17 & Gone (13 page)

at the flat back tire. “And—get this—she

dropped the bike and she took off. I went

after her, but I couldn’t find her

anywhere on the road. Maybe she took

the shortcut through the woods, dude, I

don’t know.” He shrugged. “We weren’t

exclusive. What did she expect?”

I was still trying to understand. I’d

seen her reach the bottom of the hill, but

nothing beyond that, nothing outside that

patch of darkness, and I’d assumed that’s

where it had ended.

Instinctively I touched the pendant,

resting beneath my clothes. How did it

get in the gully then? Was it when she

was walking back? Did I misunderstand,

get the whole trip reversed, shuffle the

events out of order, confuse the whole

night?

Luke seemed happy to get rid of the

bike. I was the one holding it upright

now, and he used his free hands to fix

his hair.

“You’re . . . giving this to me?” I said.

“I figured she’d come back and get it,

but yeah. Then I heard she was gone, so.

It’s a piece-of-shit bike anyway, but take

it. It’s what you came here for, right?”

“But, Luke, that was the night she

disappeared. You were the last person

to see her.”

“Wasn’t me, Officer.” He put up his

hands in surrender, laughing, but when I

didn’t laugh back he lowered his hands.

“Seriously, though. Everyone says she

ran away or whatever. You don’t think I

—”

I wasn’t sure what to think. It

depended on what Abby thought. And I

needed her to tell me what that was.

“Why’d I keep her bike all this time

then, huh? That should prove I didn’t do

shit to her. I’d have thrown it off a cliff

by now if I had.”

I didn’t say anything, so he kept

talking.

“Lauren, you know me. C’mon now.

Be serious.”

I closed my eyes. I wished I could

will the dream to life. That I could climb

the steps of the house, no matter the time

of day, awake or asleep or in the middle

of conversation. If only I could control

it, the smoky space that controlled me. I

could be in the dairy aisle during my

shift at the Shop & Save, stacking the 1

percent and the 2 percent milk cartons

beside the whole and then the smoke

would start sifting in, up from the floor

like that time the little kid broke open the

bag of flour, and the pale cloud would

be a curtain through which I could visit

the dream. Or here, now, in Luke

Castro’s garage. I’d step through and ask

Abby my questions. I’d find out what I

needed to know. I’d come back, I’d

know all.

This time it worked, in a way.

Because the place in the dream
was

near. I could smell its smoke. Or

someone who reeked of it.

“Who are you looking for?” Luke

asked. “My parents are out. It’s just you

and me.”

It’s just you and me,
a voice mocked,

in my head.

She was meaner than I expected.

Don’t go inside the house if he asks

you. He just wants to do you in his

parents’ water bed.

I was looking around wildly then, to

see where the voice was coming from. I

thought she was behind me, but the voice

had come from across the garage, on the

other side of the car. So was she under it

or crouching down against the door?

Just wait,
she said.
You’ll ruin

everything.

“No,” I said. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Whoa,” Luke said at this, though I

wasn’t even talking to him.

I waited for the voice to return so I

could find where she was hiding, and

then when she kept silent I realized. That

wasn’t Abby. That voice was cruel the

way Fiona Burke was cruel, and snide

the way Fiona Burke used to be snide.

That was Fiona’s low whisper in my

ear.

“Listen,” Luke was saying, “if you do

hear from her, no hard feelings, right?

It’s not like we were serious. She knew

that.”

My face must have said otherwise.

“She didn’t?”

“She thought . . .” I started, wishing

she’d speak up and tell me. “She thought

maybe,” I finished.

Luke shook his head. “Why doesn’t

she just call me herself? Why’d she send

you?”

“Because I told her I’d help her,” I

said, and by saying it out loud, it was

like I was declaring it. To him and

everyone. To myself. To her and to

Fiona Burke—I felt their held lungfuls of

breath as they listened.

Then I wheeled the bike out of the

garage and down the driveway toward

my van without another word. Maybe I’d

been wrong, I told myself. Maybe the

bike
had
been blue.

—
16
—

I
didn’t end up wheeling Abby’s blue

Schwinn bicycle into the police station. I

left it in my van parked outside and then

I went in, to tell the police I had it.

The station was small, with a waiting

room holding three chairs and an interior

window in the wall, through which a

receptionist sat reading.

I didn’t see Officer Heaney or anyone

else

official-looking

through

the

window, but I was told to sit tight and an

officer would be with me very soon. I

waited forty-two minutes. Then the

receptionist went on break, apologizing

for keeping me waiting, and an officer

came up front to help me, leaving me

sitting another eleven minutes while he

ducked back in to take a phone call.

During all the time I was waiting in the

plastic chair in the front room I

considered what this meant. If it was a

sign that I should leave. If I was meant to

hand over the bike to the police and tell

them what I knew, wouldn’t they have

helped me when I first walked in?

