Where They Found Her: A Novel

by Kimberly McCreight

  Not paint. It’s not paint. Sandy was thinking those words before she could figure out what they meant. Not paint. She was still pushing open the door. And there was more and more of it, there was red all over everything.

  Blood.

  It’s blood.

  And then there was Hannah, crouched on the floor in the corner behind the door, naked from the waist down, rocking so hard that her elbows kept whacking against the tile wall behind her, thud, thud, thud. Her face was snow-white and still. Her hands were clenched into blood-covered fists. And there on the floor next to her was a pile of lumpier blood and something else coiled.

  Attached to it was something that looked like a baby, except it was grayish-purple. Covered in blood and white waxy-looking stuff, too. And not moving.

  “Holy fuck!” Sandy said, rushing over, slipping on the blood-slicked floor. She grabbed the towel ring, almost ripping it off the wall. “Hannah, what happened?”

  Hannah just kept rocking.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I tried to get the cord off her neck,” she whispered finally. “I did it. I did. But it was so . . . my fingers kept . . .” She stared out. “Slipping. But she was alive for a minute.” Hannah gazed up at Sandy, her face equal parts wonder and horror. “She opened her eyes. She looked right at me.”

  “We have to call an ambulance.” Sandy looked down at her blood-soaked shoes.

  “She’s going to kill me.” Hannah clamped a hand over her mouth suddenly. Like the thought of her mother had only just occurred to her. “She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me.”

  “But you’re bleeding.” Sandy pointed toward the floor. Her hands were trembling. “And the—” She was going to say “baby.” But one look at the gray-purple skin and it was obvious that if she’d ever been alive, the baby was long past saving.

  “She’s going to kill me.” Hannah lurched toward Sandy, wrapping her bloody hands around Sandy’s wrists. Her eyes were huge. “Please, you have to help me. She’s going to kill me.”

  All Sandy had was questions. Did Hannah know she was pregnant? Did she hide it on purpose? Did she invite Sandy over because she knew she was going to have a baby? Who the hell was the father? What about that saving-herself-for-marriage bullshit? All of it, lies.

  But then, Sandy knew about lies. The weird way they had of seeming just like the truth. And she knew about being scared and feeling so totally alone that you pray you’ll disappear. Sandy looked around at the bloody floor. And again at Hannah, a girl who’d never been anything but nice to her. Who’d tried to help her when most people never bothered. Hannah wasn’t a strong person. She wouldn’t be able to do this alone. And she was right about her mother—she was going to kill Hannah.

  But Sandy could do this. She could sweep up all these broken pieces. She could clean up somebody else’s mess, like she’d done for Jenna a thousand times before. And so Sandy sucked in some air and swallowed down all of it—the fear, the blood, the actual dead human baby on the floor, inches away from her.

  “We need some towels that your mom won’t notice missing. Show me where they are,” Sandy said. “And a bag you can get rid of. Paper towels and cleaning supplies. You should go take a shower.” She checked the clock on her phone, already smeared with blood. “We don’t have much time.”

  It wasn’t until Sandy was almost done cleaning all of it up that she saw Hannah’s little brother standing there behind her. She had no idea how long he’d been there or how much he’d seen.

  “Sorry I made such a mess,” she said to him. Because she had to say something.

  But he didn’t say a word. He just faded back into the darkness, then disappeared.

  Sandy had raced out of Hannah’s house with all that death around her neck. She jumped on her bike and she rode like the fucking wind. What she hadn’t factored in was the rain. Or the way the duffel bag Hannah had given her—way too big for her back and heavier than she would have thought—would leave her so off-balance on the bike. It wasn’t like she could go slow either. Not if she was going to get through this. Because there were things Sandy had seen and done in her life, things that a girl like Hannah would never survive. Not this, though. Never anything like this.

