Back in the hall, I pause for a moment, disoriented in the sudden darkness. Up ahead, the disco light is whirling, sending showers of purple light around a mostly empty dance floor. The music is so loud it makes my head hurt. Why would anyone come here? Why did Dara come here?
I close my eyes and think back to the days before the accident. Weirdly the only thing that comes is an image of Parker’s car, and that fogged-up windshield, the rain fizzing on the glass. We didn’t mean to. . . .
I open my eyes again. Two girls spill out of the bathroom, holding hands and giggling. As soon as they start down the hall, I slip after them, noticing for the first time a dark alcove immediately across from the LADIES sign, and stairs leading down to the basement.
The stairs corkscrew around a small, bare landing and abruptly turn from wood to concrete. Another few steps, and I’m deposited in a long, unfinished hallway with cinder-block walls and a paint-splattered concrete floor. The whole basement feels forgotten and disused. In a horror film, this would be where the blond girl goes to die in the opening scene.
I shiver in the sudden chill. It’s cold down here and smells like all basements, like moisture barely contained. Naked bulbs encased in mesh hang from the ceiling, and the music is nothing but a dull thudding, like a monster’s distant heartbeat. Boxes are heaped at the far end of the hallway, and through one half-open door I see what must be the staff changing room: grim gray lockers, several pairs of sneakers lined up under a bench, and a cell phone buzzing forlornly, performing a quarter-turn rotation on the wood when it does. I get the sudden, prickly feeling of being watched, and I spin around, half expecting someone to jump out at me.
No one. Still, my heart rate won’t return to normal.
I’m about to return upstairs, thinking I must have misunderstood Casey’s directions, when voices down the hall crest sharply, suddenly, over the music. Even though I don’t hear a single word, I immediately know: an argument.
I continue down the hall, moving carefully, holding my breath. With every step the itch in my skin gets worse, as if invisible people are leaning forward to breathe on me. I remember, then, the time Parker dared Dara and me to walk across the graveyard off Cressida Circle at night when we were kids.
“But go quietly,” he said, dropping his voice, “or they’ll reach out and—” He seized me suddenly by the waist and I screamed. Afterward he couldn’t stop laughing; still, I never did walk across the graveyard, too afraid that if I did, a hand would reach out and grab me, pulling me down into the rotten earth.
I pass another door, this one gaping open to reveal a dingy bathroom with caulk oozing like thick caterpillars between cracks in the wall. By now the voices are louder. There’s a final door, this one closed, a few feet farther on. This must be Andre’s office.
The voices abruptly go silent and I freeze, holding my breath, wondering if I’ve been detected, debating whether I should knock or turn around and run.
Then a girl says, quietly but very clearly, “The police grilled me for, like, four hours. And I didn’t have anything to tell them. I couldn’t tell them anything.”
A male voice—Andre—replies, “So what the hell are you worried about?”
“She’s my best friend. She was drunk. She doesn’t even remember getting home. And her sister’s missing. Of course I’m fucking worried.”
My heart stops beating for the space of a breath, a name: Madeline Snow. They’re talking about Madeline Snow.
“Lower your voice. And don’t feed me some horseshit. You’re trying to cover your ass. But you knew what you were getting into when you signed up.”
“You said everything would be private. You said no one would know.”
“I told you to lower your voice.”
But it’s too late. Her voice is rising in pitch like steam being forced through a kettle. “So what did happen that night, huh? Because if you know something, you have to talk. You have to tell me.”
There’s a moment of silence. My heart is drumming hard in my throat, like a fist trying to punch its way out.
“Fine.” Her voice is shaking now, skipping registers. “Fine. Then don’t tell me. I guess you can just wait until the police knock down your door.”
The door handle rattles and I jump backward, pressing myself against the wall, as if it will keep me invisible. Then there’s a scraping noise, the sound of a chair jumping backward, and the door handle falls still.
Andre says, “I don’t know what the hell happened to that little girl.” The way he says little girl makes me feel sick, like I’ve accidentally eaten something rotten. “But if I did know—if I do know—you really think it’s a smart idea to come around here playing Nancy Drew? You think I don’t know how to make problems disappear?”
There’s a short pause. “Are you threatening me? Because I’m not afraid of you.” This last part is obviously a lie. Even through the door, I can hear that the girl’s voice is shaking.
