“I don’t have much of a choice, not that I care very much about calculus these days.”
“Does anybody?”
My phone buzzed, and I noticed a text from Regina. Marcus who? she asked in response to my earlier message. I didn’t reply. She could stew a few minutes longer, likely with Tyson’s tongue down her throat.
“So your brother’s working at Dresden?” I switched topics, remembering Keira’s med school days and the job she could’ve had after graduation.
“Yeah, he’s in sales. Hardly returns phone calls anymore. I can’t picture him in a suit.” Then he looked down at his tray, fidgeting with his plastic spoon. “My parents said they knew your parents. They used to work together.”
“I figured. My parents helped found the company; they knew everyone.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to them.”
“Everyone’s sorry.” I sighed. I lived in a never-ending stream of empathetic apologies. “Good news is the cops have a lead.”
“On your sister?”
“Yeah, they found footage of her at work talking to the guy from our party.”
“They’ll be able to find him now, yes?” He sounded so optimistic, I almost smiled at his reaction.
“I want them to find her, but yeah, someone called in an anonymous tip.”
“This is good.” He reached for my hand, his fingers covering mine, a simple gesture of comfort. I thought of Keira on the video—Craig’s fingers entwined with hers, and I instantly pulled back.
“Yeah, it is.” I rested my hands in my lap. “I just wish we could hear what they’re saying on the video. There’s no audio, and Charlotte’s been downloading every form of software she can find to try to figure it out, but so far nothing’s worked.”
“Can’t the police tell you what they’re saying? They must have people who can analyze such things.”
“They do, but they’re not sharing information with us. They keep saying it could hinder the investigation.”
“You have a copy of the video, verdad?”
I nodded, wondering where he was going with this.
“And you can see your sister’s lips, her mouth moving?”
“Yeah, why?” My eyebrows drew together.
Marcus sat up straighter, his dark eyes bright. “Because I know somebody.”
“What do mean?”
“There’s a woman in my building, Madeline. She’s thirty, kind of lonely, sits on the stoop a lot in the afternoons. And when I come home, sometimes I sit with her. Like I said, I don’t know many people in Boston.” He brushed off his loneliness, but I unfortunately knew that feeling all too well. It comes with being a kid without a hometown. “Anyway, Madeline’s deaf and can read lips. So sometimes we spend afternoons peering into apartment windows while she translates conversations of the people inside. It’s surprisingly entertaining.”
A surge of emotion ran through me, releasing a sensation I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope. “Are you saying you think she can read what Keira’s saying on the tape?”
“I know she can.” He grinned.
Chapter Eleven
Two days later I was sitting in my living room with Marcus, Charlotte, and our new best friend, Madeline.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I repeated again as I shifted on our couch, the leather creaking below me with a musty puff of air. Charlotte was cueing the footage.
“I’m happy I can help.” Madeline tossed her dark ashy brown hair behind her shoulder; it fell nearly to her waist, which was an accomplishment given that she was at least six feet tall. Judging by her shoulders, she must have played sports when she was younger, maybe a swimmer. “Marcus is one of the few cool people in our building. At least, he thinks he is.” She nudged his shoulder teasingly.
Her voice had the cadence of someone who couldn’t hear herself speak, but having now spent nearly twenty minutes with the woman, I could attest that she understood everything we said. And she was funny. I could see why Marcus hung out with her.
He shifted a little closer to my side, leaning in to me, a tingle flooding my skin. “I’m so happy I can help. I know this will work.”
“Me, too. It means a lot,” I replied, glancing at my goose bumps.
He nodded supportively, his eyes on mine in a way that made my stomach flutter.
I inched closer to Charlotte, pushing the feeling away. “You ready?”
“Yup.” She tapped her finger on the tiny white triangle on the screen, and the clip began to play. Just like before, Keira walked out to the ambulance bay and Craig followed suit. Only this time, as soon as Keira started talking, Madeline began to translate.