  But Sandy had learned a long time ago that you could put a box around the things that you didn’t want to become a part of you—seeing your mom naked on top of some drunk, the popular kid in your eighth-grade class telling everyone you had AIDS, holding your mom’s head over the toilet while she puked. You couldn’t get rid of those things completely, but they didn’t have to seep out, mix with the rest. They didn’t have to become a part of you.

  So Sandy put her head down and rode as fast as she could. And she tried not to notice how her back seemed extra wet under the bag, she hoped not from the blood seeping through. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and she’d be there. And this would be something she’d be on her way to forgetting.

  At least Sandy had known where to go. A place she knew from Jenna was dark and quiet and kept all its secrets. A place where no one could see a goddamn thing.

  It was pouring by the time Sandy made that last turn toward the Essex Bridge, but her bike felt steady and her legs felt strong and she was almost there. It was almost over. And then she would make it like none of this had ever happened. She started pedaling even harder down that last hill, even though it was pouring rain, like maybe if she pedaled hard enough, she would take flight.

  The animal came out of nowhere—a chipmunk, a squirrel, a possum. A shadow, maybe. It was too dark to know for sure. Too late to stop. Definitely too late to recover. Too late to stay on her bike. The rest happened in slow motion, the bike flying out in one direction, Sandy in the other. And the whole time her thinking only one thing: Hold on to the bag.

  And she had, despite the burning pain in her knee and her arm. But the bag had gotten tangled beneath her as she fell and slid, her full weight crushed against it. And the baby inside. It wasn’t until Sandy stood up, covered in blood—hers and maybe the baby’s—that she knew: There are some things too horrible for even the strongest box to contain.

  There had been one good thing about all that rain. It had made it easier to dig. Not a hole big enough for the bag or the towels. Just the baby. Because all Sandy had was her bare hands. Looking back on it now, the ground being so soft and loose, so easy to move, right up there near the edge of that creek, made it the last place she ever should have put a thing she wanted to stay buried.

  Molly must have gotten up and come around the booth to sit next to Sandy while she was talking.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, reaching forward to wrap her arms around Sandy. “I promise.”

  It wasn’t until Molly was hugging her that Sandy realized she was shaking. Or how hard she was crying.

  JENNA

  JUNE 12, 1994

  If I had a gun, I’d shoot myself. But I don’t have a gun. And I don’t have any pills. And I can’t stand the sight of blood.

  Because all I keep seeing over and over again is Two-Six ripping off my underwear. And all I keep hearing is the Captain saying “Go ahead, you take it” after he lifted my skirt to show my ass to Two-Six like I was some kind of cow.

  The Captain wasn’t holding me from behind yet. I guess he thought maybe I’d be okay with it. Maybe even into it. Two guys at once, out there in the woods.

  He’d been hinting about me screwing Two-Six all night, said he was depressed and that he deserved a good time. And they were fucked up out of their minds. We were all so wasted.

  Then the Captain was like “No, I’m serious, I want you to let him do it.” And when I said, “Fuck no,” he said, “How many guys have you banged? What’s one more?”

  And I thought about saying, One—YOU. You’re the only guy I ever banged. But I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  Instead, I slapped him. And maybe that was what did it. Because this thing happened to the Captain’s face. Like the light
s went out. Like his insides died right in front of me.

  Then he grabbed me from behind and lifted my dress all the way up so that even my tits were hanging out there so anybody could see. And I kept waiting for the Captain to come to his senses. And say: No, man, let her go. Especially when I started to scream and then started to cry. And you could still hear the noise even though the Captain had his hand smashed over my mouth.

  But he didn’t say stop. No one did. No one said another word.

  Molly

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere?” I asked Sandy once we were outside Pat’s.

  “I’ve got my bike,” she said, motioning to it leaning up against the side of the diner.

