The Night She Disappeared (4 page)

“This goes against my better judgment,” Mom finally says, “but all right. Be sure and keep your phone on. Text me when you get there and when you leave.”

“Thank you!” I give her a hug. It’s only when she hugs me back that I feel how hard it is for her to let me go. She runs her fingers along my shoulder blades and takes a sniff of my hair before she finally releases me.

SERGEANT THAYER
is sitting right outside the front door of Pete’s in an unmarked cop car. The car is one of those nondescript brown four-door Fords with a light bolted next to the driver’s-side mirror and a short antenna sticking up from the trunk.

It might as well be painted blue and white and have a light bar on the top.

He’s watching the front door with a notebook in his hand. And there’s a lot to look at. A line of people spills out the door and winds all the way past the front windows. I’ve never seen this many people at Pete’s, not even on Super Bowl Sunday. Flyers have been taped up in every window. All I can see is a photo and a block of words, but I know they must be asking for people’s help in finding Kayla.

I go around back to park, then use the employee door. After putting my purse in a cubby, I grab a baseball cap and apron from the boxes in the break room. No one’s there because it’s so busy. When I walk out into the kitchen area, pepperoni pieces and cheese shreds dot the black and white floor. Pete does not believe in waste, so that’s almost as big a surprise as the people waiting in line.

Pete’s wife, Sonya, who normally just does the books at their house, and sometimes works delivery, slams the cash drawer closed with one hip while at the same time counting out some guy’s change. Drew, Courtney, and Pete are making pizzas. Pete’s hands are a blur as he scatters mushrooms with one hand and black olives with the other. And he’s not using the scale—another first.

“Where do you want me?” I ask Pete. “On the register or here?”

At the sound of my voice, Drew turns and smiles, one side of his mouth lifting higher than the other. Then he grabs a wooden paddle and opens the oven door. I tell myself it’s the five-hundred-degree ovens that make my cheeks get hot.

Pete’s hands never stop moving. “Help Sonya until we get caught up with orders.”

I go to the front and grab a pad and pen. “Who’s next?”

A girl with frizzy red hair, wearing a tie-dye shirt, says, “I think I am.”

“What would you like?”

Instead of answering, she says, “So this is where she worked, right? Kayla?”

“Yeah,” I say, biting off the word and not making eye contact. Maybe my mom was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to work.

“So have you heard anything? Anything at all?”

“No. What would you like to order?”

“I guess a slice of cheese.”

“Anything to drink?” I know that she’s going to say no even before she shakes her head.

That’s how it goes for the next couple of hours. A lot of questions, a lot of orders for plain slices and pepperoni slices. It’s like the price of admission to gawk at what isn’t a crime scene. I recognize a couple dozen kids from school, but there are a lot of adults too, who look around as if they’re going to find her picture hanging on the wall, or who ask me questions about what Kayla’s like. As much as possible, I answer every question with a single word. Or, when I can, with even less. Maybe just a look to remind them that Kayla isn’t an abstraction to us, that Kayla is real.

The only break in the evening is when Pete sends Courtney up so that Sonya can go to the bathroom. Courtney really tries to answer all the questions about Kayla, which only results in people asking more questions and not actually getting around to ordering pizza. I hear one customer say, “Do you think it could have been her boyfriend?”

But instead of answering, Courtney walks away, her fingers untying her apron strings as she goes up to Pete. Tears are sliding down her face. “I can’t do this, Pete, I just can’t.” She balls up her apron, and he takes it like he doesn’t know what it is.

“Go home, take some time, get your head together,” he says, but he looks kind of desperate. We’re barely keeping up as it is. And I get the feeling that Courtney doesn’t mean she can’t do this just tonight. I think she just quit.

“What would you like?” I say to the tall guy at the counter. He’s not quite as old as my dad, but close. He’s wearing a Yankees baseball cap and a Trailblazers jersey, but he’s overweight enough that you know the only exercise he gets is yelling at the TV.

