Lost Girls

by Merrie Destefano

  I grabbed my cell phone and forced myself to punch in the speed-dial number for Dad, careful to keep my phone on my lap so Bennet couldn’t see it. When my father finally answered, I kept my voice low.

  “Dad? Agent Bennet followed me to school and—and I’m going to get out of my car—”

  I swung my door open, slipping the phone in my jacket pocket as I continued to talk.

  “I’m going to walk up to his car. Don’t say anything, okay?” I glanced back at Bennet’s Toyota, which was also slowing to a stop. We were both just inside the student parking lot entrance, a steady stream of cars pulling in around us, plenty of people watching in case he tried something.

  I shot a quick glance back at his car and then mumbled his license plate number, hoping Dad could hear it.

  “Be careful,” his voice said from my pocket.

  “Walking over to his car now.”

  And then I was heading toward Bennet’s sedan. His window was rolling down, and all around us students were laughing and joking, getting out of cars and heading in to another day of school. But all I could think was, this is the last place I was seen.

  This was exactly where I was kidnapped. And I had a feeling it had happened almost exactly like this.

  Chapter Twelve

  It felt like a memory, but it was really more like intuition, or a sudden overwhelming sense of self-preservation. The wind was singing through the nearby Japanese cherry trees, a sweet fragrance was staining the air, and my blood was rushing through my veins, my pulse becoming the bass note in a song I didn’t want to hear. Someone leaned out the window, a slow grin spreading over his face, warming his eyes.

  This was how it had happened.

  I’d gotten into somebody’s car of my own free will, knowing the person who had taken me. An unwelcome shiver worked its way across my shoulders, making me shudder. I crossed my arms over my body, a defensive move that wouldn’t help, not one bit, if I needed to fight my way out of this.

  “Morning,” Bennet said in a low, husky voice. “I was only following your daughter to make sure she was safe.”

  I frowned.

  “Your father’s listening, isn’t he? Let me talk to him.”

  The cell phone was cold in my hand when I pulled it from my pocket and then held it to my ear. “Dad?” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Give him your phone.”

  “I just need to talk to your daughter for a few minutes,” Bennet said. “But it needs to be private. She already gave you my license plate number. You want my badge number, too?” There was a pause and I thought I heard Dad threatening to hang Bennet from his balls if anything happened to me. Bennet gave me a thin smile, then spoke into the phone again. “She’ll be fine. I promise. We’re just going to talk for a few minutes. I’ll have her call you when we’re done, how’s that? Of course.”

  I glanced up at all the other kids in the parking lot, all of them with normal lives that they didn’t even appreciate. Maybe they were worried they wouldn’t get asked to the prom or that they wouldn’t get a good score on their SATs. None of them were worried that one day their past was going to overwhelm them and they would remember the most horrific thing that had ever happened to them.

  “Get in,” Bennet said, unlocking his doors.

  I shook my head, still staring at all those people getting out of their cars. “Nope. I went missing here once before. Not going to happen again.”

  “Okay. Just remember, you picked this place to stop. Not me.”

  “Give me my phone.” I held my hand out, palm up, realizing that it was a vulnerable stance. He could grab me and force me into his car. He seemed to read my mind and nodded his head. A second passed before my cell rested in my palm, lightweight and fragile, just like I felt. I kept one finger on redial.

  Bennet sighed. “Can we go for a walk?”

  “I need to get to school.”

  “Just for a few minutes—we need to talk.” He opened his door and got out, then stood beside me, so close I could feel the heat from his body. I took a step away from him, instantly aware of the muscles that bulged beneath his shirt and his strong hands and those cool green eyes, fixed on a distant point over my shoulder. His lips were parted as if ready to speak, but instead he gestured toward the street.

  “You’re going to start remembering things,” he said, a minute later as we walked on the sidewalk that surrounded the parking lot. All the while, I kept one eye focused on the security guard patrolling this side of the building. “And when you do, I want you to tell me. Okay? Nobody else. Not your therapist or your parents or your best friend.”

  “Why should I trust you instead of them?” A frown settled on my brow, my muscles flexed and tensed, flexed and tensed. I imagined throwing him to the ground, the same way I had done with Kyle a few days ago. But I had a feeling Bennet wouldn’t be as easy a target.

  “Because I don’t think you were kidnapped by a stranger, Rachel. You’re too smart for that. I think you willingly went with someone you knew.”

  His words echoed my fears. But it didn’t make me feel better. Instead, a knot formed in my stomach, a cluster of muscles that tightened until I felt nauseated. “You showed me pictures of other girls that went missing. Back when you were interrogating me.”

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed, thinking about Nicole, the one familiar name on my list, my throat raw as fear surged through me. I knew what I was going to ask next and, somehow, I already knew the answer. “Are any of them dead?”

  A guarded expression filled his eyes. “I can’t talk to you about that.”

  “This isn’t going to be a one-way street. You have to tell me.”

  There was sadness in his eyes now, probably because he knew he had to tell me the truth and didn’t want to. His voice was hoarse, cracking in the middle of the single syllable that came out. “Yes.”

