All Your Pretty Dreams (26 page)

“
She wanted to go away to
college.”

“
Where?”

“
I got the feeling
anywhere. She was intrigued by the college students who stayed at
the Rainy Days. But they go to college all over. Utah to
Connecticut.”

“
Are they still in
town?”

“
They left Friday.” Jonny
looked up. “Shit. I bet she got a ride with one of them. I left in
a hurry to take Isabel to her grandfather’s funeral.”

“
Who’s Isabel?” Sonya
asked.

“
The leader of the bee
study.”

“
You drove her to a
funeral?”

“
Wait,” Artie barked.
“Jonny, are you telling me there were college students, young guys,
right next door? All summer?”

“
Only two guys and they
weren’t her type, really. Science geeks.”

“
Do they have cars? Then
they might be her type.”

“
If all she wanted to do
was get out of town. But why?” Sonya asked. “What could have
happened to make her want to leave Red Vine? “

The brothers’ eyes met.
Artie’s mouth turned up. Jonny drummed the table with his fingers.
“Being born there?”

——

Isabel was finishing the
first student appointment of the morning, advising the girl to
stick with her biology and chemistry courses if she wanted to go to
medical school. It seemed doubtful with her grades, but she did
seem determined. The phone rang as the student gathered her
backpack. “Thank you, Miss Yancey.”

Isabel wasn’t used to the
formality. She nodded uncomfortably, watched her leave, then picked
up the phone. “Dr. Mendel’s office.”

“
Isabel.” The professor,
now in a rehab hospital, being tortured from the sound of it. “I’ve
just had a call from someone in Red Vine. A Jonathan
Knobel.”

Isabel’s stomach dropped.
“Yes?”

“
Do you know this
person?”

“
His parents own the
motel. Where we stayed. Yes.”

“
He said that. This is
most unusual. He’s requested the names and phone numbers of
everyone who was on the field study. I told him that was
confidential, that some of them were underage, and all of them were
under our guidance and care. That under no circumstances can we
share personal data.”

Isabel blinked, staring at
the cat calendar on the professor’s wall. The August kitty looked
like she’d encountered a two-by-four in the dark. Why was Jonny
asking for phone numbers? Dr. Mendel sounded like she’d had too
much coffee this morning.

“
What’s going
on?”

“
He was talking about his
sister, I believe. Or some relative. She’s missing or something.
Sounds like they are accusing one of the students with spiriting
her away. Or worse! I tell you, Isabel, this could be a black eye
for us. If one of the students aided or abetted this runaway, or
did god-knows-what to the child, well, I don’t have to tell you the
press will get hold of it. The president will have my hide, and I’m
afraid, yours as well. This could affect our funding, all our
future projects.”

Wendy, of the halter tops
and Daisy Dukes. Certainly a candidate for running away from Red
Vine if there ever was one. But did the students have anything to
do with it? She couldn’t remember any of them even speaking to
Wendy.

“
Did Jonathan leave a
number?”

The professor read it out
to her. “Can you take care of it, Isabel? This semester is starting
off the worst in a lifetime. They’re giving me sleeping pills and
they make me so groggy in the morning I can’t keep my eyes
open.”

“
I’ll take care of it.
Don’t worry.”

Isabel reached into her
backpack for the file with all the contact information for the
field crew. Then she took a deep breath and dialed the
number.

A man answered. “This is
Isabel Yancey calling from the University of Illinois. My
professor, Dr. Lillian Mendel, asked me to call.”

“
This is Art Knobel. Do
you have the numbers?”

“
Ah, well, I’m not
supposed to give them out.”

“
Miss Yancey. This is a
matter of life and death. The privacy of your students is important
and we respect that but this is our—”

He was cut off with a
rustling of voices. Then: “Isabel, this is Jonny.”

His voice.
She wiggled her toes. Her foot was almost
healed.
It will go away.

“
How are you?” she said,
trying to keep her voice cool.

“
Listen, Wendy’s skipped
town. My mother’s worried sick. Nobody has seen her since Friday.
She might have hitched a ride with one of your students. Friday’s
the day everybody left the motel.”

How could she forget? “I’m
sorry to hear about it. But we can’t give you those numbers. Most
of them are cell phones. Unlisted. There are all these privacy
regulations. But I can call them. Let me call
everybody.”

There was a long
pause.
Let me.

“
Come on, Isabel, just
give me a couple. We can get this done in an hour. She’s probably
not with any of them. Let’s just eliminate this
possibility.”

Isabel looked at her
schedule and the clock. She had another student in for advising in
fifteen minutes. She had more work to do on her lectures. The desk
was covered with textbooks, schedules, memos.

“
All right. I’ll give you
Andrew and Terry. I’ll take the girls.”

“
Because I’m a stalker.
Jesus.” He sighed. “Okay, shoot. I’m ready.”

He hung up immediately
after she read him the numbers. She pulled out the department cell
phone, and called Dana, the first on the list. Brief conversations
with the first three girls revealed nothing. Two more went to
voicemail. No one had seen Wendy on Friday, or given her a ride.
Then it was time for her next appointment.

After the advising
appointment there was one callback. Maddie hadn’t seen anything but
sent her best wishes. Isabel put it a check mark next to her name
and dialed the next name, Alison. “What?”

“
It’s Isabel Yancey,
Alison. How are you?”

“
Really busy getting my
panties off.”

“
Hey. You remember the
Knobel girl, Wendy? She’s missing and I wonder if you saw her on
Friday as you were leaving.”

“
That kid? Where’d she
go?”

“
Nobody knows. Did you see
her that last day?”

She hadn’t and she had to
go. Isabel checked her off. “Sorry to interrupt your playtime,
Alison,” she said aloud. She called the Knobel brothers. The older
one answered.

