Where She Went

by Kelly Simmons

  “We have this same basic footage for almost two weeks. It coincides with the date of her second meeting with the editor and ends the day before she is reported missing. So we’re confident that Sarah Franco got the timeline right. And while it’s reassuring to see her looking perfectly fine, it was initially worrisome, because she has a clear routine and schedule. If anyone wanted to follow her, it was easy to know where she would be.”

  “Do you see any evidence of anyone following her?”

  “No,” Kaplan said with a sigh. “We’ve been through it thoroughly and don’t see anyone behaving suspiciously. And no one who repeats any of the days.”

  “Which is good,” Salt added.

  “It could be interpreted that way,” Kaplan said. “Bad for the investigation maybe, but good for her welfare.”

  Maggie thought perhaps that was all she could ask for. Not that she could know or that they could all figure it out. It didn’t have to make sense. As long as Emma was alive, it could make no sense. She’d have to remember that, to fight the urge to put the pieces together. The pieces didn’t matter. Only her daughter did.

  “We wonder if she’s not working on her own laptop because she’s doing something private, for the story she is researching. It seems a little cautious, but that’s what people who are hiding something do.”

  Maggie nodded. That made sense to her. And the fact that that’s what criminals also did to cover their tracks wasn’t lost on her either. She knew Kaplan had to be thinking that, too. She also knew journalists sometimes broke laws to pursue stories, but they weren’t usually freshmen in college.

  “There is also no log-in under her name, but there is under Sarah Franco’s. Do you think the two friends might have had a beef?”

  “No, no—”

  “Okay, maybe they were working together?”

  “No, that’s probably just being secretive again. She needed to log in with someone else’s info.”

  “Okay, one more thing. This also might be because her laptop was stolen or damaged.”

  “No,” Maggie said. “If she needed it repaired or replaced, she would have called me. We have AppleCare.”

  Salt and Kaplan exchanged another look, and Salt began to speak. Maggie saw what was happening now, a version of good cop/bad cop. Boy cop/girl cop. Salt stepped in whenever there was something difficult to explain or deliver. Like she was interpreting. Like she was giving Maggie the mom version. But what did she know, this woman without children? It was both helpful and irritating at the same time.

  “Well, we ask because there’s another video we’re concerned about. We thought you might have some insight into it.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly.

  “It’s outside the trash bins in your daughter’s dorm.”

  “Oh God,” Maggie said.

  Salt patted her arm. “You can do this,” she said. “It’s okay, I promise.”

  The tech pressed more buttons, then sat back. Three girls taking the trash out. Fiona, Taylor, Morgan.

  “Those appear to be your daughter’s roommates.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Everyone but Annie.”

  Fiona carried a large black garbage bag, the others, smaller shopping bags.

  The girls were laughing, lighthearted. Not the grim faces of someone who had committed a crime. Not the nervous glances of someone afraid to be caught.

  “The bag looks light,” Maggie said with relief. Not a body. Not parts of a body. Even these girls weren’t stupid enough to dispose of a person in their dorm hallway and laugh while they were doing it. They were idiots; they weren’t killers.

  “Yes,” Kaplan replied. “We think it’s your daughter’s clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “Go in on that tote bag,” he said to the tech.

  The picture sprang to life, detailed. She could see the fibers, if not the correct colors, of the plaid sleeve.

  “Same pattern she was wearing at the library,” he said.

  “Is it?”

  “We think so. Go back.”

  The technician went back to the Tuesday footage from the library. Plaid shirt. Brown and green. Tucked in the front, loose in the back. The tails lifted in the breeze.

  “She loved that shirt,” Maggie said simply. “Loves,” she corrected. “Loves.”

  She remembered Emma buying it, bringing it home. It was soft, rayon, purchased on sale at American Eagle, and Maggie had worried that it had to be dry-cleaned. She worried Emma would take it to college, shrink it in an old-fashioned laundromat on high heat. That she’d forget, be in a hurry, not take care of it. That someone would steal it and throw it away because she loved it? Yes, it was safe to say that had never occurred to her.

  “Of course, it might be a coincidence,” Kaplan said.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Maggie said. For once, she and Kaplan agreed. “We found her room empty.”

  “Yes. And her roommates said they had no idea why.”

  She turned to Kaplan. “How stupid are they? Do they not see the cameras? How did girls this dumb get accepted at college?”

  Kaplan smiled. A rare sight. “If there’s one thing you learn quick, being a cop, it’s that people are never as smart as they think they are. Never. Especially kids.”

  “So what is this? Is this theft? Is it tampering with evidence?”

  “It’s taking out the trash,” Kaplan replied. “At least that’s what they’re going to say.”

  “So, the bigger issue,” Salt said haltingly, “is if they’d throw away her favorite shirt as a prank and take her phone, which was in Fiona’s drawer, what’s to keep them from taking her computer?”

  “Especially,” Kaplan added, “if it was important to her. If she was, in fact, working on a story that mattered to her, and they knew that.”

  “Wait, did you say ‘prank’?”

