But me? Well, I’m no Jack Bauer.
Still, I try to make a plan. The door and the toilet are in opposite corners, but the space is so small they’re really not that far apart. Maybe I could stand on the toilet and hold the TV, and next time he comes in, I could heave it at his head. But the TV is pretty heavy, at least for the shape I’m in, and I have no idea when he’ll show up next. Maybe I could unscrew the light tubes and wait in the darkness for him and swing one like a bat. Only I have a feeling that would just leave him pissed off.
If this were 24, the bed would rest on springs and I would be able to uncoil one and turn it into a weapon. But this is a futon bed that rests on wooden slats so it can be turned into a couch in the daytime. I’ve pulled it up to its couch position, and now I leave it there, even when I sleep. I don’t want him to get any ideas.
Only I’m sure he already has them.
Note in the Pocket of Kayla Cutler’s
Jeans [Written in Blood on the Back of
a Water Bottle Label]
The Eighth Day
Gabie
WHY DOES ANYONE ever get drunk? It’s so not worth it.
I’m in the bathroom, throwing up for what feels like the tenth time, when I hear my parents drive up. The soft light from the bathroom window hurts my eyes. I rinse out my mouth and stagger back to bed.
“Gabie?” My mom knocks on the door and then opens it before I answer. I pull the pillow over my head. “Why are you still here? You’ll be late to school.”
“I’m not going,” I mumble. “I’ve got the flu.”
“Steve, come in here,” she calls. “Gabie’s sick.” She slips a cool hand under the pillow and onto my forehead.
“Are you running a fever?”
“No. Just mostly sick to my stomach.” I don’t move the pillow. She had better not get close enough to smell the Kahlua. Oh, crap. Is the bottle still sitting on the coffee table downstairs? There’s no way I can sneak down and move it now.
“It could be food poisoning. Did you eat anything at Pete’s that had been left out on the counter too long?’
“No.” My stomach twists at the thought of food. My mouth tastes like swamp water. My teeth are wearing little mittens.
Within three minutes, my parents have taken my temperature, consulted with each other on my symptoms, and decided that once I’ve gone four hours without vomiting, I can try the BRAT diet—bananas, rice, applesauce, and unbuttered toast.
The sound of their voices makes my head ache, and the idea of eating anything makes me want to throw up again. I keep my eyes and my mouth shut tight until they finally leave me to rest.
I sleep most of the morning, dreaming of Kayla over and over.
In my dream, she’s walking in front of me down a crowded city street. Even though she is wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants, I would recognize her anywhere, that straight black hair, those long, fast strides. But she won’t turn around, even when I call out her name. I try to follow her, but no matter how quickly I push my way through the crowds, she is always just turning the corner.
I dream that we are hiding in a dark place, and she is trying to tell me something vitally important, but I can’t understand the words she urgently whispers.
In one dream, she’s sitting on the edge of a bed in a bare white room. Her head is hanging down, and she’s crying. I call to her, but she doesn’t look up. I run to her, but it’s like there’s a plate of glass between us. No matter how far I reach my arms, I can’t touch her. She doesn’t even know I’m there.
Finally, I make myself get up. I go downstairs for some dry toast. It looks like my parents caught catnaps and then went back to work. The house is empty. I find the Kahlua bottle in the cabinet and flush to think of one of them putting it away. Thank God there was only one glass. Will they confront me about it?
I curse myself when I remember how I pressed up against Drew, how I licked his ear, and then told him I wanted him.
I did, too. But partly I was scared of what was happening. That’s why I kept drinking so much. And why I kept trying to make things go farther. Because it seemed like the only way through was to keep pushing past the fear. To just jump.
I guess Drew didn’t want to jump.
At least not with me.
It’s one thing to skip school. But I can’t miss work. Not only are they shorthanded, but Drew needs my car to make deliveries. Only what does he think of me? That I’m some drunk slut? That I’m his destiny? That I’m pathetically lonely?
