The Last Good Girl

by Allison Leotta

  The effects of his concussion would last for several days. The legal effects would too. Mrs. Shapiro, elegant in a gray dress, was the subject of a restraining order mandating that she stay away from her husband—although the judge had made an exception for tonight, so the parents of the missing girl could stand together and issue a joint statement. Beatrice kept her back turned to Kristen, who hovered just off the elevated stage on which the podium stood.

  The stage was set up on a concrete circle that surrounded the clock tower. As the Shapiros faced the microphone, they looked at North Campus Street, where Emily had run on the night she disappeared. The street itself had been blocked off for traffic, which allowed the procession of students carrying mattresses. Mrs. Shapiro looked grimly satisfied as she gazed on the procession.

  Anna wasn’t sure how the mattress carriers knew to come tonight. So far, the news had only reported that a girl was missing—not a girl who’d accused a boy of raping her before going missing. But, Anna supposed, word traveled around campus. The students in Emily and Preya’s room had all known about the rape charges. While Anna was prohibited from giving information to the press about an ongoing investigation, it couldn’t be long before the mainstream media got hold of that angle. Given the mattress protests, Anna guessed, someone would be telling the assembled reporters about the rape charges before the night was through.

  Anna stood respectfully to the side of the podium. She’d organized the press conference and prepared the parents to speak. Anna herself would not make a public statement. The parents’ message was a powerful one. Her job now was simply to stand out of the way.

  Mrs. Shapiro stepped forward and leaned toward the microphone. Anna knew she was having trouble keeping from crying. She’d been sobbing all the way here, dabbing her eyes with tissues as they walked from the hotel, through campus, and up the three steps to this impromptu stage. Her eyes were pink and her mascara gone. But now she kept her face calm, eyes focused on some point on the other side of the street.

  “My daughter, Emily, is one of the sweetest, most caring young women in the world. She loves music, cooking, and dogs,” Beatrice said. “She is kind to everyone she meets. She is a wonderful daughter. We love her more than anything. Please, I beg anyone who has any information about what happened to Emily three nights ago, come forward. Please, if you’re with her, keep her safe and warm. Know that Emily is a wonderful person and a light in this world. Please help us find Emily. Help us bring her home, where she belongs.”

  Mrs. Shapiro stepped back and her face collapsed. Her shoulders shook, and she buried her head in her hands. Mr. Shapiro looked at her uncomfortably, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. For a moment, she looked like she was going to refuse it, then she thanked him and used it to wipe her tears.

  Mr. Shapiro stepped forward, touched his head wound, and looked around, confused. He blinked toward the microphone and said nothing. The last few days had changed him from a confident president who’d brushed off his daughter’s disappearance as a “frolic” to a distraught man paralyzed by the possibility that she was really gone. He turned toward Anna, looking lost. Anna said softly to him, “Just talk to Emily.” He nodded and turned back to the microphone.

  “Emily,” he said. “We love you so much. I pray that we’ll see you soon. Anyone who knows anything about where she is, please call the hotline.”

  The people holding the candles murmured. Someone said “Amen.” The mattress carriers kept coming, dozens of them toting their big white mattresses, gazing out above the duct tape over their mouths, silently passing the candlelight vigil.

  The assembled press was torn between focusing their cameras on the sobbing parents and the mattress carriers shuffling past. Usually, the grieving parents would be the key shot. But the mattress carriers made such a vivid image.

  Modern college students, Anna thought, knew how to work the media far more effectively than did older generations. They’d grown up in a world where going viral was the goal, and they understood like second nature the technology that democratized the chance to do it. They were savvy about how to make their issue become the issue. In Anna’s day—which was only a decade ago—a student group might do a sit-in. They might have a march. But today’s students—fluent in grassroots media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and steeped in the twenty-four-hour news cycle—were savvier than ever about what would make an impact.

  Last month, at MSU, there’d been a “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” protest, where a bunch of boys bared their hairy legs in shorts and skirts and wore high heels while they walked through town demanding equality for their female peers. That was followed by a “Slut Walk” at U of M, where a bunch of girls—and a few boys—dressed in skimpy clothes and paraded down the street. The girls, in studded leather bras and short shorts, yelled that they had the right to wear whatever they wanted and not be sexually assaulted. A few even went topless, shaking their bare breasts for CNN—which would blur them out—and any nearby cell-phone owners—who would not.

  It was a strange sort of feminism, Anna thought, where women used the very bodies they were pronouncing sovereign as a way to titillate the rest of America into listening to them.

  She helped the Shapiros down from the stage. She told them they’d done a good job, and that the phones were manned for any tipsters who might call. As well-wishers came up to hug the parents, Anna asked Kristen if they could speak alone for a moment. They walked over to a quiet area with Sam.

  “Thanks for your help tonight,” Anna said. “If you don’t mind, I have just a few more follow-up questions.”

  “Of course,” Kristen said.

  “With apologies for asking a personal question. Did you have a relationship with Dylan Highsmith?”

  “Mm.” Kristen looked to where Barney was standing. She lowered her voice. “Define ‘relationship.’ ”

  Sam said, “Did you have sex with him?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

  “We’re not here to gossip or start a scandal,” Anna said. “But we need to know the truth.”

