“But I should have. I should have noticed, because Isa’s my best friend. Tell me what I can do. I’ll do anything I can to help. I could make flyers. Should I make flyers? I can hang them up everywhere.”
“Sure,” Emmy said. “That would be a good place to start.”
We walked Les back to the salon, and he gave Emmy a long hug, then shook my hand again. He told Emmy he’d call her if he thought of anything else, and that he’d send her a picture of the flyers he came up with.
“I should probably head back to my car,” Emmy said as we started to walk back up Powell. “I think I’m in a two-hour parking zone.” She shook her head. “Poor Les. I hope that us stopping in like that didn’t make him more upset.”
“He seems like someone who really... feels things,” I said. I wondered what it must be like to be the sort of person who could just wear their emotions on their sleeve like that. In a way, it was probably pretty liberating.
“He’s always been like that,” she said.
We got back to her car just in time; a meter maid was busy leaving tickets underneath windshield wipers a little further along.
“Thanks so much for meeting up with me,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Of course. I’ll work on tracking down Scout’s number for you. I’ll send it along once I get it. Hopefully it won’t take too long.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled and I smiled back; under other circumstances I might have tried to lean in for a kiss. But this wasn’t the right circumstance for that sort of thing at all. And just because I felt this way didn’t mean she did; she wanted to find her sister, not hook up with the guy who was the last person to have seen her sister.
“Take it easy,” I said, which was maybe the lamest thing that could have come out of my mouth, but it was too late to take it back. She hesitated a moment, but then she just gave me a little wave and got in her car. I stood there and watched as her car got smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared after it crested a hill.
Chapter 8
Emmy
When I got home, I took Isa’s journal out of my purse and sat on the couch with it. I opened it randomly and read the first sentence:
I don’t care what he says, I know I am truly blessed to have this residency at Amnesia.
I flipped through some more of the pages, trying to decipher my sister’s handwriting, which was a hybrid of print and cursive that sometimes veered into the illegible territory. There seemed to be plenty about the various clubs she’d played at:
Tonight’s set was off the hook, if I do say so myself...
….The sweetest girl came up to me tonight after I was done and told me that she’s got her first gig coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m the reason she started spinning in the first place...
…I have a feeling this means way more to him than it does to me. Why can things like this never be balanced??
I read this full entry, near the end of her entries, and then went back several pages, trying to figure out who the “him” was she was referring to. “He” and “him” were brought up a few more times, but she never named him. “He” was definitely someone she was involved with, though it was hard to ascertain exactly how she felt about him.
I set the journal down. It felt strange, intrusive almost, to be sitting here reading my sister’s journal, her innermost thoughts, but if I had any hope of finding answers, I needed to do this.
I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch, because I woke up to someone knocking at the door. I struggled to sit up, shaking my head to try to clear the haze of sleep from my brain.
“Just a sec,” I said. I hoped it wasn’t Silas. I really didn’t think it would be, after what had happened earlier, but it wouldn’t have entirely surprised me if it was.
“It’s just me,” I heard a voice say, and my shoulders relaxed as I reached the front door and saw my friend Carolyn standing there.
She was tall, and nearly had to duck her head when she stepped into the house. She looked like she could be a professional volleyball player, though she was notoriously un-athletic. She was wearing her office casual attire, which meant she must’ve just gotten off from work. She was the executive director at Hope House, a shelter for abused women. She had been the new girl in town our sophomore year of high school, but we’d hit it off almost immediately. She was like a sister to me, and one I had often felt closer to than I did my actual sister.
“What’s going on?” she said. “Is everything okay with your sister? I saw some weird stuff online.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s missing. She was supposed to play at this club on Saturday and never showed. Well, she was there, but then when it came time for her to go on, she was just... gone. No one’s seen her. It’s really weird.”
“How are you holding up?” Carolyn asked. “You haven’t heard anything from Isa at all? Why didn’t you call me?”
I looked at my friend and I could see that she was concerned, but also hurt that she had found out on social media that Isa was missing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you and tell you what was going on. There’s just been a lot happening and it’s honestly been really hard to process all of it. I spent hours yesterday down in the city with this guy who had been working at the club the night that Isa disappeared. He wants to help me try to find her.”
Carolyn gave me a skeptical look. “Don’t you think you should maybe let the police handle that?”
“I’m not trying to get in their way or anything, but I can’t just sit back and wait for them to find something out. Because what if they don’t? That could happen, you know.”
She nodded. “I know.” I could tell that she was thinking about what had happened with me the night I almost got mugged. “And I know you know that from personal experience. Who’s this guy who’s helping you?”
“His name’s Jason. He works for the company that was doing security at the club that night. He was one of the last people to see her.”
