The Night She Disappeared (12 page)

“I’m sorry about your friend. About Kayla Cutler.” I resist the urge to touch the side of my neck. The fading marks from her scratches are hidden under a very light layer of makeup. I had to buy five different kinds at Target before I found one that blended with my skin. At a client meeting, I told them a story about cutting down blackberries. Beforehand, I had thrust my arms into some brambles along a road, to make it more believable. “It’s been what—a week? Have they found Kayla’s body yet?”

Gabie’s face goes pale and she bites her lip. She looks even
more
pretty, if that’s possible.

“No.” She gives her head a shake, her bangs falling in her eyes. “No.”

A grin wells up inside me, but I don’t let it out. Gabie has no idea. She has no idea Kayla is alive, at least as long as I allow her to be.

She has no idea Kayla will have to die to make room for her.

The Seventh Day

Drew

“CAN I ORDER
pizza and salad to be delivered?” It’s a woman’s voice, a perfectly normal woman’s voice, but my stomach does a flip. This is it. The moment I actually have to drive Gabie’s car. Earlier, Pete was making deliveries, but now everyone’s left but the two of us.

I put my hand over the phone. “I’ve got a to-go order,” I tell Gabie.

“Well, take it.”

“You’re sure?” Because I’m not, not at all.

“Yes,” Gabie says. But she sort of shakes her head when she says it.

It only takes a few minutes to make the pizzas. After putting them in the oven, I look around. The counter should seem like a protective barrier between us and the outside world. But now it feels more like a cage designed to keep us in. If someone crazy walks in, Gabie could be trapped. Sure, there’s the door to the back parking lot, but to get to it she’d have to run through the prep area, past Pete’s office and the dough room and the break room, and then finally unlock the door. That’s way too far if someone is chasing you.

“I shouldn’t leave you here alone. I’ll call the lady back and tell her we can’t do it.”

“It’ll be okay. All the other stores are still open. If anyone tries anything, there’ll be a million witnesses. And my cell phone’s right here.” Gabie pats her apron pocket.

It still doesn’t feel right. But what can I do? At least having her stay here is a lot safer than having her make the delivery. I go into the cooler to get the salad. Sunny makes it in the morning, so all I have to do is put the lettuce mix in a white box and tuck in a little container of dressing. As I push open the door, I realize the cooler is like a fortress. No windows. The door is at least six inches thick and solid wood. Lying in the corner is a short piece of wood broken off from a pallet. I slide it underneath the handle so it goes across the door frame. Then I try to push open the door. It won’t budge.

I take it out and bring Gabie inside to show her. Our breath hangs in two clouds that mingle together. “See, if someone came in, you could just run in here and slide this piece of wood in. Try it when I leave.” I push the door open, go outside, wait a minute, and then try to pull it open again. It doesn’t budge. And since the door opens out, it’s not like a bad guy could kick it open or crash it down with his shoulder.

The pizzas seem to take only seconds. I slide them in the cardboard boxes and put the boxes into red insulated bags. The salad goes on top.

I take a deep breath. “Okay, I guess I’m ready. If someone comes in that has the wrong vibe, then get in the cooler and call 911. Don’t worry about looking stupid.”

She hands me the keys. “I’ll be careful. And you be careful, too.” Her eyes flash up to me and then away. She’s standing so close I can smell the spearmint on her breath. She’s been chewing gum all night, chewing fast and working fast.

I go out the back door. There’s not much light. I’ll walk Gabie out to her car before I go home. I press the button on the weird-looking key thing to unlock her car. My hand is shaking. I put the pizzas and salad on the front seat, first running my hand underneath the bag to make sure there’s no bits of cheese stuck there. Her car is so clean. My mom’s Ford Tempo has seats with crumbs and burn holes from cigarettes.

My mom hardly lets me take the car, so I don’t have a lot of experience driving. Not that I’m ever going to tell Gabie that. Plus, I plan on never letting her car get within ten feet of another car. I back out of the parking space and then turn onto the road, driving like there’s an egg between my foot and the gas pedal.

There’s a Flea Market Parade CD in, playing the “Cage of Bones” song. I sing along, ignoring how dark the lyrics are, just trying to relax.

