Cold Cold Heart (15 page)

“Who's that?”

“John Villante. He was Casey Grant's boyfriend. I hadn't seen him since that summer. I heard he got packed off to the army, but he's back. He's a delivery guy for Anthony's Pizzeria. I came across him out by the state park last night, sitting in the parking lot back by the maintenance buildings. Said he wasn't doing nothing, just sitting there gathering his thoughts, but you and I both know the kind of stuff that goes down back there.”

“Refresh my memory. Does he have a record?”

“Juvenile shit when we were kids. Since then . . . I don't know. Like I said, the last I knew he was in the army.”

“Drugs?”

“He liked to smoke a little weed as I recall, but I don't know what else. I can tell you the boy had a short fuse and quick fists. I'm sure you know from reading the file that Detective Hardy liked him for Casey's disappearance, but nothing ever came of it. You have read the file, right?”

Tubman made a face like he was passing gas. “Yeah. A seven-year-old disappearance with no victim and no evidence? I'm all over that.”

“Well, John Villante was the key person of interest. Now he's back in town and a girl gets raped and beaten . . .”

“Was he violent with the Grant girl?”

“I never saw any bruises on her, but they had one of those breakup/makeup relationships. They had a blowout right before she went missing.”

“What about?”

Tim shrugged. “I wasn't privy to it. Dana and I had already split
up by then and I was busy with other things. I do remember Dana was fed up with the never-ending drama. Casey and John would break up. Casey would go running to cry on Dana's shoulder. Dana must have told Casey a hundred times to dump that loser, but Casey always took him back. They had a kind of Romeo and Juliet syndrome, Casey and John. Star-crossed lovers. She was going to be the one to save him from . . .” He shrugged as he searched for what might have made sense to an eighteen-year-old girl. “His upbringing, his bad attitude, his . . . whatever.”

“You mean their families didn't get along?”

“Casey's mom didn't like John. And nobody gets along with his old man. Mack Villante is the most contrary, mean, nasty son of a bitch you'd ever want to come across. He's been a guest of the county more than a few times. He'd probably have a rap sheet as long as my arm if people weren't too scared of him to press charges.”

“So maybe the apple didn't fall far from the tree,” Tubman said. He tossed back the last of his coffee and dropped the cup in the trash. “See if you can't get John Villante to come in for a chat.”

They looked so young
in the photographs. Dana turned through the pages of her high school yearbook, reading the things her classmates had written in their farewell to childhood. The usual sentimental tripe of teenagers:
I'll never forget you! We'll always have S.M.H.S.! Best Friends Forever! Rock on!

Rested after a short nap, she had pulled the book from the shelves and propped herself up against the pillows for a trip down memory lane, hoping her memory would participate. Tuxedo joined her on the bed, curling himself into a purring knot of fur up against one of the piles of clothing Dana had yet to deal with. The yearbook seemed a better choice than organizing the clothes, despite what Dr. Burnette had said about setting a goal to put her stuff away.

There had been 173 kids in Dana's graduating class. If their names hadn't been printed beneath their photographs, Dana thought she probably couldn't have recalled more than a dozen at a glance. The faces were familiar. The photographs that put them in context with activities like cheerleading, the school newspaper, and yearbook staff helped trigger memories. Once one memory was triggered, others with the same cast followed.

She had had many acquaintances in school, but only a few really close friends. She had always been a creature of schedules and lists
and goals. So much time had to be allotted to her studies, so much to clubs, so much to activities, so much to her friendships. The balance had to be maintained so she could achieve the level of success she wanted in each area.

It hadn't made sense to her to try to be besties with a gaggle of girls. She had structured her friendships in tiers. Casey was her best friend. Nichole Findlay had been her—and Casey's—second-best friend. Then came a tier of girls and guys she knew through classes and activities, with whom she had been friendly but not close.

As she thought back on the meticulously organized girl she had been, Dana felt a strange mix of familiarity and distance. She thought of the Dana in the photographs as someone she used to know rather than someone she was or had been. And yet, there were photographs that triggered strong memories and strong feelings that were deeply, intrinsically
hers.

Tucked among the pages was a strip of black-and-white photo-booth photos of her and Casey. Side by side, cheek to cheek, one light, one dark, smiling and laughing, making faces and cutting up for the camera. As she stared at the pictures, a cavernous sense of grief yawned open inside her, and Dana could picture herself, tiny, teetering on the edge of it, ready to fall into the abyss of sadness and longing.

“I miss you, Case,” she murmured to the dark-haired girl in the photographs. And she felt it, really felt it, like a heavy pressure on her chest. She missed her friend, the girl she hadn't thought of in months until last night.

