Nowhere Girl

by Susan Strecker

  My cell rang, and I didn’t bother to check the caller ID before I answered. “I can’t talk now,” I barked into the phone. “I’ll call you later.”

  As I went to press the END CALL button, I heard Patrick’s voice. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound frazzled.”

  “Where does that bitch get off saying that we know who killed Savannah, that we’ve known all along?”

  He let out a low whistle. “I was wondering when this was going to come back.”

  “Do you think she knows? I mean, what if my brother told her something a year ago or ten years ago? What if my entire family knows, and they’re not telling me?”

  “Come on, Cady. Think about what you’re saying. What reason would your parents or your brother or Gabby have to hide this from you?” I started to talk, but he cut me off. “I’ve known your family for a long time, and one thing is certain: you all want to know who killed your sister.”

  “But that’s the thing,” I said flatly. “What if they know and they’re not telling me because it was one of them?”

  “Jesus.” His tone was both angry and incredulous.

  I expected him to give me a speech about me knowing my family could never do anything like this and how everyone loved Savannah. I hadn’t expected him to be mad.

  “Don’t you think we know how to do our jobs?”

  For some stupid reason, I held up my phone as if I’d be able to see him through it. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to figure out what she was talking about. Why would she say those things?”

  “I’m not a psychologist, but it seems pretty obvious that Emma feels guilty because of what her father did. I mean, think about it. This town was so angry at her father for closing Savannah’s case, and now he’s been forced to resign. She’s just lashing out at you.”

  I thought about the article I’d read a few months before and how it seemed to imply that half of the Stanwich police force was corrupt. “Do you really think that’s all it is?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I do. Besides, didn’t you say that Emma was a mean girl in high school?”

  “She wasn’t so much mean as she thought she ruled the world.”

  “Same thing, really. So would you really put it past her to screw with you just because she can?”

  He had a good point. Emma spent more than a decade manipulating my brother, but still, the damage was done. She had me questioning everything I knew to be true. “Thanks for saying that, but I have to go. I need to call my parents.”

  * * *

  “Honey,” my mother said into the phone. “What a nice surprise. Your father and I have been thinking about you. We’ve been talking about coming up for your launch party. Do you have a—”

  “Do you know who killed Savannah?”

  My mother made a gurgling noise into the phone. “Cady!” Her tone was sharp. “How can you ask such a thing?”

  I was expecting that question. “What would you do for me?”

  My father had picked up another extension. “Anything. You know that. We’d do anything for you and your brother.”

  “Would you lie for me?”

  My mother spoke. “To protect you, yes, we would.”

  “Would you lie for David?”

  She answered again. “Why are you asking such questions? Have we done something to make you doubt our loyalty, our love?”

  I hated it when she got all martyr on me. “On the contrary. I think you’d do anything for us, and I want to know if that includes covering up a murder.”

  There. I said it. I said what I couldn’t help thinking since that bitch Emma had cornered me at Iano’s. Too many pieces were adding up to a nonsensical picture of someone killing their daughter, sister, niece, godchild, friend.

  “How dare you!” she roared through the phone. “You can call us back when you’re ready to apologize.”

  I sat there, my stomach leaden. I felt as stunned as if she had slapped me. “You can’t be serious,” I said calmly. “Don’t you even want to know why I’d ask such a ludicrous question?”

  “There’s not one good reason you could ever insinuate that someone who loved Savannah would end her life. The fact that you’d even ask such a question is—” She stopped speaking. “I don’t even know what it is,” she finally said, and then she hung up.

  CHAPTER

  42

  “Zippy,” Deanna said when I finally, finally answered the house phone after it had been ringing for days. “Just giving you a time check. You have three days to deliver the manuscript.”

  “It’s done.”

  “What?”

  “It’s done.”

  Greg was coming home in a few days, and I’d done nothing but write since he was gone. I looked like hell, my eyes had deep circles underneath them, and I was still wearing pajamas even though it was six in the evening.

