Heartless (27 page)

It was cathartic, in a way. There was no
inside
in which to look for Lucy. There was just a big, gaping scar in the earth, and I wondered how deep it ran. Regardless, the memory of the flames consuming everything in our wake was fresh. There’d be nothing left, even deep underground. Lucy wasn’t here. She was gone.

But it was also a death sentence to me. Through all the hours I’d spent since waking up on the table in the cabin, I’d still maintained a slight kernel of hope.
Maybe they’re not all bad guys. Maybe someone there will take pity on me. Maybe, even though it looks like I’m so far gone there’s no returning, they can still fix me. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

With the end of Primrose Path came the end of all my hope. That tiny kernel withered. It shriveled up. It died.

I am nothing but a pile of dust.

I bit my lip to hold my mouth closed and to stop myself from screaming. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. I was nothing.

But Lucy? Lucy was something, and I had to do everything I could to save her.

Unaware of the tempest raging in my silent, decrepit head, Strong rolled down the window and waved Eli over to the car. “Come on, get in. She’s awake again. We need to start canvassing neighborhoods.”

“Wait, what?” I slurred. “I thought you wanted me to look around?”

Adam groaned as Eli climbed in. “Can you walk yet? No? I didn’t think so. And I’m tired of sitting here, stewing in your stink.” He paused and then started the car, blasting the heat on so high his blond hair blew back from his forehead. “I waited, though, because if I didn’t make you see that this goddamn place was burned to the ground, you’d keep asking to come back, to look for Lucy at a place which
no longer exists
!”

I jerked away as I fought the urge to cover my ears with hands that didn’t cooperate with my instructions anyway. Something about his tone frightened me, made me feel like a little girl staring down a man offering me candy from the open door of a large, gray van. I didn’t like the feeling.

The car flew down the steep driveway, Strong’s foot heavy on the gas pedal. We drove away from Lucy’s little Honda and the pile of ash that destroyed my life. I froze in my seat, by choice this time, afraid to move lest I set off Strong again. I tried to see Eli’s face through the rearview mirror, to gauge his thoughts, but the mirror pointed toward the ceiling. Then Eli punched Strong’s seat, shaking the whole car. “Hey, stop the car and let me out! Stop!”

I figured he had decided to go get Lucy’s car and search on his own, but when Adam let him out, he went only to the mailbox standing at the bottom of the driveway and opened it.

“My team has already been through that, I’m sure,” Strong said. “You won’t find anything worthwhile.”

But Eli’s hand came away from the mailbox full of envelopes. “Sure, maybe yesterday, but not today.” He opened my door and tossed me a handful of mail. He sounded more cheerful than he had in days. “Strong, you drive. Jo and I can investigate.”

T
hey got a lot of mail at the cabin. My pile was mostly catalogs, a strange mix of electronics, home improvement, and women’s clothing, all addressed to “Resident.” Somehow that felt like the right mix for Primrose Path, though. Just bizarre enough to make sense. I flipped briefly through a Gap catalog, eyed a red dress that would have looked fabulous on me two weeks earlier, but then snapped the catalog shut.
No dresses for you
. The girls in the catalog seemed to have it all: beauty, nice clothes, cute boys by their sides. I remembered how I used to feel like one of those girls, as my wasted hand rose to my nose-less face, and I cringed. I had none of that anymore. I had nothing. I
was
nothing.

I dropped the catalog to the floor. As it fell, a postcard fluttered out and landed beside on my lap. On the front was a tropical beach scene, all blue skies, teal water, and white sand. I flipped it over.

It was addressed to Sandy. Just Sandy. The original address was crossed off, and was forwarded to Primrose Path. I jumped when I realized the original address was a campus address.

Dearest Sandy,
it said.
Remember going to the Bahamas when we were little? This picture reminds me of being all sandy with my Sandy. Why won’t you write me back? I miss you, little sister.

There was no signature. I guessed, though, that a sister wouldn’t need one.

Sandy. Sandy with my Sandy. Something tickled my brain over the name Sandy. Sandy wasn’t just the bobby-soxer from
Grease;
she was a clue, a name, a name that sounded familiar, like déjà vu. It was on the tip of my tongue but nowhere closer, and I couldn’t come up with a face for the name Sandy.

I looked backward. “Eli, do you know anyone named Sandy?”

Strong sneezed violently. “Excuse me. Did you just say you found a name on the mail?”

“Well, no, I didn’t quite say that, but yes, I did. Sandy. It was addressed to a Sandy. I almost feel like I know a Sandy, but I don’t guess I do.”

“Me either,” said Eli. “And all I have are bills. There’s a name on them, but I somehow doubt Michael Smith is going to be helpful.”

“Eli, shut up a minute. Jo, repeat: we have a suspect name? Sandy?” He was straining to drive down the winding, icy roads while turning to look over my shoulder at the postcard I held. “What
is
that?”

I read them both the message on the postcard. Then I said, “And it was forwarded. There’s an older address here. It’s a campus address.”

Adam slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to the side of the street. “Campus? Are you serious? That can’t be right.”

“It is,” I insisted, and I thrust the postcard toward Eli, who pulled it from my hand and scanned the back. “See?”

Eli nodded. “Yeah, she’s right. We should go check it out.”

“We’re wasting time,” Adam said. “We should be out walking the streets.”

“That’s stupid,” said Eli. “This is our first real clue,
Officer
. Shouldn’t we follow it? Don’t they teach you to follow leads in the police academy?”