Tim said she and Casey hadn't been getting along at the time of Casey's disappearance. It made her sad to think that they had wasted time being angry, not knowing that their time was about to run out. A spat over Casey's relationship with John Villante, Tim suggested. It wouldn't have been their first disagreement on that subject, but it would have been their last.

John was dark and moody and overly sensitive. He didn't like
Casey's friends—which, of course, rubbed Dana the wrong way. Casey had been her best friend long before she had ever wanted anything to do with boys. And Dana prided herself on being a good and loyal friend. That was the whole point of having a few close friendships as opposed to many casual ones—so she could be the best friend possible. Who was John Villante to criticize her? What did he know about being a good friend? He didn't have any friends . . . except Casey.

Dana turned another page of the yearbook, and another, taking in the photographs. John and Tim as football stars, as basketball stars. Sometimes they got along; sometimes they didn't. There was a picture of Casey and herself in their cheerleader outfits. Casey under the caption “Most Friendly.” Dana and Tim under the banner “Most Likely to Succeed.” Herself and Tim decked out as homecoming royalty, and another photo of them looking serious as student government leaders.

Tuxedo popped his head up and meowed seconds before the light rap on the door. Dana's mother poked her head into the room.

“I thought you might still be sleeping,” she said, letting herself in. “Did you get some rest?”

“Sure,” Dana answered, not interested in mentioning that her sleep had been peppered with fragmented memories and dreams like scattershot fired from another dimension. All the changes in the last two days, all the newly remembered faces, all the fresh suggestions of what she should do and who she could be—all of it was overloading the circuits of her brain.

“That was quite a surprise to see Tim again,” her mother said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I guess we just lost track of his family. You weren't seeing him anymore, and both of you had gone away to school . . . I had heard his parents were splitting up, but . . . I guess there was no reason to keep in touch.”

“I didn't stay in contact with him either,” Dana said. “I don't think he stayed in touch with me. I don't remember that he did.”

“He wasn't too happy when you broke up with him. I don't imagine he felt a need to keep in touch.”

Dana frowned. “But we were both going away that fall. We both knew that was the end.”

At least that was the way she was remembering it.

Her mother picked a T-shirt off the pile of clothes and began to fold it. “Young men have tender egos. That summer was supposed to be his time to shine. You tarnished that for him a little bit breaking up with him when you did.”

“Boys are such babies,” Dana said, the words falling strangely, as if a much younger version of herself had spoken them. “I was supposed to just be his arm candy all summer, then wait for him to pick the moment to break up with me when it was convenient for him?

“That's just stupid,” Dana declared. “He always wanted everything to be his idea.”

“He was a little full of himself that spring,” her mother recalled. “But I remember that he could be very sweet, too, and he always had a great sense of humor. I always thought he would go far.”

“He went far and came back,” Dana said. “That doesn't make sense to me. He was all about his big career in the military. Remember?”

He had been in every parade for fifty miles that summer. The big West Point cadet riding around in the back of a Cadillac convertible, waving to the crowds.

“Sometimes big plans look better from a distance,” her mother said, folding another top. “Maybe the reality of that bigger life just wasn't a good fit for him. I'm sure that wasn't easy to admit or accept.

“But he decided he wanted to come back here and make a difference,” she said. “I like what that says about him. Casey's disappearance inspired him to a career that he feels strongly about. He's dedicated to it and ambitious. It doesn't sound like he settled for something. He just made a different choice.”

A mischievous smile turned one corner of her mouth. She cut Dana a sideways glance as she made a neat stack of the T-shirts. “And he's still pretty darn handsome, thinning hair notwithstanding.”

“So I'm sure he has all the girlfriends he wants,” Dana said flatly. “Good for him.”

“I'm not suggesting that,” her mother said. “But there's no reason you can't enjoy his friendship or his company. He made a point to come here and welcome you home.”

“Mom, don't go there. Really.”

“The two of you were friends for a long time. You know each other. You're comfortable together. It would be nice for you to have that friendship again. He could always make you laugh. I'd like to hear that again.”

Dana said nothing but reached for a T-shirt from the pile and folded it. She hadn't given any thought to having any kind of social life. Her focus was on her immediate self, on healing and therapy and finding something to do with her life. She hadn't thought about having friends, male or female. She hadn't thought about reconnecting with the world in a social way. The idea made her uncomfortable. She wasn't ready. She wasn't sure she would ever be ready.

“He came here to ask me about Doc Holiday,” she said. “The flowers were a bonus.”

Her mother's back stiffened. Her expression hardened. “He did what?”