Later, at work, he’s completely normal. Normal for Drew before Kayla disappeared. He works hard, he doesn’t say much, he doesn’t look me in the eye. Is he embarrassed? Does he care? Does he wish I would just go away?
The Eighth Day
Drew
GABIE’S MINI COOPER is not in the school parking lot. Will she blow off work, too? But when I walk into the break room, she’s there, looking pale, sliding her purse into a cubby.
“Hey, Gabie.” My hands feel weird and empty hanging by my sides. “How’re you feeling?” A few hours ago, I knew exactly what I was doing. Now it’s like I don’t know anything. Should I kiss her cheek? Sweep her into my arms? Pat her shoulder? Hug her?
“Not that great.” She grabs a clean black apron from the stack.
I try to make a joke of it. “I should have told you it’s probably not a good idea to drink that much Kahlua. Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and a few additives can do a number on your system.” I pull my own apron over my head.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry it made me such a sloppy drunk.” She won’t meet my eyes.
I reach out and touch her shoulder. “I didn’t mind.”
She presses her lips together and then says, “I would never have acted that way otherwise.”
It feels like she’s punched me in the gut. My hand falls away. So what’s she saying? That we wouldn’t have kissed like that, so long that my lips are still sore, if she hadn’t been drunk?
Her gaze only touches mine for a second and then she walks down the hall. She goes straight to the front counter, even though there’s no one waiting to place an order. I grab a slip from the wheel and join Pete and Miguel in making pizzas. But I keep watching Gabie out of the corner of my eye.
Suddenly, things aren’t so simple anymore. All I want to do is be back in her bedroom, watching her sleeping face. Her lower lip so full it looks like a pillow. Her lashes dark against her cheeks.
Sure, maybe I’d like to do a few more things than just watch her sleep.
But I’ve never felt like this before. Not about Kayla, not about those girls in the park, not about anybody. When I’m around Gabie, it’s like someone has stripped off my skin. Like I’m all nerve endings.
And now all they do is hurt.
But no matter how bad or confused I feel, I need to tell Pete that it’s not safe to have just two people working. Once the pizzas are in the oven, I ask him if he has a minute. I follow him into his office.
“What’s up?” He runs his index finger over his mustache. It’s so thick it looks fake.
I think of how Gabie acted when she talked to him and try to sound as confident. “We really need three people on at night, so that if one person is making deliveries, then the other one isn’t left here all alone.”
“I’ve been worrying about that.” He sighs. “I just don’t know what to do. My margin is already as thin as a razor. The price of cheese alone is up 30 percent over last year.” He rests his fingers on his calculator as if he’s already adding up the costs.
“Maybe you could raise the prices a little bit. Business is good, right?”
“Yeah, it’s good. But for the wrong reasons.” He shakes his head. “People are here so they can talk about Kayla, look at where she worked, wonder what happened to her.”
“So make them pay for the privilege. I just don’t think it’s safe to have someone here alone while the other person is on delivery. When I was gone last night, some crazy guy came in and told Gabie people
were trying to pin Kayla’s murder on him.”
“Are you serious?” Pete’s eyes get wide. “Did she call the cops?”
I realize maybe we should have. “We talked about it. I came back while he was still here. When he saw me, he left in a hurry. But he just seemed crazy and pathetic.”
Pete starts scrabbling through his desk drawer. “I don’t think it’s up to you to say whether this guy has anything to do with this or not. That’s why we have cops.” He pulls out a business card and hands it to me, along with the phone. “You need to call Sergeant Thayer.”
ONCE THAYER hears the guy was driving a pickup, one that looked like it had been spray-painted brown, he goes ballistic.
Thayer and Gabie and I are in Pete’s office with the door closed, although I’m sure Pete’s listening right outside the door. And Thayer is so loud I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the staff and customers can hear him, too.
