Where She Went (ARC)

by Kelly Simmons

  “According to people in the building, this is one of the biggest public bathrooms on campus, and it has a shower. It’s also one of the least frequently used bathrooms, because it’s kind of dark and hidden. Janitor said he barely has to clean it. Usually a few female teachers who work nearby and go for runs on campus rinse off here, that’s all.”

  Maggie blinked. That was a lot of concrete information, but somehow, she doubted it was relevant. Emma didn’t run for exercise. She was fast, like Maggie and Frank, but she hated track, hated the boredom of going around in circles. The one thing Maggie didn’t have to worry about was her daughter being abducted while running.

  “Do you have video?” she said, looking up. She was trained to look everywhere now, up, down, around. Part of her thought this vigilance would never go away.

  “No, camera’s broken.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Janitor called us when he found this bag,” he said, pointing to a dark-green trash bag. “Said it was unusual, out of character, and when he picked it up, he heard a clink and thought there might be a gun in it.”

  “Was there?”

  “No. Scissors. Heavy, old-fashioned scissors.” He took them out and held them aloft. “Recognize them?”

  She shook her head. She’d sent her daughter to college with a pale-green, rubber-handled pair leftover from high school.

  “They’re not hair-cutting scissors?”

  “God no,” she replied. “These are old, cheap kitchen shears. They’re not even sharp.”

  “How can you tell?”

  She shrugged. “I can. So…the hair was in with the scissors then? Someone trimmed their own hair?”

  “Yes, or changed someone else’s appearance.”

  “Because…”

  “Well, we can only speculate.”

  She swallowed hard. She could speculate a bit too easily.

  They opened the bag and pulled out a huge cascade of hair. Brown with gold and red highlights in equal measure. Titian, it was called in the past, in the Nancy Drew days, in the days when people didn’t say caramel or coffee with cream. She took off her glove and touched it, quickly, before they could tell her no. Silky and smooth, just the right shampoo and product applied. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “It’s Emma’s,” she said.

  “We’ll have the forensics back in a few days.”

  “Don’t waste your time,” she said, wiping her face.

  “What?”

  “There’s no need to test it. It’s hers.”

  “Well, we have to be s—”

  “Sure? You have to be sure? I’m sure, okay? Put that in your report. Write down that her mother, the hairdresser, is certain it’s Emma’s hair,” she said. “I’ve brushed and cut and styled that hair a thousand times, a million times. It’s my daughter’s hair. My baby girl’s. No one else’s.”

  They were silent. They stood together in the world’s smallest, most confined circle, in the college’s biggest bathroom, pondering everything it might mean.

  “Maybe she just wanted a change,” Salt said. “A new look for her new school, her new year.” She sounded like a mother now, an older sister, a best friend. She was trying to help, but Maggie just shook her head and gave a small laugh.

  “My daughter would never cut her hair with these dull scissors.” She paused, and they all took that in, too. What that had to mean. That someone else had done the cutting? That she’d been forced?

  “There’s no real sign of a struggle.” Kaplan pointed at the floor, walls. Porcelain tile, floral wallpaper. This was probably the oldest building on campus, built for another time, when roommates didn’t try to torture roommates and men didn’t pay young girls to be their babies, sugar or not. No, this old-fashioned room looked almost pristine, but he kept on. “We found no fingernails, no skin, no—”

  Maggie held up her hand. Enough. Because Maggie wasn’t done with her sentence. Maggie had just stopped to take a breath, not leave an opening for a cop to fill with bullshit.

  “She would never have done it,” she said, shaking her head. “Unless…she was in a hurry. Unless she was desperate and in a hurry,” she added.

  And she was beginning to be certain, dead certain, that’s exactly what Emma was.

  Thirty-Four

  Emma

  Emma wasn’t huge on regrets or reflection; her parents had substituted hard work and church for those things. Bury whatever you’re feeling, and then if you can’t stop feeling it, ask God to take it away. She thought of the big story about the thousands of priests abusing children in the city, how they’d asked the kids to gargle with holy water afterward. It was the cure-all, the world’s largest Band-Aid. But she found herself, as she grew up, being drawn to other things when she was feeling low. Music. Videos. Quotes. She still felt calm when she walked past stained-glass windows. She liked hearing the church bells peal outside her dorm every Sunday. But she didn’t feel the pull anymore.

  Like many young girls, she believed in a different kind of fresh start. She believed that New Year’s resolutions could wipe a slate clean; when she was feeling lonely, she read her horoscope in the Cut and felt inspired, guided. One good memoir from someone young she admired was more helpful than the small Bible her mother had smuggled into her suitcase the night before move-in. She believed that a new school year with sharpened pencils and brand-new notebooks brought a kind of forgiveness. You could remake yourself every September and every January, do a reset, a cleanse, a makeover.

