Where She Went

by Kelly Simmons

  “Well, that makes more sense. Good. Thank you.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow if I know more, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I just wanted to…make sure you were all right.”

  Maggie tried to process this for a second. Guilt? Humanity? Part of her job?

  “So, wait a minute. What did Future Husband say when he called you back?”

  “He said he’d already been interviewed by the police, thank you very much, and goodbye.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yup. I figure unless Kaplan got very industrious suddenly, that Future Husband must be Editor Boy. He said his piece; he knows his rights. His daddy is probably a lawyer.”

  “And he had nothing more to add to whatever he told Kaplan?”

  “Well, he did remind me that as a quote unquote journalist, he couldn’t reveal his sources to the police.”

  Maggie’s heart dropped in her chest. “So this has to do with a story? With a source?”

  “Sounded that way to me.”

  “He’s hiding something.”

  “Could be. Or he’s seen too many Robert Redford movies.”

  “So now what?”

  “We wait for the fingerprints and the tapes and the roommates to be interviewed. Today, you go meet with the Take Back the Night group. And maybe we should start reading the Semper Sun. Maybe there are some reporters there less principled than Editor Boy. Maybe he’ll crack eventually. Who knows?”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s plenty, Maggie. You’ll know more later, and we can go from there. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I promised Kaplan that if you stole the phone, I could steal it back from you.”

  “He knows it’s gone?”

  “Of course he knows it’s gone. He’s a dick, not an idiot.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, he can have it tomorrow.”

  “Okay, then promise you won’t do anything crazy today.”

  “You’re just saying that because you want the phone.”

  Gina smiled, and Maggie realized it was the first time she’d seen her teeth. White and even, they were small, like Chiclets. Endearing was the word that popped into her mind. She thought suddenly of the trick Father Mike had taught her a long time ago. When someone angers you, wrongs you, crosses you, picture them as a child. Innocent. Feel empathy for their younger self. At that moment, small teeth flashing bright, Maggie could easily see Gina as a little girl, doing her chores, dancing, twirling in her room, never the girl in the neighborhood who shoplifted or hit someone, always the one mediating, understanding.

  “Maggie, are you okay? You look like you went into a fugue state or something.”

  “I’m fine,” she said and walked her to the door.

  When Gina left, Maggie took out the phone and synced it to her iTunes so she’d have all her daughter’s contacts. There weren’t that many; she could easily phone them all in a couple days’ time. But she knew something was off with this. Kids prided themselves for being connected, for having as many friends as possible. Sarah Franco had three thousand Facebook friends and almost that many Instagram followers. Maggie’s Facebook contacts were automatically added to her phone; it drove her crazy, scrolling through them, that she hadn’t figured out how to remove them. But her daughter had neither Facebook or Instagram on this phone and only forty-one contacts in total. Scrolling through, she saw many of them were emails, not phone numbers. How small was this circle? Another thing that bothered her—some of them seemed to have nicknames or code names, and some of them didn’t. Future Husband. Baseball Coach. DadBod. Mr. Maserati. Prince of Suburbia. And way down in the Vs, Valet to the Stars. Were they all connected?

  She held on to the phone like a talisman, trying to feel its energy. What were you doing, Emma? What were you hiding? And where the hell are you now?

  She poured a cup of coffee, added cream. Considered adding Baileys like her mother used to but didn’t. The coffee tasted delicious, and she took a few more sips, waiting for it to do its magic, to wake her all the way up, to make everything clearer, better, more hopeful. How many cups would it take?

  She warmed her hands on the mug like the world’s smallest bonfire. Outside, the leaves on the small trees lining the sidewalk had turned gold, orange. Soon, they would fall, and the morning would bring the sound of rakes, brooms. The seasons were changing, and somewhere, her child was changing, and she had no idea what was happening. She held her daughter’s life in pieces, clues, ribbons that didn’t braid together. Not yet, anyway. She put down her cup.

  Maybe Future Husband wouldn’t reveal his sources to a cop. They’d made an error there. But would he to a grieving mother? If she met him in person, would he be able to look Emma’s mother in the eye and not tell her where she was? He couldn’t be that heartless. No. He was a boy. He was someone’s son. He had a mother.

  She looked at the phone, Emma’s phone. He’d think it was her, she thought suddenly. And then, a moment later, her finger slipped, and she hit FaceTime. Her own face on the phone scared her, always, that shock of bad lighting and smudged mascara. Fine, she thought. Maybe I’ll scare him, too.

  An almost instant connection. And there he was. Dirty-blond hair. Glasses. A serious look on his face.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Whoa,” he said in surprise. “You’re her mother.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded slowly. “I…see the resemblance.” He took a deep breath, rubbed his face.

  She saw stubble there, and he didn’t look like the stubble type. No, he’d been up late. He looked older than she’d expected, wearier. He had the look of a parent, a mix of fear, guilt. Good, she thought. Maybe he is scared.

  “You’re the editor of the paper,” Maggie said.

  “Yes, yes I am.”

