Kill You Last (2 page)

WHEN I GOT home, Mom was sitting in the kitchen doing a crossword puzzle while she watched TV. The scent of chicken and sweet potatoes was in the air, and the table was set for three. I immediately felt bad that we were going to have yet another dinner without Dad. When Mom saw the chow mein covered with aluminum foil, she scowled.

“I stopped at the studio,” I explained. “Dad’s doing a Chinese menu. He said he wouldn’t be home for dinner.”

Her forehead creased, and she nodded silently. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. When I was in grade school, she used to ask how school was, but school was always the same, and even though I was a good student, the best thing about every day was when it was over. So I never wanted to talk about it. Meanwhile, as I grew older, I couldn’t help noticing that my parents’ relationship grew more and more strained, so when I reached the bratty age of twelve, I had the perfect retort. Each time Mom asked how school was, I’d say, “How’re things with Dad?”

It didn’t take long for Mom to stop asking about school.

The ironic thing was, now that I was eighteen, I sometimes wished she would.

“What a weird day,” I said, putting the food in the refrigerator in case I got hungry later.

“Why do you say that?” Mom asked.

I told her about the detectives and the missing girls, and then showed her the anonymous e-mail.

Mom’s eyebrows dipped into a V. “Do you have any idea who it could be from?”

I shook my head. “Could be someone just fooling around.”

Mom’s scowl deepened. “I’d hate to think that this is someone’s idea of a joke.”

“Kind of sick, right?”

She nodded. I could have let it drop, but the truth was, there was something else bothering me. It had been bothering me for a long time, long before the anonymous e-mail appeared on my phone, and I knew it had to bother Mom, too, but we’d never spoken about it. Now I was hoping that she would bring it up so I wouldn’t have to. When she didn’t, I took a deep breath. “Mom, the thing is, you know Dad. Sometimes he can be, well, a little inappropriate.”

She stiffened, and I knew immediately that she understood what I was referring to. Our eyes met, and then she gazed off into the distance. Just when I thought that she had nothing to say on the matter, she asked, “Is there something…you want to tell me?”

I felt relief that she was willing to listen. “Nothing specific. But I just can’t help wondering if that’s what the person who wrote that e-mail meant. I mean, the way Dad sometimes looks at my friends, especially when they’re wearing something low-cut? And the things he says. You know…things that…fathers shouldn’t say.”

Mom was still looking out the window. It had been sunny earlier, but now the day was gray and shadowless. “I don’t know,” she said. “It could mean anything. Or maybe you’re right, and it’s just a prank. There’s no way to know.”

But what she was really saying was, she didn’t want to talk about it.

We ate dinner and watched the news. Mom was all about not rocking the little boat our family sailed through life in. And even though we’d been sailing through stormy waters for years, she seemed reluctant to acknowledge it. To me, Dad was an upsetting contradiction. As a father he could be so much fun, always up for a movie or a game or some crazy spontaneous event in the city, and he was a good sounding board, too, always ready to listen to my problems and help me work through them. But then there was that other man, the one who stared a little too long at my friends, who joked lewdly about women with big chests and short skirts. A lot of men may have thought those things, but leave it to Dad to be the one who verbalized them.

When the commercials came on, Mom muted the TV. “I spoke to Beth today. She has to go to Boston in December, and she’s trying to see if she can arrange her flights so that she can visit with us for a day.”

“That would be great!” I said. Beth was Mom’s younger sister, a vagabond ESL teacher who’d lived all over the world and was currently teaching English in Shanghai. She couldn’t afford to come home every year, but when she did, she told wonderfully exotic stories of her adventures. Thanks to her, I planned to get a teaching degree and teach abroad after college.

Mom smiled. Then the commercials ended and the news came back on. She turned up the volume, as if needing to fill the emptiness left by Dad.

Later in my room, video chatting with Roman, I talked about almost winding up in Gabriel’s arms that day.

She sighed disapprovingly. “What do you see in him? I mean, yes, he’s gorgeous, but you know that deep down he’s totally shallow.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Uh, hello? The Christmas party?” she said. Every Christmas, Dad had a party in the studio. My friends loved to come because he would take pictures of them posing like models. “All Gabriel could talk about was his car and his apartment and how he made so much money gambling and knew all these famous people. He was so full of himself.”