  “Well,” Deanna said, “my God, that’s wonderful. It’s not due till Monday. Do you want to hang on to it in case there are any last-minute changes?”

  “No,” I said. By now, I was so tired of it. I never wanted to hear about any of the characters or that poor murdered girl under the ice again. I especially did not want to have anything to do with Isabelle, whom I still loved but who had betrayed me, committing the murder “by accident” and then at the end running away. I’d found on the Internet that there existed an underground system of people falsely accused of murder who helped each other disappear. “I’ll send it today. I hope the powers that be don’t hate it.” I was already pressing SEND. “Let me know as soon as you get any news.”

  I heard her assistant calling her name, and then something dinged in the background. “Hallelujah,” she said. “It’s already here. Ta-ta.”

  “Toodle-doo,” I said.

  I had seventeen texts. Eight of them were from Brady; five were from Gabby; three were a group message from Chandler to me, David, and Gabby, saying that Odion’s citizenship test scores had arrived; and one was from Greg. I was sitting up in bed when I read them, and the next thing I knew, it was ten in the morning, and the sun was streaming through my window. I’d slept for fifteen hours straight, and the landline was ringing.

  “Are you coming?” Chandler said.

  “Yeah,” I said, not quite awake. “I mean where?”

  “What happened to you? Did you get abducted by aliens?”

  “I was on a writing binge.”

  “Oh, well, we’re all at Cookies. Odion got the results of his citizenship test, and he’s waiting for all of us to be here before he opens them.”

  The conversation I’d had with my parents lingered like a bad dream I couldn’t shake. I didn’t really think anyone who loved Savannah could have hurt her. Larry Cauchek was a master manipulator. I was sure he was trying to fuck with my head. He’d done a spectacular job.

  I had no idea what day it was, but I jumped in the shower, then pulled on a pair of jeans and an old Sotto Sopra T-shirt, put my hair in an elastic, and drove into town while dialing Greg on speakerphone. “It’s delivered,” I told him when it went to voice mail. “Hope you’re having fun.” I didn’t call Brady. His first four texts said I should call him when my binge was over, but I didn’t know what to say to any of my friends. I’d only agreed to go to Cookies because Odion hadn’t even lived in New Jersey when Savannah died.

  “It’s here,” Gabby told me when I came through the door. “It’s finally here.” Chandler, David, Odion, Madelyn, and Gabby had commandeered the big corner table, and spread before them was a feast of Cookies’ pastries.

  Odion was grinning wide, his straight, beautiful teeth shining. I went to him and hugged him hard.

  “Well, open it,” I told him. “What do you think it says? Did you pass?” I picked up a croissant and sat down next to Chandler.

  Madelyn had Odion’s flash cards on her lap, and she held them up so I could see them. She was missing a tooth
, and she looked so adorable I had the mad thought I’d pick her up and run away with her. I’d come to believe the only way I’d have a baby was if it came from another woman’s womb. “Who was the president during World War I?” she asked me.

  “Wilson?”

  Her face broke into a big grin. “Cady can be a citizenship too,” she said to Odion. The next card read, “What’s the longest river in the US?” But I didn’t know that one.

  “Where you been, little sister?” David asked me. He and Gabby were on the other side of the table with a plate of brownies between them.

  “I finished the book.”

  “What?” Gabby’s eyes got round. “Have you been writing since you called me? The day Greg left? But that was weeks ago.”

  Chandler lifted his hand for a high five. “Holy crap, that’s fabulous! If it wasn’t breakfast time, I’d order champagne.”

  Gabby popped up from her seat and came around to hug me, plying my face with kisses, and David grinned, his hair like a tumbleweed, and it seemed like he might have crawled out of bed, but he was handsome in his messy, discombobulated way. I could feel myself relaxing, cursing Emma for making me doubt the people I loved most.

  The croissant I’d bitten into was still warm, and I felt like I’d woken up in heaven. “Would you please forget about me? Odion, open the damn”—I saw Mads cover her ears—“I mean darn. Open the darn envelope.”

  “In a minute,” Odion told me. “Too many nerves right now.”