  The bike. I’d been trying not to picture the scene, but now there it was in my head—Sandy’s body flipping off the bike, the bag strapped to her back with its unimaginable cargo. Her falling explained everything about the suspicious “condition” of the baby’s body. And here she was, still riding around on that bike? She probably didn’t have a choice. There surely wasn’t an extra car sitting in her driveway. But my God. It was hard to believe she was upright after what she had been through. After what she was still going through, with her mom missing.

  I had been thinking about Steve, too. And Barbara. I would have thought I’d feel some sort of satisfaction where Barbara was concerned—look at what all your judgment hath wrought. But what I felt for all of them was pity.

  “I could drive you home?” I offered, still staring at the bike. “We could put your bike in the back of my car.” Or we could throw it out.

  “Yeah,” Sandy said, but not like she was agreeing. She was staring out into the distance at the cars racing up and down Route 33. “We’re, um, kind of in between places at the moment.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t sound good. “Where did you sleep last night?”

  “My friend Aidan’s house,” she said, then her eyes got wide. “Shit, I forgot, you know his mom. Please don’t tell her. I don’t want to get Aidan in trouble.”

  “I won’t tell her,” I said. “Of course not.”

  I saw it then when she turned to get her bike, peeking down from the left sleeve of her T-shirt: the thorned stem of a rose. The flower girl.

  This was the person Stella had been hiding—Sandy. And not because she was the mother of the dead baby or to protect Aidan. But because Stella was ashamed that her son had picked this girl.

  “Why don’t you come to my place for now?” I said. I wasn’t going to let her go back to Aidan’s. God knew what Stella would say if she found Sandy there. “Later I can take you somewhere else if you want. Do you have any other stuff you need to pick up?”

  All she had with her was a little backpack. “There’s a couple boxes,” Sandy said after thinking about it for a minute. I was relieved she hadn’t argued, but she didn’t look thrilled. She shifted around uncomfortably, wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I left them back at our old apartment. I guess I should probably go get them.”

  “Come on, let’s go, then,” I said, hoping that forward momentum might keep her from changing her mind.

  Sandy was rolling her bike toward my car when she got a text. I watched her face tense, reading it. “It’s Hannah’s dad,” she said finally. “I guess he texted me a couple times overnight. I didn’t read them because they were from Hannah’s phone. I thought they were from her and I just—I needed a break. But they can’t find Hannah.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I’m not sure Hannah knows where she is. A day or two after the baby was born, she started talking about how it was mine, and she’s been acting like that ever since.” Sandy was still staring at her phone. “Wait, I might— Maybe she went down to where—to the creek. I called her that night, not until after I got rid of the bag and the towels in a dumpster behind that tanning salon Highlights. It was the only place that was closed.” Her voice drifted as she looked off, like she was remembering. “I didn’t tell her that I fell or anything, just that the creek was where I—where her baby was.” Sandy shook her head. “Anyway, I think there’s a chance Hannah went down to the creek before. I got this weird text from her once about ‘how beautiful it was.’ She didn’t say what she was talking about and I didn’t ask. I got so many weird messages from her. I didn’t want to know anything else. I just wanted her to remember.”

  “Maybe she finally has. You need to tell Steve where she is, Sandy.”

  “I know,” she said, already typing out a response.

  Sandy showed me the way to Ridgedale Commons, a depressing two-floor rectangle that looked like a motel you’d drive all night to avoid. I pulled up alongside the curb in front, having a hard time believing we were still in Ridgedale.

  “I’ll be right back,” Sandy said, opening the door before the car had fully stopped.

  “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head as she rushed from the car. “It’s not much.”

  I watched her walk, wiry and strong, across the browning side yard toward a staircase on the side. She looked around guiltily before squatting down and reaching beneath the stairs. Her boxes weren’t “at” her old apartment, they were hidden under the building stairs. It was excruciating. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Things had been bad for me when I was her age, but not bad like that.

  “Do you think, um, I could take a shower?” Sandy asked once we were at my house. We were standing in the little guest room with its excessively fluffy, overly fashionable blue-and-orange-hued bed.

