Wish You Were Dead (12 page)

“Madison? It’s Carol Skelling.”

“Oh, uh, hi.”
Why would she be calling?

“I’m sorry to wake you, but Adam Pinter didn’t come home last night.”

“But it’s still dark,” I said with a yawn.

“It’s ten of six. It’ll be light soon. His mother was up all night
waiting for him. She’s called the police. Is it true that he called for a safe ride?”

I sat up in the bed. “Yes, but he wasn’t there when they went to get him.”

“Who went?” Ms. Skelling asked.

“Sharon and Laurie.”

“Where?”

“The deli by the ball field. That kegger we talked about last night.”

“Did they look for him?”

“They said they did.” Even in the dimness of my bedroom, I was aware that my mother was hovering over me with an anxious expression on her face.

“So they never saw him?” Ms. Skelling asked.

“That’s what they said. Have you spoken to them?”

“I’m going to call right now. Go back to sleep.” Ms. Skelling hung up.

There was no chance of that happening. I handed the phone back and felt gripped by fear. Mom sat down on the side of the bed and stroked my hair, trying to calm me, and reassure herself that I was safe. “The Pinters must be worried sick.”

“He could have stayed at Greg’s house last night,” I said, thinking,
or with Courtney
, who had left with Maura shortly after Sharon and Laurie. Maybe Adam was okay. It was entirely possible that Courtney had called ahead and told him to wait for her. And maybe it was conceivable that he’d neglected to call home. After all, he’d sounded really smashed on the phone.

Suddenly, I knew what I had to do, but I had to do it alone.
I rubbed my eyes. “I’m going to try to go back to sleep, okay?”

Mom squinted at me uncertainly, then nodded as if she understood. “Of course.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead, then got up and left.

As soon as the door closed, I called Adam, but got his message again. Then I called Courtney.

“Helllllo?” She sounded groggy and disoriented.

“It’s Madison. Is Adam there?”

“Huh? No.”

“Courts, it’s really important.”

“Wha …? What’s going on?”

“He didn’t come home last night.”

“Isn’t it still last night?”

“It’s just before six. Courts, if he’s there—”

“He’s
not
here, Madison,” she said, annoyance creeping through her sleepiness. “I don’t know where he is.”

“You didn’t see him last night?”

“No.”

“Or speak to him?”

“No.”

Oh, God
, I thought.
Oh, no!

“You … think something happened to him?” Courtney asked.

Stay positive
, I told myself.
You don’t know what’s happened. There are other possibilities
. “He sounded really drunk when he called. He could have wandered off and passed out behind a bush.”

The line went quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No,” I admitted, feeling my heart sink. “I don’t.”

The phone line went silent. I couldn’t help wondering whether our disagreement of a few days earlier was just a spat, or the actual end of a friendship. I’d had many friends and acquaintances, but so few best friends. There’d been Lucy, then Gabby Wald, whose family had moved to London after tenth grade, then Courtney. Was there something wrong with me? Something that prevented me from having boyfriends and close girlfriends?

“I’d better go,” Courtney said, and hung up.

I lay in bed for a while, trying to recall everything that had happened the night before, especially speaking to Adam on the phone. Was there anything I’d missed? Something he’d said? I thought of that mysterious note.
You and your friends are in danger
.

And now another friend of mine was gone.

The room gradually began to lighten with the coming dawn. Then I had a thought that was so frightening it propelled me out of bed—if Adam was gone in the same way that Lucy had disappeared, then once again, I was the last person to speak to either one of them.

Mom was downstairs in the kitchen with coffee and the newspaper, only the newspaper was unopened. She was gazing out the window at the gray and glassy Sound. I pulled a stool next to her, sat down, and leaned close. Instinctively, she put her arms around me. “What’s this?”

I told her what I’d just realized about being the last person to speak to both Lucy and Adam.

She squeezed my shoulder. “Oh, hon, if that’s true it’s just a coincidence.”

“But whoever left that note
knew,”
I said. “They said my friends and I were in danger.”

Mom just hugged me and didn’t answer.