“So you didn’t think this was important?” He leans right into my face. “Hello? When it’s been all over the media that a pickup was seen in the vicinity the night Kayla disappeared?”
“But it wasn’t white,” I say, even though I guess what he’s going to say next.
“It was white until three days after Kayla went missing,” he says.
“But he kept saying he didn’t do it,” Gabie says. “And it felt like he was telling the truth.”
“Really? Then tell me who this is.” Thayer pulls a blurry photo out of an unmarked manila envelope. An iron band tightens across my chest. It’s the same guy. He obviously doesn’t know he’s being photographed. He’s getting out of his pickup on some street.
“That’s him,” Gabie says. She sounds like she’s about ready to start crying. “So you know about him already?”
I pick up the photo like I’m studying it. I’m really looking at the white house the pickup is parked in front of, trying to make out the street sign in the background. But it’s blurry and out of focus.
If I managed to find that house and went there tonight and looked around, or kidnapped this guy and tied him up and punched him until he begged for mercy, would I learn what really happened to Kayla? What he did to her? With her?
Or would I learn nothing?
“Have you seen Renfrew before last night? Maybe ordering at the counter, maybe when you made a delivery, maybe someplace else?” Thayer watches us with his hawk-like eyes. “Because he went to the same high school as you, only he graduated three years ago.”
Renfrew. I file the name away, in case it might be useful. Both Gabie and I are quiet, thinking, then we shake our heads.
I try to picture him with Kayla. Hurting her. Throwing her in the river.
Then I think of how nervous he was, chewing his thumbnail. Since my mom started using, she’s not a big planner. Exactly the opposite. But whoever took Kayla planned this.
And the voice—I still don’t think the voice was the same. Something nags at me about the voice of the man on the phone. He sounded…smug, that’s it. Like the cat who swallowed the canary.
“Yeah, this is the same guy who came in last night. But I’ve never seen him before.” I look at Gabie for a second, and she nods. “And his voice didn’t sound anything like the guy on the phone the night Kayla disappeared. I may not remember exactly how that guy sounded, but I know it wasn’t like that.” I wave the photo. “This guy looked like a tweaker. He could have painted his pickup just because it was white and he was worried. Tweakers, they don’t think straight.”
“Yeah, well, you would know something about that, wouldn’t you, Drew?” Thayer narrows his eyes. “I checked you out.”
Something cold traces my spine. “What? Why?”
“All we had was your word that Kayla left here to make a delivery. You were the only two working that night. You could have had something to do with her disappearance.”
“No way!” Gabie says.
I’m too stunned—and too angry—to say anything.
“Don’t worry, we came up with a witness at one of the other businesses who saw Kayla load the pizza boxes into her car and drive off alone. But while we were asking about you, Drew, we found out your mom seems to have a little problem. In fact, she got picked up earlier today. Someone reported a break-in last night at a storage facility where she leases space, and your mom showed up on the surveillance camera. What do you know about that?”
“That’s my mom.” I say. “Not me.” My left eye feels wet. I turn my head and run my knuckles over it. I really don’t want to be having this conversation.
At all.
The Ninth Day
Kayla
EVEN BEFORE the lock turns, I can smell the food. I sniff and sniff. It’s all I can do to keep from begging him to give it to me now. Instead, I stand up, with my hands clasped tightly together so he can’t see how they tremble.
“I saw her,” he tells me. He’s holding the tray high enough that I can’t see what’s on it. Saliva fills my mouth. In his other hand is a white-and-red plastic Target bag. “I saw your friend Gabie yesterday. She looked good.”
“Gabie?” At first, it’s just two syllables that don’t mean anything. My world has been reduced to these four white walls, this navy blue futon couch-bed, this TV, this tray of food I want to tear from his hands. It’s hard to believe there’s anything else.
And then I say Gabie’s name to myself again, and it’s like I see her. Really see her. I’m not sure how many people really do see Gabie. She’s smart, she works hard, but she doesn’t say a lot, hiding behind her slantwise bangs. But then she’ll say something so funny that you just can’t believe it came out of her mouth.
