Vanished (17 page)

I told myself it didn't count as breaking and entering
since I knew the code to unlock the door. Brit's family kept losing the key to the nanny suite, so they had one of those locks put on the basement where you punch in the numbers. I'd seen Brit unlock it hundreds of times. She'd even told me the code. Back when I thought we had no secrets.

Britney's parents always spent Saturday afternoons volunteering. I had the place to myself. I closed the door behind me and felt an instant chill. The last time I'd been down here, we'd all been together. It was almost as if there was a transparent overlap of another world where the three of us were still in the basement suite. Beth flopped on the sofa, Brit sitting at the bar painting her nails, me sitting
on the carpet, flipping through a magazine, and the music thumping in the background, the TV on but muted.

The room smelled dusty and stale, like it had been closed up since Brit disappeared. Dust motes kaleidoscoped through the window light that cut through the room.

There was a stack of magazines against the side of the sofa and an unfolded blanket heaped in the corner. I peeked in the bathroom. Brit's makeup and nail polish were lined up on a silver tray. No splotches of eye shadow or powder on the granite counter. Britney and I had a desire for order in common.

I opened each of the bathroom drawers. It was hard to tell, but I was pretty sure a few things were missing. Britney's favorite lipstick shade was MAC Please Me, a pink that she knew looked perfect with her skin tone. My fingers ran over the tubes. There wasn't a single one of that shade in there.

I opened the closet in the living room. Most of Brit's clothes were up in her room, but she kept a bunch down here too. The wood hangers clicked together as I brushed my hand across the cloth. Something caught my eye. I shoved the other hangers to the side and stared. It was Beth's cardigan. Her blue one. The one she'd worn on her birthday.

I pulled it out and inhaled deeply. It still smelled faintly like her, a mix of rosemary, mint, and hints of vanilla.

Beth had worn it that day, because it was the exact same shade as the enamel teacup charm I'd bought her.
More proof that she'd been here that night. I pulled on the sweater. I wanted it.

I ran my fingers over the bookshelf. Brit wasn't a big reader. Most of the books on the shelf were things that had been assigned in English classes, fat paperback romances, and her favorite paranormal books.

On one shelf there was a small glass bottle, almost like an empty perfume bottle tied with a red ribbon. I picked it up. There was a pressed metal tag tied to the neck.
DRINK ME
. I turned it over in my hand. This had to belong to Beth too, I was sure. I shoved it in my bag.

I turned in a slow circle. If I was honest I wasn't even sure what I was looking for. Did I think I'd come in and somehow develop a Sherlock Holmes–like ability to spot the whispers of what had happened using only the smallest clue as a map? Did I really think evil would leave a fingerprint? Or that Britney would have been so obvious as to leave a giant bloodstain in the center of the carpet as proof? There wasn't going to be yellow police tape across the door and a chalk outline of a body. But it was still a crime scene.

Beth had come here to tell Brit that Jason was cheating, but Brit already knew. She knew he was cheating and she was sure it was with Beth. She must not have allowed Beth to speak. She might have attacked Beth as soon as she came in, hitting her over the head with something heavy. Or whatever happened might have been an accident. Maybe when Beth denied being with Jason, Brit shoved her in
frustration, catching her off guard. I imagined Beth falling back, her mouth opened in a perfect O. There were a lot of sharp corners in the room. The fireplace, the iron-and-glass coffee table, the edge of the granite bar counter.

Once Britney realized Beth was dead, she would have freaked out. Revenge is sweet, but a dead body in a pool of blood isn't. But what did she do then?

That's when I noticed it. The giant walk-in wine fridge. My hand was shaking as I reached for the handle. The seal made a gasping sound as the door pulled open. The air inside the fridge was freezing. Perfect for chilling your chardonnay, pinot grigio, or Diet Coke. Perfect for chilling your best friend's corpse. Morgue cold. Goose bumps rose up on my flesh.

I turned in a slow circle. Britney could have mopped up the blood and dragged Beth in here. Kept the body from rotting until she could get rid of it smartly. No wonder she hadn't wanted us to come down here that afternoon I came over to help with the student council packets. She hadn't wanted to socialize so close to Beth's corpse.

The pieces clicked into place like a tumbler in a lock. Brit had lain low for the weekend, biding her time, and making a plan. She'd deposited money into Beth's account, and sent a few texts from Beth's phone before disabling it. She'd skipped school the Tuesday after Beth supposedly took off so she could check into a hotel using Beth's ID, and withdraw money again using Beth's ATM card, someplace far
enough away. She'd encouraged the rumors about where else Beth could be, and acted like she'd heard from her, so people wouldn't worry.

Did Brit think that with Beth out of the way, Jason would be hers again? She must have. But all along, just in case, she probably had a Plan B. Then when things with Jason still blew up, she put it into action.

She probably researched the tides to choose the right spot for dumping the body, in a place where it wasn't likely to surface. But just in case it did, she made sure it was otherwise unidentifiable and put her own ring on it. She dumped Beth's body off the cliff, left her car with the suicide note on the beach, and went off to start over with Beth's ID somewhere else.

Bitch.

I walked out of the wine fridge and spotted Brit's unicorn figurine on the end table, something you'd see in a place of honor in a nine-year-old's bedroom. I remembered Brit going on about how she'd had it since she was a kid. I used to think it was cute that Brit—pulled-together, sophisticated Brit—still had her unicorn. I picked him up. If only he could talk. Maybe he could tell me what had really happened, how it had all gone down.

