Missing, Presumed Dead

by Emma Berquist

  “Do you remember?” I ask, almost begging. “Was that him?”

  “I—I can’t say for sure,” Jane grinds out. “But he said something to me. And why is he hiding his face?”

  “We don’t know it’s him,” I say, for Ilia’s benefit.

  “We don’t know it’s not him,” Jane counters.

  The girls dance for another song, until Delilah puts a hand on Macy’s shoulder. From the stifled yawn and the jerk of her head, I can guess what she’s saying. Macy pouts for a moment, but Delilah pulls at her, fanning herself, and the girls start to make their way through the dance floor. It takes them a while to weave through the crowd, their hands linked. I follow their progress from one screen to another as they push through the throngs of dancers and drinkers, until they finally hit the door and spill out into the night.

  “Here we come,” Ilia says.

  I look paler on the screen, gaunter, like a skeleton given flesh. I don’t want to watch this part, but I can’t make myself look away.

  “This is when we met,” Jane says. “Or when you met who I used to be. The before me.”

  My memories mix with the footage, making everything sharper. I remember the sound my boots made on the pavement, the smell of cigarette smoke and perfume from the club. The sour churning of my stomach, Ilia calling for me to wait. If only I had listened.

  I know it’s coming, but I still flinch as Jane runs into me. It doesn’t feel right that there isn’t any sound; it should boom, it should echo, this cataclysmic moment.

  “You look so scared,” Jane says, frowning at my stricken face on the TV. I watch myself stumble back, desperate to get away from the doomed girl. Poor fools, the both of them.

  “What was it?” Jane finally looks over at me. “What were you so afraid of?”

  I clamp my lips together. I can’t tell her. I won’t ever tell her.

  “And there you go,” Ilia says, watching me lurch past Jane and run into the building.

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice cracking on the word. I swallow some moisture into my mouth and turn my attention back to Jane, standing in the parking lot with her friends. She’s arguing with them, her hands gesturing widely. Lying to them.

  Delilah yawns and plants her hands on her hips, and Macy throws her arms up in the air in surrender. Delilah hugs Jane quickly and lets her go, and Macy points a bossy finger at her. Jane laughs and waves good-bye as the two climb into a waiting car.

  “I told them to leave me,” Jane says, watching her friends drive away. “They didn’t want to, but I must have told them to go.”

  When the car is out of sight, the smile falls from Jane’s face. Without another look back, she turns and marches back through the parking lot toward the club. I check the next camera angle, searching for whoever’s waiting for her inside. It has to be the boy in the hat, it has to be, but I don’t see him anywhere.

  And then, just before she gets to the door, Jane jerks left and heads down the alley.

  “Wait, what?” Jane sputters. “Where the hell am I going?”

  I look from TV to TV, searching for a car, for another person, but we don’t have cameras down the alley. All I see is Jane’s back as she recedes from view, walking like she knows exactly where she’s going.

  “Pause it,” I snap at Ilia, and he freezes the footage.

  I study the screen, looking for something, anything hiding in the darkness around Jane.

  “I went to meet him, didn’t I?” Jane asks, but I don’t think she’s asking me. “It’s bad enough I didn’t fight back. But I walked into the arms of the person who killed me.”

  She gazes at me, her eyes horrified, her mouth half-open.

  “More?” Ilia asks.

  There’s nothing on the screen. Nothing but the flickering streetlamps, the wet pavement, and the slim figure of a girl headed to her death. What did she meet there? The man in the hat? A stranger? And why is Jane’s body missing when Veronica’s was found right away?

  “I don’t know,” I say quietly. “Jane, what do you remember after the dancing?”

  “Nothing,” she says, her fingers curling up. “It’s like it all goes black.”

  “When? When exactly does it go black?”

  She screws up her face, and I can almost hear how hard she’s thinking.

  “Right before I danced with the boy in the hat,” she says. “I don’t remember him. The only thing I remember after that . . . is you.”

