Little Girl Lost

  The phone buzzes in his hand and I take it from him. “I’ll handle this.” I head to the guest bedroom, pick up, and hang up. Instead, I pull out my own phone and dial the correctional facility that holds my sister. Welders Correctional Facility in Northern California is about as anti-prison as you can get. It’s more Club Med meets Camp Lockdown, and Jane has never been happier. I know this because those were her exact words once she was transferred over from a state-run facility. Jane Greer never took her husband’s name, but she took his life. That was a part of the prosecution’s closing argument. I secretly thought it was a cute play on words—cute being the irony, of course.

  “Jane Nicole Greer, please,” I say as the operator at the facility picks up the line. “This is her sister, Allison Leigh Price.” I’ve never understood the rationale of adding the middle name, but the correctional facility insists we use them as some sort of code to verify who we really are. Jane is my older sister by four years, same face, same dark head of hair, same general distrust of the world—a parting gift from our mother.

  “Is this a family emergency?”

  “Yes, it most certainly is.” I wait patiently as the operator cues my sister and moody rock music from the seventies fills my ear. James steps in and I mouth the words my sister before he heads back out. It feels like a relief when he’s gone. Like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I know that I haven’t been an angel in this legal contractual obligation of ours, but besides that, it has always felt as if James and I were warring with one another long before Reagan arrived on the scene.

  The music stops abruptly. “Ally from the valley,” Jane chirps on the other end. She’s not worried for me in regards to the family emergency because it’s the same excuse I use to speak with her on a regular basis.

  “Reagan is missing. She’s gone.” My voice hurtles before my thoughts like machine gunfire. The bullets hit you before you know what’s happening. That about sums up this nightmare. “She disappeared three days ago. I don’t know who’s taken her. There was a girl and she was evil. She was in on it and there was no house at the end of the damn street!”

  A dizzying conversation ensues between the two of us with her volleying emotionally charged questions at me and with me adding more confusion to the situation by way of convulsive sobs.

  “Did you tell Mom?”

  Ironically, it’s the mention of my mother that quells me enough for me to regain my composure. “Yes. She knows the facts.”

  “Shit.” Jane’s voice is huskier than my own, hardened like tires on gravel as if she were a longtime smoker, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just her way. Life has always made her a little rougher around the edges than it did me. As much as I put up a front that everything was fine and dandy at home, Jane took my mother’s abuses and wore them like a badge with pride. She rode around with the bad boys as soon as she was old enough—as soon as she figured out how much it pissed off our monster of a mother.

  It wasn’t poor Jane’s fault. My mother had carved her existence out in stone with each crash of the wooden spoon. In Jane’s mind, danger had linked itself to excitement and she sought after men who would treat her ten times worse than our mother ever did. But finally, her patience wore thin and so did her twice broken arm. The third break was the charm—her attorney coined the phrase—and she snapped. Jane pulled a butcher knife from the kitchen and slit her husband’s throat in bed. The prosecution argued he was asleep, but Jane insisted he was watching television, a show about an Alaskan family who lived in the wild. Poor Donny wanted to live in the wild far away from civilization and his stark raving mad wife. But he was an abuser, and in the end, he suffered the ultimate abuse. Jane later told me he really was sleeping, but that was the only way she knew for sure she could pull it off. He was stronger than she was by over a hundred pounds. And now she gets three hots and a cot for the rest of her life. Her words, not mine.

  “I need my baby.” I moan as I rock myself over the floor. “Help me, Janey. Help me, please.”

  “You better believe I’m going to help you.” The line goes silent, and I can practically see my sister’s wheels spinning. “You don’t think this has anything to do with the Cronelle family, do you?”

  “No.” I’m emphatic about it. Martha Cronelle was our neighbor back on Walker Avenue when we lived in Woodcrest. Jane and I were in elementary school when we witnessed Graham Cronelle bash his wife’s head into their built-in barbeque. Jane and I were prone to spy on any and everyone, and this was one time it bit us in the ass. Once Martha Cronelle turned up mysteriously dead, we confessed to our father the heinous thing we had seen and he marched us right down to the police department and had us relay every grizzly detail. He was not tolerant to men who beat their wives, just wives who beat their children. “I don’t think so. It would be weird.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. His boys tortured me for years in school. Garret and Ginger.”

