Girl Last Seen

by Nina Laurin

I get out, slam the door, and assess my poor battered Neon in a glance. The bumper is still misshapen from its encounter with the dark SUV, the only reminder that it all really happened. Worse comes to worst, I’m going to pretend I need that dent fixed.

  When I go inside Lyons Car Parts and Repair, a chime dings above the door, and the clerk looks up. He’s young and cute in that all-American way, blue eyes and biceps, with a hint of a tribal tattoo peeking from under the sleeve of his dark-navy T-shirt—to give that hint of bad boy that drives small-town girls wild. There’s an appliqué of the lion logo right over his well-toned pectoral. “Can I help you?”

  “I—I’d like to speak to the owner, please.”

  I don’t know what I said wrong, but his expression shifts so fast that it feels like the shop itself gets a little darker. Those pearly teeth of his vanish, a cloud pulled over the sun.

  “He’s not in.”

  “I can wait.”

  “I don’t think it’ll do any good.”

  The heavy look in his deep-set eyes chills me deep to my bone marrow, and I try not to think about what it means.

  “Well, I really need to talk to him.”

  “Not going to happen, sweetheart. And why don’t you turn around and go right back where you came from, huh? No one here is going to talk to you.”

  “What…”

  “You’re press, aren’t you? What, the Herald? Or some tabloid? Pete warned me you might show up eventually, and I know exactly what to say to the likes of you. You can forget about it. Turn around if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I’m not press,” I snarl. But he’s already coming out from behind the counter, and I don’t like where this is headed. So I turn around and push past the door, the chime giving a pathetic little ding.

  The street I’m looking for isn’t very far away. A few blocks off the main street, I see the sign, Woodland Drive. The address is almost at the end, a little bungalow that blends in so well with the rest of the houses that I almost drive past. There’s one of those mailboxes out front, with the house number painted on it.

  My mind races around in confused circles. The whole street is quaintly cute, white picket fences, American flags, and neat flower beds with little bursts of green plants poking through the dark earth. Porches are shrouded in mosquito nets, barbecues rusting under tarp covers. One or two have swings in the front yard or those plastic slides in bright colors. When I was a kid, it was the kind of street I always wanted to live on, naïve and idealistic as only a kid can be. If it looks pretty on the outside, it must be storybook perfect on the inside.

  As I drive up to the house, I peer at every last little detail, every tree and fence post and slant of roof, searching frantically in the recesses of my memory. Any moment, I expect the trill of familiarity to go off, recognition awakening deep in my subconscious, but my confusion only grows.

  The house is well taken care of, painted forest green with a tile roof. I have to double-check on my crumpled receipt to be sure: 334. No mistake.

  Understanding sets in before I can fully admit it. Whatever it is, it’s not what I thought. It can’t be.

  And then they run out into the front yard, yelping and shrieking with delight as they fight over a brightly colored ball before one of them takes hold of it and takes a shot at a basketball ring mounted above the garage door. He misses by a mile, and the other boy hoots.

  My heart hammers, and I dig my fingernails into the steering wheel. Two boys, their sandy-blond hair cropped neat. They can’t be much older than Olivia from the looks of it. They’re dressed well, in new jackets fit for this still-chilly weather and clean sneakers that probably won’t stay clean for long.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but the boys don’t disappear when I open them again. Confusion turns to frustration, as if there’s something I need to grasp but it keeps slipping out of my reach. The other boy takes a shot at the ring. The ball dances around the edge and by some miracle falls in, resulting in a burst of uproarious joy from both.

  I’m still struggling to make sense of what I’m seeing when the front door opens and a figure appears in the doorway. I thought my first instinct would be to hit the gas pedal, but instead, I just sit there, paralyzed with doubt. The man walks down the paved path to the front gate, opening it with a two-note creak of hinges. He peers at me from under his prominent brow bone, mistrustful and hesitant. He’s dressed in a navy jacket with the lion logo on the left side, and I can tell he’s fit in spite of the substantial beer belly the jacket can’t quite hide; he holds himself like that. His hair is salt and pepper leaning heavily toward salt, but it’s thick and full. He looks like he hasn’t shaved for a few days, his beard starkly darker than his hair.

