Last Seen Alive

by Carlene Thompson

  Zoey. Chyna read the first article written in the Black Willow Dispatch about Zoey, who had vanished in the night “while with her friend Chyna Greer, 16, of Black Willow.” “But she wasn’t with me,” Chyna burst out, just as she had the first time she read the article twelve years ago. “She wasn’t with me” She turned the album pages, every one of them containing an article pertaining to Zoey, some from the local newspaper, some picked up from the Associated Press from newspapers as far away as Washington, D.C., Zoey’s home. They reported details about the search for Zoey, and they reported when she’d been given up for dead.

  Chyna turned the page and gasped when she saw the headline of the next article: “Another Local Girl Goes Missing.” The newspaper was dated December 28, nineteen months after Zoey’s disappearance, while Chyna was home on Christmas break from college. The article stated that Heather Phelps, 17, a senior at Black Willow High School, cheerleader, and member of the student council, had taken her parents’ car around 7:00 P.M. to Baker’s Drugstore, where she’d been last seen alive. The Phelpses found their car parked near the drugstore around 11:00 P.M. Heather had not been missing long enough for the police officially to list her as a missing person, so the family had organized their own search team.

  The next day local police became involved sooner than protocol strictly required. They learned that while no one in the store had seen Heather talk to anyone except the checkout

  girl, a few people on the street had seen Heather after she left the store. They said she was alone and looked untroubled. She’d wandered on foot up the street, apparently window-shopping for Christmas gifts, although no one had spotted her entering any stores, and no one working in the stores had helped her or even noticed her looking around. The search had continued for months. Then the case went cold.

  Chyna’s hands turned icy. In fact, she’d begun to shiver all over as she read the newspaper accounts. She remembered when Heather Phelps had gone missing. Ned had mentioned it to her, although her parents said nothing, and every evening their newspaper disappeared before Chyna got to read it, stuck in the trash by her mother, no doubt. She hadn’t wanted Heather’s disappearance to remind Chyna of Zoey’s, yet Vivian had kept accounts spanning for months of the search for Heather Phelps. Why? Because she thought Heather’s experience was linked to Zoey’s?

  Chyna sat down on the bed and flipped pages until she came to an article dated in May—the May she had come back to Black Willow to attend her father’s funeral. The article concerned Edie Larson, aged 16, whose backpack had been found about a mile north of town and brought to the police station by two thirteen-year-old boys. When police contacted the parents, Mr. Larson claimed Edie had been gone for two days, but he hadn’t reported her missing because he thought she’d run away with her boyfriend, Gage Ridgeway, age 19, also of Black Willow.

  Ridgeway, however, had never missed a day of work at his grandfather’s construction company and told police that for the past few days he had thought Edie was home with the flu, although her father, who did not approve of Gage, would not allow him to speak to Edie when he’d called twice to check on her. Once again, a search was launched, although this time the number-one suspect had been Ron Larson, Edie’s father, who had a juvenile record, two DUIs, and a history of domestic abuse. Three times when police had arrived at the Larson home, they’d found Mrs. Larson sporting black eyes and split lips. Each time, though, she’d come up

  with elaborate, if unbelievable, excuses for her injuries and never pressed charges against her husband.

  At the time of Edie’s disappearance, though, Mrs. Larson finally admitted that her husband had refused to let her tell the police Edie was missing even though the girl, who’d been alone and on foot as far as Mrs. Larson knew, had not returned from a play rehearsal held one evening at the nearby high school. The teacher conducting the rehearsal confirmed that Edie had attended the rehearsal and left the school alone, refusing a ride from a student who needed to stay later to practice another scene. Edie had said she would get in trouble at home if she were late.

  Later Ron Larson defended not reporting his daughter missing by telling police he thought Gage Ridgeway had “knocked up Edie” and she’d simply run off, thereby disgracing the fine name of Larson in town. Larson also suggested that instead of hassling him, police should arrest Ridgeway for “stationary rape,” a quote the town’s newspaper editor couldn’t resist including in the article.

