Forget Me Not

by A. M. Taylor

  “Did you always want to be a cop?” Keegan said.

  “Sure. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer, but by the time I finished law school I knew it wasn’t for me and went the other way. Luckily they didn’t stay mad at me for too long.”

  Just then Ange appeared at my side. The bar had filled up by this point and she’d managed to work her way through the crowd towards us without me even noticing. “Hey,” she said, looking between the three of us in the booth, “what’s going on?”

  “Miss Cairney,” Lee said, smiling delightedly at her, “how lovely to see you.”

  “Right, you too. I guess.” She scooted in next to me on the bench, giving me a look that silently asked what I was doing with these two.

  I’d been about to leave at that point. All I wanted was to go home and try and find out who’d been in charge of Annalise Rigby’s investigation, but I’d felt stuck there for some reason, unable to just get up and go. As the bar had got busier and busier, I’d felt less and less like I wanted to be there, and yet more and more like I was trapped there. There was no reason for it of course; I could have left whenever I wanted, but my legs were lead, stuck hard to the wooden bench.

  Jack, Ange’s colleague, joined us a few minutes later, carrying drinks for them both, and was introduced to Keegan and Lee.

  “So,” Ange said, when there was a lull in the conversation, looking directly at Lee, “how’s Nate doing?”

  “Ah, I was wondering when that would come up. I was actually betting you’d bring it up, Maddie.”

  I shrugged, feigning indifference and Ange spared me a look before turning back to Lee. “Well? What’s going on?”

  “You know I can’t answer that. It’s an ongoing investigation, plus you’re a member of the press, et cetera et etcetera.”

  Ange sighed and leaned back in her seat. Suddenly, all her energy seemed to have been pulled out of her, and I noticed her lips were chapped, red raw and downturned. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to be here, that we could go, leave town, get the hell out of there, but I couldn’t even get myself to believe that, let alone Ange. Instead, I took a long drag of beer and watched as she did the same with her gin and tonic.

  Lee’s phone vibrated on the table next to him, and he said after checking it: “Well, I guess that’s my cue. I’ll be seeing you all soon.” He finished off his beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took off.

  “I hope he’s not driving,” Keegan said, watching him leave, “he’s had like four beers.”

  For some reason I looked at Ange just as she looked at me and we both started to laugh—hard, hysterical, lost laughter that was already fraying at the edges. The type of laughter that feels like a lifeline rather than a celebration; like you’re desperately trying to capture something, even as it catches you.

  That night I dreamt of a thousand different faces. They scrolled past me as if I was scrolling through a slideshow online, and every time I tried to stop one before it moved on it changed into Nora. If you didn’t count the pane of glass dream that had been torturing me ever since she’d disappeared, it was the first time I’d dreamt of Nora in years, however abstractly.

  Before Nora disappeared I used to have a recurring dream in which my sister died. It was never Cordy, which you might expect, her being younger, but always, always Serena. And it was never the same either. There were house fires and drownings, car crashes and airplanes that simply fell from the sky. One night I woke up shaking having dreamt my mom was kneeling before me in the very bed I was sleeping in, telling me in a shaky whisper that the doctors had tried, but they hadn’t been able to save Serena. I didn’t sleep for three nights after that one.

  But once Nora was gone those vivid, wake up crying nightmares were gone too. It was as if the worst thing I could possibly imagine had happened and even my subconscious simply couldn’t beat it. So, it simply tormented me with the same feeling asleep as I had during the day: that the world was too much to carry; that everything was slipping through my fingers; that there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  So, to wake up with a gnawing, growling pit in my stomach, ready to be filled up with something made for something of a change. Usually the feeling that filled me to the brim was of being too much. There was something inside me that was too big, too heavy, too much and I was too stitched up and stitched over for it to get out. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t unpick all the messy scars I’d left all over my body.

  Wanting something, needing something, this feeling of desperation was new to me. I needed to find out what had happened to Nora, and to Elle, and maybe even to Annalise as well. More than anything, I was worried that if I didn’t find out what had happened to them, the brick wall would build itself back up again, the silvery shutters would come down, and I’d be walking around in a black hole for the rest of my life.

  I found Dad in the kitchen, staring grimly down at the front page of the newspaper. For the second day in a row there was a picture of Nate splashed across it. “Maddie,” he said, looking up quickly and turning the newspaper over so it was face down on the table in one smooth movement, “you want some eggs?”

  I was torn because I did want eggs, but I was also frustrated by the fact that he thought he could hide the outside world from me. Then again, I’d been hiding from the outside world for so long who could blame him? I accepted his offer of eggs and sat down in his vacated seat, turning the paper the right way up and looking down into Nate’s averted eyes. The picture had been taken as he’d been hustled into the police station a couple of days before. Dad passed me a cup of coffee and I said: “Have you spoken to Katherine or Jonathan?”

  “Mom talked to Katherine last night.”

  “And?”

  “They’re not doing great, as you might expect. There’s a small army of reporters and photographers camped right outside their house pretty much day and night. Her sister’s taken Noah back to Madison with her, but he’s not really talking to anyone.”