“I think he just does that when he’s feeling insecure,” I said, trying to defend him. “If you’d seen him today, you’d have a different opinion. He was funny and charming and relaxed. And it really did feel like he was attracted to me. I keep wondering if maybe working with my father is what’s holding him back. Couldn’t that be it?”

“Shouldn’t it be the opposite?” Roman asked. “I mean, don’t guys always want to marry the boss’s daughter?”

“What if he’s worried that if he breaks up with the boss’s daughter he’ll have a problem with the boss?”

Instead of answering the question, Roman said, “What about Chris Clarke? Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all want him. This time next year, you could be sitting in Harvard Stadium watching him play Yale.”

“He’s interesting, too,” I allowed.

“So?”

“So all he ever does is smile and wave. If he’s really serious, why doesn’t he do something?”

“Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he’s waiting to see if you’re interested.”

“I always wave and smile back,” I said. “What else am I supposed to do? Accidentally bump into him and drop my books?”

“Oh God, no. That is so middle school. Why can’t you just walk up to him and say hi?”

“I guess I could.”

“Could?” Roman echoed.

“Okay, okay. I guess I
will
.”

“Hmmm.” When Roman made that humming sound, she wanted you to believe that she was thinking about what you’d just said. But it was really her way of taking a moment so that when she changed the topic it wouldn’t feel abrupt. “Did you show your dad that e-mail?”

“Yes. He didn’t think it was any big deal. But things were weird there anyway.” I told her about the detectives and the two missing girls.

“Seriously?” Roman’s interest perked up.

“They’re probably just runaways.”

“Or it could have something to do with those bodies they found on the south shore of Long Island a few years ago.”

I’d heard about that case. For a while the police had suspected two serial murderers were at work. “But they were mostly prostitutes.”

“And your point is?” Roman asked.

“Why now, after all that time? Doesn’t it make more sense that they’re just runaways?”

She hummed for a moment. “Okay, ask your dad if they went for their head shots together or came in separately.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Because if they went together, maybe they’re friends and ran away together, right? But if they went separately, then it could be something else.”

“Roman, come on—”

“Oh, please,
please
? This could be really exciting.”

“To you.”

“Just ask him if they came in together or separately.”

“He’s at work.”

“It’s a five-second phone call. Come on, please? I’ll be your friend for life.”

“You’re already my friend for life.”

“Then in the next life, too.”

I gave in. The truth was, Roman’s interest had piqued my curiosity, too. Since we were video chatting, I picked up my BlackBerry and called Dad, who answered on the second ring. “

Hey, hon, what’s up?”

I asked him about the girls.

“Why do you want to know?” Dad asked.

“I was telling Roman about it. You know how she’s obsessed with true crime stuff.”

“What crime?” Dad asked. “They’re just missing. And I’m kind of busy right now.”

“I know, Dad. Roman just wants to know if they came together or separately, that’s all.”

“Probably separately,” Dad said. “We do a lot of head shots. It’s hard to remember.”

Meanwhile, Roman had hastily written something down on a piece of paper and was holding it up on the screen:
Names and where from?

“Do you remember their names? And where they were from?” I asked.

“Shels …” Dad sounded impatient. I wondered why he didn’t just answer, since that would have been the fastest way to get off the phone.

“The police must have had some idea,” I said.

“Yeah, uh, Rebecca, Margaret, maybe from Pennsylvania or Connecticut or New Jersey, something like that. I really have to get off the phone, hon, okay?”

“Sure, Dad.”

We hung up and I told Roman what I’d learned.

“You’re the best,” Roman said. “Love you. Later.” She was gone, probably to search for every crumb of information she could find about missing girls named Rebecca and Margaret. Meanwhile, I still had homework to do, and an outfit to pick out for an interview at Sarah Lawrence College the next morning. But an hour later, Roman was back on video chat. “Go to the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Select female, Connecticut, and missing within one year.”

I did what she said and three thumbnail photos popped up.

“See Peggy D’Angelo from Hartford?” Roman asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Hit view poster.”

I did. Peggy D’Angelo was a round-faced girl described as five feet six inches tall and weighing 135 pounds.

“Now do the same thing with Pennsylvania,” Roman said.

“This one’s name is Rebecca Parlin, from Scranton.”

Rebecca Parlin had a bony face and thin lips. She was five feet nine inches and weighed 120 pounds.

