Find Her

by Lisa Gardner

  Again, that strange sense of déjà vu.

  Ghost girl.

  It came to me: the new dress, new shoes, combined with Everett’s fresh rage. This was it. He’d always warned me, the day he grew bored, that would be that.

  He’d shoot me. Strangle me. Stab me. I couldn’t even remember anymore. So many methods he’d discussed. But it all ended the same. My body dumped in Gator Alley. My mother never knowing what happened to me.

  Bathroom door opened. Everett stalked out, hands fisted at his sides.

  “We’re going out,” he announced.

  I trailed out the door behind him.

  Ghost girls didn’t argue.

  Ghost girls never stood a chance.

  * * *

  BAR WAS A SMALL HONKY-TONK. Peanut shells on the floor. Alan Jackson on the jukebox. Crowded. Was it a Friday night? Saturday? Days of the week challenged me. As well as cities, states, basic geography.

  I saw men in jeans and T-shirts, women in tighter-fitting jeans and T-shirts. Definitely, no one in a clingy red dress.

  Patrons stared at me when we first walked in, gazes flickering to Everett. But no flashes of recognition, no twinges of suspicion. After all this time, I didn’t expect anyone to look at us twice. Even now, one by one, they shrugged off the sight of a too-pale, too-skinny girl in a hooker’s dress and resumed their drinking.

  Everett, after all these days, weeks, months of instructing me to keep my head down and my mouth shut, actually beamed at my side. Which only heightened my tension.

  Ghost girl drifting through the bar. Ghost girl ordering a beer.

  Did my head nod along in time with the music? Did I tap my fingers against the shiny wood top? Old habits from a former life, when bars were fun and life was meant to be lived and you never knew what good time waited just around the corner?

  Beside me, Everett chugged his beer, tossed back a shot, then demanded a second round. He could drink. Hard. Often. But rarely at bars. Too expensive, he’d complain. Why pay some assholes four times more for something he could buy cheaper on his own?

  But tonight, he was running up the bill. Drumming his fingers relentlessly against the scarred bar top. Gaze roaming the room.

  “You’re the prettiest girl here,” he said.

  I paused, gaze fixed forward, hands wrapped tight around my sweaty bottle of Bud. I took a sip.

  “You heard me.” He tossed back his whiskey. “Prettiest girl here. You should keep your hair red. I like it.”

  He set down the shot glass, placed his fingers on the bare skin of my neck. I didn’t flinch. All this time later, I just stared at him and wondered what he was going to do next.

  He laughed. He ordered another round. And he kept his left hand curled around the nape of my neck, that hard, glittering look in his eyes.

  I sipped my beer. Ghost girl just trying to get through.

  Then, I made a mistake. Glanced up. Happened to spot a guy at the end of the bar who was staring hard at me.

  Everett, who missed nothing: “Go on. Walk right over to him. Tell him you’re a kidnapped girl. See if he’ll save you.”

  I shook my head slightly, reverted my attention back to my beer. My second, my third? The night was moving too fast. And Everett was scaring me.

  “What’s your name?” Everett leaned down, his drunken breath whispering across my cheek.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Seriously. I mean it. What’s your name?”

  “Molly,” I murmured, gaze fixed on my bottle of Bud.

  “Nah. Fuck that. Your name, your name, your name. Your real name?”

  I looked up. I couldn’t help myself. I stared at him a very long time. His flushed face, his overbright eyes.

  He’s using, I realized. Something other than just alcohol. The mood swings, tension, all-night sex marathons. He was on something. Everett on a drinking binge was scary enough. This, I couldn’t imagine.

  “Please,” I whispered. Pleaded. Though what did it matter? When had my begging ever made a difference?

  “Do you know what today is?” he asked abruptly.

  “No.”

  “It’s our anniversary, sweetheart. One year. One full year. Just you and me. Now how about that.”

  He clinked his shot glass against my beer bottle, tossed back the whiskey, and twirled his finger for a fresh round.

  I couldn’t breathe. I found myself staring at him, his red-flushed cheeks, bloated face, greasy hair. But in my mind, I was somewhere else. Far and distant, where the wind in the trees blew clean and crisp, and there, just for an instant . . . a fox darting behind a bush.

  “You’re dead.”

  He spoke the words matter-of-factly, jarring me out of my reverie.

  Bartender was back. Shot and a beer for Everett. Fresh Bud for me. I wish I had water. I really could use a glass of water.

  “Know how they look for missing girls? Always search the hardest the first forty-eight hours. Then, of course, make a show of it for a week, or two or three, feed headlines to the local news. I know you saw your mom on TV one afternoon. ’Course, she made a big show of it. ’Cause that’s what happens for a bit. But fifty-two weeks later? You’re not front-page news anymore, little girl. Not even yesterday’s leftovers. Hell, six, eight, a dozen other pretty young things have disappeared between then and now. They get the headlines now. You . . . You’re already filed away. Even now, some detective’s sitting around, trying to work up the courage to call your mom and explain about how gators get the job done.

