“No. What would you like to order?”
“I guess a slice of cheese.”
“Anything to drink?” I know that she’s going to say no even before she shakes her head.
That’s how it goes for the next couple of hours. A lot of questions, a lot of orders for plain slices and pepperoni slices. It’s like the price of admission to gawk at what isn’t a crime scene. I recognize a couple dozen kids from school, but there are a lot of adults too, who look around as if they’re going to find her picture hanging on the wall, or who ask me questions about what Kayla’s like. As much as possible, I answer every question with a single word. Or, when I can, with even less. Maybe just a look to remind them that Kayla isn’t an abstraction to us, that Kayla is real.
The only break in the evening is when Pete sends Courtney up so that Sonya can go to the bathroom. Courtney really tries to answer all the questions about Kayla, which only results in people asking more questions and not actually getting around to ordering pizza. I hear one customer say, “Do you think it could have been her boyfriend?”
But instead of answering, Courtney walks away, her fingers untying her apron strings as she goes up to Pete. Tears are sliding down her face. “I can’t do this, Pete, I just can’t.” She balls up her apron, and he takes it like he doesn’t know what it is.
“Go home, take some time, get your head together,” he says, but he looks kind of desperate. We’re barely keeping up as it is. And I get the feeling that Courtney doesn’t mean she can’t do this just tonight. I think she just quit.
“What would you like?” I say to the tall guy at the counter. He’s not quite as old as my dad, but close. He’s wearing a Yankees baseball cap and a Trailblazers jersey, but he’s overweight enough that you know the only exercise he gets is yelling at the TV.
“That depends,” he says, leaning forward. “What are you offering?” He raises one eyebrow and gives me a sleazy smile.
I blink. Am I going crazy, or did he just say that? The fine hairs on my arms rise up. “Get out!” I say, raising one arm and pointing.
The woman standing behind him shakes her finger. “You heard the girl!”
Everyone is looking at him, but he still stands with that sick, silly grin.
“Just get the hell out of here!” I spit the words at him.
It’s not until he’s gone that I start to shake.
Transcript of 911 Call
911 Operator: 911. Police, fire, or medical?
Alice Russo: Police.
911 Operator: What seems to be the problem?
Alice Russo: I saw a truck out where that girl disappeared. That pizza girl.
911 Operator: Do you mean Kayla Cutler?
Alice Russo: Yeah. The pizza girl.
911 Operator: What day was this, ma’am?
Alice Russo: Wednesday. Yeah, it was Wednesday. The night that girl disappeared. I saw a white pickup, like an older Toyota pickup. And it was driving real slow. They must have been looking for that girl.
911 Operator: You said “they.” Was there more than one person in the pickup?
Alice Russo: I don’t know. I couldn’t see inside the cab. But I do know it was an older Toyota pickup. White. And I’ve never seen it in my neighborhood before.
The Fourth Day
Kayla
I WAKE UP. At least I think I’m awake.
Maybe I’m dead.
It’s completely black. The right side of my head throbs.
I must be alive. The dead don’t feel pain, do they?
Finally, after five minutes or maybe an hour, I push myself up. Big mistake. The side of my head was stuck to whatever I was lying on. By the time I figure that out, it’s too late. The pain makes me shriek. It’s like someone just tried to scalp me.
I keep shrieking, only now I find words. “Help me! Somebody help me! I’m hurt!”
The words come right back to me. My shouts feel trapped in here, wherever here is. Just like I am. What happened? Where am I?
Nobody comes. Nobody shouts back.
A warm trickle of blood curves down my neck. How bad is it? I’m scared to know. If I put my hand up, will I touch bone? Maybe even my brain?
My breathing speeds up. I hear myself whimpering, a fast, soft sound that scares me even more.
Finally, I take a deep breath and put my fingertips up to the side of my head. The cut feels obscenely like parted lips. It runs from my temple to just above my ear. It’s bleeding slowly, but not gushing. No splinters of bone. Nothing that feels like brain. I take my hand away.
Blindly, I reach out and pat the space around me. I’m sitting on something that feels like a bed. Behind me is a wall. To the left is another wall. I stand up and almost immediately discover a third wall that runs parallel to the bed. I run my fingers along the walls and eventually find the familiar shape of a light switch.
The light—which comes from two buzzing fluorescent tubes—is so bright that I have to close my eyes. I force them open.
The air sparkles with white confetti. Dizzy.
I close my eyes and sit down. Hard. My stomach rises like I’m going to puke. I manage to swallow it back.
When I’m finally able to open my eyes again, I look around.
What is this place? Where am I?
It’s just one room, about eight by fourteen feet, most of it taken up with the navy blue futon twin bed I’m sitting on. No windows. The walls are plain white. The ceiling is a little over six feet high, which means it’s too short. The whole thing is claustrophobic.
At the foot of the bed is a short white bookcase with a small TV on top. And past that there’s a toilet in one corner and a door in the other.
A door!
I rush to it. Or at least I start to. I take two steps. Then the dizziness overwhelms me. I fall to my knees, but I still keep moving, ignoring the blood that freckles the floor. I have to get out of here.
But the handle won’t turn more than a half inch. I twist it the other way. It won’t move at all.
