The Missing

by Melanie Florence

  I sat hunched over my desk, trying to decipher my math textbook when my phone rang. I figured it was Jake, so I didn’t check the number before answering the call.

  “Hello?”

  A recorded voice said, “You have a call from an inmate at the Winnipeg Remand Centre. If you would like to accept this call, please press 1 now. If you wish to decline, please hang up.” I pressed 1.

  “Kiowa?”

  “Feather! I wasn’t sure if you’d accept my call. Hi!” My brother’s voice never sounded better to me than it did at that moment.

  “Of course I’d take your call! I’m so sorry about this afternoon, Ki. I kind of freaked out when we got to the . . . the uh . . .” I trailed off.

  “Jail? Prison? Facility?” Kiowa replied. “It’s okay, Feather. I know where I am.”

  “How are you, Ki? Are you okay? No one’s hurt you, have they?” I asked.

  “Nah. There are a lot of Native guys in here. I just hang with them. No one bothers us. The guards leave you alone as long as you follow the rules and don’t cause any trouble,” he told me.

  “Good. That’s really good. I’m so glad you called me. I’ll definitely come in next time, I swear.”

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “Kiowa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you in there? I mean . . . why do the cops think you had something to do with Mia’s disappearance?” I asked him.

  Kiowa let out a long, low breath. “Feather, there’s something we should have told you.”

  “I don’t get why they think you were with her that night.” Wait . . . did he say “we”? “What do you mean ‘we,’ Kiowa? Who’s ‘we’?” I asked him.

  “Mia and I,” he answered. “Listen, Feather . . .”

  “Mia and . . . wait. What are you saying, Kiowa?”

  “We were seeing each other, Feather,” he said finally.

  “No you weren’t,” I said. “She’d have told me if she was seeing someone.”

  “We wanted to. I mean, at first we figured there was no point in saying anything. Not if we were just hanging out.”

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “It turned into something else. Something more. By then, we couldn’t figure out how to tell you.”

  “You’re my brother! And she’s my best friend!” I was angry. With him. And with Mia. “How could you go behind my back like that?” I asked him.

  “I didn’t mean for anything to happen, Feather. I swear. Neither did Mia.”

  “But how did it happen?”

  “She came over one night looking for you last summer. Her stepfather had been trying to push his way into her room again.” He sounded angry as he said this. Despite my feelings of anger and betrayal, I could hear that he genuinely cared about her. “You were out with Jake, so I invited her in and we sat up and talked for hours. And that was it, Feather. We just talked. After that, she called me or texted me sometimes and then we started talking late at night. I didn’t mean to, but I found myself looking forward to talking to her. We made plans to hang out sometimes at the rec centre or back at the campus. Just as friends.” He paused for a moment and I had the sudden realization that on some of the nights she was down by the river, she was actually with my brother.

  “So when did she stop being just your friend, Kiowa?” I wasn’t angry now. I could hear in his voice that he was agonizing over this. I knew my brother and Mia well enough to know this had nothing to do with me. They’d never hurt me on purpose.

  “I don’t know, exactly. One minute we were friends hanging out, and the next thing I knew, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’m so sorry, Feather. We never meant to hurt you.”

  “I know.” And I did. “So the police obviously know you were seeing her. Are they just blaming the boyfriend?”

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  “So?” It suddenly occurred to me what he must be talking about. “You’re the one who picked her up that night, aren’t you?”

  He sighed again. “Yeah. She called me, crying. You know what happened. I told her I’d come and get her and bring her back to our place,” he said.

  “When I was on the phone with her, I heard you leaving. But you didn’t bring her back.”

  “No. I didn’t even come home. I was mad at her. We got into an argument.” His voice broke.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “She wanted to go to the rec centre for the night. I didn’t want her down there. I thought she should stay with us but she wouldn’t. She said she wanted some time to think things over; she had a lot to work out for herself. She hated that we were lying to you, Feather. But she also felt like we were both pushing her. Me to keep things secret and . . . I guess you and she had it out about her stepfather?”

  “We did,” I said softly, feeling an overwhelming stab of guilt. “ So did you take her to the centre?”

  “Yeah, I dropped her off at the rec centre. She didn’t want me to come in. She was upset about her mom and she wanted to be alone. I dropped her off. I didn’t even wait to see if she went inside.” His voice lowered. “I was still mad so I drove around for awhile. I turned my ringer off because I wasn’t ready to talk to Mia. I ended up close to campus so I went to my dorm and went to bed.”

  “So she did make it to the rec centre?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she did. But something must have happened. Mia tried to call me a bunch of times. She left me a message saying something happened and I needed to call her back. I didn’t get it until the next morning, and by then, I couldn’t reach her.”

  Ki was clearly distraught and I was in tears. What had been going through her mind? How angry with me must she have been that she preferred to go to the rec centre by herself than spend the night with me?

