Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  What is it they say? Mother is always right?

  What do they know? What does anybody know?

  They didn’t even realize I was there.

  I’ll tell you what I know, and that’s that I don’t have any misplaced deity complex. I’m not the least bit interested in playing God, thank you very much. And I certainly don’t get any weird sexual thrill out of either killing or watching people die. As I’ve already explained, the part of this whole thing that I enjoy is the buildup, the game-playing. (Because it is a game.)

  Which brings me back to Brenda Vinton.

  Brenda Vinton is one of those vacuously pretty girls you see everywhere these days. Long hair, pert little nose, expressionless eyes. Hardly a heartstopper, at least judging from the picture I saw on one of those ubiquitous flyers that papered the state almost as soon as she went missing. Although maybe she just doesn’t take a good picture. Some people are like that. They’re beautiful in person, but they don’t photograph well. In pictures, they appear awkward and stilted, void of personality and character.

  On the other hand, some people aren’t good-looking by any stretch of the imagination, yet they photograph beautifully. You see a picture of them and you think, That person is gorgeous. But then you see them in real life, and there’s nothing special about them at all. In fact, often they’re rather plain. This is certainly true of many of the top models, those glorious faces you see on the covers of fashion magazines. They seem stunning on the surface, but really they’re just the highly paid, high-cheekboned receptacles of someone else’s vision, a bunch of blank canvases awaiting the right combination of paint and proper lighting. They need an outsider’s hand to bring them to life.

  Of course, sometimes an outsider’s hand brings death.

  Ask Liana Martin.

  But we’re talking about Brenda Vinton now. And she has one of those faces that won’t age particularly well, at least judging by her mother, whom I saw in that ludicrous press conference she threw, tearfully thanking all those volunteers who gave up their weekend to search for her darling daughter. Mrs. Vinton’s face—round and uninteresting, with soft, bovine lips and small, deep-set eyes that kept filling up with tears—registered an ever-shifting combination of relief, anger, and embarrassment, sometimes all three at the same time. Occasionally Mrs. Vinton would glance behind her at her former husband and his new wife, a girl who looked young enough to be his daughter—he should really be ashamed—and she’d grimace, although I doubt she realized she was doing so. I had to laugh. People betray themselves so easily. The smallest of gestures give them away.

  So, there was Mrs. Vinton on the steps of some civic building, probably City Hall, torn tissue in hand, thanking the police force and the volunteers, stealing peeks at her husband and his young wife, and saying how sorry she is for all the trouble her daughter has caused. Brenda is remorseful, she says repeatedly, adding that they’ll be seeking help for her. She takes a final glance at her former husband, whose scowl is barely contained by his tight smile. And then the press conference concludes, and she is gone.

  Brenda, of course, was nowhere to be seen throughout these proceedings. Too ashamed, her mother explained.

  I don’t buy that. I don’t think little Brenda is the least bit ashamed. After all, she got what she wanted, which I suspect was a break from her mother, who’s no doubt been way overprotective since her husband abandoned her, as well as some attention from her neglectful father, who’s no doubt been busy of late with his new wife. Not to mention that for more than twenty-four hours, hers was the name on everyone’s lips, the face on every telephone pole and television newscast, the subject of every prayer.

  And where was little Brenda while all this was going on?

