. At this point I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back in the office.”

  The office assistant seemed taken aback. “But what should I do with your consultations and speaking engagements?”

  Meg sighed. “Ask Dr. Callahan to handle them. He knows the material and he can easily cover for me. Lord knows, I’ve done it for him. I’ve got an urgent family emergency. I’ll let you know when I am returning.”

  She pressed End and tossed the phone on the bed, glancing around the room. It had been forty-eight hours now, and there had been no sign of her sister. Not anywhere. No phone calls, no sightings, not a thing.

  She showered and blow-dried her hair, letting the bathroom steam up. Something about not having anything specific to do was both frustrating and oddly liberating at the same time. She had no place to be, no surgical maneuver to teach.

  But she was anxious. Gen was gone. Things were not okay.

  Meg traced on her lipstick and slid her jewelry on. As she glanced at her wedding ring, it looked like there was a missing side-diamond. She examined it closer, but no. It was there. It was just small, unlike her sister’s massive rock that she’d simply thrown out.

  That ring.

  Had Gen gone hunting for it? Was that why she’d disappeared into the night? Had she realized it was silly to throw away something so expensive?

  Meghan doubted it. Gen didn’t always think about, or care about, those kinds of things. It was why she and Thad were honestly not a good match, and never had been. He was a details person, she was a big picture person, and in their case, opposites did not attract.

  She thought about calling him again. He hadn’t checked on Gen, which Meghan thought was a dick-ish thing to do. Sure, they were getting divorced, but shouldn’t he care that she was missing?