Never Missing, Never Found (21 page)

If Skywoman could go on after she discovered her beloved second husband was nothing more than the Blade’s spy, if she could hold up her head and go about saving the world and the citizens of Silver City after she’d been so punched in the gut, I can manage to face Connor and Rob and the others.

Except Katharina, but I don’t have to worry about that. Just the thought of her makes my jaw clench. “Is Katharina working in this area today?” I ask. My voice is rusty from disuse, but I have to know for sure if they know she’s gone.

Connor’s back stiffens like someone’s shoved a poker up his butt. Rob stops mid paper shuffle and swings around to face me. “You haven’t heard?” he says incredulously, his eyes wide, like he’s forgotten he’s supposed to be mad at and afraid of me.

“Heard what?” The more I speak, the easier it is, like the first words are battering down the path for the words tumbling after.

Connor and Rob exchange a
look.
“Katharina was supposed to work this morning,” Rob says. “She never showed up.”

So they know. “Is she…”

“We called the police when we couldn’t reach her,” he continues, as though I didn’t speak at all. “Normally, we wouldn’t call that quickly, but after Monica…well. They’ve been poking around. They can’t find her.”

I speak along with Rob. “She’s gone.”

Throughout the rest of the day I am a bird gathering bits of string and leaves and tinsel, building up a nest of all everybody knows about Katharina’s mysterious disappearance. Evidently, word hasn’t spread of what happened at our makeshift memorial service, because people are still willing to talk to me. Even Tina spares me a small smile as we pass on our way to and from the Canteen. Maybe Melody isn’t the only one who didn’t believe Katharina.

Today is Monday. Katharina worked the day shift on Sunday. Just like Monica, she waved goodbye to her coworkers, said she’d see them tomorrow, and disappeared into thin air. And, just like Monica, nobody’s heard from her since. As Rob said, they usually wouldn’t call the police after one day, but they called her house and her cell and nobody picked up. If she’d been taken like Monica had been taken, they didn’t want to lose a second of time in the hunt.

Kyrsten in Merch swears she saw a mustachioed man in a black cape follow Katharina as she left for the parking lot, trailing after her close as a shadow. Marcus in Foods thinks Katharina mentioned taking off for a few days to visit her cousin in Florida and just forgot to register for time off. Sarah in Guest Relations says she saw, on the security camera, a blurry Katharina stealing off into the woods with Scott, the Merch supervisor, and that Scott must have killed her so she couldn’t tell his wife and kids about their torrid affair.

One theory is conspicuous in its absence. Nobody mentions Monica. Nobody mentions that if two girls the same age go missing from the same place within a few weeks of each other, it’s probably the same person who did it. Nobody mentions that Monica is dead, and that if they don’t catch this guy, probably soon Katharina will be dead too.

Nobody mentions it, but I know they’re thinking it.

Mayra in Merch has a fiancé who’s a cop, and she says they don’t have any leads. They scoured the security tapes and spent this morning tracing Katharina’s last footsteps, but it’s like she suddenly sprouted wings and took flight and is hiding up in the clouds, laughing every so often and shaking them and making them rain. They’re scouring the woods near where they found Monica’s body, in case he’s keeping her nearby—because that’s what the police think, that she was taken by the same person, even if nobody at Five Banners will admit it. They’re talking to everyone who worked with Katharina during her final shift. Nobody knows anything useful. All they can say is that she’s gone.

The police can’t find her family. When they went to the address Katharina had listed on her employment forms, nobody was home, and nobody came home. They ran the address in their internal database, or whatever it is, and discovered that the house is vacant. Nobody is supposed to be living there.

All they have to go on is what Katharina told all of us at Adventure World. That she’d just moved to Jefferson at the end of the school year, the beginning of the summer. That she’d moved from somewhere in Ohio, or Iowa, or Idaho, or one of those states with lots of
i
’s and
o
’s. That she spoke of a cat. That she had a lot of old sayings with mysterious origins.

And all they know now is that she’s gone.

At the end of the day, I expect Rob to bustle in, all business, to pull me off register and silence the hellspawn screeching over the speakers.

Instead I get Connor. He ambles in, hands in his pockets, shoulders sloped with a forced sort of casualness. I half expect him to purse his lips and fire off a whistle or two. “Hey,” he says. I go to turn away, but he puts out his hand, and for some reason I stay. “Don’t move. Please. I won’t talk about…us. But I have to tell you something important.”

I sigh. “Okay.” I’m not really sure what else to say. We haven’t really spoken since I told him to get away from me, and I’m not going to apologize for that. And I haven’t seen him since I was accused of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend/semi-girlfriend/whatever Cady is to him. I didn’t do it, so I’m not going to apologize for that, either.

