Whisper to Me

by Nick Lake

“Uh-huh.”

  He smiled. A sad kind of smile. “I don’t like Paris. I mean, I do, I like her a lot, she’s a cool girl. But I like … you.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Oh come on. You didn’t pick up on it?”

  Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.

  But I said nothing.

  “****,” you said. “Now I’ve made it super awkward. I’m sorry. I … look, just forget that, okay? Let’s focus on Paris.”

  Yes, focus on Paris. Focus on Paris. Don’t think about …

  Don’t think about …

  His hands on your sides, his hands in your hair, his hands …

  No.

  You took a deep breath. “So. Paris. The cops have not done one thing to stop him so far, have they? The killer, I mean.”

  “You think it’s the killer? Horowitz said she might have run away.”

  “You think that’s likely?”

  I looked away. “No.”

  “So,” you said. “We need to hurry.”

  “This is the real world,” I said. “People get away. Killers get away. It happens all the time. How are we going to stop it?”

  You looked at me strangely, narrowing your eyes. “ ‘People get away’? What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  MY MOTHER. I WAS TALKING ABOUT MY MOTHER. A GUY BRAINED HER AND RAN AND THAT WAS IT.

  But I wasn’t going to tell you that, not then.

  And anyway, I had to admit it was true that from a distance the cops didn’t seem to be doing much about any of the women who had gone missing. I mean, it had been going on for so long and there had been no progress, and people were talking; it was the focus of a bunch of media stories too.

  On the other hand:

  At the same time though, I was thinking of Agent Horowitz. He seemed smart, and I liked him by instinct.

  And yet on the other hand again:

  You were right. It had been months, years even, and no advances had been made. No killer had been caught.

  And … what if they didn’t get away this time? I mean, I couldn’t bring my mom back from the dead and I couldn’t get the guy who killed her, couldn’t make him pay, but what if I could get this guy?

  This guy.

  This one guy.

  And make him pay.

  And maybe find Paris before he killed her too.

  Even then I knew this was not a realistic idea.

  “Plus … ,” you said. “Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious? The lack of police action? I mean … what if the killer was a cop himself?”

  “A cop?”

  “It would add up, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Not only that, Julie said that Paris told her not to call the cops. Why would she do that?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I don’t know. I’d forgotten about that.”

  I will give it to you: I am pretty sure you were only doing all this to distract me, to give me something to think about, rather than just uselessly worrying about Paris, but you did it excellently.

  “Well,” you continued, “what if that was because she knew the killer was a cop? So there would be no point calling them; she wouldn’t have known which of them were in on it, maybe?”

  I looked at you. “Huh. Yeah, I guess that would make sense.”

  “So let’s do it,” you said. “Let’s find her.” You pulled out your phone—it was an old-model iPhone; the phone of someone with money who hasn’t gotten around to upgrading yet.

  I was wrong in thinking that, I know that now. I didn’t know it was the phone of someone with very little money at all. Someone whose dad bought it for him after he scored 1600 on his SATs. Bought it secondhand, spent days scouring eBay to get it for him.

  But now I know. I know because I have spoken to your dad. A couple of times. Yeah. You didn’t realize that, did you? I know a lot more about you than you think.

  I don’t mean this to sound sinister. I mean … I understand you better than I did.

  Anyway.

  You pulled out the phone, and you called up maps.

  “This thing is too old for 4G,” you said, as the screen slowly loaded. “You said this was in Bayview, right? The row of old clapboards by the sand?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  You dragged the map with your finger, then used thumb and finger to enlarge it. I had never seen anyone do that before; that’s how sheltered my life was. That’s how much I didn’t have friends and how much the phones my dad got for me always sucked hard.

  “You can just zoom it like that?” I said. “By touching? Wow.”

  You looked at me like I was from another planet. “You haven’t seen one of these?”

  “Yes! I mean, from a distance. Yeah.”

  “Hmm,” you said. “Very Pygmalion.”

  “What?”

