My Sister is Missing

by Carissa Ann Lynch

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I took a step back, my backside jarring against the dresser. ‘What the hell does that mean, Paul? That’s not funny, at all.’

  He stood up from the bed. ‘Let me explain.’

  Goosebumps were sprouting on my arms and legs as I tried to back up further. He took two steps toward me, then stopped when he realized how scared I was.

  ‘If you watch the video back, you’ll see it. Rhonda didn’t hold that pillow over her face long enough to suffocate her. Sarah was playing possum. And she was pretty smart to do it too.’

  ‘Are you saying she played dead?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘But I saw her arms flailing around like a fish out of water. And then she stopped breathing.’

  Paul sighed. ‘She stopped moving. That doesn’t mean she stopped breathing. And I promise you she didn’t.’

  But I saw her face. She hadn’t looked dead, more like a doll sleeping…

  ‘You didn’t see them checking her pulse, did you?’ No, I hadn’t. But still…

  ‘You said you killed her.’ I stuck out my chin defiantly.

  ‘I did. Well, I didn’t exactly kill her…But I did it all to protect you.’

  ‘To protect me?’ I screamed. ‘What sort of sense does that make?’

  ‘They must have carried her somewhere into the woods, and then she got up again…’ Paul said, more to himself than me. He was on his feet now, pacing around Shelley’s bedroom.

  ‘Jessica admitted to me that they threw her in Moon Lake. They watched her body go under the water,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, she came back up. Trust me.’ Paul stopped pacing, his stare intense again.

  ‘But how do you know that, Paul? How?!’

  ‘You remember how we used to meet down by our tree? The one with our initials on it?’

  I nodded, remembering how good it felt to see it again the other day. I’d nearly forgotten about it.

  ‘I was cutting across the field, the way I always did…I was coming to see you. We had to sneak, remember? Your dad hated my guts and we weren’t even thirteen yet. That day, I was going to surprise you. You were walking down to the woods, maybe looking for your sister, or … yeah, I think you were trying to find Madi and her friends in the woods.’

  ‘Okay. And…?’ I pressed.

  ‘Well, I saw you before you saw me. I liked watching you. You were cutting through the trees, following the creek down to our spot. And that’s when I saw Sarah Goins. She had her back pressed against our tree. She was wet – soaking wet – like she’d just gone for a good long swim. I didn’t know her very well at all. All I knew was that she was the girl everyone liked to make fun of.’

  My head tilted to the side, listening intently as I tried to figure out where he was going with this…

  ‘You were walking straight toward the place she was hiding. I just figured she didn’t see you coming, but then I saw she was holding something in her hand. It was a rock, Emily. A big, pointy ass rock. I tried to yell for you, but it was too late. Just as you approached the tree, she whipped the rock out from behind her and slammed it down over your head. You hit the ground so hard. I took off running, but by that point, she was beating you with it and you were flailing around on the ground, stunned. She slammed it down on the back of your head so many times, I thought for sure you were dead.’

  Without realizing it, I was rubbing the scar on my scalp. Could this really be true?

  The red, red, red of my memories, the sharp hot pain as I crashed over and over again … only it wasn’t a fall that caused my injury. It was Sarah. Did she really go missing on the same day as my injury? I’d been in the hospital and when I got out … news of my accident was overshadowed by bigger news: Sarah Goins had gone missing. The timing made sense. But why would Sarah do that to me…?

  Oh god…

  ‘What did you do, Paul?’

  ‘At the time, I didn’t know why she was hitting you. I thought she was just going crazy. But now, I realize that either she saw you coming and mistook you for Madi, or maybe she just wanted to hurt someone after those girls had tried to kill her … and that someone was you. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what they did, Emily, I swear…’ Paul was rubbing his face with his hands, trying to erase the memory.

  ‘What happened, Paul? I need to know.’

