Dreadful

by Jana DeLeon

  “Do you think it came from Caitlyn?” Shaye asked.

  Marisa shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounded like something Caitlyn would say, but if it was her, why didn’t she ever come back? Caitlyn was always the extrovert of our group, and it wouldn’t have been completely unusual for her to jet off on her own—she’s done it before—but never for more than overnight. And she would never have left Jenny and her parents hanging like this. She was adventurous, maybe even a little wild, but she wouldn’t have been that cruel.”

  “Was there any other indication that Caitlyn was still around New Orleans the next morning—credit card usage, for example?”

  Marisa nodded. “Two hundred dollars was withdrawn from her account the next morning, about an hour after I got the text. The camera on the ATM was spray-painted over, though, so the police couldn’t get video.”

  “But nothing else after that?”

  “Nothing else ever again. That was the last sign of her. We called Jenny and Caitlyn’s parents, and they came right away. We all stayed in New Orleans for a week, walking the streets and showing everyone we could think of a picture of Caitlyn, but we never got a response.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shaye said. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”

  And a nearly impossible task. With over a million people flocking to the French Quarter for Mardi Gras every year, the chances of someone remembering a specific young, pretty blonde girl were probably less than zero.

  “It was really hard on all of us,” Marisa said, “but it was the worst on Jenny.” Marisa glanced at Jenny, clearly worried. “You see, Jenny can’t remember any of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Shaye asked.

  “It’s like the entire night is scrubbed from her memory. She doesn’t even remember going into that bar. Doesn’t remember being in the alley, looking for Caitlyn, or even going back to our hotel. It’s like someone took an eraser to the place in her mind where that memory should be. The doctors said it was so traumatic that she blocked it.”

  Shaye studied Jenny, who’d finally opened her eyes and lifted her head. The woman seemed worse than distraught. She seemed partially checked out of reality. Shaye understood that better than anyone, as she’d spent a lot of time in that emotional limbo. And she had intimate knowledge of what missing pieces of memory could do to a person’s mental state.

  “Jenny, do you have any idea why your sister would leave?” Shaye asked.

  Jenny shook her head and sniffed. “She wouldn’t have. The police said…they said she probably ran off, but they’re wrong. I know my sister. She wouldn’t have just left like that. Maybe overnight, but not forever. Something happened to her. I’m sure of it.”

  Shaye didn’t want to agree with her out loud but she thought that was exactly what happened. Young women didn’t often disappear by choice. Not permanently. Shaye was no stranger to just how easy it was for someone to be picked up off the streets and trafficked or simply killed. And with all the swamps surrounding the city, bodies didn’t always turn up.

  “I tried to get past it,” Jenny said. “You know, move on, like my friends and the doctors said I should do. But then the dreams started. She’s calling to me. Begging me to find her because she doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t want to be alone!”

  Jenny started sobbing again and Marisa looked at Rick, who simply shook his head, clearly not knowing what to do either.

  “I know this is all a very cursory explanation of the situation, but will you look into it?” Marisa asked.

  “I can,” Shaye said, “but I have to be honest with you about my potential for success.”

  “We don’t expect miracles,” Marisa said. “We’re just asking you to cover everything and see if you come up with something that the police missed. If you don’t, then we’ll all accept that.”

  It was clear to Shaye that Marisa was attempting to provide Jenny some closure, one way or another. Shaye’s assessment of Marisa was that she was worried and upset about Jenny and wanted to help but wasn’t unreasonable about what she thought Shaye could do.

  “Okay,” Shaye agreed. “I’ll take the case.” She pulled a client agreement from her drawer and slid it across the desk. “This is my standard agreement. For this type of work, I usually collect a retainer of a thousand dollars. Is that all right?”

  “That’s fine,” Marisa said, and pulled a checkbook from a large handbag. She handed Shaye the check, then pulled a file from the handbag and slid it across the desk. “That’s a copy of the police file. It’s everything they have. I got it this morning. My and Jenny’s contact information is on a sheet inside.”