Still holding the tray above my head, he says, “Gabie was the one I really wanted. Not you. You were a mistake. You weren’t supposed to be working that night.”
“I’m sorry, master,” I say.
I look down, so he won’t see me. Won’t see that there’s still a real Kayla inside. I’m only a few feet from the food, but it might as well be miles. Last time when he saw me start to stuff the food in my mouth, he tore the rest from my hand and took it away. He told me he would not bring any more unless I acted with decorum. That was how he put it. “With decorum.” I’m pretty sure that word was on the SAT. Dignified, orderly, regular. Living in a hidden room with a head wound and a guy who wants me to call him master is anything but.
I still have to play along. I can’t afford to let him see that I’m still here. Inside the other Kayla. I have to pick my time and place. And I’ll only have one chance.
I imagine taking the silver pen from his pocket and sinking it in his throat, the way they do in movies when someone is choking in the wilderness and the doctor has nothing but a pen. What happens if you perform a tracheotomy on someone who doesn’t need one?
The pen glints dully in the light. And then I realize it’s really a metal X-Acto knife, like we use in art. The kind that holds a tiny slanted razor blade under the cap.
He keeps looking me up and down, but he doesn’t say anything after I apologize for being a mistake. Finally, he just shakes his head, his lip curled in disgust. I should be happy because that means he still isn’t interested in pushing me down on the futon couch-bed.
But if he doesn’t want that, then what good am I to him? Even if he did want me, it’s not like he’ll ever let me go. I’ve seen his face. I know exactly what he looks like.
I wish I had been nicer to Brock. He was so quiet I never knew what he was thinking. Until I broke up with him. Then the words came pouring out, but it was too late. Because I had already met Nathan.
Nathan is an umpire. He’s twenty and goes to Portland State, and he wants to be a teacher. We started talking after games, and I thought, I like Brock, he’s fun, but he’s not going to be the rest of my life. I started seeing that Brock was like a kid and Nathan was a man. So I broke up with Brock, and Nathan asked me out, and I was so happy to say yes. And then I asked Gabie to trade shifts with me.
Gabie would be
here now if she had said no. And God forgive me, but I would give anything not to be here. I would even trade places with Gabie.
That’s how low he’s brought me. I close my eyes for a second and try to beam his face to Gabie. So that if he ever comes for her, she’ll look past his plain vanilla exterior. See the horror beneath that bland little smile, the round glasses, the tan Dockers.
“I brought you some clean clothes.” He holds out the bag. “You can use some of your water bottles to wash with, and I’ll replace them.”
“Thank you, master.” As I take the bag, I keep my eyes down. I’m wondering what would happen if the next time he stepped into the room I had filled the Target bag with water bottles and swung it at his head.
“It’s a practical matter. You smell.” My eyes flick up, and I see his nose wrinkle. Without saying another word, he sets down the tray and leaves.
He doesn’t get that look anymore when he watches me, I realize. The cat-watching-a-bird look. Now when he looks at me, his eyes are flat and unfocused. Like he’s looking right through me.
As soon as the door closes, I pounce on the food. I’m not sure, but I think he’s bringing it further and further apart. Everything on the tray has come from a fast food place and is now lukewarm. Three bean and cheese burritos, and ten pieces of what look like Tater Tots with chili powder sprinkled on them. It’s all salty and rich and good, even with no ketchup or salsa packets. Less than two minutes later, I’m licking my fingers. Which probably aren’t that clean. Like the rest of me.
I look inside the bag. He left me a cheap white towel, a washcloth, a men’s white Hanes T-shirt, size medium, and a pair of men’s gray sweatpants. Also from Hanes, also a size medium. I wonder if he’s afraid to buy women’s clothes. If he’s worried the clerk would wonder why Mr. Loser is buying women’s clothes. Maybe that’s why there’s no panties or bra.