Kill You Last

by Todd Strasser

  “Welcome to the apartment Texas hold ’em built,” he said, as if he knew what I was thinking.

  “That’s a card game, right?”

  “Not a card game,” he said. “The card game. Played in casinos around the world.” He went around the granite counter. “Vino?”

  I wasn’t a big fan of wine, especially on an empty stomach, which was the result of my having no appetite after all the anxiety from earlier in the day. But asking for a soft drink sounded way too middle school. So I said yes.

  “Perfecto.” Gabriel placed two wineglasses on the counter, then took a bottle from the refrigerator. “I’ve got a really smooth Chardonnay.”

  I sat on a stool feeling tense, but excited. This was all so very mature, and more than a little nerve-racking. He handed me a glass. “Cheers.”

  I imagined tapping my glass too hard against his, and both shattering in a burst of shimmering liquid and shards. Plus, given the circumstances, I wasn’t sure what there was to toast. But I managed to clink glasses and then take just enough of a sip to reconfirm the fact that I really didn’t like the taste.

  Gabriel put down his glass and gazed past me at the dark windows. I glanced in the same direction and realized he was looking at his reflection again. Was it nervousness or, as I was beginning to suspect, something more narcissistic?

  He gestured toward the living room. “Shall we sit someplace more comfortable?”

  I would have preferred keeping the kitchen counter between us, but again, I couldn’t imagine how to say no to his offer. The couch was L-shaped and I sat down close to the vortex, hoping he’d sit opposite me. Instead, he came around the coffee table and sat beside me. I felt my jaw tighten and a headache looming. Despite all the times I’d fantasized about being with him, this was definitely a be-careful-what-you-wish-for moment.

  “How do you like it?” he asked, taking another sip of wine.

  “Uh, very good.” I took a sip and thought, Yuck.

  “Well balanced, right? Not too sweet and fruity.”

  “Right.”

  Gabriel placed his glass on the coffee table and turned to me. “So, Shelby Sloan …”

  I knew what that look, and tone of voice, meant. Maybe, at some other time and under other circumstances, I might have welcomed it, but given the reason I’d had to drive him home tonight, it seemed strange and out of place.

  “I can’t get my mind off what’s going on,” I said.

  Gabriel’s face fell and he sighed, then took another sip of wine and leaned toward me until our shoulders touched. “I know you’re worried about your dad. But I wouldn’t make too much of it. He’s really good at dealing with stuff. Believe me, I’ve seen him in action. Whatever this is about, it’ll blow over, and we’ll get right back to business.”

  He meant to reassure me, but his words struck me as weird and jarring. You might have thought he was talking about something as insignificant as a traffic ticket or a hacked Facebook account, not three missing human beings. I began to think back to what Roman had said about Gabriel’s being shallow. Maybe she was right. Maybe Chris Clarke would be a better fit for me. Meanwhile, the pressure of his shoulder on mine increased as he leaned closer. “I still find it hard to believe that someone as attractive as you doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Not at the moment,” I blurted out, then immediately wished I hadn’t. I didn’t want to sound like I was implying that he could fill the position. Right?

  Or did I?

  I closed my eyes and was surprised to feel things begin to wobble. That’s when I knew it was time to go. This was the wrong time to be here. It wasn’t Gabriel’s fault. Not after all the hints I’d dropped around the studio. The worst he could be accused of was being a little callous about the missing girls. But I wasn’t sure that was any worse than what I’d done by agreeing to come up to his place and have a glass of wine.

  “I have to go,” I said, and got up.

  “You sure?” Gabriel asked, surprised.

  “There’s school tomorrow, and I still have some homework to do. But thanks for the drink and for showing me your place. It’s really beautiful.” I walked so quickly toward the door that Gabriel practically had to jog to keep up. So much for trying not to act like I was in middle school.

  He got to the door at the same time I did. I assumed he was just being a gentleman and opening it for me.

  But instead, he put his hand on the doorknob and kept it there.

  I felt myself go rigid.

  Was he going to stop me from leaving?

  He moved close, and I felt a shiver.

  “Gabriel, please, not now,” I heard myself say, trying very hard not to sound scared or panicked.

  I felt his finger go under my chin and gently lift it until our eyes met.

  “Another time, then?”

  “Yes,” I said, silently begging him to let go of the door.

  He turned the doorknob and at the same time kissed me on the lips. It was just a peck, and it happened much too fast for me to react. The door swung open, and the next thing I knew, I was striding down the hall to the elevator.

  I pressed the button and waited, my heart thumping. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabriel standing in his doorway, watching.

  As the elevators opened, he said, “Hey.”

  I turned, and he gave me a smile and a wave. “Get home safe.”

  I drove home super careful. Not that I’d had that much to drink, but I was rattled. What had just happened? The more I thought about it, the more uncertain I was about what bothered me so much.

  Was it the way Gabriel had acted?

  Or the way I had?

  What was the big deal? It was just a drink in his apartment. He really hadn’t made any unwanted moves, and even if he had, so what? I’d had plenty of experience dealing with that.

