“Do not hang up on me!” Her voice bites through the line. “You always bail when the going gets tough—not this time!” Her words are sharp as she doles out the reprimand. “When did you last hear from her?”
Heather and I met in high school. She was a pregnant teen with no friends, and I quickly became the best of them. She loved me to the point of obsession. She came over every day after school, followed me home like a puppy and my mother would laugh, accusing me of picking up a pregnant stray. When Heather’s child arrived, she named her Allison, a tribute to our friendship. But as kind as the gesture may have been, it made me uncomfortable. Soon Heather wanted to match outfits, hairstyles, even talked her father into buying a beat-up old Honda—a matching red to mine. It creeped me out. The boys I dated she wanted to date and often did. It was a disaster. When I went away to college, she didn’t have the grades or means to follow me there. I was thankful for the reprieve until one icy fall night she tracked me down in my dorm.
“October fifteenth—my roommate’s birthday,” I whisper. “She found me in my dorm, and I told her to leave, to never come back.” I hated Heather. She ate my sanity for breakfast when we were in high school, and I couldn’t afford to let her steal my precious college years, too.
“Shit, Ally. October fifteenth was three days ago. Isn’t that when you said Reagan went missing?”
A breath gets locked in my throat. “It’s just a coincidence.” My mind reels trying to make the connection seem less important than it is. “I’ve tracked her a few times on Facebook. She’s happy now.”
“A little stalking in reverse, huh?”
“I don’t know. I was bored. It was over two years ago. Anyway, she has her hands full with her own kids. I doubt she wanted another.” My body seizes with a spasm of heat. What exactly do her kids look like? Could Ota have been one of them?
“You know you’re thinking it. I’ll look her up during free time before lights out. But if that bitch is documenting a road trip through Idaho, I’m calling out my girls to do some damage.”
Jane has long professed to be involved in some intricate network that links to the outside. Usually, I roll my eyes at the mention of this girl gang she’s able to rustle up on a moment’s notice, but my body is pounding like a pulse and the room feels as if it’s shifting, elongating. Anything seems possible in this nightmare of mine.
She breathes hard into the phone. “And lastly?”
“What?” I coil my finger around a loose thread on my sweater, cutting off the blood flow to the tip. I like the pain. It lets me know I’m still living, that this numbness I’ve been thrust into isn’t impervious to it. A missing finger might just be what I need to get me through this.
“You know what—or should I say who.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God. I hit the red button on the screen and end the call. That’s enough of that.
* * *
The police artist arrives at four thirty, a tall, stalky man with a face full of stubble. His name is Dan and he lays out his portfolio before us so we can peruse his previous work. Each of the faces he’s rendered all have the same cartoonish eyes, elongated noses, and this portfolio field trip in which he was hoping to win our trust does just the opposite for me.
He asks James to leave the room so I can give him my description while he sketches away on an oversized sketchpad. He asks vanilla questions about Ota throughout our time together and I try my hardest to describe her right down to the last molecule. When we’re through, he asks James to do the same, only this time I’m allowed to stay in the room.
“It sounds as if you both saw the same girl,” he jokes, offering a flippant smile our way before regretfully digesting it. “Sorry. I’ve never been in this situation before. That was distasteful and I apologize.”
“No need to.” James lands his hand on my knee. “We’ve never been in this situation either. Hope to never again. I have a strong feeling we’ll find her—our Reagan.”
My heart lurches unnaturally as I eye my husband. A strong feeling? Are those just words, or does he mean them? How can he have a strong feeling we’ll find her when I don’t have any damn feelings at all? Reagan took all of my feelings, all of my heart, and I’m bleeding out from the inside while slowly losing my mind. I don’t have a strong feeling we’ll find her. I wish to God I did. The butter knife lying next to the pile of unopened mail catches my eye, and the urge to cut a line along the inside of my forearm grips me. I might feel something then.
“How’s it going?” I try to peer over at his work, but he carefully tips the board up.
“It’s going well. I’ll show you the picture in just a moment. Yours first.” His brows wrinkle as his hand moves frenetically across the page. “You know, I’ve done this before, interviewed several people while sketching a suspect.” He blows hard over the page. “I’ve never had this happen before, though.” He turns his sketchpad around and there she is. “This is from the description you gave me.” He nods my way.
“Wow.” It’s all I can manage. “That’s uncanny.” There she is, little lying Ota staring back at me with those black alien eyes, that eerie grimace on her face that I once thought adorable—and yet I could never quite put my finger on what was wrong with her. Too clean, too pressed, too Eastery. All of it felt unnatural, inhuman.
“And this”—he takes the sketchbook back and flips the page—“is yours.” He blinks a smile at James while resting the board on his knees.
“Holy crap.” James shakes his head.
The image staring back at us is identical with the exception her eyes look beadier, too inset, her jaw cut and defined in a way that gives her an evil flare.
“Scary,” I whisper.
“I thought so, too.” Dan shakes his head. “I’ve never drawn a kid before, but this one creeped me out. Marilyn filled me in on your case. It sounds right out of a horror movie.” He mimics a knocking motion. “Some kid comes by weeks on end, says she lives in a house down the street. Come to find out there’s no house, just dense woods. That’s something else.”
James touches his fingertips together over and over, something he’s been known to do when he’s overwhelmed. A silent applause for his own insecurities. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know, man.” He folds his sketchbook over and shoves it neatly into an oversized bag. “Obviously, she’s too young to do this on her own. But why help out an adult?”
“But what if her parents were threatening her?” The words trill right out of my mouth. “There are abusive parents out there who can get their kids to do just about anything.”
James shoots me a quiet look.
“I don’t think so,” Dan says as the zipper on his bag gives a sharp sizzle. “I’d imagine the last thing a kid who’s being abused wants to do is drag another kid into their misery.”
“Unless she thought it would spare her a little pain. Misery does love company.” I should know. I thanked God for Jane, especially when she was the one being beaten.
He tips his head back and blinks into the idea. “I guess I never thought of that. But in all honesty, the kid sounds creepy. Something about it.” He shudders as he makes his way to the door. “I’m keeping you in my prayers. I’m a big believer things happen for a reason.”
He’s met with blank stares. Odd words from an odd man. But it’s understandable. People don’t quite know what to say at times like these.
“It’s okay.” James pats him on the back as the young man struggles to remain composed.
“I’ve got a kid, man. I can’t imagine the things that are going through your heads. I’m so sorry.” He sniffs his way out the door as if holding back emotions. “I’ll send the composite to Marilyn first thing.”
We wave him off and stand on the porch long after his car disappears into the night.
“What are you thinking?” James keeps his gaze trained toward the woods at the end of the street.