The Last to See Her

by Courtney Evan Tate

  She remembered the detective’s question. Is it an amicable divorce?

  Meghan stared at the wall, at a piece of wallpaper that had been snagged and was curling up at the seam.

  No, their divorce was not amicable. But she was sure Thad would never do anything to harm her. Right?

  On an impulse, Meg picked up her phone and texted Thad.

  Thad, there is still no sign of Gen. There’s something really wrong.

  He didn’t answer immediately. In fact, he didn’t answer for over an hour. Meg was down on the street, trying to hail a taxi when he did.

  Fine. I’ll be there soon.

  She winced as she read it. Not exactly the words you would expect from someone’s husband. She’d known Thad for years. She didn’t think he would be capable of harming anyone, but isn’t that the first thing you hear on the news when the reporter interviews a neighbor or a family friend? I would never have thought. That’s what they always said.

  Her stomach churned as she dropped into the yellow cab, and the driver whisked her across town to the police department. She tried not to inhale the musty smell in the car, body odor mixed with the pollution of the city, and instead stared out at the street as they drove. The landscape blurred together, and she found herself scanning it for Gen’s face.

  It was unlikely Gen would be on this side of town, but then again, she could be anywhere.

  She tried to call her sister’s number again. This time, it went straight to voice mail. It must be out of battery.

  Her stomach sank even further. Gen wouldn’t let her phone go dead. She was obsessive about charging it. Meg had told her a hundred times that overcharging was bad for batteries, but Gen never cared, because she never wanted her phone to run down.

  Yet now, it had.

  And now she was gone and had been for forty-nine hours.

  She clutched her purse as the cab lurched to a halt, and she thrust some crumpled bills at the driver. She stepped onto the dirty sidewalk and then climbed the steps to the police station. She could probably find her way in here blindfolded since she’d been here four times in two days.

  Make it five times, now.

  She stopped at the front desk, and the same guy from the day before yesterday was there again. He glanced at her.

  “Still gone?” he asked, and she couldn’t imagine how he’d remembered her. He must see hundreds of people a day. But she nodded.

  “Yeah. Can I see Detective Hawkins?”

  The clerk picked up the phone without answering, calling back for the detective. When he hung up, he nodded to her.

  “He’ll be right out. Heads up, he’s not in a great mood today.”

  And that was her problem, how?

  She didn’t say that. Instead, she smiled politely and waited.

  It was twenty minutes before the detective graced her with his presence. He strode from behind the double doors, and she glanced at him. It didn’t look as though he’d slept. His shirt was wrinkled and the back was untucked. His hair was dark. His teeth were white.

  If it weren’t for the bags under his eyes, he could really be quite handsome, she decided. Oh, and the scowl.

  He scowled at her again, as if he could read her thoughts.

  “Ms. McCready,” he began, but she glared at him.

  “Dr. McCready,” she corrected. He stopped in front of her and started over.

  “Dr. McCready,” he said. “Coming here doesn’t help. It only slows me down, because I have to stop what I’m doing to come out and see you.”

  “But there must be something I can do,” she insisted. “I can’t just sit in the hotel room. I need to go out and knock on doors or something.”

  “This is New York City,” he reminded her, as if she could forget. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

  “Then what should I do?” she demanded. “I’m telling you truthfully, I’ll go insane if I can’t do something.”

  He sighed. “Fine. Come with me.”

  His broad shoulders swayed as they walked into the back, over the dingy tiled floor. She noticed that his shoes were scuffed. She didn’t say anything, just followed him through a bustling room filled with ringing phones and the sounds of metal file cabinets slamming closed. If a place could smell like unsolved crime, it would be this.

  They came to a small office in the back, and he gestured for her to sit down in the chair across from his desk. It squeaked when she did. She kept her purse on her lap.

  “Detective, I need to know what more I can do.”

  She stared at him and willed her fingers not to shake.

  He stared back, his blue gaze unwavering. He looked at her as though he were inspecting her, as though he could see that she hadn’t slept in two days, that coffee was her only sustenance. But even still, he seemed suspicious. He didn’t miss a detail. His eyes were tired but still sharp. That annoyed her.

  “I feel as though you are wasting time by focusing on me,” she added. “I know you called my office and asked for my itinerary. You could’ve just asked me. I’d have given it to you.”

  “You might’ve lied,” he suggested simply. He took a drink of coffee out of a chipped blue Superman mug. She stared at the yellow and red S emblem. Did he have an inflated ego? Probably. Did he have kids who had given it to him?

  “I could’ve lied,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t. I don’t have anything to hide.”

  He took another drink. “This will sound cliché, but that’s what everyone says.”

  Meg felt her blood boil a bit. “Listen. My sister is missing. I know for a fact that I had nothing to do with it. You are focusing on me, and in doing so, you could be letting the real culprit get away. She could be dead right now because you are fucking around with me. Do you hear me?”

  Her voice had escalated to almost a screech, and still, the detective was annoyingly unfazed.