  So then, what was it that bothered me so much? I didn’t really know. Maybe something intuitive. Or maybe just my imagination.

  By the time I got back to my neighborhood, I felt calmer. I’d decided that neither of us was at fault. We’d just gotten our signals crossed.

  I parked in the driveway. By now the media was gone, and only a few dark cars were parked on the street in front of our house. I got out, pausing for a moment to breathe in the fresh cool air and gaze up at the stars sparkling in the sky.

  That’s when I realized someone was coming up the driveway toward me.

  It was a man.

  And he was big.

  Chapter 10

  MY GASP OF fright must have been loud, because he suddenly stopped. By then I’d backed partway around the car and was on the verge of letting out the loudest scream I could muster.

  We stared at each other, and in the dark I recognized him as the one who’d helped me through the crowd of media people and into my house earlier in the day.

  “What do you want?” I asked in a quavering voice, my heart racing like a hamster full tilt on a wheel.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to catch you before you went inside.”

  “Oh.” I was still breathing hard. “Okay, but from now on? It’s really not a good idea to approach people in the dark like that.”

  “Gotcha. Like I said, I’m sorry. You okay?”

  “Just a little freaked,” I said. “So what are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping I could ask you some questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “About those missing girls?”

  “Why?” I was still too flustered to follow.

  “I’m a journalist.”

  Suddenly, I got it. “So that’s why you helped me into the house today? To get me away from all those other journalists so that later on, you could find me alone and get the story for yourself? Smart. I’m impressed. You’ll go far.” I came around the car and started toward the back door, feeling incensed and angry. The one thing you could always count on when guys were nice was that they usually wanted something.


  “Wait,” he said.

  “Sorry. I’ve had a really long, hard day.” I kept walking. “So just please go away.”

  “But—”

  “Are you aware that you’re trespassing?” I asked as I opened the back door. “If you don’t get off my property right now, I’m calling the police.”

  “What did you think of Sarah Lawrence?” he asked.

  Halfway in the door I stopped and stared through the dark at him, confused. “How…?”

  “We passed each other this morning,” he said. “At school. I mean, my school, not yours.”

  “You go to Sarah Lawrence?”

  “Go, black squirrels,” he said.

  I’d noticed that morning that black squirrels were some sort of informal Sarah Lawrence mascot, which had seemed strange, though not as strange as the idea that this guy had actually seen me there.

  “Yeah, I meant to ask someone about that,” I said, feeling myself relax. “What’s the story?”

  “The black squirrels?” he asked. “They used to be the unofficial school symbol, but now the administration wants us to think of ourselves as mighty gryphons, the mythical half lion/half eagle.” He held out his hand. “I’m Whit.”

  I hesitated, then decided it couldn’t hurt to shake. My hand disappeared in his. “I’m Shelby. I’ve never met a Whit before.”

  “Short for Whitman. Whitman Sturges. That’s how you know I’m a WASP. Both of my names could be either first or last. Whitman Sturges, or Sturges Whitman.”

  Strangely, that made me smile. Maybe after such a hellish day, what I really needed was a little levity. “So you’re a WASP gryphon black squirrel?

  “You got it. I can fly. I can sting. I’ve got sharp teeth. And I know where all the nuts are buried.”

  I grinned. “We really passed each other at Sarah Lawrence this morning?”

  “You were taking the campus tour. And then later I drove over here to cover the story, and there you were again. What my statistics professor would call an infinitely improbable coincidence.”

  There was something about him that put me at ease. That disarming quality some people have that makes you believe whatever they’re saying. I wondered if he’d developed it to compensate for his intimidating size and presence.

  “But you’re also a reporter?” I asked.

  “A stringer. For the Snoop.”

  “The what?”

  “The Soundview Snoop? Your up-to-the-minute hyper-local news site? www.soundsnoop.com.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  His broad shoulders sagged with disappointment. “Tell me about it. Neither has anyone else. It’s still pretty new. And the only place on the Net where you can find out which of your neighbors broke the pooper-scooper law last week.”

  “So it’s online?”

  “Electronic journalism is the future. Newspapers are the past. Pretty soon we’ll have so many trees, we won’t know what to do with them.”

  Once again I found myself smiling. “So why did you say you’re a stringer? I thought that’s what people did to tennis rackets.”

  “It’s an old newspaper term. Basically means I’m a freelancer. Only when you’re freelancing for an Internet start-up, the emphasis is on free.”

  “Aren’t you keeping pretty long hours, considering you’re not getting paid?”

  “I look at it as learning on the job. Like an internship. And who knows? If I do well on this story…maybe even scoop some of the professional journalists…some news organization might be crazy enough to hire me for real.”

  Suddenly, I felt as if I’d awoken from a spell. As if, for just a moment, I’d forgotten what a journalist did. Why was I talking to him? All his charming banter served one purpose—to get a story about my father.

