All the Missing Girls (28 page)

MY BODY WAS ON
edge the entire car ride to Grand Pines, my muscles twitching with too much energy, even though I hadn't slept since the day before. I couldn't feel my feet; they tingled with heaviness.

I gave my name at the entrance and was escorted by a young male aide to Dad's empty room.

“He wanders,” the aide said. “Probably out in the courtyard. It's a beautiful day. Hear we're getting some nasty storms tomorrow, though.” He was leaning against the window beside me, and I saw him looking me over in the reflection. His gaze flicked down to my hand. “Hi,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Andrew. I work here.” His eyes were blue, and he was probably younger than I was, and he had a nice smile that probably had the same effect everywhere.

“Nicolette,” I said. “I live in Philadelphia, actually.”

“Shame,” he said. “You in town for a while?”

“No,” I said. I pointed out the window. “There.” Dad was reading a book on a bench near the edge of the courtyard, his elbows resting on his brown pants, like he was deep in thought, searching
the words for more meaning. “Thanks for your help, Andrew.” I forced myself to flash him a smile as I left the room.

Out in the courtyard, a few women sat around a café table with lunch in Styrofoam boxes. Two men were playing chess. A few people were pacing in what appeared to be slow, endless circles around the perimeter. I settled in beside my father on the bench. “Hi, Dad,” I said.

He pulled his face out of the book, glancing in my direction.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“Nabokov,” he said, showing me the cover. “For next semester.”

He wasn't here. But he wasn't far.

I cleared my throat, watching him from the corner of my eye. “Yesterday,” I said, “you told me you saw my friend Corinne. A long time ago. On the back porch.”

“Did I tell you that? I don't remember that.” He ran his thumb over the page edges, fanning them slowly.

“Yes,” I said. “I was just wondering . . . I was just wondering if you knew how she got there.”

He didn't answer, his head still in the book. But his eyes weren't moving across the lines; they were staring, his mind elsewhere. “I was drinking too much,” he said.

“I know you were. It's okay.”

“I mean, I went to get you. I got a call. About you. My daughter and some stunt on the Ferris wheel. I said I couldn't come. But I did. I got mad, and I got in the car, and I drove, because it was all escalating, and it had finally come to this.” He put the book down and squeezed his eyes. “You were pushing more and more because I never stopped you. I never did. So I got in the car. I was going to be a
dad.
”

I started shaking my head because I didn't like where this was going. And it was too much. Too direct. Nowhere to hide for either of us.

“So I got to that bend before the caverns, and I thought:
This isn't how to be a dad. Driving drunk. This isn't how.
So I pulled over. I just . . . pulled over.”

“Where, Dad?” It came out as a choked whisper.

“Just before the caverns, there's this access road, a dead end. I pulled in and I parked.” He looked over at me. “Don't cry, doll. I wasn't in a good state. I needed some air. I just needed some air.”

He needed to stop.

“I had the windows rolled down—I just needed to sleep it off.” He folded his hands in his lap, his fingers drumming against his knuckles. “I heard people yelling . . .”

I had to know. It was time. “Dad,” I said. “What did you do?”

I felt his body tense, parts of him twitch. “What do you mean?” He looked around, narrowing his eyes. “This place is a rabbit hole,” he said.

And Corinne was the rabbit. We followed her down, down, down, and she left us here.

Then, to me: “I don't like it here. You need to go. I want you to go now. Nic, you need to leave.”

I stood, the air too heavy, his words like static. My memories, spinning and blurring like our pictures, like our ghosts. I couldn't look him in the eye when I left.

TYLER'S TRUCK WAS IN
my driveway, but he wasn't in the house. I found him around back, sitting on the edge of the porch, his feet on the grass. “Anything?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Did you see your dad?”

I sat beside him. Pulled my knees up, dipped my head down so I could see only the blades of grass under my shadow. “I don't understand what happened. I don't understand that picture. It doesn't make sense. He said he was driving near the caverns. He said he was
there.
But that's all he said. That's all.” Tyler reached out, took my hand. “Did you lie to me?”