And I certainly hope he doesn’t know about Katharina.

He licks his lips. I’m surprised to see how chapped they are. I don’t remember them being that chapped when I had them pressed against my own. “Rob was going to come and take you off register,” he says. “I asked if I could come instead.”

Lips that chapped must be painful. I imagine them cracking, bleeding, every time he opens his mouth. “I just want to go home,” I say, or plead—I’m not entirely sure.

He leans against the counter and sighs. “I think about you all the time. I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.”

“Yeah, well, it still happened, and you still hurt me.” I slam my hands against the counter, and he jumps. The Wonderkidz hellspawn screech out a particularly high note in the background. I can barely hear them. I can barely hear them in my ears, that is—I’m pretty sure that, at this point, their voices are etched deep into my soul. “Can you please just take me off register so I can go home?”

He doesn’t move. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up. I wanted to tell you that I don’t think you tried to push Cady off the Blade’s Revenge. I think Katharina was lying. Tina and Cynthia think so too.” I notice he doesn’t mention Rob. That doesn’t surprise me as much as his admission does. “I don’t know why she would lie, but you couldn’t have gotten at Cady at that angle.”

I soften, just slightly. “Good. Because I
didn’t
do it. I would never do it. Melody thinks Katharina was lying too. And they’re friends.” The fact of Katharina’s disappearance hangs heavy in the air. “Well, they were. I don’t know about…now.”

He clears his throat, then blinks and runs his hand over his face. “Yeah,” he says. I’ve gone and made things more awkward than they already were. I can’t even believe that’s possible. I’m the champion of awkwardness. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that.”

That strikes me as a funny thing to say. I laugh, and my laugh holds a tinge of hysteria. Probably not the best thing at this moment, when I want to look calm and cool and collected and definitively not crazy, but it spills out of me anyway. I can’t stop. “I don’t care what you think of me,” I lie.

“I care what you think of
me.
” Connor sounds genuinely wounded. I wish he
were
genuinely wounded. It would give me an excuse to rush over, to run my hands over his freckles in examination of whatever force tore them apart. “Scarlett…”

He looks at me, and inside I curse as I realize I’m caught up in the thrall of those half-golden eyes. My whole body tingles with the effort it takes not to touch him, to kiss him, to grind his belt buckle deep into the skin of my belly. “Don’t,” I say, tearing my eyes away, looking at the floor, the counter, anywhere but at him.

He doesn’t say anything else, and I shift. “I really want to go home,” I say. “Cady’s probably looking for you anyway.”

His hands, moving toward the cash drawer, stop when I say his ex’s name. “Cady’s furious with me,” he says. “She’s not looking for me.”

I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying,
Good.
My body tingles harder; I cough to try to shake it out of me. “My register?”

He coughs back, like we’re speaking in a secret language. I wish I could understand it. “Sorry. I’m working on it.”

“Work faster,” I say. My cash drawer finally pops free of my register with a
beep.

“Voilà.” He sounds strangled. “Hey, I almost forgot….” He reaches under the counter for the button that turns the speakers on and off, and clicks. The hellspawn cut off midscreech, and the silence rings in my ears.

I just need time. A little bit of time.

I’m still hopped up on nerves when I head to work the next morning, and the nerves only jump more when I see the men in suits stationed throughout the park. It’s a long walk today, to the north side, and so I see at least four of them. Men in suits, and cars, too. I’ve never seen a car in the park. A black car. So much black.

I make a note to ask the assistant manager what’s up. But when I enter Dolphin Discovery—the north-side headquarters—I find Cady on her knees, folding shirts, her hair sticking up in little spikes all over her head. I stop short, and my heart plummets to my feet. She doesn’t hear it; she’s folding shirts as viciously as it’s possible to fold shirts, snapping them out and shoving their sides together, then slamming them onto shelves. Her face is red and she’s breathing heavy as a bull.

I stand there and watch. I’m afraid her head might explode if I speak. I’m not sure if it would explode into shrapnel or tears. I’m not sure which would be worse.

Maybe I should turn around and leave. If I miss another day, I’ll be terminated, but that’s the least of my worries right now.

Cady looks over as I’m trying to decide. “Oh, it’s you,” she says, her voice flat. “What do you want?”

I clear my throat. There’s no blockage or rustiness to clear, but it just seems like something I should do. “They sent me here,” I say. “For the day. Sorry.”
No,
I tell myself,
don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.
It’s too late to take it back, though, and it hangs in the air like smog. I might choke on it.

She rolls her eyes up at the ceiling, like she’s expecting help from above—maybe a massive icicle that’ll suddenly appear and detach and spear me through the brain—and then turns back to me with a heavy sigh. “I wish they hadn’t.”

