The Quiet Girl

by S. F. Kosa

  There was no way Maggie’s stomach was going to tolerate this salad. Or the cassoulet. Or the figs. But there was no good escape path, so she stayed where she was, hands in her lap as her mother plated the meal.

  Lawrence focused on Ivy for much of the dinner, catching up like they were old friends instead of separated spouses. He asked about her church group, her friends, her book club, her flower club, her walking club, her charity work. He listened attentively as she gushed.

  Maggie pushed food around her plate and willed herself invisible.

  “Margaret,” said Ivy perhaps ten minutes after she’d ladled a large serving of cassoulet onto each plate. “Eat your dinner.”

  Maggie stared down at the hunks of meat, the beans, the crumbled duck skin, and clumps of fat-soaked bread crumbs. “I don’t feel good.”

  Ivy sighed and rolled her eyes. “How convenient. An hour or so ago, you were ready to stay out all evening with who knows who, doing who knows what, after being out all day. I called Beth Dover’s mother, by the way. Did you know she’s joined my walking club? Beth didn’t even come home this summer. She stayed in Worcester so she could work for a professor in the psychology department at Clark.”

  Maggie started to push away from the table.

  “Don’t you dare,” Ivy said in a low, deadly voice.

  “Ivy,” said Lawrence, chuckling. “Go easy. She’s young! We can forgive her for wanting to spend more time with friends than us, and she’s also an adult.” He looked over at her, his blue eyes sad. “Not a little girl anymore.”

  Maggie shivered as her mother and stepfather watched.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Ivy, this cassoulet is the best you’ve ever made, and I’ve just scraped clean my second bowl of it. Would you mind pushing dessert back and letting me finish my wine?”

  “Of course, Lawrence!” Ivy was practically glowing as she began to clear his plate.

  He took a sip of his wine and rewarded her with a smile. “Perfect.” He turned to Maggie. “How about you and I set up the chessboard, sweetheart?”

  Maggie shot to her feet. “I’m not really—”

  “That’s such a wonderful idea,” said Ivy. She’d been reaching over to clear Maggie’s plate but grabbed her arm instead and squeezed. “She would love—”

  Maggie cried out as her mother’s fingers compressed the bruised skin beneath her sleeve.

  Ivy and Lawrence both looked alarmed as Maggie pulled her arm out of her mother’s grasp.

  “I barely put any pressure,” Ivy said breathlessly, giving Lawrence a pleading look.

  He’d gotten to his feet and was looking at Maggie closely. He tilted his head in that way he had. No escaping that look. He could figure anything out. He knew everything in her head and always had. She froze, a rabbit in the beam of a flashlight. “Your face,” he said quietly. “What happened?”

  “What?” Ivy peered at her daughter.

  “It’s swollen. Her left cheek. Look.” He reached out to touch Maggie, but she backed up quickly. His hand fell to his side.

  “Margaret?” Ivy took a step toward her. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed.” And I’m going to be up all night, listening. I’ll run this time. I’ll slide out the window and run and run.

  She already knew she wouldn’t. She already knew.

  Lawrence shook his head, disbelieving. “Someone hurt you.” He grimaced. “Someone put their hands on you. Who was it?”

  Maggie put her hands up, but this time, he moved in close and pulled her into a hug. “I’m fine,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I’m fine.”

  “Who did this to you?” he murmured. “A boy?”

  “It’s fine,” said Maggie. “I’m fine.” She flinched as he shifted and her cheek hit his collarbone.

  He must have felt her tense. “It was a boy.”

  “She’s been lying about where she’s been,” said Ivy.

  “Definitely a boy, then,” said Lawrence.

  It was as if Maggie wasn’t even there.

  Ivy pulled Maggie away from Lawrence and turned her so they were face-to-face. Maggie the dummy. Ivy the ventriloquist. “It was that boy, wasn’t it?”

  “What boy?” asked Lawrence.