  “You are good, you know that?” I said, feeling my jaw tighten. “

  You almost had me. But I get it now. All this is to you is a chanceto get a story. Meanwhile, my father’s reputation…my family’s whole life…is on the line. And there hasn’t been a single shred of evidence connecting him to those missing girls except some head shots.…God, I can’t believe I even spoke to you. You don’t even go to Sarah Lawrence, do you? This isn’t an indisputably unlikely coincidence, or whatever you called it. You probably followed me this morning and made this whole thing up just to get me to drop my guard. I’m counting to three, and if you’re not off my property, I’m calling nine-one-one.”

  “But—” he began.

  I got out my BlackBerry. “One…two …”

  He raised his hands. “Okay, okay, you win.” He turned and headed back down the driveway. But as I let myself into the house, I heard him call, “I really do go to Sarah Lawrence.”

  Still annoyed with myself for coming so close to being suckered, I went inside and locked the door. The kitchen was dark, and I pressed my back to the door, trying to calm down. Then I became aware of voices coming from the living room.

  “What exactly did you think was going to happen?” Mom asked, sounding angry and upset.

  “I know, I know,” Dad answered, with a subdued, regretful voice. “I didn’t think.”

  “No kidding,” Mom practically spat. Her tone caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard her be so harsh.

  “So what do I do?” Dad asked.

  “You tell the truth. Those girls came to you for head shots, and yes, it looks very suspicious now that they’re missing, but you have absolutely no idea what happened to them. That is the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?” Mom pressed.

  “I said yes, Ruth.” Dad’s answer was more emphatic.

  “Then I don’t understand what your problem is,” Mom said.

  There was silence for a moment. Then Dad said, “Should I hire a lawyer?”

  In the quiet that followed, I wondered why he’d ask that if he was innocent.

  As if she’d read my thoughts, Mom said, “If you hire a lawyer, people will instantly begin to wonder why you feel you need one.”

  “But if I don’t, I feel totally vulnerable. What if I say the wrong thing? I feel like it’s me against the whole world.”

  I felt a pang when I heard that. My parents had been married for twenty years, and now Dad was basically saying that he didn’t feel like he could count on Mom for emotional support. I felt the urge to go down the hall and tell him that he’d always have my support. But I knew better than to get between them. I could tell him later.

  I waited for Mom’s answer, hoping that she’d reassure him that he wasn’t all alone, that she’d stand by him. But it was Dad’s voice I heard next. “I guess, at this point, Ruth, saying I’m sorry doesn’t mean very much.”

  Again there was silence. What was Dad saying he was sorry for? For the iciness that had grown between them? For choosing to sleep in a separate bedroom? I still didn’t know what had caused all their ill will in the first place. Was that what he was talking about?

  Chapter 11

  I GOT INTO bed with my laptop and looked for news, but there’d been no new developments during the day. The police were still “looking into the situation.” I took a look at the Snoop, too, which featured mostly Soundview-centric information about town government, schools, and complaints about leaf-blower noise. But I purposefully stayed off video chat and IMs.

  Later I lay in the dark with unanswered questions instead of dreams. If Dad had no connection to the three missing girls, why was he thinking about hiring a lawyer? Who was vengeance13773288@gmail.com, and what did he know about this? And what had Dad apologized to Mom for, knowing ahead of time that she wouldn’t accept his apology?

  I woke with a jolt, the alarm like a buzz saw five inches from my ear. I felt like I’d hardly slept at all, but sunlight filtered in through the shades. Fumbling to turn off the alarm, I accidentally knocked it to the floor, where it continued to buzz out of reach. Burying my head under the pillows didn’t work, so finally I dragged my sleep-deprived
body out of bed. But even before I hit the shower, I checked the computer. Roman was on. Sometimes I wondered if she ever slept.

  “S’up?” I asked with a yawn.

  “Have you seen what’s on TV this morning?” she asked.

  Despite the cobwebs in my brain, I knew her question meant bad news. “Oh God, now what?”

  On the screen, I watched as Roman aimed her webcam at the small TV on her desk. A teenage girl was being interviewed by a news anchor in a studio. In the top right corner of the screen was a small box with a photo. It took a moment for me to realize it was Dad.

  “So how did this scam, as you call it, work?” the blonde anchorwoman asked the girl.

  “My friends and I were at the mall one day, and this woman came up to me and asked if I’d ever considered modeling,” the girl said.

  “And what made you think she was a legitimate modeling agent?” asked the anchorwoman.

  “She didn’t ask all of us. Just me. She said I had the right look, and she gave me her business card. It all seemed very professional.”

  “What happened next?”

  “She said that she was part of a team from New York that was in town for the weekend scouting for talent, and that if I was interested, I should talk to my parents and then come to this hotel for head shots and to sign with the agency.”

  “Which you did?”

  The girl nodded. “I got my mom to take me later that afternoon. They had a whole suite, and there was all this photography equipment and a stylist and a photographer’s assistant. They had me dress up in different outfits and they took my picture. And then the agent gave me a contract, and my mom read it. She said it sounded okay and I could sign it.”

  “What did the contract say?”

  “My mom read it, so I don’t really know. All she told me was that if the modeling agency got me any jobs, they would get a percentage of what I earned. Which sounded fair.”