  Chyna laid the album on her lap. She remembered Ned mentioning Edie when Chyna had come home that summer, and her mother quickly changing the subject. The last newspaper article in the album, dated May 25 of eight years ago, said police were continuing the search for Edie, who had been missing for ten months. “But I’m sure they didn’t find her,” Chyna said aloud. “Just like they didn’t find Zoey, just like they didn’t find Heather.” Three girls in less than four years. What had the voice coming from the lake said yesterday? “You have to find me, because there were other girls like me.” Chyna knew Zoey was telling her Heather and Edie had suffered the same fate she had.

  Chyna slammed shut the album and placed it on the bed beside her. Three girls had died because someone had come to Black Willow twelve years ago, someone dark and deranged, and he’d roamed the area for four years, then … then what? Died? Been killed?

  Decided to move on to greener pastures?

  No, definitely not the last. The voice coming from the

  lake, Zoey’s voice, had told her, “There will be more girls like me if you don’t do something.” Chyna closed her eyes in dread and fear that there was some great plan at work. Was that why her mother had died? To bring Chyna home before more girls vanished to suffer horrors in evil hands?

  “Yes,” a voice seemed to whisper coldly through the room. “You’re their only hope.”

  2

  With a shudder, Chyna stuffed the album of newspaper articles back under her mother’s bed, pushing it as far against the wall as she could, hiding it, hoping she could forget about it. She didn’t want to think of her mother clipping out those articles year after year and carefully centering them on pages, slipping vinyl covers over them, preserving them. Preserving them for what? For me to read, Chyna thought. Vivian had always expressed worry about Chyna claiming to have “visions,” but Chyna had sensed that perhaps Vivian was acting, and she really believed her daughter had powers beyond normal. Once, when Chyna was around eight and Vivian had drunk too much wine at a Fourth of July barbecue, hadn’t she told Chyna about her own two aunts and her younger, deceased sister who’d “sensed” things?

  Later Vivian denied she’d ever told Chyna such a thing, but she’d always had a guilty look on her face during her denials. Chyna guessed her father had overheard Vivian telling the story and for once put his foot down with her mother, insisting she refute her “fairy tale.” But Chyna was certain, just as she was certain of so many things for which there was no proof, that her mother was telling the truth about her sisters.

  Her mother did believe in second sight, Chyna thought. Vivian had gone along with her husband when he wanted to take Chyna to doctors after the boating accident and Chyna had begun to make predictions, recall incidents from the past she couldn’t possibly know about, find things no one else

  could find, but her mother was only trying to please Edward. She had believed in ESP because she’d seen it at work in her own family, and she’d left this album full of details about the missing girls knowing Chyna would find it because she was meant to save other lives, and not by medical means.

  The obligation seemed too much. Chyna felt crushed by the burden she feared was hers. She hung her head. She wanted to cry. She wanted to grab up Michelle and get away from Black Willow as fast as she could. She wanted to abrogate responsibility for any lost girls, past or present. But she knew she couldn’t.

  Slowly, Chyna raised her head. The only answer for now was to get hold of her emotions, she thought. She went to her mother’s dresser and looked in th
e vanity mirror. “I will not think about this again today,” she told herself sternly. “I will not think about the album or that bizarre phone call.” And she would especially not think about the haunting voice at the lake, Zoey’s voice, singing, “Star light, star bright,” which for some reason had frightened Chyna more than anything else that had happened since she came home. She knew she could not run from responsibility. She also knew from experience that if answers were to come, they would come in their own time, in their own way. She could not force them.

  Chyna glanced at her watch and saw that she’d spent more time looking at the album than she’d realized. The morning was almost gone and she had errands to do in the afternoon.

  She began moving around briskly, found the blow dryer, finished her hair, pulled it back into a long ponytail, and slid into brown slacks and a red sweater. At least she’d remembered to bring the jacket that matched the pants. After all, she wanted to look presentable at the funeral home. Some blue-gray powder on her eyelids, bronze blush, and matching lipstick brightened her face. She stood back and studied the result. She decided she looked almost normal. Almost if you didn’t know she wasn’t usually so pale or cursed with mauve shadows beneath her eyes.