  She was holed up in some crummy, local motel, drinking Coke and eating potato chips while following reports of her disappearance on TV. She hadn’t meant any harm, she insisted to police officers after the chambermaid discovered her still in bed when she went in to change the sheets on Sunday afternoon. She hadn’t planned to run away. She certainly hadn’t realized the furor her disappearance would cause. It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. She’d just finished her piano lesson and was on her way home to study for a test on Monday, and she was worried because she hadn’t read any of the books that were going to be on the test, and she was afraid she wasn’t going to pass, and then her mother would be angry and probably wouldn’t let her go to the Killers’ concert taking place next weekend in Fort Lauderdale, even though she’d stood in line for five hours to get tickets and spent all the money she’d gotten for her last birthday to get a halfway decent seat, and it really wasn’t fair, and she hated being a kid, and she hated school, and she especially hated having to take piano lessons on a Saturday morning when all her friends got to sleep in, and she just decided, right then and there, totally impromptu, not to go home and study for that stupid test, but to go to some motel and just veg out for a few hours. And that’s what she did. Except later, when she turned on the TV, there was her picture and the news that she’d vanished. And she didn’t know what to do. And no, since you ask, she didn’t realize her mother would get that bent out of shape. How was she to know the commotion her being a few hours late would cause, that the whole city would be out looking for her? Yes, of course, she’d heard about that poor girl in Torrance who’d gotten herself killed, but that was halfway across the state, for heaven’s sake, and why would anyone think one thing had anything to do with the other? She’s sorry, okay?

  Well, no, it’s not okay. And I have half a mind to pay Brenda Vinton a visit, teach her what happens to stupid little twits who cry wolf. Except her mother’s probably watching her like a hawk right now, and it’d be way too risky. And it would mean all that driving, and more time wasted when there’s already been enough time wasted because of that silly girl. Because of her, I’ll have to delay the next phase of my plan. People are way too uptight right now. They’re on red alert, as it were. The mayor’s on the warpath. A few big-city reporters have been nosing around. Everywhere I go, people are looking over their shoulders, peering into the windows of cars they don’t recognize, picking their kids up from school. I observe them when they don’t know they’re being watched. I listen in when they’re talking. I understand what they’re feeling. I’m one of them after all.

  Or so they think.

  And so I understand it would be foolhardy to proceed at this point, that it would be prudent to wait, at least another few weeks, until people have relaxed their guard, at least a little, and the reporters have returned to their big-city newspapers, the mayor has stopped pontificating for the cameras, and the sheriff and his deputies have gone back to their usual routine of handing out speeding tickets and enforcing the noise bylaws.

  Besides, I already have the next girl picked out, so there’s no rush, although I would have preferred to have kept to my original schedule. But, as I stated earlier, I have to be prepared for the unexpected, for the deus ex machina, however unfair. And looking on the bright side, this way I’ll have more time to anticipate, which, as I’ve said before, is my favorite part.

  Maybe when I’m done with the good people of Torrance, I’ll take a drive over to Naples and pay Brenda Vinton a little visit. We’ll see. I have lots of time to decide.

  TWELVE

  Okay, people, we don’t have a lot of time,” Mr. Lipsman announced, waving his hands in the air, as if he’d stumbled into a horde of angry bees. He looked around the three-hundred-seat auditorium, beckoning about a dozen malingerers standing at the back of the large space to come forward and join the approximately fifty other students gathered in the front couple of rows. “Come on, people.” He clapped his hands, swatted at the air again, paced impatiently back and forth in front of the raised platform.

  Megan watched his performance from her seat on the left aisle of the second row. She’d heard Mr. Lipsman had once had aspirations to be an actor, but that his mother had disapproved of so frivolous a career, and so he�
�d never pursued it. Now, as Megan watched his oversize gestures and near operatic sighs, she concluded he’d missed his calling. It was a shame, she thought, feeling almost sorry for him—almost, because he was such a doofus it was hard to sustain much sympathy for any length of time. Still, she concluded, it must be terrible to spend your life doing something that was, at best, a second choice, and to watch others, many less talented than yourself, assume the mantle that might have been yours, had you only had the courage of your convictions and the determination to follow your dreams. As well as the stamina to stand up to your mother, she added, flipping her long brown hair over her shoulder with fresh resolve, and swiveling around in her seat as the group of wayward seniors sauntered slowly down the aisle toward the front of the auditorium.

  Greg Watt was not among them.