  “Shit.” I have too many questions and not enough information. I’m reaching into a dark chasm, rooting blindly for a rope I don’t even know is there.

  “You want me to run it again?” Ilia asks.

  “I don’t think it will help,” Jane says.

  I shake my head. “I—”

  A rap at the door makes me jump so hard my ribs hurt. Ilia strides to open it, and the face peeking in doesn’t calm my nerves any.

  “Oh,” Phillip says. “Hey. Ivan was looking for you, Ilia, he needs to go over the schedule.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “We—I was just leaving.”

  “The files,” Ilia says, pointing to a folder on the desk. “Of the other missing people.”

  I pick up the folder and tuck it under my arm while Ilia pulls the flash drive out and holds it up. “Take it,” he says. “Just in case.”

  I nod, and he tosses it to me; I catch it in one hand and bury it in my pocket.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying not to make eye contact with Phillip. I follow Ilia out of the office, and he shuts and locks the door behind us.

  “Lexi, call me if anything comes up, okay? Any detail we can use.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll go find Ivan,” Ilia says. “Thanks, Phillip.”

  Jane gives a small intake of breath when she hears his name, and panic flutters in my mouth.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Phillip says, nodding at his cousin.

  Ilia leaves, and Phillip and I regard each other for a long moment. I open my mouth to say something, I’m not sure what, but before I get the words out Phillip steps forward.

  “You look serious,” he says. “What were you doing in there?”

  “Watching security footage.” I look back at Jane, but I can’t read her face. I swallow and close the distance to Phillip.

  “Sounds interesting.” I look away, afraid of the emotion in his eyes.

  “Phillip—”

  “Is this the part where you run away from me?” he asks, giving me a small smile. I hear a scoff from behind me that I ignore.

  “No,” I say, meeting his eyes. “Not this time.”

  He searches my face, and his smile falls away.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I am. Phillip deserves better than what I’m willing to give. “We don’t want the same things. And I can’t keep pretending.”

  “You never pretended,” he says softly. “I just didn’t like listening.”

  I shrug. “I didn’t want you to listen.”

  He laughs quietly.

  “Please,” Jane mutters under her breath.

  “I should go,” I say awkwardly, sidling back.

  “You know you can always talk to me, right? That’s what friends do, Lex. They talk to each other.”

  I frown. “Friends? Is that what we are?”

  Phillip shrugs, but his eyes are sincere. “If we can’t be more, then yes. At least I’d like to be.”

  I risk a glance at Jane; her face is carefully blank, and I wonder what she’s hiding under that mask.

  “I’d like that, too,” I tell Phillip.

  He reaches out and I keep myself from cringing as he takes my hand, presses it to his lips.

  “Good,” he says, letting my fingers drop. “Call me if you ever get lonely.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to be friends.”

  “I didn’t say what kind,” he says, grinning. “I’ll see you later, Lex.”

  “I’ll be around,” I tell him, and for once he leaves while I stand i
n place.

  “So,” Jane says, her voice too light. “That’s Phillip.”

  15

  THE CLOCK ON MY DASHBOARD TELLS ME IT’S AFTER three in the morning. Anywhere else, the freeway would be empty, people cycling through REM to slow-wave sleep, but LA is always awake. I pass other cars on the road, wondering what misfortune brought them out in the middle of the night. Airport trip? Out drinking? Or are they like me, and only seem to really live in the in-between times, the pockets the world ignores, the devil’s and the witching hours?

  “So what’s his deal?” Jane’s voice cuts through the quiet of the car as I drive us back home.

  “Who?” I ask, even though I know who she’s referring to.

  “Phillip. Is he boring? Sloppy kisser? Bad tipper?”

  My hands flex on the steering wheel, tattoos stretching over my knuckles.

  “He’s none of those things and he’s also none of your business,” I say. “And we need to talk about what was on those tapes.”