“Then you’re dumber than I thought,” Andre says. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”
Before I can retreat or react, the door swings open so hard it cracks against the wall, and a girl comes rushing out. Her head is down, but still I recognize her immediately from the paper: the pale skin, the straight fringe of black bangs, and the red lipstick, like she’s auditioning for a part in a movie about a vampire from the 1920s. It’s Sarah Snow’s best friend, the girl who supposedly accompanied her to get ice cream the night Madeline disappeared. She pushes past me roughly and doesn’t even stop to apologize, and before I can call out to her, she’s gone, darting animal-like up the stairs.
I want to go after her, but Andre has already seen me.
“What do you want?” His eyes are bloodshot. He looks tired, impatient. It’s him: the guy from the photo, leather-jacket guy. He’s nobody, Dara said, months ago. They’re all nobodies. They don’t matter.
But she was wrong about this one.
I try to see him as Dara might have. He’s older, maybe early twenties, and his hair is already thinning, although he gels it stiff to conceal the fact. He’s good-looking in an obvious way, like someone who spends a lot of time flossing. His lips are too thin.
“Casey sent me down here,” I blurt. “I mean, I was looking for the bathroom.”
“What?” Andre squints at me. He takes up most of the doorway. He’s big—at least six-four—with hands like meat cleavers.
My heart is still going, hard. He knows what happened to Madeline Snow. It’s not a suspicion. It’s a certainty. He knows what happened to Madeline Snow and he knows where Dara is and he takes care of problems. It suddenly occurs to me that no one would hear me if I screamed. The music upstairs is too loud.
“You looking for a job?” Andre says, when I don’t respond, and I realize that I’m still holding the stupid application.
“Yes. No. I mean, I was.” I shove the paper into my bag. “But Casey said you guys aren’t doing parties right now.”
Andre’s watching me sideways, like a snake watching a mouse move closer and closer. “We’re not,” he says. His eyes go over my whole body, slowly, like a long, careful touch. He smiles then: a megawatt, movie-star smile, a smile to make people say yes. “But how about you come in and sit down? Never know when we’re going to start up again.”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I don’t—I mean, I was kind of looking for a position right now.”
Andre’s still smiling, but something shifts behind his eyes. It’s like the friendly switch has just cut off. Now his smile is cold, scrutinizing, suspicious. “Hey,” he says, pointing a finger at me, and the certainty yawns open in my stomach: He recognizes me, he knows I’m Dara’s sister, he knows I came to find her. All this time, he’s been screwing with me. “Hey. You look familiar. Don’t I know you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. He knows. Without meaning to move, I take off down the hall, walking as quickly as I can without breaking into a run, taking the stairs two at a time. I burst onto the dance floor, pinballing off a guy dressed in a dark purple suit who reeks of cologne.
“Why the hurry?” he calls after me, laughing.
I dodge a small knot of girls swaying drunkenly in heels, squealing along with the song lyrics. Luckily, the bouncer has temporarily abandoned his post—maybe it’s too late for new arrivals. I push out into the thick night air, heavy with moisture and salt, taking deep and grateful breaths, like someone emerging from underwater.
The lot is still packed with cars, a tight Tetris formation, bumper-to-bumper—too many cars for the number of people inside. For one disorienting second I can’t remember where I parked. I fish my keys from my bag, clicking the car open, feeling reassured when I hear the familiar beep and see headlights blink expectantly at me. I jog toward the car, weaving between cars.
Suddenly I’m blinded by the sweep of headlights. A small, dark VW cuts by me, spitting gravel, and as it passes underneath the light I see Sarah Snow’s friend hunched behind the wheel. Her name, heard or read a dozen times in the past ten days, returns to me suddenly. Kennedy.
I thud a hand down on her trunk before she can fully bypass me. “Wait!”
She slams on the brakes. I circle around to the driver’s side, keeping one hand on her car the whole time, as if it will prevent her from driving away. “Wait.” I haven’t even planned what I’m going to say. But she has answers; I know she does. “Please.” I place my hand flat on the window. She jerks backward an inch, like she’s expecting me to reach through the glass and hit her. But after a second, she buzzes down the window.
“What?” She’s holding on to the wheel with both hands, as if she’s afraid it might jump out of her hands. “What do you want?”
