I see that you’re online! I SEE YOU! You’re not fooling anyone. What is your deal?
Dumbfounded, my fingers hovered above the keyboard. What was I supposed to say to that? Jessica obviously thought I was Madeline, and apparently, she, like the rest of the town, had heard about her disappearance.
I held my breath as I typed out a short reply: Why are you so worried about me keeping my mouth shut?
I couldn’t tell if she read my message or not, and no more bubbles appeared. I glared at the screen until the message box grew blurry, then I chugged the rest of the Red Bull.
While I waited for Jessica to respond, I snooped through more of her posts and pictures, hoping to see something that would catch my eye. There weren’t any pictures of her and Madeline, or of her and Rhonda. They obviously didn’t hang out on a regular basis anymore. So, why the recent communication?
Finally, I walked away from the computer and walked around the house, re-checking the windows and doors. I wondered again how the kids’ first day at school had gone. Were they missing their house and their mother? Were they missing me?
It was crazy how I’d spent the last eight years not knowing them, and now it had only been a day and I was missing them like crazy.
There was a tiny ding from the living room. Racing back to the computer chair, I was thrilled to see another message from Jessica: I just didn’t want you pulling a Rhonda on me. I know depression runs in your family.
I was even more confused now. Had Rhonda opened her mouth and told somebody something she shouldn’t have?
Before I could even think of a response, there was another ding. You’re still my girl, Madi. Even if we’re not as close as we once were, we’ll always be summer sisters.
I narrowed my eyes at the screen. Summer sisters. I could remember a time when I was Madi’s ‘summer sister’. When we’d massaged our bloody fingers together and made it official. Apparently, she and Jessica had done that too.
I don’t know why, but that fact hurt me deeply.
But then, immediately I felt foolish. We were only kids. Of course Madeline had friends other than her little sister. After all, she was a few years older than me, and if I’d been the older one, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with me either. I’d always been the one chasing Madi around, trying to get her to hang out with me the way we did when we were kids. It had nothing to do with her age and everything to do with the way she treated me when we were alone. Madi had this way of making me feel like it was just her and me, and that there was no one, and nothing, more important than being with me in that moment. When she looked at me, it was like I was the only one in the room. And when we were very young, I felt like we really knew each other, in that bone-deep way only best friends can.
Now I wondered if I wasn’t the only one she made feel that way.
Jessica must have stopped typing because the bubbles were gone again. I needed to say something quickly or else risk losing her and any chance at finding out what she knew about Madi. Something that would get her to tell me what this thing was that Madi needed to shut up about…
Finally, I typed: You’re my girl too, Jessica. But I just don’t think I can stay quiet. I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut, as you put it.
Three bubbles appeared almost instantly. But whatever she was typing, it seemed to be taking a while…
Finally, the message came through: Don’t be stupid. Where are you? Did you go back home? If so, I’ll come over, so we can talk. We haven’t done that in a long time. Let’s discuss this first.
Damn. Now what? Discuss what?
I typed my next words out slowly, unsure. But then I clicked enter and hoped for the best. You can’t come over right now. I’m not home and my sister is staying at the house. I just had to get away for a while. Needed time to think.
I was hoping for more, but then ten, twenty, minutes passed and Jessica didn’t write back.
Madeline had a secret. But I knew that already, didn’t I? She told me herself that she had something important to tell me, something she could only tell me in person. I just wished she’d done it before she took off, then maybe I could have helped her figure things out.
I’d been so caught up in myself and my own secret about losing my job, I never considered the fact that my sister might have something serious to tell me…
Disappointed, but hopeful that Madi really was just hiding out somewhere and shopping at Sam’s in her spare time, I retreated to the kitchen. I opened the cabinets and saw that there was plenty of food. For the first time in days, I was feeling hungry. My stomach grumbled noisily.
I decided to go with Shelley’s usual choice, even though Shelley wasn’t here, and I took down a box of macaroni and cheese. Stirring the noodles with one hand, I texted Paul with the other.
