Beautiful Lies

by Jessica Warman

  “Promise me,” she repeats.

  Even as I nod, my neck begins to stiffen.

  “Good.” She smiles. “I knew I would find you, Alice. I knew you would help me.”

  She begins to walk away, more quickly this time, hurrying along without stopping to look for the monkey anymore. As she recedes into the distance, her form starts to blur, until she is so far away that I can’t even recognize her. I watch, helpless, until she disappears, her body slipping out of sight like she’s been swallowed by the horizon.

  When I look down at the path again, I see the long, crooked trail of blood that she has left behind, a horrifying series of connect-the-dots, their color throbbing beneath the light, threatening to burst at any moment. If I could only move, I could follow them. I’m certain they would lead me right to her.

  But I can’t do anything. I can’t even blink anymore. All I can do is stare straight ahead, hoping for another glimpse of her even as the light begins to fade all around me.

  As the darkness grows, there is a brief flash of white light at the horizon, and another form appears. I can tell immediately that it’s not Rachel, though; it’s a man. At first I feel afraid as he approaches me slowly, seeming to take his time, almost like he knows I can’t go anywhere, that I have no choice but to wait for him.

  As he gets closer, even in the near-darkness, I can see that it’s Robin. His body radiates a soft, eerie glow from within; I can see his veins mapped out beneath his flesh, the textured fibers of his muscles; I notice that the hairs on his arms are flattened against his skin, curled into continuous swirling patterns, like they have been smoothed carefully into place. By the time he reaches me, as he stands just a few feet away, I realize that he’s soaking wet. His clothing clings to his body. His form ripples against the dark background, like there’s a wall of water separating us.

  As he reaches toward me, his hand breaks through the wall, and the water comes splashing down in a foamy wave, soaking the ground all around him. Somehow I remain completely dry.

  “I want to help you, Alice,” he says to me, putting a hand on my arm. His hand is cold. Even though I can’t shift my gaze to look downward, I can feel that his fingers are shriveled, like they’ve been soaking in water for a long time.

  I give him a desperate look, still unable to speak or move.

  “It’s too late for me,” he continues. “I would do anything to take it back, Alice, but I can’t. I have to keep going. It’s the way things are. A person can’t hold still forever.”

  He brings his face close to mine, so our noses are touching. “It’s too late for us, but it’s not too late for her. I promise.”

  I want to hold him so badly, to warm him with the heat from my body. But I can’t do anything. Even as he begins to back away, my body is so paralyzed that I can barely breathe.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he says. They are his last words to me. He turns, begins to walk into the darkness, the light around him receding as he moves forward, growing dimmer by the second like a flame deprived of oxygen, until it finally slips away completely. The last things I see before everything around me goes black are his footprints on the path, their indentations filled with muddy water, one after another arranged in a meandering line that runs parallel to Rachel’s trail of blood.

  The air grows very cold all around me as I stand in complete darkness, frozen in place. My mouth is dry, but I can’t swallow. As I stand there, I am aware of someone lingering close behind me. I don’t know how, but I’m certain it’s a man—I’m also certain it isn’t Robin, not this time.

  I can hear him breathing as he watches me; I can sense his gaze at my back. He has been observing me the whole time, I know, even though I’ve only become aware of him now. I don’t know who he is, but I understand that he’s staying close for a reason, reassuring himself of my immobility, keeping watch in the dark, ready to pounce if I get too close to her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My room is warm and dim when I wake up after sleeping for over five hours. At least I’m not exhausted anymore; instead I feel bursting with energy. I have a vague recollection of my dream—or was it more of a nightmare?—but I can’t remember all the details now; the only thing I remember clearly is my sister’s insistence that I look for her monkey. She said it was important, I know, but I can’t recall if she told me why. There are blank spaces in my memory; even as I try to go over the day’s events, I find myself struggling to remember the simplest things: what I had for breakfast, whether or not I went to school. Every time I start to grasp on to something, it slips just out of reach.