  But as she sat in the library, drinking her last coffee for the day, a substitute for dinner, and struggled to memorize all the questions she had for Mr. Maserati in an effort to let them flow effortlessly off her tongue (because it was one thing to write down his answers in a notebook, but it was another thing to read the questions from it—childish, student-y, unprepared), she felt the regret, the lack of friendship. If she had become friends with Taylor first, if she’d gotten to her before Fiona, would it all have played out differently? Taylor would help her learn her lines. Taylor would practice with her. Taylor would give her tips. But she shook her head vigorously, as if she could make it go away. These thoughts were not helping. Because the truth was, Taylor would be much better at interviewing people, at digging out their secrets. Taylor could playact the role of reporter, from the wardrobe down to the language, and thinking about how she’d do it and how she’d do it so very well was only making Emma feel like she couldn’t.

  And now, her wool blazer, her dresses, her grown-up block-heeled shoes, the ones her mother had insisted on her buying—they couldn’t help her either. Now it was jeans, boots, makeup. Now it was wear your glasses, not your contacts, so you at least look smart if not old. She’d cried an actual river over her own stupidity the night before. She’d failed the most basic college entrance test of all—finding one fucking friend in her own dorm. How stupid. How embarrassing. She’d misjudged the one boy/man she thought held the key to her future. She’d blown it completely, but she was not going to blow the rest of it.

  Before she met Mr. Maserati, her plan was to stash her backpack with Michael, so at least she didn’t have that fat, navy-blue flag that screamed student flying on her shoulders. At least she wouldn’t have the weight of all her remaining possessions dragging her down. She would carry her notebook, pen, and burner phone, that’s all.

  She walked to the subway, the light more liquid than it was in August or September, the air heavier, frosty. It would be almost dark when she got back, but her coat was in her backpack. She had all she needed, she repeated to herself as she waited on the platform for the next car. She was stripped of all the artifice, and she was just going to have to be her smartest self and get what she needed to get.

  The train pulled up, and she got on. The cars heading south were not even half full at this time of day. Students weren’t going anywhere now; this was rush hour,
but only for people headed in the opposite direction, going away from the city. When she got out at Suburban Station, there was a crush of commuters jostling to get on. Men in suits with loosened ties. Women carrying tote bags that pulled on one shoulder, their laptops and Kindles and exercise clothes and water bottles weighing them down. She knew that a bag like that meant you had somehow graduated; someday, she’d have one and shoulder other burdens, but she dismissed this thought quickly. She was only a freshman. She had time. No one would expect her to be like those women, not even Mr. Maserati. The thought relaxed her, and she felt positive as she stepped off the train.

  Then, as she turned toward the escalator, a wash of déjà vu. The last time she’d been on the train, trying to follow Professor Grady. That terrible feeling, that shadow that fell across her mind—that someone was trailing her, too. She craned her neck, saw nothing. But she heard. She was on full alert now: sounds, colors, motion. She raced past the escalator, took the stairs two at a time. Well behind her, someone matched her pace. Did she dare look back? No. She ran instead, turned right at the top of the escalator, then pressed herself up against the wall. Watching. Waiting. She expected the same flash of beige jacket she’d seen before, and when it didn’t come, she felt stupid. He probably had several jackets. He could be in a jean jacket, a blazer, anything. There had been no one on the platform at school; wherever he got on, it wasn’t with her. She didn’t even know what he looked like! She watched six men exit the escalator and stairs, moving straight ahead, not stopping, not glancing around them to see where she’d gone. She waited five minutes until no one was coming up; people were only going down. She took a deep breath, climbed the next set of stairs, up to the sidewalk, and kept going.

  On the way to the store, she changed her route several times, switched direction, ducked into a few shops, testing herself. Nothing. No one. No one out of the ordinary anyway. No eye contact. Okay, she thought, okay.

  When she got to Beck’s, Michael wasn’t at the valet stand, and the other boy working there said he was just delivering a car. She waited with him awkwardly, not talking, and finally, Michael rounded the corner. He smiled as he approached, then looked at his watch.

  “He’ll be here soon,” he said.

  “I’m early, I know.”

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “But not too nice, which is good.”

  She laughed. If someone else had said it, she might have taken it the wrong way or been confused, but she knew what he meant. After all, she didn’t know this man, and Michael didn’t really either, did he? The worst thing would be for him to take her the wrong way. For a lonely, widowed man to misread her intentions.

  A few minutes later, the car they were waiting for pulled in. A navy-blue convertible. Curves in these sports cars always reminded Emma a little of a cat about to pounce. She didn’t really know the differences between a Porsche and a Ferrari and a Maserati; how often did she see one? Pretty much never. Still, she was glad that it wasn’t red. She wasn’t sure she could trust a man who had buried his wife and then immediately bought a red convertible.

  He opened his door, stood up, handed Michael the keys, and shook her hand firmly, with a small, tense smile, and suddenly, she was afraid. Not afraid of him, exactly; he looked perfectly ordinary, a pleasant-faced man with salt-and-pepper hair, a round belly straining the buttons of his white oxford shirt, a navy blazer over that, and blue jeans that looked as if they’d been ironed or dry-cleaned. She made a mental note of all that. It wouldn’t be nice to write things down now, before they’d spoken. He’d know she was writing notes about his appearance. No, she was afraid to go out in public with him. How it would look. Who might overhear. How not-private it would be. The lack of privacy made it safe in a way, but it would hold him back, surely. He would be more forthcoming with no one else around. She clearly had not thought this through, and now there were only a couple of options: go somewhere private, like a hotel room (a hard no), or go for a drive.

