by Kate Anders
“Pictures of you and Clara.” Sarcasm lacing my voice.
“Yeah, I get that, but how in the hell did you get these? Someone was taking pictures of this?”
“Like I said, I’ve been looking into her disappearance and we found these.”
“Yeah but why? Why would anyone take pictures of this?”
“I don’t even know what this is.”
“It was here.”
“What do you mean here?”
“It was after we broke up, like right after we broke up. You weren’t answering my texts or responding to my emails, and I tried talking to our friends, but no one would talk to me about you.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” I say, eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, I know. I’m a shitbag. Got it. But seriously, I was trying to get someone to talk to me, tell me how you were doing, so I decided my best shot was Clara.” He exhales heavily. “You know, sometimes we used to run together, when I would stay overnight at the apartment.” He shrugs before continuing to flip through the pictures some more. “We would come out to the track since it’s right by your place and we would run together. We never really talked or anything, but you know Clara, she had a routine, she did it every morning, so sometimes I just went with her. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“So this is that, you guys running together?”
“Well, no. Obviously after things ended with me and you, we didn’t run together anymore. Hell, she used to throw power bars at me whenever I showed up anywhere she was. Same flavor every time, that shitty caramel she knows I hate.”
The imagery is perfect, and I can totally see Clara throwing food at him. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
“Yeah, well, one morning she wasn’t paying attention, and I saw her out on the track running. It was later than she normally was out so I wasn’t expecting to see her, so I decided to take a chance. I waited for her over there by the benches.” He points over to where the benches are that people use to store their stuff while they run. “I figured she would run past and yell at me or something, but it’s like she didn’t even see me. She was almost right on top of me when I said her name. She basically tripped over her own two feet. Reminded me of you for a split second, always falling over your own feet.” The look of nostalgia on his face makes my chest ache. I really did used to love him.
“Then what?”
“I caught her, just like I used to catch you.” He brings the photos up closer to his face and then reaches up to turn on the overhead light. “Yeah, this is that day, I’m sure of it.”
“How?”
“I remember the little purple mark she had on her jawline. You can barely see it here, but in person, I was like an inch from her face, I noticed.” He shrugs again.
I reach over and snatch the photo out of his hands.
He’s right.
There is a small little purple mark on the side of her jaw.
Super easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it.
Is it a bruise? How did she get a bruise? I would have noticed a bruise on her face, wouldn’t I? What kind of person lives with another person and doesn’t notice a bruise on their face?
“Then what happened?” I demand.
“That’s it. I caught her. End of story.” The confused look on his face tells me he isn’t trying to be a pain in the ass.
“You just caught her and walked off?” Skepticism runs deep in my voice.
“Well, no. I asked if she was okay, I think. She didn’t really say much. I remember it was weird, at this point she had made throwing food at me a life goal, so her not yelling at me was unexpected.”
“And then what?”
“I dunno, I asked her about you?”
“About me?”
“Yeah.” His face flushes again, and he looks out the window.
“What about me?”
“Geez, why does it matter? Can you just let it go, Kenz?”
“No. I can’t. She’s missing, Collin. Missing. As in, God only knows what is happening to her right now. I have no idea what is important and no idea what isn’t. So no. I can’t let it go.” My voice starts to resemble a shrieking harpy and Collin’s eyes have gotten exponentially bigger.
“Okay, okay. I asked how you were. I asked if you were okay. I dunno, I just wanted to know how you were doing with everything, you know?”
“Oh, then you cared,” I retort.
“I always cared, Kenz. I just, I dunno, made bad choices?”
“Are you asking me?”
“No. No. Of course not. I just, god, I dunno.” He throws his hands up in defeat. “She wouldn’t tell me anything anyway, she just told me to get lost. I went to leave, she sat on the benches for a while, and then I left and I don’t know what happened.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Okay.” As much as it pains me to say so, I follow it with, “Thanks, Collin.”
“No problem.” He’s got his hand wrapped around the door handle before he turns back and says, “You can tell my dad, you know, maybe it’s important?”
“I will.”
“For what it’s worth, I hope you figure it out. I hope you find her.” He pauses and sighs. “I still miss you guys, we have a lot of good memories hanging out.”
“Yeah. We did.”
“See you around, Kenz.”
And with that, Collin once more walks out of my life.
I sit in my car for a while after that. Not really ready to go back to the apartment, but also not really having anywhere to go yet. I should probably tell Will about everything, give him more to work with. Collin’s story makes sense to me. And Clara never mentioning it makes sense too. She never wanted to bring up Collin unless she absolutely had to. She was fierce when it came to protecting me and my feelings, especially back then, when everything was still so fresh.
The bruise is really what’s bothering me. I can’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed it. It’s like running a movie in reverse, trying to find the moment where I wasn’t paying attention to my best friend, to my only family. I have to be honest with myself, if this was right after everything with Collin, would I have noticed? At the very least, it certainly would have been a lot easier for Clara to hide it.