Jessica Feeler knows something. I pretended to be Madeline on Facebook and she alluded to some secret she doesn’t want Madi to tell, and she also mentioned Rhonda Sheckles. You need to talk to both of those ladies, ASAP.
A few minutes later, I sent another one.
Do you remember Rhonda Sheckles? Do you know if she still has family around here? I was trying to find her on Facebook, but I’m thinking she might have a married name now. Maybe she knows something?? It’s worth considering, don’t you think?
I was still waiting on Paul to respond when the noodles finished. I sat back down at the computer desk with my bowl of mac and cheese, and I pulled up Madeline’s profile page. She only had 101 friends, which wasn’t a lot, but seemed like a ton when it meant going through each and every single one, searching for someone with the first name Rhonda. Luckily, I discovered that Facebook had a search function where I could search her friends list for anyone named Rhonda. No luck. None of Madeline’s friends were Rhonda Sheckles or Rhonda anyone for that matter.
Next, I moved to Jessica’s page. Unfortunately, her friends list was protected. Damn.
I considered checking other social media sites but resorted to using Google first.
I typed in ‘Rhonda Sheckles’, and then ‘wedding announcement’, hoping I’d find something that would reveal her married name.
But instead of finding a wedding announcement, I found something else, something I hadn’t expected. Rhonda Sheckles was an artist; she even had a website – Twisted Imagery. I clicked through the images on the welcome screen – dark, twisted paintings filled the page, living up to the site’s name. Rhonda sold graphic images for digital use, and commissioned art work as well.
A memory came flooding back – Rhonda, aged nine or ten, doodling in that spiraled notebook of hers, protecting its contents with the curl of an arm. Rhonda drawing on her own body and everyone else’s, too, always with that black Sharpie of hers.
Don’t pull a Rhonda on me. That was what Jessica wrote. But what did Rhonda do?
I flipped through more and more pages, turning my head side to side to study the images. One in particular gave me pause – a ghostly moon-shaped face of a girl, twisted into a look of horror. It almost reminded me of a modern-day Edvard Munch’s The Scream, only more life-like, less cartoonish.
These weren’t your average pictures – they all looked dark, demented even. Tortured.
But despite how dark they were, I found myself drawn to them—in fact, if I could afford it, I’d hire Rhonda to make a painting for my apartment … the apartment I probably wouldn’t have in a couple of weeks, I reminded myself.
Finally, tearing my eyes away from her work, I clicked on a dropdown box at the top of the page – Contact the Artist was one of the choices. When I selected it, a full body image of Rhonda filled the screen. She still had that wild, red hair and sprinkling of freckles across her face and arms. She looked the same, but older and more … artsy. She fit the mold – dark, brooding, and morose in a see-through black shawl. Her make-up was darker than she used to wear it. In fact, she reminded me of an older, more gothic version, of that girl who was working the register at Bed and More the other day.
<
br /> Rhonda’s bony hands were draped in unusual jewelry. My eyes immediately fell on a black and silver bird that took up most of her middle finger. I’d never seen anything like it … or had I? It reminded me of something…
Pushing my seat back, I jogged up the stairs and into the spare bedroom. The box with the bird on it still lay limply on the floor. It was a different bird altogether, but still, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Rhonda was the one who’d drawn the bird on the box. Another memory emerged – Rhonda, and her weird obsession with birds, especially ravens. She liked to draw them in a way that looked Edgar Allen Poe-ish. That notebook of hers was full of them. All different types of birds, with one thing in common – they were always black and frightening. She carried that notebook everywhere, I remembered, until … Jessica made fun of her for it one day on the bus. After a while, it disappeared from my memory, along with the memory of Rhonda and her artwork.
For whatever reason, Jessica had taken the brooding, lonely Rhonda under her wing. I think Jessica saw her less like a friend, and more of a pet project, to be improved upon, and by the start of the next school year, we had all forgotten about the old Rhonda … until now.