  When Chyna took the blow dryer back to her mother’s room, she heard scraping against the back of the house—not

  the gentle scraping of leaves in the breeze but the definite scrape of wood or metal against the stone. She also heard a voice. Someone singing. She froze, listening. The melody was something she’d never heard before. The notes were flat. There was no real rhythm or timing. Michelle, standing beside her, perked up her ears. Oh God, no, Chyna thought. Not another voice out of nowhere. Not another voice telling her …

  “Satisfaction … oh no, no, no! I can’t get no …”

  Was she hearing a voice from the “netherworld” mangling with loving gusto “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones? No, it couldn’t be. Chyna had heard many odd and frightening things through her sixth sense before, but nothing quite this wacky.

  She went to her bedroom window, glanced out, then raised the window. A slim, brown-haired man stood on a towering ladder, his gloved hands raking at leaves in the gutters as he sang with passion, bobbing his head to a beat that was unfathomable to anyone but himself. Chyna looked at him for at least a minute as his voice grew louder and his head bobbed faster. He finally came to the end of the song, whooped in ecstasy, looked over at her, and almost fell off the ladder.

  “Good God!” he shouted.

  “Sorry to scare you,” Chyna said, trying not to burst into laughter. “I was drawn by the music.”

  His good-looking face flamed, his ears so red they looked like they were going to catch on fire. “I didn’t think anyone was home. I clean out Mrs. Greer’s gutters every year and I didn’t think this year should be any different. I know she’s passed on, but people will be coming to the house and she’d want everything to look perfect.” Then he squinted through the bright sun at her with clear green eyes. “Chyna? Is that you?”

  “Yes. I flew in yesterday. My rental car is in the garage.”

  “Well, geez. I gave us both a fright. I haven’t seen you for at least ten years. Gage Ridgeway.”

  “Oh, I remember you, Gage,” Chyna said, still smiling. In

  fact, I just read about you in a newspaper article, she thought You were the boyfriend of Edie Larson, one of the girls who vanished. He would be about Chyna’s age, now, and he’d grown into a striking-looking man. But then, he’d also been a striking-looking teenager, with no shortage of girlfriends. She continued to smile.

  “How are tilings with you, Gage?”

  “Fine. Still working at the construction company. Grand-pa’s dead, so it belongs to Dad and me now. My grandfather built this house, you know. That’s why I do the handy work around here. Grandpa thought a lot of your grandfather and of this house. He said it was the best one he ever built and as long as there was a Ridgeway alive, we were going to take care of it, not some amateur who’d cobble up the place and do more harm than good.” Gage removed one of his gloved hands from the gutter and brushed at some leaf flakes on his face and hair. “I’m really sorry about your mother, Chyna.”

  “So am I. Her death was a complete surprise”

  “No kidding. I saw her last Saturday. That storm we had nearly demolished your brother’s old clubhouse. He was in Pennsylvania at his sister-in-law’s wedding and your mom had me come out here and finish tearing down the place and haul off the scraps. She acted okay that day. Oh, maybe a little pale and quiet, but I put that down to her being shook up over the storm and worrying about tearing down Ned’s clubhouse without asking him first. You know how he was about the place.”

  “He was ridiculously possessive of that stupid building. It should have been torn down years ago—it was a ramshackle eyesore on an otherwise beautiful back lawn.” Chyna sighed. “I’m glad to know Mom didn’t look sick earlier in the week. I’ve been beating myself up for not being here when she died, but I didn’t even know she was sick.”

  “I don’t think anybody did.” Gage looked away awkwardly and added, “Considering the circumstances, I’m sorry I was out here bellowing, too. Grandpa would slap my face for that show of disrespect.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want him to slap you for singing

  while you work.” Chyna tried to smile. “It’s just that I’ve never heard that particular rendition of ’Satisfaction.’”

  Gage grinned. His skin was weathered and he looked older than his years, but Chyna didn’t believe anyone could say he wasn’t still ruggedly handsome. “Guess you know why I got kicked out of a garage band when I was sixteen and another one when I was eighteen,” he laughed. “Just because you’ve got music in your soul doesn’t mean it’s gonna come out of your mouth.”