“I know you lied about the night Madeline disappeared.” The words are out of my mouth before I know I’ve even been thinking them. Kennedy inhales sharply. “You and Sarah came here.”
It’s a statement, not a question, but Kennedy nods, a movement so small I almost miss it.
“How did you know?” she says in a whisper. Her expression turns fearful. “Who are you?”
“My sister.” My voice cracks. I swallow down the taste of sawdust. I have a thousand questions, but can’t make a single one come into focus. “My sister works here. Or at least, she used to work here. I think—I think she’s in trouble. I think something bad may have happened to her.” I’m watching Kennedy’s face for signs of recognition or guilt. But she’s still staring up at me with huge, hollowed eyes, as if I’m the one to be afraid of. “Something like what happened to Madeline.”
Immediately I know it was the wrong thing to say. Now she doesn’t look afraid. She looks angry.
“I don’t know anything,” she says firmly, as if it’s a line she’s been practicing repeatedly. She starts to buzz up the window. “Just leave me alone.”
“Wait.” Out of desperation, I stick my hand in the narrowing gap between the car door and the window. Kennedy lets out a hiss of irritation, but at least she rolls the window down again. “I need your help.”
“I told you. I don’t know anything.” She’s losing it again, like she did downstairs in Andre’s office. Her voice hitches higher, wobbling over the words. “I left early that night. I thought Sarah had gone home. She was drunk. That’s what I thought, when I came into the parking lot and saw the car door hanging open—that Sarah had been too wasted to remember to close it. That she’d taken Maddie home in a cab.”
I imagine the car, the open door, the empty backseat. Light spilling from Beamer’s just like it is tonight, the muffled thud of music, the distant crash of waves. Up the street, the peaked roof of an Applebee’s, a few low-rent condominiums clinging to the shore, a diner and a surf shop. Across the street: a greasy clam shack, a former T-shirt shop, now in foreclosure. Everything is so normal, so relentlessly the same—it’s almost impossible to believe in all the bad things, the tragedies, the dark fairy-tale twists.
One second she was there; the next she was gone.
Without realizing it, I’ve been holding on to the car as if it will help me keep on my feet. To my surprise, Kennedy reaches out and grips my hand. Her fingers are icy.
“I didn’t know.” Even though she’s whispering, this is it: the high note, the crescendo. “It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.”
Her eyes are huge and dark, mirrors of the sky. For a second we stand there, only inches apart, staring at each other, and I know that in some way, we understand each other.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say, because I know that this is what she wants—or needs—me to tell her.
She withdraws her hand, sighing a little, like someone who’s been walking all day and finally gets to sit.
“Hey!”
I whip around and freeze. Andre has just pushed out of the front doors. Backlit, he seems to be made wholly of shadow. “Hey, you!”
“Shit.” Kennedy twists around in her seat. “Go,” she says to me, her voice low, urgent. Then the window zips up and she guns it, her tires skidding a little on the gravel. I have to jump backward to keep from getting crushed; I bang my shin on a license plate, feel a dull nip of pain in my leg.
“Hey, you. Stop!”
Panic makes me slow. I skid across the lot, regretting my sandals now. My body feels unwieldy, bloated and foreign, like in those nightmares where you try to run and find you haven’t gone anywhere.
Andre is fast. I can hear his footsteps pounding on the gravel as he ricochets between parked cars.
I reach the car at last and hurl myself inside. My fingers are shaking so badly it takes me three tries to get the keys in the ignition. But I do, finally, and wrench the gear into reverse.
“Stop.” Andre slams up against my window, palms flat, face contorted with rage, and I scream. I punch down on the gas, whipping away from him even as he drums a fist against my hood. “Stop, damn it!”
I throw the gear into drive, cutting the wheel to the left, my palms slick with sweat even though my whole body is freezing. Little whimpers are working their way out of my throat, spasms of sound. He makes a final lunge at me, as if to throw himself in front of the car, but I’m already pulling away, bumping onto Route 101 and flooring it, watching the speedometer slowly tick upward.
Come on come on come on.
I half expect him to appear again on the road. But I check the rearview mirror and see nothing but empty highway; and then the road curves and bears me away from Beamer’s, away from Andre, toward home.