  “Oh, you mean how I served myself up on a silver platter to my killer?” Jane asks, crossing her arms. “See, I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t even want to think about that. I’d rather talk about how your ex-boyfriend is still in love with you, whereas mine couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

  “That’s not what happened with Isaac,” I tell her. “And Phillip was never my boyfriend.”

  “Well, why not? He clearly wanted to be. Hell, he still wants to be.”

  I can feel my jaw clenching, my back teeth grinding. “It’s complicated.”

  “He’s cute and he’s into you,” Jane says, and there’s a mocking ring to her voice that’s rubbing me wrong. “What’s the problem?”

  I don’t like this version of Jane. I’d rather have her furious and bitter, I’d rather have her sad, anything but this scornful, spiteful ghost sneering at me across the seat.

  “We are not having this conversation. Just leave it alone, Jane.”

  “Was it the chemistry?” she asks, plowing ahead anyway. “No spark?”

  “I said leave it,” I snap at her, the words loud and harsh in the close space. “Why are you acting like this? Why do you have to push at everything?”

  “Because it’s not fair,” Jane snaps. “You were talking to him like I wasn’t even there.”

  I sigh, steering us north, the smell of citronella candles through the open window warring with the copper scent of Jane.

  “Jane, you do realize I can hear you, right? I knew you were there.”

  “But I wasn’t. Not really.” She turns her head away, but I can still feel the warmth she’s giving off. “You have your whole life ahead of you, Lexi. You’ll get older, you’ll change, you’ll fall in love. And I’ll still be the same. I’ll still be stuck in place.”

  “You won’t be,” I tell her, feeling bitter. “Stuck, I mean. Once this is done, there’s nothing keeping you here. You can go anywhere you want, anywhere in the world. You can go to the Louvre after hours, you can sit on top of the Burj Khalifa. You can cross to the other side, find out what’s waiting for us all. I’m the one who’s stuck; I’ll be living in this shitty apartment until I die, still working for Urie, still broke and hungry.”

  Still empty, still alone. And she’ll be long gone by then, but she doesn’t even realize it yet.

  “Why?” she asks crossly. “You’re smart, Lexi; you could do anything you want. Why don’t you go to college?”

  Because I couldn’t even make it through high school, I want to say. Because I can’t be around people without wanting to vomit.

  “College isn’t free,” I say instead. “And I can’t quit my job to go to school.”

  “Well, take some classes online then.”

  “You need a computer for those. And computers cost money. And textbooks cost money. And—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” Jane says, holding up her hands. “Fine.”

  I pull my car alongside the curb, then look over at her. “I guess we’re both stuck, then.”

  There’s no music tonight, only the smell of cigarette smoke and grilled meat in the stairwell. My stomach growls, and I can’t remember the last time I ate. I’ll go see Deda tomorrow, fill up on coffee and stale cereal. There should be a few boxes left from the last time I ransacked the cafeteria.

  I unlock the door and rummage around in my single cabinet, finding two small boxes of bran flakes. I don’t have any milk, so I eat the cereal dry, shoveling fistfuls into my mouth.

  “God, you’re a mess,” Trevor tells me, spread-eagled on my bed. “Why don’t you buy some real food?”

  “Are you paying for it?” I ask him, washing the flakes down with a glass of water.

  “With my ghost money?” he asks, waving around imaginary bills.

  Jane settles herself into the chair and Trevor turns his attention to her, sitting up.

  “How did it go tonight?” he asks in a gentler tone.

  Jane shrugs. “Not great.”

  “That’s not true,” I say. “We got more information, at least.”

  I sit down next to Trevor and flip open the folder, spreading the files out. Pictures stare back at me accusingly, all of them different, all of them somehow connected. A girl smiling with her dog, a boy on a skateboard, a young woman holding a diploma.

  “These are the others?” Jane asks from over my shoulder. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything,” I say. “Anything that connects you. None of you went to the same schools, you’re different genders, Marcus had magical abilities but as far as we know the rest of you didn’t. But there has to be a reason you were targeted. Something the killer noticed about you, wanted from you.”