“
I just wanted to let you
know I haven’t reached anyone who saw her on Friday. I have a few
more and some who will call me back.”

Jonny came on. “No
luck?”

“
Sorry. Did you get Andrew
and Terry?”

“
Just Andrew. He seems to
have known Wendy but didn’t see her Friday.”

Jonny hung up the phone. He
tried not to think about Wendy and her thoughtlessness. But where
the hell was she? Sonya moved around behind him, making more
coffee. Artie was pressing keys on his cell phone. Calling Wendy
again. They’d been up most of the night. None of them had gone to
work. Jonny took his fresh cup of coffee out into the small
backyard and moved a chair into a patch of sunshine.

He should go to work. It
would take his mind off the speculation of where in the world his
sister had gone. Margaret had called several times during the
night, and there was a threat of Ozzie driving down. What good that
would do nobody knew. If Wendy was in the Twin Cities wouldn’t she
have contacted them? What sort of trouble was she in? He kept going
over all their conversations in his mind. Was she still upset about
Mom and Dad separating? She’d cried for an hour that day. Was there
somebody at Lenny’s party she’d met? He remembered her dancing with
Zachary, that was all. Lenny hadn’t seen Wendy all last week. For a
small town Red Vine didn’t take much note of its
inhabitants.

There was no point in
trying to sleep off the headache that was forming between his eyes.
He needed to work. Even if he only got a couple hours in. He took a
sip of black coffee and flung the rest in a graceful arc into the
grass.

Just after one, Jill
Martel, the junior partner, came straight from lunch to his
cubicle, a shiny shopping bag under her arm. She moved into his
line of sight, nudging his desktop with her hip. She wore a black
suit with tight pants and something lacy under the
jacket.

“
Are you okay? Gary said
there was a family emergency.”

Jonny finished the corner
he was working on and pushed back, folding his arms. His headache
had bloomed into an international incident. Jill was peering down
through glasses that screamed
I am an
architect
.

“
Oh, I’m sorry,” she
gasped, hand to her mouth. “I’m being too nosy. I just wanted you
to know I’m here, if you need somebody to talk to.”

“
I just have a headache.
Up all night.” He sighed. “It’s my sister. She’s run away from
home.”

“
Oh my god. That’s
terrible.” Jill pulled a chair over and sat down, knee to knee with
him. “What can I do? Is there something I can do, somebody I can
call? I give good phone.” She smiled like she wasn’t thinking about
phones at all.

People picked the weirdest
times to flirt. “I’ll let you know if I think of anyone you can
give phone to.”

She tried to look
embarrassed. “That was a joke, Jon. Seriously, tell me what I can
do.”

“
If I knew of something, I
wouldn’t be here working. I’d be doing it.”

She stood up. “Then stop
working. Right now. I mean it. Go look for her.”

“
I appreciate that. Right
now working keeps my mind off it.”

“
Are you sure? Because
this project is going to be late anyway, I can feel it. I am
terrible with deadlines and we are all about deadlines, aren’t we?”
She sat down again and leaned toward him, her breasts pressing
against the desktop. “I’ll bring you some food up later. How’s
that?”

After she left Sven rolled
his chair across the aisle with a bottle of ibuprofen and a cup of
water. Jonny took the pills and kept working. He was at a point in
the office complex where things were finally starting to make
sense, at least on the first set of plans. The mechanicals were
another story. He plunged deeper into the notes from Jill and the
other architect, hoping to drown out everything else.

His phone rang at three.
Artie said, “Your Miss Yancey called again. Nobody saw anything.
She reached everybody but one.”

Normally he would ignore
so slight a suggestion by his brother. But he felt on edge and
snapped, “She’s not
my
anything.”

“
Well, excuse me. She
sounds like she really cares. Mom called twice. The sheriff’s been
over and snooped around in Wendy’s room. Didn’t find much. Mom’s
got Carol on the case. Apparently she has a daughter who might
help.”

“
Frances? She couldn’t
find her shoelaces.” But Kiki, maybe. “She has a friend who was in
Red Vine. I’ll call her. Anybody else phone?”

“
Lenny. Oh, he said to
tell you the grain bin is being moved to the courthouse park on
Monday. He’s setting up his campaign office in it. He has a theory
Wendy joined the circus. Or Girls Gone Wild.”

Jonny looked up Kiki’s
mother’s number on the internet. The phone rang three times and a
machine picked up. A husky woman’s voice asked him to leave his
particulars. He almost hung up then—

“
Kiki, it’s Jonny. We’ve
got a problem. Remember my sister, Wendy? She’s run off or
something. Just wondering if you—“

“
Jonny?” Kiki sounded
excited. “How did you know I was here?”

Where else would she be?
“Listen, we’re looking for Wendy. Do you, did you— ?” The same
question, over and over. “Did you see her Friday or
after.”

“
Last Friday? We left on
Monday. We drove to Madison that day. Remember, we said
goodbye.”

“
Did she say anything to
you while you were in Red Vine, like where she might want to go?
Somewhere she’d always wanted to see?”

“
We didn’t really talk.
I’ve got people here. Sorry I couldn’t help. Good luck!”

Good
luck
. Nobody had a clue about Wendy or
what to do to find her or how it feels to be so helpless. Waiting
for a call, a letter, an email, something. Anything that shows
she’s alive, that she cares that we are frantic, that she even
thinks about us. How long would the feeling sustain itself? How
long before you just stop hoping? He felt the weight of hope like a
lead bar resting on his shoulders, straining his heart, his
lungs.

At six he shut down his
computer and grabbed his jacket. As he walked out the front of the
building, through the cold reflective surfaces of the lobby, Jill
Martel walked toward him, carrying a white deli bag. She smiled and
touched his arm.