“She’s saying, ‘You knew I was going to do this. You knew that was my plan all along. And you told me you thought I had every right,’” Madeline said, pulling words from the air like a magician in a Vegas showroom. “I thought you agreed with me, I thought you were on my side.”
Charlotte and I exchanged a look, like even we couldn’t believe we actually had context to what was transpiring between Keira and the bastard who kidnapped her. I smiled for what may have been the first time in months.
Madeline’s thin lips drew silent as it appeared Craig was talking, though we couldn’t see his face. Still, we could see Keira’s reaction, and she was looking increasingly worried, wrinkles creasing her shiny forehead.
“She’s asking, ‘What do you think I’m going to find out?’” Madeline continued, her tone robotic. Craig must have answered her question next, though we couldn’t be sure. I would have paid a kidney to know his end of the conversation.
“She’s saying, I don’t know,” Madeline resumed as Keira spoke. “I just feel like something was going on, something we don’t know about. The more I think back, the more things don’t add up.” Madeline quickly translated as Keira’s speech accelerated. “All the moving, all the trips, all the late-night phone calls, the languages, the bruises. There is something about my parents that’s never made sense.”
My jaw dropped, eyelids frozen in shock. What? Was Madeline still translating Keira? This couldn’t be right.
“I know we joked about it, but I don’t think it’s a joke anymore. I think it stopped being a joke three years ago. I think my parents were involved in something other than engineering,” Madeline continued, monotone and unreactive, as if she were translating a conversation about traffic on the Mass Pike, not my parents’ unorthodox careers and untimely deaths. (To be fair, she really had no way of knowing the gravity of the conversation.)
I looked at Charlotte, who seemed equally stunned, her forehead creased and her eyes unblinking.
“What the hell?” she mouthed to me. I said nothing back. I had no words.
“She’s saying, It’s a start. I owe it to myself to find out the truth about them. I owe it to Anastasia.” Madeline flicked a glance at me, as if just now the conversation was getting uncomfortable.
“Now she’s walking away, upset,” Madeline noted, translating her body language. Though to be accurate, Keira wasn’t just upset, she was crying. “I can’t make out what he’s saying, but he hands her a napkin.”
We all watched as Keira wiped her teary eyes, my heart pounding with a mix of anxiety and confusion, like those nightmares where you show up to a final exam after not having attended a single class. Nothing made sense.
“Now, she’s saying, You’re right. I don’t owe her anything, but our parents sure as hell do. They owe us both.”
That was it. We watched them walk back into the hospital, and Madeline sat back against the couch. Her work was complete. Only no one spoke or moved, and Madeline nervously began scanning our faces to see if she’d done a good job.
Finally, Charlotte and I popped up like the couch had suddenly tossed us off.
“What the hell was that?” Charlotte squawked.
“She was talking about our parents? To some random loser? To a psychopath?” I yelled.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.
I mean, she got really wasted on the anniversary of the crash, remember? She almost needed her stomach pumped.” I shivered at the memory. Keira kept slurring, “Why did they do it? Why did they leave us?” over and over until she vomited all over the bathroom, and we had to put her in a cold shower—the same claw-foot tub where she eventually disappeared.
“Yeah, but that was in March,” Charlotte pointed out. “This conversation was in May.”
“We always joked about Mom and Dad not really being engineers, but she couldn’t actually believe that, could she?” I shook my head, bewildered. How delusional had my sister become? Did she really think our parents were mob enforcers? Super spies?
“If she was looking into your parents’ jobs or lives, there’s no record on her computer, her phone, anything.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure, she and Craig aren’t breaking up on this tape.”
“There goes our crime of passion theory,” Charlotte muttered.
Marcus and Madeline sat silently on the sofa staring at us like kids uncomfortably watching their friend’s parents fight. My head pounded as I glanced heatedly around the apartment. This was where it happened; this was where we hosted the party. I sat on that couch, listening to Keira’s music, watching her friends dance, then the next morning she was gone from a bloody pool. What the hell was she up to those last few days?