  They were silent. It had been a bad choice of words.

  “Is that really what you think this is? Stealing her stuff and throwing it away?”

  “It doesn’t matter yet what we think,” Kaplan said. “It matters what we can prove and identify.”

  “Have you checked the other garbage bins? In the other dorms? Or the dumpsters?”

  “We’re doing that,” he replied.

  “I think,” Maggie said, “not that it really matters, that in that library footage, her laptop is in her backpack. And some of that is time-stamped after this, right?”

  They went back to the other footage. Maggie pointed to the backpack, how the edges sank down, heavier.

  “That could be a book,” Kaplan said.

  “A book as big as a laptop? No, Maggie’s right,” Salt said.

  He sighed deeply, as if he didn’t like being told by two different women someone else was right. Maggie was used to that from Frank; that rankled a cop more than anything, finding out they were wrong. It was what bothered the force the most about cold cases, new DNA techniques. That someone would sweep in later and tell them they were wrong. Because being right was what a cop was all about.

  “We also retrieved some deleted images from her phone,” Kaplan said.

  Maggie didn’t think it was possible for the blood in her veins to actually go cold, but she swore she felt it turn. Didn’t Kaplan realize that his measured tones and vague sentences were more ominous than being enthusiastic and direct? She wouldn’t be nearly as frightened if he would just be himself. And then, a more chilling thought—maybe he was. Maybe this measured man was all there was to him. Maybe he wasn’t covering anything, wasn’t holding anything back. He was what he appeared to be.

  “What type of images?”

  She was prepared for his answer, or so she thought. She had never caught Emma or her friends doing anything sexual or aggressive with a camera, but you can’t parent a girl, go all the way through high school wit
h her or, God forbid, middle school without hearing the stories. Of videos passed around boy to boy. Of girls playing strip poker over Skype to a whole team of football players. You didn’t have to go to the same parties or even be in the same room to have something terrible happen to a girl. And it all began on the phone.

  “Well,” Salt said, taking in a deep breath. “It seems one of her roommates stole more than Emma’s clothes.”

  “Just tell me,” Maggie said firmly. “Did she hurt her?”

  “Only her pride,” Salt said. “Remember the partial handprint above the bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fiona had a visitor, filmed it, and shared a screen grab of that video with Emma.”

  She pulled a photo out of a file. It was taken from a height, above the bed on the right side of the room. A naked boy, on top of Fiona, his hands against the wall for leverage. A boy with one finger bandaged.

  “Jason,” Kaplan said.

  “Future Husband,” Salt said.

  “Oh my God,” Maggie said.

  “We’re bringing her in for questioning,” Salt said.

  “No,” Maggie said.

  “No?”

  “You need to talk to him,” she said.

  Thirty-Two

  Emma

  They gave her back her phone, three pairs of underwear, two pairs of jeans, two worn T-shirts she usually wore to bed, and an oversized cardigan sweater everyone else thought was ratty but that she loved. With the weather turning colder and frost on the grass, that was actually the best thing they could have done. She was certain they thought it was fashion punishment, but it was an accidental act of cozy kindness. She also found a dark-green jacket in the hall closet that they’d forgotten to search, so she was set until it snowed. She thought they’d locked the rest in her room, but she wasn’t sure, or maybe they’d divided the cutest things among them or sold it all on eBay or burned it in a pyre while chanting her name. She didn’t know, and on some level, she didn’t care. She was mortified at first, embarrassed by her stupidity, then flat-out afraid. Afraid they’d tell the RA, afraid they’d tell everyone, that they’d use it against her somehow. But then, she saw the mistake they’d made.

  She missed her flannel shirt and her long yellow dress that was as comfortable as pajamas, but other than that, she wasn’t that attached to anything. They’d made a critical error, thinking she was like they were. That she cared about clothing and jewelry, how she looked. Of course they would think that, these shallow girls who thought sex work was harnessing their own power. Fiona and her merry band of followers.

  There was something freeing about fitting everything into a backpack. It was like living in a tiny house or traveling through Europe. You pared down, and then you could go anywhere. The couch was just the beginning.

  Because she didn’t intend to stay on the couch for long. She would find Jason, and he would help her find refuge while she was writing the piece and interviewing Mr. Maserati. He probably lived off campus, in an apartment, with a bunch of other guys. They’d have no room for her, but they’d know other people. Senior girls who were too smart for the kind of bullshit she was going through.

  Emma was looking forward to meeting with Mr. Maserati later that night and seeing Michael afterward. He’d suggested going out for a late supper, and she’d said no, warning him that she was going to be casually dressed, and he’d countered with pizza or a burger, and she’d laughed and said maybe. That kid did not take no for an answer, which reminded her, in a weird way, of her dad. All the more reason to keep him at a distance. She was at college, and she had to be focused on people there.

  She’d called Jason and left a message, told him she had an update for him, and he’d texted her back a few hours later and agreed to meet in the journalism building.

  She was starving, so she went to the dining hall first and ate a bagel with cream cheese, just half, in case he wanted to grab a meal with her. Something to tide her over either way.