“I don't lie to you, Nic,” he said.

“But . . . what do you think happened to Corinne?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I imagined her on this porch, inches away—her hair falling out of a blanket, the shadow hovering near the edge of the frame.

He cut his eyes to me, held tighter to my hand. “Don't you see? I don't care what happened to her.”

“Well. It's time to start caring.” I took a deep breath. “There are pictures, and she's dead. So tell me. Tell me what happened.”

“You didn't do anything wrong. I promise. Let it go.”

I nodded, let him wrap an arm over my shoulder. And I let myself believe him.

I HAVE TO TELL
it this way, in pieces. I have to work my way up to it. Work my way
back
to it. I have to show you the beautiful things before I get to the ugly.

You have to understand that she was messed up.

First, I have to promise you that I loved her.

Corinne stood on the side of the road, her thumb sticking out. I didn't slow down.

“You're not gonna stop?” Tyler said.

“No,” I said.

My eyes went to hers; her thumb was down, and she was staring right back. I pressed the gas harder—
Screw you, Corinne
—and I blinked. Just once. Once, and she was already stepping into the road, right in front of the truck.

Tyler's hands went out in front of him just as I slammed on the brakes—I cut the wheel hard and squeezed my eyes shut as the tires screamed for traction. The seat belt felt like it was cutting me in
half, and I couldn't breathe as we spun, the window cracking, then the thud of metal as we came to rest.

I struggled for my bearings as the adrenaline sharpened everything into focus at once, and then there was too much to process. We were facing the wrong way, pressed up against a guardrail, hovering too close to the edge. A branch jutted through the window in front of me, the edge slicing my shoulder, where it would leave a scar. Tyler's voice, not making any sense, not coming all the way in. I couldn't move. I couldn't feel.

Until I could—everything all at once.

I felt a wave of nausea and a pain that began in my stomach and worked its way up my back. My hands were desperate and ineffective at the seat belt button. Tyler had to do it for me. We were too close to the edge, near a drop-off, so Tyler pulled me out his side.

There was a ringing in my ears, and the earth kept spinning on me, or I was spinning, looking for Corinne. I put my hand on the hood of the truck and realized it was running, hot to the touch. Everything tingled.

“Where is she?” I whispered.

Tyler had his hands on the hood of the truck, too, his arms shaking like he was about to fly apart.

“Corinne!” I screamed. “Answer me! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

In a panic, Tyler checked under the truck, and my stomach ended up in my throat. The road was dark and empty, the woods even darker, our headlights pointing back toward the caverns.

“Corinne!” I yelled again, bent over as I screamed her name.

Tyler peered over the edge of the drop-off, jogged down the road a bit before coming back. “I don't see her,” he said.

“Did I hit her?
Did I hit her?
No, no, no,” I said, frantically making my way down the rocks. I tripped, my knees catching
the sharp edges, my palms gripping the cold stone. The drop-off was dark and steep, and I couldn't make out any shapes in the shadows.

“Stop, Nic. Stop.” Tyler was following me down the rocks. I couldn't see her.

“Why would she do that? She jumped in front of me!”

“I know, I saw.” He grabbed my arms to keep me from going any farther. “Your shoulder,” he said, pressing his hand to it. But the pain was in my abdomen, radiating across my back.

My hands were shaking. “She stepped in front of me. They'll believe me, right?”

His grip on my arms loosened for a moment as something twisted in his face.

“Call 911,” I said, because I couldn't find her and she wasn't answering.

He took his phone out with his uninjured hand and looked deep into my eyes as I felt another wave of pain roll through me. “I was driving,” he said.

“What? No.
I
was driving. Look at your hand. You shouldn't be driving!”

“You were drinking. You can't.”

“I didn't swallow any, I swear.”

“You reek of it. No, it was me.”

“How can you even be talking about this right now?
I was driving.
” I was yelling now. “Not you. I won't let you say it. People saw me driving when we left. Remember?”

He shook his head again. Slid his phone back in his pocket. I heard movement in the trees, and I whipped my head in that direction.