  “You know, in Ovid. The guy who makes a statue of a woman, and brings it to life. But she doesn’t know the language, the customs, and stuff. You’re like that.”

  “I know the story. You’re saying … I’m a statue woman? Learning to speak like a person?”

  “You know the language already. But you haven’t seen someone use a touch screen before, so it’s as if you’re new to the world, like her, and … Hmm.”

  “Doesn’t really work, does it?”

  “I admit it’s a flawed analogy,” you said. You smiled, and to my surprise I smiled back, though there was still an aching hole inside me where Paris had been. Where my memory of Paris still was.

  “Anyway,” you said. You flicked something, and the map turned from a sketch, all lines and block colors, to a satellite image.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Seriously?” you asked.

  “I’m a Luddite, okay?” I said. “And I’m poor and have no friends. So bite me.”

  You smiled again. “I love that you know the word ‘Luddite.’ ”

  “Thanks. I think you’re alone in that.”

  “Didn’t Paris love words?”

  “Yes.” Paris appeared between us like a ghost.

  Silence.

  “Sorry,” you said. “Shouldn’t … you know, mention her.”

  You lowered your head to your phone again, zoomed out. You held the screen up for me to see.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked.

  “You’re looking at a straight road, with no cross streets.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t see what that means?”

  I peered at it. I could see the shapes of the houses, the darkness of the beach and ocean, the street. Cars parked up and down it. Everything, even from this satellite view, looking dilapidated and sad.

  “No,” I said finally. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “You said when Paris was in the house, Julie saw a car turn in front of her. It woke her up with its lights. Yes?”

  I took a breath, looking at the phone. I was holding it in my hand now. “But there are no cross streets,” I said slowly.

  “Bingo. If a car turned, then it came out of a driveway. Or a garage.”

  “You’re thinking …”

  “Yes.”

  “But how could Agent Horowitz miss this?”

  “You said he was FBI, right?”

  “Yeah. Or something like that.”

  “So he’s from out of town. He wouldn’t know the street.”

  “You’re from out of town,” I said. “How come you know the streets of Bayview so well?”

  I asked it kind of as a joke, but you blanched a little. “I do a lot of deliveries,” you said. Your tone was strange, but I didn’t push you on it; I was thinking about Paris and Julie.

  “I need to talk to Julie,” I said.

  “Yes.” You took the phone back from me; put it away. “And then we need to decide what to do next. I mean, maybe she remembers what kind of car it was. And maybe … maybe Paris is still alive.”

  “You think so?”

  “It’s possi
ble. No one ever finds the bodies, do they?”

  “No. Well, a foot.”

  “Yeah. But who knows what he does with them before he kills them?”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling sick. “You just made it awful again.”

  “Sorry. But … what if she’s alive? Maybe we can find her together. I mean, if you want my help. If you want … we could try.”

  There you went again, using that little word. That dangerous, beautiful little word.

  We.

  It even clouded out my doubts—the terrible, selfish little part of me that was still thinking, Is this because he likes Paris? Is that why he wants to save her?

  But another part of me, a voice inside me, but not THE voice, said: No, he likes you. That’s why he wants to help you.

  Anyway.

  You know what? You may have planned it all along. You may have just intended it as a distraction, to get me over my grief. If so, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the **** it got you into. I’m sorry for everything that happened after THIS. FATAL. MOMENT. IN THE STORY.

  The one where I turned to you, and I held your hand in mine, as we sat there in the baking heat by the susurrating shore, and I said,

  “Deal. We’ll find her together. You and me.”

  I AM. SO. SORRY.

  INT. A TEENAGE GIRL’S BEDROOM. BUT YOU CAN’T REALLY TELL THAT BECAUSE IT’S PITCH-BLACK. YOU CAN’T SEE ANYTHING, IN FACT. YOU CAN ONLY HEAR VOICES. VOICES WITH NO BODIES. I WOULD TELL YOU TO CLOSE YOUR EYES, BUT THEN YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO READ THIS. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO IMAGINE VOICES IN THE DARKNESS.