  She shook until Maggie whimpered, then let her go. “The one who she was living with!”

  “Living with?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you.” Ivy’s face was contorted with pain. “It was too awful. I thought that once she was home, if I could get her back to the church—”

  “The church?” Lawrence scoffed. “Your solution to everything.”

  Ivy put her hand on her chest, but her eyes held a flash of defiance. “I simply thought, given her history, she might need some help sticking to the straight and narrow.”

  Lawrence cleared his throat. His cheeks had gone ruddy. But his eyes were on Maggie. “We’re not judging you, sweetheart. But we need to know who hurt you. Was it this person you lived with? What was his name?” This last question was directed at Ivy.

  “Esteban Perreira,” Ivy said. Her voice dripped with disgust. “He was arrested for suspicion of assault, but for some reason, they let him go.”

  “What the hell?” Lawrence said. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you!” quavered Ivy. “Who knows what he did to her? She claims she doesn’t remember, but come on! If she’s too ashamed to even tell us, it was bad, I know!”

  “I’m fine,” mumbled Maggie. She was pretty sure she was going to throw up soon.

  “Esteban Perreira,” Lawrence said, annunciating each syllable. “Lives in Yarmouth?”

  “Provincetown,” said Ivy.

  “I’m fine,” Maggie said loudly, even as her stomach clenched. “And Esteban… I’m not going to see him ever again.” Her throat tightened.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Lawrence said.

  “Lawrence!” Ivy’s voice had gone shrill.

  “Then I’ll just have his legs broken. He hurt our little girl.” He grabbed Maggie’s hand and shoved up her sleeve.

  Ivy cried out when she saw the bruises. Maggie pulled away and yanked the sleeve down to her wrist again. “I’m fine!” shrieked Maggie. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine!” Her hands clapped over her ears, her eyes slammed shut, her mind a jumble of red and black.

  Lawrence’s arms came around her again. “Shh,” he whispered as she struggled. “Shh.”

  Maggie fought. She fought even though she knew it was all over. There were so many paths, but the outcome was certain. There had never been any escape.

  “Ivy, run her a warm bath.”

  Ivy hesitated, looking back and forth between them.

  “Ivy,” Lawrence barked. “Now.”

  Ivy’s expression turned stony, but she walked down the hall and entered the bathroom.

  Maggie sobbed. Lawrence held on tight, tensing as Maggie went limp. Probably his back hurt. But he was a big man, and he was still strong enough.

  Slowly, his arms around her, he guided her down the hall.

  She blinked. All the lights were on in her bedroom. She was on her knees in the middle of the rug. Blond hair lay scattered all around her.

  In her right hand, she held a pair of scissors.

  With her other hand, she reached up. Touched her hair, or what was left of it.

  Dropped the scissors. Ran both hands over her head, came away with bloody palms. She winced. Whimpered.

  Good girls are quiet girls. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.

  Her breaths punctuated the silence as she wavered to her feet, leaning on the bed, the desk. She stood very still, listening. She ran her hands over her body. She was wearing a nightgown. It was too big. It must have been Ivy’s
. With shaking hands, she shed the gauzy garment and lunged for the suitcase in her closet. Her clothes from school, from before. She rifled through them, grabbed a T-shirt, jeans, a bra, socks.

  And underwear.

  She dressed quickly, wishing her heart would slow. But it beat between her ears, the demon playing the drum. She imagined its bloody grin. She glanced at the scissors. Considered using them to silence the monster.

  Instead, she grabbed her keys. Slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops. She watched her hands unlatch the window, slide it upward, push at the screen. She marveled as her body heaved itself onto the desk, onto the sill. She gasped in surprise as one leg slid into the humid night air. She clamped her mouth shut as both feet hit the soft dirt of the front flower bed.

  She glanced along the house, toward the master bedroom. The lights were off.

  She turned and ran for her car, steps light, barely a sound. She turned the radio all the way down as soon as she started the engine. She drove up the driveway, paused at the street. She’d forgotten her phone.