  “Look, I read a newspaper every day. I get it. I understand how important it is to publish stories. I get why you are protecting someone from the cops.”

  He nodded.

  “Her father was a cop, and he died last year. Did you know that? I am not a cop. I am her mother, and she is all I have left of my family. Just her. So I–I need to know where she is, Jason. If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. But I need to know.”

  She’d done what Frank had always told her victims needed to do with their attackers: humanize themselves. Share the details, the backstory. Paint a picture. Did this work on noncriminals too? It had been reflexive, desperate, as desperate as if Jason had cornered her and taken out a knife.

  He took off his glasses, cleaned them on the hem of his shirt. She could see that they were a little crooked. His shirt, a button-down so wrinkled, it looked like he’d slept in it. His hands, not as soft looking as she expected. They were ruddy, not smooth. Like he did more than typing with them. A worn Band-Aid on the tip of one index finger, a bit dirty at the edges, like it had been stretched too many times and he didn’t have another one.

  “Mrs. O’Farrell, I really think that Emma is okay. I do. I believe that she is protecting herself right now. And that’s why she is…not easily found.”

  “That’s not saying very much,” she said. “That’s not saying anything.”

  “I know it’s not concrete. I know it’s not what you want to hear.”

  “Can we meet?” she said suddenly.

  “Meet?”

  “I can ask you questions, and you can give me hints,” she said. “You wouldn’t have to compromise your integrity. No one would know.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t—”

  “Emma has code names on her phone,” Maggie blurted out.

  “Code names?”

  “Cou
ld they be related to whatever she’s working on?”

  He took another deep breath, then nodded. “Could be.”

  “It could be her way of keeping them anonymous, keeping them safe, right?”

  “Yes, it could be. Easily.”

  She nodded. “So can you at least tell me what the story is about? So I can start piecing this together?”

  “I’m not sure what shape the story is taking.”

  “Is it drugs?”

  “Look, Mrs. O’Farrell, this is—”

  “This is what?”

  “This is not helping.”

  “No shit it’s not helping! You are not helping me very much at all, Jason. What would your mother say about that, huh? About not helping another mother?”

  “I have to go, but I promise—”

  “You promise what?”

  “If I hear from her, I’ll tell her to get in touch.”

  “If? I would really like to hear a when, not an if.”

  “Okay, when.”

  “All right. By the way, are you sleeping with her?”

  “What? No!” His eyes narrowed, then closed, as if he couldn’t bear to picture what she was describing.

  “Hooking up, sexiling, whatever you want to call it?”

  “No, no. I swear to you, no.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise. But in return, I’d like you to promise…to be careful with those phone numbers.”

  “Careful?”

  “Yes, because if they get spooked—”

  “What? They’ll stop talking? You’ll lose your story?”

  He was silent then. “No, I meant for Emma’s sake.”

  “You know what I think? I think you’d better keep in touch with me,” she said. “About this story. I’ll text you my number. The police are taking this phone.”

  He sighed, didn’t answer.

  “Unless you’d like to explain to me, and the police, why your number was listed in Emma’s phone under ‘Future Husband.’ I’m sure you know how the police think it’s always the boyfriend, right?”

  “Wait—what? What did you say?”

  The blush extended all the way to his hairline, and she knew then that she had made a mistake. He didn’t know how Emma felt. She had betrayed her daughter, and she felt nauseous suddenly, like she’d shown a boy Emma’s diary, her artsy scribblings of their commingled names. And she thought of her daughter and her terrible, red-cheeked, Irish blush. Was she somewhere, right now, blushing in horror, in embarrassment at what her mother had done? Maggie felt ill all over again. She didn’t know what she was doing. Was she making things worse? And what did she know about this boy and Emma? Absolutely nothing. She thought she could make him scared enough to talk? But what if she’d just made him angry enough to snap? Or scared him away from a girl who was right for him?

  When they hung up, she sat there and tried to decide what she should do before she went to campus. Her life was divided now, like a commuting student, between two worlds. She didn’t trust herself to know what to do with the information in her hands. She knew she should just turn the phone over and call it a day. Yes, she thought she could solve everything, but she could also ruin everything.

  She took a deep breath and decided to call the most innocuous code name on the list. She decided to call Valet to the Stars.

  Twenty-Four

  Emma

  Emma thought she could probably count on one hand the types of cars she had been in. Where she lived, everybody’s parents drove the same ones and didn’t think about the others too much. Subaru wagons. Honda minivans. A Prius here and there. So many white Lexuses or Acura SUVs, she’d lost count. Occasionally, a Range Rover or Tesla showed up at a soccer game, and the boys were excited by that. She supposed if you were a gearhead, the suburbs of Philadelphia were a very disappointing place to grow up, because no one flaunted their wealth with cars. Maybe there were Porsches and Mercedes convertibles tucked into garages for occasional use, but she didn’t see them, and the Ferrari dealership on the edge of town always looked like the set of a movie, clean and sparkling and empty of people.