  “So, I was the reason she wouldn’t come back to the house with you?” I felt overcome by guilt. Mia and I had been best friends since we were kids and she was afraid to tell me about Kiowa. I thought of the nights she chose to stay at home when I asked her to stay with me. About that night when she decided to sleep on the riverfront rather than stay at my house. My heart ached for her. Was I so hard to face? Part of me was angry she hid something so huge from me but mostly I felt guilty she felt like she had to.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  ”I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “Why didn’t she call me again? I would have gone to get her.”

  “I don’t know, Feather. Maybe she thought it was too late?”

  “Yeah, she had already woken me up once. You’re probably right. But why did they arrest you?” I asked.

  “Because I’m the boyfriend. Because I admitted to the police that I saw her that night. Because I don’t have an alibi I can prove. Because they need to blame someone and who better than an Aboriginal guy? I don’t know, Feather. But I didn’t hurt her. I’d never do anything to hurt her, you have to know that,” he pleaded. “You’ve got to help me prove it! I couldn’t ask mom . . . she thinks the judge will believe me without any proof.”

  “What can I do?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. Figure out what happened at the rec centre. Figure out a way to prove I dropped her off and she was fine.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  “I have to go, Feather. They’re calling us for dinner. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” he said.

  “Yeah. Okay.” He hung up before I could say anything else.

  “Love you,” I murmured to the dead phone. As I stared at the photo on my phone, another wave of guilt washed over me. Me, Jake and Mia. If I hadn’t pushed her so hard . . . if I had listened when she tried to tell me her mother wouldn’t understand like mine would . . . she’d still be here. And I’d have a chance to make it up to her. I was desperate to get that chance.

  I reached over to my desk and pulled the
crumpled receipt out of my bag. I looked at my list of suspects. He may not have an alibi, but I knew my brother didn’t hurt Mia. I stared at his name and then slowly drew a line through it.

  Chapter 28

  Closed Door

  I stared at my phone for days, willing it to ring. Between Mia and Michael, I was basically a slave to my cell phone. When it finally rang, I almost jumped out of my skin.

  I fumbled with the phone, dropping it and barely managing to grab it before it hit the floor. “Yeah! Hi!” I was talking very loudly. I took a deep breath. “Sorry. Hello?”

  “Feather?” a disembodied voice asked.

  “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “Hi, it’s Michael. From the rec centre?” I felt as if my heart stopped beating for a second, then it started galloping like a horse again.

  “Michael! Hi.”

  “Hi. Have you heard from Mia?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing yet. Has your guy called you back?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m calling. I finally talked to Larry,” he said.

  “And?” I couldn’t help being impatient with him.

  “And he said Mia was at the rec centre that night.”

  “I knew it! So where is she?” I demanded. “Did he say anything about where she went the next day?”

  “That’s just it . . . she didn’t stay,” he told me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You said she was there.”

  “She was. She used the emergency number but Larry didn’t hear it for some reason. He says he was doing rounds, but I don’t know, maybe he was asleep.” My lack of response must have clued him in to my growing anger and he quickly continued. “I’m looking into it, Feather. I obviously can’t have someone unreliable working for me.”

  “Anyway,” I prompted.

  “Right. So he didn’t check the voicemail until the next morning and he heard a message that she had left the night before.”

  Oh God. “What did it say?” I asked evenly.

  He paused for a second before answering.

  “That she needed a place to stay for the night, that she’d try again in a while or go down under the Midtown Bridge by the river.”

  “And did she try again?” I asked.

  He sighed.

  “Yeah, she left two more messages. Larry didn’t get either of those calls. The last time she said she was going to crash under the bridge.”

  “So with Aboriginal girls going missing all over the city, my friend had to sleep under a bridge like a homeless person?” I asked, outraged. Poor Mia. Why didn’t she call me back? I couldn’t understand why she chose to sleep on the cold concrete under a bridge where she knew Carli had died, when she could have come back to my house. Was she that angry? Was I really such a horrible friend?

  “I’m sorry, Feather. I really am. If Larry did something wrong, I’ll find out and fire him immediately. But it’s possible it was an honest mistake.”

  “A mistake that may have gotten her killed!” I shouted at him.

  “Don’t say that. We have to believe she’s still out there somewhere,” he said.

  “I’m trying!” I answered. “But I can’t find her! And she was there, Michael. It proves my brother dropped her off that night! So he couldn’t have done something to her. You have to tell the police! You have to tell them it wasn’t him. She would have been safe if Larry had let her in.” I shook my head in frustration.

  “I know. I’m so sorry. All I can do is confirm she was outside the centre that night. I don’t know for sure where she went after that.” He paused. “And I don’t know who she was with when she left.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him, frowning.

  “I can’t tell the police your brother wasn’t still with her after she left, Feather.”

  “What do you mean? Of course he left! First, he told me he left as soon as she got to the door. It’s killing him that he didn’t stay until she made it safely inside the centre. And second, she said she’d go down to the bridge. She obviously wouldn’t have had to do that if he was still there with her.”