  But she couldn’t bear to go back. If she did, she’d never leave. She’d let the scissors do what scissors liked to do.

  Her foot pressed the gas, and the car jumped onto the road and cruised down the street. Every second put several feet between her and them. This couldn’t be real. The clock on the dash told her it was three in the morning. This was insane.

  But that was the problem. She didn’t want to be insane anymore. She needed all this to stop, one way or the other.

  She drove on instinct, on desperation. She rode behind her eyes while her body did the work. Somehow, though she hadn’t been there more than once, she still knew the way.

  She pulled into the parking lot. There was no way they’d find her here. Ivy didn’t even know she’d come. Lawrence knew less than Ivy. And they couldn’t use her phone to track her, either. It was good she’d left it behind.

  She stared at the door of the darkened building. Her stomach growled. She laughed. Hunger. Somehow, her body kept going. It demanded what it needed, unapologetically. Why couldn’t her mind be the same?

  Her gaze remained riveted on the doors until her eyes drooped. In her dreams, everything made sense.

  She jerked awake as someone banged on her window and brought the confusion back. As beams of sunlight stabbed at her eyeballs and a muffled voice called to her, terror washed over her. No. No. She’d gotten away. She remembered driving away! She reached for the keys in the ignition, ready to twist.

  “Maggie?” Lori had both hands against the window and was peering into the car, her eyes alight with concern. “Maggie, are you all right?”

  Maggie opened the door slowly, letting Lori step back. “I was waiting for you,” Maggie said quietly.

  Lori looked like she might cry as she looked Maggie over. “What happened?”

  Maggie reached up to touch her head again. “Oh.” She’d forgotten. “I must look…” She glanced at the rearview mirror. “Oh.” This time, it was the sound of a balloon deflating.

  “Did someone do this to you?”

  “Sort of.” She touched her aching cheek. “Some I did myself.”

  “Maggie…”

  “I know.” She forced herself to look at Lori. “Do you have time this morning?”

  Lori nodded. “I came in early to catch up on notes. I don’t have a client until ten.”

  This was why she had come. This was why. And yet somehow, she had to wrestle each word out of her mouth. “Something bad happened to me.” She paused. So many years of silence, ended with only five muttered words. Now the only way forward was through, even though the thought made her feel sick. “It’s…bad. And I think I need to talk about it.”

  Friday, August 7

  Detective Correia calls me as I’m driving back to Truro, caught in a snarl of relentless traffic and staring murderously at the SUV in front of me, kayak strapped to the top and bikes clamped to the back. “I got your messages,” she tells me. “I wanted to update you.”

  “I appreciate that. I’ve learned a little more about Stefan Silva, and I—”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’m aware that you’ve contacted him. I’m going to advise you not to further interfere with my investigation.”

  “It was my understanding that you’d already ruled him out as a suspect, and anyway, aren’t you the one pushing suicide? You’re convinced she killed herself, right?”

  She meets the acid in my tone with complete blandness. “As I’ve told you, Mr. Zarabian, I’m pursuing every lead, no matter where it points. I’m not invested in any particular outcome except the one that makes it more likely Mina will come home safely.”

  “You believe she’s still alive?”

  The naked hope in my voice is the first and only thing that draws a human response from the detective. Her tone softens. “I hope so. I really hope so. But we have to be braced for any outcome. All I’m asking from you is that you let me do my job.”

  My fingers grind into the steering wheel. “You called just to tell me to sit back and do nothing.”

  “No. I’m calling to tell you that Mina’s phone has been found. I’m driving out to pick it up.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s at a Verizon store. Brought in this morning by a good Samaritan who found it over in Hawksnest State Park. Verizon worker plugged it in to charge and recognized the picture on the lock screen. Gave us a call.”

