The Disappearance Read online

  Frank shoved the door open and we both ran in. The apartment was silent, and there was nothing immediately notable about the living room. Frank ran into the bedroom. “Oh, man,” he groaned.

  I followed him in and saw what he meant.

  There was stuff strewn everywhere. The mattress had been pulled off the box spring and lay flopped to the side. Harper’s suitcase was still there—but it was open, and all her belongings and clothing had been thrown around the room.

  There was no sign of Harper.

  “Hey, Frank,” I said, as I noticed something black peeking out from beneath a T-shirt. It was Jones’s cell phone. I picked it up and handed it to Frank.

  He hit the button to illuminate the screen. Then he quickly typed in a code.

  “You know Jones’s password?” I asked, feeling a weird mixture of impressed and grossed out.

  “Yeah,” he said, barely looking at me. “It’s ‘Samson,’ for Abigail Samson, the woman who directed the Dagger Girl movie. Phew.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “No new voice mails since Jones checked,” he said. “Maybe he’s calmed down?”

  That’s when we heard pounding footsteps on the stairs, moving onto the walkway.

  “Did we close the door behind us when we walked in?” I hissed.

  Frank looked helpless. “I can’t remember.”

  Then we heard someone yelling in the living room . . . the same ragged voice we’d heard in the voice mail. “HARPER?!”

  Then more heavy footsteps. Then a face peeked into the bedroom—short dark hair; wide red face.

  “WHO THE HECK ARE YOU??”

  4

  MAD MATT

  FRANK

  JEALOUS BOYFRIENDS ARE ALL THE same. It’s a pattern Joe and I have seen before. Deeply insecure, worried that their girlfriend might find someone better . . . so they get possessive and say they “have to” keep track of her every minute. It starts with wanting to know her whereabouts at every moment, and it can escalate into wanting to control where she goes and who she spends time with, until the poor girl is practically this guy’s prisoner. It’s not a good scenario. Sometimes, when someone intervenes early on, these guys learn to deal with their insecurity in healthier ways. The worst ones turn into criminals.

  That’s why it was important to handle this dude very carefully.

  “Dude, don’t worry, we’re no one,” blurted Joe.

  Not what I would have started with . . .

  The dude stepped forward. “ ‘No one’ who has Harper’s phone,” he pointed out. “ ‘No one’ who was WITH HER LAST NIGHT!”

  “Just in a group!” I said, holding up my hands to look as harmless as possible. “Look, Harper is a friend of my girlfriend’s. The three of us were just eating pizza and talking. But when you called, Harper’s phone was nearly dead, so my girlfriend loaned her hers. Unfortunately, we left right after that and no one remembered to switch the phones back.”

  The dude took in a breath through his nose—good sign—and straightened up a little, his eyes darting back and forth from me to Joe.

  “Hey, let’s restart here?” Joe said. “I’m the guy who texted you. Joe.” He gestured at me with his elbow. “That’s Frank. And I’m thinking you’re Matt.”

  He took in another breath and nodded. “When did you leave?” Matt asked, his voice sounding a little more normal.

  “Around nine,” Joe replied. “Harper seemed really tired, and she said she wanted to leave early this morning.”

  “Actually—” I jumped in, thinking I’d mention the guy next door who broke up the party with his complaints. But then I thought better of it. Somehow it didn’t seem like a good idea to let this guy think it was such a wild party that the neighbors wanted to call the cops. “Actually, we’ve been trying to reach her,” I said instead. “We were hoping we’d get here before she left, so we could give her phone back.”

  Matt wasn’t looking at either of us now. He was sort of staring into a middle distance, like he could see something there that no one else could. I wondered if it was part of his calming-down ritual. “She didn’t leave,” he said suddenly, looking up at me, and I could swear his voice broke a little. “At least, she didn’t come home. Her car’s still out there.”

  I nodded, trying to make my expression sympathetic. “We just got in here and started looking for her when you showed up,” I explained.

  He glanced up, looking around the small apartment. “Did you find anything?”

  “No,” Joe said. “But . . . the door was open when we got here.” He paused. “And the bedroom is pretty messed up, as you can see.”

  Matt looked around at the mattress and thrown-around clothes, seeming to see them for the first time. “Oh God,” he said. “You think . . .”

  I watched his face. He really did look worried. “Maybe Harper had some uninvited guests,” I said quietly.

  Matt looked around the room—the bed, the suitcase. Then he backed out of the bedroom and walked somewhere else. Joe and I exchanged a glance and followed. When we caught up, he was standing in the doorway to the small apartment bathroom.