My stomach clenches. I wish they hadn’t too. “I swear I didn’t push you,” I say. “I wouldn’t do that. I swear.”

She stares at me for a second before brushing her hands off on her khakis and standing. “How about kissing my…Connor?” she says acidly. “Do you swear you didn’t do that, too?”

I wish I had some tea I could offer her. Offering someone tea is a very Melody thing to do, which means it’s the right thing to do. “No.” I figure now isn’t the best time to go into how Connor is actually her ex-boyfriend. “Connor and I did kiss.”

She makes a scoffing noise deep in her throat, like she’s choking, or like she’s going to throw up. “What happened?” she says, and she’s looking at the floor.

I really wish I had some tea. “I should probably go on register. It’s already almost nine.”

She looks at me again, eyes blazing. “What happened? Tell me how it happened.”

Should I hug her? Probably not. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.

Her eyes blaze so hot and hard my polo might actually go up in flames. It’s probably not flame-retardant. “No,” she says, crossing her arms so hard the tips of her elbows go white. “I want to hear exactly how it happened. I want you to tell me every single thing that—”

The door opens, making us both jump. “Cade.” It’s Rob, staring at her with soft eyes. It hits me then: he loves her. She’s not just his friend; he loves her, but she’s his best friend’s girl—well, kind of—and therefore off-limits.

It hurts, then, to realize how good he is. He’s no morally ambiguous Blade, he’s Wonderman through and through. He must want Cady and Connor to break up and stay broken up, yet he’s been doing everything in his power to keep the breakup from becoming completely final. He’s been doing everything in his power to give her happiness at the expense of his own.

He doesn’t hate me because he hates
me
. He hates me because he’s conflicted, because a part of him wants me to succeed in breaking them up and making Connor happy enough where he’d be fine with Rob swooping in on his ex.

I want to hug him. I wonder how it feels to hug such a good person. I wonder if goodness is warm or cold or soft or hard. Goodness has piercings and tattoos and tiny, tiny teeth.

“Cade,” Rob says again, breaking me out of my reverie. “Cynthia switched us. She wants you in the south today.”

Cady takes a deep breath. “But I was just—”

“She needs you right now,” Rob says, his voice unfathomably gentle. I think I might love him. Not in a physical way—I’m certainly not attracted to him—but in a way you’d love your grandfather or a beloved pet dog. I want to cuddle him and treasure him and never let him go.

Cady’s shoulders slump. “Okay,” she says, her resolve clearly weakening. “But—”

“You should go now,” Rob says. “Okay?”

She nods, sniffing hard. “Okay,” she says, still avoiding my eyes, and darts out the door without looking back.

Rob watches her until she disappears behind a hedge. “I’m going to send you to Hormones,” he says. Hormones is the park’s supposed store for teens, full of hip clothes and groovy accessories and sticky massage chairs crusted in potato chip crumbs. “Let me get your cash drawer.”

I wonder if Cynthia really switched the two of them of her own free will, or if Rob asked for the change when he saw the assignment lists for the day. Probably the latter, martyr that he is. I wonder if he’d throw himself on a plush sword for her. “Okay.”

We set out. Hormones is a short walk away, but we still pass a few of the black cars and people in suits. Maybe they’re here for me. The thought doesn’t scare me as much as it should. In jail, not only would I be safe from Katharina and Melody. I’d be safe from myself. “What’s with all of this?” I ask, trying my best to sound unconcerned.

“They’re finally fixing
all
the cameras,” Rob says, and gives a short laugh. “Two girls gone missing from the park isn’t exactly good for publicity.”

Cameras. Of course. I breathe a little bit easier. “Any word on who took Monica?” I ask.

Rob grimaces and shakes his head. “Rumors say they think it was someone inside the park,” he says. “That’s the only way somebody could have gotten her out without crossing in front of any of the working cameras or witnesses. Same with…Katharina. I hear they’re going to start talking to all of us over the next few days.”

My heart slows, then stops. Somehow I don’t die. “
All
of us?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I hope they find her. And not like they found Monica.”

My heart hasn’t restarted. I should really be dead. “Yeah,” I say, and swallow air. “Me too.”

I didn’t sleep at all the night I gave Pixie the knife back. I closed my eyes, sure, and pretended, but I was too afraid I’d wake up to her poised above me, about to stab. Or worse, that I wouldn’t wake up at all.

In the morning, I was still alive. I opened my eyes and yawned widely, pretending to wake up, and found Pixie on her side, staring at me. “Morning,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Sure,” she said flatly. She was already dressed. I didn’t ask, and I couldn’t see, but I would’ve bet my breakfast that she had that knife clamped tight against her side.

I wondered why she needed it. What she planned to do with it.

