Girl Last Seen

by Brown, Anne Greenwood; Anastasiu, Heather;

  He smiles a little, knowing he’s been caught. “I mean, I’ve noticed that you weren’t there.”

  “Right.” I shake my head slightly and turn my attention back to the deputies.

  “I heard you were hanging out with that Williams kid,” he says quickly. “I mean…before…”

  “A little,” I say with a shrug of one shoulder. Word gets around fast.

  “Lauren.” He puts his hand on my shoulder like he’s trying to keep me from walking away. I wasn’t going anywhere though. I can’t even feel my feet. “What I’m trying to say, Lauren…is that I’m so glad he didn’t hurt you too.”

  My hands start to tremble. “Thanks.” What else do I say to that?

  “And I feel bad about the cops…you know…getting the wrong idea about the fight in the cafeteria. I should have been supporting you. That was wrong of me. You know, not to be there for you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s been a weird time. For all of us.” At least I can give Mason absolution.

  He breathes out in a long, slow breath, then turns to stare into the woods. “I can’t stand the thought of Kady being out there somewhere.”

  “I know,” I say. I squeeze my gloved hands into fists. I wish I had a guitar or my uke. Or better yet, a drum. Something to smash out all the emotions I can’t name.

  “I had to be here today,” Mason says, “but if we find her, I really hope I’m not the one to do it. I don’t think I could handle that. My imagination is already driving me crazy. The real thing…it would be too much.”

  “Odds are against us,” I say. “There’s got to be a hundred people here.”

  “One twenty-seven,” he says. “I saw the check-in sheet. It’s nice to know how many people care about her. She was such a good person. She didn’t deserve for some freak to take out his rage on her.” He sniffles and wipes at his eye.

  Mason was always such a sweet guy. Too good for Kady. It’s a mean thought to have in this moment, but that doesn’t make it less true. “Hey,” I say, reaching out awkwardly to pat his arm. “We don’t know what happened to her yet.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  I glance at him to check his expression. Is he just being pessimistic, or does he actually know? Before I can figure him out, I’m distracted by his sudden decision to swing his hockey stick through a patch of tall grass, like a farmer with a scythe.

  “What’s the stick for?” I ask because by now I really have to know.

  He looks down like he forgot he was holding it. “Kadence gave it to me for Christmas. I used it to score the winning goal against Roosevelt. I thought it would help me clear brush today, look under things.”

  “Sounds like you do want to find her then.”

  “Like I said, I’m hoping someone else does, but I thought the stick might bring us some luck.”

  The man in charge picks up a hand-held loudspeaker and addresses the crowd. “We’ll be breaking into twelve groups of about ten people,” he says. “You’ll each be given a team leader and assigned a portion of the grid. The plan is to spread out in a line and walk from the boundary of the trailer park straight back to the highway. If anyone finds anything of interest, notify your team leader.

  “Team leaders, if it’s something that we need to check out, you are to alert me via radio.”

  At that point they start calling names and assigning us to teams. Everyone stares when my name is called, but Mason squeezes my hand as if his approval should satisfy the group.

  A few minutes later we are standing in a line, evenly spaced, staring into the woods. Someone blows a whistle and we start walking. Mason is nowhere near me now. Though Mrs. Fitzpatrick from the convenience store by my house walks on my left, and the high school volleyball coach walks on my right, I am in my own little bubble, staring at the ground. I don’t share Mason’s hope that we’ll find anything.

  There are no search dogs in my group, but I can hear them bellowing as they pull their handlers ahead of our line.

  The ground is soft from the recent melt, and the ground cover is thick with nettles and broken twigs and branches. It’s slow going. I climb over a fallen branch, happy for the gloves that protect my hands when I stumble and fall. No one helps me up. That’s okay. I understand. It takes longer to clear a name than it takes to smear one.

  We are forty-five minutes into our gruesome task when the dogs start howling and someone blows a whistle in three sharp bursts. I freeze, feeling the icy rush of fear run down my arms. No. No way.