  Even though that word had been spoken softly, it filled my ears. It rolled like thunder down the street, it drowned out every other sound in Santa Madre until it was all I could hear and all I could know. At least one girl was dead. Maybe more than one. Killed by whoever had taken me. And now that I’d lost my memory—now that I didn’t remember who the kidnappers were—they could slip back into my life, ready to kill me, too.

  “I want you to start wearing a tracking device,” he said. “Something so small no one will notice. Just in case whoever took you comes back.”

  I stopped walking and he did, too.

  “At some point your memory will return,” he continued. “And when it does, you’ll remember who kidnapped you. To them, you’re a walking, talking liability.”

  We stared at each other. The noise of the students and the cars faded until all I could hear was a flock of sparrows singing from those cherry trees, their high notes interspersed with trills and warbles.

  “It was you lurking outside my house the other night, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “I was just doing my job.”

  “How is a tracking device supposed to help?”

  “We’ll know if you go anywhere unusual or if you don’t go home for long periods of time. We—I—want to prevent you from ending up in another ditch.” He paused, his eyes locked on mine. I remembered that expression on his face when he had looked down at the eight-by-ten glossies of the other kidnapped girls, as if those girls could have been his nieces or little sisters, girls he had taught how to play softball, girls he had teased at birthday parties and joked with while playing video games.

  I got the feeling he had lost someone and wanted to make sure it never happened again.

  “So far we’ve only found a few things that connect the missing girls.” He flipped up a finger for each item he named. “They were all about the same age, sixteen or seventeen. They were involved in either sports or dance.” He pulled something out of his pocket, an elastic kandi bracelet, similar to the ones that I’d found hidden in my closet. “And at least four of them were regularly going to raves. We found brac
elets like this in two of the girls’ homes. The other two girls had written about PLUR in their journals.”

  “You can make that five girls.”

  His eyebrows raised.

  “I don’t remember going, but there’s a bunch of rave stuff in my closet.”

  He nodded slowly, then handed me the bracelet. “You think you could wear this without causing too much attention?”

  A flush worked its way up my chest to my neck and settled on my cheeks. How much did he know about me? If he thought I could get away with wearing a bracelet like this, he already knew that I’d been going to raves. If his team had been going through those other girls’ bedrooms, looking for clues, did that mean they had gone through mine, too?

  I took it and slipped it on. “Is this the tracking device?”

  “Yes. You can take it off for showers or swimming, but it’d be best if you wore it or kept it with you as much as possible, even when you’re sleeping. And here.” He tugged a business card out of his wallet. While he was doing that, I saw his badge, but there was nothing personal inside. No photos, no Starbucks cards, no receipts. Completely different from Dad’s wallet, which brimmed with pictures of Mom, Kyle, and me, discount movie tickets, Disneyland passes, and frozen yogurt coupons. “I want you to call me if you remember anything or if something happens—like you get into a situation where you need help. Okay?”

  I took his card and held it between my thumb and forefinger, squinting because the sun was breaking through the morning cloud cover.

  “I want my life back,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure which life I wanted. The old one where I was a wannabe ballet dancer with a handful of friends and grades barely above C. Or the new one where I bleached my hair, dressed in black, had track marks, and a hot boyfriend. I toyed with that list of girls’ names in my pocket. “And I want answers. Was one of the missing girls named Nicole Hernandez?”

  “Did you remember something?”

  “Not yet.”

  A heavy sigh lifted his chest and he stared over my head.

  “Remember what I said about how this wasn’t going to be a one-way street?” I asked. I snapped the bracelet, making the plastic beads spin and twist. “I can take this thing off as easily as I can put it on.”

  “Yes. Nicole Hernandez was one of the missing girls.” A long pause followed before he spoke again. “I’m not sure what you’re planning, but be careful. I can’t tell you everything about this investigation, except right now I’m the only one in my department who thinks these are all kidnappings. Personally, I think there are more than six girls missing. A lot more.”

  I’m not sure if he meant to, but he had succeeded in scaring the crap out of me. Still, it wasn’t going to stop me. I had to do what I had to do. I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, then turned away from him, heading back toward Lincoln High.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I had to pass those damned cherry trees to get back to my car, that memorial still in place, notes swirling in the wind, white petals falling like snow, landing in my hair and on my shoulders. Agent Bennet sauntered a few steps behind me, stopping to make a phone call, but keeping his gaze focused on me all the time.

  I wished I could research him as easily as he could me.

  When had those other girls gone missing—within the past three months? The fact that the FBI was involved made me think the girls weren’t all from the L.A. area. Some of them must have been from other states. Did that mean there was a serial killer on the loose, or was this some sort of human trafficking?

  By the time I grabbed my backpack and books from my car and then texted Dad, I realized that I’d missed half of first period—the only class I had with Dylan. If I didn’t hurry, I might not see him again until lunch. Grumbling, I headed toward the building, weaving through tangles of students who didn’t seem to care if they were late, some of them smoking cigarettes, some of them smelling like they’d been smoking stuff a little bit stronger. The student parking lot was the last space we had to ourselves before we were devoured by the school. It was our goal, our free zone. It was where couples hooked up and where stoners passed each other suspicious-looking paper bags—as if it wasn’t obvious what any of them were doing.