“Well, wouldn’t that make him one of the prime suspects?”
“He’s not,” I said.
Carolyn raised an eyebrow. “Are you so sure? Has he talked with the police?”
“I think so. He’s not involved like that. He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“How do you know? How well do you really know this guy?”
I felt myself bristle at her insinuation. “We just met. But just because I don’t know his social security number or his birthday or what his favorite color is doesn’t mean that he had anything to do with it. I think you’ve been watching too many crime shows.”
“It just sounds a little strange, that’s all,” Carolyn said. “And I don’t want anything bad to happen to my best friend, either, so maybe I am being a little protective. What’s his last name?”
“Why? Are you going to look him up or something?”
“Maybe.”
I sighed. Carolyn and I were best friends, and she did feel guilty about the night I almost got mugged, because she’d been the one to set the date up. Not that she could have had any clue what was going to happen, but she still partially blamed herself, even though I’d told her countless times not to.
“His last name’s Armstrong.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“I don’t know—because you’re being paranoid and grasping at straws now? He’s really nice. I actually... I feel like we kind of had this connection. Which is a lot more than I can say about Silas, who we happened to run into.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
“He still been bothering you?”
“Totally. He left a bunch of smushed-up pink carnations on my doorstep. And he’s probably been calling or texting but I blocked his number.”
“You need to change your number.”
“Well, I think I took care of it. I was with Jason when we saw him and I might have told him that Jas
on was my boyfriend.”
“Oh, my God.” Carolyn clapped her hand to her forehead. “You didn’t.”
“It just came out,” I said. “It wasn’t premeditated. I wasn’t expecting to run into him, that’s for sure, and he was acting a little crazy. He was all wanting to know why I hadn’t told him about Isa, who I guess he heard about online.” I shook my head. “But the main point here isn’t the psycho guys that I’ve gone out with—we still don’t have any clue what happened to Isa.”
“I know,” Carolyn said. She reached over and rested her hand on mine for a second. “It’s really terrible. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to give you a hard time about guys or anything when this is happening. I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”
“I will be,” I said. Yet as I said it, I had a feeling that it might not be the case. Even so, it didn’t matter—I needed to find out what had happened to my sister.
Chapter 9
Jason
“What do you want Scout’s number for?” This was Ian. I’d gone down to Heathens to talk with him in person, instead of trying to do it over the phone. He was sitting at the bar with a half-finished pint of beer. “You want a beer?”
“What? No, man—it’s eleven in the morning.”
Ian took a big gulp and shrugged. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” He set the glass down. “What’s the word on Isa? I haven’t heard jacksh—”
“There is no word,” I said. “No one’s heard anything, as far as I know. That’s partly why I wanted to talk to Scout. Mostly why.”
“You doing the investigation on this or something? Aren’t the cops handling that?”
“They are, but... you know. People don’t always want to talk to the cops.”
Ian gave me a half-smile. “Don’t I know it. Wasn’t too thrilled to have to talk to them myself when they were over here last. But trust me, man; I told them everything I knew about the situation—which wasn’t much. Doubt you’re going to get much from Scout, either.”
“Still, I’d like to give it a shot.”
Ian picked up his phone and scrolled through it. He set it down on the bar and slid it toward me. “There it is.” He watched as I typed the number into my phone. “So, did you know Isa?”
“Not really. Not before the other night, anyway.”
“You know she has a twin sister?”
I slid the phone back to him. “Yeah, I know.”
“That’s a trip, isn’t it?” He rubbed his hands together and licked his lips. “Can you imagine that, getting with the two of them? All the identical twins I know are... how do I put it? Not so easy on the eyes. Not like those two.”
“Uh... I don’t know that many identical twins, I guess. But... I’m not really thinking like that.”
“No?” Ian gave me a look as though I had somehow let him down. “’Cause, man, I’d love to be in the middle of that sandwich—”
“Dude, she’s missing,” I said. “You’re not going to be getting into any ‘sandwiches’ if she never gets found.”
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t hit that if given the chance.”
I slipped my phone back into my pocket. This sure as hell was not the conversation that I wanted to be having right now, especially with the likes of Ian. “Thanks for the number.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I hurried out and texted Emmy, sending along Scout’s phone number.
I’m just finishing up some work, she wrote back. Thanks for getting that. I’ve got to stop by my parents’ and then I’m thinking of coming down to the city once I’m done.
Cool, I typed. Want to meet up?
We arranged to meet in a couple of hours, which meant I needed to get into the office and try to do some more work on that proposal. Drew had always been very laid-back about the schedule, unless we had an event we were working, or a specific time that we had to be somewhere, but I didn’t want to take advantage of his flexibility.