  “Think she’ll do a service? I mean, even without the body. Maybe just a little gathering, family and friends. Put your memory to rest.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “You want that, don’t you?” His voice dropped low, sounded nearly concerned. “You want your mama to move on with her life, right? Not suffer forever.”

  “Is that what happened to Lindy?” I heard myself say. “You fed her to the gators too?”

  He recoiled slightly, fisting his shot glass. “Shut up, girl.”

  “Are you sorry? Do you wish you’d kept her longer? Is that why you still cry for her at night?”

  “Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth.”

  But I was on a roll. Powered by three beers, a too-tight, too-red dress, and the knowledge we were in a public place. Later he would make me pay, but for now, this moment on our one-year anniversary . . .

  “Did you love her?”

  In a flash, his left hand was on my neck. Fingers digging in, slowly tightening. But I kept my eyes open, my gaze on his face, and in that second, I saw it. Pain. Sharp and brittle. Followed by hurt. Long and deep.

  I still didn’t know how or why. But Lindy held power over him. Lindy, mythical, unknown Lindy, was everything I was not.

  “Jealous?” he drawled.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Probably then too.”

  “You’ll be all alone.”

  “Nah, just gotta head back to Florida. One-year anniversary. Don’t you know, it’s spring break.”

  I stared at him. On and on and on, and just for an instant . . . I could almost see us. After all this time of living minute to minute, of keeping my head down, of hoping, praying, begging just to survive.

  Here we were. One full year later. Beauty and the beast. A monster and his plaything.

  A young girl who was never going home again.

  “Do it,” I told him, and now my eyes were the ones that were overbright. “Now. Just squeeze your fingers. No one’s looking. It’ll be all over before they notice. Come on. I know you want to. Just kill me. Right. Now.”

  His face darkened. He did want to. The idea intoxicated him, excited him. I could
feel the roughness of his fingertips digging into my skin, itching to get it done.

  I’d die in a hooker’s dress. But at least here, in a public place, he’d have to flee, leave my body behind.

  Funny, the things you can come to view as a victory.

  “You’re gonna fuck that cowboy,” he said.

  “What?” The change in topic confused me.

  “End of the bar. Asshole who won’t stop looking at you. Come on now. Walk on down. Make his day.”

  “No.”

  “Why, too good for him?”

  I didn’t speak.

  “Tell him the truth. I don’t care. Tell him your name. What’s your name again?”

  I shook my head, clutched my beer. Why did he keep asking me that? My name, my name, my name. My real name. He was giving me a headache.

  “You’re done,” he whispered. “One year later, I bet your mama’s already cleaned out your room. Packed up all your little pom-poms and teddy bears. Put it all away. What do you think? She’ll turn the room into a home office? Maybe a craft center. But face it, if you showed up on her doorstop tomorrow, there’d be no place for you to stay. I’m all you have left. You and me, girl, till the end of time. Or tomorrow morning, when I wake up sick to death of you. Now. Cowboy. End of bar. Go fuck him.”

  “No.”

  His fingers moved. No longer squeezing. Stroking the back of my neck as the hair prickled on my skin.

  “You didn’t want me. Pretty girl like you. If I hadn’t grabbed you drunk and sloppy off that beach, you’d never have looked at me twice. But now you got me. I’ve fed you, clothed you. Hell, I’ve taken you out and showed you the country.”

  I didn’t speak.

  “I’m your first real man. First guy who told it to you straight, showed you the real world. Never lied, never prettied it up. Rest of your short life, wherever you go, whatever you do, you ain’t never gonna know another man like me.”

  I risked a glance up into his feverish eyes.

  “I’m your world, Molly. Your whole entire world. I am your everything. Except to me . . . you ain’t nothing but a piece of garbage. Here today, gone tomorrow. Replaced next time I head to Palm Beach. No one the wiser. Now. Cowboy. End of the bar. Do it.”

  “No.”

  “What the—”

  “Not on our anniversary.”

  He paused, scowled. Studied me.

  And I got it then. Ghost girl. The feeling of déjà vu that had been haunting me all night. Everett was mean. Everett was cruel. And one day, he would kill me, dump my body in a swamp.

  But now, tonight, he was also right.

  One year later, I was never going home.

  The girl I had once been, she was dead.

  And now, there was only me and my strange, twisted relationship with this man. I could keep going along, struggling through day to day. Or . . .

  I reached out and, for the first time of my own volition, placed my open palm on Everett’s chest. He startled. Couldn’t help himself. And for just an instant, I caught it in his eyes. Uncertainty. Longing. Fear.

  Emotions I associated with Lindy, now slowly but surely being transferred to me.

  No one likes being alone. Not even the monster under the bed.

  I rose off my stool. I took the shot glass from his hand. Then I leaned forward, and with my entire body pressed against his, I whispered, “I want a present.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “A gift. For our anniversary.”

  “Now, girl—”

  “Your name. Your real name. Isn’t that what you’ve been asking me all night? I think you’re right. We are special. Meant to be. I want to know your real name. One year later, what can it hurt?”

  He eyed me, my lips so close to his own. I could see him thinking. I could see him considering. Then I felt his hands on my hips.