  I took another bite of the croissant, and I felt all happy again, my friends around me, relishing in my accomplishment like it was theirs too, and I guess it was. I made myself push out my suspicions. I couldn’t let Larry Cauchek and Emma control me like this. Patrick was right. The police knew how to do their jobs, and they must have ruled all of us out. “Gabby,” I said when she was done mauling me, “how’s training going for Hoka Hey?”

  “Oh,” she said lightly. “I decided not to do it.”

  “What?”

  The table got quiet. I felt my heart lift; I was so relieved I could hardly breathe.

  “I don’t know,” she said. She was smiling so grandly I thought she was going to tell me she had won the lottery. “I feel like, you know, it’s dangerous.” She took a piece of brownie from the plate she was sharing with David. “And there are other things I want to be doing with my time.” She glanced at my brother, who was chewing as if he’d never tasted anything that delicious before in his life.

  “Well, that’s great,” I said. “I mean, as long as you’re happy.”

  Odion and Chandler were busying themselves with Madelyn, offering her juice in a sippy cup.

  “It’s still sort of surprising,” I said. But no one except me seemed shocked.

  “Now.” Odion stood. “Now I am ready.”

  Chandler handed him the envelope, and he opened it with his eyes closed. He pulled out the letter and opened his eyes, and as he read, his face went blank.

  “Shit,” Chandler whispered. Then louder, “Hon, what does it say?”

  Odion began saying the Pledge of Allegiance. We all tried to clap when he was done, but then, before we could get the applause out, he put his hand on his heart and started singing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” his tenor voice so gorgeous the whole restaurant went silent. Even Sassafrass quit clinking dishes in back. I felt myself starting to cry, and when I looked over at Gabby, she had tears running down her face. So did Chandler, and so, to my astonishment, did David. Only Madelyn was smiling happily as if she’d made the song up herself. By the time he finished, our whole table got up and clapped and hugged him, and then I saw that everyone else was clapping too.

  CHAPTER

  43

  After I left Cookies, with the book done and Greg still away, I had nothing to do and nowhere to be. I thought about going to the prison to get one more sit-down with Larry Cauchek, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I got in my car and started to head home, but I decided I had to talk to my friends and family one by one. I knew none of them had killed Savannah. Now I needed each of them to tell me. I stopped at a convenience store and grabbed a few things I’d run out of over the weeks, mainly toilet paper and toothpaste.

  I called Gabby on my way to her house. “I’m coming over,” I told her answering machine. I was shaking with nerves. “There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.”

  There was only one, but I thought it sounded less ominous. When I turned onto her street, I saw her motorcycle and little MG parked side by side in the driveway behind David’s Honda. He was probably changing a lightbulb or the AC filter. Gabby was not handy when it came to her house, which struck me as odd since she was normally so self-sufficient. I took the stairs two at a time and knocked quickly before bursting into her place. She wasn’t in the living room, but I heard her laugh down the hallway and I half ran there, calling her name.

  She said something back, or I thought she did, but I couldn’t hear what, and when I saw her bedroom door ajar, I went right in. And there she was, stark naked, lying beside my brother, her head on his chest like this was the most normal thing in the world, and he had his arm around her. Milky Chance was playing on the radio, and there were panties and boxers on the floor. As soon as she saw me, she bolted up.

  “Cady!”

  David was frantically trying to cover himself up.

  “What the fuck.” I looked from him to her and back again. “You two are sleeping together?”

  “Well,” David started, “it’s a lot more than that.”

  “We’ve been wanting to tell you,” Gabby said, bringing the sheet up to her chin as if I hadn’t seen her naked a million times before. “But you’ve been on the binge, and we want you to be happy for us, because we love you so much—”

  “And we love each other,” David added, still trying to get the sheet from the bottom of the bed around him without showing me his ass.

  “You guys are together?” I ran my hand through my hair. I couldn’t quite believe it. I thought I was having one of those weird, delirious dreams I had while I was binge writing. “What happened to the Minnesota girl?”