  “You got the police file?” Shaye said. “That’s great.”

  “I figured they wouldn’t say no to Jenny and I was afraid…I followed your story on the news and I know there’s some friction between you and the police department. And well, I just didn’t want any problems, so I thought I’d help out.”

  “I really appreciate it. Even if I could have gotten the file, this is faster and easier.”

  “I need to go,” Jenny said. “I need to go home.”

  Marisa jumped up from her chair. “Come on. I’ll take you to the car and we’ll go home.” She looked at Shaye. “I only covered the basics, so I know you’ll probably need to go over everything in more detail and have more questions once you review the file. Just give me a call when you are ready to talk more. I’m sorry, but we have to go.”

  Jenny jumped up and practically ran out of the apartment without so much as a backward glance, Marisa hurrying behind her. Rick waited until they were gone, then turned to Shaye.

  “I’m sure you’ve figured it out already,” he said, “but Jenny’s a real mess. Anxiety, depression…the doctors haven’t made much headway. Fact of the matter is she’s even worse now than she was then. I mean, she was never tough, you know, but at least before this happened, she could handle regular life things okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shaye said. “It must be hard to see that.”

  Rick nodded. “It’s hard and sometimes I get angry. It’s all a waste, you know? Knowing something won’t change what is. Jenny stopped living when Caitlyn disappeared, and that’s stupid. And selfishly, I wish she’d move on because she keeps everyone around her trapped in the past. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but I’d just like one week without Marisa rushing to Jenny’s house to talk her off the ledge. We’ve never gotten to be normal. I can’t even get Marisa to move out of that Podunk town because she won’t leave Jenny.”

  Shaye could hear the man’s frustration, and she understood why he felt that way. Jenny was holding them all emotionally hostage, even though she probably wasn’t trying to. Shaye knew she’d done the same thing to Corrine when she’d first come to live with her. Her adoptive mother had changed almost every aspect of her life to care for Shaye those first few years, and even though she never once saw Corrine frustrated, Shaye knew that at times she had to be. No matter how much you cared about someone, carrying them still tired you out.

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Shaye said. “And I’ll be thorough. If I can’t find anything, then I’ll do my best to get Jenny to accept that. I’ll even ask my own therapist to talk to her.”

  A tiny sliver of hope flickered in his eyes as he nodded. “Thank you.”

  He left the apartment, and Shaye went to the door and locked it behind him. She looked out the window as he climbed into the driver’s seat of an SUV and pulled away. Marisa was sitting in the passenger seat but was turned around, looking at the pale woman in the back seat.

  Shaye went back to her desk and opened the police file. The entire situation was sad, and she knew her chances of helping improve it were slight. The best she could hope for was answers, but even that was a long shot. Because no matter how much she’d like to believe it, she didn’t think there was any chance Caitlyn was still alive.

  If she was, she was likely in a living hell.

  3

  MARISA HELPED J
enny into her house and put her to bed. Jenny’s mother was sitting on the back porch but didn’t even move out of her rocking chair when the women entered the house. That didn’t surprise Marisa at all. Virginia Taylor preferred to sit in that rocker and let her life waste away. As far as Marisa was concerned, it only contributed to Jenny’s emotional problems, but all of Marisa’s attempts to get Virginia to counseling had been met with complete silence. To Marisa, the Taylor house resembled a tomb, only the dead were still breathing.

  Rick was already frowning when Marisa climbed back into the SUV and she knew it wouldn’t be a second before he started in.

  “This was a complete waste of time and money,” he said. “Why do you humor her? She needs to be in a home or a facility or something.”

  “The money came from my inheritance from my grandmother,” Marisa reminded him. “It’s not like I asked you to pay it.”

  “Like I would even have that kind of money. You keep us trapped here in this shit town, where there’s only shit jobs that are totally beneath our education. I’m an attorney, for Christ’s sake, and I make 40k a year. Mark Cooper—remember him? Graduated with a lower GPA than me? He’s already an associate at a firm in New Orleans and is pulling down a quarter mil.”