  Chyna laughed. “I’ll think of that every time I’m singing along with music in the car and wondering why the dog is howling.” Gage laughed, too. He looked so normal, so happy-go-lucky, so … innocent, she thought. It was almost impossible for her to think he had anything to do with the disappearance and possible murder of a girl.

  And then Chyna remembered Zoey seeing him downtown the summer she disappeared and nearly swooning in teenage admiration when Gage smiled, winked, and said, “How’re you doin’, Zoe? Lookin’ good these days.” That final night Chyna had asked Zoey if on an earlier visit she’d met the guy with whom she was having her pathetic romantic rendezvous at the lake. “Yes, but this time is different,” Zoey had said. “Sometimes you just click with people.”

  Chyna could easily believe that Zoey had been so taken with Gage, nothing could have stopped her from seeing him that night if he’d later called her and asked her to meet him. She could also believe that Zoey would have delightedly walked into the dark woods with Gage for a passionate kiss, Chyna thought in abrupt horror. “Well, I have business downtown,” she said sharply. “I’m late already.”

  “Nice seeing you,” Gage got out before she slammed down the window. She might have just been bantering with the killer of three girls. Or you may have been talking to a perfectly nice man who now agrees with most of the town that you’re crazy, she thought. Oh well, too late to worry about her image. And who cared, anyway? She only came back to Black Willow for a few days once a year anyway.

  Chyna had startled Gage out of singing, she thought as

  she grabbed up her purse and raincoat and dashed from the room. When she pulled her car out of the garage, she rolled down her window. Complete silence. If Gage had felt like singing earlier, he didn’t anymore. He was probably up on his ladder pondering what could be wrong with the notorious Black Willow “seer.”

  Driving toward town, Chyna called Ned on her cell phone. “I’m going to the undertaker’s to pick out an urn for Mom. Do you want to meet me there?”

  “To pick out an urn? God, no,” Ned burst out.

  “Well, don’t sound so horrified. It has to be done.”

  “I kno
w. I hate to push this off on you, but… well, you know Mom’s taste better than I do.”

  Chyna rolled her eyes. “That’s about the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard.” Ned was silent. “Oh well, I understand. I’m not exactly looking forward to this particular type of shopping myself.”

  “No one would be.” Chyna could tell Ned was walking outside the showroom of the Greer Lincoln-Mercury Agency and on to the car lot, his business that had been doing well for the last five years.

  “Ned, I still can’t believe Mom didn’t want to be buried next to Dad or to not even have a funeral service. Was she acting weird lately?”

  His voice grew louder as he talked to someone out on the lot looking at a car. “That’s a fine model there. Got every bell and whistle a person could want. We could probably work you out a good deal on that one.” His voice lowered to normal. “What do you mean, was Mom acting weird? Sick? Or crazy?”

  “Not crazy. Unusual. Strange. I mean, I’m still floored by her insisting on not having a funeral service and wanting me to take her ashes back to New Mexico with me. It feels all wrong—”

  Chyna slammed on the brakes at a red light. The old man in the crosswalk gave her the finger. I deserved that, she thought, her face growing warm. She hadn’t been paying enough attention to her driving.

  “I know her final request seems out of character for her, but she gave that envelope to Bev months ago and never asked to have it returned. She wasn’t acting on impulse, Sis.” Ned yelled something unintelligible to another potential customer, then lowered his voice as he spoke into the phone. “Did you read the letter we gave you last night?”

  “Yes. It seemed purely businesslike. Maybe I missed something peculiar about it, though. I was still fairly shaken by that call from Anita Simms.”

  “It wasn’t Anita Simms,” Ned said flatly. “It was a hideous joke someone was playing on you and I want you to put it out of your mind, although I know that’s easier said than done.” He took a deep breath. “Chyna, I’m sorry to give you the dirty work at the funeral home this afternoon, but we’re having a big day. I’ve really got to go. I’ll talk to you this evening. And you’re a sugarplum for doing this.”