  Everyone starts running to the sound. I am several seconds behind, not feeling the earth under my feet. It’s like running on a trampoline, unable to find the right purchase on the ground. The pine branches slap against my face, and tears are streaming from my eyes.

  When I catch up to the rest of the group, I push through the circle of people standing around a dark rectangle of newly disturbed earth.

  Twenty-Five

  Jude

  Sheriff’s Office

  Friday, April 6

  10:30 a.m.

  “We’ve got your videos that prove you were obsessed with Kadence Mulligan”—Detective Mustache slams his hand down on the table over the scattered photographs—“your poetry, which all but details how you planned to strangle Kadence, and then there’s this.”

  He pulls out my laptop. I guess somehow they were able to get past my password. I shrink farther into my seat. I feel another rush of wordless anger and fury.

  Detective Mustache clicks several times and then spins the laptop around on the table to face me. He’s opened the calendar application on my personal Outlook. Where obviously I already know what he’s trying to show me. In it I’ve detailed dates, times, and locations. Showing that I followed Kadence and Lauren. I had their schedules down pat. I knew when Kady got her weekly mani-pedis. Not that pointing out, Hey, look, most of those notations are from August through December when I was a little nuts on meds is much of a defense.

  Especially since I did continue to follow Lauren. But only to her doctors’ appointments. I noted exactly how long each one lasted. I was worried about her, and I guess I thought knowing how long the appointments were could give me some indication of whether or not her voice was getting better. And Kady, well, I kept track of her concerts and other things because I knew it was hurting Lauren not to be singing with her anymore. And you just had to watch that witch.

  But looking into each of the detective’s faces, I know that my stupid, paltry explanations will sound like just that. Stupid excuses. Excuses offered by a jackass trying to get out of what looks like damning evidence. Like it fucking matters. They’d already convicted me before I’d stepped a foot in this stupid-ass room. I feel the heat rising up my neck and reach up to scrub my hands over my face. But of course, my wrists catch in the cuffs and only make it halfway there. Which makes my agitation all the more obvious. I want to laugh. I look guilty even when I’m trying specifically not to.

  “So you see, Jude,” Detective K says, “this doesn’t look too good. But if you confess now and tell us where Kadence’s body is, then it will go easier for you in the long run. Judges take this kind of thing into consideration. How helpful you’ve been along the way.”

  I feel my eyes widen.

  He leans in, blocking my view of Detective Mustache. “Look, I get it. We’ve all been obsessed about a girl at some point. So this went a little further than you meant. It got out of hand.

  “You followed her home after the show at Cuppa Cuppa and tried to talk to her, and she wouldn’t listen. You got angry. Lost your temper. A guy can get frustrated after paying a girl attention for all that time and then when you finally talk to her, she blows you off. It was late at night, no one around. So maybe you got mad, and maybe it was an accident. That’s understandable. Accidents happen.

  “And then your truck was right there and you just tossed her in. Is th
at how it happened, Jude?”

  I bang my hands on the table hard, so hard the chains on my cuffs rattle. “Shut up! That’s not what happened. I didn’t kill Kadence Mulligan!”

  Detective Mustache comes in now, palms planted on the table. “Oh no? You’ve got motive, opportunity. Hell, you’ve even got a truck to move the body.”

  “No, that’s not what—”

  “And all those big, dark woods behind the trailer park to bury her.” He cuts me off. “You were obsessed with Kadence Mulligan. Everything we’ve looked at”—he gestures at the table—“makes that perfectly clear. Why else would you be following her and her friend around like this? Why else would you be stalking their every move?”

  They’re twisting it. This was never about Kadence. Well, it was, but it wasn’t.

  “I wasn’t stalking them.”

  “Taking pictures? Video?” Detective Mustache looks back at the laptop. “K. hair appt. Four seventeen to five thirty-nine p.m.,” he reads from the calendar. “Mighty specific for someone who’s not a stalker. And these increasing numbers all along the bottom of every day. Mind enlightening us about what those are? Counting up to something? Something happen once it hits a certain number? Did Kadence’s time run out?”