  Marisa held in a sigh because it would only make him angrier. And an angry Rick was not someone she wanted to go home with. It’s not as though she didn’t understand his frustration, but on this one issue, she’d dug in her heels. Rick assumed it was because she wouldn’t leave Jenny unless or until the young woman regained her shaky sanity, but if Marisa was being honest, Jenny was an excuse. Certainly Marisa felt responsibility to help her childhood friend, but Jenny’s condition wouldn’t have prevented her from leaving Ponchatoula if she’d really wanted to.

  What prevented Marisa from leaving Ponchatoula was Rick.

  The truth was her marriage had been in trouble from day one. Marisa just hadn’t figured out how much trouble until later down the line. Rick had been extremely vocal about hating being trapped in Ponchatoula, until she’d had their daughter—the result of an accidental pregnancy that Marisa had been actively trying to prevent. Not that she regretted having Maya. The two-year-old was her biggest joy, but Marisa had never intended to bring a child into her iffy marital situation. Rick had backed off his complaints for a while but in the past year, he’d started up again full force. His temper was a problem, and it was a problem that seemed to be growing with every day that passed with him still living in Ponchatoula.

  But Marisa’s parents lived there, and they cared for Maya for free while Marisa and Rick were at work. Rick argued that the increase in salaries they’d see from moving to a big city would more than outweigh the cost of day care, but Marisa had countered with the quality of care difference and her obligation to Jenny. Rick had a lot of faults, but the one thing Marisa was certain about was that he adored their daughter. It was impossible to argue that complete strangers, watching over a roomful of other people’s children, would provide the same level of care as two doting grandparents.

  “You can always commute to New Orleans,” she said. The drive in today hadn’t been all that bad, although it would probably be worse during peak work traffic times.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Lawyers at big firms work eighty to one hundred hours a week. Then add two to three hours of commute time and you’d never see me.”

  She would like that, but no way would she admit it.

  “It was just a suggestion,” she said. “The drive today wasn’t that bad, so I thought…”

  “Maybe I’ll do just that—get a job in New Orleans and make some real money. Then I can afford to buy a house instead of renting a shack like we live in now, and I’ll just move you, Maya, and your parents to the city where we can all have a higher quality of life.”

  “You should look into it,” Marisa said. He was just blowing smoke. He’d threatened to do something similar for years, but it never materialized. And Marisa knew exactly why. To other people, Rick made it sound as if he wouldn’t like spending so much time away from Marisa and Maya, but the truth was he was afraid to let Marisa out of his sight for that long. He’d always been afraid that if he wasn’t around, exerting his control over her, she’d get ideas. Ideas that included a divorce.

  Marisa was the first to admit that she considered it every day, but the situation was complicated now that she had Maya. No way was Marisa going to risk losing her daughter, and she was absolutely certain Rick would do everything possible to ensure that she did. And being an attorney, he knew all the tricks to make sure it happened. The bottom line was Rick wanted Marisa as his wife and if she tried to leave, he’d make her pay with the one thing she cared about the most.

  So she stayed put and prayed a lot and wished she had made different choices. Of course, looking at her life from the advantage of today’s viewpoint, that was easy to say. But if she could turn back time, chances were she’d make the same choices all over again. At one time, she’d loved Rick, and she believed he’d loved her. Real love. Not whatever this controlling thing was that he felt for her now. But after Caitlyn disappeared, everything had started to deteriorate. If they hadn’t been about to graduate and their summer wedding hadn’t already been planned, Marisa wondered if she would have gone through with it.

  But none of those questions mattered. This was her life and her situation, and she would manage it as she always had, day by day.

  SHAYE HURRIED into her mom’s kitchen, fifteen minutes after the time she’d said she would be there. Eleonore was sitting at the island, a glass of iced tea in front of her, and Corrine was pulling a tray of enchiladas out of the oven.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Shaye said. She gave Eleonore a quick hug, then went around the island to kiss her mother on the cheek. “Mexican night? Yum.”