“Corinne?” I called. No response. No movement.

Tyler narrowed his eyes at the trees. “Just the wind,” he said.

“Where is she, Tyler?”

He looked into my eyes, but the world was still spinning. “You didn't hit her,” he said. “This is all one of her fucked-up games.”

“Where is she, then?”

“Hiding. Fucking with us. Laughing right this second. Because she's fucked up.”

I closed my eyes, picturing it. I could see it so easily. It was so her.
Of course
she would do that. Of course she would try to ruin every good thing in my life.

“I can fix the truck,” he said almost silently.

I sucked in a breath from another wave of pain, and I nodded.

And in that moment, we made a decision, a pact. We nudged a domino, and it set something off.

“Stay here,” he said. He handed me the key to the caverns. “Go wait for me there. I'll get my dad's car. I'll come back for you.”

“I can make it from here,” I said. “I know the way.”

But I wasn't going to make it home in time. As another wave of pain rolled through me, I knew I was losing everything tonight.

He looked over his shoulder, his body on edge. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

I waited until I heard him in the truck, and then I ran. I headed for the caverns, because it was the way I knew how to get home. But I pictured her calling
Come find us,
and racing into the depths, like she always did, like we used to do together. I unlocked the chain—would she lock it? If she was fucking with me—
Yes,
I thought,
yes, she'd do this.
Then I slipped inside, called her name as I gripped the rope. I yelled her name into the dark again and again. “Joke's over, Corinne!” I left the rope, used my phone to illuminate the space in front of me, searching for her in the darkness, so sure I could hear her breathing but seeing nothing. No one.

One more wave of pain, and the fear gave way to anger. She was ruining me without even flinching.

I gripped the rope as I pulled myself back out.

It wasn't until much later that night, when I was all alone, that I realized I had lost Tyler's ring.

SHE HAD TO HAVE
jumped out of the way. She had to have hidden. She had to have been killed in some other way—another car, another accident, throwing herself from the ledge to the rocks below. It cannot be that my dad heard us and knew it had been me. It cannot be that he found her after we left. Not that he took the body and moved it so I wouldn't be found out, so my life wouldn't be ruined.

Tyler promised I had done nothing wrong. And so it must be something else.

Otherwise, it's too brutal in its simplicity.

Ten years later, and the past is still here. A picture shifting into focus. A memory gaining clarity. Something whispering to me in the dark:
Look, Nic, do you see?

It was time to open my eyes.

The Day Before

DAY 1—

Night

I
was tired from the
long drive and the visit with Dad, and dirty from an afternoon of housecleaning, but there was still so much to do.
Be the responsible one,
I thought. But I already was—I just wished Daniel could see that. I'd made promises, and trades, and decisions that Daniel could only begin to understand.

The sink faucet and the drain had turned brown with rust. I rummaged through Daniel's box of supplies, poured the rust remover down the drain, listened to the crackle of the chemical reaction.

I slid the thick yellow gloves over my hands and took out the scrub brush, but the ring was twisted, the rock catching on the inside of the rubber any time I bent my fingers. I removed the glove, slid the ring off my finger, and placed it in the middle of the kitchen table, in my direct line of sight. Something to tie me to the outside, a reminder that I had moved on from Cooley Ridge.

I tackled the sink and the counters, vaguely satisfied with myself,
meticulously scrubbing and buffing it all to a shine. The ringing phone was a welcome relief. My eyes had started to go blurry, and I wiped my arm against my forehead to brush the hair back, pulled one of the gloves off my hand. “Hello?”

“Hey. Sorry I'm calling back so late,” Everett said.

I sank into the kitchen chair, pulling off the other glove with my teeth. “No worries. I know you're busy.”

“So, you made it.”

“I made it,” I said.

“How's it going so far?” he asked.

“Pretty much as expected. Dad's the same, Daniel's the same. Dropped off the paperwork for the doctor. I'm tackling the house already.” I stood, doing a quick tidying up before heading upstairs.

“How long until you can list it?”