  As she sat down, a short girl with a tight head of black curls pulled into a ponytail, a girl she recognized vaguely from one of her classes, walked by with a shirt tied around her waist. Emma’s shirt. Brown-and-green plaid.

  “Hey,” she called out, and the girl turned. “I don’t mean to be weird, but did a girl give you that shirt?”

  “My boyfriend found it in a dumpster,” she said. “He does work-study as a janitor.”

  “Yeah, it’s actually my shirt.”

  “What? Are you sure, or are you just doing random walkabouts to get shirts?”

  “I’m in your history class. I’ve worn it, like, a thousand times.”

  The girl blinked at her, considering, and Emma blinked back. Was this girl truly poor and more worthy of the shirt? Should she back off or press on?

  “Then why did you throw it out?”

  “Someone else did. My roommates are assholes.”

  The girl cocked her head, sizing her up. Then she untied the sleeves and handed it over. “It needs to be washed. It smells like Chinese food.”

  “Wow, thanks for understanding.”

  “My roommates are assholes, too.”

  “Freshman?”

  “Sophomore, and you know what that means.”

  “Yeah, it means it’s not going to get better.”

  “Hey, you have any classes in the liberal arts building?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You ever see the bathroom on the first floor, in the back? There’s, like, a shower in there. And a sofa. The teachers use it because it’s near their lounge, but no one’s there later. In case you need an escape valve.”

  “Thank you.”

  “College sucks,” she said, and Emma smiled.

  She watched the girl walk away and imagined telling her mom about this encounter. She knew exactly what good old Maggie would say. Did you get her name and number? You could make a date for coffee, or maybe file paperwork to become roommates somewhere else? She sounds like someone with character. Someone who would be a true friend. And she would have to explain that meeting your new BFF in the cafeteria was not a thing. The world did not work like that. Not with friends, not with boyfriends. The world was not a romantic comedy.

  Emma finished her bagel and put the shirt in her backpack. It did smell vaguely of peanut sauce and red pepper, which wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Funny how things that were gross and dirty could actually be not terrible if you didn’t think about them too hard. She remembered a boy she knew in high school, Keegan, who had moved away. That’s what he’d said about a hoagie-eating contest. That at some point you stopped thinking about what you were doing and you just did it. That it was the thinking that would get you, not the doing. Life advice from a stoner. Thank you, Keegan, she thought.

  Still, all things considered, she wondered if she shouldn’t throw in a load of wash and leave it there, come back in a while to dry it, but quickly realized she couldn’t afford to do things like that now. What if someone stole all the clothes she had left?

  She checked for seeds in her teeth, then swiped on some lipstick, the lone pale gloss that had been in her backpack. She didn’t want to look like she was trying too hard. She wanted to look cute, yes, but serious and professional. She knew she often looked serious even when she wasn’t, because her whole life, people had been asking her what she was thinking about when she wasn’t even thinking, wasn’t worried. But professional? That was hard to achieve when you were young. When you were young and carrying all your possessions on your back like a snail.

  She strode up the stairs to the journalism building, trying to feel confident. She had a story and a purpose and her favorite shirt, if nothing else. Her backpack was heavier than normal with all her clothes in it, but it wasn’t more than she could handle.

  When she stepped off the elevator, Jason glanced up from his desk as if he was aware of her. Awar
e or wary? She didn’t really like the look on his face, the way he wasn’t making clear eye contact when he greeted her. He led her to an empty conference room with only a sliver of a glass panel and shut the door. She remembered, at that precise moment, her father telling her that classroom doors didn’t used to have glass. They used to be solid and stayed open most of the time, but when they were shut, they were shut. If a teacher needed to change clothes or argue with his wife on the phone, he could do it behind that door. But he could also do other things, and that’s why, he told his daughter, when she headed off to seventh grade with her brand-new bra, they mandated the glass. Emma hadn’t parsed his meaning precisely at that moment. But a few stories from older girls, a few slumber parties, a few bad romance novels later, and she understood perfectly.

  Jason swallowed hard, a hangover kind of swallow, like there was bile in his throat. She knew that swallow, associated it with alcohol and boys. Still, she didn’t hold it against him. He was human, wasn’t he? But his glasses were smeared, too. His face had a film on it, as if he’d been working too hard in an overheated room. Or as if he’d been up all night and hadn’t bothered to wash his face. He looked beautiful and terrible at the same time.

  “Emily,” he sighed.

  “It’s Emma,” she said quietly.

  “I’m sorry. There are so many Emilys and Emmas and Emmys on campus. Carolines and Carolyns. It’s impossible.”

  “Maybe you need a life proofreader.”

  He blinked, took a deep breath. “That’s funny.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Anyway, do you have anything yet? Because—”

  She interrupted him. She told him breathlessly about Sam Beck and the free shift she offered to work, that she was sure Fiona was recruiting girls, that there were free condoms in the bathroom at London, that they owned a store that gave free clothes to girls, that she was meeting with a former patron that very evening, and that she was certain she’d been followed when she—