  Eleonore nodded. “That’s what I said. And she went all out—cheese and beef enchiladas, black bean dip and queso, and a little salad garnish for anyone who might feel guilty about the healthy side of things.”

  “No guilt here,” Shaye said. “I did ten miles on the treadmill this morning.”

  “Ten?” Corrine’s eyes widened. “I’m only doing three. Ten is just showing off.”

  “Maybe,” Shaye said, “but between you and Jackson, I’ve been eating twice the calories I used to. So it’s either cut out the good food or increase my time at the gym.”

  “You’ve made the obvious and logical choice,” Eleonore said. “If I cared about things like being fit, I would do the same. Fortunately, a trim body is not something I ever desired.”

  “You look great,” Corrine said.

  Shaye nodded. The psychiatrist might avoid the gym and flock to great food, but she was still in good shape. She complained about her doctor, who insisted she needed to lose twenty pounds, but didn’t appear to be concerned with his assessment.

  “It’s all the walking you do,” Shaye said. Eleonore scheduled her clients thirty minutes apart so that she could take a twenty-minute walk in between each session. She listened to the previous session notes for the next client on the schedule while she walked to help prepare her. She could have done the same thing sitting at her desk, but she claimed walking made her more acute mentally and unleashed a creative side of thought that came in handy in her sessions. It made sense to Shaye. She’d come up with some creative investigative ideas while on the treadmill.

  “These just need a couple minutes to cool,” Corrine said. “Do you guys want to eat in the dining room?”

  “Formal dining and Mexican do not go together,” Shaye said. “Just slide the dip across the island and let’s do this bar style.”

  “Agreed,” Eleonore said. “No use hauling it all over the house. It tastes just as good sitting here and then that way, I don’t have to get off this stool. I’m fairly comfortable.”

  “You’re fairly lazy,” Corrine said. “The breakfast nook is just right over there.”

  Eleonore shook her head. “That nook is fo
r breakfast, hence the name. Kitchen islands are for Mexican and beer.”

  “You don’t drink,” Corrine said.

  “Shaye does, and she looks like she could use a beer about now.”

  Shaye grinned and went to the refrigerator. “You read my mind, because I can’t think of anything that goes better with enchiladas than beer.”

  “Margaritas?” Corrine suggested.

  “Now she’s getting fancy again,” Eleonore said. “Break out the paper plates and let’s get this rolling.”

  Corrine put down a bowl of bean dip and stared at Eleonore in dismay. “I do not own paper plates.”

  “You should get some,” Shaye said. “After all, they’re recyclable and think about all the water you save not using the dishwasher.”

  “How about I use the everyday china and write a check to the Sierra Club?” Corrine asked.

  Eleonore motioned to her to pass the food. “At this point, no one cares. Serve it up on the Christmas china if you’d like. Just pass it over.”

  Corrine laughed and started scooping queso into individual serving cups and pushed them across the island before cutting into the enchiladas. “So what held you up?” Corrine asked. “Were you delayed by a handsome detective?”

  Shaye felt a light blush creep up her neck. No matter how many times Corrine did it, her mother’s teasing still embarrassed her. Just a little. And not in a bad way. More in an I-can’t-believe-I’m-actually-dating-a-great-guy way.

  “No,” Shaye said. “The handsome detective is on a kidnapping case that has him working some long hours.”

  Corrine sobered. “Did he get that home invasion kidnapping?”

  Shaye nodded. The night before, a couple had been the victims of a home invasion. They’d both been beaten. The husband had lost consciousness, but his injuries weren’t life-threatening. The wife had been struck with a crowbar and was in the hospital on life support. Their thirteen-year-old daughter had been taken. Finding the girl quickly was paramount, and Jackson and Detective Grayson had been working almost nonstop ever since they’d gotten the call.