  “That was one dinner months ago,” David said. “I’ve been in love with Gabby forever. Even while I was with Emma.”

  “We couldn’t stop thinking about each other,” Gabby said. “And when we wanted to tell you, you holed yourself up finishing your book.”

  I started backing out the door.

  “Don’t go!” Gabby jumped up with the sheet over her. “We adore you, Cady. We want it to be a good thing. We can all be together, you know, like a family.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I told them. “I really am, but I have a lot of shit going on in my head, and I’d really rather not work it out while you two are naked.”

  Gabby jumped off the bed and tried to stop me.

  “Please,” I said. I didn’t want to say that I couldn’t let go of what she’d written in a notebook almost twenty years before. “I’ll be back later, okay? I’ll call you guys tomorrow.” I started out the doorway and then turned to them. “I’m thrilled for you two. I really am. Love you both so much.” And then I was backing out of the bedroom, running down the hall and out the door. And I realized that I was jealous, not because they were together and seemed so happy but now they had true love like Savannah had had, and where was mine?

  CHAPTER

  44

  When I got home from Gabby’s, I called Brady and told him I’d been held hostage by my book but that I wanted to see him. Maybe he could help me understand what Gabby had written and all the terrible things Emma had said to me. I slipped in that Greg was away, so anytime the next day was fine. I waited while I ate dinner and watched the news and took a shower, and then he called. He said he could meet me at my house at one thirty. I thought I should ask how Colette was doing, but I didn’t want to bring it up if he wasn’t ready to talk about it, so I hung up without saying a thing.

  I was reading in bed when I hear
d a noise. Putting down my book, I listened. I heard it again, and I felt myself go completely stiff. When it happened a third time, my heart started beating hard. I kicked off the covers and went through the halls with a gigantic cop flashlight I kept under the bed.

  Our house was alarmed. The man who installed it said it could never be tripped, because it was on a complicated sensor system that ran underground. It cost a fortune to dig, but it was the only way I agreed to buy the house. I knew I shouldn’t be afraid since it was the kind of alarm places like the White House used. In the living room, I found the culprit. A maple branch had lost one of its limbs; it had broken but never dropped, and it was brushing against one of the windows in the wind. As I stood about to draw the blinds, I caught sight of myself in the black reflection of the glass. What surprised me most was that for one quick instant, I thought I saw Savannah. It didn’t look porky enough to be me. Or maybe the fat me was a product of my imagination. I found myself suddenly not able to stand, and I sat down in front of the window, hardly able to breathe. It scared me to think I didn’t have my weight around me, my scar tissue, Greg had once called it. It was what had kept me safe and insulated all these years after Savannah’s murder.

  And then, I can’t say why, I picked up the phone and scrolled through the numbers until I found Dr. Mirando’s. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Dr. Mirando?” I said.

  “How are you, Cady?”

  “I count,” I told him as if we’d never finished our conversation. I wondered what he was doing in the office or if his patient calls were wired to his home and if I had woken his wife. Or maybe my fantasy about him was wrong. Maybe there was no wife. “I count the days since she was murdered.” Dr. Mirando didn’t ask me who I was talking about, and it occurred to me he was well aware of my story. “I count, and I write about what I know. I’ve sold a boatload of books, but I never wanted it. It was just a way to get through the days without her. Like the counting.” I was running at the mouth, like I always did with him, and I realized maybe that’s what made him a good therapist. “But I made a good living off the books, and I feel so guilty about it. I had no interest in writing anything after Alibi, but Greg encouraged me to. He called it my therapy. That’s what he does; he tells me things are good for me because they’re really good for him.” I could hear Greg as if he were in the room using that same soothing shrink tone he probably used with patients. “I mean, it’s not his fault, I know that. It’s—” I could feel the tightening in my chest, and it was getting harder to breathe. “Every single thing I’ve done since she was killed is because of her. Living in Stanwich, marrying Greg, staying fat … I don’t really know what’s me, and I need to find out,” I said. “I really have to get on with my life.”