  Kristen twisted one of the piercings in her eyebrow. The gesture reminded Anna of an old-timey villain twirling his mustache. “We had a brief fling,” Kristen said softly. “Maybe a year and a half ago. He’d been in my Shakespeare class the semester before.”

  “Was that ‘fling’ consensual?”

  “Yes. Although regrettable. I had been his teacher. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

  “How long did your sexual relationship with Dylan last?”

  “About fifteen minutes.”

  “Why him?”

  Kristen sighed. “I had a very difficult marriage. I turned to many things I probably shouldn’t have.”

  “Is that allowed under school rules? To be with a student?”

  “You’re very young. One day you’ll understand. Rules sometimes fall away in the heat of the moment.”

  “What I’m asking is: Could you lose your job?”

  “It’s a gray area. He was no longer my student. There are plenty of male professors who’ve done far worse and never gotten a reprimand.”

  “Does Barney know?”

  “No. We both lived full lives before we met. We don’t need to hash out every detail. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Are there any other mistakes you need to tell us about?” Sam asked.

  “My biggest mistake was not taking a restraining order out on Landon. I’m afraid he’s not right in the head. Please excuse me. I need to be there for Barney now.”

  Kristen wended her way back through the crowd and brushed past Beatrice. As Beatrice glared, Kristen looped her arm around Barney’s elbow.

  28

  Anna sat with her laptop in its usual position, balanced on her knees. She had a hard time concentrating on the writing in front of her, though. Between each paragraph, she saw Emily’s single shoe, at the bottom of the pit. The red-brown smudge on the back of Dylan’s Viper. The
silver needle sliding into Kara Briscoe’s soft skin.

  She took a long sip of pinot noir. It was her second glass. Cooper sat next to her on the couch and held out a bowl of sweet-potato chips. She shook her head. “No thanks.” She clicked through to the next case on PACER. She had a paralegal working to identify the girls whose initials were listed in Dylan’s brag book. Meanwhile, Anna was looking up every civil case that had been brought against the Beta Psi fraternity in the last twenty years. There were fifty-six.

  “Anna, you need a break,” Cooper said softly. “Your mind and your body will be better off if they have some time to recover.”

  “I’m not interested in a break.”

  “You can’t fix everything single-handedly.”

  “I can’t seem to fix anything. And today I drove a poor young woman to a breakdown.”

  Cooper took her computer gently from her hands and set it down on the coffee table.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She didn’t want to tell him what happened today. He might hate her. She wanted to lose herself in the computer and wine. He reached over and took her hands, enveloping hers completely. His palms were big, calloused, and warm. After hours of hearing terrible stories, Cooper’s very tangibility was comforting. She gave him a quick summary of her day. He kept asking questions, drawing more and more details from her until she found herself telling him everything—every little detail, and how she felt about it. How it weighed on her. How she feared she wasn’t going to find Emily. How Kara’s reaction made her wonder if she was doing any good in the world at all. She did her job because she wanted to help people. So what did it mean when she was creating despair?

  “You didn’t create the despair,” Cooper said softly. “But you do have to wade through a lot of it. I’m not surprised some of it rubs off on you.”

  “I’m not even sure how to do my job anymore. It seems like there are systems—huge powerful systems—that are stacked against getting the right result.”

  “Like what?”

  “The college’s response to sex assaults on its campus. The good-old-boys network protecting its own.” She gestured toward her laptop. “And these frats. Did you know that men who join fraternities are three hundred percent more likely to rape women than other college boys?”

  “Whoa.”

  “And I’m not convinced their nationals are doing much to stop it. In fact, they seem to encourage kids to go crazy—everyone wants to join Animal House—but they throw the kids under the bus if something goes wrong. They say, ‘You served alcohol, that violated our honor code, you’re on your own.’ The kids’ families get hit with huge civil judgments. I don’t think parents understand the massive liability they expose themselves to when they send their son to join a fraternity.”

  “My parents definitely didn’t when I pledged.”

  “You were in a frat?” Anna rocked back. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t like the one you’re investigating. I mean, sure, we had plenty of drinking in our basement. But there was community service, leadership roles. I learned a lot, made some good friends. In a big campus, it was a small place to call home. We did a few stupid things, but nothing earth-shattering. Mostly it was good.”

  “Huh. Why’d you join?”

  He shrugged. “I never really thought about it. But, I guess—in our world, there aren’t many rites of passage for boys to become men. We don’t have gladiatorial contests, right? There’s something appealing about being tested and seeing how you measure up.”

  “They must have something going for them. These frats, they have crazy successful alumni who donate fortunes. That’s why colleges don’t ban them or even really discipline them as much as they should. When colleges try to rein them in, the frats convince their alumni to stop donating.”

  “Anna.” Cooper ran a hand through her hair. “Like I said before, you can’t single-handedly fix America’s campuses tonight.”

  “I know.” She managed a tired smile. “I’m sorry to rant.”

  “You’re working hard, doing the best you can. So just keep that up. That’s all anyone can give. One day, one task at a time. Focus on that. I happen to think that your best is as good as it gets. If you can’t find Emily Shapiro, no one can.”