“That depends,” he says, leaning forward. “What are you offering?” He raises one eyebrow and gives me a sleazy smile.

I blink. Am I going crazy, or did he just say that? The fine hairs on my arms rise up. “Get out!” I say, raising one arm and pointing.

The woman standing behind him shakes her finger. “You heard the girl!”

Everyone is looking at him, but he still stands with that sick, silly grin.

“Just get the hell out of here!” I spit the words at him.

It’s not until he’s gone that I start to shake.

Transcript of 911 Call

911 Operator:
911. Police, fire, or medical?

Alice Russo:
Police.

911 Operator:
What seems to be the problem?

Alice Russo:
I saw a truck out where that girl disappeared. That pizza girl.

911 Operator:
Do you mean Kayla Cutler?

Alice Russo:
Yeah. The pizza girl.

911 Operator:
What day was this, ma’am?

Alice Russo:
Wednesday. Yeah, it was Wednesday. The night that girl disappeared. I saw a white pickup, like an older Toyota pickup. And it was driving real slow. They must have been looking for that girl.

911 Operator:
You said “they.” Was there more than one person in the pickup?

Alice Russo:
I don’t know. I couldn’t see inside the cab. But I do know it was an older Toyota pickup. White. And I’ve never seen it in my neighborhood before.

The Fourth Day

Kayla

I WAKE UP.
At least I think I’m awake.

Maybe I’m dead.

It’s completely black. The right side of my head throbs.

I must be alive. The dead don’t feel pain, do they?

Finally, after five minutes or maybe an hour, I push myself up. Big mistake. The side of my head was stuck to whatever I was lying on. By the time I figure that out, it’s too late. The pain makes me shriek. It’s like someone just tried to scalp me.

I keep shrieking, only now I find words. “Help me! Somebody help me! I’m hurt!”

The words come right back to me. My shouts feel trapped in here, wherever
here
is. Just like I am. What happened? Where am I?

Nobody comes. Nobody shouts back.

A warm trickle of blood curves down my neck. How bad is it? I’m scared to know. If I put my hand up, will I touch bone? Maybe even my brain?

My breathing speeds up. I hear myself whimpering, a fast, soft sound that scares me even more.

Finally, I take a deep breath and put my fingertips up to the side of my head. The cut feels obscenely like parted lips. It runs from my temple to just above my ear. It’s bleeding slowly, but not gushing. No splinters of bone. Nothing that feels like brain. I take my hand away.

Blindly, I reach out and pat the space around me. I’m sitting on something that feels like a bed. Behind me is a wall. To the left is another wall. I stand up and almost immediately discover a third wall that runs parallel to the bed. I run my fingers along the walls and eventually find the familiar shape of a light switch.

The light—which comes from two buzzing fluorescent tubes—is so bright that I have to close my eyes. I force them open.

The air sparkles with white confetti. Dizzy.

I close my eyes and sit down. Hard. My stomach rises like I’m going to puke. I manage to swallow it back.

When I’m finally able to open my eyes again, I look around.

What is this place? Where am I?

It’s just one room, about eight by fourteen feet, most of it taken up with the navy blue futon twin bed I’m sitting on. No windows. The walls are plain white. The ceiling is a little over six feet high, which means it’s too short. The whole thing is claustrophobic.

At the foot of the bed is a short white bookcase with a small TV on top. And past that there’s a toilet in one corner and a door in the other.

A door!

I rush to it. Or at least I start to. I take two steps. Then the dizziness overwhelms me. I fall to my knees, but I still keep moving, ignoring the blood that freckles the floor. I have to get out of here.

But the handle won’t turn more than a half inch. I twist it the other way. It won’t move at all.

“Let me out! Let me out!” I pound on the door. Then I stop to listen.

Nothing.

Silence.

No one is coming. Maybe no one is even listening.

“Help me! Help me! I’m alive! I’m alive, and I’m in here.”

