Chasing Shadows

by Valerie Sherrard

  “You again,” she said, her eyes narrowing when she saw me standing there.

  “Hello,” I said in what I hoped was a bright, perky voice. “How are you today?”

  Instead of answering, she peered behind me. I realized she was looking at Greg, and I made a quick introduction. He offered her his hand, but she stared at it as it if were covered in slime, and didn’t shake it.

  “We were wondering,” I said, knowing I was wasting my time asking, “about seeing the empty apartment.”

  “Told you, it’s haunted. I don’t rent it,” she snapped.

  “Yes, ma’am, I remember. We didn’t actually want to rent it. We were just curious about the noises in there. We wouldn’t touch anything. We thought maybe we could find something. You mentioned that the police couldn’t seem to find anything to back up your suspicions.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she thought about this. To my surprise, she shrugged and told us to wait. Greg and I looked at each other but were afraid to speak while she was back inside her place. A moment later she returned with a single silver key on a thin wire ring.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she mumbled, passing it over.

  We thanked her, took the key, and promised to be right back. She looked doubtful.

  I don’t know what I was expecting inside the apartment, but there wasn’t a thing there. Empty rooms with a slightly stale smell — that’s all we found. I have to admit I felt kind of foolish standing there.

  “Well, so much for that,” I said.

  “I guess so.” Greg kind of patted my arm like you might do with a small child in need of comfort. “At least you know — and you won’t be driven crazy wondering if there’s anything in here that might have been helpful.”

  “Yeah, I suppose eliminating things is part of figuring out what happened in cases like this,” I agreed. I tried to sound positive about it, but the truth was I felt anything but.

  The more I nosed around, the more the whole thing seemed hopeless. I had no suspects, no known motive, and no clues that appeared to be telling me anything. In short, I had nothing except my own belief that something horrible had happened to Nadine. Even the police thought everything was okay.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time I stopped chasing after shadows,” I said heavily. “I’ve become some kind of crime junkie, inventing felonies to feed my need for excitement. I’m sneaking around spying on people and bothering strangers for something that only exists in my head.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. But I noticed that he didn’t try to persuade me that maybe there was something to the whole thing and he didn’t suggest we keep on checking things out.

  “Someone who Nadine knows comes to her door, surprising her,” I said, reviewing the facts aloud. “She quits her job the next day and takes off somewhere. A few days later she stops by her place and gets her things. There’s no evidence of a scuffle, nothing broken in there or anything like that. No wonder the police were satisfied that there hadn’t been a crime. There hadn’t! I was the only one who was determined to make something of nothing.”

  Again, Greg failed to argue with me. That told me more than anything he might have said. He just put his arm around my shoulder and we walked in silence back to the landlady’s apartment.

  “Thanks very much,” I said, passing her back the key. “The apartment is okay. If you check with Millie I think she’ll tell you that what you’re hearing is just water noises in the pipes.”

  She seemed to be absorbing this when we left. I slid into the passenger seat of the car and leaned my head back on the rest.

  “Is it all over now, really?” Greg asked as he pulled out onto the street. “Are you honestly going to let this go?”

  “Yeah, I guess I have to,” I said. I wondered how long he’d secretly been thinking I was just imagining the whole thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The realization that Greg had been humouring me for who knows how long was a huge disappointment to me, and by the time we got back to my place I was in no mood for his company.

  “Thanks for taking me all those places,” I said the second the car had come to a full stop. I tried to smile naturally, but my face felt strange and twisted. “See you later.”

  “Well, I’ll walk you …” he began, but I was already out of the car and halfway to our back door.

  I gave a quick wave and hurried inside before the hurt look on his face could start to bother me.

  By the time I’d had a long soak in the tub, I was feeling a bit better. Maybe I’d been reading too much, or too little, into how he’d acted earlier. No doubt I’d overreacted because I was so frustrated over this whole thing.

  “Well, that’s behind me now,” I said, pulling my bathrobe closed and tying it. I went into the kitchen and made toast and poured a glass of milk, which I put on a tray to take to my room. As an afterthought, I went back to the fridge, looked for a peach yogourt, couldn’t find one, and grabbed blueberry instead to add to my snack.

  Mom and Dad were in the living room watching TV. I stuck my head in the doorway.

  “I’m going to bed now,” I said.

  Dad turned to me, smiling, but with his index finger over his lips. He nodded toward my mom, whose head was kind of tilted down. She’s always falling asleep when they watch stuff on TV. If you try to wake her up and suggest she go to bed, she’ll insist that she’s watching something. Without fail, she stubbornly says she was just resting her eyes, even if you point out that she was snoring only seconds before.

  “Shhh,” Dad said, then whispered, “your mom is watching TV.”

  I muffled a giggle as I headed off toward my room. When I reached the doorway, I started to transfer the tray entirely to one hand in order to free the other to open the door. Instead, as I leaned forward, the door slipped open, almost throwing me off balance and making me spill my milk.

  It reminded me of how Nadine’s door had looked closed tight, but hadn’t been, and how that’s what had started this whole mess. And now I was kind of fighting with Greg over it, and all for nothing.

