The Night She Disappeared

  I’m not taking any chances. I’ll do it in pieces, to make myself less vulnerable. I open a water bottle. I’ve been missing being able to drink cold water, but right now I’m glad it’s all room temperature. I touch my cut after first wiping my fingers on the wet cloth. The skin around it feels hot and spongy. Could it be infected? It throbs with every beat of my heart. Gently, I dab it with the wet washcloth. Soon there’s fresh blood mingled with dark on the cloth. Maybe I’m just loosening the scab and making it bleed all over again. I stop and try to rinse out the blood, wringing the washcloth over the toilet.

  Next I scrub my face and arms, finding mud and sand in every crease. I reach behind me, slip my hands underneath my T-shirt, and unhook my bra. Then I slide the straps down my arms and pull it free. I pour half a bottle of water on the bra and wring it out over the toilet. I wash my body while still wearing my old T-shirt and then put my bra back on underneath it. It’s a lot harder to reverse the process. And it feels gross, all clammy and cold. I start to shake. I just have to hope my body heat will be enough to dry it out. I pull on the new T-shirt. It even smells new, that sharp chemical scent that clothes have before they’re washed.

  I wrap the towel around my waist and take off my muddy, stiff jeans and panties. I sluice down my legs. Before I wash out my old panties, I finger the sweatpants. They feel so soft. I’m kind of tempted to put them on with nothing underneath.

  That’s when I notice something else in the bag. It’s a pair of panties. Women’s panties. There’s no tags on them. In fact, they’re not new. They’re not all that old, either, and they’re clean, but the tag is a little faded, no longer crisp; it’s clear they once belonged to someone. That they’ve been on someone else’s body.

  Oh, crap, crap, crap. Where did they come from? I don’t need to be told that I’m the only woman in his life. This is not the kind of guy who is leaving this secret room to return to his wife or girlfriend.

  So whose panties were these?

  I start to shake. Because I know. I know.

  I’m not the first girl he’s had here.

  Only where did she go?

  Transcript of Rob Ranier Radio Show

  Rob Ranier, Radio Host: Now in the case of this missing girl we keep hearing so much about, this Kayla Cutler, the family has brought in a psychic, Elizabeth Lamb, and asked law enforcement to work with her. Our first guest is Ike Stanley, who retired from the FBI last year. Do you believe in psychics, Ike?

  Ike Stanley, Retired FBI Profiler: One of the first things a psychic asks a law enforcement officer to do is take reasoning and logic and set it aside. That is awfully hard for someone in law enforcement to do, because that’s what you spend your whole career relying on.

  But as an FBI agent, you know, you have to keep an open mind. I would listen if somebody could help solve a crime, Rob. And if you exhaust law enforcement investigation, if you exhaust psychological profiling, and if then the victim’s family says, “We would like to try a psychic,” I would say, if it would help a victim’s family find peace of mind, I would not stand in the way.

  Ranier: But that’s not the case here, is it? Information and leads are available to law enforcement. We understand the police have been following up on reports that a white pickup was seen in the area where Kayla disappeared.

  Stanley: I have no personal knowledge of this case, Rob, so I can’t comment. But again, when I was an agent, I always tried to respect the parents’ wishes, whether that was to involve their church members in searches or, like in this case, to bring in a psychic.

  Ranier: Ike, to your knowledge, have psychics helped solve crimes?

  Stanley: I have seen law enforcement try them a number of times, Rob. When I have seen them participate in the solution of a crime, my experience is that it has usually been some type of vague information. For example, I remember a case where a kidnap victim was taken somewhere near Crater Lake, and we were told “You’ll find the victim buried near a body of water.” Well, you know, Crater Lake is a body of water. And “near” covers a lot of ground.

  In my career in the Bureau, we tried to be open. We tried to listen. I know there are psychics who will say, “I have been a consultant to the FBI.” But as far as seeing a psychic solve a case or help us recover a kidnap victim, either dead or alive, based solely on information they provided, then I’d have to say no. I haven’t seen that happen.