  “You mean he’s not talking about what’s going on or he’s literally not talking?”

  “Apparently, he’s barely said a word since Nate was arrested. All the media attention can’t be helping either. Your mom said he had a mini breakdown after the memorial on Saturday. Can’t imagine it’s unconnected to that awful photographer trying to get a picture of him outside the church.” Dad was stirring a pan of scrambled eggs as he relayed all this to me, the wooden spoon making gentle figures of eight in the sunshine yellow mixture. I watched, mesmerized, until he turned the heat off and began to load up a plate with the eggs.

  I should have gone to see them as soon as I heard Nate had been arrested. Should have gone to Noah after the memorial. Should have gone in all my inarticulateness, and attempted to help in some way, any way. Noah wasn’t speaking? How many other ways could that family be damaged, tortured, devastated? And then there was Nate. I took the fork Dad handed me and set about eating the plate of scrambled eggs and toast, but it all just disintegrated in my mouth like ash.

  I drove up to Stokely in Dad’s car after taking a pass at the Altmans’ house. He’d been right about the media encampment. Despite the fact Nate was currently sat in the county jail, there were vans parked up and down the street, the logos of their TV channels splashed along their sides, while a small group of photographers and journalists were gathered at the bottom of their driveway. I looked for Ange again, dreading seeing her there like that, relieved beyond measure when I couldn’t spot her.

  The house looked blank. There were no lights on, but a car sat in the driveway, a thin layer of snow scattering the roof and the hood, meaning someone was home. I didn’t pull to a stop, nerves clutching at my heart and my stomach, as one of the photographers turned away from the house and appeared to recognize me. Before I knew it, both she and another reporter were striding towards my car. Without even thinking I put my foot on the gas and sped off. I had to keep checking my rearview mirror to make sure no one had decided to follow, but
, apparently, I wasn’t worth the trouble.

  One of the posters on Reddit had mentioned that Annalise had been working at a bar in Stokely when she went missing, and as it was a bit of a one-horse town, I was pretty sure I knew the place. Stokely was more of a seasonal town than Forest View, and there was a lost resort feel to it when I got out the car and blinked into the watery sunshine.

  When I thought about how much of an impact Nora’s disappearance had had on Forest View I couldn’t believe that Annalise could have gone missing from there and barely left a mark. But there was something about it, its transience, its end-of-the-road-ness, that made me think you could quite easily slip in and out of Stokely and no one would know the difference. She’d been a recent addition, according to Reddit, just passing through, so maybe that was what everyone had assumed; she’d passed through and passed on and that was that.

  The bar was on the main street, down towards the lake, and my eyes took a little while to get used to the gloom when I walked in. There was a guy sitting at the bar with his back to me, hunched over a paper and a beer. He was the only person in the place apart from me and the bartender. She looked to be in her late forties maybe, with dyed-blonde hair that looked more yellow than anything else. There was a noticeboard right by the entrance and suddenly I found myself looking right at Annalise Rigby.

  I took a step to inspect it more closely, taking in her name, her age, height, and weight and the number to call should I know anything. The color was faded of course, five years on, but from the photo you could tell she also had dyed-blonde hair, dark showing at the roots. She had blue eyes.

  “Hey there,” the woman behind the bar said as I walked over, “can I get you anything?”

  “Coffee? If you have it.”

  “Sure do.”

  I looked back at the noticeboard as she turned away to the coffee machine and poured me a cup. As she placed it in front of me I pointed at the aged flyer and said: “Did you know her?”

  “Annalise? Yeah. She worked here.”

  I didn’t want to let on that I already knew she’d worked there, so I just said: “She did?”

  “Mmhm. Came for the summer to be with a boy, ended up staying for the winter. You probably know the story.”

  “A little bit,” I said. I took a sip of coffee. It was strong and hot and burned a little as it went down, warming me through. The man sitting four stools down seemed to peer at me round his shoulder. I nodded at him, and he gruffly returned to his paper. He was doing the crossword. “I’m from Forest View,” I said by way of introduction to the bartender.

  The woman blinked at me. “I thought you might be.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “You have your own missing girl, don’t you? The high school girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  The woman nodded as if to herself, confirming her suspicions. “And the girl who just died down there. It was her sister.”

  “Yeah.”

  The woman nodded again, not saying anything more.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t really understand. Why did you just assume that was why I was here?”

  The woman shrugged. “This type of thing brings it all back up again. Everyone’s been stopping to look at Annalise again since that girl was murdered. She was never found you know, just like your girl.” She shook her head. “That type of thing shouldn’t happen here. And yet here we are.”

  “Nora—the girl who went missing in Forest View. She was a friend of mine. My best friend.”

  “So, you knew her sister as well.”

  “I did.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Her gaze turned towards the noticeboard again. “I don’t know a lot, but I know Annalise should be here.”

  “Do you remember what happened around the time she went missing? I know it was a long time ago—”

  “Oh no, I remember. I got a good memory, and you don’t forget that kind of thing easily anyway.”

