The muffled sounds of my elevator-music-esque ringtone fill the tiny car. All three of them lean closer, their eyes darting around, seeking the source of the ringing. Ivy clicks open my center console and I exhale a heavy breath. Okay, one step closer.
“Shit,” Ivy mutters, fishing my iPhone out of its hiding place. It’s probably the first time I’ve ever heard her swear. She hangs up and the ringing cuts off. Her face grows solemn.
“Check it,” Jason says. “Any recent texts? Calls?”
Ivy clicks the home button, and my lock screen pops up.
“Zero-four-zero-two-seven-five,” I say.
“I don’t know her code.”
“Try her birthday?”
I groan as she types in the wrong numbers. Does she really think I’m stupid enough to use my own birthday?
“Zero-four-zero-two-seven-five,” I repeat. “Come on.”
“Any other dates?” Patrick asks. “Numbers that are significant?”
“Zero-four-zero-two-seven-five!” I’m practically screaming, the words jumbling together. “Zerofourzerotwosevenfive!”
Ivy tilts her head to the side, as if deep in thought. She slowly—deliberately—enters my code. The phone unlocks.
“Jeez, I thought you didn’t know her code,” Jason says.
“I didn’t.”
Patrick’s mouth hangs open. “How’d you do that?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Creepy,” Jason says. “You work for the NSA or something?”
Ivy gives a weak smile. “It was our mom’s birthday. I’m kinda surprised Autumn uses it as her password, though.”
“Why?” I ask, even though she can’t hear me. When Mom died, Ivy cried for weeks. I didn’t. I went to school, hung out with friends, laughed like everything was awesome, even though my insides shriveled like a dead tree. I was determined to show the world that I was still cool, and cool kids didn’t cry. Looking back, I was pretty screwed up—but in everyone else’s eyes, I was the strong one. I was the brave one. That’s the shitty thing about grieving; if you don’t look like you’re falling apart, they assume you’re fine.
Ivy scrolls through my texts. “Why is she talking about cake?” She flaps her arm behind her to get the guys’ attention. “Look! She met someone here. A stranger.”
Jason peeks over her shoulder. “Holy shit.”
“I think we should call the police,” Patrick says.
Final-fucking-ly. I want to hug him.
Ivy hesitates. “I . . . don’t know.”
I throw my head back and breathe deeply. Don’t panic. This is it. Once the cops are involved, they’ll find me. They have to.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Would you want to be the one who rats out Autumn Casterly?”
“You’re her sister, Ivy. It’s gotta be you,” Jason says.
Ivy’s eyes go wide. “She’ll kill me.” It strikes me how terrified my sister looks—not of my would-be murderers, not of my death—of me.
“What if they don’t believe me?” She’s looking at Jason, but somehow it feels like she’s speaking to me.
A stone lands in my stomach. What if they don’t believe her?
Jason holds up his hand, as if intending to rest it comfortingly on her shoulder. But instead, it drops back to his side. “Look, Ivy. We’re here. We won’t let them. They’ll listen to you.”
Ivy looks up, and it seems like she’s looking right at me.
“Please, Ivy,” I say.
And then, I want to hug her. She calls.
IVY
The phone rings for a million years. I clench and unclench my hand, my palm wet with sweat. It just keeps ringing and ringing and—
“Concord PD, this is Nancy speaking.”
“H-hi. This is Ivy.” I mentally slap my forehead; Jason actually slaps his. “My name’s Ivy Casterly.”
“How can I help you, Ivy?”
“My sister Autumn’s missing. I’m at her car.” The words stick in my throat. My fingers jitter against my pant leg.
Jason gives my arm a comforting squeeze.
“Her name’s Autumn Casterly,” I continue. “She’s eighteen. She didn’t come home last night after school, and today I found her car in an abandoned lot and also found her keys and her phone and I’m worried she’s hurt or something.”