  The only thing I know for sure is that Rachel was in the barn this afternoon. I remember my encounter with her clearly, right down to the moment she pulled out her front tooth. I slip my hand into my pocket, expecting to grasp the tooth again, to reassure myself of our interaction.

  It’s not there. I check my other pocket, but that’s empty too. I tug my sheets back, searching, trying to stay calm and convince myself that it easily could have fallen out somehow, that it could be anywhere. But where?

  The more I try to focus on specific events from the past few days, the more confused and frustrated I become. Even the details of Rachel’s disappearance are hard to recall. As I replay the events of Saturday evening in my mind, I feel uncertain that I’m remembering them correctly. We were in our room, getting ready for the fair. I was reluctant to go see our friends, since I’d recently grown apart from them so much. Rachel tried to reassure me that everything would be fine, and when that didn’t work, she offered to switch places, to make things easier for me.

  But maybe I’m wrong. Is that the way it happened? She had her back to me as she spoke; she was staring out our front window, looking at something, preoccupied. I couldn’t see her expression. The more I try to remember our conversation, the more scrambled it seems.

  She offered to take my place. She wanted to help me.

  It was her idea, not mine. I didn’t ask her to do it. I didn’t have to convince her.

  I didn’t.

  Just from glancing out my window, I can tell that it’s cold and damp outside. Even though it’s the last thing I want to do tonight, I know I have to go to work. After I told Officer “call me Ryan” Martin about the stolen money, he told me it was important that I try to act as normal as possible around Mr. Hahn. “If he does have something to do with Alice’s disappearance,” he’d told me, “then you don’t want to upset him or make him feel alarmed for any reason.” But I know now that the money didn’t have anything to do with Rachel’s disappearance. It couldn’t have; I just saw her, and she was safe. I can’t shake my confusion, though; pieces that fit together so perfectly in my mind just a few hours ago seem disjointed now; nothing makes sense the way it should. I try to concentrate, clinging to the things I know for sure: My sister is in my grandma’s barn. My body is falling apart. My thoughts are unclear and disjointed—maybe I’m actually getting sick. Maybe I’m exhausted, even though I slept all afternoon. I have to go to work, though. I promised Ryan. I’m not sure why I care so much about keeping my word to him; I just do.

  I decline a ride from my uncle; for some reason I prefer to walk, despite the lousy weather. As I approach the restaurant, I quickly scan the parking lot. Sure enough, Mr. Hahn’s black Mercedes—complete with tinted windows and a vanity license plate that reads YOURBOSS—is in its usual spot. The best I can do tonight is try to avoid him as much as possible.

  Mondays at the Yellow Moon are always slow. Since it’s more of a bar than a restaurant, the patrons who come early in the week tend to be regulars. When I get to work it’s 6:12, and there are a total of six customers. One of them is Holly; she’s sitting at a high-top table with Nicholas, where they’re deep in conversation, both of them eating french fries dipped in mayonnaise. Nicholas isn’t on the schedule to work tonight, but he tends to hang out here quite a bit anyway.

  Two of our regulars, a young married couple named Matt and Katie Follet, are alone at the
far end of the bar, drinking beer and giggling, their heads close together. A well-dressed couple who I don’t recognize are eating dinner at a corner table. Kimber is folding silverware into napkins at the servers’ station outside the kitchen doors. The bartender, Doug, leans against the wall while he reads a worn copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Charlie must be here somewhere, too, but I don’t see him.

  When Holly notices me, she nudges Nicholas, who waves me over to their table.

  “You’re late,” he says. “You were supposed to be here almost fifteen minutes ago.” He pauses. “Where’s Alice? She’s still gone?” There’s a map of Greensburg sitting in front of him, its margins scribbled with notes. Nicholas’s handwriting is like chicken scratch; I can’t make out what any of it says, but I assume it all has something to do with geocaching. He and Holly are obsessed.

  “Kimber told you already,” Holly says to Nicholas. She squeezes more mayonnaise onto the plate of fries. Gross.

  “You’re eating french fries? With mayo?” I ask. For as long as I’ve known her, Holly has been on some kind of diet.