  “We’re young,” Jane suggests. “No one over twenty-five.”

  “Most people at the club are under twenty-five,” I say. “It has to be more specific than that.”

  “Maybe he’s just a psycho,” Trevor says. “One of those guys who wears people’s skin. He probably ate the other bodies or something.”

  “Trevor, cut it out,” I say. “He’s using spells to incapacitate; he must have some sort of goal.”

  It’s not hard to kill people. You don’t need a spell to shoot someone, to cut their throat, to cause massive brain injury. But you do need a spell to keep someone immobile if you’re killing them for a purpose. I bring up the picture of the man in the hat on my phone, set it next to the files like I can force a link to appear.

  “Who’s that?” Trevor asks.

  “Suspect,” I say. “He’s the only guy whose face you can’t see on the security footage.”

  “I let him dance with me,” Jane says, wrapping her hands around her middle. “I let him touch me.”

  “Hey,” I say gently. “We don’t know that he’s the killer for sure.”

  “Yeah, maybe he just wanted to dance with you,” Trevor says, taking one of Jane’s hands and prying her arms open. He raises their hands up, spinning her around. “I would ask you to dance.”

  “Thanks.” Jane’s mouth tilts just a little. “What about Lexi?”

  Trevor dips Jane and wags his eyebrows at me. I cross my arms and stare back.

  “Hmm, I don’t think she’s in the mood,” he says dryly.

  “Maybe Phillip would put her in the mood,” Jane teases. “He seemed pretty eager to dance with you, if that’s what you want to call it.”

  Trevor bounces up, his eyes widening. “No way! You met Phillip? What did he look like? Tell me everything.”

  “All right, give it a rest, both of you,” I growl at them.

  “This is so unfair,” Trevor says. “You won’t show me a picture; I don’t even know if he’s hot.”

  “He’s okay,” Jane says, her voice hardening a little. “Comes on a little strong. And Lexi won’t tell me what’s wrong with him.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him,” I yell, my voice muffled by bran flakes.

  “Then why aren’t you into him?”

  Trevor laughs.
“Uh, probably because she can’t touch him without seeing him die. That’s gotta kill the mood.”

  My blood goes cold and Trevor stops laughing immediately.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he says to me, his eyes pained.

  “What?” Jane asks, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

  She doesn’t sound mad, only confused. I should say something. But I can’t make my mouth move. I’m rooted to the spot, every muscle tight, my blood vessels constricting.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Trevor tells her. “Just ignore me.”

  “Lexi?” Jane asks. She walks toward me, until her face is inches from mine. “What does he mean, you saw Phillip die? He’s not a ghost.”

  “I should go,” Trevor says.

  “Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” Jane says, annoyed.

  My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I don’t know how to tell her.

  “Hey, whatever it is,” she says softly, “it’ll be okay.”

  “No,” I finally say. “It won’t.”

  Jane eases a step toward me. “What did he mean, you saw Phillip die?”

  “Not just him,” I say, my throat thick. “I can tell when people are going to die. It’s part of . . . it’s part what I am. What I can do.”

  “You can tell when someone’s going to die?” Jane repeats, staring at me. “Jesus, Lexi, that’s awful.”

  I nod, hoping she’ll leave it. Please, let her leave it alone.

  “So, how does it work?” she asks. “You just know? Is it everyone?”

  I glance at Trevor, and he shakes his head, looking at me with pity. My breath is coming faster now, my heartbeat an incessant buzz in my ears. The fight or flight response starts in the amygdala, which triggers the hypothalamus and—

  “Lexi!” Jane grips my shoulders, her face worried. She’s worried for me. It breaks something inside, something I didn’t know was holding me together; the words build up in my mouth, until it feels like I’m choking on the truth.

  “No.” It tears out of me, razors across my tongue. “I don’t just know. I have to be close. I have to touch someone.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve never said anything. . . .” She stops talking and I close my eyes. But not soon enough. I still see it, the fraction of a second where her face twists with the knowledge.