“Not sure. I don't want to list it until everything's fixed. First impressions are everything.” I saw that it was almost midnight and yawned.

“Get some sleep,” he said.

“I'm about to.” I turned off the downstairs light, backing out of the room. Turned to face the window, to see the trees and mountains illuminated in the moonlight as I stood in the dark.
Goodbye,
I thought.

And thought for a moment that I saw a flicker of light between the trees.

“I'm going to try to get my dad to sign the papers on his own. Doesn't feel right, taking it out from under him,” I said.

“Well,” Everett said, his own yawn making me smile, “do what you need to do.”

“I always do,” I said.

TEN YEARS AGO, I'D
stumbled through these woods, trying to get back home. Desperate for the safety of the walls—
just make it
home.
As if that could prevent the inevitable. Dad's car and Daniel's car were gone, and I sprinted across the yard, holding my arm to my stomach, pain shooting through both. The porch light swinging, and the screen door creaking, and me gasping, alone in the house.

I was alone.

The rest of the night I can handle only in flashes. I'm not sure what that says, that I can stare back at Corinne for minutes on end but not at this. I have to come at it from the side, grazing pieces here and there. Not looking it directly in the eye. I've never told it before. This is the only way I know how.

I'm getting there.

STRIPPING OFF MY CLOTHES
in the bathroom in a wild panic, trying to stop something I had no control over—furious that I could not—and the fury giving way to something quiet and hollow the moment I surrendered. When I remembered that the world would not bend to my will, that it never had, and it certainly wasn't about to start now.

Turning the water on hot, leaving the clothes on the floor, folding up my knees and sitting in the tub, my head resting on my arms, my eyes squeezed shut, letting the water hit me everywhere.

Two days.
It had been a hypothetical two days ago in Corinne's bathroom, had just barely morphed into something real and hopeful in my mind, and now it was gone. Like it had never truly existed.

DANIEL, KNOCKING ON THE
door a while later. “Nic? Are you okay?” More knocking. “I can hear you.”

Holding my breath so I'd stop crying.

“Answer me or I'm coming in.”

The door handle turning, and a cold gust of air, and Daniel sucking in his breath as his shadow stood beside my clothes in a heap on the floor.

“Are you okay?”

Letting out the breath along with a sob. “No, I'm not okay.”

“Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can help.” Tyler had told Daniel I was pregnant after hitting him. I knew from the way Daniel had looked at me with so much regret.

“It's too late.”

“Get out of the tub, Nic. I can't help you unless you get out of the tub.”

“I don't want your help.”

And him: “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

His shadow retreating. The door closing.

The water eventually running cold, pulling myself up, grabbing a towel from the bar.

My clothes off the floor and the laundry running downstairs. Wrapping myself in the fleece pajamas I used in the winter, sinking into the center of my bed, hearing Daniel on the phone in his room. “No, Tyler, you don't understand. You have to come.”

Me calling back through the bathroom between our rooms: “He can't.”

Daniel hanging up, standing in the doorway to my room, looking as helpless and lost as I felt. “What do I do? What can I do?”

Me, crying again—everything from that night too tangled together—and wanting to go back years, a decade, to a time when every possibility could exist. Saying, “I want Mom.” The most unreasonable request.

And Daniel, expression unreadable, with his chin set, his nose swollen, his eyes faintly bruised, saying, “Well, I'm all you've got,” as he came to sit beside me.

TYLER MADE IT ANYWAY.
On foot. Over the river. I heard him downstairs later, with Daniel.

I'd tell him in the stairwell, on my feet. I'd stop crying.

I'd lost his ring. I'd lost everything. And I wasn't sure if his offer still stood. If he still meant it. It was easier to pretend it just never happened at all.

EVERYTHING IN THAT BOX
in the police station had belonged to me: the pregnancy test, the ring, the stories, even. And in a way, it was fitting. That girl faded to nothing from the curve of the road on the last night of the county fair. She disappeared. She changed her hair and her accent, her phone number, her address. She did not look back.

Do what you need to do, Nic.

Pick yourself up.

Start over again.