  Dickhead isn’t even making any sense now. “They’re YouTube views, dipshit. Of their videos.” Then I drop my head to my hands so I can finally scrub my face hard with the heels of my palms. I should shut up at this point. I haven’t slept enough and everything’s all screwed up in my head, but Dickhead Detective Mustache isn’t having it.

  “Why were you following them?” he shouts in my face.

  “Because I love her!” I shout back.

  I’m so wound up that I’ve jumped to my feet too, but I’m half bent over because my hands are cuffed to my ankles and the chain isn’t long enough. My chest heaves up and down, and my blood whistles in my ears. Damn it! I wasn’t supposed to lose my temper. But all this crap they’re saying. The look on their faces right now, as if they’ve won some great prize. It’s probably a good thing they have me handcuffed or else I’d punch their smug faces.

  “So,” says good cop Detective K, “you loved Kadence Mulligan?”

  I cringe at the thought and then I start laughing. I hear the manic edge to it, but what the hell else am I gonna do? These goddamn idiots. With all their detectiving. “Christ, no,” I say, finally getting myself back under control. I look away from them toward the cinder-block wall. “Not her,” I murmur under my breath. I don’t know if they heard and I don’t particularly care.

  I look back and forth pointedly at each of the detectives. “I’d like my lawyer now.” I have no illusions about a lawyer actually doing anything useful, but asking for one should get me out of this room for the moment, and that’s good enough for me.

  Twenty-Six

  Lauren

  Behind the Riverview Trailer Park

  Friday, April 6

  11:00 a.m.

  I know what this dark patch of earth is. I’m not an idiot. But I cannot wrap my brain around what this means. How could Kadence have ended up here? Here? The tears dry on my cheeks as bone-deep confusion paralyzes me. It’s Billy with the frog all over again, except of course this is no frog. This is a grave. For a body. Kadence’s body. Deep in the ground behind the trailer park. How? I don’t understand.

  Of all the places that Kadence thought she was going, this was not one of them. I thought—I never thought—I can’t seem to keep an idea straight in my head as I grip the bottom of my jacket.

  Two young deputies are already digging. Murmurs pass through the crowd as the other officers push us back. I look up and see that many people have turned their backs on the scene. They cover their mouths. A few look on in morbid fascination. Some girls are crying on the shoulders of the guys who came with them. Not me. I don’t cry. The panicky thoughts have passed. Now I feel nothing.

  It doesn’t take long for the deputies’ shovels to find the bottom of the grave. They are careful. They are respectful. They don’t want to harm the body. It feels almost religious—how they move, how solemn the crowd is. Mrs. Fitzpatrick even pulls out her rosary beads.

  I’ve never been good with religion. To me, it looks more like the deputies are harvesting a potato.

  After the deputies brush away the remaining thin layer of dirt, they gently flip back a sheet and the entire crowd gasps. My own chest heaves. There is no relief, no easy end to this, and again I’m left want­ing to laugh, cry, and scream all at once.

  Because it’s not Kadence. It’s the body of a dog. Buried with her favorite item, one of the neon-orange chew toys Jude always bought for her after she destroyed the last.

  It’s Coco.

  Twenty-Seven

  Kadence

  Found Video Footage

  Kadence Mulligan’s Laptop

  Date Unknown

  Image opens.

  Kadence sits on a stool in front of the red velvet curtain again. She’s in full makeup, but one of her false eyelashes looks improperly applied and hangs halfway off, giving her the appearance of a drooping eye. Her usually full magenta hair is flat on one side, like she’s been sleeping on it and hasn’t looked in the mirror. Though her makeup is thick, there are still visible shadows underneath her eyes.

