Throwaway Girls

by Andrea Contos

  Looks just like him, but isn’t him.

  Jake doesn’t have the ability to help people avoid their legal problems, and he sure as hell isn’t sneaking off campus to kidnap and kill young girls.

  But Jake’s dad is a judge.

  Jake’s dad made sure he knew every detail of what we discovered. He held out his palm and watched the only piece of evidence I had tumble into it.

  The negative test on Chrystal’s glass suddenly makes far more sense.

  Everything makes sense. My biggest fear now an inescapable truth.

  I’m the link between them all. Between Chrystal and Willa and Madison. I led Thomas Monaghan to all of them.

  He took the two people I loved most.

  And there’s only one I have any hope of saving.

  It’s too much to process, and my body screams to crawl back into the cold embrace of the lake and let all of this disappear. All of it.

  Then wind kicks through my hair and I swear I can feel the sun against my skin, the faint scent of wildflowers and the reassuring press of pills against my palm.

  It’s been years, but it’s like I’ve stepped sideways in time until I’m the same girl I was at fifteen.

  But I’m not that girl anymore.

  I’ve broken the chains and left them in ragged pieces.

  I pull myself from the clammy mud that’s coated my hands, my knees, and I stand.

  Step One: Confirm Jake’s dad is the killer.

  Step Two: Determine if Jake is involved.

  Step Three: Burn it all down.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Paper towels crinkle beneath my feet and stick to my soles. Mud streaks the white porcelain of the sink even though I’ve rinsed it three times, avoiding my reflection so I don’t have to look myself in the eyes.

  Marcel barely glanced at me before he shuffled me into the women’s bathroom and kicked everyone else out.

  And now he’s standing guard at the door while I change into my spare clothes from his office.

  There has to be a line of women waiting to come in and that can’t be good for business, but he won’t rush me. You take the time you need, baby girl. Go get yourself right.

  Except there is no getting myself right. Not in any way he’d approve of. And that’s not what I came here for. I came here for answers. For evidence. For clues.

  I won’t tell him all the plans forming in my head, all the ways I can get the proof I need and dispense the justice the world won’t give. Not after everything he’s done for me. I won’t let him burn alongside me.

  A streak of crimson trickles down my knee. Mom would rush me to the hospital for a tetanus shot the second I admitted I had no idea when or how I cut myself, but wadded paper towel tucked into my jeans will have to do.

  My movements feel blurry and foreign, and the harsh fluorescent lighting magnifies every bruise and scrape from my trek through the woods.

  The laces of my Chuck Taylors burn against my skin as I yank them tight and I force myself to look at my phone. Willa smiles back at me and I’m solid again.

  I leave the safety of the bathroom and emerge into the clamor of the hallway. Spots cloud my vision as my eyes adjust to the loss of light, and the murmured complaints from the crowd in the hallway go silent the second Marcel’s heavy hand lands on top of my head. He mutters, “Let’s go,” and directs me toward his office.

  My stomach clamps tight with the knowledge of what he’s giving up to do this. He told me to stay away, to lay low, and now I’ve forced a scene with uncountable witnesses. But he took me in anyway, grasped me from my lowest point and pulled me up, just like the night we met.

  And now I’m going to make this right. I’m going to make all of it right.

  The door shushes as he closes it behind us — completely closed, even though it’s just the two of us, because we’re breaking all the rules tonight.

  He looks me over and his gaze ends on a heavy sigh that makes the room less empty. His voice cracks when he says, “If I’d known you’d take care of yourself like this, I’d have taken you home with me and kept you there.”

  I shake my head and damp hair brushes my cheek. Somehow, breathing in the soft scent of cardboard and wood polish calms my nerves. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You didn’t show up here bleeding and covered in mud and looking fine.”

  “I know I’m not supposed to be here, and you shut the door and closed the bathroom for me and —” I force air into my constricted lungs. “I’m not staying, I —”

  “No. You’re not. Because I’m gonna call those neglectful parents of —”

  “No!” My body snaps tight. “You want me to take care of myself? Because that’s what I’m trying to do. Willa is —”

  I have to close my eyes until I can finish. “Willa is dead.”

  She has to be, and not just because I feel it, but because it’s been months since he took her.

  She’s not coming back. Not her, or Becca Wilder, or Tracy Bast. Not the girl whose name I never bothered to find out.

  He scrubs a massive hand over his bald head, his fingers pressing so hard his skin wrinkles. “Baby girl.” That’s all he says, and it’s an apology and a hug all rolled into the deep timbre of his voice.

  “Why did you tell me I couldn’t come here anymore?”

  “Don’t you worry about that now. You —”

  I toss my phone onto Marcel’s desk so the internet screenshot of Jake’s dad stares up at him. “Tell me, or I’m going to his house and asking him myself.”

  Truth: I’m not going to his house. I am going to his cottage. The one on Higgins Lake. I had to scroll through three years of Jake’s social media pictures to find proof.

  I need to discover how much Jake knows. If he’s an accomplice, or just another victim.