  “Of course, yes.” I was relieved for the time her showering would buy me to collect my thoughts. It had been so easy to want to rescue Sandy. Now that I had, I felt overwhelmed and unprepared. “Let me get you some towels.”

  When I returned, Sandy was standing right where I’d left her, arms crossed like she was afraid of being blamed for breaking something. I handed her a stack of overly fluffy towels. Everything we had suddenly seemed outsize and unnecessarily inflated. Like I was overcompensating.

  “There’s shampoo and everything in the bathroom if you need it.”

  “Thanks,” Sandy said, stuck in the center of the room, gripping my towels. “I’ll be quick.”

  “Take your time. I’ll call some more of the local hospitals.” I planned to call the ME’s office, too, to be sure there weren’t any Jane Does, but there wasn’t any reason to tell Sandy that. “Can I ask you one last thing?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Sandy said, looking like she was bracing for me to set fire to the bridge I’d so carefully built between us.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “But did Hannah ever tell you who the father was?” It seemed unfair that he should be getting out of all of this scot-free, especially if he’d known that Hannah was pregnant.

  “No.” She shook her head. “But I think maybe he was a college kid.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Sandy shrugged. “Hannah always wanted to go to the Black Cat to study. Sometimes it was like she was waiting to see somebody. Looking out, you know.” She shook her head again, seemed almost angry. “Before it happened, she told me she was saving herself until marriage. But I think that was more what her mom wanted. She took classes on campus last year, too. Part of some super-smart-kid program she was in. Maybe she met him then.”

  Shit. The Ridgedale University high school exchange program, supervised by Dean of Students Thomas Price.

  “The night she had the baby—before she forgot it was her baby—she gave me all the stuff he’d given her, cards and whatever. In case her parents found out, I guess, and searched her room. I didn’t look at any of it, but I still have it.” Sandy motioned to her boxes, stacked along the wall in the guest room. “She never asked for it back. Maybe she forgot the guy when she forgot about it being her baby. I probably should have tried to shake her out of it. But I was afraid. You know how they tell you not to wake somebody who’s sleepwalking?”


  “You did the right thing, Sandy,” I said without hesitating. “You did more than anyone could possibly have expected you to do.”

  According to Sandy, Aidan had already checked for Jenna at the Ridgedale University Hospital, but, knowing Aidan, I called again, just in case. I had expected the process of inquiring there and at the four other nearby hospitals to take a while, with multiple transfers to the relevant parties, followed by long periods on hold while nurses referenced what their unidentified patients looked like. Matched them with my description of Jenna. But within ten minutes, I had established that only two of the hospitals had any unidentified patients at all—both male, both elderly. Apparently, actual Jane Does weren’t nearly as common as I’d assumed. When I called the ME’s office, they had no unidentified victims, either. Maybe it would have been different in New York City, but in Ridgedale, people evidently didn’t go unidentified for long, not even a baby. Soon everyone would know whom she belonged to.

  When I ended the call with the last hospital, my eyes settled on Jenna’s journal, sitting on the edge of the dining room table. Sandy’s hand had lingered on it for such a long time before she left it for me. She said that I should read it, that there was a chance it would help us find Jenna. But I could tell that part of her also didn’t want me to. That she probably wished she’d never read it herself.

  It didn’t take more than a couple pages to realize what would be the worst part of the story laid out in the journal: Jenna’s hope. By the time I’d finished, I knew why Sandy had picked that spot in the woods. And I knew that Harold, for all his obvious instability, had been right about what he’d seen. He’d just been wrong about the visions climbing out of the creek being the same young woman—a ghost separated by nearly twenty years. In fact, they’d been mother and daughter.

  The bracelet I’d bartered from Harold. I’d forgotten all about it. Still in my coat pocket, I hoped. I was so glad I hadn’t thrown it out, which was all I’d wanted to do after I’d hung up with Steve in an embarrassed huff.