Madeline raised her index finger. “There’s something else.” We looked at her. “The napkin that he hands her on the video—”
“You mean the tissue?” Charlotte corrected.
“No, it’s a napkin. From a bar, McFadden’s Pub. I recognize the logo. It’s not far from our place.” She glanced at Marcus who quickly nodded in agreement.
“She’s right,” Marcus added. “That bar is right across from the hospital. Our building’s down the street. My parents like the proximity to work.”
I looked at Charlotte who immediately plopped down in front of her laptop and cued up the scene where Craig wipes Keira’s tears. Sure enough, barely visible, was a tiny, dark logo on what we thought was a tissue. “I can’t believe I missed it.” Charlotte sounded deflated.
“Don’t feel bad. The deaf are more observant. Occupational hazard,” Madeline quipped.
The police should seriously put this woman on their payroll. Actually, the police should have told us this first. I angrily reached for my phone and punched in the detective’s digits. Voicemail. She was probably screening my call.
“I need some air,” I hissed, aggressively shoving my phone in my pocket as I stomped toward the door.
Marcus followed me outside.
...
We sat on my front stoop, scratchy concrete digging into the backs of my thighs, my gray khaki shorts hiked up. I picked at a dandelion peeking out of a crack in the step, flicking the petals again and again.
“I’d ask if you’re okay, but I think I know the answer,” Marcus said as he tapped his black motorcycle boots on the pavement. It seemed it didn’t matter how hot the temperature was, Marcus always wore jeans and boots. And he always looked good.
“I feel like an idiot,” I grumbled, annoyed at myself.
“Que?”
“First, I didn’t know that Keira and Craig were a thing. Now, I didn’t know that she was investigating our parents. And he was helping her. Not me. She asked him,” I spat.
“You don’t know what any of this means,” he pointed out, trying to be positive. No, we didn’t know exactly what the conversation on that video meant, but we knew it wasn’t good, and we knew it wasn’t a lovers’ quarrel.
“It means she didn’t trust me enough to tell me what she was up to.” I yanked the dandelion from the ground and began twisting its spaghetti-like stem around my finger.
“Did you use to tell her everything?” Marcus asked, raising a doubtful eyebrow.
“No, but this was big. This was our parents.”
“Sí. And I don’t know what you and your sister went through, after everything…” His eyes flicked away as his voice trailed off.
I’d found over the years that people often didn’t like referencing death directly, as if it might somehow invite it into their lives. They found other ways to simply imply my parents were six feet under.
“But my brother’s not much older than Keira, and I can’t imagine how he’d react if he suddenly had to take care of me. This is a guy who taught me how to ride a motorcycle and talked me into this tattoo.” He pointed to the giant black bull with angry eyes permanently inked on his neck. “He’d be a horrible parent. At least Keira was trying.”
“I wasn’t going to ask, but that is quite a tattoo.” I stared at his neck.
“Sí, and it was Antonio’s idea. Our abuelo was a matador. He died when we were young. I’m named after him, and he had this same tattoo on his calf.” He pointed to his left leg. “My brother has a lot of tattoos. Everywhere.” He ran his hands up and down his arms to suggest full sleeves of ink. “I have a hard time saying no to him, and he has a hard time accepting it.” He chuckled to himself, as if remembering something. “Anyway, my family lived near Plaza de Toros in Madrid, so we went to a lot of corridas. It seemed like a good idea, and now it’s pretty badass, no?” He smirked at me.
Keira and I saw a bullfight when we lived in Madrid. Bull after bull was slaughtered until one finally bested the matador and walked out of the arena alive. My sister and I were so excited we actually hugged; that was until spectators informed us that the beast would be killed backstage. I was eleven at the time. We had gone by ourselves, because our parents were busy with work. Here, kids, go enjoy a death match!
“Would it offend you if I told you I find bullfights disgusting?”
“It depends. Have you actually seen one?”
“Unfortunately. My family spent the summer in Madrid six years ago.”
“Huh.” He nodded, his gaze far away. “I could’ve been there. We were in Madrid then.”