  My breath escapes in a long sigh, leaving me light-headed. He raps on the window of my car.

  “Hey,” he says, his voice muffled by the glass but deep, powerful. “Hey!” He raps again, more insistent. Finally, I snap out of it and roll the window down just a crack.

  “I thought you might show up eventually,” he says. There’s no malice in his tone or his words, but I’m still afraid to look him in the face, staring instead at the dashboard. “Lainey. It’s Lainey now, right?”

  I give a terse nod.

  “Why don’t you come in? We have a lot to talk about.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I walk as if in a fog, unable to shake the feeling of being trapped in a parallel universe where everything looks real but will crumble to dust under my fingertips as soon as I touch it. This place couldn’t be any more different from the Shaws’ house: small spaces, low ceilings, wood paneling that covers pretty much everything, quaint seventies furniture in tones of orange, yellow, and brown—but all maintained in meticulous order and cleanliness. There isn’t a speck of dirt anywhere, which has to be a feat, considering the two boys outside. They gave me weird looks as I went into the house, but the man told them to keep shooting hoops for a while longer, and he’d call them for lunch. I wonder if they’re supposed to be in school but don’t dare ask.

  Peter Lyons makes coffee, instant coffee of the kind that tastes like grit and smells like cigarette ash, and I don’t remember him asking me if I wanted any.

  “We can talk like adults,” he’s saying. I watch his lips move, wondering if I’d just made a spectacular mistake. “I only learned about it myself two weeks ago, so I’m still trying to cope.”

  “About what?”

  His frown deepens. Just like Sean, he has these leonine twin lines between his eyebrows, only his are far more pronounced.

  “Isn’t that why you came here? I figured you’d track us down eventually. If not through the press, then by yourself.” He gives a barely perceptible shudder. “We haven’t seen them here yet, but I imagine we will any day now.”

  “Yeah,” I find myself saying. “They ambushed me, and…”

  “I saw that. In that tabloid. Not that I read that sort of thing. I just—”

  I get it. At least he’s not going for any of the usual pronouncements, So sorry this happened to you, and so on. He doesn’t look like the type for empty words.

  “Look, I just want you to know that I had no idea. She never told me. If she had, I don’t think I would have let her do what she did. I don’t think I could have. I…” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He has neatly cut fingernails, but telltale black stripes still run along the edges. Machine oil stains have caked into the cracks on his knuckles and his palms, practically tattooed there so not even a wire brush gets them out. “Jesus, just to think about it. And I don’t care what people say about me if this is in the press. I just don’t want them taking it out on the boys, you know? They didn’t do anything.”

  He looks at me like he expects a reaction, reassurances. All I can offer him is a blank stare. My thoughts are moving slowly like molasses.

  “I know how this must be pretty overwhelming. But they are your half brothers, technically.” He gives a shake of his head. “Not technically. They a
re.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Gary is ten and a half, and Pete Junior just turned twelve.” He gives a warm chuckle. “I let them skip school today. It may not show by looking at them, but they’re pretty upset, about their mom and all.” His shrug is weirdly apologetic.

  “What,” I finally burst out, “are you talking about?”

  My mind is faster than my words, and by the time he looks up with an expression of dawning shock, I’ve already figured it out.

  “You really don’t—oh, Jesus.” He covers his face with his hands then gets ahold of himself. “I didn’t count on being the one to tell you this. Valerie. Her name is Sarah now…Anyway, your mother. She remarried…Shit, that’s right—she lied about that too. I found out. I did a background check, after everything came out.”

  “She was never married,” I say. “At least as far as I know.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” he says, shaking his head as if still in disbelief.

  And that’s when it all comes together.

  * * *

  “Is she…is she here?”

