All the Missing Girls (10 page)

He eyed me. Eyed the bed. “We'll work it out later.”

EVERETT HELD HIS PHONE
against the car window and muttered a sarcastic “Hallelujah” when we were halfway to Grand Pines. His phone dinged in response, downloading emails now that we were back in the land of the data plan.

He scanned the surroundings quickly before diving into his emails. “We should come back in the fall. I bet it's a sight,” he said.
Tap, tap, tap
from his cell as he typed.

“Yeah,” I said, even though we knew we wouldn't. Fall comes with a vengeance here after the leaves change—for two days, when the wind blows, they rain down in a storm, coating everything like snow.

“It's prettier in the winter,” I said.

“Hmm.”

“Except if you're trying to get anywhere. Then this road feels like Donner Pass.”

“Mmm.”
Tap, tap, tap
on the keypad, and a
whoosh
as his message was sent.

“There's a monster out here,” I said.

“Mmm. Wait. What?”

I grinned at him. “Just checking.”

THE WOMAN WORKING THE
reception desk of Grand Pines started preening when we walked in the front door. Back straight, hair flipped, chest out. I was used to it, the unconscious way people reacted to Everett.

Everett is old-money Philadelphia. His whole family is that way, like old stately buildings and cobblestone and ivy. And as with the Liberty Bell, the imperfections only make them more interesting. More worthy of the life that fate has bestowed on them. Everett can hold court, quite literally—even with his friends, even with me. It's a spell, a beautiful spell, the way he's assertive without being bossy, confident without being smug. I imagine his family members were taught this line to walk as they were taught to crawl—
Know thy classics and thy beer.
Finely tuned, all of them, with a father to disapprove instantly if they veered off course.

I stood confidently by Everett's side as he marched into Grand Pines. They never stood a chance, and I knew it.

As he walked off to see the director, the woman behind the desk raised an eyebrow at me, then the corner of her mouth, as in
Nice.

I nodded.
I know.

But then her eyes assessed me, like she was picking me apart, and I felt the clothes that didn't fit right, and my hair that wasn't done, and I knew my hands were probably still trembling from the caffeine.

“I'm here to see my dad. Patrick Farrell,” I said.

“Okay, sure,” she said, picking up the phone.

The nurse I'd seen on the first day led me to the common room, where Dad was playing with a stack of cards, some game that looked like solitaire but didn't seem to follow any rules I understood.

“Look who I found, Patrick. Your daughter.”

He looked up, smiled big and real, and I felt my face doing the same. “Hi, Nic.”

Such a simple, beautiful sentence.

“You sure are popular today,” the nurse said, leaving us.

I grabbed her arm as she walked away. “Who was here? The police?”

“The . . . what?” She stared at my fingers on her sleeve, and I quickly released her. “No, the man who comes for lunch.” She brushed her hand over her arm, smoothing out the wrinkles.

“Daniel?” I asked, looking from her to my dad.

She shook her head. “No, the other one. Patrick, who's the man who comes to lunch on Fridays?”

He drummed his fingers against the table and stared past me, a slight grin. “I can't tell you that, Nic.”

I grinned at the nurse like I thought this was cute. Funny, even. “Who was here, Dad?”

“I'm not supposed to tell you.” He had the audacity to laugh.

The nurse winked at my dad, then turned to me. “Good-­looking guy. Blue eyes, brown hair, always in jeans and work boots . . .”

I swung my head back to my father, who was chewing the inside of his cheek. “
Tyler?
” I asked.

The nurse patted my dad's shoulder and walked away. He'd scooped up the cards and was focused on dealing the stack between the two of us. I had no idea what to do with my hand. He played a king and seemed to be waiting for something from me.

“Why the hell does Tyler come here?”

“Why wouldn't Tyler come? Did you lay exclusive claim to rights of friendship with Tyler Ellison? Your turn,” he said, gesturing to my cards.

