Paul was studying my features and I watched his eyes float down to my lips and then slowly inch their way back up. ‘You haven’t changed, Em. You’ve only gotten prettier. I’m so happy you’re home.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Suck me in again with your charming bullshit. I fell for it once and I won’t do it again. Plus, you need to focus every ounce of your attention on finding out where my sister is.’
‘What makes you think it was bullshit?’
‘You stood me up for the fucking prom, Paul! You broke my heart.’
His face crumpled in on itself, as though he was the one who got hurt and not the other way around.
‘What is the plan for finding my sister? Because I’m not home, I’m not back … I just want to find her and make sure my niece and nephew are safe.’ Pushing back my chair, I winced as it let out a high-pitched squeak.
‘If it’s okay, I’m going to call the tech guys over here when they’re finished with the Jeep. I’ve already contacted other nearby departments. We’re on the lookout for a…’ Paul stopped.
‘A body,’ I finished for him.
Paul nodded, his eyes calm and gray in the dim light. ‘Hopefully not. But we have to consider that possibility. I won’t disappoint you this time. I’ll find your sister, if it’s the last thing I do.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
I sucked my teeth and chewed on a jagged hangnail as I watched three different officers, all probably under the age of twenty, drift in and out of my sister’s house. I stayed put in my sister’s desk chair, watching Paul instruct them. First, they went in Madi’s bedroom and back around the side of the house. Fingerprinting the window on both sides, no doubt.
Another officer was dusting for prints in the kitchen and bedrooms. I suggested they check out the upstairs, too.
Watching this scene, it was like I was in some sort of made-for-TV movie, or an episode of CSI. Only not. I didn’t feel good about this. It wasn’t until after half an hour of watching them skim the carpets and walls for any signs of blood or clues that I realized one important thing – John’s prints were all over this place. As they should be – he’d lived here. If he was suspect number one, finding his prints didn’t mean squat.
My mind kept circling back to John and his new girlfriend. They were the only ones with a motive, weren’t they? Even though he seemed like a jerk, I couldn’t imagine him waltzing in here, while we were sleeping, and hurting my sister. I would have heard something, wouldn’t I?
‘What if you find a foreign print? One that doesn’t match up to my sister, John, me, or the kids?’ I asked Paul.
His back was turned to me and he almost looked irritated by my question when he turned around. Then his face softened. ‘Don’t worry. John’s prints are on file because of his gun permit. I think we can isolate some prints to determine which ones belong to your sister. And the small prints, of course, belong to the children. I will need to get your prints though, just to exclude them.’
My mind was still stuck on ‘gun permit’. ‘John owns a gun?’ The blood in my veins would have turned to ice if it could have. I thought back to that morning – the loud shaking of thunder, the storms that lasted through the night. I didn’t think I’d heard a gunshot, but even if there was one, it might have been blocked out by the sounds of thunder.
‘Most people in this town own a gun, Emily.’
Ignoring him, I said, ‘The bloody spot on the headrest. Could it have been from a gunshot wound to the head?’ I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying not to picture my sister’s familiar face being blown apart with a bullet.
‘Well, that’s what the tech guys are working on. If she was shot in the Jeep, there would be blood spatter and a bullet hole, most likely.’ One of the young officers had stopped what he was doing on the floor and was watching Paul. Paul looked from him to me. ‘I – I can’t give you all the details yet, Emily. I’m sorry. But I don’t think anyone was shot in the car. The blood didn’t look like enough to be a fatal wound to me…’
But any sort of wound to the head could be deadly, I thought.
As they went back to work, I slipped out through the front door. It was almost dark, but it felt like a sauna out here. My eyes drifted across the field to Albert’s cabin. Once again, his curtains were moving – either he was watching or there was an air vent right beneath his living room window. After hearing his story, I didn’t consider him a suspect. And even if he was, Madi could have outrun him or fought him off…
My sister’s driveway was full of cars, vehicles belonging to the other officers. A couple were police-issued cars, but the others were just their personal vehicles.
I walked around the house, skimming the yard for clues. It had been raining all that night and morning, right before she disappeared. If there were any significant clues on the ground, they’d probably be washed away by now.
Once I reached the backyard, I headed down to the woods. It was the last place I wanted to go to, but there could be clues down there. Nothing could be overlooked and there was no room for my silly, irrational fears right now…
I took my time going down the steep dirt path, careful not to slip this time. Finally, the land bottomed out, and I was able to skim the ground for clues. I focused on the ground, instead of the trees, breathing deeply through my nose.
I felt jumpy though, my skin crawling. There were a million tiny noises that filled the silence of the woods – the rustling of leaves, the cracking of oak, the scurrying of squirrels on the ground and birds above…
I followed the sounds of the creek, retracing my steps from earlier, but then I stopped, staring at a small pile of garbage on the ground I hadn’t noticed earlier. An empty can of RC Cola – I hadn’t seen this brand in years, but the can looked fresh. Beside it was an empty granola bar wrapper and a flattened spot in the leaves. Was someone camped out down here recently?
I picked up the can and turned it over and back. It looked shiny, not dull and rusted like other old cans. This came from someone who was down here recently, I was sure of it.