And if she was hiding it, why would she be hiding it? If she had just fallen or something, there would be no reason to. We would have had a good laugh about how she was starting to take after me with my level of klutzy. But if she got it from a person, it wouldn’t have been a laugh. I would have raised hell about it. Maybe that’s why she hid it.
Finally, I give in and decide it’s time to call Will and tell him everything.
It takes a couple of seconds, but before long, I hear Will’s steady voice piping through my car speakers. “Will Anderson.”
“Hey, it’s Kenzie.”
“I hear you met King.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“It’s best if people go in cold when it comes to meeting King.”
“Better for you maybe, so you can have a good laugh at everyone else’s expense.”
He chuckles in response. “Touché.”
“I take it she filled you in on everything.”
“Yep, complete with illustrations.”
“You’ve seen the pictures, then?”
“Yep. Pretty sure I recognized the little snot-nosed kid too. Kid’s got a carbon copy of Fitz’s eyes.”
“Yep, that’s Collin.”
“Your ex, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmmm, well, that’s interesting.” He pauses. “You already talked to him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did.”
“Couldn’t have waited for me? Would have been nice to get a read on him.”
“Sorry, I honestly didn’t even think about it.”
“Amateur,” he says it like a joke though so I’m not offended.
I take this opportunity to run him through everything that had happened in the last
hour, and everything Collin said. When I was done, there was just silence on the other end.
“Will?”
“Clara have a boyfriend?”
“Uh, no. No one. Not in the four years I’ve known her, and she didn’t have any boyfriends in high school either,” I explain.
“I would have remembered reading something about a boyfriend in the paperwork,” he says kind of distractedly.
“You got the reports?” I ask.
“I’ve had the reports. There’s nothing useful in any of them, but I have them.”
“Oh.” I was really hoping there was something in them that the cops hadn’t told me.
“So far, you’re the only one who has come up with anything to go off of.”
And suddenly I feel a lot better. Will, the professional, thinks I’m coming up with better information than the cops did. I can put the feather in my cap and keep trucking along.
“So you believe him?” Will asks.
“Yeah.”
“No doubts. None? Not even a little. No little niggle in the back of your brain telling you to keep pushing him?”
I think about it for a second. “Honestly, no. I wouldn’t say I trust Collin, but there is no way anything was going on with him and Clara, no matter what those photos were trying to show. Absolutely no way. There is absolutely no way that the first guy Clara decided to get involved with in college would be my ex.”
“Had to be asked.”
“I know.”
“So, what now?”
“You aren’t going to like this, but we wait. We wait for King.”
“You’re right, I’m not going to like that.”
“Encrypted files are a good sign. People don’t encrypt things without a reason. There is going to be information in those files. Once we have it, we’ll have a better idea of what comes next.”
“Alright.”
“You should get some rest. Take care of yourself. There’s a good chance this is going to be a marathon and not a sprint.”
I exhale hard. “I know. I’m going to walk around here for a bit, see if anything jogs a memory or something,” I tell Will.
“Alright, let me know if you find anything.”
“You too.”
After I hang up, I shove my phone back into my pocket and brace myself for the cold morning and drizzle that’s still falling.
I’ve always liked watching my breath leave my body as I exhale when it’s cold outside. Such a cool phenomenon. I wish you could blow it into shapes like you can with smoke.
If I hadn’t been distracted thinking about my breath, I would have noticed when I got closer to the benches that there were flyers taped on them. The rain had already started to do a number on them, with the ink becoming harder to read, and paper starting to tear off around where it was taped to the bench.
A quick look around and I see a girl over toward the athletic building not far off from the track. From the short distance, I can tell she’s the one handing out the flyers. A quick glance at the quickly disintegrating flyer shows me that there is a picture of a person on it. Figuring I have nothing to lose, I head over to check it out.
As I get closer to the building, I can hear her as she shoves flyers at the people trying to walk past her into the gym.
“Have you seen her?”
Wait. What?
My steps quicken as I eat up the ground between me and her. As soon as I am within arm’s reach, she’s shoving a flyer at me and repeating herself, “Have you seen her?”
My hands are shaking as I take the flyer and look down at it. Right on top, it reads “Have you seen me?” and underneath is a picture of a girl who is easily my age. Underneath the photo are the words, “Missing since Thursday” and a number to call.
Clara isn’t the only one missing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“DON’T FORGET ME” BY WAY OUT WEST
“Your friend is missing?” I ask the girl passing out flyers.
“Have you seen her?” Looking at her is painful, she reminds me of me. She looks so worried, but at the same time, determined. For a brief second, I wonder if I should be passing out flyers of Clara, but then I remember that as far as everyone else is concerned, Clara took off and dropped out of school.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think so.” I stare down at the picture on the flyer just to double-check. She’s pretty though. I find myself looking for similarities between her and Clara. Outside of the same almond-shaped eyes, they don’t much look alike.