I threw down an ace, tried to relax my shoulders, to keep this conversation from sliding away from him too quickly. “Ha. I didn't realize you guys had so much in common.”

Dad frowned as he picked up the stack, then played a five of diamonds. “Pay attention.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing. Tell me what Tyler wants with you.” I stopped playing, trying to hold his focus.

He shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “He doesn't want anything.
He just comes.” He gestured to my hand until I threw out a random card. “He's a good kid, Nic. I think he likes the food.” He looked around the room, like he was momentarily confused. “Or maybe the young nurse over there who works Fridays. I don't know. But he comes for lunch.” I peered over my shoulder, saw the nurse lingering near the front desk through the doorway. She was shorter than me, her scrubs were nondescript, and her lipstick veered well outside the line of her lips, but she was attractive. Her hair was dark and neat. She was young. Perky.

“And you're not supposed to tell me?” I asked.

“Definitely not.” Two of hearts.

“And why is that, if there's not some other reason he's coming? Think about it, Dad.” Two of spades.

“You're not paying attention,” he said as he swiped up the stack—about the cards or Tyler, I wasn't sure.

A new group of residents wandered in, and a few nurses shuffled in and out, carrying clipboards. We were running out of time. Dad stacked all the cards, and I placed my hand over his. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”

“I thought that's what we were doing,” he said.

“Dad, listen. We took care of it. The police can't question you.
Do not
let anyone question you. You tell us right away. Or the nurse. Or the doctor. They're not allowed. You don't have to talk to them. You understand?”

“I . . . Of course not. I wouldn't,” he said.

But you did.

“I wish I'd been a better father, Nic.”

“Dad, don't—”

“I really do. I can see it now that it's gone. But you can't go back, can you?”

I shook my head.
No, you can't.

He tapped the side of his head. “This is my penance, don't you
think?” Like losing his mind was the price to pay for being a shitty father.

“You weren't mean. You weren't bad.” He wasn't anything. He made me laugh, and he gave me a roof over my head and food in the kitchen, and he never raised a hand to me, or his voice. For a lot of people, that would make him good. A good father.
A good man.

He leaned across the table, took my hand again. “Are you happy, Nic?”

“Yes,” I said. I had everything I wanted waiting for me in Philadelphia. A whole life there.

“Good, good.”

I squeezed his hand. “You don't deserve this,” I said. “Any of this.”

He started drumming his fingers again, double time, leaned toward me, and lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “Nic, listen to me. I have to pay. I have to.”

“I'll take care of everything,” I said. “Don't talk about it anymore. Nothing. Not a word. To
anyone.
Got it?”

“Got it,” he said.

But I knew it would last only an hour or so. “I need you to focus. I need you to remember this.”

“I'll remember, Nic.” He lifted his face to mine, his eyes like a child's, waiting for me to explain.

I looked down at my hand over his, at the age spots speckling the back of his hand, the freckles on my own. “Dad, they want to bring you down to the station. You have to stop talking.
Please.
”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to stop him. Over Dad's shoulder, I saw Everett standing just inside the cafeteria entrance, his eyes quickly finding me. I raised my hand, and Dad followed my line of vision. “Dad, I want you to meet someone. This is Everett,” I said as he approached.
Remember who Everett is. Please.

He looked at Everett, then at my bare hand, and smiled. “Sure, sure. Nice to meet you, Everett.”

Everett shook my dad's hand. “Same to you, Patrick. Sorry Christmas didn't work out.” We were supposed to fly in and out for a Christmas Eve visit before returning to spend the rest of the holiday with Everett's family, but a snowstorm had derailed our plans, and we'd never rebooked. But this was a detail too hard for Dad to pull from his memory. He made a noncommittal noise that to Everett probably sounded like displeasure.

Everett turned to me. “Everything's all set here, unless you want to stay for dinner?”

All at once I felt like I was seventeen again, sitting in the kitchen, with my dad asking if I was staying or going.
Going,
I'd say. Always going. Had my foot out the door as soon as I stopped trying to convince myself my mother might live.