I squatted down on the ground beside it and looked up toward my sister’s house. Gasping, I realized there was a direct line of sight – a gap between two trees, that offered a perfect view of my sister’s kitchen window. The curtains to the kitchen were parted and from here, I could see two of the officers talking in front of the window.
Was somebody watching my sister’s house? Immediately, my thoughts strayed back to John. But why would he sit in the woods and spy on his own family? That didn’t make much sense either.
My fingers fluttered, teasing their way up to the scar on my head … I’d always assumed what happened in these woods had just been an accident, but what if it wasn’t? For the first time, I seriously considered the possibility that my injury could have been caused by someone else. But who? The same person who was watching Madi and her family?
I stared down at the can and wrapper, my hands still shaking. I would give them to Paul. Maybe he could fingerprint them or do some sort of DNA testing…
But before I touched them, I wanted to explore the woods more. I needed to.
This time, I followed the flow of the creek, counting back from one hundred to keep myself calm. Delving deeper into the rocky ups and downs, I was careful to watch my step this time, and maintain a sense of reality. My sister is my only focus.
I didn’t remember where I fell, or how it happened in the first place. My dreams were so cloudy and strange, and who knew if any of the flashes were accurate, or if I’d just filled in the blanks over the years. I remembered the story from my sister’s point of view; Mom shouting for me to come in for dinner. When I didn’t respond, she’d sent my sister out to get me. She’d found me flat on my back, a thick pool of blood beneath my head. I was unconscious, but breathing, my pulse thready. Madi had screamed for my mom, who’d then screamed for my dad. They’d lifted me from the ground and they took me to the nearest hospital. I’d w
oken up in a bright white room, my parents and sister surrounding me. The last memory I have of that day was riding the bus home from school – everything else after that was gone or buried too deep inside myself to recall.
The doctor said it was normal. Trauma victims often experience short-term memory loss. They called it post-traumatic amnesia. All I knew was that I’d suffered from severe headaches ever since and beneath my hair, there was an ugly, crescent-moon gash that ran from one side of my scalp to the other, horizontally. If I ever went bald, I would look like the bride of Frankenstein. I’d never told anyone this – but when I touched the scar, I couldn’t even feel it. It was as if that part of my head had lost all feeling completely.
I kept my eye out for more garbage, or clues of some kind. There were some grotty Styrofoam cups, spongy old packs of cigarettes, a smear of rotten meat from an old food can where animals had scavenged for it. But these all looked old, like something washed up by the creek or dragged around by animals.
I knew I should go back, get Paul, and show him the can and wrapper. But my feet betrayed me, pressing forward, zeroing in on some unknown goal. I followed the gentle rise and fall of the forest floor, batting away branches and careful to avoid poison ivy. I walked until I could see the shimmer of Moon Lake. And finally, standing at its edge, I stared down into the murky black water.
Moon Lake was less of a lake, and more of a pond. I hadn’t been here since I was a kid. Back then, the water had seemed bluer and greener, and bigger too.
But I didn’t trust my memories of the woods or the lake anymore.
Why am I here? Why did I walk all the way down here? Deep down, I already knew the answer to that – the gnawing, rotten feeling in my gut that maybe, just maybe, my sister’s bloated corpse was somewhere beneath this water.
The lake had been all but forgotten. No one came here anymore, not to fish or skip rocks. At least I didn’t think so. The grass and cattails were wild and tall, like no one had been here for years. Eighteen years ago, they dragged this lake, looking for a body – the missing girl from my class, Sarah Goins. Townspeople were certain this was where they would find her – her family farm was less than half a mile from here.
I had been so young, and my parents didn’t tell me anything about it, but I knew about the lake, and I knew they looked for her body. Kids at school whispered her name down the hallways, her name less of a childish chant, and more like a warning whisper … the girl who disappeared.
Now here I was, almost twenty years later, wondering if my sister was somewhere beneath these murky waters. If I was a killer, I would dispose of her body right here.
And if someone was watching her from the woods and, somehow, dragged her out of the house and hurt her, this would be an easy spot to get rid of her. But the fact that the Jeep was found parked high on the bluff threw that theory out the window. My sister had been in her Jeep, or maybe … maybe the blood on the headrest didn’t belong to her. Maybe it belonged to someone else—the person who took her. Maybe Madi fought back.
I turned around, frantic to go find Paul and the other officers. I had to tell them—they needed to drag the lake again. I had to know if my sister was beneath these murky, old waters…
As I slid through a gap in the trees and entered the woods again, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, on a thick oak tree, were mine and Paul’s initials. Like some childish cliché, we had, apparently, carved the first letters of our names into a flat spot on the bark.
Moving closer, I traced the initials with my fingertips: E.A. + P.T. It was so cheesy, it almost made me blush. But then I remembered the water and my sister, and nothing seemed important besides finding out what had happened to her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By the time I made it back, the officers were packing up their kits and Paul was furious with me. ‘I didn’t know where you’d gone.’ The other officers were watching us again, playful smiles on their faces. For some reason, their cheeriness pissed me off. My sister is missing, dammit!