  “Hey, how about we just drive around a little?” she said suddenly.

  “Ah, you like my car,” he said with a broad smile.

  “Well,” she said, “it is nice, but I was thinking…it would be quieter than a restaurant.”

  “A convertible is not quiet,” he laughed, and Michael joined him.

  Great. She’d just arrived, and she’d said something stupid.

  “Well, relaxing? Easier to talk.”

  “My wife always said men talk best when they’re driving and looking straight ahead,” he said. “So they don’t have to make eye contact!”

  Michael laughed again, and she liked that, the way he included him. And she liked that he had mentioned his wife. Get that out in the open, don’t hide the fact that she existed or that she was dead. Make it okay to talk about by mentioning it first. Or was that just a technique to make her feel at ease?

  Michael winked and told him he would miss taking care of the car but that he should drop Emma back at the valet when they were finished.

  “Do I have a curfew?” he joked.

  “Make good decisions,” Michael singsonged, then laughed.

  When he closed Emma’s door, he patted it and nodded, as if he knew it was all okay and she was going to be in good hands.

  It was a bit loud, interviewing someone in a convertible, and she wished she had her coat and not just her sweater, but he answered her questions directly, didn’t hesitate or tell her he wasn’t comfortable, any of the things she’d imagined he might say when she asked him if he’d been on dates with more than one girl (yes) and if he had had sex with any of them (yes), if he used condoms (yes), and even after she asked him if the age differential between him, his wife (she’d read the obit; she was a year younger than he was), and the girls bothered him (yes). “That bothered me quite a bit,” he said. “I was very taken aback on my first visit. I had assumed these would be women, in their thirties or even forties. Not their twenties. Not—”

  “Their teens?”

  “Well, I never knew that for certain, but yes. I got the impression there were some eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds there. I tried to gravitate toward the older-looking ladies.”

  “But it’s hard to tell how old women are,” she added. “The makeup, the hair.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he sighed. “But usually after a few dull and one-sided conversations, you know when you’re dealing with someone too young. Someone who never read a newspaper, someone who doesn’t know certain words or phrases. And then there are the ones who chew gum constantly. And the things that they drank! Ugh. Ice cubes in their wine, things like that.”

  “Do you have any daughters?”

  She knew the answer, that he had sons, but she wanted to make him just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. She wanted, she realized, watching him squirm, for him to feel a bit punished.

  “No, I don’t think I could have gone there at all if I did. And if your next question is would I want them in this line of work, the answer is a definite no. Of course not. But it would make a better story if I had a daughter, wouldn’t it?”

  He suggested driving down to the river, along Boathouse Row. It was a lovely night, and the lights on the boathouses would be twinkling with the fall leaves in the background. She said fine, probably too quickly, without enough thought. He was taking her somewhere you’d take someone on a date, and that was probably not a good idea. He was a lonely man with a young girl on a soft autumn night. But Michael knew where she was and probably knew the license plate number of the car.

  “It says on some of the sugar daddy websites that there is a screening process,” she said. “Did you ever register on a site and go through that process?”

  “No, that’s not…my style. I’m a total technophobe. My friend told me about the club.”

  “So there is no screening process at the club?”

 
“Well, someone has to recommend you.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Did you spend all your time talking to women at the club, or did you get to know some of the men, too?”

  “Oh, there were nervous conversations at the bar, kind of small talk, while we were all sizing up the girls.”

  “Introductions?”

  “Yes. Although I’ve since learned that many didn’t use their real names.”

  “The men or the girls?”

  “Both, apparently.”

  “Well, the men were probably married.”

  “Some of them. But many, I was relieved to hear, were divorced or widowed, like me. But you know what they say about that.”

  “No, no I do not.”

  “That men can’t be alone?”

  “At my age,” she said with a tight smile, “all they want to do is be alone. Speaking of age, would you estimate the other men were usually around your age or younger?”

  “Most I would say were slightly younger. And thinner!”

  He laughed, and she laughed, too. This man liked to state the obvious, that was for sure.

  “What about full names? Or professions?”

  “Sometimes. None that really registered, though. We weren’t there to network.”

  “Other than restaurant workers, did anyone seem to be in charge, like an event planner or—”

  “Yes, there was someone kind of wrangling us. Moving us from the bar to the restaurant, suggesting certain girls.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man.”

  “Suggesting how?”

  “Like, ‘that girl over there is a little shy. But she’s very nice once she feels comfortable.’ That kind of thing.”

  “Did he also speak to the girls?”

  “Not really, now that you mention it. It was as if he already knew them.”

  “So did you get the sense he was in charge of the girls? Working with them, like a—”

  “Like a pimp? Is that what you were going to say?”