  Anna sighed and laid her head on Cooper’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a while. Her eyelids started to drift down. He took her hand and helped her up.

  “Come to bed now. You’ll figure it out in the morning.”

  She followed him up the stairs. Cooper wasn’t a lawyer or an investigator. He couldn’t help her solve this case. But he knew people—he knew her. And he’d always had her back. Always. There was nothing more precious than that.

  As she brushed her teeth, Cooper stood behind her, swept her hair to one side, and kissed her neck. It was just a quick kiss, a casual moment of connection between familiar lovers. But she stopped brushing her teeth and concentrated on that feeling, the electric softness of his lips on her skin. When he straightened, she said, “Will you do that again?”

  He smiled at her in the mirror. “Anything I can do to help.”

  He brought his mouth to the side of her neck and kissed her again. She shivered as his tongue played circles on her skin. His hand encircled her breast, tracing the contours. Her nipples hardened, her breaths came quicker, and she knew she wasn’t going to sleep any time soon.

  She set her toothbrush on the sink, turned, and wrapped her arms around him. They kissed, gently at first, then with rising intensity. After all she’d seen the last few days, she just wanted to lose herself in this. Pure physical pleasure, touch, taste. Something good and easy and true. His hands slipped under her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around him as he lifted her up. He carried her to the bed and laid her on the cover. Their clothes came off quickly; his prosthetic took a moment longer.

  She ran her hands across the scars that disfigured the taut muscles of his torso. She was no longer surprised by the wounds that radiated upward from his knee and tapered at his stomach. She did not blanch at the sight of his severed limb, the seam in his leg where the skin simply folded back onto itself. He was beautiful and kind, and she knew without a doubt that he loved her, even if she’d never allowed him to say it.

  Anna pulled Cooper on top of her, needing to lose herself in the sweet and simple sensation of skin on skin. “Please,” she said. “Now.” He slipped inside her, and she drew him tighter still, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He smelled like pine trees; he tasted like Honeycrisp apples. His body brought her intense pleasure; she couldn’t get close enough to him. They rocked in deep rhythm with each other. But even as she moaned with the intensity of it, she understood this wasn’t just about sex. She was holding tight to the most solid thing in her life.

  TUESDAY

  29

  Anna lay curled into Cooper, blinking into the milky morning light. She could hear Jody puttering around downstairs, speaking in soft singsong to her baby. She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, took her phone from the nightstand, and started swiping. She had an e-mail from Sam entitled, “Pics from Traffic Cameras.” Anna tapped on the five attached images.

  All five were photos of Dylan’s red Viper driving on city streets the night Emily disappeared. If the Viper wasn’t distinctive enough, his license plate was clear. The first picture showed the car on the I-75 highway, southbound. Two silhouettes sat in it, one in the driver’s seat, one upright in the passenger seat. The time stamp said 1:34 A.M. The next picture, taken ten minutes later, showed the Viper passing a line of abandoned buildings, their walls covered in graffiti and their windows covered in plywood. Detroit. Anna looked at the location stamp and saw that it was taken on Dequindre Street. Her stomach dropped. Why would a college kid from Tower, fifty miles away, be in downtown Detroit in the early hours of the morning?

  The third picture, taken at 2:30 A.M., was different. It was a photo of the Viper from the front, as it idle
d before a brightly lit glass-enclosed booth. Dylan’s face was clearly visible in the front seat, and his best friend, Peter York, was in the passenger seat. The sign on the booth read U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT. Anna recognized the booth. As a younger woman, she’d passed there many times herself, on wild nights out with friends who’d gone that way because the drinking age in Canada was nineteen. This picture was taken at the checkpoint for the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor.

  The final two pictures showed Dylan’s car driving back toward Tower University at 4:45 A.M. Peter was still in the passenger seat.

  A pit in Anna’s stomach opened up, feeling deeper than the Pit at Tower University. There were a few legitimate reasons for Dylan to be heading to Canada the night Emily disappeared. Maybe he went to Windsor to party. It was not uncommon for Michiganders—especially teenagers—to cross the border for a night out. But Dylan and Peter were twenty-one; they didn’t need the lowered drinking age that Windsor offered. And the time stamp between his Detroit-bound trip on I-75 and his appearance at the international checkpoint was too long. He’d stopped somewhere for an hour. To dispose of a body?

  If you committed a crime, Detroit was a good place to hide the evidence. There were hundreds of abandoned buildings and empty lots. Countless forgotten basements and empty attics. Once home to 1.7 million people, Detroit’s population was now under 800,000. The abandoned lots alone would fill the entire city of Paris. The Detroit police, stretched thin and woefully underfunded, had hours-long delays in responding to 911 calls—if they responded at all. A body could lie, undiscovered, for months or years.

  Anna could picture it. Dylan and Peter, dragging Emily’s blanket-wrapped body from the trunk of the Viper. Carrying the bundle out onto the empty street, where no living soul was around to see them. Walking it into an abandoned skyscraper. Finding an abandoned elevator shaft. Heaving. The silence as her body went down. A muffled thud as she hit the ground.