Never Missing, Never Found (15 page)

“It’s Monica,” he says. “They found her.”

Outside someone wails, a high, desolate sound that tears apart the sky.

After my night in Candy’s bedroom, I expected everything to go back to normal: I’d clean everything up, eat a quick lunch under Stepmother’s watchful eye, help the girls at night, eat a quick dinner under Stepmother’s watchful eye, and then get shooed into the basement to curl around Pixie and fall into an exhausted sleep.

That’s not what happened. I cleaned everything up. Ate a quick lunch under Stepmother’s watchful eye. Helped the girls at night. But when Pixie and I were excused to the kitchen to shovel down our usual tuna fish sandwiches, Stepmother was waiting. “I would like to thank you again for your loyalty, Jane,” she said. “You were such a good girl, you deserve a nice dinner.”

I glanced over at Pixie, who was determinedly staring at the floor. Maybe she was looking for an escape tunnel. I’d just regained her goodwill. If I lost it again so quickly, I might have a much harder time getting it back. “I love tuna fish, ma’am,” I said earnestly. “It’s exactly what I’m in the mood for.”

Stepmother laid a hand on my hair. My head bowed forward under its weight, and my hair prickled. I had to fight the urge to shake it off. She’d never touched me like this before, and she didn’t move her hand now, just let it sit. “I want you to have a roast beef sandwich. I won’t take no for an answer, Jane.”

From the corner of my eye I could see Pixie’s lips thin. Roast beef was one of Pixie’s favorite foods. “It’s really okay, ma’am.”

“Nonsense,” Stepmother said, and she removed her hand. I suddenly felt so light I might float away. “I’ve already made it. Eat it.”

I glanced again at Pixie. She was looking at me, but as soon as my eyes met hers, she looked down at the floor. “Okay,” I said helplessly.

Stepmother sat us down at the table and placed our food in front of us. Pixie’s was the usual: chunky tuna fish on white bread, cut in half. On my plate was what looked like half a crusty baguette, stuffed full to bursting with roast beef and pickles and dripping with sauce. There was even a mountain of chips on the side. Despite myself, my mouth watered.

If I’d had the choice, I would have shared half of it with Pixie. But I didn’t have the choice.

Stepmother sat there the whole time, watching me. So I ate the sandwich with my eyes on my plate. It was the most delicious sandwich I’d ever eaten.

That night, Stepmother sent me down into the basement, the feeling of her hand still imprinted in my hair. I knew this wasn’t it, though. More nights in beds and more roast beef sandwiches waited for me if I ratted Pixie out again.

I could tell Pixie was upset; she crawled to our mattress and curled up, facing the wall. I followed and sat down beside her. “My scar hurts,” I said.

She didn’t say anything, but she reached her hand backward in what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable position. I took it and squeezed. “Tell me about your school,” she said. “I bet you had a nice school.”

I’d never thought of my school as nice, but now I couldn’t think of any place nicer in all the world. “I wonder what happened to my desk,” I said. “If they just left it open waiting for me, or if someone else is sitting there now. And all my stuff. I wonder what they did with all my stuff.”

“Tell me about your school,” Pixie said. “Tell me about your friends.”

I told her about my school. I told her about my friends. I told her about my old life until my voice literally stopped working and I sagged against her shoulder with sleep. She patted my head, stroking, really, like I was some kind of pet, or a wild animal she was trying to tame.

In the dizzying moments after Rob leads Connor and me from the barn and into the fray of screams and cries around the bonfire, I think that “They found her” means “They found Monica, here, at the party.” Maybe while Connor and I were kissing, Monica was so incensed by this betrayal of her best friend that she willed herself away from wherever she was and burst from the fire, showering the partygoers with sparks and starting a hundred little fires in the fields, and tore around the party shrieking like a devil before collapsing into a heap of ash.

But no—as I learn on our walk, Monica hasn’t been found here (obviously). Her body has been found several miles away, half buried under a drift of leaves, somewhere deep in the woods, by police who showed up at the area in pursuit of a drug bust.

Rob doesn’t tell me, of course. He tells Connor, their heads leaning close together, as I trail behind, no longer a part of the group. It’s probably better this way, I think, or I try to think. This way, nobody will see us walking together. Nobody will know what happened in the barn. This isn’t the time for everyone to know what happened in the barn.

As if he’s reading my mind, Connor stops and looks over his shoulder, face apologetic. “Oh no,” he says. “Look….”

The wail I heard in the barn came from Cady, I immediately understand. She’s still wailing, her mouth a pit you could drown in; if there were birds flying overhead, her cries would drop them. She’s draped over one of the bales, curled into a knot like she has a stomachache, one of her hands dangling uselessly over the side. A couple of her friends, Tina included, hover around her, but most of the people here are clustered in knots of their own, foreheads touching, their murmurs forming a roar. Some are leaving; the sounds of slamming car doors echo from the driveway.

“I need to go to Cady,” Connor says. He rubs his forehead. The creases are back. “I just…I have to.” He looks at me, eyes doleful, like he’s a kid asking his teacher for permission to go to the bathroom. “She’s still my friend, and I’m the only one who’s going to be able to make her feel better.”

And it’s just that, the fact that he seems to feel he needs my permission, that makes me sigh and nod. “You should go to her,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”

“Later,” Connor says. He makes an awkward little bob, like he’s going to hug me, but Rob clears his throat and Connor jolts away. He nods his head instead and takes off, running in Cady’s direction.

Rob clears his throat again, and I realize he’s directing it at me. “He broke up with her,” I say defensively.