  He shakes his head. “We had a fight. After the police showed up and she had to tell me everything. Even if she hadn’t left of her own free will, I think I would have kicked her out of the house.”

  I can’t say I blame him.

  “She’s not answering her phone. She hasn’t in days. I left her message after message.”

  “Yeah. The phone number I tracked down to this place. That’s hers, right?”

  He nods, that incredulous look frozen to his features. “For some reason, I keep paying the bill.”

  We stay quiet for a few moments—for exactly three-quarters of a minute, if you count the loud ticks of the clock above the kitchen table. It has a pattern of leaves on it, and there’s a tasseled lampshade on the ceiling lamp. I wonder who decorated the house. Not Valerie. I don’t see her doing that. Maybe he inherited it and everything stayed the same way his own parents left it?

  “When you were found,” he says, “she went down to Seattle. It was right after Gary was born. I don’t remember what story she told me. It only took a day. Then she was back, back to normal, like nothing happened. Except for…” He shakes his head. “You’re not drinking your coffee?”

  I throw a nauseous glance at the cup in front of me, but he goes on.

  “As I learned two weeks ago, in that time, she signed you over to the state.”

  I’ve figured as much.

  “If only I had known. But…” He trails off. “Did she even come see you at the hospital?”

  “No. I guess she just wanted to move on.”

  He gives me a wary look, verging on suspicion. I wipe my palms on my pants then fold my hands in front of me on the table, like a good girl. All the things not being said swirl slowly in the air that separates us, heavy as lead. Neither of us speaks for another couple of minutes. Two minutes and twenty-six seconds, according to the ticking clock.

  “Can I meet them?” I ask hoarsely.

  He blinks, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, and before he even speaks—carefully, weighing each word, in that gentle tone of an orderly at the psych ward right before they stick a needle in you—I guess what the answer is going to be.

  “I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

  I nod like I understand.

  “I don’t want to explain everything to them. Yet. They’re just kids, and that’s pretty shocking, pretty rough.” He stumbles over his words, avoiding my gaze, and I know it’s not about them. Kids, unlike what most people think, know and understand more than they get credit for, and they can take a lot and bounce back. At least for the time being, like ingesting a slow-acting poison. But it’s not about the two boys whose names are already slipping out of my mental grasp, joining the masses of all the other people who have, at some point, almost been a part of my life before they left or I pushed them away. It’s about him. And me. It’s me he doesn’t want his sons to see.

  Mechanically, I get up, self-conscious of my small body that somehow still feels unwieldy in the cluttered space.

  “Do you know where she is? Right now?”

  I read in his expression that no, he doesn’t. He shakes his head, confirming it.

  Has she told you why? I watch him expectantly, but he only returns a puzzled look and I realize I haven’t spoken out loud. I ask the question.

  “I’m the one who told her I didn’t want to see her again,” he says hesitantly. He doesn’t understand what I meant: Why did she sign me over, cut me out of her life?

  And I’m not going to get answers from him.

  When I walk back to my car, down the paved path from the front door, the two boys are nowhere to be seen. I take the briefest of glances over my shoulder and have time to see the curtain move as a small ash-blond head dives below the windowpane. I try to shake the idea that this is the second and last time I’ll see either of them—my half brothers, buzzes the thought in the back of my skull, wrapped in numbness and shock—and can’t help but wonder what he’ll tell them about me. If he tells them about me at all.

  If they’re lucky, they’ll escape the worst of the media storm. Her name isn’t Valerie anymore. It’s Sarah, Sarah Lyons, proper housewife of a garage owner, who probably—who knows?—went to church with him and the boys on Sundays and chatted with her neighbors over a glass of wine, or just lemonade for me, please; it’s bad for my stomach ulcer. There’s nothing to bring the vultures to their door. They’re not part of this, not like I am anyway.