“I've got a lot to do,” I said. “But I'll see you later, Dad.”

Everett placed his card on the table. “I told the director and the nurses up front, but if anyone comes to talk to you—anyone at all—you give me a call.”

Dad raised an eyebrow at me as I walked away. When I looked over my shoulder, he was still watching. I shook my head once, praying he would remember.

I excused myself to the bathroom while Everett chatted with the woman behind the front desk. I closed the door to the stall and dialed Tyler, unease coursing through my veins. “Pick up, damnit,” I mumbled, but of course he didn't.

I considered calling information and getting the number for Kelly's to see if he was there. But from outside the restroom, I heard the faint echo of Everett's voice: “What, exactly, was Patrick Farrell saying?”

I raced out of the room. “Everett?” I called, watching him slowly pull back from the reception desk. “Ready?”

GOSSIP. THE MOST DANGEROUS
part of an investigation. Infectious and inescapable. This was something I was all too familiar with, even before my job as school counselor.

There's a danger to it, because it grows out of something real, a seed in the earth, giving life on its own. It's all tangled together—the truth, the fiction—and sometimes it's hard to pick apart. Sometimes it's hard to remember which parts truly exist.

When Corinne disappeared and we ran out of places to search, people to question, leads to track down, the only thing left for people was the talk.

About Corinne and Bailey and me. Reckless and drunk on life, never thinking of the consequences. How we passed around a bottle in the clearing outside the caverns and invited boys inside. How we lifted candy bars from the convenience store (on a dare, always a dare) and didn't respect property or authority. How we had no boundaries with each other, a tangle of limbs and hair and sun-kissed skin—
They swapped boyfriends, even, you know.

Because look at the evidence sitting neatly in the box: Jackson kissing Bailey; Corinne hitting on Tyler as I watched. The three of us spinning, blurring, like ghosts in a field of sunflowers. And me, on the outside of the Ferris wheel, watching death rushing by. We lived too close—too close to each other, too close to some mysterious edge, too reckless and invincible, too naive to our own mortalities, just
too.
The talk: that maybe we brought it on ourselves.

Maybe we did.

And on the other side of the talk: Daniel and Jackson and maybe Tyler, the ones to watch with a wary eye. The ones who circled us, watching, waiting. The ones who let their anger break free, who acted. Who broke up with us, who pushed us away when they were displeased and then came back for more.

Who was really surprised, looking from the outside in?

After all the talk, I didn't understand how any of them stayed.

I DROVE SLOWLY BECAUSE
of the glare coming from the sun, nearly setting, and the roads that wind gradually and then sharply with no warning. And the deer that could be standing there, frozen on the double-yellow line. And because Everett was plowing through his emails and we were about to lose service around that next bend.

I waited for him to start cursing at his phone. “Want to stop at the library again?”

“No,” he said, leaning his head against the window. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Famished.”

“Good. I know a place.” I cast a quick glance at him. “All I have at home right now are microwave dinners. We can hit the store tomorrow.”

“You need to eat better,” he said. “You look like you've lost weight.”

To judge from the way my pants were fitting, I probably had. I'd been busy, skipping meals, filling my gut with coffee and soda until I could feel the acid churning and rising. Everything else tasted either metallic or stale.

I parked in the lot behind Kelly's Pub because the front streets were already lined with cars, and because that was where the residents parked. Tyler's truck wasn't there, but Jackson's bike was in the corner slot.

The Friday-evening crowd was different from the daytime crowd. The college kids, home and looking for something to do.
The after-work crowd, catching a few extra drinks before returning to their families. But the smell was the same as always: alcohol, grease, perfume mixed with sweat.

There were two people behind a full bar. Jackson at the far end and a woman I vaguely recognized, with a too-tight top and ­super-straight hair to her waist. She looked in my direction as I entered. “Seat yourselves,” she said, nodding toward the tables, as if I didn't know how it worked here.