“You did say our parents knew one another.” I ripped a pinch of fuzzy yellow petals from the dandelion. “Though I’m surprised we weren’t introduced, Dresden Kids and all.”
“You’re right.” He cocked his head, seemingly puzzled.
“But we really weren’t there that long, only a couple of months. We didn’t meet anyone.”
“Still, it would have been nice to know you then.”
“You mean before my life became a Shakespearean tragedy?” I raised a brow.
“No, I just don’t always like the Dresden Kids I meet. But I like you.” He smiled as he said that, leaning toward me with a glint in his eyes, like he was incapable of feeling self-conscious. I, unfortunately, did not share his confidence. And the buzz I felt every time he was close, too close, only made me fidget more.
I tore my dandelion stem in half. “Considering you just brought a woman to my place to translate a video of my missing sister and her potential kidnapper, I’d say you have odd taste in friends.”
Before he could respond, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I slid it out and saw the name of the person I’d been waiting for—Detective Dawkins.
...
They acted like we were complete strangers to Keira. The Boston PD had finished analyzing the tape the day after we left, and Detective Dawkins swore she had every intention of updating us, but she “wanted more concrete information.”
Honestly, I cared less about her by-the-book police procedures than I did the latest pro tournament golf standings. My sister was caught on-camera discussing my dead parents with her psychotic soon-to-be kidnapper only days before she disappeared—I had a right to know that. Not in at some point, not once they confirmed their leads, but now. Right now. This was my sister and my parents, but instead of coming to me with that information, they went to my parents’ best friend. That was all Detective Dawkins wanted to talk about. Did I know Randolph Urban?
Gee, let me think… Randolph Urban: CEO of Dresden, the man who dated my mother when she was a sophomore at Princeton and he was a g
rad student ten years her senior; they broke up and remained friends. He became best friends with my father. They started Dresden together. He stood as best man at their wedding. He paid for their funeral, their brunch, Keira’s brunch. He possibly cut us a personal check after they died claiming it was “life insurance,” and he still invites us to the over-the-top Christmas parties at his mansion every year. He was the closest thing to family, aside from Charlotte, I had in the world.
Yeah, I knew him.
Dawkins seemed to think Keira’s comments on the footage were referencing my parents’ jobs at Dresden, and thus Urban. And while Keira was ranting about our parents’ “work,” what was missing were my sister’s crazy theories that Mom and Dad weren’t chemical engineers, but actually super-secret spies with exotic code-names and high-tech hydroplanes. Or maybe mob enforcers stroking Persian cats. Or possibly superheroes saving the world from nuclear annihilation. When we were younger, this was funny (so were farts). But after they died—after the tombstones, nightmares, and parent-size void in our home—I let it go. I thought Keira had, too.
But on that video, she said she wanted to prove something, to find out “the truth” about them, which had me worried that Keira thought one of our crazy theories was true and was actually looking into it before she disappeared. But how could you possibly prove your dad is Clark Kent or the Godfather? Sharing these theories with Dawkins would make Keira sound unstable at best and full-blown delusional at worst. So I left them out of my conversation, along with Madeline’s tip about the napkin. If the police analysts uncovered it, they didn’t share it with me. So I didn’t see why I needed to share it with them.
“Dawkins is gonna freak when she finds out we came here,” Charlotte griped as we exited the humming T station, climbing the filthy concrete steps and dodging droplets of unexplainable black water that fell from the ceiling.
“Well, if she wanted us to share information, she should have told us what Keira said in that video instead of us having to hear it from Marcus’s deaf neighbor.”
I had asked Marcus if he wanted to come with us. After all, he lived down the street from the bar, and he was responsible for us finding this lead. But it turned out all the focus on my sister had him thinking of his own brother and how long it had been since they’d spoken. He seemed to be having an “appreciate every second you have with your loved ones” philosophical crisis, so he set up a time to Skype with Antonio. They should be talking right this second.
Proof of Lies (Anastasia Phoenix) Page 8