  “Jacob,” he said roughly. “My name is Jacob.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Jacob. Now, take me home and I’ll show you how much I appreciate a real man like you.”

  Chapter 28

  D.D. ARRIVED HOME just in time to put Jack to bed. His little round face lit up at first sight of her, stubby arms reaching out. And she felt the customary pang in her chest. A love a suspected killer had once warned her about, the kind of deep powerful emotion that would move mountains. And yes, if the occasion warranted it, justify pulling the trigger.

  But for now, she didn’t have to worry about such dark things. For now she got to nestle beside her little man, tucked in tight in his wooden red race car bed, and open up The Runaway Bunny.

  Alex watched from the doorway, a smile on his face. From time to time, she glanced over at him, sticking out her tongue, crossing her eyes. Family fun with both her favorite guys. There had been a time in D.D.’s life she never would’ve thought she could have all this. Now, it amazed her that she’d ever gone without. Especially after a day like today, she needed this. Alex, Jack, her family, these moments, they grounded her.

  And not for the first time, she wondered what she would do if something ever happened to her son. Twelve years from now, a phone ringing in the middle of the night, announcing her teenage son had disappeared. D.D. honestly didn’t know where mothers like Rosa Dane, fathers like Colin Summers, found the strength to carry on.

  Of course, family life wasn’t all fairy tales. D.D.’s job was demanding, and Jack had officially reached the age where he had his opinions on the subject. She’d been gone most of the weekend. Home just in time for a story.

  So of course, the moment she closed the book, climbed—cumbersomely—off the low-slung toddler bed, the theatrics began.

  Sticking out his bottom lip. Staring at her with liquid-blue eyes so much like her own. Alex had given him a bath before bedtime, and now Jack’s light brown hair stood up on the top of his head, world’s cutest mohawk.

  “Good night,” D.D. repeated firmly.

  Quivering. The bottom lip. The whole chin. And then . . .

  Full-frontal assault. Launching his little body across the toddler bed and slapping arms and legs around D.D.’s body. She staggered back, hands dropping down belatedly to strong little arms that had already attached themselves with the strength of octopus tentacles. Serial killers she could handle. But God save her from the strength of a little boy who didn’t want to go to bed.

  She could hear laughter behind her. Alex, enjoying the show. And, of course, making no moves to intervene. He’d already spent the weekend battling the kid. This was all on her.

  Toddlers, D.D. had learned, were a lot like criminals. You basically had two options for management: promise a reward or threaten with punishment.

  She couldn’t punish her son for missing her as much as she missed him, so she went with the promise of a second story if he’d get back into bed. Which led to a third, then a fourth, before his heavy-lidded eyes finally sagged closed, and she staggered out of the race car bed, feeling Jack had probably won that war but officially too tired to care.

  Alex was waiting for her in the family room. He had poured two glasses of red wine, and had an ice pack at the ready.

  “I’m not sure which of these I’m looking forward to more,” she said, gaze bouncing between the wine, the ice, the wine again. “How sad is that?”

  He smiled, helped her shrug out of her leather jacket. Ice pack on the shoulder, wineglass in hand, life was good again. She sat back on the sofa, put her feet up on the coffee table, and sighed.

  “How is your vigilante?” he asked.

  “Missing.”

  “Fled from the new sheriff in town?”

  “No.” She turned her head against the sofa cushion to regard him seriously. “We think she might’ve been kidnapped. Maybe even by the same person who abducted Stacey Summers.”

  He made her start at the beginning. Which, given how many hours
she’d logged in the past forty-eight, should’ve been draining. But the crazy part of marriage, D.D. had discovered, was that no matter what her day had been like, it didn’t feel completely true or real or meaningful until she’d come home and shared it with Alex. Of course, him being a crime scene specialist—blood spatter, more specifically—didn’t hurt. He often saw or thought of things she’d overlooked.

  “Any video?” he asked now, referring to footage collected from local security and traffic cams.

  “When I left, the first batch of videos was just arriving. The new detective, Carol, promised to stay to sort through them.”

  “Just the way you say her name makes it sound like you’re biting into a pickle.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She glared at him. “In the morning, we’ll see how she did.”

  “But you’re not releasing anything to the press?”

  She sighed, took a sip of wine. “Tougher call. It’s going to be a media sensation, no doubt about it. Semifamous former kidnapping victim abducted again? We want to get our ducks in a row. Confirm she absolutely, positively has been abducted before we lead with a story that’s going to bring all the crazies out of the woodwork.”

  “What kind of confirmation?”

  “A clip from the video feeds? Say, an actual shot of Flora being dragged from her apartment? Or, now that we have the pass code to her phone, maybe some kind of proof she was definitely investigating Stacey’s disappearance or, even better, had a solid lead that may have gotten her in trouble? Let’s face it, second we announce this kind of news it’s going to be a media circus. Which, unfortunately, will take time, energy, and manpower away from the actual search for Flora and Stacey. The mom doesn’t mind keeping quiet for now. My impression is that she has no love for the press.”

  “But if Flora really is missing . . . ,” Alex countered.

  “Then we need to find more witnesses and engage the public in the hunt, which calls for a press conference.”