Pretty Girl Thirteen (3 page)

She rolled her eyes and wordlessly stuck her arms out. They were too long, too thin, too pale, and she imagined they were someone else’s arms stuck on her body. Brogan traced the unfamiliar scars on her wrists with a finger, flipped the hands over to examine the short, ragged nails, then back over to the dirty, rough palms. His finger explored the groove left by the ring on her middle finger, the cleaner, paler skin revealed.

He met her eyes with a question. “Know anything about this?”

A knifelike pain hit her behind the ear. She winced and shook her head, which he took to mean no. The ache drifted away. Her head cleared. It felt like fog lifting.

He pursed his lips. “Humor me a sec. Arm wrestle me.” He dropped into the chair again and set his elbow on the coffee table, thumb up.

“You’ll win. Your hands are huge,” Angie predicted. “Plus your arm is much longer than mine.”

One side of his mouth smiled. “Humor me. Please?”

Angie snorted. “Right.” She grasped his hand and pushed. Her smaller fingers disappeared in his grip, but his arm wavered. He pressed back. She met him with resistance, startled at the strength of her skinny arm. Lean muscle bulged. Without warning, his arm gave way and she flattened him. “You let me win,” she accused.

“Maybe a little. You’ve obviously been doing manual labor. For a long time. You’re very strong for your size.”

“Oh my God.” Mom erupted from her seat, hands twisting. “Manual labor? White slavery, do you think?”

How lame, Angie thought. But Brogan seemed to take the question seriously. “No, Margie. Not likely. She’s been relatively local.”

“Local? All this time?” Dad’s voice trembled oddly. “What makes you say that?”

“Her clothes smell of pine sap and wood smoke.”

Angie sniffed her sleeve. He was right. Well, of course, that made sense. Didn’t she make s’mores around the campfire only last night? Smells don’t linger for three years.

“Of course,” she said simply. “I was camping.”

“You remember nothing else?” Brogan asked.

This was getting exasperating. “Look,” she said. “I told you. All of you. I don’t remember anything else. I was camping. Then I was here. I don’t remember being driven home or dropped off or walking. Nothing. I was just here.”

“Angela, how tall are you?” The detective held his palms to her parents to keep them from jumping in.

“Five-one,” she answered without hesitation. In her side vision, Mom’s head shook slightly.

“And how much do you weigh?”

“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?” she asked.

Brogan gave a full-faced smile for the first time. “Sorry. Yes. And I’m terrible at guessing. A hundred and ten?”

“Wow. You are terrible.”

“Told you.” He was honest, anyway, and his grin was contagious. “Sorry. More?”

Angie laughed, for the first time. “Ninety-five, last time I checked.” Her laugh sounded creaky, hoarse, unused.

“And how old are you?”

“Thirteen,” she said.

Mom started to open her mouth. A hissed “Si—” escaped before Brogan cut her off.

Dad missed the gesture. “She’s sixteen,” he insisted. “You’re sixteen now, Angela. Don’t you understand what we’ve been telling you?”

Angie’s head buzzed. What was wrong with everybody? Dad was so stiff and angry—he only ever called her Angela when she was in trouble. She was supposed to be his little Angel. But she hadn’t done anything wrong, except maybe get lost. And that wasn’t her fault. And besides … she was home now.

Anger bubbled up from nowhere. “Will you stop this stupid game? I’m thirteen.” Her voice caught in her throat. “I’m thirteen.”

Tears blurred her view of the detective’s face, but she spoke straight to him in tight, furious words. “I’m Angela Gracie Chapman. In three weeks, I’m starting eighth grade at La Cañada High School. I’m thirteen years old. And I think I’ve been lost. But I don’t know for sure. I want to take a shower and eat and go to bed.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, trying to ignore the soft bumps that weren’t supposed to be there.

Mom stood. She placed an arm around Angie’s shoulder, like a magic cloak of protection. “Detective. She’s right. We all need a little adjustment time here. Can’t this be finished later?”