Rhonda had to be the person who sent that package to Madi, I decided. But what was in the box? And was it somehow related to Madi’s disappearance?
I carried the box back downstairs with me, pondering what used to be inside it. Madeline, Rhonda, and Jessica had some sort of a secret. That was clear to me now. Those three. Always those three. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?
Maybe the secret was something, something Rhonda sent to Madeline, and then Jessica found out about it? My sister wanted to show someone – who? The police, maybe? Did it have something to do with Rhonda’s art? But for some reason, Jessica didn’t want my sister to have it or tell anyone about it…
You’d better keep your fucking mouth shut.
I remembered Paul’s words, about the simplest explanation being the right one – maybe Madi bought some artwork from Rhonda. Had I seen anything in the house that resembled Rhonda’s dark, signature handiwork?
Definitely not, I decided.
Were they protecting a secret of Rhonda’s? My mind was racing as I sat back down in the desk chair. I dropped the box onto the floor beside me, carelessly, and I pulled up the Google search bar again. I stared at Rhonda’s face on the screen. Beneath her photo was a brief biography. Rhonda Sheckles – now Rhonda Gray – grew up in Bare Border, Indiana. She resides in Merrimont… Bingo. So, she might have left this town and pursued her dreams of becoming an artist, but she hadn’t gone far. In this day and age, you could run a successful business from the tiniest town on earth, as long as you had an internet connection.
A quick Google search of Rhonda Gray led me to an address in Merrimont. She was less than an hour away. Yes! It was a minor lead, but I couldn’t help feeling a glimmer of satisfaction. Maybe I was getting somewhere. Maybe I was getting closer to finding my sister. Maybe if I talked to Rhonda, she’d have some sort of insight…
A loud bang on the front door shocked me out of my daze. I gasped.
Startled, I went to answer it, thinking it was probably Paul … but when I looked out the living room window, I was floored by who I saw – Jessica Feeler was standing on my sister’s front porch.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Oh shit. Should I lie down and play dead, or should I open the door? I knew what Madi would do – well, I thought I knew what she would do before I discovered how secretive she’d been lately. Madi would face Jessica head on.
Quickly, before I could change my mind, I closed down the computer screen. I didn’t want Jessica to know it had been me talking to her on Facebook. But what if she already knew?! What if she was the one who took Madi?
Jessica knocked again, louder this time. There was something desperate about the way she was pounding on the front door. I had to open it. She was not going away.
‘Just a second!’ I yelled through the door. The curtains over the window weren’t see-through, but it wouldn’t be hard for her to catch a glimpse of me running around in here if she tried to peek through the side.
I went to the door and took a deep breath, then I opened it a crack.
‘Yes?’ I tried to feign sleepiness.
‘It’s Jessica Feeler. Let me in now.’ Taken aback by her brashness, I opened the door and did exactly what she wanted me to do.
Jessica stepped in the living room and looked around as though she were a potential buyer or a home inspector. Her haughtiness pissed me off.
‘It’s late. What are you doing here, Jessica?’
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she sniffed.
Confused, I said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means your sister is missing and her kids are with John. Why are you still in her house?’
I cleared my throat. If it wasn’t for the circumstances, I would almost find this rude conversation amusing. I’d almost forgotten how arrogant and entitled Jessica Feeler could be.
‘Actually, Jessica, this is my childhood home, as much as it is Madi’s. I came here to visit right before she disappeared. I was taking care of Ben and Shelley, but then their dad came and got them for the night.’ I don’t know why I said it like that – like John was bringing them back tomorrow, or something.
Jessica’s face softened, but I wasn’t buying her act. ‘What do you want Jessica? Have you heard from my sister?’
For a moment, I thought she might tell me about the ‘contact’ they’d just had on Facebook, but then she surprised me by saying, ‘Nope. I hardly ever talk to Madeline anymore. But I’m still concerned. I was hoping maybe you had some news.’