My unease grew.

Was she going to stab Stepmother? Aside from Pixie, Stepmother was all I had. She fed me and clothed me and had taken care of me since my parents decided they didn’t want me anymore. I made her think of her daughter. What would she do without me? What would I do without her?

And Stepmother’s words from long ago still nagged at me. If Pixie escaped without my knowing, I didn’t think Stepmother would take it out on me. But if I knew about the knife—and Stepmother would know I knew, she knew everything—and didn’t tell her, she would kill me. I knew that.

Pixie and I chewed our sandwiches in silence over the sink. Stepmother sat at the kitchen table behind us, her reading glasses on as she combed through stacks of paper. Pixie took small, quick bites and chewed with a rabbity sort of concentration; she stood stiffly, and I knew she didn’t want to move lest the knife shift position. “Don’t,” I whispered. Pixie glared at me. I heard the papers shift behind me as Stepmother looked up, then the papers shifted again as she looked down.

Pixie set her sandwich on the counter and turned around, reaching for her side. I turned to follow her. She’d taken one step toward Stepmother when I shouted, “She’s got a knife.”

Time stopped, and it was as if the world around me crawled in slow motion. Stepmother’s eyes narrowing as she hopped to her feet, her chair skittering over the linoleum behind her. Pixie’s gasp of surprise, long and drawn out, as she reached for the knife. The knife itself, glittering in the kitchen light.

But in reality it all happened in a second. Stepmother’s jump, Pixie’s lunge, the knife cutting through empty air.

All I could do was stand and watch. I couldn’t move.

Pixie, on the other hand, was nothing but movement. She let out a wounded cry when she saw she’d missed, but regrouped quickly and darted for the kitchen door. It was locked, as always, and the precious few seconds it took for Pixie to open both locks was enough time for Stepmother to catch up to her and yell for the girls to come help.

But Pixie wasn’t having it. She snarled and swung the knife viciously just as the lock clicked open; Stepmother gasped and stumbled backward to avoid the knife slicing through her stomach. Pixie stood there in front of the unlocked door, panting, the knife held before her with both hands like a prayer. The girls stopped in the doorway and inhaled all at once. Stepmother eyed her warily, her hands on her belly. I saw a line of red drip to the floor, and it was my turn to gasp. She’d been cut.

Pixie’s eyes flickered to me for a second, just for a second. I couldn’t read her expression; she could’ve been pleading for me to come along, or angry that I’d betrayed her, or excited to burst out that door, or all three at once, I still don’t know. I looked at the floor, and when I looked up again, she was gone.

Stepmother and the girls gave chase. I waited for them in the kitchen. I finished my sandwich and then finished Pixie’s sandwich too, because why not? Even if she came back, she wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

Stepmother came back empty-handed, breathing hard, her eyes slits.

It was good I’d eaten that extra half sandwich, because she stuck me back in the basement and didn’t let me out for three days. It was okay. I hadn’t told her about the knife beforehand. I deserved it.

When she did let me out, she was calmer, her eyes flat and placid. “I found your friend,” she said in greeting. I stopped breathing. “I caught her and she cried and asked for forgiveness. I do not forgive. First I cut off her fingers, one by one, then her toes, and then I cut her throat and threw her in an unmarked grave. Let this be a lesson to you, Jane, if you ever should think to betray me.”

I tried to curl around myself that night, tried to wish away my thoughts of Pixie, but my tears soaked the mattress, and I was cold, cold, cold.

I don’t go home after work. I drive immediately to the dirt road in the woods, then walk from there to my cabin. My heart hasn’t restarted. I am a zombie shambling in search of brains. A zombie carrying a Tupperware container full of bran muffins and three bottles of water.

I’m shaking as I unlock the cabin door. I worry for a moment that Katharina won’t be there—not that she will have escaped, but that she was never there in the first place, that her entire existence was just a concoction of a fraying mind—but she’s still there, slumped in the corner, hair hanging in dusty ropes over her face. She glares through it as I come in. “What?” she spits, voice rusty.

I’m shaking so hard she must be able to hear my bones clattering against each other as I set the muffins and water down in front of her and then jump back before she can grab an ankle. “I came because I had to say I’m sorry,” I say. “I never said it, but I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that.” I expect I’ll feel better as the words leave my lips, that they’ll become balloons and lift me off the ground, but I don’t. If anything, I feel worse. Because I can only give her these words; I can’t go back in time and stop myself from doing what I did.

Worse, I don’t think I’d do that even if I could.

Katharina snorts and rolls her eyes. “You’re not sorry,” she says. Her eyes stop midroll and zero in on the fireplace, at the far side of the cabin. “What’s that?” she says slowly, like each word sticks to the inside of her mouth.