  The Ninth Day

  Gabie

  RIGHT AFTER I get home from school, the phone in the kitchen rings. It actually takes me a second to recognize the sound. My mom has us on the National Do Not Call Registry, and anyone who knows my family knows to call our cells. The only person who calls on the landline is my grandmother. I don’t think she believes cell phones are really phones.

  The caller ID says Cutler. A sour taste spreads across my tongue. I pick up the phone.

  “Hello?” I say. Suspended. Waiting for the news.

  “May I speak to Gabie?”

  “This is she.” Have they found Kayla? Is she alive?

  “This is Mrs. Cutler. Kayla’s mom. I was wondering if you could come by the house and my family could talk to you?”

  Maybe there is no news. How long can this go on? It’s like waiting to be punished. “Um, now?”

  “Yes. If you could. It’s important.”

  Is it about the guy Drew said was a tweaker? Or does she want to grill me about why Kayla wanted to switch days with me? “You’ll have to give me directions.”

  Instead of telling me, she says, “Do know how to get hold of Drew from Pete’s?”

  At the sound of his name, I only feel more stuck. I don’t know what happened to his mom after she got picked up by the police, but it couldn’t have been good. And Drew looked like he hated that I was there to hear it. After Sergeant Thayer left, Pete asked Miguel to work until closing. It made it a lot less nerve-racking when Drew did deliveries, but it also meant Drew and I couldn’t just talk. It was like everything was still hanging between us.

  “Yeah,” I tell Kayla’s mom. “I have his cell number.”

  “Could you ask him to come, too? There are important things we need to talk to both of you about.”

  “I’ll see if he can come.” Maybe it will be better to have Drew at my side. We might both be guilty in their eyes, if in different ways.

  Ten minutes later, I pull up to a corner where Drew is waiting. He’s wearing a gray hoodie that hides his face, even though it’s warm outside. He wouldn’t let me pick him up at his house. I don’t even know if this corner is anywhere near his actual block.

  “Hey,” Drew says as he climbs in.

  “Hey.”

  “What do you think they want?”

  “Maybe to yell at us.” Sourness trickles down the back of my throat. “I’m the one who traded days with her. You took the order and let her go. So they might look at either one of us and think, ‘It should have been you.’”

  I’m hoping he’ll tell me not to be ridiculous, but instead he just shrugs. Then I remember Drew has a lot to think about. “What’s happening with your mom?”

  “She was released until the trial. But it’s hard to see how she won’t get convicted.” He scrubs his face with his palms. “Not if they have photos.”

  Suddenly I feel ashamed of myself, and my nice car, and my big house. My two parents with their good jobs. Does Drew hate me for these things? We don’t say anything more, just listen to Flea Market Parade sing “The Criminal in My Head.”

  The Cutlers’ house is long and low, and looks kind of like the shoebox I used to keep Barbie and Ken in. Mrs. Cutler answers the door so fast it’s clear she was standing on the other side of it waiting. A gray cat squeezes past her and shoots off into the bushes. Mrs. Cutler has the same black hair as Kayla, only threaded with silver. I’ve seen her a few times when she came in to Pete’s to give Kayla something.

  We follow her in. The house smells stale. Worse than stale. I sniff again. Moldy. Plates with half-eaten food sit
on the coffee table, on top of the TV, even on the floor.

  A balding guy I figure must be Mr. Cutler is sitting on a gold velour couch. He lifts his head for a second, looks at us without interest, then goes back to staring down at his empty hands.

  Kyle Cutler is sitting next to him. I remember him from when I was in ninth grade. He has the same good looks and outgoing personality as Kayla, so even when I was a freshman and he was a senior, I knew his name. He must be in college now.

  There’s a fourth person in the room, a blond woman who looks vaguely familiar. Her hair is a little too long for someone who is about the same age as Kayla’s parents. She’s dressed way better than anyone else, in a black suit, deep purple silk blouse, and four-inch heels. She looks at us and nods.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Mrs. Cutler says. “You’re just one more link in the chain we hope will lead us to Kayla.”

  “We’ve already told the police everything we know.” I try to sound firm, but my voice wavers.