Every fiber of my being wanted to scream the word ‘liar’ in her face. What was she trying to hide?
‘No news besides what you’ve probably already heard. Paul Templeton is working the case. They found her Jeep parked near the bluff and there was some blood on the headrest. Probably not enough blood to kill her, but it’s worrisome, nevertheless. So, you don’t know where she is or why she might have run off?’
Jessica’s eyes narrowed. ‘Like I said, we don’t talk much anymore.’ Despite the summer heat, Jessica was wearing a light leather jacket. Did she drive a motorcycle now? I wondered. The thought of her preppy ass on a motorcycle, her now-thinning blonde hair a-flying, was almost enough to make me laugh out loud.
‘I’m parched. Can I get a drink of water?’ Jessica asked. We were still standing in the doorway. I was trying to keep her away from the computer, but even so, the screen was off. Unless she was so rude that she plopped down and helped herself to it, she wouldn’t see anything I’d been doing online.
‘Sure,’ I answered, although I wasn’t that crazy about the idea of letting her even farther into the house. What if she’s a killer? a tiny voice screamed in my ear.
I led the way through the dining room and into the kitchen. Jessica hung back. What was she looking for? Did she not believe ‘Madeline’ when she said she wasn’t home?
‘The kitchen’s in here.’ I stuck my head into the dining room, where Jessica was still looking around suspiciously. ‘Is everything okay? You’re acting strangely,’ I blurted out.
‘I’m fine. Just worried about my friend,’ she said nonchalantly, stepping into the kitchen.
I took a glass down from the cupboard and filled it up with tap water. When I handed it to Jessica, her hand was shaking so badly that she nearly dropped it.
There were blue-black circles beneath her eyes, and I realized that time hadn’t been kind to Jessica. She had aged, considerably, since the last time I saw her. Maybe it was due to the stress over whatever secret she’d been hiding…
Jessica took a few small sips from the cup, then sat it down on the table. ‘Thanks for that. Well, please let me know if you find out anything else. I hope Madi is okay.’
‘Me too.’ I stared into Jessica’s eyes, trying to peel back her layers, one by one.
‘I need to get back home to my husband.’ Jessica turned as though she were going to leave, but then stopped dramatically. ‘Do you mind if I look for something in the family room? I left a tape here a while back and I was hoping to get it back.’ This entire moment felt planned to me, as though Jessica were just acting out a scene she’d practiced on the way over.
‘Okay,’ I said, dragging out the word.
I followed Jessica as she walked through the kitchen and toward the living room, staying on her heels. If she was looking for something, I wanted to know what it was exactly.
‘All of the movies are on the shelves by the books.’ I stood in the doorway of the family room, my arms crossed over my chest, watching. ‘When you say “tape”, are we talking about VHS? I didn’t know anyone actually watched those things anymore.’
Jessica stood at the shelf, running her fingers across the rows of DVDs. She pulled out a few of them, checking for a second row of movies behind them, I guess. ‘Yeah, it was a tape of my wedding ceremony. I brought it over here to show her and then I forgot to take it back home with me.’
‘I thought you said you guys didn’t talk anymore.’
Jessica’s hand stilled on one of the DVDs. For a second, I wondered if she would respond to that.
‘We don’t, not really. It was a long time ago that I brought it over. It’s been years.’
‘Then how come you want it now?’
Jessica turned around and looked at me, her eyes searching. She was probably wondering if I knew something I shouldn’t. Or maybe she already knew I was pretending to be Madi on Facebook…
‘Honestly, I forgot she had it. But then I heard she was missing, and it reminded me of the time I came over and we watched it together. We used to be such good friends.’
I almost said: Wouldn’t a good friend have been at your wedding? But I held my tongue.
‘I don’t see any tapes,’ I told her, coming over to stand beside her. Jessica’s face looked pale, almost sickly, as I hovered over her.
My Sister is Missing Page 13