  I can’t yet consider the idea that Valerie had anything to do with Olivia’s disappearance. I hold it in my mind but can’t look at it too closely because I’m not sure what I’ll do then—twist the steering wheel at an inopportune moment, maybe, and send the car flipping over into a ditch. Or break my newfound sobriety and just swallow down my entire stash, washing it down with three minibottles of vodka from the hotel bar.

  When I pull into the parking lot hours later, the sun is setting, dusty-orange rays that skewer the car and bounce off the rearview mirrors. I’ve settled into a kind of numbness, not just mental but physical: my legs tingle from sitting for so long and my arms are aching from gripping the steering wheel. I half expect police cars and CSI or something to be crawling all over the place, but the hotel is calm, serene; the sunset flatters its ugly surroundings, and with that caramel sky spilled for miles above, it could almost pass for beautiful.

  It’s like I haven’t left at all. No one pays attention to me as I make my way to my room at the end of the hall. It’s been cleaned while I was gone; the stink of bleach wafts in the air underneath the overpowering smell of air freshener. My bed is neatly made, and the sheets are new. When I bury my face in the pillow, there’s not a trace of the musky smell of me and Sean, all the creases in the sheets ironed out, all gone. It’s probably better that way. I check the garbage can under the nightstand—empty. I wonder if the maid saw the condom there. She has probably seen much worse and didn’t think twice about it.

  Another thought crosses my mind, and I sit up in alarm, the bedcover crinkling. I’m not going to take anything, I promise myself, but as I cross the room and open the door to the tiny bathroom, my heart speeds up in anticipation, or maybe fear. But it’s all where I left it, in the vitamin container.

  I stand there for a few moments, contemplating, then put the container back and fill the small bathtub. The enamel is discolored but looks clean enough; in goes the complimentary strawberry-scented “shower and bath milk”—could they not think of a worse name?—and foam starts to form at the bottom of the tub.

  As I strip down, my phone falls from the back pocket of my jeans and clatters to the tile. My heart jumps, and I dive to retrieve it. Somehow, it survived; the cracks on the screen are maybe a little thicker and snake a little farther than they used to, and a small arrow-shaped piece of glass has fallen out near the edge. But when I thumb the power button, the phone obediently flickers back on.


  In that moment, I manage to forget why it was turned off in the first place, and the avalanche of missed calls takes me by surprise, mostly from Sean’s number, which I still can’t bear to look at, but there are others too. Jacqueline Shaw’s cell, a couple of times. Others I don’t recognize.

  And at the end of the list, scrolling to the bottom, I see a flurry of calls from the same number, all within a half hour, earlier this morning. Her number. Breathless, I call it before I can change my mind.

  But when I press the phone to my ear, instead of ringing I hear a monotonous beep followed by an electronic voice telling me the number is no longer in service. The rush of water fills the tub almost to the brim now, and I turn off the tap. I have to listen to the message three or four times to be sure before I hang up.

  The screen goes black, but less than a second later, it lights up again, buzzing and vibrating violently in the palm of my hand. With a sharp intake of breath, I thumb Accept, but it’s not the number I just called. Forgetting to exhale, I stare at it, not daring to hang up but not daring to speak either.

  “I know you’re there.” His voice is so loud he might as well be on speaker. “Talk to me. Where the hell have you been? Unless you prefer I send over a police cruiser, if that makes you more comfortable.”

  “Don’t threaten me.” Not the first words I had in mind for when I spoke to him again, but not the worst I could do either. “You can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  He exhales with a hiss and a curse word. “I was worried about you. The hotel desk told me you haven’t been in since you left…yesterday afternoon. What do you think you’re doing? Where did you sleep? Do I even want to know?”

  “Do you pay them to spy on me too?” I snap.

  “I was ready to send out a search party.”

  You should have thought about that before you decided to lie to me all along. At least that’s what I want to say. Instead, what I blurt out is, “I went to see them, my mom’s new family.”

  “I know.” His voice has the beginnings of that growl in it. That velvety reassuring tone he has when he’s trying to manipulate me is fraying at the edges. “Believe me, I know.”