  Megan suppressed her own sigh of disappointment. She’d been hoping Greg would show up for the auditions, despite gossip his father had put his foot down, insisted his son stop wasting his valuable time on such “pansy-assed pursuits.” At least, that’s what she’d overheard Joey Balfour telling a group of boys in the hall this morning. What was the matter with parents anyway? Were they all so pathetic and self-absorbed? Oh, they made a big show of claiming that all they cared about was their children’s happiness, but when push came to shove—and it was always the parents who did the pushing; kids only shoved back when cornered—the only people’s happiness that really mattered was their own. Mrs. Lipsman hadn’t wanted her son to be an actor, so he’d compromised both his talent and his ambition, settling for the role of high school drama teacher instead. Mr. Watt frowned on his son’s more artistic interests, insisting Greg devote his time and energy to the family business. And her mother had decided she wanted to return to Rochester, blithely assuming her son and daughter would automatically acquiesce to her wishes. Well, Megan wasn’t about to give in on this one. She wasn’t going to leave Florida, she’d decided over the weekend. And it didn’t matter that she hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, or that she missed her friends up north, or that Liana Martin had been murdered.

  “It’s not safe here,” her mother had argued.

  “It’s safer here than in New York,” she’d quickly countered.

  And then another girl had gone missing, and her mother had been positively apoplectic. They hadn’t even buried Liana, she’d railed, and now a second girl had disappeared. A third, if you believed the rumors. And then it turned out Brenda Vinton hadn’t been kidnapped after all, so all her mother’s crazed rants about a serial killer on the loose, preying on young girls, were nothing but conjecture. Statistics said that it was far more likely that Liana Martin had been killed by someone close to her than by an itinerant sociopath. So no way she was moving back to Rochester, Megan had insisted, continuing to press her point even after she understood its irrelevance. She knew, perhaps even better than her mother, that the real reason her mother wanted to leave Torrance had nothing to do with serial killers and everything to do with straying husbands. Could she blame her?

  Megan looked toward the end of the aisle where Delilah Franklin sat hanging over the end of her plush, red velvet seat, waiting for Mr. Lipsman to proceed. The girl filled the room like a stray cloud, her very presence threatening to ruin everyone else’s fun. Why does she have to be everywhere I go? Megan wondered, knowing she was being unfair. The poor girl had every right to go wherever she wanted, and she was obviously here because she wanted to be in the school play.

  It was also obvious, from the distance the other students kept from her—the several seats on either side of her and those directly behind her were jarringly empty—that none of the other students welcomed her presence. And truthfully, Megan couldn’t imagine what part she’d be right for. With any luck, Mr. Lipsman would feel the same way, and Delilah would be consigned the thankless job of painting scenery or sewing costumes. Hadn’t that been her job last year?

  This was a dumb idea, Megan thought, as Mr. Lipsman began handing out copies of the script. She shouldn’t have come. She didn’t really want to be here. She had no interest in appearing in the school play, even if she was handed the starring role.

  At first it had appeared the production would be canceled. It had already been postponed once, after the death of Mr. Lipsman’s mother, and after Liana’s body was discovered, the principal had toyed with the idea of shelving it altogether. But Mr. Lipsman had made an impassioned speech about the need for hope over despair, claiming the play would take the students’ minds off their grief and fear, et cetera, et cetera, all of which was just an elaborate way of saying, “The show must go on.”

  “Let’s make Kiss Me, Kate our tribute to Liana Martin,” the principal had subsequently proclaimed over the loudspeaker, encouraging all students to involve themselves in the production in some capacity, be it on the stage or behind the scenes.

  “Much better for the students than grief counseling,” Mr. Lipsman was overheard to say, although counseling was also offered.

  Megan couldn’t understand how going ahead with Kiss Me, Kate, would do anything for Liana’s memory, nor did she pay a visit to the grief counselor who was brought in, despite her mother’s encouragement. She had no interest in discussing Liana’s death with a stranger. Nor did she feel like talking about the murder with anyone she knew, especially her mother, who kept pressing Megan to tell her how she felt, asking her over and over if she was all right, until she was dizzy and felt like screaming. “I’m here if you want to talk about it,” her mother said.