  “Who was the boy? The one you said she came to be here with?”

  She pushed herself off from the bar she was leaning against and topped up my cup of coffee. “Ben, you want anything?” she said to the man and his paper. Ben shook his head, and she turned her attention back to me. “I’m Regina, by the way.”

  “Maddie,” I said, pointing at my chest with my thumb.

  “Well, Maddie. The boy was my son.”

  I raised both my eyebrows and glugged down some coffee, wishing it was something stronger. Regina had been holding out on me. Regina told me the story, how Annalise and her son, Kyle, had met in college, how the two of them had moved up here the summer after graduation to live with them and work in the bar while his dad recovered from surgery.

  They hadn’t broken up, as I’d thought, or at least not according to Regina, but there had been some problems. By winter, Kyle’s dad had been up and about, meaning Regina didn’t need their help in the bar or at home so much. But Kyle had been reluctant to leave despite Annalise’s worry that there weren’t enough opportunities there. I looked around the practically empty bar as Regina said this and had to agree with Annalise.

  When she went missing, Regina admitted to thinking at first that Annalise had simply left. It was only Kyle’s insistence that she wouldn’t do that—along with the fact that none of her belongings, including her car, had been missing—that alerted the police to any wrongdoing or foul play. And then they went and arrested Kyle. He was released, but Regina told me that he’d never been the same again.

  “He loved her,” she said simply, “and she’s gone.”

  “Did you or Kyle ever have any suspicions about who could have done this?”

  Regina shook her head. “There are so few people to suspect here. You kind of have to look outside the town.”

  I took a good long look at Regina. She was drying some glasses with a dish towel and looked right back at me.

  “And do you think it might be connected to Nora going missing?”

  “Look, to me, it’s always been pretty obvious. Two girls going missing like that so close to one another?” She shook her head. “Has to be connected.”

  “But you have no idea who could be responsible?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, hon. I just don’t know. Wish I did.”

  “But you remember that night? The night she went missing?”

  “Pretty well.”

  She was going back on herself a little but I decided to press on. “Was she working here that night?”

  “Uh huh,” Regina said, nodding. “Behind the bar. It was actually pretty busy because it was the Friday before our big Star Light Festival in February. It’s kind of a winter festival thing we do every year.”

  I knew the festival. I’d been plenty of times.

  “So, you wouldn’t be able to say who was in the bar that night? Who Annalise spoke to in particular? Nothing like that?” I wanted to pull out my phone and show her a photo of Louden Winters right then and there, anything to prove that someone other than Nate had done all this. That was why I was there, after all, clutching at Annalise’s life, like it was my one last straw that might stop this nightmare from coming true. Because despite everything, I’d never once contemplated that Nate might have killed Nora.

  “No, hon. Nothing like that. The place was full to the rafters with out-of-towners. You ever been to the Star Light Festival?”

  I nodded. “When did you file the report? That she was missing?”

  “Well, she didn’t show up for work on Saturday and I thought that was a little strange, I remember. I called Kyle—they were staying out in a rented cabin by that point. They needed their space from us parents, I think. I thought maybe she was just sick or something, but he said she hadn’t been home that night. He was worried already by that point, but the police weren’t bothered. You have to wait forty-eight hours, you know.” She pierced me with a look. “You probably do know that. Anyway, it wasn’t till the Monday that they started paying us any attention. Kyle was beside himself by
that point.”

  “Did the police ever mention Nora’s case in relation to Annalise?”

  “Uh huh, but nothing ever came of it.”

  I made a vague sound of disgust, and Regina looked at me sadly.

  “Do you remember who was investigating her disappearance? The sheriff in charge?”

  “Sure, it was Sheriff Lundgren. Based out of Eagleton.”

  I took out my phone and noted down the name, planning to track him down.

  As I was doing so Regina said: “You know, they look a little similar, don’t you think? I always thought so.”

  “Who?”

  “Annalise and Nora. If Annalise hadn’t dyed her hair. It was pretty dark naturally; you only have to take a look at her eyebrows to see that.”

  I turned and looked back at the faded poster. She had a big smile, a grin. Nora had rarely smiled in photos, preferring something else instead that you could really only describe as a pout.

  “Yeah, I guess they look kind of similar,” I said. The resemblance certainly wasn’t striking, but I could see Regina’s point.

  “Would I be able to talk to Kyle, Regina? See if he remembers anything more from that night?”

  Ben looked over at me again, this time not even pretending to need to rub his chin against the wool of his sweatered shoulder. Regina continued rubbing at the beer glass she was drying, as if she were trying to get the genie to unwind itself from inside the glass and offer her three wishes.

  “Kyle’s not around anymore,” she said carefully.

  There was no sound for me to hear in that quiet, dark bar, only the three of us breathing. In, out. I couldn’t work out what she meant, not exactly. She’d chosen her words so carefully, but I knew what it meant to choose certain words when others would or wouldn’t suffice. To weigh them up in your mind before deploying each and every one. Or to feel them rising up in your throat before they died in your mouth. Right at the tip of your tongue.