  “Is that right?” Kyle says. His lip curls. “If you told the police everything, then why did you wait to tell them about how Cody Renfrew was asking about her?”

  “Lots of people ask about Kayla,” Drew says. “Lots of people come in who were never even customers before.”

  “People who painted their trucks?” Kyle’s eyes are ice blue. “Their once white trucks?”

  “Kyle,” his mom says, “we said we weren’t going to get into that.” She turns to us. “Cody Renfrew went to school with Kyle, so they think that might be how he knows Kayla. How he came to, to, to target her. The police searched his house Tuesday.”

  “Did they find anything?”

  “Nothing obvious,” Mrs. Cutler says. “They took away tons of evidence. But I guess it’s not as fast as you see on CSI. It will be a couple of days before they know if there’s a DNA match. But there are still ways you can help. Ways the police can’t.”

  Mr. Cutler’s voice is rough. “The cops don’t know jack. They’ve interviewed that jerk, they’ve searched his house, but they say that’s all they can do without some specific evidence tying him to my daughter.” His jaw glints with the beginnings of a gray-speckled beard. “But if Kayla’s alive, we have to move now. Before it’s too late. That’s why we’ve hired her.” He nods at the blond woman.

  “Gabie, Drew, I’d like you to meet Elizabeth Lamb,” Mrs. Cutler says. “She just flew into town today. She’s a professional psychic.”

  I can imagine what my parents would say to this. What’s the difference between a professional and an amateur psychic? The professional costs a lot more. They don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or witches. Or God, for that matter. Only in what they can see and touch and measure. They’ve held people’s hearts in their hands, cut out parts of their brains. They don’t think people have souls. They believe in electrical impulses.

  Elizabeth Lamb shakes our hands. Her hand is cool and smooth, slipping out of mine after only the faintest of squeezes. “Maybe you’ve seen me on TV?” she asks.

  We both shake our heads. I have, though. On a true crime show, she told this one family their six-year-old daughter was dead underwater, that some kind of grate was holding her down. She had disappeared during a big rainstorm. The little girl’s body was found under a neighbor’s bed. A water bed. And the frame—they showed that on TV—was like a big grate. So Elizabeth Lamb was right, even if the spirits hadn’t all been clear at the time.

  At least that’s how she explained it on TV.

  “I understand you worked with Kayla that night, Drew? And that you were the last known person to see her?”

  Beside me, Drew stiffens and nods.

  “That’s a very powerful thing. Very powerful.” She turns to me. “And you traded shifts with her, Gabie?”

  “But I didn’t see her that day. And I don’t know why she wanted—”

  Elizabeth Lamb lifts one long-fingered hand, and I stop talking. “Yes, but this has to do with Kayla’s desires. Her innermost desires. Now, I need you to both sit for a moment and think about Kayla. I want you to close your eyes and picture her as clearly as you can. Concentrate on her until it feels like you could open your eyes and find her sitting with us.”

  “She did this with us when she first came,” Mrs. Cutler says. “And it’s already yielded a lot of information that we’re going to give to the police when we meet with them this afternoon.”

  “Shh.” Elizabeth Lamb actually lays her index finger against her lips. “We need to concentrate on Kayla now.” Drew shoots me a desperate look, and I know we both want to be anyplace but here. But instead Mr. Cutler and Kyle get off the couch and Mrs. Cutler motions for us to sit down. I squeeze past Mr. Cutler. He smells like he hasn’t showered in days, and now that he’s not slumped over, I can see food stains on his belly. Kyle at least looks clean, but he doesn’t meet our eyes. We sit down.

  On the coffee table in front of us is a pile of flyers. have you seen this girl? it asks in big block type above Kayla’s senior year photo, the same one from the cross, the same one they use on TV and in the paper. In the picture, she leans against an oak tree. But something about it looks fake, like the tree trunk is hollow and plastic, and doesn’t extend much beyond the edges of the photo.