  Marcel says, “You’re not going anywhere near —”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know his type. He’s a bad man, Caroline.”

  Caroline. He’s calling me by my real name, but he’s not throwing me out. “I know.”

  “Then you know why!”

  “You’re not giving me a choice!”

  I barely manage a whisper. “I think he killed Willa. Chrystal’s daughter too. All those missing girls — they’re gone because of him.”

  His mouth drops, just the smallest falter of his bottom lip, but for Marcel, it’s extreme. “What now?”

  I flick through pictures until I get to the ones I had Tabitha send me. The ones from Madison’s computer that show Jake’s dad sitting in his car while Willa and I fought. Then the one where she climbed into his back seat.

  Tabitha found even more after I left. Zoomed in. Clarified. None of them are the version Madison showed Chrystal and Mountain Man. I asked.

  I’m terrified that that evidence is gone forever. Maybe it’s on missing drive number ten. Maybe it’s with Madison, in a place they’ll both never be found.

  I hold the phone so both Marcel and I can see. “He took her, Marcel. He took her right after I left. And I don’t know how he got her to write those letters to me, but Jake —” I swallow. “He said his dad travels to California all the time, so he must’ve sent them from there. So I need to know if he’s the reason you threw me out, and exactly what he said. I need to know everything.”

  He stares at me so long I’m convinced he’s not going to respond. That he’s already called my parents and, in one moment, I’m going to hear the terse triple knock Mom uses before she storms into my room without waiting for me to answer.

  Instead he tips his chin toward me and says, “He showed up here and threatened me. Said he couldn’t have his son with a girl who ‘frequented such an establishment.’”

  I skip over the idea of Jake’s dad thinking we’re together before that wary look in Marcel’s eyes t
rips into an information lockdown.

  “Was —” I breathe deep and try again. “Was Jake with him?”

  He says no and part of the weight on my chest eases. It’s not proof, but it’s a shred of hope for Jake.

  I say, “Threatened you how?”

  He rubs at the shoulder he injured in the service and stares over my head. “You remember why we don’t shut the door all the way?”

  “That’s ridiculous. He could claim it all he wants and I’d just say it isn’t true.”

  “Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, baby girl. Some things, once they’re out in the world, they never go away. And that man, he has connections.”

  He doesn’t need to say anything else because he’s right. What I say is true doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter with Mr. McCormack and it won’t matter with Marcel either.

  And we’d both be on trial. Every bit of my life would be torn to shreds and broadcast to the world. Every decision I’ve made scrutinized and questioned.

  Forget keeping the real version of myself from my parents. There would be no hiding. And no hiding would mean no college. No moving away. It would mean making my house a cage with both parents holding the keys.

  It would’ve destroyed me, and Marcel knew it.

  The Honorable Thomas Monaghan. Esteemed judge. Revered father. Killer.

  It’s the why of it that won’t stop battering my skull. Why Willa? Why Madison?

  And I can’t escape that the answer is me.

  All of this is because of me.

  I shuffle backward toward the door until the cold metal handle presses deep into my spine. “Thank you.”

  He knows what I mean. Thank you for everything, including for letting me go.

  He straightens to his full height, a commander readying for battle. “You need help?”

  I shake my head and don’t offer that I have help — one of my helpers just doesn’t know it yet.

  Marcel doesn’t argue. Doesn’t tell me I’m making a mistake or that it’s too dangerous. Marcel knows me like Willa knows me.

  Knew me.

  He’s never forgotten that he picked me up on the side of the road after I set fire to a building.

  So it’s not even a surprise when he says, “Just get out before the smoke hits.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Wind whips against my back, sending my hair into tendrils that reach toward Jake’s family cottage.

  Except it’s not a cottage at all. There are no quaint welcome mats or swaying porch swings. No creaking wood steps or logs waiting to be chopped for firewood.

  It’s a towering colonial set on the highest point of the cliff overlooking Higgins Lake, with brick so red it looks black, ivy clinging to its facade, vines twisting to avoid the massive windows that observe the lake. There are balconies for every room, a jacuzzi tub beneath a wood trellis in the backyard and winds that sweep through the surrounding trees, their rustling as permanent as the house itself.

  I’m waiting in those trees, hidden, my fingers numb, my body shivering.

  I’m waiting for answers.

  My car sits well down the street, hidden from view in one of the turnoffs the power company uses, and I kept to the trees as I walked back. It wasn’t hard. This is a place you could take a missing girl and not have anyone notice.

  Except, all of this feels wrong.

  I can picture this house in the daylight, sunlight streaming through those massive windows, spring-scented air ruffling the thick curtains.

  It’s the right house. A perfect match to the picture Tabitha sent me.

  I never would’ve predicted Tabitha Zhao to be one of my strongest allies, but I can’t deny how much she’s helped tonight.

  Even when it meant giving information on Jake — her friend since kindergarten. But it’s her connection that led me here, her pictures from the ninth birthday party Jake’s dad threw for him at the cottage. The one Tabitha — head of the yearbook committee even then — made sure appeared in the Holy Redeemer yearbook.