“They’ve broken up before,” Rob says. For someone with piercings in his face and tattoos peeking over the collar of his shirt, he manages to look an awful lot like a disapproving old woman. “He’s a good guy. He won’t do this to her when her best friend just died.”

I feel like he’s kicked me in the gut. When I realize I’m upset over being inconvenienced by a dead girl, I feel like I’ve kicked
myself
in the gut. “Not to be a bitch, but it’s really none of your business.” I take a deep breath and am embarrassed to feel it shudder in my throat. “I should probably go.”

“Scarlett, wait.” I stop, but I don’t turn around. “I know he likes you,” Rob continues. “I know you like him. You’re probably good for each other. But sometimes the timing just doesn’t work, you know?”

I take another deep breath. This one doesn’t shudder. “Like I said, I don’t want to be a bitch, but it’s really none of your business.” I hear him clear his throat again, but I flee before he can say anything else.

The whole party is trying to leave at once, and so I have to wait in a line to turn off onto the road. As I’m waiting, I wonder about Monica—where exactly she was found, what exactly had happened to her, how long she’d been lying there, alone and unfound, in the dark—and I realize one thing.

I saw what seemed like every person I’ve ever worked with at Adventure World at that party.

Except Katharina.

I feel like I’ve spent years of my life at the bonfire, like I’ve gone from seventeen to eighteen to nineteen and am now an unfathomably ancient twenty, just one year away from being a real legal person. But the bonfire lasted only two hours. Somehow I drove there, got my drink, let Cady cry all over me, made out with Connor, and fled under Rob’s judgy eyes in 120 minutes. I want to laugh at the thought.

As I pull into the driveway, the living room lights glow through our front windows—not surprising, since it’s only ten o’clock. Seriously, only two hours?

It’s past his bedtime, so Matthew is sleeping, or pretending to sleep. My dad is the one the lamps light up, and he waves at me from the couch as I walk by. “Good party?” he asks, the glow of the TV flickering over his cheeks. Flashing lights chase a phantom car.

“Okay,” I say, ready to walk past, and then stop. “They found the missing girl. Monica.”

“Found her?” My dad shifts in his seat and his mouth twitches, like he’s not sure if he should smile or frown, whether he should clap or jump up to hug me.

He stays seated.

“Dead,” I say flatly.

“I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, but he still doesn’t stand.

“No,” I say. I’m already moving toward the stairs. “I just want to go to sleep.”

That is a lie. I tiptoe past my bedroom door and nudge Matthew’s open. As I suspected, he’s sprawled out beside the door, under his night-light, his face buried in the pages of a book. Little snores escape his throat. I crouch at his side. “Hey, kid,” I say, nudging his shoulder. “Get in bed.”

He lifts his head. A crease indents his cheek from forehead to chin where it had rested against the edge of the pages. “I’m not tired,” he says.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Get in bed and I’ll tuck you in.”

He lets me lift him up and cart him, heavy and warm and smelling like baby, to his bed. I lower him gently to his sheets, leaning over one extra second to breathe him in. There’s something about the smell of freshly washed little kid. It’s the smell of everything good in the world, and for a moment it makes me forget the way Monica’s body must have smelled lying out there, broken, under sticks and leaves.

“Can you read some of my book?” Matthew asks. His eyelashes flutter sleepily.

I practice my stern face, but it melts in two seconds. “Looks like you read plenty,” I say. I draw the covers over him and tuck them under his chin. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

“Did they find that girl?” Matthew asks. He blinks at me slowly, drowsily. “The one who was missing?”

My throat closes up. I can’t lie to him. “Yes, they found her,” I say, and pray he doesn’t ask me anything more.

His blink lasts a shade longer than the last. “You were missing too,” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “I was.”

“But they found you, too,” Matthew says, and this time his eyes don’t open again.

I let the words ring in the room for a moment, hang in the air and paint the walls black with streaks of shadow.
Too.
My heart beats hollow in my chest. It’s amazing what one word can do.

“Scarlett?”

I jerk and immediately glance down to make sure I didn’t wake my brother. He’s still slumbering peacefully. I wish I were seven years old.

“Yeah?” I ease my way up—Matthew snorts and his lips twitch—and make my way to the door. I’ve shut it behind me before I realize I’m face to face with Melody. I don’t know who else I thought it would be. “Oh,” I say. “Hey.”

She leans against the wall, still dressed in her going-out clothes—a thigh-skimming skirt and lacy top. Black eyeliner smudges shadows around her eyes. “I heard they found the missing girl,” she says breathlessly. Her cheeks are flushed—I can’t tell if it’s from makeup or blood.

“Her name was Monica,” I say.

“I heard they found her in the woods,” she says. “I heard she’d been there for a few days already.”

My legs are weak; someone’s sucked out all my muscle and blood and pumped them full of air, and now they’re deflating like twin balloons. “I need to go to bed.”

“That’s all I heard,” Melody continues, like I haven’t even spoken. “Do you know anything? I know you were with Five Banners people tonight, right? Did they know anything? Like, do the police think they know who did it?”

I try to squeeze past her, but she extends an arm and blocks my way. I’m just glad she doesn’t touch me. I’d pop. “I really need to go to bed.”

“You don’t look so good,” Melody says, and this time she does touch me, links her elbow in mine. The touch doesn’t pop me. It invigorates me instead, shoots me with an extra blast of air. “This whole deal must be bringing back all your trauma and stuff. Do you feel weird that they found you alive and not her?”