Ten very nervous minutes later, I park in front of the lady’s house. I go up the steps, knock on the door. “Delivery from Pete’s!” I say when a woman looks out the window. It should be pretty obvious. I’m wearing a white baseball cap and red polo shirt. Both of them say pete’s pizza in big white letters.

The lady opens the door and starts digging through her purse. She has the same voice as the woman who called. So it wasn’t like this was some ruse to lure me out of Pete’s. Behind her, two little kids are watching a
Simpsons
rerun.

“Have they found Kayla yet?” the lady asks while she’s still looking.

People all use just her first name, like they know her. I guess once you see her picture in the paper and on TV over and over again, you start to feel like you do know her. Like she’s real. The weird thing is, the longer Kayla is gone, the less real she is to me.

“Not that I’ve heard.” To stop people from asking a bunch of questions, I try to make it clear I’m not in the loop.

“It must be hard,” she says, finally finding her money.

I have a feeling that if I teared up a little, or if I said something, anything, about Kayla or how I felt, she would give me a big tip.

Instead, I shrug. And get a single crumpled dollar bill over the cost of her food.

“We’re all praying for Kayla,” she says as I start back down the walk. I wonder if it will make any difference.

Gabie is sure Kayla’s alive. But if she’s right, I don’t want to think about it. Because if Kayla’s alive, it’s not like she’s wandering in the wilderness with no memory of how she got there.

If Kayla is alive, I wonder if she really wants to be.

The Seventh Day

Gabie

WHEN I HEAR
the back door close behind Drew, I touch my apron pocket, feeling the solid, comforting rectangle of my cell phone.

I told him to go. I practically ordered him to. But now I wish I hadn’t. Maybe I should quit, the way my parents asked. Except Drew needs my car.

Outside, the sun has gone down. Darkness presses up against the glass. I feel lit up, exposed. Someone could be watching me right now, and I wouldn’t even know it. What if something bad happens and I can’t get to the cooler? I could try to make it to the back door. And there’s the people who work at Subway and Blockbuster. This time of night, though, they might be down to one person each. But still, they would probably hear if I screamed. I touch my phone again.

What if some man comes in with a gun? Should I do what he says? Did Kayla get out of the car because someone pointed a gun at her? But nobody shot her, or there would have been a lot more blood by the river.

Thinking like this is only making me crazy. I need to keep busy. I start by putting away the least-used ingredients so there’ll be less to do when Drew gets back. I put plastic over the metal canister of green peppers. Not very many people order what behind Pete’s back we call “green slime”—dehydrated peppers mixed with water. Instead of crisp, bright green circles, they’re soft gray-green bits. When I put the container on a wire shelf inside the cooler, I make sure the piece of wood Drew showed me is still there, ready to be pushed into place under the handle.

Usually I like it when I’m here all by myself. Most nights the last hour is slow, and I clean things up, wipe things down, line things up. Sometimes as soon as whoever is on delivery leaves, the phone starts ringing off the hook and a basketball playoff game no one knew about ends and two dozen hungry people crowd in. Then you find ways to use every part of your body at once—kicking the cooler door closed because you’re holding a pizza in each hand while you ask people what they want.

Tonight it’s quiet, but not peaceful.

I jump when my phone starts to buzz. It’s a text from my mom. “Called in for five-car accident. Alarm set. Text us when you get home. ILY.” I’m going to be alone tonight in an empty house. Even when I turn on all the lights, there are still shadowed corners.

I’m getting some more cardboard to-go boxes when the bell over the front door rings.

I step out into the kitchen. A guy’s standing at the counter. College age. But even though I’ve never seen him before, something tells me there’s no way he goes to college. He’s a couple of inches taller than me, skinny, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, with dark hair and eyes. It’s his eyes that get me—so deeply shadowed it’s like he hasn’t slept for days. I try to smile at him, but it gets stuck somewhere inside me. The corners of my lips pull up, and that’s all.

“Can I help you?” I hang back. I’m closer to the cooler than the counter. I’m probably paranoid, but I don’t want to get any nearer. He could reach out and grab my wrist.