  AND THEN, NOT INCONSEQUENTIALLY, YOU WILL GET AN IDEA OF WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE ME.

  Oh no, wait.

  Before the voices—you hear a phone being dialed, and then a ringing tone, okay? A ringing tone in the darkness.

  Let’s start again.

  INT. A TEENAGE GIRL’S BEDROOM. IT IS PITCH-BLACK. YOU HEAR A BEEPING THAT YOU SOON IDENTIFY AS A CELL PHONE BEING DIALED. IT RINGS.

  A GIRL’S VOICE BLURRED BY TIREDNESS ANSWERS.

  ME: Julie?

  JULIE: Cass? Cass, it’s like two a.m.

  ME: Did I wake you?

  JULIE: No.

  ME: I’m sorry. I’ve been trying you and trying you. You were out, or you weren’t answering the phone or something.

  JULIE: (in a small voice) I was at my mom’s.

  ME: Oh.

  JULIE: What is it, Cass? What’s up?

  ME: It’s the car.

  JULIE: What car?

  ME: The one you heard. You know, the one that woke you up? I was wondering … Where were you parked?

  JULIE: Huh?

  ME: I mean, which side of the street? And were there any cross streets?

  JULIE: The right side of the street. Facing north? Toward the Cape. No cross streets.

  ME: No way a car could turn onto the road?

  JULIE: Um …

  ME: I mean, a car passing you, it would have to just be going down the street, north or south? It couldn’t be coming from a cross street, because there were no cross streets.

  JULIE: Uh, yeah.

  ME: But you said the car turned. You said a car turned in front of you, and it washed you with its headlights, and that’s what woke you up.

  JULIE: Yeah. ****** had his brights on.

  ME: But it turned. Right?

  JULIE: Oh …

  ME: You see where I’m going with this? It turned, on a street with no cross streets.

  JULIE: So it must have come from a driveway. Or a garage …

  ME: The house she went into. It was right beside you?

  JULIE: Yeah. Like twenty feet.

  ME: So the car could have come from the garage.

  JULIE: I guess.

  ME: And something else. You said the line was bad? Like, shhhhing like the ocean?

  JULIE: Yeah.

  ME: Or like car wheels? Like she might have been in a car? Already?

  JULIE: Oh ****.

  ME: Picture something. Imagine Paris in the trunk of a car. She has her cell in her pocket. She makes a call. To you. That’s the shhhhing, right? But then the driver of the car realizes. He stops. The line goes dead—you said that, didn’t you? Then there’s a … what did you call it?

  JULIE: (flatly) A heavy metal sound.

  ME: The trunk opening.

  JULIE: And then a thunk. And the line went dead.

  ME: Yeah.

  Silence.

  JULIE: I need to call Agent Horowitz.

  ME: Wait. What kind of car?

  JULIE: Huh?

  ME: The car. What was it?

  JULIE: A Jeep.

  ME: Like, a 4x4? Or a Jeep, the brand?

  JULIE: The brand. I saw the logo.

  ME: A Wrangler?

  JULIE: Maybe. One of those big, fast ones. You know, with blacked-out windows? Like rappers drive.

  ME: (grateful for Dad’s car magazines) An SRT8?

  JULIE: I don’t know.

  ME: Air channels down the sides? Four exhausts?

  JULIE: Yeah! Yeah.

  ME: That’s an SRT8. Color?

  JULIE: I don’t know. It was night.

  ME: Hmm. Did you catch any of the license plate?

  JULIE: I wasn’t … No. Wait.

  ME: (leaning forward on my bed) Yes?

  JULIE: No. Nothing. I thought … it’s like there’s something there, like something on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t know what it is.

  ME: Okay.

  JULIE: Sorry.

  ME: Don’t be sorry.

  JULIE: Look, Cass, I’m going to go now. I’m going to call the agent. Tell him about the car.

  ME: Don’t do that.

  JULIE: What? Why?

  ME: You know people blame the cops for not finding the guy? The killer?

  JULIE: Yeah.