  Mina’s lock screen shows a picture of us together during a weekend at Wachusett Mountain in February, our faces pressed together, our eyes bright, our cheeks flushed with cold. She loves it there, and apparently so does her character Maggie. Mina told me Scott used to take her skiing there when she was little. She said he stopped once they moved to the Cape.

  “Are you guys going to search that park?” I ask. “Do you think she—”

  “No, this isn’t like Beech Forest. The lady was out walking her dog on the trail. She saw the phone get left behind.”

  “She saw Mina?”

  “No. She found the phone on a bench, and she said there had been a guy sitting there a minute before. She assumed it was his and tried to find him in the parking lot. He was nowhere to be found.”

  “So you have no idea who left it there, really.”

  “The woman was able to give us a description, Mr. Zarabian.” Her tone is grim. Like a warning.

  “I’ve been in Boston since last night.”

  “Mr. Zarabian. Hawksnest is in Harwich.”

  “Harwich,” I murmur, my heart speeding. “And the guy who left Mina’s phone in the park?”

  “Matches the description of Stefan Silva. He’s now officially a person of interest in her disappearance.”

  “Oh God,” I whisper.

  “Mr. Zarabian, there is something you can do. The password for her phone—”

  “Magic.” I swallow. “Try ‘magic.’ Have you told her parents?”

  “I called them just before I called you.”

  She promises to keep me posted, and I keep driving toward Truro, hoping Mina’s parents will offer me the truth their daughter never got around to telling me.

  When I arrive at the Richardses’, it’s clear we’re not going out to dinner. The smell of garlic and basil hits me as soon as Scott opens the door. He solemnly invites me in and offers me a drink. “Rose is finishing the salad,” he says.

  “The detective told me she called you.”

  He nods. From the kitchen, Rose says, “Scott, did you offer him a drink?”

  “I’ll just have water,” I say.

  Scott disappears into the kitchen and comes out a moment later carrying a tall glass of ice water complete with mint leaves and a lemon wedge. “We can sit on the patio.” He leads me to the back door and gestures at a small table, beautifully set for three. It reminds me of the dinner Maggie
has with her mother and stepfather, the perfect surface hiding something terrifyingly rotten beneath. It pretty much kills what little appetite I had. “We’ll bring the dinner out here,” Scott informs me.

  It’s like nothing’s happened at all. Like everything’s normal, like Stefan Silva hasn’t just shot his level of suspiciousness into the stratosphere. Like Mina’s going to walk through the door at any minute to join the party. Rose flits around for several minutes, making sure I have a bit of everything—fresh tomato salad, couscous with raisins and pine nuts, roasted chicken with lemon and olives, homemade focaccia still warm from the oven—on my plate. I accept her offerings even though I feel sick to my stomach.

  Stefan had Mina’s phone. Tried to drop it in the park. He probably hoped someone would steal it or that people would assume Mina herself had lost it there. He pretended he had no clue where she was, then tried to trash the evidence the day after I went to talk to him. Chills ride over my skin despite the humid summer evening air.

  But Scott and Rose? You’d think this was any other evening for them. Rose is perhaps a touch more frantic than her usual, but Scott is flat as a manhole cover, totally subdued.

  “I spoke with Stefan Silva yesterday,” I say as soon as they raise their heads from their premeal prayer.

  Scott looks away, and Rose looks startled. “You…know him?”

  “I do now. I went to see him at the bar he works at in Harwich.”

  Rose’s cheek twitches. “You tracked him down. Somehow, you tracked him down.”

  “How do you know Mina didn’t tell me about him?”

  “Why should she?” Rose slices through a piece of chicken on her plate. “She’d left it behind. All in the past.”

  Scott is very focused on his couscous, using his knife to move a precise amount onto his fork, sliding it off, easing it back on again. When he sees me watching him, he spears a raisin and eats it.

  “He hinted that you’d paid him to stay away from her,” I say, and Rose sets down her silverware. Hard.

  “Oh, is that what he said? What class,” she says bitterly. “I’m surprised he didn’t brag about it all over town.”