I stopped at Superior to get a round of coffees, though I wasn’t sure who was going to be at the office when I finally got there. Chances were good that Cole and Ben would be out doing an installation, but they could always nuke it when they got back.
Julia was behind the counter and she smiled when she saw me. “Hey, you,” she said. “I was just thinking about you. Let me get those coffees started.”
I looked at the items in the glass display case while she steamed milk.
“I heard about what happened at the club,” she said, her voice raised so I could hear her over the espresso machine. “Cole was in here the other day and he was telling me about it. I’m so sorry; that’s awful.”
“It was rather unfortunate.”
“And she hasn’t turned up?”
“No.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that.” She paused, her eyes on me, and it seemed like she wanted to say something but wasn’t letting herself.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yes. Here.” She handed me two of the drinks and started to turn to the back counter to get something but then stopped. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It’s not something I’d normally do. In fact, there’s a really big part of me that thinks I just shouldn’t say anything, but... I’m just going to say it, okay?”
She gave a nervous-sounding laugh and I smiled, not sure what exactly she was trying to tell me.
“Sure,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
“What’s on my mind is... I was wondering if you’d like to hang out sometime.” She said this last part so fast it sounded like one long word. Two red spots blossomed on either side of her face and she brought her hand up to her mouth.
“Oh,” I said, caught completely off guard. That was, in fact, probably the last thing that I’d been expecting her to say.
“I’ve been making you coffee for—what—years now?” she said. “And I’ve always felt like we’ve had this connection. I know you’re, like, way out of my league, but sometimes... sometimes it seems to me that you might feel the same way, too.”
“Hey, can we hurry this up here?” the guy behind me said. “I need an iced latte—like five minutes ago.”
Julia shot him a look. “Karen will help you,” she said, nodding to one of her co-workers who was in the middle of scooping loose-leaf tea into glass jars.
I waited until the guy moved down toward the end of the counter, a few seconds’ respite that I was grateful for because I was trying to figure out how I could phrase this. Julia seemed like a great girl, a person I genuinely enjoyed seeing whenever I came in to get coffee. Did I like her? Yes. Did I care about her feelings? Yes. Was I interested in pursuing a relationship outside of the one we had? No, not really.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m flattered that you’d ask. I mean that. And you’re not out of my league at all—don’t even say something like that. I’m just still not at the point where I’m going to be getting involved with anyone.”
“Because of what happened?” she asked.
I nodded. It was, in part, the truth. I’d made no conscious decision to swear off women, but that had kind of been the natural progression of things. And until I’d met Emmy, I did sometimes wonder if that part of my life was simply over with. No more dating, no more romance. It wasn’t ideal, but you also spared yourself a whole lot of drama if you could remove those things from the equation.
“But that was, like, two years ago,” she said. “It isn’t fair to you to keep punishing yourself. You don’t deserve that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I really am flattered that you’d want to hang out with me,” I said. “There’s just a lot going on in my life right now.”
I wasn’t being entirely upfront, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her that no, I wasn’t attracted to her.
She gave me a rueful, slightly embarrassed smile. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying. And I promise things won’t be awkward or anything, at least not from my end.”
“Hell, no,” I said. “This changes nothing.”
And I hoped it wouldn’t.
Chapter 10
Emmy
“Do you remember our friend Les, from high school?”
I had been over at my parents’ house for a little while and was watching as my mother paced the living room, acting like she was organizing the magazines, rearranging the pillows, even though everything was in perfect order. My mother frowned. “Les? Oh, yes, I think so. He was always very happy, wasn’t he? I liked when he’d come around.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Well, he made these flyers; he’s been hanging them up and circulating them online.” I pulled one of the flyers out of my purse and handed it to her. She took it and unfolded it, her eyes filling with tears as she looked at the picture of Isa’s smiling face.
“That was nice of him to do that,” she said.
“There’s a lot of people who are worried about her. There’s a lot of people keeping an eye out. Someone will see something.” I wanted to believe this, and I knew that, right now, this was true—this was fresh in everyone’s minds, something people were still talking about. But I knew how these things worked: interest would begin to fade, and it would probably happen quickly. Only Isa’s close friends and family would keep up their efforts; the other people would have moved on, found another crisis to be interested in. I didn’t blame anyone for that; I would probably be the same way.
“I had an awful dream last night,” Mom said. “Whoever it was that took Isa also took you. And in my dream, he was right there, but I couldn’t see his face.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I haven’t been sleeping that well myself, either.”
“Do you think it means something?”
“That you had that dream?”
“You always hear about people who had a dream about something and then they find out that it came true. I was thinking that could be the case here. Not that my dreams have ever meant anything before.” She shook her head. “But what about you?”
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