  ME: But what if it’s not just not finding him? What if they are him?

  JULIE: The cops … are … the killer?

  ME: Or a cop, I don’t know. But think about it. They could suppress evidence.

  JULIE: Keep it quiet. Keep their prints off stuff.

  ME: Yeah.

  JULIE: Jesus.

  ME: Give me a couple of days. Then we’ll talk to Horowitz about the car.

  JULIE: Okay. You think it’s him?

  ME: (thinking about this) No. Not him. But could be someone else.

  JULIE: I still think I should tell him about the Jeep.

  ME: If he’s good, he’ll work it out.

  JULIE: I guess.

  ME: ’Night, Julie.

  JULIE. ’Night, Cass.

  ME: (pause)

  JULIE: We’ll get this ******, right? We’ll get Paris back?

  ME: Yes. Yes, we will.

  JULIE: (sounding suddenly like a child) You promise?

  ME: I promise.

  CLICK. AND THE LINE GOES DEAD.

  BLACKNESS.

  FADE OUT.

  I had no right to do that. No right to promise something I couldn’t deliver.

  The next day was a Monday. I had breakfast with Dad—I had nut-free toast, and he had Pop-Tarts. Dad was reading the paper.

  “Oh, ****, Cass,” he said suddenly.

  I looked up. “What?”

  “Oh, Cass, I’m sorry.”

  Now I knew what was in the paper. “Why?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. For some reason, by some instinct, I didn’t want Dad knowing about Agent Horowitz, about Julie, about any of it.

  Some helpful instinct, as it turned out.

  Dad turned the paper around. There was a photo of Paris—it must have been taken before she was ill; she looked plump and happy. Fifteen, maybe. She was standing by a pool.

  “That’s your friend, right? The one from the hospital?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry, honey. They say she’s disappeared, that they think …” He went silent, scanning the page upside down.

  Oh.

  Oh ****.

  “Cassandra,
” said Dad, and it was never a good sign when he used my full name. “Cassandra, were you hanging out with a stripper?”

  “Um.”

  “Cassandra?”

  “Um, yeah. But she didn’t do touching, she—”

  He turned the paper, showing me a picture from Paris’s Instagram. It showed her with stars over her nipples, smoking.

  “Are you ******* insane?” he shouted. “Oh no, wait. Yes! You are ****** insane! Jesus, Cass, I’m trying here, I’m trying to protect you, like your mom would have wanted, and you’re just …”

  “She was nice,” I said quietly. “She was my friend.”

  Dad shook his head. He was looking at me as if I came with instructions in another language. “She was a … she was this”—he indicated the paper—“and look where it got her.”

  “You’re saying girls who take their clothes off are asking to be killed?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it!”

  “Do I?” I said. “Do I, Dad? Because it sounds to me like you’re saying that being taken by the Houdini Killer is some kind of moral punishment for being a stripper.”

  A long pause.

  “I don’t know what to do with you anymore,” said Dad.

  “Tell him to **** off,” said the voice. “Tell him you don’t give a **** what he thinks.”

  “Sorry, Dad,” I said.

  He grunted. Then there was a knock on the door. Dad went to open it.

  “Hey,” you said. I couldn’t see you, but I recognized your voice. I went to the kitchen door, but Dad was blocking the doorway.

  “Hi,” said Dad. “You need something?”

  “I was wondering … if Cass could come out.”

  “No,” said Dad.

  “Oh,” you said. “Uh … oh.”

  “Have a good day,” said Dad. “Shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

  “Yeah,” you said. And Dad closed the door on you.

  Sorry about that.

  Dad came back to the kitchen. “No going out today, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I have to know you’re safe, Cass.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  He went upstairs and I heard the shower start. “Your own father hates you,” said the voice dully.

  “After six p.m.,” I said automatically.

  The voice shut up. Ever since I didn’t cut off my toe, it had lost some of its power. It didn’t push things anymore. It was more like an irritation—a wasp that circles back to your picnic table intermittently. I could mostly ignore it.