“So?” I said.

“Both were aspiring models,
and
both went missing after saying they were going to a mall to meet someone.”

I went back and took a closer look. Peggy D’Angelo was cute but, at that height and weight, far from model material. Rebecca Parlin was closer to an acceptable model’s height and weight. But she was hardly what you’d call a beauty.

“I bet those are the two girls,” Roman said.

“All the way from Hartford and Scranton?” I asked. “Aren’t they both, like, hundreds of miles away?”

“About a hundred miles…Maybe a two-hour drive.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Lots of photographers do head shots. Why would they come all the way to Dad’s studio?”

“Good question,” said Roman.

I WENT TO the interview at Sarah Lawrence the next morning. Even though I imagined myself going to a large university in a college town like Amherst or Ann Arbor, I’d promised Mom I’d consider Sarah Lawrence because I knew she wanted me to stay close to home. The college had a well-respected teacher-training curriculum, and it was one of the few in the United States that offered an exchange program with the University of Havana in Cuba, which sounded exciting.

I got back to school just as lunch began, and as soon as I stepped into the cafeteria, I sensed that something was off. People stared at me, and tables actually got quiet when I passed. When Roman, sitting at our regular table, saw me, her eyes widened.

“What’s going on?” I whispered as I sat down.

“You don’t know?” she asked, obviously surprised.

I shook my head and felt apprehensive. Based on the looks I’d just gotten, I realized it was not only something I didn’t know, but also something I probably didn’t
want
to know.

“There are
three
missing girls,” Roman said. “And all of them got head shots by your father. It was on the news a couple of hours ago. There’s this Web site called Team Hope where the parents of missing kids compare notes and try to help one another. The parents of Peggy D’Angelo and Rebecca Parlin got together there. And when the parents of the third girl heard about the first two, they got in touch, too.”

It took a moment to digest.
On the news
…my father and three missing girls? The whole cafeteria knew. No wonder they’d stared. Aware that some kids were still gazing in my direction, I looked down at the lunch table, too uncomfortable to meet their eyes. I would have left, but that would probably draw even more attention.

“What else did they say?” I asked.

“Not much. So far the only things that link the girls are the head shots and going to malls at lunch to meet someone. The police are reviewing security videos from the malls.” Roman leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “Last night, when we thought it was just two of the missing girls who’d gotten their head shots from your dad…I think I could believe that it might have been a coincidence …”

“But not three.” I finished the sentence for her. “Did they say where the third one was from?”

“Trenton, New Jersey.”

My insides began to knot. Three girls from three different states who all went to my father for head shots, and now all three were missing and the police were investigating. It was bad and awful and upsetting in a way that could compare to nothing thus far in my life. And then there was that feeling I’d had last night that Dad hadn’t been completely honest with me. “Be right back.” I headed for the small outdoor courtyard beside the cafeteria, careful not to look anywhere except straight ahead. I didn’t need to see all those eyes watching me. I could feel them, and that was bad enough.

In the courtyard, I dialed Dad’s cell. He answered after the first ring. Given the sudden tumult in my life, there wasn’t much I felt I could count on, but one thing was his always answering the phone when I called. “I know why you’re calling,” he said. “I wish I had an explanation for you, Shels, but I don’t.” He sounded uncharacteristically glum.

“It can’t be a coincidence that all three girls got their head shots from you and now they’re all missing.”

“I agree,” he said, and I felt relieved. At least he wasn’t being evasive. I waited for a moment, hoping he’d say something more. Maybe offer some possible explanation. Then I remembered my conversation with Roman the night before. “Dad, there’s something else I don’t understand. I saw the pictures of two of the girls on the Missing and Exploited Children Web site. They really didn’t look like modeling material.”

Dad was quiet for a moment. “Well, think about it, Shels. Those were probably family photos with crap lighting and all that. Most of the girls I work with don’t look like models until they’ve had their hair and makeup done, not to mention airbrushing afterward.”

“But one of them was five six and weighed a hundred and thirty-five pounds,” I said.

“Maybe she wanted to be a plus-size model,” Dad said. “There are a lot of possibilities.”

It didn’t sound right, and I felt my insides twist anxiously. Yes, there probably were
lots of possibilities.…Including the possibility that once again I wasn’t getting the truth.