  “I hear you,” he said calmly. “The cops out in the bullpen heard you, too. And the coffee shop patrons down on the corner. Would you like some coffee, by the way?”

  She swallowed hard and clenched her fist in her lap.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? I’ll even get you a clean cup.” He almost smiled, and Meg noticed that his face, for a brief minute, got gentler, kinder. It instantly hardened up again when she spoke, like armor.

  “Detective. To whom can I speak that will find my sister?”

  “You’re looking at him.” He set his cup down, and his eyes were steely. “I’m assigned to this case and I am very good at my job. I’ll find your sister. And if you’re involved, I’ll find that out, too.”

  “I’m not,” Meg said icily.

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” he said, almost pleasantly now. He picked up the paper she had filled out with the details of Gen’s disappearance and peered at it. “You still at the same hotel?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m staying there in case she comes back.”

  “You been trying to call her?”

  “Her phone goes straight to voice mail. It isn’t like her. She hates for her battery to go dead. Can you track her phone?”

  “Already done,” the detective said, laying the paper back down.

  Meg’s heartbeat picked up a little.

  “And?”

  Detective Hawkins opened his desk drawer and pulled out a plastic bag. Meg gasped when she recognized her sister’s rose-gold iPhone with the custom case.

  “Where was it?” she almost stuttered.

  “In the dumpster down the street from your hotel. There are only two sets of prints on it.”

  He stared at her and she stared back. “And?”

  “And, would you mind giving your fingerprints?”

  “Seriously?” Meg said. “It’s my own sister’s phone. My prints are probably all over it.”

 
“Then you won’t mind confirming it?”

  She sighed. “Sure. But what will that prove? I handled my own sister’s phone?”

  “Yes,” the detective said.

  “But why would my sister’s phone be in a dumpster?” Meg asked, afraid of the answer.

  “That’s what we are trying to find out. Possibly whoever abducted her knew that it would track her,” he replied simply.

  Meg’s breath caught in her throat.

  “So you think she was abducted?”

  “It is a suspicious scenario, and we’re treating it as such. Of course, she could have dropped it there intentionally herself.”

  Meg stood up and the air whooshed out of her lungs. The room spun.

  Her sister had a few issues, true, and deep down, Meg did wonder if perhaps Gen had just run...if she’d just done some illogical thing just to lash out at the divorce. That is, until this minute, when Hawkins declared it as suspicious. If something truly had happened to Gen, then the detective might actually think of her as a suspect.

  The room spun faster. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor and the detective was reaching down and handing her a cup of water.

  Dizzily, she stared up at him.

  “You fainted,” Hawkins said calmly.

  Meg sat up, trying to shake the fuzziness from her head, and took a gulp of water.

  “I can assure you I didn’t hurt my sister,” she told him.

  “Okay,” he answered.

  Somehow, though, Meg knew he was suspicious of her. He was watching her, analyzing her, was still on guard with her.

  “Should I call my attorney?” she asked suddenly.

  The detective’s head snapped around. “Do you think you need one?”

  “I’m starting to fear I do.”

  “Then by all means,” he said. “Be my guest.”

  Meghan’s heart sunk more by the minute. She dialed her attorney’s number with shaking fingers. When she got through, she told him about her sister’s disappearance and how she was at the police precinct in New York City speaking with the detective in charge. Her lawyer said to keep him abreast of any developments. He was at the other end of the line anytime she needed him.

  6

  Gen, Then

  “Meghan Diane,” Gen snapped at her sister through the phone. “Come back to reality.”

  Her sister paused in her diatribe.

  “Yes?”

  “Quit complaining about Joe. He’s an honest guy, who works hard for you. He does all of the renovating around your place himself. Do you know how much money that saves?”

  Meg sighed. “I know. I just wish that he would engage more. He’s always out in the garage tinkering on his workbench.”

  “And you think that’s beneath you?” Gen raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course not.”

  “Miss Doctor?”

  She snarled a little too harshly to be entirely joking. “Don’t act like I’m a snob. I’m not. I knew whom I was marrying. I love that he gets his hands dirty. I just... You wouldn’t understand.”

  “No, because I’m married to someone who would rather hire someone to change a simple light bulb.”

  “We all have crosses to bear,” Meg answered, then giggled.

  “We’re not suffering,” Gen decided aloud, and she agreed.

  “No, we’re not.”

  They fell silent, and Gen glanced at the clock.

  “You know, I’ve got to get my words in for the day. Do you have patients to see or something?”

  “Or something,” her sister sighed. “Too much of what I do is administrative these days. All I do is teach and talk, teach and talk.”

  “You poor baby,” Gen faked some sympathy, and she laughed again.

  “Shut up. Okay. I’m going.” She hung up and Gen was left alone in her big condo.

  With Thad at work, she had silence all day to write all the words she wanted. The silence, though, was sometimes suffocating. Today it felt like loneliness.