“Okay, slow down, sweetie. Let me catch all that.” I can tell by her tone that she thinks I’m a six-year-old.
“Okay.”
“So you’d like to file a missing persons report?”
“Yeah.”
“May I ask how old you are?”
Oh God. This is pathetic and I’m so glad she isn’t on speakerphone. “Fifteen.”
“Wow, okay. Do you have a parent or guardian who might want to do this instead?”
“Nope. It’s just my dad, and he’s at work.”
“Oh . . . Okay, Ivy, I’m going to ask you some questions, all right?”
For twenty minutes, she grills me. What color is Autumn’s hair? What was she last seen wearing? Is she medium build, short, or tall? Does she have any defining birthmarks? Has she ever attempted suicide? Who are her closest friends? Where does she usually go after school?
I hate that I can’t answer most of them. Does Autumn have birthmarks? No clue. Maybe I should have paid better attention. Thankfully, I know some things they ask for—like Dad’s phone number, which is useless because he never frigging picks it up.
“Has she ever run away before?” the lady asks.
“I mean, kinda?”
She pauses. “Kind of?”
“Well, I mean, she stays out late a lot. Sometimes she goes away overnight and doesn’t tell us.” I realize that detracts from the severity of the situation and quickly add, “But she always comes home, I swear. This time is different.”
“Where does she go when she’s gone overnight?”
“To her friends’ houses, I think.” Sister of the year, right here. “I don’t really know, honestly. She doesn’t tell us.”
“Do you know any of her friends’ names?”
This interview is making me look like the worst sister ever. “Um . . . not really.”
“Is there anything else about Autumn I should put into the report? Anyone who’d have reason to harm her? Some sort of grudge?”
I bite my lip. If all the Autumn rumors are true, I’d guess there are a lot of people who don’t like my sister. But where would I even start?
“No. Not really. I don’t know.” The moment I say it, I regret it. But I swallow down the words in one gulp like they’re Jason’s gummy lobsters.
“Okay, Ivy. You said you’re at the vacant lot on Storrs with her car?”
“Yeah—I mean, yes, ma’am.”
“We’re going to send a couple officers over to take a peek. We’ll give your dad a call first, is that okay?”
I snort. “Good luck reaching him.”
* * *
—
“Are they coming this century?” Jason asks from his seat on top of his trunk. His green Converse dangle against the bumper of his gray SUV. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting them to come out with sirens blazing, but, like, it’s been over an hour.”
I sigh. I thought they’d take this more seriously, too. I could kick myself for telling them she disappears a lot. My stomach keeps performing somersaults. I’m starting to regret inhaling that bagel.
I’ve browsed Tumblr for the past hour, sitting cross-legged on the pavement, and my butt is falling asleep. “Let’s give them a few more minutes.”
Cars whiz past us on the main road, pulling left into Marshalls or Bank of America.
Patrick leans against Autumn’s car, checking his phone. Every few seconds, my eyes coast over to him like the trea
cherous little traitors they are. I mean, okay. It should be illegal for him to stand like that, his black North Face fleece sleeves pushed up to his elbows. I love the way his brow creases when he reads, like he’s concentrating extra hard.
He looks at me, and I quickly find something really interesting on Facebook that I’ve clearly been studying this whole time. I can feel him watching me. The fact that he’s watching me makes me second-guess sitting like a kindergartner. I nonchalantly adjust my body, crossing one leg over the other.
A smile splits Pat’s face. “Oh man, you know what I just thought of? Remember Gaseous?”
I burst out laughing. “Oh my God. How could I forget?”
“Did I miss something?” Jason asks.
“You didn’t go to elementary school with us, so yes.”
In fourth grade, there was this kid named Cassius in our class. Cassius Robert Porter the Fourth, I shit you not. He was kind of a prick—which is expected with a name like that—but he had lots of friends. One day in gym, he farted really loudly, and from then on he was known as Gaseous Cassius, and later just Gaseous. Anytime Pat and I saw a gas station, we speculated that Gaseous was over there, filling up. It was kind of douchey of us, but still funny. I mean, Gaseous himself loved the name and pushed the joke for like two years, farting loudly whenever he could. Then his family moved to North Carolina or something.