  ‘I grabbed her arms from behind and yanked her back. She was shocked to see me, and still trying to escape my arms so she could hurt you…When I looked over and saw you on the ground, all that blood gushing out of you … I thought for sure you were dead. I wrapped my hands around that little girl’s neck. And I squeezed. I was shouting at her, asking her why she did that…’

  ‘But my sister found me.’ This image of Paul, strangling a little girl to death, was too horrifying to imagine. I tried to picture his big hands around her tiny neck…

  ‘Madi found you. I heard her shouting for you just as I took my hands off Sarah. I saw what I’d done, and I could hear your sister coming. I knew someone would find you then, but I thought you were already dead and maybe they would think I killed you both. I lifted Sarah from the ground and I ran. I hid behind the closest bush, the one just past our tree. I held that girl in my arms until your sister ran back up the hill to get your mom. Emily, she was still alive. I swear she had a pulse. I was so scared. Everyone in town knew my dad was a mean drunk, and I thought they’d blame me for your attack and for Sarah’s … so, I left her there, disoriented, and took off across the field.’

  ‘But no one ever found her. Where is her body, Paul? It’s not in the lake, and somebody would have found it by now in the woods…’

  ‘That’s the weird thing. I sat at home, waiting for the cops to come. I was so sure she’d tell them I grabbed her neck … but when they didn’t show, I went back out to look for her. It was dark then, but I looked everywhere. I even went to her house and tried to look through the windows. It was like she’d just vanished into thin air. And when I heard she was missing, I was sort of relieved. But then I also thought … I thought that maybe I’d killed her after all.’ He was sobbing into his hands now, his words barely audible.

  ‘Then where the hell did she go? This doesn’t make sense. We still don’t know where Sarah Goins is.’

  ‘I do,’ Paul choked. He buried his face in his hands. ‘A few years later, I was drinking with my friends. They parked at the side of Star Mountain and dared me to hang from the edge. I was so stupid – I always was – and I did it. I climbed down the side, but I slipped a bit … and hanging there by one arm, I looked down and that’s when I saw her. She’s laying at the bottom of Star Mountain, Emily. She’s been there all this time. And that’s why I stood you up for prom. I couldn’t show my face at a school dance after finding Sarah like that. I hid inside for weeks after, her cold, dead face popping up every time I closed my fucking eyes! And that’s why I left school shortly after, too. My past was coming back to haunt me, and I just knew that someday they’d find her … but they never did. No one ever found out.’

  A dam inside me broke apart just then. Everyone I love has a secret. Secrets I wish I never knew…

  Monsters beget monsters. They tried to kill Sarah Goins, and so she tried to kill me. Her mother tried to kill Madi. Paul almost killed Sarah trying to protect me, and he succeeded in killing her mother. It was all too much to take in right now…

  ‘I couldn’t even look at you afterwards. I thought I could move past what I did, I thought I could … but when I saw your face, all I could think about was Sarah’s face, and how it looked when I was choking her. I used to have these dreams, and sometimes I still have them. She’s always in them. And being around you, well, it always made it worse. That’s why I broke up with you back then. I kept trying to come back. I wanted to take you to prom … but then I would freak out again. I would think about that girl, and how she’d never get to go to prom, or grow old. I went into law enforcement to make up for what I did. I thought if I could help peopl
e, do the right thing … maybe I could make up for it. I thought I was protecting you, and I was, but I know I’m responsible for her death. I don’t know if she jumped from Star Mountain, or was just so disoriented that she fell…’

  Paul slid to the floor on his knees, taking me down with him.

  I don’t know how long we stayed there. It might have been hours, or it could have been days.

  My sister was safe, and now I knew the truth about my accident and what happened to Sarah Goins … but somehow, I couldn’t help feeling more scared than I ever had. How could I ever trust my sister or Paul again?

  EPILOGUE

  ‘What does everyone want for dinner?’ Madeline asks.

  ‘Mac and cheese,’ Shelley and I say in unison. Ben giggles and says the words ‘mac and cheese’ eight times.