  I wished I hadn’t been so short with him when he’d dropped me off. I’m sure he knew I was upset about something, but I wasn’t at all certain that he knew why. Guys don’t usually seem to be too clued in to what girls think or feel, as far as I can tell.

  I remember one time Greg thought I was really mad about something when I was actually sad. It was weird how he was so far off on what I was feeling, when his emotions are pretty obvious to me most of the time. I forget what it was over, whether we’d had an argument or misunderstanding of some sort.

  We don’t often fight, so it’s funny that I can’t recall the particulars. All that’s really clear in my head is that I was upset, and he totally misread my feelings. Betts tells me it’s the same with Derek — that he has no idea what she’s feeling when they fight, either.

  “If I’m really furious, that’s pretty obvious, even to him,” she confided once, “but if I’m hurt or sad about something he’s said or done, he always assumes I’m ticked off. Can you believe guys are that dense?”

  I’d believed it all right, but for some reason, I hadn’t thought it really applied to Greg. Not that I think he’s perfect or anything, but he’s sure a lot closer than Derek. I know one thing — Greg would never leave me terrified on a rope bridge and just take off to the other side.

  For some reason, the memory of our recent excursion brought back thoughts of Nadine again. That was probably because the thought of Betts’s terror that day reminded me of my theory that Nadine had been abducted. If that had been true — that is, if I hadn’t imagined the whole silly thing — I can’t even begin to think of how scared she would have been, struggling to get away from her captor, wondering where she was being taken and what would be done with her once she got there.

  I pushed those thoughts away with some effort, reminding myself once more that none of it was real, that I’d dreamt up the whole thing.
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  I turned on my computer and checked my email while I ate my toast, hoping there might be something from Greg. There wasn’t. All that was in my inbox was a bunch of junk messages, which I deleted without reading.

  Taking my yogourt with me, I crawled into bed and opened the book I was reading. It was actually one Greg had lent me, called Shoulder the Sky, and I’d taken it a bit reluctantly because it seemed like a guy story. Turned out that it was really awesome, though, and I’d gotten totally into it.

  Tonight, however, it was almost impossible to concentrate on what I was reading, in spite of how good the story was. I kept thinking about Greg and the hurt look on his face when I’d practically jumped out of the car — without kissing him goodnight or inviting him in for a few minutes.

  So what if he hadn’t been convinced that Nadine had really been kidnapped? He’d still been nice enough to help out, and he hadn’t made fun of me over it or anything like that.

  I really wanted to call him, but it was too late to phone his house by then. Besides, my folks have never given in and let me have a phone in my room, so I’d have had to go back to the kitchen, and that’s not very private.

  After a few false starts, I did get back into the story I was reading, but when I’d stopped for the night and turned out the light, it was a long time before I managed to get to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Isn’t it funny how you can trace back bits of dreams to the events of the day before? That night, I had a long, convoluted dream that included a parakeet squawking, “No peach, no peach,” over and over while Nadine’s landlady dangled a key in front of my eyes and intoned, “One key is the key to everything.”

  The key connection to the previous day was easy to figure out, but it took me a few minutes to put together the part about the bird and the fact that I’d been disappointed to find we were out of peach yogourt.

  By the time I’d showered and was fully awake, the other details of the dream had faded completely away. I towel-dried my hair, brushed it out, slipped on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and grabbed a bowl of cereal.

  “Are you working today?” Mom asked, coming into the kitchen.

  “Tonight. Four until closing,” I said.

  “How are you finding the job?”

  “It’s okay. The work isn’t bad, and I like the shifts I do with Ben. But Lisa is kind of grouchy most of the time, and Carlotta is practically psycho.”

  “They’re all related, right?”

  “Yeah, though you’d never know that Ben was one of them. He’s the only nice one of the family.”

  “He’s the one you work with most of the time, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, thank goodness. I don’t think I could stand it if I worked mainly with Carlotta. It’s bad enough that she’s weird, but she’s nasty too.”

  “That makes things very unpleasant,” Mom frowned. “Isn’t there someone you could talk to about it?”

  “Not really. Lisa runs the place, though it’s a family business. And she and Carlotta are cousins, I guess. I know they’re both cousins to Ben, so I guess that’s what they are to each other too.”

  “They could both be cousins to Ben, but be sisters to each other,” Mom pointed out.

  “Possible,” I said. “The relationship has never been clear to me, and I don’t like to ask questions for fear someone ends up accusing me of being nosey. But they don’t look that much alike, and they don’t seem very close.”

  “Well, I guess all you can do is try to make the best of things,” Mom said. “I don’t like to think of you being treated unkindly there, but I know there are sometimes limits to what a person can do about a situation like that. If it got so that you dreaded the thought of going to work because of it, you’d just have to quit.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said hastily. “Anyway, it’s worth it on payday. It’s so cool having a cheque at the end of every week.”

  “Yes, and you’ll be able to put some money away toward university too,” Mom said.