“I still think of him whenever I pass an Irving station,” Patrick says.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if he was there?”
“I would die.”
Jason coughs into his elbow, and it’s the fakest cough I’ve ever heard. Attention whore.
I ignore him and excitedly swat Patrick’s arm. “Remember when good ol’ Gaseous ripped one during that math test and Ms. Gruber threw a fit? And he bowed when she kicked him out of class?”
“Classic Gaseous.”
Jason rolls his eyes. “How old are we again?”
I give him a look. This is coming from Jason, king of dick jokes, who tacks “that’s what she said” onto literally anything. “Um, apparently younger than you, Gramps.”
“You’re, like, sophomores, and you’re making fart jokes.”
Again, coming from Jason, who is always the first one to laugh when someone farts. “I wasn’t making fart jokes. I was remembering a time someone farted that was funny. Excuse me for living.”
Patrick shrugs. “It was just something stupid that happened when we were kids.”
“Yeah, stupid is the right word,” Jason mutters, picking at a loose thread hanging off his bagel shirt. It’s nearly impossible to take someone seriously when they have a giant smiling bagel on their T-shirt.
I’m used to Jason’s snark, but it bugs me today. He’s been a jerk about everything since Pat showed up.
I turn my back on Jason and keep talking to Patrick. “So, do you still have Ivan?” The Perkinses’ Jack Russell terrier used to scare the crap out of me when I was little. I’m pretty sure that dog is a demon.
Pat slides his phone into his back pocket. “He’s old, and kinda overweight, but yeah.”
His mom feeds that dog Kraft Singles every morning, so I’m not surprised.
“I have a ball python now, too,” he says. “His name’s Chester.”
“Whoa, cool.” I do my best this is totally new information for me and I definitely wasn’t creeping on your Instagram impression. “Where’d you get him?”
“He was Will’s. When we moved back, he asked if I’d take care of him for a while. I wasn’t sure at first, because, like, it’s a snake. But Chester’s cool. He loves to be held.”
“I wanna hold him!”
“You hate snakes,” Jason says.
I glare at him. “No I don’t.”
“Well, come over sometime and you can.” Pat grins. “He’ll drape over your shoulders.”
“That sounds equally terrifying and awesome.”
“You won’t even watch the basilisk scene in Chamber of Secrets.”
Is Jason serious right now? “That’s because it’s a basilisk, dumbass.”
“A basilisk is a snake.”
“Okay, that’s bullshit.” I get to my feet. “That’s like saying I’m afraid of spiders because Aragog and Shelob are spiders.”
“But you are afraid of spiders. You make me take them outside in cups for you.”
“Excuse me for not wanting to kill them.”
“Even that huge gross one in Latin last month. You screamed.”
“It was scuttling up my pant leg—you would’ve screamed, too. Why are you being such a tool?”
He jumps off his car. “Me?”
A rusty green Toyota with a growling muffler speeds into the lot and jerks to a halt. We all freeze as the engine cuts off and the door opens.
AUTUMN
My whole body tightens into a big, solid knot. A teen boy steps out of the passenger side with saggy jeans and a Celtics jersey. The driver’s door swings open and a second guy climbs out.
My heart stops.
It’s Nick—or whatever his real name is.
He’s got ripped jeans and a hoodie, and that same smirk.
It’s him. It’s really him.
He nods dismissively at my sister, then starts walking toward the abandoned building, chatting with the other kid and casting furtive glances over his shoulder. His voice turns to static in my ears.
I can’t look away.
It’s a special kind of pain, watching someone who hurt you smiling a big, wide, shit-eating grin. Knowing he got away with it, and seeing that he knows it, too.