  We’re all sitting at the dining room table – Madeline, me, Shelley, and Ben. It’s Madeline’s first day back in the house, and the place has never felt more alive. Ben and Shelley are happy to have her back, Ben especially; he’s been bouncing off the walls all day, waiting for her arrival.

  ‘Sit down and let me make it, you silly woman,’ I insist. I stand up and get the pot down from the cabinets, while my sister sits back down next to Ben. She looks as though she’s gained ten pounds, but her eyes are different – they still look dark and hollow, like a piece of her happiness has been stripped away forever.

  Next month my sister goes to trial for her role in the attempted murder of Sarah Goins. The judge let her out on a low bond, but Jessica Feeler wasn’t so lucky. She’s being held on a 250,000-dollar cash bond. Even if her family could afford to get her out, I’m not sure they’d want to. The people of Bare Border will never look at her the same way. They will never look at Madeline the same way either.

  Footage of the horrific tape has been making its rounds on the internet – so far, pieces of the horrible incident have been played on news channels and talk shows. The complete video is available on YouTube.

  As for Paul, he has been temporarily placed on suspension from the police force.

  Both his and my sister’s lawyers think they’ll be let off the hook since they were children at the time of Sarah’s death. Paul hurt Sarah defending me, and my sister was just an accessory, at least that’s the defense’s argument.

  But I’ll never look at my sister the exact same way. I don’t think the media, or anyone in this town, will either. She’ll wear it like a scar, the same way I carry the scar of her actions on the back of my head. I wish I could have talked to Sarah, reasoned with her. If she’d gone to the police, those girls would have been locked up, including Madi. Maybe … or maybe not. Maybe everyone would have called her crazy, just like they always did.

  Sarah Goins – for the first time – has been raised to saint status. Her picture is displayed in almost every store window in this town. ‘Justice for Sarah’ is what the signs in people’s yards and the ribbons in their windows say.

  Now I look at that photo of her, the one torn to shreds by Jessica Feeler, and I think about how much she would love knowing that everyone in town wanted one of her pictures, that she was finally the hero of her own story…

  Tomorrow we’re putting the inn up for sale. There are parts of it that I will miss, the parts of my childhood that were good. But memories don’t live in walls – they live inside the people who dwell there. For the most part, I’m happy about the move. I think it’s time to go.

  There’s a small bungalow on Painter’s Creek that will be perfect for the kids. The trees on the property are young, their rings of memory not tainted yet – at least I hope not. It will be a good place for a fresh start, and to make new memories, hopefully good ones.

  Madeline made me promise that I would stay in Bare Border, although I didn’t need much convincing. I’ve fallen in love with my niece and nephew, and I want to stay close by. I promised Madeline that if she was found guilty, I would take care of the children in her place. John has been playing a more active role in their lives, but with his work schedule and recent break-up with Starla, he won’t be able to keep them all the time.

  I’m scared for my sister – scared about what will happen to her in prison if she goes – but I’m confident that I can take care of the kids in her absence.

  We’ll make it work.

  As far as Paul is concerned … there’s still this version of me walking around this town that loves him. But I’m not that girl anymore. And frankly, he’s not the boy he once was either. We’ve agreed to take it slow, and for now, that’s good enough for me.

  I didn’t think I would find any sort of work in Bare Border. But when the news finally broke about the twenty-year-old mystery and my sister’s kidnapping, I realized that there hadn’t been a local paper in Bare Border for almost fifty years.

  I’m taking over the news in Bare Border, starting out slow. I’ve never run a paper before, but I know how to write, and after all the snooping around I did when my sister went missing, I feel pretty good about my investigative skills.

  You’d think there wouldn’t be much news to share in this tiny town, but every day there’s something. Today I had a meeting with the manager at Bed and More. They’re talking about going on strike, in an attempt to become unionized. I’m going to interview the employees and tell the world about their grievances.