  I passed a Mini-Coop, surprised when Lauren climbed out, her eyes glazed, her walk unsteady. The closer she got, the more apparent the pungent smell of weed was in her clothes and hair. I’d never seen her like this before. She’d always been a model student, the one everyone’s parents used as an example when their kids were flunking a class or getting in trouble. Look at Lauren Maxwell, head cheerleader—she gets straight As and never misses a game or practice. Why can’t you be more like her?

  She spotted me. Long, blond hair tousled, she waved and called my name, her footsteps unsteady as she walked in my direction, giggling. “Stoner 101,” she said with a conspiratorial grin, talking behind her hand. We were hiking side by side, past tall oleander hedges that blocked the parking lot from the football field and the rest of the school. “Weed really takes the edge off you-know-what.” Then her eyes widened as if she’d made a huge mistake. “I shouldn’t have said that. I forgot you don’t remember anything.”

  “I’m not an idiot. You shouldn’t act like I am,” I said, my irritation level higher than it should have been so early in the morning.

  “You feeling okay?” Lauren asked, a curious expression on her face. “I saw you talking to some hot guy outside school grounds for a long time. Does Dylan have competition?”

  The last thing I needed right now was for anyone at school to find out that an FBI agent was tailing me everywhere I went. “No. And don’t say anything to Dylan about it, either.” It felt surprisingly like I’d just given her an order…and she just bobbed her head in agreement.

  “Oh, I’d never say anything. Girlfriends always come first, right?”

  “Maybe,” I said, my irritation fading. Even though I was still getting to know her, there was something about Lauren that I really liked. Some part of her resonated with that dark, secret part of myself. It felt like the Goth version of myself was coming back, little by little, so slow I barely realized it. It was getting easier for me to make decisions based on my gut, even when I knew those decisions might lead toward danger. Like the way I’d let Agent Bennet follow me instead of driving straight to the police station, even before I knew who he was. And the fact that I’d gotten out of the car to confront him, even though I was afraid.

  This new me was a risk-taker, unafraid of consequences.

  “Hey, do you know any of these people?” I asked as I pulled out that folded sheet of paper I’d found in my closet, smoothing it flat between my fingers. Lauren acted like we were good friends, so maybe she knew who these girls were. Maybe they were cheerleaders from other schools or maybe we all had a mutual friend. There had to be a connection here somewhere.

  Her lips moved as she read each name. She looked back up at me, shaking her head. “Sorry, Rach, I don’t. They must go to a different school. Maybe Saint John’s or Santa Madre High?”

  “Do you know anything about a rave called Phase Two?”

  She stopped walking, an astonished expression on her face. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”

  “I don’t. I found a pair of ticket stubs in my closet. Just tell me what you know about it.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Lauren, if you know something you have to tell me.”

  Her demeanor changed, her skin turned pale, her eyes shifting left then right. She leaned so close the smell of weed was overwhelming and her words came out in a hoarse whisper. “You made me promise not to talk about it, not at school, not at home! Never means never, that’s what you said—”

  What I did next surprised both of us.

  I grabbed her hand and twisted her thumb sideways. She let out a little cry and her knees buckled. If I hadn’t grabbed her around the waist with my other hand, she would have fallen. I spoke in her ear, amazed at
the cruel tone in my voice. “You’re going to tell me.”

  “Is this a test?” she whimpered. “Because I don’t want to get kicked out! I promised I’d never talk and I won’t. Not to anyone, not our parents or the cops or the principal. I swear!” Her last words were barely comprehensible, more of a moan without syllables.

  I let her go and she quickly moved away from me, a frightened look in her eyes.

  “You’ve—you’ve never done anything like that to me before,” she said. “We’ve always been on the same side. Us against the world, always and forever. Remember?” She pulled back her collar and lifted her hair to show me a script tattoo, exactly like the one I wore on my wrist. “I’m on your side, Rach. I’ve got your back, just like you asked. But please, don’t get me kicked out! Your memory’s going to come back, I know it will. It has to.”

  There was a bad taste in my mouth, like I’d swallowed something bitter. The expression in her eyes was causing two conflicting emotions—guilt and excitement—and I didn’t like either one.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, the words burning my lips because they weren’t true. I was only sorry that she wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know. She gave me a hesitant grin, despite the fact that the fear in her eyes hadn’t faded. Had fear been there all along and had I only noticed it now? If so, what kind of person scares one of her friends?

  “It’s okay,” she said with an awkward shrug, her words coming out like an apology, like she was the one who had messed up. “I gotta go.” She took a cautious step away from me, then another, her eyes on me the entire time. “I have a nurse’s note to miss first period, but I can’t miss second, too. Can’t let everybody know Lincoln High’s Sweetheart has been smoking dope.” She grimaced as if she secretly hated being the poster girl for perfection, then paused to straighten her skirt and top. “Do I look okay? You know, not like I’ve been out smoking?”