  Elizabeth Lamb steps into the space between us and the coffee table, so close I could lean forward and rest my head on her thighs. Her high heels make my Nikes look ridiculous. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

  “Okay,” she says. “Now all of us need to hold hands so I can pick up your vibrations.” We do as she says. Her grip is firmer now, her fingers cool and soft. Drew holds my hand lightly. I realize I’ve felt his hands on my body, but I’ve never held hands with him before.

  “Good. Now close your eyes.” I don’t want to, but my eyes close anyway. I wonder if Elizabeth Lamb is some kind of hypnotist, if she knows how to make people do things. “And now say Kayla’s name out loud three times.” We all do, even the Cutlers. Kayla, Kayla, Kayla. Mrs. Cutler’s voice has the ragged edge of hysteria. “Now picture Kayla sitting here with us.”

  Obediently, I start to build Kayla in my mind. I begin with her high cheekbones, the faint spatter of freckles on her white skin. Her eyes, the color of gas flames. Her thick black hair. But of course, I can’t do what the psychic wants us to. I can’t picture her sitting. Because Kayla never sat still a day in her life.

  When Elizabeth Lamb speaks, I jump. “He, ah, he has something in his hands.”

  I open my eyelids a crack. Hers are closed, her face tilted up. Her jaw is slack, as if she is unconscious and someone else is moving her mouth. I slide my eyes to my right, to Drew. I catch him peeking, too. I’m afraid of getting caught, so I close my eyes again. It’s not so much for the psychic. It’s the Cutlers. We owe it to them to do this thing the way they want, no matter that it’s probably phony.

  “Kayla,” Mrs. Cutler asks in a shaking voice, “Kayla, is that you? Is that you, honey?”

  Elizabeth Lamb doesn’t answer her directly. “I see it. It’s coming toward me. It’s something you can hold in your hands and hit a person on the head with.” Her voice doesn’t sound anything like Kayla’s.

  “Is it a bat? A club? Or are you talking about that rock they found?” Mrs. Cutler’s voice is breaking.

  Instead of answering, Elizabeth Lamb says, “It’s late. Late at night or going into early morning.”

  Right. Everyone knows what time Kayla disappeared. That’s no secret.

  “Now I am in a vehicle,” she says. “I feel like I am being laid down and being put in.”

  Mrs. Cutler gasps.

  And suddenly it’s like I can see Kayla. She’s standing behind Elizabeth Lamb. Her hair is dirty, and her eyes are so sad. She looks at me. At all of us.

  A shiver runs down my back. The top of my head prickles.

  “Now I’m stationary,” Elizabeth Lamb says. “I can’t move. The water is rushing past me.”

  Kayla is still right there. He
r lips are moving, but I can’t hear the words.

  “You mean she’s dead?” Mrs. Cutler says, her voice arcing high.

  I hear a sound, like cloth tearing. I peep. It’s Mr. Cutler, crying. With my eyes open, I can’t see Kayla anymore. And when I close them again, she’s disappeared. Still, I know what I saw.

  I rip my hand away from the stupid psychic and stand up. We’re so close I could kiss her—or bite her. Drew’s eyes fly open.

  “You’re wrong,” I say. Everyone is staring at me. “Kayla is still alive. I know it.”

  And I do know it. I know it like I’ve never known anything else.

  The Ninth Day

  Drew

  I STARE UP at Gabie. There’s really no room for her to stand up, but she is, her face two inches away from the psychic’s made-up one. And she’s yelling that Kayla is alive, not lost in the river the way the psychic was saying.

  Although the psychic didn’t exactly say that. You could also take what she said to mean Kayla’s near a river or a stream. Or even a pipe full of water. You’ve got to admire the vagueness. The psychic didn’t even really say Kayla was dead.

  But you knew what she meant.

  And now Gabie is practically snarling at her.

  The lady tries to take a step back, but she’s forgotten there’s a coffee table behind her. She lets out a shriek and starts to fall backward. I just manage to grab her wrist. After I pull her to her feet, she shakes off my hand, like I’m some dog on her leg. She steps to the side to get away from us and crosses her arms.

  Mrs. Cutler looks from Gabie to the psychic and back again. It’s like she can’t decide who to believe.

  “I know Kayla is alive,” Gabie says again. But her voice trembles.