  She nods. “The fries are baked. And the mayo is low-fat. You can’t tell the difference, though.” She shoves a fry toward my face. “Try it.”

  I turn my head away. “Ugh, no.” When I look at her again, I notice that she has a plastic silver star pinned to the front of her shirt. It looks like it came out of a Cracker Jack box. I point to it. “What’s that?”

  Holly beams. “It’s my prize. I found it this afternoon.”

  I lean in to take a closer look. “A prize for what?”

  “Geocaching.” I should have known. “It took me all week to track this down,” she tells me. “I finally found it taped to the bottom of a bench at the bus station.” She smirks at her boyfriend. “Nicholas is jealous.”

  I feel like I’m missing something. “But it’s plastic, isn’t it? What kind of prize is that?”

  Holly and Nicholas exchange an amused look. “It’s not the prize that matters,” Nicholas explains. “It’s the search.”

  “The quest,” Holly clarifies.

  Nicholas nods in agreement. “Yeah, the quest.”

  “Oh.” I frown. “So you don’t actually win anything valuable?”

  Nicholas is impatient. “Rachel, you’re not getting it. It’s the experience that counts. That’s what’s valuable.”

  Holly nods vigorously. “The quest,” she repeats. She picks up another mayonnaise-covered french fry and pops it into her mouth. “I can’t believe you don’t want to try this,” she says as she chews. “I’m telling you, it tastes exactly the same as regular mayo.”

  “It doesn’t taste the same. It tastes like shit.” Nicholas grins. “She hasn’t had anything full-fat in years, so she doesn’t know the difference. The mayo tastes like … I don’t know, like paste or something.”

  Holly sticks out her bottom lip in a pout. She bats her eyes at her boyfriend. “I don’t want to fight.”

  It’s like I’m not even here anymore. Nicholas puts an arm around her shoulders. “We aren’t fighting. Don’t worry, baby.” He brushes his fingers across the silver star. “I’m a little bit jealous. But I’m proud of you too.”

  She brings her face close to his, until their noses are touching. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  And then—as I’m standing right next to them—Holly picks up another fry, puts it in her mouth so a few inches are sticking out, and leans close so Nicholas can take a bite, his lips touching hers in a greasy kiss that continues as they both chew on their respective mouthfuls.

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m standing right here. It’s not awkward at all.”

  They ignore me for a few seconds. Finally, Nicholas pulls away. “My dad wants to see you in his office. He said to send you in as soon as you got here.”

  Fabulous. I try to act calm, but I can feel every muscle in my body tensing. “What does he want?”

  Nicholas rolls his eyes, oblivious to my anxiety. “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me anything.” He pauses. “Just … be nice to him, okay? He’s had a tough day.”

  Mr. Hahn’s office, which is at the end of a long hallway toward the back of the building, is thick with cigar smoke. I can smell it before I even knock on the door.

  “Yeah.” He doesn’t say “who is it” or “come in.” His voice is like oiled gravel. He clears his throat every few seconds, an act that produces sounds that I’d much rather not hear—especially not in the context of a restaurant. Mr. Hahn is wearing a white dress shirt that fits a little too tightly over his big belly. The rest of him is rail-thin. There’s a glass of scotch on his desk, which I can smell as soon as I walk into the room. I hate the smell of scotch. I try to breathe through my mouth as I take a seat in the chair across from his big mahogany desk, but it doesn’t help much.

  “I didn’t tell you to sit down, Rachel.” He’s doing some kind of paperwork. He doesn’t bother to look up at me. The scotch is so stomach-churning that it reminds me of the smell of black licorice, which reminds me of my sister.

  I stand up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Mr. Hahn finally looks at me. “You’re late.”

  “Yes.” I brush a few stray hairs from my face. “I got stuck at home. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  He takes a sip of scotch. “Where’s Alice?” He crosses his arms against his belly, still clutching the tumbler.

  Just breathe. Don’t gag. If you throw up in his office, he’ll definitely fire you. Although I ordinarily wouldn’t mind getting the ax, I’m sure my sister won’t be too pleased if I’ve lost her job by the time she comes home.