“Oh, well thanks for looking.” She moves to keep passing out her flyers.
“My friend is missing too. Since Monday,” I rush to tell her.
She stops dead in her tracks. After a slow turn, she looks me up and down, like she’s trying to size me up. “Really?”
“Really. I reported her missing, but the police don’t really think she is missing. I had to hire a PI,” I explain.
“Wow. I’m sorry.” She shifts her weight. “The police are looking for Jenny, a bunch of people reported her missing, so at least they are taking it seriously, so far it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. She’s still not here.” I can see her eyes filling up with tears.
It breaks my heart, and if she is anything like me, she’s feeling pretty lonely and up against the weight of the world. I try and comfort her with a hand on her arm and a reassuring smile, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t make much of a difference.
“Would it be okay if I took a few of your flyers? I want to show my PI, two missing girls on campus in a week, makes me nervous.”
“Yeah, of course, if you think it will help.” She peels off a couple of flyers before handing them over. “I hope you find your friend.”
“You too.”
Next thing I know, I’m flying down the highway, jamming out to my music, on a mission. Two missing women. One week. That can’t be normal. Especially on one campus. Will has to know about this. Maybe there are similarities between the two of them, maybe there aren’t, but Will will know what to do.
After whipping into the parking spot I am beginning to think of as mine, I do a quick scan and find Will’s truck parked in its normal spot as well. Careful not to crunch the flyers, I grab them and head inside.
I’m not even a foot inside the door before I’m already talking. “There’s another one, Will.”
“Pretty sure I told you to go home and get some rest.” I hear Will’s voice say, but he’s not at his desk like he normally is. Looking toward the direction of his voice, I find Will over on the left side of the office at what apparently is a mini coffee bar.
“You’re right, you did. But this is way more important than a couple of hours of restless sleep. There’s another girl missing,” I explain.
“There’s always another girl missing,” he says before taking a sip of his black coffee. “How do you know this has anything to do with Clara?”
“I don’t, but it feels wrong. She went missing on Thursday. Clara went missing on Monday. Doesn’t that seem like a lot of missing girls for only one week?”
Will starts back toward his desk with his coffee, before finally admitting, “Yeah, that’s a little something. You’re sure about this?”
Thrusting the flyers at him, I explain, “I met her friend this morning, she was passing out flyers. I told you I was going to walk around for a bit and see if I found anything. Well, I found something. Someone just like me, doing anything and everything she can think of to find her friend.” I collapse into a chair in front of Will’s desk. “I know it’s a long shot, but just something in my gut tells me this isn’t a coincidence.”
I can tell by the look on Will’s face that he’s gearing up to disappoint me. “Look, Kenzie, you’re right, it’s strange. But it doesn’t mean the two things are connected. Believe me when I tell you that people go missing all the time. Most of the time, one has nothing to do with the other. I’m not saying it’s not nefarious, because God knows I have seen my fair share of evil out there, bu
t we don’t even have all the details worked out for Clara’s disappearance, let alone if there are any similarities between the two of them.”
I know he’s right, of course he is. Doesn’t mean that the reality check was any less hard to hear. I want to see a lead on every corner. I want a clue to appear every time I talk to someone new. Rationally I know clinging to something that I’m not even sure is real yet is both not helpful and just wearing me down.
“Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong. But what I am saying is let me look into it. The flyer clearly lists the police as the point of contact, so I’m assuming they are already looking into this?”
“That’s what the friend said. Something about a couple different people reporting her missing. She made it sound like there was an open case,” I tell him.
“Alright, I’ll call my contacts and get whatever information they have on this girl—”
“Jenny. Her name is Jenny.” I need to keep in mind that these are real people and not just people on paper. Real life. Real people. Real consequences.
“Of course. Jenny. I’ll get the file.” Will looks at me like he is starting to get a little bit worried, but he also seems like the kind of man who isn’t going to say anything.
“I know you said go home and rest, but honestly, that’s not going to happen, so maybe I could stick around and start working on the office?”
“Suit yourself, but do me a favor, okay?”
I nod in agreement without even hearing it because, frankly, this guy has done nothing but help me out so far.
“Don’t try and get everything done in one day, this mess is going to take weeks to figure out, and you really do need rest.”
Laughing, I say, “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that repeatedly mentioning to a woman how tired she is is not really conducive to long-term survival?”
“True enough.” He smiles at me and we both go our separate ways in the office.
The sweat is beading up on my temples, making the hair that has escaped my messy bun stick to my forehead like glue. It’s winter. And I’m sweating. If it didn’t make me sound crazy, I would ask if we could turn on the air conditioning.