Angie felt such a rush of relief. Mom would get rid of everyone and tuck her into bed, and when she woke up, everything would be normal again.

“I’m sorry, Margie. I wish we could.” Brogan focused on Angie. “As far as the question of your memory, Angela, I think we’re dealing with some retrograde amnesia and post-traumatic stress here. You know what that is?”

“I can’t remember anything because I’m too freaked out,” she snapped.

“Something like that. I’d like you to meet with our best forensic psychologist as soon as possible. Mitch, Margie, I’ll set up the appointment and call you.”

“So are we done?” Angie asked, just about on her last blip of energy.

“Right after the medical exam,” Brogan said. “I’ll call ahead and expedite it.”

Dad turned his attention to something beyond the window. His expression was absolutely flat, like a stone statue. His shoulders hunched up to his ears.

“Oh, come on, Phil,” Mom protested. “Is that necessary? Now? She’s exhausted. Look at her.”

Brogan caught the desperate, pathetic look Angie threw him. His mouth turned down, and he switched back into the guy with a hole in his knee. “Yeah. I know. But we have to. I’m so, so sorry.”

Why did he keep apologizing? It didn’t change anything.

Brogan lowered his voice, even though there was no one else to overhear. He spoke to Dad’s back, not to her. “Angela has obviously been living with someone. She hasn’t been on the street. She hasn’t been starved. She’s been taken care of. There may be important DNA evidence. We don’t want to let any more time elapse before collecting it.”

“From her clothes?” Mom asked. “We can just give them to you.”

The detective gave Mom a pointed look and, finally, swiveled his attention to Angie. “Angela, without being able to rely on your memory, we need to see whether you’ve been sexually assaulted.”

Angie’s temper flared again. “Just say it, Detective. Don’t spare my feelings. Raped. You want to know if I’ve been raped. Don’t you think I’d know? Don’t you think I’d remember something like that?” Her chest heaved, as if she’d just finished a mile run.

“Do you remember, Angie?” he asked gently.

The image of narrow, dark eyes flashed through her mind and vanished in a spasm of pain. Then her mind was empty, clear—her anger evaporated as if the storm in her head had just died. She was calm. Blank. Relieved. Safe. “No. Nothing. I don’t remember anything.”

“My point exactly,” he said.

“Can I please shower after?”

“Absolutely. Margie, please bring her a change of clothes, since we’ll need to keep these.”

In the front hallway, he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up the grocery bag. “Do you know what’s in here, Angela?”

She shrugged. “Just some clothes, I think.”

“Recognize this?” He pulled out a checkered blouse.

She shook her head. A queasy feeling started up again in her stomach.

He probed lower and removed a yellow apron. Angie wrinkled her nose. “Nope.”

He reached in again and retrieved a tiny, black lace cami.

“Good God,” Dad said, turning pale. His hands combed roughly through his hair and locked behind his head.

Angie felt her own hands tremble. “Not … not my style,” she said lightly. A lump formed in her throat. Where had she gotten these things?

Brogan reached into the bag again. “Ah. No wonder it’s so heavy. Recognize this?”

She squinted at
The Joy of Cooking
in his hand. “Mom has that one. I don’t really cook.”

At the bottom of the bag was the strangest thing—a slim metal bar, pointed on one end, flat on the other. Brogan balanced it across his gloved palm. “Recognize it?” he asked, in a tone that was supposed to be casual but immediately put Angie on guard again.

“No. What is it?” Angie asked.

“Looks like a shiv. An improvised knife.”

“Why would that be in there?” Angie asked.

Brogan watched her with his orange-flecked panther eyes. “My guess is that you packed the things most precious to you. This might have been used for self-defense or—”

“I’ve never, ever seen that before,” Angie said quickly. The edge of the metal looked wicked sharp. Dangerous. “How much damage could you do with a little knife like that?” she asked.

“Oh, no doubt it could kill someone,” Brogan said calmly. “If you knew how to use it.” The way he lingered on “you” gave her shivers.