  I tried to summon an enthusiastic expression for this idea. I guess I’ll have to start saving up for when I go away to school eventually — but I just started working and I’d much rather enjoy being able to spend my money for the first few months.

  “Oh, Shelby, what’s your schedule this weekend? I was thinking of inviting Malcolm and Greg over for dinner one evening if you and Greg are both free.”

  Malcolm is Greg’s father, Dr. Taylor. He’s pretty cool, and I usually look forward to seeing him. But with things kind of awkward between me and Greg at the moment, I wasn’t all that keen on the idea of doing some big family get-together thing.

  “Why don’t you and Dad just have Dr. Taylor over this time,” I said. “That way if Greg and I want to see a movie or something we won’t be stuck here.”

  “Nice way to put it,” Mom said.

  “No, I didn’t … you know what I mean.”

  “Shelby, check to see if we’re getting low on eggs, dear.” Mom changed the subject, opening a notebook and picking up a pen at the same time.

  “Yeah, there are only four left. Are you doing the grocery shopping this morning?” I asked as I shut the egg carton.

  “Not a full shopping; I’m just picking up a few things. Why, was there something you wanted?”

  “More yogourt. We only have blueberry and vanilla left.”

  She jotted that down along with the other things on her list.

  “I’m heading over to Betts’s place pretty soon,” I said. “I’ll call if we’re going anywhere. Otherwise, we’re just going to hang out at her house for the day. I’ll be home before work, though.”

  “Well, have a nice time.” Mom stuck the list into her purse, which she slung over her shoulder.

  “Oh, yeah, do you think you can give me a lift to work tonight?” I asked, remembering the weather announcement I’d heard on the radio a bit earlier. “It’s supposed to rain.”

  “I’m sure that either your father or I can manage that.”

  I rinsed out my bowl and put it in the sink, then swept the floor, which I had forgotten to do the night before. The phone rang.

  “Shelby, I have to cancel on you today,” Betts said, her voice quavering. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s up, Betts?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Is it Derek?” I asked, ignoring what she’d just said.

  “No, it isn’t Derek. It’s way worse than that.” She began to cry and just barely choked out, “I gotta go,” before hanging up.

  “Betts, wait …” The dial tone told me it was useless. I briefly considered phoning her back, but that seemed pointless. She’d talk about it when she was ready.

  That was the alarming thing, though. Betts is always ready to talk — about amost anything. I spent a good half-hour wandering through the house wondering what could have upset her so much that she couldn’t even discuss it.

  Finally, realizing the futility of trying to figure something like that out without the benefit of any information, I slipped into my sandals and headed out for a walk.

  Snatches of my dream came back to me as I made my way in the general direction of Broderick’s Gas Bar. I hadn’t planned specifically to go see Greg — in fact, I wasn’t even sure if he was working this early, though he’d mentioned being scheduled during the day today — but it seems my feet were heading there so I guess that’s what I was doing.

  If I’d reached Broderick’s, Greg and I would probably have had a long talk and worked out the day before’s problem. That might have pushed the other thoughts that were apparently trying to surface completely out of my head.

  Thank goodness I didn’t get there in time for that to happen!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The realization, when it hit me, stopped me in my tracks, though of course it was summer and I wasn’t actually making any tracks.

  I’m not exactly sure how it happened either. It seemed as though things just suddenly clic
ked together in my head, first one thing and then another. It was like pieces of a puzzle, all falling into place until they began to form a picture.

  It was a scary picture too, let me tell you. I kind of tried to turn it around, see it from another angle. I did my best to find the flaw that would make the whole thing unravel or fall apart. Only I couldn’t.

  “It’s just a theory,” I reminded myself, actually talking out loud alone on the street. Luckily, no one was around. “It’s too crazy to be true. I’m making things up again. Surely it isn’t true. But what if it is?” I found myself pacing, walking back and forth on the sidewalk, which probably looked as nutty as talking aloud without the benefit of an audience.

  I tried to calm myself down and think of what to do. The first thing — and of course the most sensible thing — I thought of was to go to the police. I started in that direction. In fact, I was almost to the station when doubts began to dispel any enthusiasm I felt over sharing my theory with an officer.

  “Oranges and peaches, noisy water pipes and keys,” I said, expelling air disgustedly. “Who’s going to listen to a wild theory like that? And suppose they did, suppose they believed me. What would they look into? It wouldn’t likely be Nadine. They’d check out the other thing first, to see if any further investigation was warranted on her disappearance. And that would give her captors time to dispose of her, if they haven’t already done that.”

  They probably had. A cold shudder ran down my spine, in spite of the warmth of the day. I knew it had been over a week since Nadine had vanished. What were the odds that she was still alive?

  “I have to believe that she is,” I told myself. “If I stop believing that …”

  I pushed aside any thoughts that she might, in fact, already be dead. The image of her face, smiling while she chatted casually, rose up in my head. She was so young, so alive. Surely no one was evil enough to kill her, not for that kind of reason.

  What’s a good reason to a killer, though? What do I know about such things? I wanted to start running and keep going until this whole thing was left somewhere far behind. But I couldn’t.