Choker (17 page)

“Me?”

“You told them I walked you home—it’s my alibi. Without that, I don’t even know what could have happened.” Spontaneously, he leaned over and kissed Cara’s hand. His lips were soft and she felt the brush of his hair on her wrist.

Ethan looked up at her, his blue eyes anxious. “Cara,
you
don’t think I did anything to Alexis, do you?” His grip on her hand tightened.

Cara stared right into his blue eyes. She could see all the way to the bottom. She shook her head. “Ethan, I know you didn’t.”

He reached out and hugged her. “Thank you. Thank you.” For a long moment, they remained still, his face buried in the crook of her neck. She felt his hot breath on her skin. Then he lifted his head. His face was streaked with tears.

Cara stared at him. The Ethan of her dreams had disappeared. He was just another person who was sad. She was kind of glad, actually. Dreams disappeared when you woke up. The real thing was better anyway.

Cara reached out and wiped away one of the tears with her sleeve. He smiled. “You must think I’m a real mess,” he said, sniffling once.

She shook her head violently. “No, I’d never think that. You’ve had an awful night.” Cara looked out through the branches at the park where the search was continuing. “And unfortunately, it’s not over.”

Ethan followed her gaze. The bright jackets of the searchers were visible as dots of color on the autumn landscape. In the distance, one of the German shepherds barked. Ethan sighed. “Hey, did you hear anything more about the Sydney investigation?” His voice sounded normal again.

Cara shook her head. “Nothing. I guess they’re still working on it.”

“I kept expecting the cops to ask me about that, too, but they never mentioned it.” Ethan stood up and held out his hand. “You think we should get back?”

Cara nodded and allowed him to pull her up. Slowly, they pushed their way out of the woods and began trudging through the wet grass again, heads down, searching for a scrap, a clue, anything that would tell them where Alexis was.

Chapter 19

A
FTER FOUR HOURS, CARA’S JEANS WERE SPLASHED UP TO
her knees. Her shoes were soaked through to her socks, and she had a big scratch across her cheek where a blackberry bramble had whipped her in the face. And there was no sign of Alexis. There’d been some excitement when one of the dogs had stumbled on a bone, but it turned out to belong to a deer carcass lying a few feet away. By three o’clock, the search began to break up. People straggled home across the park, and back at the Methodist parking lot, cars pulled out one by one until only the Hennings and Cara’s parents were left, wrapping the coffee carafe and collecting the torn and damp fliers from the lawn. Ethan had to go after getting a call from his mom.

Mom and Dad promised to go to dinner with the Hennings. With relief, Cara walked home slowly. The foyer was deserted, with only a round dent on Samson’s usual bed on the hall chair. She went straight to her room. She ached all over, her feet were freezing, and all she wanted was a hot bath and her robe. Then some dinner and the sofa with the TV on, getting lost in some stupid romantic comedy where people didn’t show up dead in pools or go missing in the middle of the night.

But her room was deserted—again. “Damn it!” Cara slammed her backpack to the floor. It was so stupid and dangerous for Zoe to be running around, especially today when all of those people were out. Especially if she really did do something bad back at home. Cara had done her best not to pry into Zoe’s past. But if Zoe really had committed some kind of crime, it was going to catch up to her eventually. The police were everywhere. She couldn’t stay hidden forever. And apparently, she didn’t want to.

The anger built in Cara’s head until she turned and ran out of the room in a white heat. She pounded down the stairs and back out the front door, her wet sneakers slapping the floor.

Outside, the sky had grown overcast, the brilliant colors of the morning replaced by muted shadows. The sun was low in the sky. Cara ran down the street, past the school and the water tower and down the steep slope to the farm fields. There was nothing charming about the scene today—just dead, brown goldenrod and crashed-over clumps of yellow grass. She ran through the fields, her breath whistling in her throat.

The barn was visible ahead. Cara pulled up as she reached it. She wasn’t surprised to find the door partly open. “Zoe?” she called. Turning sideways, she squeezed in through the crack. Damn, it was dark in here. “Zoe?” she called again. There was no answer, just a rustling. Cara’s heart started beating faster, and suddenly she didn’t want to be alone in the dark anymore. Bracing her back and her feet, she shoved open the heavy sliding door until gray light flooded the space.

Zoe stood in the middle of the straw-strewn floor, wearing one of Cara’s lace camisoles and flip-flops in spite of the cold. She had Samson in her arms.