“Yes.” Adam turned scarlet again. “But on campus? That makes no sense. We won’t find anything.”

“Please,” I said. “Please. We have to try everything. We have to find Lucy.”

Adam slammed on the brakes. The car skidded across the road. I yelped and grabbed the door handle. “Fine,” he said. “I can tell you now it’s a waste of time.” He jerked out his phone. “I’ll do this now to placate you two. But I need to call it in first.”

W
e sped toward campus in silence.

In the front seat I continued to charge, the warmth of electricity a welcome feeling. But it was impossible to ignore: I was drying out. Whatever embalming fluids had been used to preserve me, they were wearing out. My body was stiffening, even getting crumbly in spots like the tips of my remaining fingers and my chin. I flaked off in clumps, leaving pieces of me on the car seat, dandruff of the damned, ashes that would eventually wind up in a vacuum bag.

Beside me, Adam’s eyes never left the road, and his jaw never unclenched. His fingers gripped the steering wheel so fiercely that his entire hands turned white. The driver’s side window was cracked, and his hair flew about in the breeze.

I was a little touched by his obvious concern for Lucy. I felt like a secondary character in a romance novel, watching the hero race away to rescue a damsel in distress. The thought made me grin that hideous smile, but it didn’t matter that I was a bystander, a red-shirt. Lucy deserved a good guy, especially after all I’d put her through, and considering the fact that she’d been kidnapped. I wouldn’t allow the idea of her being dead or, worse, like me, to enter my head. Somewhere, she was alive and well, and we were going to find her. No problem.

Then she could help Adam learn to control his temper, and they’d find Eli a new girlfriend after he’d had time to adequately mourn his last one, and they’d all live happily ever after. It was a cozy little fantasy, something straight out of my Sixteenth-Century Lit class, if I ignored the fact that I wasn’t in it.

It was getting on toward noon, and the sun was high in the sky, making the ice on the roads slick. We passed several salt-spreaders out doing their jobs, but still Strong had to work hard to keep the car on the road. In the back seat, Eli flipped through one of the electronics catalogs I’d passed to him through the bars of the squad car divider. “Huh,” he said, when we were still about twenty minutes away from campus. “I wonder if this is how they’re powering you.” He pressed the open catalog up to the divider, and I turned to look, ignoring the way my neck sounded like a ripping piece of paper when I moved.

It was a picture of a large pump with wires coming out of all sides. It looked almost like a heart, and I shrugged. “Maybe? Who the hell knows what I’ve got going on inside. Maybe I’m running on bananas!”

For the first time in ages, Eli laughed a little, a sound that made me feel better, like this really would work out okay in the end. At least for my friends. “You’re a freak,” he said.

But Eli’s laugh had the opposite effect on Strong. He slammed on the brakes again, and Eli pitched forward into the back of my seat, knocking me forward as well. “What the hell,” Eli said, rubbing his shoulder from the floor of the back seat.

Strong turned to glare at us. “You’re laughing. I’m sorry, but do you two think this is a
joke
?”

“Hey…” I started to interrupt, but one look from Strong shushed me.

“We have a clue. We’re on our way to investigate, even though I know it’s a dead end. Now please shut the hell up so I can focus on not getting us killed on this stupid ice-covered road? I’d rather stay alive long enough to actually find your friend.”

“Calm down, man,” said Eli. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I want to save her too.” His voice was velvet. He’d used it many times on me in the midst of an argument.

Strong shot him a dirty look, then started to drive again. “Just keep your mouths shut. We’re almost there and I swear to God, Jo’s about to make me puke.”

T
he address on the postcard led us to a cluster of on-campus faculty housing. Strong parked the squad car in front of a tiny, boxy, bright yellow house with deep green shutters. Unlike those around it, no one had shoveled this home’s front walk or the tiny porch. There were no footprints in the snow. It was vacant.

I looked up and down the street; classes were in session, with people walking here and there by the classroom buildings. No one walked nearby, but I wrapped my scarf around my mutilated face. Just in case.

Strong got out of the car first, then opened the door for Eli. Eli opened my door, and together we walked up the front stoop, tracking through the knee-deep snow. Eli shivered in front of me, and I patted his shoulder as we walked. He didn’t flinch.

When we reached the front door, I looked at Strong. “You’re the cop. Do we knock first?”

He shook his head, and then reached for the knob. It turned easily in his hand and swung inward, revealing a small living room. Dust had settled on most surfaces, and Eli sneezed as a cloud of dust flew up in the cold breeze that stayed with us as we stepped inside. “Should we take our shoes off?” I whispered. I didn’t want to track in snow and mud.

Eli just shot me a look and walked inside, tracking gray snow on the cream-colored carpets.

The room was dark once Adam closed the door behind us, so I walked to a set of heavy drapes and pushed them aside, letting light flood in through the grimy windows. They made visible a space furnished with a mix of antiques and Goodwill pieces, but devoid of any piece of the person who last lived there. No photos, no pictures on the walls, no shoes on the floor by the front door.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here in a while,” said Strong. “We should take a quick look around, and then get back to looking for Lucy. We won’t find anything useful here.” He used the very tip of his finger to nudge the lone pillow on a nearby couch. A cloud of dust puffed around it when it flopped over onto the couch cushions.

“How do you know no one’s been here?” said Eli. “Jo, you look around the kitchen. Strong, you take the bedroom. I’ll look in here and the bathroom. Let’s see if we can’t find
something.
Whoever lived here knew something. They moved to the cabin in the woods. So let’s find out…who’s Sandy?”