“It did seem kind of random,” Meredith said. “It was a robbery. He asked for money. He was looking for the safe.” She glanced across the table at Becca Nichols. Becca was almost certainly Lisa’s best friend, and so far she hadn’t said a word. She was looking at her food but not eating it. Meredith recalled what Kristy had told her last week (possible? only last week?) about Becca’s older sister being pregnant. Well, when it rained it poured. What did that even mean?
“Did he look at her funny when he came in?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith said. “It was hard to—”
“Did he actually say it was random?” Amanda asked. “When he was in there, did he say it?”
“Christ, Amanda,” Becca exploded. “Who would walk in there and say, ‘Nobody move. This is a random robbery’? Seriously, are you even listening to yourself?”
“She’s trying to help,” Abby said, “which is more than I can say for you.”
“He just said he wanted the money,” Meredith said. “That was all he said.”
“Right,” Abby said. “Of course that’s what he said. That’s his cover. He makes it look like a robbery so no one will know he’s been like stalking her for two months. Nobody is going to solve this mystery but us, Meredith.”
“For her mom,” Amanda said. “For Colleen, we have to find her. And for us, too. For the whole school. For everybody. We need her. People are starting to say she’s dead. That’s not fair. That’s not cool. She’s not dead.”
“I don’t think so either,” Meredith said. “I think he’s keeping her somewhere.”
“Who?”
“The guy. Whoever he is.” She knew she was on thin ice. Maybe it was all pretend anyway, what she knew, what she thought she knew. “What do you know about him?” she asked. “The Instagram guy? Do you know anything?”
“He’s from Pittsburgh,” Abby said. “He said he was a hockey coach. He said he’d show her his big stick.”
“Wow,” Meredith said. “What did the cops say when you told them that?”
“The cops are shit,” Abby said. “They don’t care. Will you help us?”
“Sure,” Meredith said. “But I don’t think there’s really very much I can do.”
“We can only do so much, but there is so much we can do,” Amanda said. “That was our mission trip motto last year.” She bent over to retrieve her Vera Bradley backpack. When she sat up again she was smiling.
“Oh my god,” she said to Meredith. “I love your shoes.”
?
Steven Overbeck was not interested in engaging with her in social studies. Despite his sweetness, or perhaps because of it, he was clearly out of his depth, and her fantasy, college-Steven-Overbeck would have to suffice for comfort. Without his banter behind her, she thought about what Abby had said, about the hockey coach from Instagram, but she didn’t think there was anything to it. She was fairly certain that the man who came into the Deli Barn had decided only after the robbery was a bust that he would take Lisa.
Why? Why would a robber become a kidnapper?
Because he needed money. Because he thought that maybe if he kidnapped her he could ask for a ransom, and if he lost his nerve or if it wasn’t worth it he could just let her go. Because he wanted to take something. Because there was only a couple hundred bucks in the register and there was no safe (where the hell was the money anyway?) and he had risked everything, every single thing he had, going into that store with that gun, and by god he was not going to risk everything and then leave with two hundred and eleven dollars. Meredith knew that all this had gone through his mind while he’d stood there looking down at them, all this in the space of four or five seconds, and then he had noticed her hair, Lisa’s hair, and then those slim bare shoulders courtesy of her cold-shoulder top, and then the fleshy gap at her lower back between her leggings and where her top had ridden up, then the firm slope of her leggings, and then her sandals. And then his eyes moved to the other girl, the one with the brown hair who was at least fifteen pounds heavier. Perhaps it wasn’t just about good looks: Which one could he carry, if there needed to be carrying? And the fatter one was wearing flats instead of heels, so she could run like hell, couldn’t she, run for her life in those sensible shoes, whereas no one could ever hope to run for her life in those golden sandals.
No. Meredith called bullshit on herself. Lisa was hotter. And that was why. There could be no doubt. He’d taken the pretty one. Everything Lisa had ever done, every stroke of the brush, every meal not eaten, every afternoon of shopping in every dressing room, everything had led her to this moment, to this choice. Years of reading her mother’s Cosmo had finally paid off. She’d won. The man had stood there wanting something, and then what he wanted was that. That. He could figure out the rest later. And that’s what he was doing right now, while Lisa sat on the couch, watching TV with Annie the dog, and Meredith sat at her desk in social studies with silent Steven Overbeck dutifully taking notes behind her, the scratch of his pencil the soundtrack of Lisa’s endless morning.
He was figuring out the rest.
?
“What did they say?” Jules wanted to know during library period. “What did they want?”
They were sitting in the back corner of the library in the beanbag chairs. There were only three beanbag chairs and you had to ask to use them during library period, and usually the answer was no, but Meredith could tell by the look on the librarian’s face that she, Meredith, might very well get the beanbag chairs every day for the rest of the year.
“They just wanted to know what happened,” Meredith said. “They think it was some stalker guy from Instagram.”
“I heard that,” Kristy said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Someone from the governor’s office.”
“What?” Jules asked. “The governor?”
“Somebody from his office,” Kristy said. “That’s what people were saying on Friday.”
“My mom thinks it was a setup,” Jules said. “That she just made it look like a kidnapping.”
“I heard that, too,” Kristy said. “I heard that’s what the police think.”
“What do you mean, a setup?” Meredith asked. “Like how?”
“Like she just wanted to run away with some guy,” Jules said. “But she didn’t want to get in trouble, so she made it look like a kidnapping. They made it look like a kidnapping, she and the guy, whoever he is, to throw everybody off. But it was all a fakeout.”
“Why would you go to all that trouble?” Meredith asked. “And so where are they now?”
“A beach,” Jules said. “You know, in like Guadalajara or something.”
“You don’t even know where Guadalajara is,” Meredith said. She was surprised by the edge in her voice, so added, gently, “She’s not in Guadalajara, okay?”
“How do you know?”
“It was a robbery,” Meredith said. “I’m telling you. I was there. It was just a robbery. And then he took her, just . . . I don’t know. Just . . . because.”
“If that’s true, you are so lucky,” Kristy said. “Oh my god, it totally could have been—”
“I know,” Meredith said.
“Or maybe it wasn’t luck,” Jules said, shifting onto her side on the beanbag chair, redefining its shape. “Maybe it was just all that bad karma catching up with her.”
“That’s mean,” Kristy said.