“What are you doing?” Cara demanded. “Do you realize how dangerous it is for you to go out today? What’s the deal, Zoe? Do you actually want to be caught?” She paced the floor, her anger snapping from her like sparks.

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said in a little-girl voice. She pushed out her bottom lip and squeezed the cat in her arms. Samson struggled. “No, no, little kitty. Stay with Auntie Zoe.” She turned him upside down and cradled him like a baby. Samson flattened his ears and swiped at her with his claws extended.

“What are you doing here?” Cara demanded.

Zoe shrugged. “Just hanging.” Samson yowled and raked her forearm with his claws. Zoe dropped him abruptly on the ground. “Stupid cat.” He fell awkwardly and ran out of the barn, his tail swollen like a big brush.

Zoe came up to Cara. Her hair was greasy, and her camisole was stained with food. She’d put her hair up in an elaborate bun on top of her head, with messy strands hanging down all around her face. Cara could see the dandruff and grease in it. Her mascara was smudged in big rings around her eyes, which made her violet eyes look huge. Cara wrinkled her nose as Zoe came closer. She smelled like underarms and unwashed laundry, all overlaid with the powerful scent of Shalimar. Someone had given Cara a bottle one Christmas, and she’d never touched it. Zoe must have found it in her dresser.

Zoe came closer. A wave of light-headedness passed over Cara, and for a moment she swayed on her feet. “I’ve missed you,” Zoe crooned. She reached out and caressed a lock of Cara’s hair. Her fingernails were broken, one almost to the quick, but she hadn’t bothered to bandage it. “I was so lonely without you today.” She stepped closer. Cara could feel her hot breath on her cheek.

A wave of nausea enveloped her, and she pulled away. Quickly, she turned her back on Zoe and walked over to one of the glassless windows. She leaned out and breathed deeply of the cold, clean air that smelled only of wet earth and leaves.

When her stomach was no longer threatening to reverse itself, Cara turned back to Zoe. She was squatting on the floor now, picking at one of her toenails.

“Zoe, what’s the deal? Do you have a plan? How long do you think you’ll be staying here?” The words came out sharper than Cara intended, and she watched in dismay as Zoe’s face crumpled. Her eyes filled.

“What’s the deal with
you
, Cara?” she sniveled. Muddy tears rolled down her face and into the front of her shirt. “I thought we were best friends, and now you’re kicking me out?”

“No, wait. That’s not what I meant. I just meant . . . I don’t know.” She paced to the other end of the barn.

“We’re best friends, Cara, aren’t we?” Zoe’s voice behind her was thick with tears. Cara turned around. Zoe was still squatting on the ground, her arms around her knees. A bubble of green snot formed over one nostril. Cara grimaced.

“Look, Zoe, I’m just saying this because you seem . . . not happy,” Cara tried. “It seems like it’s stressful for you, being here. Maybe if we thought about it, we could figure out somewhere else for you to go.”

Zoe swiped the back of her hand under her nose. “There’s nowhere else for me to go,” she said. She sounded tired all of a sudden. “But I’ll go if you want me to. I guess you do want me to, now that you’ve got other friends and a boyfriend. You’re right—you must be sick of me.” She got to her feet. Her camisole shifted, hanging down to reveal her bony chest. A deep scar Cara didn’t remember ran down her sternum. Cara winced and looked away.

“I just need to get my stuff out of your room. Then you won’t have to see me again.” Zoe turned toward the door.

“Zoe, wait.” The words came out of Cara’s mouth as if someone else were speaking. “Don’t.”

Zoe stopped but didn’t turn around. Cara put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. Her skin was cold and damp, like a frog’s.

“I’m sorry,” Cara said softly. “I’m sorry, Zo.” She sighed. “It’s just . . . it’s been a long day, okay? I’m really stressed out over the whole Alexis situation.”

Zoe turned around. Her tears were gone. “Did you see Ethan at the search party?” she asked brightly.

Cara blinked at the sudden shift. “Um, yeah, I did,” she said slowly. “He had a really rough night. The police—”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Zoe nodded her head rapidly. “I see. Really stressed about Alexis, huh, Cara? Or is it Ethan? You should be happy, you know. You have everything you want now that Alexis is gone. Or do you wish I hadn’t—” She stopped.

