“The weird one?”
“Yeah. She …”
“Cass, you’re crying. What’s wrong?”
So I told you. I told you everything.
“She was a prostitute, then?” you said, when I had finished.
“No. She was a stripper. And, what did she call it? A cam girl.”
“Huh,” you said. “I wouldn’t have guessed. She seemed so …”
“Smart? Cool? Smart girls can be sexual, you know. It’s her body, she can do what she wants with it.” I sounded defensive; shrill. I didn’t know what I was saying or why.
“I know that,” you said. “I didn’t mean to … Oh, I don’t know. I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
I looked at you for a moment, then sighed. “Julie told her it was dangerous. I should have too. But I guess I was, I don’t know, I guess I thought it was glamorous, you know? I got why it was a thrill for her.”
You nodded. “I see that. But, look, you are not to blame for this.”
“No,” I said, unconvinced.
“So I guess there’s one big question,” you said.
“Which is?”
“Which is what are we going to do about it?”
“What are we …”
“Yeah. What are we going to do? To find her?”
“I don’t …”
“We have to try, right? We have to try to find her.”
I thought back to all my research in the library. My theory that my voice was one of the dead women. And now it was like the circle had turned all the way around again, and again the Houdini Killer was in the middle of it.
“You hardly know her,” I said.
“So?” you said. “She’s in trouble. We have to help her.”
“Why, because you like her?”
You stared at me. “What?”
“I saw you, the way you boosted her over the fence. I … it’s fine. I don’t know why I’m even mentioning it. Sorry … I’m … I’m not used to speaking to people, I’m not …”
“Cassie,” you said gently.
I looked up.
“Yes?”
“Is this why you were weird in the pickup?”
“Uh-huh.”
He smiled. A sad kind of smile. “I don’t like Paris. I mean, I do, I like her a lot, she’s a cool girl. But I like … you.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Oh come on. You didn’t pick up on it?”
Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.
But I said nothing.
“****,” you said. “Now I’ve made it super awkward. I’m sorry. I … look, just forget that, okay? Let’s focus on Paris.”
Yes, focus on Paris. Focus on Paris. Don’t think about …
Don’t think about …
His hands on your sides, his hands in your hair, his hands …
No.
You took a deep breath. “So. Paris. The cops have not done one thing to stop him so far, have they? The killer, I mean.”
“You think it’s the killer? Horowitz said she might have run away.”
“You think that’s likely?”
I looked away. “No.”
“So,” you said. “We need to hurry.”
“This is the real world,” I said. “People get away. Killers get away. It happens all the time. How are we going to stop it?”
You looked at me strangely, narrowing your eyes. “ ‘People get away’? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said.
MY MOTHER. I WAS TALKING ABOUT MY MOTHER. A GUY BRAINED HER AND RAN AND THAT WAS IT.
But I wasn’t going to tell you that, not then.
And anyway, I had to admit it was true that from a distance the cops didn’t seem to be doing much about any of the women who had gone missing. I mean, it had been going on for so long and there had been no progress, and people were talking; it was the focus of a bunch of media stories too.
On the other hand:
At the same time though, I was thinking of Agent Horowitz. He seemed smart, and I liked him by instinct.
And yet on the other hand again:
You were right. It had been months, years even, and no advances had been made. No killer had been caught.
And … what if they didn’t get away this time? I mean, I couldn’t bring my mom back from the dead and I couldn’t get the guy who killed her, couldn’t make him pay, but what if I could get this guy?
This guy.
This one guy.
And make him pay.
And maybe find Paris before he killed her too.
Even then I knew this was not a realistic idea.
“Plus … ,” you said. “Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious? The lack of police action? I mean … what if the killer was a cop himself?”
“A cop?”
“It would add up, right?”
“I guess.”
“Not only that, Julie said that Paris told her not to call the cops. Why would she do that?”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t know. I’d forgotten about that.”
I will give it to you: I am pretty sure you were only doing all this to distract me, to give me something to think about, rather than just uselessly worrying about Paris, but you did it excellently.
“Well,” you continued, “what if that was because she knew the killer was a cop? So there would be no point calling them; she wouldn’t have known which of them were in on it, maybe?”