“He did his job.”

Dana pulled a purple hoodie from the pile. Tuxedo rolled onto his back and batted at the dangling hood strings with his white-mittened paws.

“He asked me if I remembered seeing Doc Holiday around here before Casey went missing,” she said, and shrugged. “I don't know what Doc Holiday looked like. I can't remember him. I don't want to remember him.”

“You don't have to,” her mother said. “I don't want you to.”

“You're the only one,” Dana said, folding the sweatshirt and setting it aside. She pulled a jewelry pouch from the pile of belongings and dumped the contents in her lap.

“Tim said Casey and I weren't getting along before she disappeared,” she said. “Do you remember that?”

Her mother's brow knitted as she tried to recall. She smoothed her hands over the folded sweatshirt in her lap and sighed. “The usual teenage drama. There was plenty to go around. Breakups, makeups. I couldn't keep up. You had broken up with Tim. Casey always had some drama with her boyfriend. You were upset because Casey was upset. Or you were upset with Casey for being upset. But you never stopped being friends. Casey stayed overnight here the night before she went missing.”

Dana tried to pick a necklace from the jumble of jewelry. The chains of several necklaces had somehow woven themselves into a knot. She couldn't tell which chain belonged to which charm bristling from the knot like the elaborate spines of some fantasy sea creature—a cross, a heart, a butterfly, a flower with a tiny pearl in the center.

“I was out of town,” her mother said. “I was in Florida. Grandma was having surgery. I remember Roger complaining over the phone that two teenage girls was more than he could cope with.”

“Roger's a dick.”

“Dana!”

“Well, he is.”

“That's not true,” her mother argued. “I don't know where this sudden animosity is coming from.”

“I don't think it's sudden,” Dana said. “I think I just don't have good impulse control anymore.”

“That's a fact. Maybe Dr. Burnette can help you with that. See if she can work on your sudden use of bad language, too.”

“I don't think she'll be helpful with that,” Dana said as she continued to fuss with the necklaces.

The necklace with the cross had been a gift for her confirmation when she was fourteen. The heart had been a gift from Casey. The flower with the pearl had belonged to her great-grandmother on her father's side. The butterfly . . . She didn't recognize the butterfly.

She tried to pick the necklaces apart with her fingertips, tried to loosen something into a single recognizable thread—a task not unlike trying to make sense of the jumble of memories and thoughts in her mind.

“That's a mess,” her mother said. She reached out a hand. “Let me hold it while you untangle.”

Dana dropped the ball of chains in her mother's palm and used two hands to fuss with the necklaces, working the butterfly necklace free. She held it up to the light and studied the pendant, a butterfly rendered in intricate silver filigree.

“That's beautiful,” her mother said. “Where did you get that?”

“I don't know,” Dana murmured, staring at the butterfly as it turned in the light, a strange sense of apprehension stirring within. “I don't remember ever having this.”

Her mother reached out and fingered the end of the chain. “It's broken. See where the latch is?”

Dana examined the chain. The latch was in place and fastened, but two inches down from the latch, the chain separated. As she looked more closely, she could see that the links had not pulled apart but had been cut.

“That was in the bag,” her mother said. “I remember that was in the bag of your belongings at the hospital. You must have been wearing it when they found you. They must have cut the chain off in the ER that night.”

Dana closed her hand around the butterfly, the points of the tiny wings digging into her palm, and a low current of anxiety hummed through her, though she didn't know why. She opened her hand and looked at the marks that crossed the lines of her palm and wondered if somehow the necklace had made a similar impression on
her life. Had it meant something to her? Had someone given it to her as a token of affection or to mark an occasion, as the other necklaces in the pouch had? They were all things with memories attached.

But as she set the necklace aside on her nightstand, she had the uneasy feeling that she might not want to remember this one, even if she could.

“What do you think happened to Casey?” she asked, taking the rest of the necklace knot from her mother to work at freeing the small heart.

“I don't know,” her mother said, getting up and taking the stack of tops to the closet. “I guess I want to believe she ran away. No one ever found evidence to the contrary. For her mother's sake, I hope that's what happened.”

Dana followed her into the spacious walk-in and watched her sort the T-shirts and hoodies, arranging them neatly on the shelves.

“Then again, I wouldn't wish that not-knowing on anyone, either. It's a terrible thing—not knowing where your child is. Is she alive? Is she in pain? The wondering, the speculation—it's terrible. I can't imagine living with that year after year. I don't think I could stand it.”

“Would you rather know I was dead?”

“No! Of course not!”

Dana shrugged. “That's the alternative.”

“I would rather nothing bad happen in the first place.”