“A
RE YOU OKAY WITH THIS
, A
NGIE
?”
MOM ASKED FOR THE
third time in three minutes. Her cheeks were flushed red, like she was embarrassed by the flurry of activity their arrival had caused at the emergency room.

“I just want to get it over with,” Angie said. A dull throb sat between her ears. She was too tired to feel anything stronger. Mom was anxious enough for both of them anyway. “Not like I have any choice, do I?”

Detective Brogan turned at the sound of her voice. “Technically, you do. They’ll need your consent. But I can’t emphasize enough how important this is to the investigation.”

On soft, white-sneakered feet, a nurse approached with a clipboard. She glanced between her paperwork and Angie, a wave of pity crossing her face. “Let’s head back to an exam room and go over this.”

Dad looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he picked at his thumbnails. “I’ll just, uh, I’ll wait here with the detective.”

The room was shockingly white, except for the cloudscape painted on the pale blue ceiling. The exam table was much too short to stretch out on, and Angie wondered how she wouldn’t fall off. She listened with a numb, detached feeling while the nurse explained the rape kit procedure. This couldn’t be happening.

The nurse held out a pen. “Sweetie, here’s where you sign. Okay?”

Very slowly, in perfect handwriting, she wrote Angela Gracie Chapman, wishing she had a few more middle names to make it take even longer. The blank line next to it asked a question she couldn’t possibly answer. “Mom, what’s the date?”

“September eighteenth,” Mom answered.

Angie blinked hard and wrote it in. Then she handed the pen to Mom to sign as the “parent/guardian of minor.”

Without a word, Mom drew a single line through the year and corrected it.

Angie swallowed the acid in her throat. Three years. Gone with the slip of a ballpoint pen. How could things like that happen?

Mom’s hand still hovered over the page. “She’s never even had a pelvic.”

“Do you want to be in the room with her?” the nurse asked.

Angie met her mom’s flustered look. She shook her head. “That would be too weird,” she said. “Mom should wait out there. With Dad.”

The nurse touched Mom’s shoulder. “Mrs. Chapman, I’ll be present for the entire procedure. I’m very experienced with this sort of case. Why don’t you give me her change of clothes?”

Mom’s face was stuck between guilt and relief. She signed the form and kissed Angie on the cheek. “I’ll be right nearby, hon. Just right by. Out here.”

As the door clicked closed, Angie felt much less than sixteen, less than thirteen, even. Maybe seven. She wanted to call Mom back to hold her hand, to tell her it would be okay soon. She wanted Mom to remind her to get a sticker on the way out or to ask her where she wanted to get a double scoop when they were done. That’s how she always got through checkups, the embarrassment of taking off her clothes, the chill of the room, the dreadful anticipation of the needle.

“Okay, Angela. Hang in there.” The nurse spread a tarp on the floor. “Please stand in the middle of the pad and place all your clothes on it, not touching the floor.”

“Why?” Angie asked as she unbuttoned the flowered top. She fumbled with clumsy, quivering fingers.

“There may be evidentiary hairs or fibers on your clothes. Shoes, too.”

“Oh.” Self-consciously, she unzipped the pants she was wearing. She couldn’t call them hers—she’d never seen them before. She slid them to the ground, pushing off her shoes. Her skin glowed white in the sterile light. It shrank against her muscles as she broke out in goosebumps. Next, she peeled off her socks.

“What are these scars from, sweetie?” the nurse asked, pointing to Angie’s feet.

She followed the nurse’s finger. Her stomach flipped over. Sour liquid burned a path up into her throat. Around each ankle ran a two-inch band, a thick, lumpy welt of scar tissue. She clamped a hand over her mouth to avoid throwing up. “I don’t know,” she whispered between her fingers. Tears collected at the corners of her eyes.

Oh my God. What had happened? Her legs were gross! Disgusting! She would never, ever wear sandals again.

She crossed her arms over her bare chest, hands tucked into her armpits, and trembled in her panties. They were small and faded, but familiar in all the strangeness. They were actually hers. Pale butterflies chased across her hips. She focused on them, trying to draw comfort from the only thing that made sense.