I was furious with Britney. Both because I was sure she had done something to Beth, my Beth, but also because she'd put me in this situation. I'd loved Beth, but Britney had been one of my best friends too.

Now Brit was making me choose. If she'd murdered someone else, killed Jason or Sara, I would have been appalled. Sick. But I would have stood by her. I could imagine an alternate future where Beth and I, dressed in our best clothes, supported Brit during a trial. Yes, she'd killed someone, but we would have testified that at the core she was a good person.

I would have found a way to understand, even if I didn't approve. But Brit had chosen to kill the one person I could never forgive her for hurting. She'd taken Beth, and so I was losing them both. That somehow made it even worse.

There was crack and a searing hot, stabbing pain in my palm. I dropped the unicorn. The pressure of my fist had snapped off his horn and it had stuck in my flesh. I used my fingernails to pull out a sliver of porcelain and sucked on the wound. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Just when I'd thought Brit couldn't hurt me any more, she'd found a new way.

I put the damaged unicorn back on the end table. There was nothing here and it was time to go.

I knocked on
the open door. Officer Siegel had been focused on her laptop and seemed surprised to see me standing there, even though I'd called ahead to make sure she'd be there on a Saturday. She motioned me into her office. Calling it an office was a bit of an insult to real offices. I was willing to bet it had been a closet at some point. There
were no windows and not even room for a full-sized desk. Instead there was a small table and two chairs. With the door closed behind me, it felt like the walls were closing in.

Of course, maybe it was supposed to feel like an interrogation chamber.

“You ever play Solitaire on that?” I asked her, motioning to the computer.

“Nope.”

So much for small talk. I focused on trying not to pick at my fingernails and tried to figure out how to bring up what I needed to ask.

“You want a Diet Coke?” She reached down between her feet and opened a small cooler. “I keep a stash in here.”

“Sure.”

She popped the tops on two and passed one over. “I'd offer you a glass, but I'm sorta lacking in the Martha Stewart department.”

“No problem.” Our knees bumped under the table. “Can I ask you something?” I asked.

Officer Siegel took a long drink from her can. “I figured you didn't come down here for the ambiance.”

“Is there any more news on Brit's body?”

She paused. “Any particular reason you're asking?”

“I've just been thinking about it. The media made such a big deal about how she would likely never be found, and then she was.”

She rolled her eyes. “The problem with a twenty-four-hour
news cycle is that people have to fill the space. They find something to talk about even when they've got nothing to say. The story is starting to die down, but when it goes public that we've found her body it's going to explode all over again. The department brought in an expert on these types of deaths, and I hope he'll handle most of it.” Siegel tapped her fingernail on the corner of the laptop.

“And he said the body seemed . . . normal? For a suicide?” I pressed.

“He said it wasn't unusual.”

Now I was confused. “Is that the same thing?”

“Law is funny. People are found not guilty, but that doesn't mean they're innocent. There's a lot of gray zone in my work. What we know is that the expert states that given the way we think Britney died, the angle she would have hit against the rocks and the water, and the expected tides, plus the encounter with the motor boat, it's
reasonable
that her body would look the way it did. I know it's hard to take, but we're lucky that she was found. Gives her parents a bit more closure.”

“So they didn't have any doubts when they identified her body?” I tried not to look too interested in the question, but I had to know. I understood that a body in the water would break down, but it hadn't been years. Shouldn't they still have known their own kid? Beth and Brit didn't even have the same coloring.

“My understanding is that when her dad came down to
the morgue, the coroner showed him a few pictures, but he didn't see the body directly.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Officer Siegel leaned back and her chair creaked a protest. “Like I said, Britney's body was significantly damaged. Especially her face and head. There was no reason to put him through that. They cropped some photos to show him what they thought he might identify.”

My stomach rolled.

“Ms. Harding's a better person to talk to about this, but you have to accept that Britney's gone. We have a suicide note, a shoe that washed up on the beach, a girl who was emotionally destroyed that her boyfriend was cheating on her, and a body wearing her clothing and jewelry. I'm sorry, Kalah.”

“Of course,” I said. But Brit could have faked every one of those things. I could picture her putting those details in place. Planning.

“The DNA test will confirm everything, of course,” Siegel said.

My fingers started to tingle. “When will that happen?”

“The state lab is backed up, but we should have results any day now. Once that happens, we'll go public with the news. I'm sure you'll hear about it instantly.”

Officer Siegel had no idea how much the story would explode. A countdown clock appeared in my mind. Once the police discovered the body wasn't Brit's and the media
caught wind of it, Brit would know the jig was up. She would disappear forever.

My ears started ringing. I had to figure out some way to convince Britney to come home before the body became public and she vanished completely.

I had to make her believe she could get away with it. That she could still come back because there was no body, so there was no crime. That she could trust me with the truth that she was still alive. That even if Brit returned, no one would ever know Beth was dead.

Or I needed some kind of proof of what she'd done. All I had now were suspicions and circumstantial evidence. The note I found in Brit's locker, a sweater, and a few chat sessions wouldn't be enough to send the cops on a nationwide manhunt. Even once they realized the body they'd found was Beth's, that wouldn't mean they'd believe me that Brit wasn't dead too. If she didn't come back on her own, she had to give me some kind of evidence, something I could take to the police.

It sounded impossible, but I couldn't help believe I should be able to convince her. Disappearing had been an adventure, but Brit would get bored quickly with a life on the run. She was already bored. That's why she still cared about what was happening back home. It seemed more fabulous than wherever she was now.