“Let me out! Let me out!” I pound on the door. Then I stop to listen.
Nothing.
Silence.
No one is coming. Maybe no one is even listening.
“Help me! Help me! I’m alive! I’m alive, and I’m in here.”
Holding on to the doorknob, I manage to pull myself to my feet. I kick at the door, as close as I can get to the handle, hoping to pop the lock. It doesn’t budge. I kick and pound and yell. The white door is smudged with rusty fingerprints from where I touched my head. I fall down and get back up. Again. And again. I cry and scream until I’m sick, dry heaving, strings of bile hanging from my lips. But as soon as I stop gagging, I start banging on the door again, shouting and calling.
Finally, I have to lie down. I press my face next to the crack at the bottom of the door. It’s dark on the other side, like there’s nothing and no one there. Like I’m sealed away in a tomb.
“Let me out,” I say, but now it’s a whisper. “Let me out.”
The Fourth Day
“John Robertson”
THE SCREAMS RISE again from the special room I built. Faint but still audible. I set down my X-Acto Number 11, pick up the TV clicker, and press the plus sign on the volume button. There. That takes care of that.
Only it doesn’t. Not really.
Things are not going according to plan. Didn’t I learn anything last time? But no, I was too eager. Again.
Four days ago, all my plans were supposed to come to fruition. It was a moonless night. Moonless meant it would be hard for the pizza delivery person to figure out that the address I had given didn’t exist. Difficult for the few neighbors to notice anything on a road without street-lights. And it was a Wednesday, which meant it would be quiet. It also meant Gabie Klug would be the one making deliveries.
Gabie is the one I chose for what I’m calling the Project. The Project, Part Two. She can be shy, but eventually she warms up and jokes with you. But only after carefully watching you
r face and figuring out if that’s okay. If that’s what you want.
She would be perfect.
Once I figured out that it was possible to get a girl to deliver herself right to me, it took me months to figure out which one I wanted. Months of greasy single slices, takeout orders, and watching the parking lot to see who made deliveries. Nine women and girls work at Pete’s Pizza. But not all of them make deliveries. And of those who do? Well, take Pete’s wife, Sonya. Forty, too much makeup, too much sass, too much ass. Not my type. Not my type at all. Or Courtney, with her small, hard eyes rimmed with black eye liner? Amber, with her harsh bray of a laugh?
Most are unsuitable.
My work has taught me that if you want something done right, you start with the correct raw materials. You don’t begin with the wrong components and try to force them to be something they never were and never could be.
I learned that lesson again with the first girl. What was her name? Jenny? Jessica? Janie? I no longer remember. She was an experiment, that’s all. It wasn’t until I acquired her that I figured out she was all wrong for my purposes. It was much like when I was trying to decide between polyurethane and expanded polystyrene foam for modeling. You have to work with the expanded polystyrene before you realize it does not allow for as many finish techniques.
And Kayla? Kayla is wrong in so many ways. Angry when Gabie would be sweet. Defiant when Gabie would be submissive. Ungrateful, damaged, dirty, disgusting. Gabie will be none of those things.
When I saw the red Taurus with the lighted sign for Pete’s Pizza on top, instead of the black Mini Cooper, I knew something had gone awry. I should have driven away. It would have taken time, but I could have found a new isolated location where I could phone in a false address on another Wednesday night.
But I let my hunger overcome my good sense. I told myself that Kayla, while not perfect, could still be molded. After all, even Gabie couldn’t last forever. I ignored the little voice that told me I was making a mistake, and I waved Kayla down.
When she saw my familiar face, she smiled, and I almost thought I had done the right thing. A few seconds later, I realized how wrong I was, but it was too late.
What I want—need—is to start over. With Gabie, the one I really wanted. But to do that, first I need to get rid of my mistake.
I can take Kayla down to the river and let her go. Release her from her troubles. They might not ever find her, and even if they do, the water should wash away any trace evidence. They’ll never know she was alive for a few days before she went in.
And then I can start fresh.
The Fourth Day
Drew
THERE’S A MANDATORY meeting in the dough room at ten this morning. We have to have it there because the break room can only hold about three people.
The room’s buzzing. The conveyor belt has been turned off. Someone has dragged in chairs from the restaurant tables to supplement the folding ones. They’re lined up three across down the long narrow room.
There’s all kinds of rumors. Someone tried to break into Kayla’s parents’ house. Last night, a pizza driver from Papa John’s disappeared. The cops want all the guys who work at Pete’s to dress like girls and deliver pizzas as bait. Someone saw Kayla walking down Pine Street in Seattle. Pete is going to shut down and declare bankruptcy.
I just listen. It’s clear nobody knows anything.
Gabie stands in the doorway a second. Then she takes the chair next to me. No one else is sitting near me. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but is it because I let Kayla go out on the delivery? Because I took the guy’s order like it was real and let her drive off?
It was so crazy last night—especially after Courtney quit—that Gabie and I didn’t have a chance to talk. I was going to offer to walk her to her car, but Pete did before I could say anything.