  “I hear you, Feather. I do,” he placated me. “I’ve met Kiowa. I’ve seen him with Mia and I don’t believe for a second that he would ever hurt her. But I can’t swear to that. I can’t swear it was him who dropped her off. And if it was, I can’t swear he left her there. I’m so incredibly sorry, Feather. I wish I could do more.”

  “I know. I get it. Thanks for calling, Michael.” I hung up and stared at my phone. The background picture was one from last summer when a bunch of us had spent the day at the beach. Sunscreen and sand covered Jake, Mia and me. We had built a towering sandcastle and we stood in front of it, arms around one another with giant grins on our faces. It had been one of the best days of my life. I smiled despite myself but my happiness faded almost immediately. There was one spot in this city Mia could have found a safe place that night, and they turned her away. I pictured Mia walking down to the river from the rec centre, catching the eye of some crazy lunatic who followed her and grabbed her as soon as her guard was down. What if someone had her tied up in his basement right now, crying for me? Or Kiowa?

  I looked at my suspect list again and scribbled a giant question mark at the top of the page.

  * * *

  There was no possible way to prepare myself for the gossip feeding frenzy that is my high school.

  With Ben officially off the hook for Carli’s death, which the police were convinced was a suicide, and with Matt out of the closet, the school needed something new to gossip about. The sharks were circling, looking for fresh meat, and I walked right into the belly of the beast.

  Jake had an early lacrosse practice, so I made my own way to school. A naive part of me felt that I could get to my classes without anyone paying attention to me. I had flown under the radar for years, so I was surprised when every head in the school turned to stare at me. I didn’t think so many people knew who I was.

  “That’s her!” I heard someone whisper.

  “Do you think she helped him kill Mia?” someone else asked. My face burned. I could feel the heat rising from my neck. Why were they talking about Mia as if she was dead? Why did everyone think she was dead? I bit back a reply and kept walking down the hall.

  “That girl got what she deserved. She was trouble and her boyfriend is just another stupid Indian who probably got drunk and beat her to death.”

  I stopped and looked at the girl who said that. I moved into her personal space until I was sure I had her attention.

  “What did you just say?” I asked her, my voice low and even.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked in one of those snotty voices all popular girls at my school seemed to have. She tossed her hair and looked down at the phone in her hand, completely bored by me.

  “No, you don’t know me,” I told her. “But you seem to think you know my brother. You know? The stupid Indian?” I took another step so I was right in her face, forcing her to look up and acknowledge me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. She took a step away from me and hit the wall with her back. She looked at her friends who had suddenly found other things to occupy their attention.

  “I think you do. Because you also seem to know my best friend. The girl who got what she deserved?” I took another step forward. She was at least six inches taller than me, but my people? We don’t back down. And we can look scary as hell when we want to. “I think you need to be very careful about saying things you know absolutely nothing about. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “Yes,” she squeaked.

  “Now, I know you’re going to start talking about me when I walk away. You’ll probably start talking about my brother and my friend again too. But I shouldn’t have to listen to your vapid comments.”

  I started to turn and w
alk away when I saw her open her mouth to say something to her friends.

  “And just so you get it right? My name is Feather.” Her mouth snapped shut again and it stayed that way as I left.

  I got to the end of the hall without another encounter like that one. I thought maybe the worst had passed when Matt nearly knocked me down.

  “Feather! Hey! Can you come with me to the library for a second? There’s a really cool book I want to show you,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me backwards.

  “Ummm, yeah. Sure. But can I drop my books off first? Jake said he’d meet me at my locker.” I extricated myself from his iron grip and started towards my locker again.

  “Oh! He’s not there. I think he might be . . . in the library!” Matt grabbed for my hand again. He managed to snag my backpack and drag me backwards.

  “Matt! What the hell?” I tried to pull away from him but he was holding on tightly. “What are you doing? Let go!”

  “I’m sorry, Feather.” He let go but blocked me. Matt’s a football player, so when he blocked me, I couldn’t even see around him. “Ben made me swear I’d distract you from going to your locker.” I could tell by his face that whatever they were trying to keep from me wasn’t good.

  “What is it, Matt? What am I not supposed to see?” I asked him. He avoided meeting my eyes. I stood on my toes and weaved around in front of him. “Matt! Tell me!”

  He sighed deeply. “I can’t. Jake will kill me.”

  “I’m willing to risk it,” I muttered and ducked under Matt’s arm, bolting down the hall towards my locker. I skidded to a stop when I saw Jake and Ben.

  “Feather . . .” Jake began.

  “I’m so sorry, man. I tried to stop her. That girl is fast!” Matt pushed his hair off his face and clapped a hand on Jake’s shoulder.

  “Dude! Could you keep your faggot hands off me?” Jake pushed off Matt’s hand. Matt’s face registered shock, then hurt. I stared at Jake with my mouth open.