  “Hello, my beautiful Kady-Dids!” she says cheerfully, giving a wide, toothy smile, but within seconds, it falters, then collapses completely. She gets off the stool and comes forward as if she’s about to switch the camera off, but then she says, “You know what? You are my fans, and I know you’ll love me no matter what. Right, guys?”

  She sits back down on the stool. She takes a deep breath and looks away from the camera. She blinks hard, the false eyelash that’s barely attached flapping wildly. She notices and angrily pulls at it until it detaches. She winces slightly, but then a moment later yanks at the other one until it comes free too. She drops them to the floor, still breathing heavily and not saying a word. Finally, after another half minute of full silence, she looks back up at the camera.

  “I try to make this a positive show, you know, guys? I try to look on the bright side of life. But sometimes…” Tears track down her cheeks.

  “I’ve talked a lot about Lauren and me on the show. Well, today I want to tell you a story about a boy. Not my boy.” Kadence smiles sadly and swipes at her cheeks. “This is a story about Lauren’s boy. You see, when I told you the story of how I met Lauren that day in seventh grade, I didn’t tell you the whole story.

  “Before I became Lauren’s best friend, she had another best friend. A boy named Nathan. I never knew that. She never said anything about him being her friend. Not a single thing. All she ever said was that this Nathan kid was sort of creepy and that he would follow her around. She told me he said mean things to her. Naturally, I tried to protect her from him. Whenever he came close, I steered us in the other direction.” Kadence looks up at the camera and her eyes are full of emotion as if she’s pleading with her audience.

  “He backed off the rest of that year. It didn’t get really ugly until eighth grade when Lauren complained to her counselor that Nathan was stalking her.” Kadence’s face scrunches up and she shudders. “Word got around. Lauren made sure of it. I assumed it was the truth—I never imagined she could be vindictive and lie about something like that.”

  Kadence squares her shoulders and sits up straighter on the stool. “But it turns out that sometimes you never really know someone. Even the person who’s so close to you that you call her sister…” Another tear runs down her cheek, but she doesn’t stop talking. “Anyway, I didn’t think anything about this. Yes, it was sad that this boy was bullied because of what Lauren told everyone. Bullied so bad that he had to change schools. But like I said, I didn’t think anything of it.” Kadence shakes her head.

  “I know that was selfish of me not to think more about it,
but I was young. I guess that’s no excuse.” She shakes her head again and looks off to the side. She swallows hard and then continues, looking back up at the camera. “I didn’t know the full story until the boy came back this year and confronted me.

  “He changed his name, changed his look. He’d really gotten himself together, moved past all the hurtful things that Lauren had done to him. And that’s when he told me that he hadn’t been just some guy to Lauren. He had been her best friend before I came to town and she completely dropped him. Started ignoring him like he was nothing, like he’d never existed. Just like that, poof!

  “They’d spent practically every day together for like four years, and then one day she cut him loose like he was nothing. He told me that hurt worse than any of the things people said to him, more than any of the times he got beat up.” Kadence swipes at her eyes again. “I’d never seen someone look so raw like that, this guy who was a stranger to me really, coming up and telling me all of these things that I knew were so dark and deep to him. But he was baring his soul to me and all because he wanted to warn me.

  “He was telling me who Lauren really was. He said I needed to know. He said this because”—Kadence’s voice breaks—“because there were rumors about the way she was looking at my boyfriend.”

  Kadence’s whole body shakes on the stool now in open sobs, and her words can barely be heard. “I don’t know if he told me as a way”—sob—“to get back at her…or, or”—sob—“because he was genuinely”—sob—“worried about”—sob, hiccup—“me. But I followed them to this fort in the woods, and I saw”—she gulps for air—“I saw…them making out. Heavily. All over each other.”

  She is silent several long minutes while she gets herself under control. The video keeps recording through it all. She goes offscreen for a minute and then comes back with a box of Kleenex. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose and then goes offscreen again, coming back without the Kleenex. She sits back down on the stool again. Her breathing is calmer in spite of her puffy eyes and slightly reddened nose.