  She padded lightly down the hall to her office, and overlooking the city, with her feet propped up on the window and her butt planted firmly in the window seat, she tapped determinedly on the laptop keys with the machine balanced against her thighs.

  His eyes sparkle like the sun, she wrote. My heart flutters in response, and I inhale a shaky breath, not sure that my knees will support me as he pulls me close.

  Her fingers paused as she pondered those words and the sentiment behind them.

  When was the last time she’d felt like that?

  When was the last time Thad had made her knees weak? When was the last time he’d looked at her and it had taken her breath away?

  The fact that she had to ask the question was probably the answer.

  She didn’t remember.

  She glanced down at her T-shirt and yoga pants. She’d washed her hair the day before yesterday. Why exactly did she think he’d want to make her knees weak? She hadn’t showered since yesterday morning. Maybe he wasn’t putting in extra effort, but she hadn’t been, either.

  She closed her computer and walked to the bathroom. When she stepped into the hot shower, she let the steam erase her worries, her tension, her stress. She stood with her hands on the wall, and she pictured her husband coming home from work and finding her all dolled up, perfumed and ready. Her belly tightened at the look on his face.

  He’d be so happy. So content. So surprised.

  It made her so excited that she went out and bought a pretty new black nightgown and matching satin robe.

  She spent all afternoon pampering herself...grooming, doing her fingernails and toenails and deep conditioning her hair. Everything she could do to feel sexy. She blew out her hair. She walked through clouds of perfume and sprayed their clean bed linens.

  She even dug out an old erotica book, priming herself well ahead of time.

  By the time 6:00 p.m. rolled around, she was ready. Her motor was purring, and she was lying in wait.

  By seven o’clock, she was antsy.

  By eight o’clock, she was tired.

  She called his office.

  No answer.

  She called his cell phone.

  “Hi, honey,” he answered, and he sounded as tired as she was.

  “Where are you?” she asked and she was more snappish than she intended. After all, he didn’t know she was trying to surprise him.

  “At dinner with the team. Why?”

  “I was just hoping to spend some time with you tonight,” she said, as she looked at her freshly shaved legs and billowing satin nightgown. “What time will you be home?”

  “Don’t wait up,” he advised. “There’s no reason for both of us to be up late.”

  He hung up, and she sat alone for a moment.

  Then she turned off the lamp and went to sleep.

  When she woke in the morning, he’d already gone for work.

  She’d missed him entirely.

  7

  Meg, Now

  “Honey, you’re being paranoid,” Meg’s husband, Joe, murmured into the phone. In the background, their son, Joey, ran through the house, making fire truck noises, high-pitched wails that faded into nothing, only to start all over again. If Meg were there, she’d tell him to hush, but Joe let him get away with everything. “It’s a normal part of an investigation, I’m sure.”

  “Joe, he suggested I call my lawyer,” she reminded him. “That doesn’t seem routine.”

  “You would never harm a hair on your sister’s head,” Joe said. “Anyone who knows you both would know that.”

  “But this detective doesn’t know us,” she told him. “Not at all.”

  “Has Thad gotten there yet?” Joe asked. “He should be there taking care of all of this, not you. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they
’re getting divorced. If it were you who was missing, I’d be there. I should be there now, actually. I can get my mom to watch Joey... I’ll come.”

  “No, honey,” she said. “I’d rather you hold down the fort there with Joey and act normally, like nothing is wrong. I’m not sure I can do that, but I trust you can, Joe.” Her husband acquiesced immediately. Because who wouldn’t? It was a good point. It was a terrible situation, one not suitable for a child. “And if Thad is here, he hasn’t called me.”

  “Prick.”

  Meg agreed. Lord knew, his divorce with her sister was nasty, but that wasn’t an excuse to be heartless. This was definitely a side to him she hadn’t seen, and she wondered if Gen hadn’t told her the worst of him.

  “Do you know where she might go? If she were to run away, I mean.” Joe was hesitant and with good reason. Meg jumped on him.

  “She didn’t run away,” she snapped. “Have you ever known Gen to run away from something? Especially me. She’d never leave me to worry like that. God, Joe.”

  “I know,” he said, trying to sound soothing. Both Joe and Meg knew that when she got like this, the best thing for Joe to do was back away, to retreat. “What did the detective tell you to do?”

  “He said don’t leave town. He made it sound ominous, like he’d be personally watching me.” Meg shuddered.

  She slid a finger down her pant leg, adjusting a wrinkle. Joe dismissed her concerns.

  “Honey, you didn’t do anything wrong. He can watch you all he wants. He won’t find anything amiss.”

  “That’s a big word.” She chuckled absentmindedly.

  “I know some,” her husband said wryly.

  She was distracted enough not to notice his annoyance.

  “Just get some rest, Meggie,” he added, softer now.

  “Easier said than done. But I’ll try.”

  They hung up and the walls of the room closed in on her. She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight. Her sister’s face haunted her there, laughing and witty. She opened them again, staring at the ceiling.

  What the hell was she supposed to do now?