  The picture may be over eight years old, but houses are static things.

  I’m in the right place, even if everything is telling me I’m not.

  Jake’s words to me on the outskirts of Mountain Man’s property ring in my head. What if she’s here, Caroline? What if she’s ten fucking feet away and we left?

  And that’s why I need to get inside. I need to see for myself.

  I need to end this.

  I’m waiting for my second unlikely ally to deliver so I can.

  It’s twenty-five minutes before Jake’s headlights spear the darkness, sweeping the grounds as he navigates the winding path to the cottage.

  I hold my breath, waiting for a glimpse of his expression. Something to tell me if he’s here because he’s worried about me, or if he’s worried about me discovering the thing he needs to keep hidden most.

  I owe Preston Ashcroft as much as I do Tabitha, even if he doesn’t realize it. All it took was a single phone call, an innocent inquiry into whether Preston remembered if Jake’s family had a cottage on Higgins Lake. The very lake involved in Preston’s theory about Madison’s cell pinging the nearby tower. The one Jake was so reluctant to accept.

  Figures tumble through my head. How quickly Jake could’ve gotten here. How long the phone call could’ve lasted once Preston called Jake to tell him I’d asked about his family cottage — and that simple inquiry was enough, just like I knew it would be, to send Jake here, chasing after me. If Preston’s first call was to his brother, the one on Madison’s task force, and whether that means I have enough time to find answers on my own — or if his brother will brush the information away like so many before him.

  That single phone call feels like it set a clock ticking — every moment I stand here is another one wasted.

  There aren’t many left, with midnight closing in, threatening to end this day just like the others — with Madison still missing.

  I watch from the trees as Jake slams the car into park, and then he’s out of it so quickly the interior lights barely have time to flash.

  Shadows cling to him, guarding his face as he jogs up the front steps and turns, scanning for something.

  For me.

  He calls my name and I have to stop myself from yelling back, because I still can’t believe he’d be involved in this. I can’t reconcile the boy who’s tried to help me these past few days — the one who ran after me during the vigil because I seemed upset — I can’t mesh that version of him with one that would end the lives of multiple girls.

  But maybe those are just the things I want to see. Maybe all this time, my tightrope was still stretched firm beneath my feet, even when I thought I’d jumped from it.

  I press myself tight to the tree trunk, bark rough beneath my palms, and Jake shoves his key through the door.

  As he swings inside, a robotic voice announces the front door has opened, and I want to scream. I can’t sneak in behind him if the alarm system announces when I open the door.

  I watch it slam shut, locking me out of the place I need to be most.

  Lights spring to life in room after room as Jake walks, then runs, through the house. And then, for the first time, I can see his face.

  I just can’t read it.

  Tension, concern, something close to panic, but none of that tells me why. And it’s the why that matters.

  Another light, then another, until the cottage glows against the blackness surrounding it and I have to run through the trees to track him, branches raking my skin.

  The lights of the far room blaze to life, deep blue walls and dark cherry furniture, and Jake framed by the massive windows, his shoulders rising under the force of his breaths.

  Then he goes still and his gaze focuses on the place where I’m standing.

  I hate this, the way
my heart stammers against my rib cage and my mouth goes dry. I hate that I don’t know who I’m supposed to be afraid of.

  Mostly I hate that I might be wrong about all of this, and if I am, Madison is waiting for me to finally get it right.

  We’re five days past forty-eight hours. Past the optimum window for finding a missing person.

  Jake’s progress through the house becomes a series of flashes through uncovered windows, until a door crashes open on the back porch.

  I scramble, praying the rush of wind is enough to muffle the snap of branches beneath my feet. But I’m not sure he’s listening for me anyway, not anymore.

  It’s the set of his shoulders, the confidence in his stride. I know this Jake. It’s the one who steps onto the field at every game, the outside world tuned out and the opponent at his mercy.

  The beam of his flashlight bounces with every stride, casting a white glow over the frosty ground. It’s an eternity of walking, and with every yard, it feels colder, light leaching from the darkening sky as the forest grows dense.

  A small cottage — a real one straight from Grimm’s fairy tales — rises in the distance, tucked into the woods and overlooking the lake below. The windows are shuttered, the peaked roof littered with twigs and fallen leaves. It looks abandoned and forgotten — except for the heavy deadbolt that glints as the moonlight catches it. And for a moment I can’t breathe.

  Because everything about this place feels right.

  Something catches my foot and I go down hard, palms scraping against rocks and branches.

  I bite my lip to keep from cursing, waiting every second for Jake to appear above me.

  But he doesn’t even seem to register the sound.

  He doesn’t falter until he reaches the door. Even from my spot on the ground, frigid soil bleeding the warmth from my skin, it’s impossible to miss the hesitation when he raises his hand to the door. And when his voice rings out, it’s not my name he calls out.

  He calls for his dad.

  I want to tell him I’m sorry. That I know what it’s like to discover the people who are supposed to love you the most are the ones who hurt the deepest. I want to tell him he’ll survive, but it won’t be without cost.