  But this car that she’d slid inside now was unquestionably different. No extra room in the front seat, it enveloped her, hugged her, the way she imagined a race car might. The softest leather seats, different from leather in other cars. The dashboard and its instruments unusual, too, more like an airplane.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “I know, right?” Michael said. “Some days, I have the best job in the world.”

  The main lot was across the street and didn’t involve much driving. But he explained that there was an overflow lot several blocks away, and he sometimes brought the nicer cars there just to have a chance to drive them longer. Plus the guys who oversaw that lot loved cars, guarded them with their lives. He said the guy across the street sometimes fell asleep in his chair out of boredom.

  “So if I want to steal a car, I should go to the lot across the street?” she said.

  “Ooh, a girl car thief. I love it.”

  “Don’t be sexist, Michael.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Maybe my dad taught me how to hot-wire.”

  “Or your mom,” he said, winking.

  “That’s better.”

  He went the long way, to the farthest lot, and predictably, the two men in charge of it fawned over the car, running their hands across the curves appreciatively, asking if Michael needed it washed or detailed, if it needed gas, anything extra. Michael said no, handed over the keys.

  “You don’t lock it?” she whispered.

  “Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes we leave the keys inside, too. Depends how busy we are. Can’t be locking and unlocking all day long. Unless the tip is huge. But forget about cars, right? It’s a nice day for a walk.”

  She smiled. It was a nice day—cool but not windy. Not that feeling that winter was on the way, threatening.

  “You wouldn’t rather spend all your time inside a car?”

  “Maybe half the time. I’m studying to be a high-performance mechanic,” he said proudly.

  “Sounds fancy.”

  “It pays, like, crazy amounts of money. More than you can make with a lot of college degrees. No offense.”

  “None taken. I get it. I do.”

  “I figure being a valet is a good way to network for my next job.”

  “Makes total sense. But I was wondering, maybe, related to that, to networking, that you could help me with something?” she said.

  “So you’re not just flirting with me because my future as a mechanic is so bright? Damn.” He smiled.

  She laughed. There was something incredibly easy and welcoming about him, and she thought that it was probably a shame that he hadn’t gone to college. A nice guy like this was a rarity and the reason you sometimes saw beautiful girls with lanky, ordinary-looking boys. Because they were attentive and nice.

  “But back to your question, sure, if I can help, I will,” he replied, and she didn’t doubt him. Everything about him was earnest, born to be helpful. She knew, too, that people like him were also born to be taken advantage of. Had he figured that out yet?

  “So,” he continued, “do you need help buying a car or something?”

  “No. Listen, I know we don’t really know each other, but I sense you can keep a secret.”

  “Oh, I can,” he said. “Like a vault. You can ask my brothers and sisters. My poor parents,” he sighed.

  “Good. Well, I’m investigating something, and I need help.”

  “Look, if this means borrowing a car, I can’t—”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I need…people. Sources.”

  “You want me to keep my eyes open, search a glove box, something like that?”

  “Well, that might be helpful, too,” sh
e said, “but mostly I’m wondering if you know anyone who goes to that club, London…and if anyone who goes there and leaves their car with you…if you might have noticed anything about them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like maybe they seem…regretful. Or guilty. Maybe they used to go and stopped? But still visit the store?”

  He stopped on the sidewalk, as if he couldn’t think and walk at the same time.

  “Whoa,” he said slowly.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, to process—”

  “No, I’m just thinking for a second. About this situation.”

  “I know you don’t approve of what’s happening there, so—”

  “No, no I do not. I got a sister, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, are you trying to close them or something? For, like, health violations? Are you a cop?”

  “I’m a reporter,” she said, whispering, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself. But something about saying it out loud, practicing it, made her swell with pride.

  “Wow,” he said. “I knew you were smart. I sensed that right away.”

  “So I need a man who’s been there and is unhappy about it. Maybe he hates the owner, maybe he hates himself? Someone who was tricked by a girl or lost all his money or feels guilty about the girls being young. I need someone…disenchanted.”

  “But, like, off the record?”

  “Well, on or off, either one is good for now.”

  “Disenchanted is a very nice word. Very descriptive,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You should use that in the story.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “You know, there is someone. I haven’t seen him in a while, but he used to go over there on Wednesday nights. One time, he came to Beck’s first, with a new haircut, you know, spiked up like Alec Baldwin’s. Then he went in the store and got all dressed up. He got a new shirt and tie and a jacket to go with his jeans, and he asked me to put his old clothes in his trunk before I parked the car. He even had on new cologne. I remember that because I told him he smelled like a million bucks, and he asked me if it was too much and I told him no. He had a present wrapped up with him, too. Pink ribbon. It was like, I don’t know, like watching someone go to prom, you know? Then later that night, instead of coming back with a girl, he came back alone. He said, ‘I’m an old fool, Michael.’ And I’m like, ‘What’s wrong, Mr. M?’ And he said, ‘It’s true, you know. Money cannot buy you happiness or friendship or love. Remember that.’”