“I’m scared,” I said, and trembled.

“We still don’t know what’s happened,” she tried to reassure me. “Don’t forget they were—I mean, they are—boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe they did have something planned.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe they decided to run away. Maybe the pressure was too much for them. Maybe she got pregnant and decided to have the baby. Who knows?”

I knew. None of that was true. I knew because of how distraught Adam had been that day he’d talked to me at lunch. I knew because he was a close friend and wouldn’t have lied to me when he said he was breaking up with Lucy. I knew because if that was the case, why had someone left that note? I was willing to bet just about anything that Lucy wasn’t pregnant and she and Adam had had no plan.

chapter
13

Sunday 7:05
A.M
.

Why Lucy, we thought you’d be happy to be reunited with your boyfriend. What, Lucy? Really darling, you must speak up. Oh, we see, your tongue is swollen and it’s painful to speak. We know you’re weak because you haven’t had anything to eat or drink. But look, Adam’s waking up again! Aren’t you going to kiss him hello? Oh, dear, he’s sick. Isn’t that too bad? But we guess that’s what happens when you drink too much. Come now, Lucy, you can’t get that far away from it. So just get used to it.

*  *  *

BACK UPSTAIRS I sat at the computer. By now, other parents must have awakened their children to ask if they knew anything about Adam, because the text messages and IMs began to fly. The dominant rumor was that Lucy and Adam had planned from the start to run away together. I didn’t believe it, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

The one person I wished I could speak to was Tyler. Even though I was still disappointed that he hadn’t been around the previous night, this was the sort of thing I felt I could call him about. Or maybe I was just using it as an excuse to connect. I dialed, got his voice mail, and left a message.

After a while, Courtney popped up on the IM list. So now we both knew the other was online. How long were we going to ignore each other? There were times when you had to rise above your pride and do the right thing. I IMed her.

This time, she IMed me right back.

“I don’t believe Lucy and Adam ran away,” Courtney said later that afternoon. For the moment, or maybe forever, we’d put aside our disagreements. After several days of cold rain, it had turned warm and sunny. Under a blue November sky, we sat at a metal table outside Starbucks, both of us having felt the need to get out of our houses. I wore a hoodie and jacket. I’d looked for my red cashmere scarf at home but couldn’t find it, and I wondered if I’d left it in the Safe Rides office the night before. Courtney wore sunglasses. Every few moments she would poke the cuff of her hoodie under the glasses and into the corner of an eye. So I knew she was upset.

“Neither do I,” I said. “But you can see how other people might. All the other explanations are so creepy.”

Courtney sniffed and dabbed her eyes under the sunglasses again. “I know,” she said in a quavering voice, as if fighting not to break down completely. “I mean, what’s going on?”

The question hovered uncomfortably in the air between us. From a corner of my mind came the question I still wanted to ask from a few days before—why had Courtney chosen to fool around with Adam?—but I knew this was the wrong time. Searching for something else to talk about, I said, “Anything interesting happen last night?”

“What, with Maura?” Courtney made a face, as if the words
interesting
and
Maura
could not possibly be connected. “She gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not her fault,” I said.

“I’m not talking about the way she looks or dresses. It’s the way she
acts
. When you’re in the car with her”—Courtney feigned a shiver—“she’s so quiet. And if you ask her a question, you get a one-word answer. I always feel like she’s sucking something out of me. She’s like … I don’t know, a leech.”

“She’s shy,” I said.

A crooked little smile appeared on Courtney’s lips. “You always have to say something nice, don’t you?”

Before I could reply, Jen cruised down the street in her car, leaning over the steering wheel and peering at Starbucks. When she saw Courtney and me, she jammed her brakes so hard that she was almost rear-ended by the car behind her. She quickly parallel-parked and got out. Courtney and I shared a “brace yourself” look.

“O-M-G, girls!” she gasped, coming toward us, trying to act somber given the recent news about Adam, but with a telltale glimmer of excitement in her eyes. She pulled a chair to our table. I had mixed feelings about her arrival. It was both an unwanted intrusion and a welcome relief from the shroud of gloom.