  “Alice isn’t here, Mr. Hahn.”

  He sticks his pinky finger into his left ear and wiggles it around, like he’s trying to scratch a deep itch. “Yeah, I know. Nicky told me she ran away again.” He means Nicholas. His dad is the only person who calls him Nicky.

  Mr. Hahn studies my face as he swirls the scotch around in his glass. “Can I ask you a question, Rachel?”

  I’m too nervous to look at him. I stare at my hands instead. “Okay.”

  “Why would the police want to ask me about your sister?”

  The room seems to have an echo all of a sudden. Even though he’s right in front of me, Mr. Hahn’s voice sounds far away. I feel like I’m shrinking into myself, like I might be able to disappear if I concentrate hard enough.

  I try to focus on taking deep, even breaths as I repeat exactly what Ryan told me to say if this situation came up. “My aunt and uncle called the police yesterday to report her missing. They’re talking to everyone who knows her.”

  “I see.” He takes another swig of scotch. “They asked me some pretty personal questions. About things that are none of their goddamn business.”

  I don’t say anything. I still can’t look at him, afraid my face will give something away.

  “Where do you think she is, Rachel? Do you have any idea?” Before I can answer him, he waves a bony hand through the air and says, “You know what? I don’t care. She was supposed to work tonight. She’s on the schedule until ten. Doesn’t matter where she went; she should be here.”

  He stands up. Finally, I force myself to meet his gaze. He gives me a sharp look as he continues to swirl his oily drink in the glass. “Your sister’s a little brat. You know that?” He peers into his glass, like he’s giving the matter deep thought. “Shows up late. Doesn’t show up. Always getting into trouble. Rude to customers.” Now he’s talking more to himself than he is to me. “Little brat,” he murmurs. Swig. “Little freaking brat.” It’s like I’m not even here anymore.

  “Is there anything else you want to talk about?” I ask. I’m doing my best not to say something I shouldn’t, but I know that I’m going to burst if I don’t get out of here soon. I feel claustrophobic, almost like I can’t breathe. I want to tell him off, to grab his drink and throw it in his face like a little brat should, but
I know it would be a big mistake.

  “Oh. Right.” He shakes the ice in his glass before taking one last drink. As he’s chomping on the ice cubes, he lets out a low belch. I have to look away and hold my breath, or else I’m going to puke all over his office.

  “Tell Alice she’s fired the next time you see her, okay? I’ve had enough of her shit. I’m trying to run a damn business here.”

  I nod. I take a big step backward, trying to pull deep breaths; I need fresh air so badly. The walls seem to ripple when I look at them. I want to go home.

  Out of nowhere, I am acutely aware of the pain in the back of my head. The bald spot is hidden by my partial ponytail, but I can feel the dull throb with every pulse of my heart. My wrists hurt, too, their marks covered by the cuffs of my shirt. Every time I move my arms, the fabric brushing against my skin sends tiny shivers of pain through my body.

  I can’t stop myself. “You’re a joke,” I blurt. Just as quickly, I clap a hand to my mouth. Shit.

  He pauses midswig, surprised, staring at me. “What did you say to me?”

  I reach behind myself, feeling around for the doorknob.

  “You’re not going anywhere yet. Say that again.”

  The façade of my sister has slipped away. It’s just me now. He’s a fool if he doesn’t recognize me as Alice.

  “I said you’re a joke. Everyone in town knows it. People laugh behind your back. They know you cheat on your wife. You’re an embarrassment to your family, especially your son. If I had a father like you—”

  “But you don’t,” he says calmly. He shakes his head, almost like he’s disappointed in me. “I’d expect this sort of shit from your sister, but not from you. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since you are twins.” He leans back in his chair and laces his fingers together behind his head. He seems to be enjoying himself. “The poor little orphan girls. Right? That’s what people say about you two, if you’re interested. There’s Rachel, the sweet one, and Alice, the screwup.” He laughs. “I guess you’re more alike than I thought.”