  I blink to the ceiling, suddenly regretful I ever called my sister. “I don’t think his name was Ginger. That’s just what you called him.”

  “He was a shit. They both were. And they’ve always been bitter that we took away their father.”

  “I know.” It’s true. They cornered us one day and told us off. Their aunt had to raise them. She denied them the video game trance they were accustomed to and cut off their supply of dirty magazines that their father kept them fresh in. “They were shits, but they didn’t do this.”

  “How about that idiot that made your life miserable?”

  My blood runs cold. She doesn’t even have to say her name. I don’t want her to. I don’t want to think it. She’s like a demon, easily conjured to life and hard as hell to get rid of.

  I clear my throat as another painful knot begins to build.

  “Heather Evans,” she whispers.

  A jolt of electrocution runs up my spine at the sound of her name.

  “Shut up.” I pull the phone back and eye that little red dot that can end this conversation in its dizzying tracks.

  “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 do
cumenting 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.

  “I’m thinking we need to figure out a way to crawl to heaven and beg for our daughter’s safe return. You really think we’ll find her?”

  The whites of his eyes cut to mine. “Yes, we’re going to find her.” His arms glide around my waist once again. I don’t think in the entire history of us James has ever held me so much. “I know we will. I’m certain of it.” His grip gets a little bit tighter.

  And I wonder.

  How can he be so certain?

  * * *

  At one o’clock sharp, James and I step out onto our porch to an audience of thousands. Bodies congest our keyhole street along with camera equipment in every shape and size, cropping up like mushrooms along the periphery.

  “Holy shit,” James mutters as we ogle the swelling crowd.

  Odd thoughts go through your mind at times like these, but the words break a leg keep circling my brain.

  James has donned a suit that I helped iron this morning. I’m wearing a blue and white polka dot dress with a belted waist, patent leather heels, looking every bit the average 1955 Stepford wife. James slicked his hair back and shaved. His skin is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I went through the trouble of putting on foundation and a swath of red lipstick. We look psychotic, deranged, like skittish wild animals pinned against a wall.

  McCafferty waltzes up with her dismal sense of style, that constant frown of disappointment she wears just for us. “Keep calm.” She pulls us both along like children to the lawn where twin giant posters stare out at the crowd, Reagan and her innocent toothless smile. Her school picture was taken back in California, but the photographer sent the proofs to the police department as soon as Rich filled him in on the details. Marilyn thought it was pertinent to have her latest picture available to the public. The charcoal sketch of Ota stands proudly by her side, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from running over and tearing it down, scratching that little terror’s paper eyes out in front of the rabid crowd.

  Rich introduces us to the waiting throngs, does a little police depa
rtment tap dance regarding how they are doing everything in their power to bring our little girl home, but my eyes keep flitting to the camera crews, CNN, FOX to name a few, including all the local channels, and some cable outlets I’ve never even heard of before. My body shakes right down to the core. This is real. This is happening. Reagan is gone, and we are now that family. This was something that happened to other people, and now we were those people. The shit had hit the fan. The other shoe had dropped, and every other shitty euphemism was taking shape and coming to life in my worst nightmare.

  James steps up to the mic. “Thank you for coming out today.” He nods into the crowd as if he were the pastor of some monstrously large congregation. The Church of Missing Children. An apostate church, and we are the heretics that run it. “My name is James Price, and this is my wife, Allison.” He pulls me in and nods to the crowd, stunned to have so many prying eyes staring us down at once. “My wife and I are grateful that you’ve come to help us find our daughter. She’s a good girl.” His voice warbles and he pulls back to swallow down his pain. “She has the best personality.” His voice cracks when he says best. “We would give anything to have her back. Please, if anyone knows anything. We would—” James gets distracted by something to his left and I notice a woman in a fur coat rocking herself side to side. “We would give anything to have her back.”

  My eyes cut to the woman again. I recognize her from the Boys and Girls Club. The hugger. She’s eyeing James as if he were her favorite dessert. Not that I could blame her—most women do. But something about the way he paused alarms me. What if someone else picked up on this? It’s bad enough I noticed.

  “What would you like to say to the person who has her?” one of the reporters from the front row shouts.