I was about to get up, walk out, and

drive away, when finally the officer

came back to the window and asked

what it was I wanted to talk to somebody

about. He wasn’t Officer Heaney, but

he’d do. I dug through my pockets and

my backpack searching for Abby’s flyer,

afraid I’d lost it, then remembering

where I’d hidden it, in the inside

zippered pouch. While the officer read

the details on the Missing flyer, I felt

something deep in my center rise in

temperature, like a pinpoint of panic that

would soon take over my whole body

and come spewing out my mouth. Then it

dawned on me what it was: not a sudden

illness or something I ate, but the

pendant I was wearing. The stone had

gone hot as an iron against my bare skin.

I lifted it out away from me, so it

wouldn’t burn me, hiding it in a ball

inside my sweatshirt-shielded fist.

The officer handed back Abby’s flyer

through the window and said he did

remember the girl from this summer.

Vaguely. Some runaway. See, it says that

right there on the flyer? Case Type:

Endangered

Runaway.

Get

that?

Runaway.
They can’t go chasing every

17-year-old kid who runs away from

home—do I have any idea how many

there are out there? What a waste of time

that would be? Of taxpayers’ dollars?

What a waste?

Within his words were the other

things he was saying: how little this

mattered to him, and how little this

should matter to me. She’d be eighteen

soon enough, besides, he added. And

then there was really nothing they could

do.

The officer loaded a website on the

front desk’s computer, angling the screen

so I could see it—the missing children’s

database, a public record listing anyone

who was under the age of eighteen when

reported missing, on which I’d already

found Abby’s information. But he had a

point to make. He entered these terms

into the search field: current age: 17;

sex: female. Then he scrolled through

face after face and name after name, to

show me. Here was a 17-year-old girl

who had also run away. Another 17-

year-old runaway. Another, another,

another, all 17, all runaways. He kept

clicking. Another 17-year-old, but her

case

was

labeled

“Endangered

Missing,”

which

meant

she

had

disappeared

under

questionable

circumstances. This next one, too. Some

were missing, he admitted, but more—

more than he’d sit there and count—had

run away by their own choice. And they

could always go home if they wanted.

The same number leaped out at me—

17, 17, 17—pouncing and etching itself

into my skin like a bloody needle in the

midst of one of my mom’s more intricate

tattoos.

I was 17.

I was a girl.

Didn’t we matter?

And the fact that I was also 17 and

also a girl couldn’t be all there was, but

it was enough for me. It wasn’t anything

this police officer would ever be able to

understand. This was meant for me only.

A piece of information that was all mine.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said,

assuming that’s what she was, and I

didn’t correct him. “Though I assure you,

if she wants to be found, she’ll turn up.”

“But what if she
didn’t
run away?” I

asked. I told him about the bike—the

same one mentioned right there on the

Missing notice—and didn’t they need it

for evidence?

“I’m not sure why we would. Besides,

this here says she’s from New Jersey.

Out-of-state.”

Go
, said the whispered voice close up

to the blazing-hot lobe of my left ear.

Get out of there right now, you

imbecile. Go.

This time I knew right away it was

Fiona. She knew I was about to mention

the necklace, which made me wonder

what else she knew. She’d keep insulting

me until I left.

“Okay,” I told the officer. “Thank you

for your time. I understand.” I grabbed

Abby’s flyer from off the desk and

returned it to the hoodie’s front pocket,

where the touch of the pendant would

keep it warm. I didn’t look back. I was

almost at the door.

“But maybe when I get a chance I’ll

look into it,” he called through the

window into the waiting room. My hand

was on the knob and the door was

coming open, and I knew he didn’t mean

it and that as soon as I walked out of the

station he’d let himself forget. I glanced

back at the window to be sure and

noticed him looking up at the clock on

the wall. “How old are you, miss?

Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Winter break,” I said, though

technically it didn’t start for another day.

“You sure about that? My daughter

goes to Pinecliff Central, and she had

school today, she—”

The door swung closed before he

could finish. I was still here. I was still

searching. I was the only one who

seemed to care.

—
17
—

I
didn’t get far.

My eyes swam and then came into

focus: the parking lot of the Friendly’s.

The square of blacktop divided by

yellow lines. The gray concrete curb.

The bumper of my van wedged against

the curb. The sign on the plate-glass

window advertising a three-course

Christmas dinner special next week

(was Christmas next week already?) for

only $7.99. The cracks in the sidewalk.

The faces in the cracks. Smiling faces at

first and then mouths in the shape of

screams.

I’d been on the sidewalk outside the

Friendly’s for I-couldn’t-say-how-long.

Something had come over me when I

was leaving the police station and I’d

had to pull over. It was the growing

sense that I was being watched—and

then it was the growing sense that

whoever was watching, they were inside

the van. They were in the bowels of the

back, behind the bench seat. I’d opened