Ivy narrows her eyes in their direction, as if my suspicion bled into her. Nick and the other guy pull back the plywood and slip into the warehouse, sliding the makeshift door closed behind them.
I glance at my sister, then back at the building. As if reading my mind, she takes a deep breath and starts tiptoeing after them.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jason whisper-yells.
She swats her hand behind her back and slinks up against the side of the decrepit building.
I sidle up beside Ivy. It’s strange being so close to my sister. Probably the closest I’ve been to her in years.
Ivy presses her finger to her lips as the boys tiptoe over. It strikes me that even though they probably think she’s acting ridiculous, they’re still trying to help her, and I know it’s not for my benefit.
I wish I had friends like that.
I’m taken aback by my own thought.
Jason holds his hands out in a question. “What are you—”
“Shush!” Ivy hisses, flicking her hand through the air. “Shut up!”
Jason grins. “Did you just shush me using a drum major signal?”
Ivy presses her ear to the plywood door. Her face screws up in concentration.
“. . . freaked out, man,” Nick’s voice says from inside. “I don’t wanna go to jail.”
“No one saw us. It’s fine.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say—the shit’s on my phone,” Nick says. “I deleted the messages, but you know the government could find that shit.”
“It’s okay. We didn’t leave anything behind.”
What were they expecting to find? Strands of my hair? My blood, spattered across the gravel?
“They’re talking about me,” I say in Ivy’s ear.
There’s a faint flicking noise, followed by the smell of pot wafting through the thin doorway. Jason wrinkles his nose and bats his hand in front of his face.
“What are they talking about?” Patrick whispers, his lips barely forming the words. “I can barely hear them.”
Jason shrugs. “Something shady. C’mon.” He beckons with his arm. “Let’s get outta here before they see us.”
“What if they’re connected to Autumn?” Ivy
whispers. “We have to stay.”
Jason opens his big mouth, presumably to argue, but the plywood door swings open. Ivy, Jason, and Patrick duck around the corner and flatten themselves against the wall right as Nick and his friend clomp outside.
“Anyway, we should leave.” Nick’s accomplice takes a final puff of his joint before crushing it under his shoe. “Probably a bad idea coming back here anyway, and I’ve got a shift tonight.”
“You still working at the gas station?”
I step out into the open. It’s surreal when they don’t even spare me a glance. I’m invisible to Nick. Maybe I’m not the first girl he hurt. Maybe I’m one in a thousand, a name he’ll forget by next month. The incident that broke me is nothing more than an inconvenience for him.
“Yeah. Living the dream.” Not-Nick takes a drag off his cig. “Manager’s a prick.”
“You’re a horrible person,” I say, looking Nick right in the eyes.
“You up for hanging out later?” Nick asks.
“Depends when I get off,” Not-Nick says. “Maybe. Supposed to meet this girl from OkCupid for coffee or something, I dunno. You?”
“Gotta do some errands. You want a ride to work?” Nick asks.
“Look at me, you piece of shit,” I say. Of course, he doesn’t. He’s just standing here, smiling, while I slowly die somewhere. Frustration wells through me and I shove Nick as hard as I can. He doesn’t even stumble.
“Nah, man. I’ll walk.”
I squeeze my eyes shut to block the tears burning behind them. Nick’s friend walks toward Main Street, hands buried in his pockets.
I sneak a glance over my shoulder, where Ivy and the boys are pretending to be really interested in Jason’s SUV.
Nick jumps into his car and starts the engine. No. He can’t get away. Not before the cops show up. He’s right here, and I can’t even tell my sister who he is.
“Follow him,” I order. “Ivy.” I snap my invisible fingers. “Now.”
“We have to follow him,” Ivy says.
“What about the cops?” Patrick asks. “We can’t leave.”
Ivy’s eyes dart from Nick’s car to the warehouse. “We can’t lose him. He knows something.”
The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly Page 11