Even though Gabie wasn’t there Wednesday, I think she understands how I feel. After all, she was supposed to be working. And the guy asked for her. Me? I was the last one to see Kayla, but I can’t even remember her last words. They were probably something ordinary, but now they seem important.
If only I could remember what they were.
Of course, Kayla’s last words probably weren’t whatever she said to me as she picked up her keys and the three red insulated boxes. And they probably weren’t words at all, but a scream.
Thoughts like these are the reason I’m not sleeping anymore.
Gabie sits with her shoulder curled over, chewing on the edge of one fingernail, with her hair falling in her eyes. Her legs are jigging up and down. I have a feeling I’m not the only one who isn’t sleeping. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her what the guy said. But how could I not? Besides, the cops probably told her first thing.
Pete comes in. He’s a little guy, about five foot five, with black hair, a big nose, and a belly. Behind him is one of the cops who talked and talked to me. At the sight of his uniform and the black gun on his hip, the room goes completely quiet.
“This is Sergeant Thayer,” Pete says. “He’s here to answer your questions.”
Beside me, Gabie takes a deep breath. She raises her hand. “Have you found Kayla?”
“Not yet, Gabriella.” A jolt of electricity goes through the room. Everyone realizes this cop knows her name. “We still don’t know exactly what happened. We know some guy called in a pizza order to an address that doesn’t exist. We found Kayla’s vehicle near that road, so we believe she must have been trying to find it. She didn’t run out of gas. As far as we can tell, there are no mechanical malfunctions. Maybe someone flagged her down. Maybe someone stopped on the pretense of giving her directions and then grabbed her. Maybe she got tired of looking and decided to go smoke a joint by the river.” There’s some nervous laughter. Thayer looks disappointed. Like we should have straightened up and put on horrified faces at the very idea.
And me? I wonder who told. Was it Gabie? I cut my eyes sideways at her. She’s looking straight ahead. But her knees are still jiggling away.
I think of Kayla and me that one time in the cooler, and Gabie outside, ready to wait on the customers that weren’t coming in. In the cooler, there’s only one bulb overhead, so it’s dark in the corners. We stood between crates of cheese and pepperoni and passed the joint back and forth. When I took it back from Kayla, it was wet with her spit. My lips and even my tongue were touching something she had just touched. I wanted to kiss her in the worst way. But I didn’t. She was still with Brock then, and he went out for practically every sport. Even though he always looks half asleep, he’s all muscle. He probably has fifty pounds on me. So Kayla and I just leaned against the cold cement wall, our shoulders touching.
I realize the cop is looking straight at me. Like he wants me to break down and say there’s a big drug ring at our school. Which is so stupid. Someone took Kayla because they wanted a girl, not because they wanted drugs. Kayla might have had a joint or two in her purse. Maybe. But no more than that, and they didn’t take her purse anyway. She doesn’t sell anything, and as far as I can tell, she doesn’t buy, either. People just give her weed. Like I did that one time.
Thayer finally breaks the long silence. “We need to look at every possibility. At this stage of the game, we can’t afford to overlook anything.” He scans the room. With his sharp, long nose, he looks like the hawks that circle over the freeway looking for roadkill. “There have been reports that a white pickup was seen in the vicinity that night, so we’re talking to owners of white trucks.”
White truck? I’d bet every tenth car in Portland is a white pickup truck. Good luck with that one.
“Excuse me,” Amber says. She only works weekends. “I heard he asked for the girl in the Mini Cooper. Doesn’t that mean he really wanted Gabie?” She looks over her shoulder at Gabie and whispers “Sorry!” as if she has revealed a secret. And it’s clear that for some people in the room, this is the first they are hearing about this.
Gabie freezes. At least the top part of her body does. Even her knees
still for a minute.
The cop says, “We’re looking at every possibility, but we think it’s more than likely that this guy targeted Kayla Cutler. He may have said something about Gabriella’s Mini Cooper to throw us off the scent, but he still took Kayla. Whatever happened, Kayla pulled her car to the side of the road, put it in park, set the emergency brake, and left her purse on the seat. These are the actions of a young woman who feels comfortable with her surroundings. We believe whoever was with her that night was someone she knew, or at least a familiar face. It might have been a friend, someone she knows from school, or a regular customer who is acquainted with the young women who work here.”
Girls suck in their breath. Amber’s eyes get wide, like she’s about to cry. She pretty much only works delivery.
“That’s why we need your help,” the cop says. “While we’ve already talked to most of you, in the next few days we’re going to interview everyone again. We’re especially interested in hearing about any delivery customer—or any customer at all—who has made you nervous. At this point, we want to know everything, even your gut feelings.”
“How are you going to keep us safe?” an older woman named Sunny demands. She works days, and mostly right here in this dough room. It’s hard to imagine she’s in danger; she waddles.
Pete clears his throat. “I’m changing the schedule. No more girls doing deliveries. It’s going to be guys only. Guys with cars, it goes without saying.”
Crap! What’s that mean for me? All I have is a skateboard.
“Here are the new schedules.” Pete hands a stack of papers to people in the front row. They pass them back as the meeting begins to break up. When one comes to me, I see how bad it is. Lately, I’ve been working four days a week (and filling in whenever)—and now it’s down to two.