  But Megan had always been more comfortable with silence. Unlike most girls her age, she preferred keeping her thoughts to herself. If you didn’t acknowledge your feelings out loud, you didn’t have to deny them later. In any event, she much preferred the anonymity of the Internet, which allowed her to share her anxieties without revealing her voice. Clearly, many others felt the same way.

  Isn’t it awful? one person wrote. Isn’t what happened to Liana the most awful thing?

  Poor girl, wailed another. Poor, poor girl.

  And yet another: My heart breaks. My soul bleeds. This is truly the end of the world.

  Of course, there were other postings of a completely different sort:

  She was a bitch.

  Who gives a shit?

  She got what she deserved.

  Undoubtedly the authorities were tracking the writers of these missives and would be able to determine who’d sent them. Not that such a discovery was likely to amount to much. Megan assumed that anyone smart enough to kidnap someone in broad daylight, murder her, dispose of the body, and then elude capture for this long wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave so obvious a trail. Sheriff Weber and his deputies had questioned the entire town, some people more than once, and had yet to turn up anything concrete. Except, of course, Liana’s body, which the coroner had yet to release. There was talk of a funeral, or at the very least, a memorial service, to be held later in the week. Megan didn’t want to go. But how could she not?

  Would Liana’s killer be there? she wondered. Would he bow his head in prayer like the rest of the mourners and whisper words of condolence to the bereaved family? Would he stand next to the grave as Liana’s body was, once again, lowered into the cold ground? Would he stand next to her, brush up against her shoulder?

  Megan shook her head, determined to dislodge the uncomfortable thought. She glanced toward the back of the auditorium, hoping Greg Watt had snuck inside and was even now standing there, hands on his hips, smirk on his lips, surveying the scene. But the three sets of auditorium doors were closed, and Greg was nowhere to be seen. It appeared that everyone who planned to audition was already here. Her eyes returned reluctantly to the front of the theater.

  Considering the number of people, it was quiet. Everyone looked vaguely shell-shocked. Ginger Perchak and Tanya McGovern huddled together in the front row, fussing over their scripts. Amber Weber sat in the row behind them, mouthing some lines of dialogue to herself. Brian Hensen sat seve
ral seats to her left, arm extended toward Mr. Lipsman, waiting for his copy. Farther back sat Peter Arlington, his arms wrapped around his chest, eyes staring resolutely at the floor. Victor Drummond was there, as was his ghoulish friend, Nancy, the one with the raccoon eyes and weird piercings. There were other students whose faces Megan recognized, although she didn’t know their names. Even Joey Balfour was in attendance, for God’s sake, although Joey had made it clear he was there only because he considered actresses—even those at the high school level—to be both uninhibited and oversexed, and hoped he might get lucky. “As a tribute to Liana, of course,” he insisted, and everyone laughed in spite of themselves. Judging by the way several of the freshmen girls were looking at him now, he might be right, Megan thought, wondering if that was the way she looked at Greg Watt.

  A copy of the script suddenly dropped into her lap. “Please have a look at the part of Kate,” Mr. Lipsman intoned solemnly from somewhere above her head. He opened the script to the appropriate page, his fingers touching hers. Megan quickly withdrew her hand, dragging the backs of her fingers along the front of her jeans, as if to rid them of his touch. Mr. Lipsman was still standing over her. When she raised her eyes to his, he winked.

  “Mr. Lipsman,” Delilah called from her seat at the far end of the first row. “You forgot me.”

  Mr. Lipsman extended a script toward her without bothering to turn around. “Sorry about that.” Once again he winked at Megan, as if to say he shared her revulsion, as if to say he was one of them.

  Megan felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy for Delilah as the ungainly girl rose from her seat. That twinge grew into an outright ache as Delilah tripped over a stray foot that appeared suddenly in her path to send her sprawling across the laps of several horrified students.