  I don’t know if small town news is my ‘calling’ or not, but I’m enjoying the art of writing again. I enjoy telling stories, especially the ones that are founded in truth. My sister asked me the other day if I’m going to write a book about Sarah Goins’ death. I told her no, but I’ve already been outlining chapters. I think it will be hard to write about something so personal and close to home, but somebody needs to tell Sarah’s story. Someone needs to make sure her memory lives on…

  I didn’t see her body. But I heard that when they pulled her out of the water, she was pristine – like a sleeping, timeless, porcelain doll. I only wish her mother could have been there to see it. To see her Sarah that way, young forever, might have offered her some sort of closure. Or maybe not. Maybe the Sarah she had imagined – the one who ran away to find a better life – was better than the truth. Sometimes the truth is scary.

  There was another piece to the puzzle that I never knew until recently: all those years ago, Sarah’s mother had found a soggy wet note on her bed: This town will be better off without me. Her mother and the police assumed she ran away, but as we know now, the true meaning of the note was more sinister than that. She must have returned home after beating me over the head and Paul’s attack, written the letter, and then went to Star Mountain and jumped. I can’t imagine what was going through her head in that moment…

  This town will be better off without me.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong about that.

  They said it was a miracle. But how can being found dead at the bottom of Star Mountain be a miracle? Nevertheless, they said it was virtually impossible, the way she fell…

  Six thousand feet down from the cliff was a small, naturally formed, body of water. The water down there was freezing.

  The fall wasn’t a straight drop. There were jagged rocks and jutting cliffs all the way down … and at the very bottom, mostly rocks. If you drop from that high up, those rocks will slice through your body like butter – a body that jumped from that far should have been smashed to pieces at the bottom, after being torn up by rocks all the way down…

  But Sarah’s body didn’t.

  The cops said that no matter how they tried to reenact it, they couldn’t figure out how Sarah Goins fell six thousand feet and landed so far away, undamaged, in that small lake. For the second time in one day, Sarah found herself face up in a body of water. Only this time, she never climbed out of it.

  But like an angel, she’d lain there, splayed out in the icy cold water. Waiting. Watching. Wanting to be found. This town will be better off without me. That’s what she thought that day, and we were all to blame for that. In the end, she to
ok her own life. This fact will probably help Paul, Madi, and Jessica escape blame. But I know – and hopefully, they do too – that we are all to blame.

  I know that Sarah tried to kill me. I know there’s a part of me that should be mad. But just like with Madeline and Paul, my feelings for Sarah are mixed. Monsters beget monsters. I choose to remember her the way she was – a sweet, misunderstood girl who wanted to make friends. I just wish we could have been friends.

  If I’d have been more courageous and kinder, we might have been.

  What happened to Sarah has changed my life, but it has changed me too. When I think about Ben – and other kids like him – who are misunderstood and often mistreated, I think about the adults they eventually become. We never know what demons plague our classmates, neighbors, friends, and families. We never know what others are capable of, or how bullying will impact their lives.

  Not being a bully is not enough. We have to stand up and defend others when they can’t defend themselves. I hope that the next time I’m given the chance, I’ll be one of those defenders.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing is a lonely endeavor. Two years ago, I was sitting in the woods by myself, sulking, when the plot for My Sister is Missing emerged, seemingly out of nowhere. You see, I’d been working on this other book for a long time, and after years of indie publishing, I couldn’t seem to hit the mark. I went down to the woods to clear my mind and try to conjure up a plan for how to revise my current manuscript. As I gazed through a gap in the trees, I realized that I had a direct, creepy view into my own kitchen. I could see my family from the woods, but they couldn’t see me. I tried to imagine what it would look like, watching my own family – my own life – from this hidden view in the woods. I got so creeped out, that I took off running back inside. An hour later, I was sitting at the kitchen table, feverishly writing a brand-new story. I wrote it faster than any book I’ve ever written, and the characters just wouldn’t let me quit until I finished telling their story. That story eventually evolved into My Sister is Missing.