“Like, what in the world is going on?” she asked.

Courtney and I shook our heads.

“But you don’t believe they planned it, right?”

We shook our heads again.

“It’s so weirdly symbolic,” Jen said.

“Come again?” Courtney said.

“I mean, the most popular boy and girl in our school?” Jen said. “The king and queen of the prom? The male and female most likely to succeed? The—”

“And your point is?” I interrupted.

Jen leaned close and lowered her voice. “I’m just saying that if something bad happened to them, maybe it’s not a coincidence. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that?”

Courtney and I shared a surprised look. Neither of us had.

“We don’t know that anything bad’s happened to either of them,” I said.

“Oh, right.” Jen smirked dubiously. “They’ve
both
just vanished into thin air. Happens every day. And by the way, you realize Lucy’s now been gone for more than a week?”

Neither Courtney nor I answered. It was hard to imagine that there was anyone in Soundview who
wasn’t
aware of how long Lucy had been missing. Jen rose from her chair. “Be right back.” She went into the Starbucks.

Courtney stared past me and up the block where Greg, Reilly, and Jake were coming down the sidewalk. Greg’s and Jake’s hands were jammed into the pockets of their jeans. All three of them had grim expressions on their faces.

A little while later, there were six of us at two tables pushed together, huddled over our coffees.

“This is unreal,” Jake muttered. “I mean, stuff like this doesn’t happen around here.”

“You know, the night Lucy disappeared,” said Greg, “there were some guys I’d never seen before. I heard later that they were from FCC. And there was at least one guy at the kegger last night who I’d never seen before. Maybe—”

“Oh my God!” Reilly gasped, sweeping her chestnut hair out of her face. “I know who you mean! I talked to him!”

We stared at her.

“Last night. At the kegger. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together until now.” Reilly pressed her hand to her chest as if to keep from hyperventilating.

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“I don’t know, just stuff,” Reilly said, although from the distant look in her eyes you could see that even as she answered, she was still searching her memory. “I’d had a couple of beers and I talked to a lot of people. I’m trying to remember.”

“Was he from FCC?” Greg asked.

“I don’t think he said,” Reilly answered. “I mean, he definitely wasn’t from our school. I sort of assumed he was from some school nearby.”

“What kind of stuff did you talk about?” Courtney asked.

“Well, he wanted to know who was who—”

“And that didn’t seem weird to you?” Jen interrupted.

“Not at the time. I mean, he didn’t know anyone so he was asking, that’s all. Just making conversation. It’s seemed pretty natural.”

“And you’re sure he never said where he was from?” I asked.

Reilly stared at her coffee. “If he did, I don’t remember.…” She looked up as if she’d just remembered something. “He wanted to know who the most popular kids were.”

For a moment, all of us exchanged shocked looks. “Oh … my … God!” Jen muttered.

I flipped open my phone and called the police.

It wasn’t long before a dark green sedan pulled up and Detective Payne got out and came toward us.

“Do you know what happened to Adam?” Jen asked.

“I think it’s best if I ask the questions,” Detective Payne replied patiently. He turned to me. “Madison, you said you have a friend who might have some important information?”

I introduced him to Reilly.

“You spoke to this person?” Detective Payne asked her.

Reilly nodded uncomfortably.

“Remember what he looked like?”

“Sort of. It was kind of dark.”

Detective Payne glanced around at the rest of us and then focused again on Reilly. “Would you mind coming down to the station? I’d like to ask you some more questions, and maybe you could give us a description.”

Reilly gave me a nervous glance, but I nodded back reassuringly.
She turned to the detective. “Should I, like, tell my parents?”

“Certainly,” said Detective Payne.

While Reilly called her mom, I asked Detective Payne if we could speak in private for a moment. We walked a dozen yards down the sidewalk.

“Thanks for calling me,” he said in a low voice. “This could be helpful.”

“I was thinking about the note,” I replied. “It said that my friends and I were in danger. Adam is one of my closest friends.”