‘Don’t mind me, I was just doing your jobs for you!’ I shouted back. Their smiles faded away, and Paul looked stricken. ‘Someone was watching her from those woods.’ I pointed, wildly. ‘It looks like someone was sitting out there, watching my sister, all the while having a snack. You need to do DNA testing. And … you also need to drag that lake. Maybe she fought back, and whoever took her got hurt before he drove off in her Jeep. That could be the killer’s blood on the headrest. And the water … there’s a body of water in those woods, in case you guys didn’t know.’ I aimed these last words at the young officers. They probably knew nothing about those woods, but Paul did.
‘Please. I need to know if she’s in there,’ I cried, desperate.
Paul, no longer caring what his fellow officers thought, wrapped me in his arms and pulled me close. Much to my dismay, I started sobbing into his chest.
‘Do you remember that girl who disappeared when we were kids?’ I mumbled.
‘What?’ He pushed back on my shoulders and gave me a look I couldn’t define. ‘Sarah Goins. How could I forget it?’
‘They dragged that lake down there when she went missing. They can do it again,’ I told him.
Paul nodded. ‘That was when I was a kid, too, so I don’t remember exactly how it went down … but I’m pretty sure they’ll have to bring in specialized divers for that.’
‘So, what are you saying – they won’t do it?’
‘They will, if it comes to that. Boys, stop loading up. We need to go down to the woods to collect more evidence.’
I stood at the kitchen window, the same window that some creep had probably watched my sister from his perch in the woods. Watching the officers disappear between the trees, all I could feel was impending doom. Was there a chance that my sister could still be alive?
I hadn’t eaten all day, but I wasn’t hungry. I opened and closed my sister’s refrigerator, staring at Ben’s drawings of Five Nights at Freddy’s and Shelley’s drawings of swirly pink and purple clouds and tiny yellow hearts. I wondered what they were doing right now. Were they worried about their mother? Shelley seemed so young and resilient, but Ben was fragile. I could imagine him right now, rocking back and forth at Starla’s house, his entire routine thrown off even more than it already had been.
There was a loaf of bread and a bruised bunch of bananas. I pulled a slice off the loaf and chewed it, not tasting the food. From here, I could see shadowy figures moving through the woods – the officers were searching. Maybe, just maybe, they’d find out what really happened to Madeline.
By the time they were done, it was well past dark. The other officers didn’t come back inside; they loaded up the rest of their supplies and pulled out of the driveway, one by one. Only Paul’s cruiser remained.
‘Do you want me to stay for a while?’ Before I could tell him no, he said, ‘Or, if you don’t want to stay here, you can come stay at my dad’s, with me. I still live off Painter’s Creek. There’s a couple empty beds that used to be my brothers. I could…’
‘Thanks, but no. I want to stay here, in case John needs to bring the kids back for some reason, or in case my sister shows up. Did you find anything else?’
Paul shook his head and said, ‘No. I bagged and tagged the can and wrapper you told me about. And I bagged some other garbage and cigarette butts, too, but most of those looked old.’
Suddenly, I felt exhausted, the strain of the last few days rushing over me. ‘Will you call me tomorrow and let me know what you find out about the Jeep and fingerprints? And will you ask them to search the lake?’
‘Of course.’ Paul leaned forward and kissed my cheek, his lips lingering so long I felt my chest stiffen.
‘Thanks,’ I said awkwardly. Then I closed the door.
***
I could have watched TV or read a book, but there was no way I could focus on anything right now. My own life had become its own version of a horror novel.
Out of pure desperation, I tried to cal
l Madeline nearly a dozen more times. Each time it went straight to voicemail. On my last try, I left a pathetic message, begging her to call me.
I had a few more missed calls from my landlord, but I couldn’t call him back right now. Somehow, doing anything normal, anything at all, seemed like a betrayal to my sister. I tried to imagine what she would do if it were the other way around – me missing instead of her.
She’d demand a full-on search party. Hell, the lake would already be full of divers. My sister was kind, but she was stubborn and headstrong. If she wanted something done, it would be. Self-consciously, I fingered the thin white scars on my wrists.
Sometimes I wondered if I did it because of her. Not because of her – it certainly wasn’t her fault – but because I felt like I was losing her. We were best friends and then we weren’t – she was caught up in anything and everything that had to do with Jessica and Rhonda. I stopped being her confidant and became a nuisance to her and her friends. And then there was Paul; we were inseparable. In fact, it was because of him that I was able to deal with the growing distance between Madi and me. But then, like Madi, he dropped me like a bad habit. He stopped talking to me and started avoiding me at school right after the prom.
It hurt, losing the only two people besides my parents that I cared about. Maybe cutting my wrists was less an attempt at harming myself, and more of an attempt to win them back. But my suicide attempt only pushed them farther away; I pushed everyone away, including my parents. And in addition to all the things I already was, I became ‘that girl who slit her wrists’ around town. It was no wonder I didn’t want to come back, there was nothing good about coming home. Bad memories, and after what happened to Madi, maybe bad people too…
My Sister is Missing Page 11