He puts both hands flat on the counter, right next to the bowl of pastel mints. “Do you know where Kayla is?” His face is sweaty, his cheeks hollow, his bottom teeth a yellow-brown jumble.

“What?” I take a step back. In two more steps, I can be inside the cooler.

“You’ve got to help me.” His voice is ragged. He lifts one hand to his mouth and starts to nibble on his thumbnail with those brown teeth. “Do you know where she is?” His eyes dart as if he sees things I can’t.

“Nobody knows where she is. They found her car down by the river.” I think of something. “Are you who Kayla was supposed to go out with that Friday?” Although there’s no way her face got that soft look for this guy.

He lifts his arms like he’s trying to surrender, then waves his hands as if to say,
Back off!
“I don’t even know her. Why does everyone keep thinking I know her? It’s all lies! They keep trying to pin this on me, but I’ve got nothing to do with it!”

Pin it on him?
Crap. So much for thinking I can read this guy. It sounds like he knows more than I do. And if “they” keep trying to pin this on him, could they be right?

I’m still deciding what to do—hide in the cooler and call the police from there? ask him to leave and hope he does?—when the front door opens and Drew runs in.

“Is everything okay, Gabie?” Drew asks me the question, but he only looks at the guy.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I was just leaving,” the guy says, jerking open the door. Neither of us says anything as he hurries outside, still chewing his thumbnail.

“Who was that?” Drew asks.

I don’t know what to answer. Is this guy the hunter…or the hunted?

The Seventh Day

Drew

DRIVING TO
the parking lot, I see a man at the counter, waving his arms in the air. Oh, crap! Panic shoots up my spine. Gabie is standing halfway between the counter and the cooler. I jerk the wheel and pull in next to a brown pickup. It only takes a second to remember how to turn off the car, but it feels like an eternity. Finally, I run inside, my heart jackhammering in my chest.

The guy jumps when he sees me and says he was just leaving. Then he’s out the door.

“Who was that?” I ask Gabie, staring after him. We watch him get into the pickup, reverse at high speed, and then race out of the parking lot.

“I have no idea,” she says. “He wanted to know where Kayla was.”

I’m surprised. “Kayla knows him?” I don’t take my eyes off the pickup until it’s out of sight. Then I realize I should have looked at the license plate number.

Gabie takes a shaky breath. “That’s the thing. I don’t think so.”

“So he’s just one of those weird people who only come into Pete’s so they can ask about her?”

Her mouth twists. “It was more than that. He said people were trying to pin it on him. Kayla’s disappearance.”

Is he the guy who did it? I know one thing for sure. “That guy’s a tweaker,” I tell Gabie. “Sometimes they get paranoid.”

“What?” Gabie’s eyes go wide. “Like, he’s on drugs?”

“Meth.”

I’m afraid she’s going to ask how I know, but instead she says, “Should I call Sergeant Thayer?”

I scrub my face with my hands. “Do you think that guy actually knows anything about what happened to Kayla?”

Gabie closes her eyes, but they still move underneath her lids. She opens them and says, “No. It was like he wanted
me
to tell him what happened. He said everyone keeps thinking he knows her, but he doesn’t. And his pickup’s not white, like the one the cops said they were looking for.”

I remember something that barely registered. The paint on the pickup was flat, not shiny, and looked like it had come from a spray can. “Yeah, but the paint job was weird. Like he did it himself.”

“You mean like he tried to change the color?” She presses her hand against her mouth. “Do you think it could have been white before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I try to decide if that makes a difference.

“He was scared,” Gabie says softly.

I should go outside, move her car to the employee parking area, and come in the back door. But I don’t want to leave Gabie alone, even for a minute. Instead I hop up on the counter, turn around, and jump down on the other side.

Closer to Gabie, I see how she’s quivering. A fine tremble washes over her in waves. Each one makes her shoulders hunch.

“
You
must have been scared,” I say.

I want to hold her, run my hand over the back of her head and down her spine, try to get her to relax. Instead I just put one hand on her shoulder. That’s all I need to do. The next second she’s in my arms, talking into the crook of my neck. Her face is warm and wet.