Cara stared at Zoe. Her friend’s eyes were dry now, her smile was wide. She looked around the barn. “I wonder where Samson went. Kitty!” Her voice echoed in the rafters. She looked at Cara. “I can’t leave without him. Will you help me look, Cara? Then we can go back to your room. And you can tell me what you and Ethan talked about.”

Cara nodded. That’s what Zoe wanted. So that’s what she was going to do.

Chapter 20

I
HEARD SHE WAS, LIKE, SLEEPING WITH GUYS FOR
drugs and one of them kidnapped her.”

“Really? Tara said that she had a secret boyfriend in San Francisco. She stole her parents’ car and ran away to be with him.”

Cara closed her locker door slowly as she caught a shred of the latest rumors on Alexis’s disappearance. It had been like this nonstop since the search party on Tuesday. Now it was Thursday, and still all anyone could talk about was Alexis, Alexis, Alexis. The school was covered in green ribbons, Alexis’s favorite color, symbolizing their hope for her safe return. The teachers had them pinned to their clothes. The missing person posters were tacked to every bulletin board. Cara felt Alexis’s eyes watching her as she passed through the halls. Even in the cafeteria, the mood was subdued. For the most part, people ate and left. It was like the whole school was holding its breath until Alexis was found.

Cara realized she’d closed her locker without taking out any of the books she needed. She opened it again. She’d been doing that sort of thing a lot these days, like she was walking around half-asleep.

She pushed open the school’s heavy front door and stopped short on the steps. Her mouth went dry. In front of her stretched a long street, a mile or two straight, and it was thickly lined with telephone poles. On every pole, a missing-person poster of Alexis was stapled. She was going to have to walk home through that tunnel of flapping posters, reaching out toward her, brushing her face like tentacles.

Cara blinked and shook her head. The nightmare scene evaporated, and the ordinary, tree-lined streets appeared in front of her. Just houses and lawns, like usual. God, she had to get some more sleep. She was daydreaming right here on the steps.

The way home was only three blocks, past the neat, quiet houses dozing with their shades half-pulled. The shouts of kids playing filtered from a backyard, but otherwise every door was shut. The sidewalks were deserted too. She rounded the corner. Her house loomed at the end of the block, like a fortress containing a mad princess. Zoe was in there.

Cara was almost home when she saw them. A dozen or so of the Alexis posters, stapled up on the trees all around her house. Mom must have done it. Now Cara really did have to walk through them to get to the house.

She could feel her heart start to pound. Sweat beaded the edge of her hairline. She felt a crazy urge to offer Alexis’s photo a polite smile, as if she were meeting someone at a party she didn’t really want to talk to.
It wasn’t me, Alexis. It wasn’t my fault.
Wasn’t it? She willed her feet to keep walking and forced them past the last poster and up the porch steps. She sagged against the railing with relief.

Cara exhaled deeply as she opened the front door and closed it behind her. The silence of the house wrapped her like an embrace. She dropped her bag with a thud to the foyer floor and wandered into the kitchen, trying not to think about Zoe upstairs. She did that a lot these days—tried not to think about Zoe. She didn’t know what else to do.

Cara extracted a can of Diet Coke from the fridge and popped it open, taking a long gulp. She stuffed a handful of saltines in her mouth and idly snapped on the TV over the microwave. Oprah interviewing Kofi Annan, a perky TV chef showing how to make a castle out of Jell-O, a sobbing woman talking directly to the camera. Cara’s fingers froze on the remote. She willed herself not to click back to the sobbing woman. Her fingers didn’t listen. She clicked back.

“And please, please, if anyone has any information, any at all, if they could call this number,” Mrs. Henning choked out. “My daughter could be anywhere, hurt, and alone . . .” Her voice trailed off, consumed by weeping. Cara stood frozen in front of the TV, the remote slack in her fingers. Alexis’s mother looked terrible—her hair was a mess, and her eyes were puffy, red slits. Beside her, Mr. Henning patted her shoulder as he stared at the ground. He had aged a decade since Sydney’s memorial last week. His silver-haired, tanned elegance was gone. He looked like a beaten-down old man.

With trembling fingers, Cara carefully replaced the remote on the counter. She didn’t feel like a snack anymore. She left the saltines on the counter and climbed the stairs to her room. She didn’t want to go up there. She didn’t want to see Zoe. But she had to. She had to talk to her.