Holding on to the doorknob, I manage to pull myself to my feet. I kick at the door, as close as I can get to the handle, hoping to pop the lock. It doesn’t budge. I kick and pound and yell. The white door is smudged with rusty fingerprints from where I touched my head. I fall down and get back up. Again. And again. I cry and scream until I’m sick, dry heaving, strings of bile hanging from my lips. But as soon as I stop gagging, I start banging on the door again, shouting and calling.

Finally, I have to lie down. I press my face next to the crack at the bottom of the door. It’s dark on the other side, like there’s nothing and no one there. Like I’m sealed away in a tomb.

“Let me out,” I say, but now it’s a whisper. “Let me out.”

The Fourth Day

“John Robertson”

THE SCREAMS RISE
again from the special room I built. Faint but still audible. I set down my X-Acto Number 11, pick up the TV clicker, and press the plus sign on the volume button. There. That takes care of that.

Only it doesn’t. Not really.

Things are not going according to plan. Didn’t I learn anything last time? But no, I was too eager. Again.

Four days ago, all my plans were supposed to come to fruition. It was a moonless night. Moonless meant it would be hard for the pizza delivery person to figure out that the address I had given didn’t exist. Difficult for the few neighbors to notice anything on a road without street-lights. And it was a Wednesday, which meant it would be quiet. It also meant Gabie Klug would be the one making deliveries.

Gabie is the one I chose for what I’m calling the Project. The Project, Part Two. She can be shy, but eventually she warms up and jokes with you. But only after carefully watching your face and figuring out if that’s okay. If that’s what you want.

She would be perfect.

Once I figured out that it was possible to get a girl to deliver herself right to me, it took me months to figure out which one I wanted. Months of greasy single slices, takeout orders, and watching the parking lot to see who made deliveries. Nine women and girls work at Pete’s Pizza. But not all of them make deliveries. And of those who do? Well, take Pete’s wife, Sonya. Forty, too much makeup, too much sass, too much ass. Not my type. Not my type at all. Or Courtney, with her small, hard eyes rimmed with black eye liner? Amber, with her harsh bray of a laugh?

Most are unsuitable.

My work has taught me that if you want something done right, you start with the correct raw materials. You don’t begin with the wrong components and try to force them to be something they never were and never could be.

I learned that lesson again with the first girl. What was her name? Jenny? Jessica? Janie? I no longer remember. She was an experiment, that’s all. It wasn’t until I acquired her that I figured out she was all wrong for my purposes. It was much like when I was trying to decide between polyurethane and expanded polystyrene foam for modeling. You have to work with the expanded polystyrene before you realize it does not allow for as many finish techniques.

And Kayla? Kayla is wrong in so many ways. Angry when Gabie would be sweet. Defiant when Gabie would be submissive. Ungrateful, damaged, dirty, disgusting. Gabie will be none of those things.

When I saw the red Taurus with the lighted sign for Pete’s Pizza on top, instead of the black Mini Cooper, I knew something had gone awry. I should have driven away. It would have taken time, but I could have found a new isolated location where I could phone in a false address on another Wednesday night.

But I let my hunger overcome my good sense. I told myself that Kayla, while not perfect, could still be molded. After all, even Gabie couldn’t last forever. I ignored the little voice that told me I was making a mistake, and I waved Kayla down.

When she saw my familiar face, she smiled, and I almost thought I had done the right thing. A few seconds later, I realized how wrong I was, but it was too late.

What I want—need—is to start over. With Gabie, the one I really wanted. But to do that, first I need to get rid of my mistake.

I can take Kayla down to the river and let her go. Release her from her troubles. They might not ever find her, and even if they do, the water should wash away any trace evidence. They’ll never know she was alive for a few days before she went in.

And then I can start fresh.

The Fourth Day

Drew

THERE’S A MANDATORY
meeting in the dough room at ten this morning. We have to have it there because the break room can only hold about three people.

The room’s buzzing. The conveyor belt has been turned off. Someone has dragged in chairs from the restaurant tables to supplement the folding ones. They’re lined up three across down the long narrow room.