  “None of her stuff is unpacked,” he said, pointing at the sink, which held only a toothbrush. “She takes forever to get ready. Has a ton of products, hair, makeup. She usually carries a little bag of stuff, but it looks like she never took it out.” He turned and looked at us. “That means she didn’t get herself ready this morning.”

  That’s a bad sign. I glanced at Joe and could see he was thinking the same.

  “The shower’s not wet,” I said, suddenly realizing. “So unless she left really early, she didn’t shower, either.”

  “This is not good,” Matt muttered.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Joe. “Maybe she got up and wanted to leave right away. But there was something wrong with her car, so she left to . . . take the train? Or a bus?”

  “And left her stuff?” Matt pointed out. I’d been thinking the same thing but hadn’t wanted to say anything, for fear of upsetting him. “And trashed her own room?” The tension was rising in his voice.

  Joe sighed. “Is there any reason she wouldn’t come home?” he asked. “Maybe . . .”

  Matt shook his head strongly. “No. No, she always comes home.” He paused, moaned, and put his face into his hands. “Oh God, I’m sorry, Harper. Just let her be okay. . . .”

  I looked at Joe. His face said: Sorry? I gave a tiny nod.

  “Um, what are you sorry about?” I asked.

  Matt rubbed his face with his hands and, after a few seconds, looked up at me. His eyes were red. “We had a stupid fight,” he said. “Right before she left for the convention. It’s had me on edge all day yesterday and today.”

  I felt a sudden ray of hope. “A fight?” I asked. “Well, is there any way Harper could have been mad enough to not come home?” I had a sudden vision of her walking on the beach, coffee in hand, trying to figure the whole thing out. That still left the question of what happened to the bedroom, but maybe she’d been mad enough to trash it herself?

  Matt began shaking his head almost immediately, though, dashing my hope. “No. Harper always comes home, like I said. She gets mad, she goes somewhere to think it over, she comes home, I say I’m sorry. We talked on the phone last night, and she was fine. We’ve been talking about getting married. I’m in this for the long haul.” He rubbed his hand over his hair. “It was just a stupid fight, like any couple has.”

  I could tell from Joe’s face that he was thinking the same thing I was: “stupid fight like any couple has” didn’t seem to match up with Matt’s crazy texts, and how obsessed he was with Harper coming home right away. Even the phone call he’d mentioned had seemed upsetting to Harper, although I didn’t want to let Matt know we’d been around to witness that call. I realized then that Matt had said, I’m in this for the long haul, not We’re in this. Was it possible that he and Harper were on different pages?

  Maybe Harper had felt
trapped?

  “Why don’t we sit down and talk a little?” Joe suggested, gesturing at the couch and floor cushions, still spread out where they’d been the night before.

  Matt looked at him a little suspiciously, then shrugged and sat down on the couch. “I’m not sure what else to do,” he admitted.

  “What was the fight about?” I asked, sitting down on a cushion on the floor.

  Matt sighed. “It’s hard to remember,” he said. “We’ve been fighting about a lot of dumb stuff lately. I know I didn’t want her to go to the convention.”

  “You didn’t?” Joe asked. “Why?”

  Matt scowled. “She’s always taking off for ‘comic book this’ or ‘convention that’—all things that take place hours away from where we live, that I’m not interested in.” He sighed again. “Would it be too much to ask to spend one weekend with my girlfriend? To maybe spend some time with people she’d be willing to introduce me to?”

  “You haven’t met any of her comic book friends?” Joe asked.

  “Why would I?” Matt asked. “I don’t care about comics. And she’s so secretive about them—she won’t even tell me their names.”

  I looked at Joe. Who to believe? Was Harper really trying to conceal friends from Matt, or was he just offended that she had her own interests, like so many jealous boyfriends we’d seen?

  “Anyway,” Matt said, “we were getting close to working it out.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “When we talked about it, Harper was arguing with me less. She seemed to understand that if we’re going to make a life together, we have to focus on each other.”

  Did she think that? I wondered. Or did she just stop arguing with you because she knew she was going to run away?

  “Is there anyone you can call?” Joe asked suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. “A close friend, a family member? Someone Harper might tell if she . . . had a change of plans?”

  “How would she have contacted anyone?” Matt asked, giving Joe a challenging look. “You had her phone, and she left yours here. No calls, right?”

  Right. I looked at Joe like, Well?

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly, okay? But there are other ways to communicate with people. Maybe she went for a walk and used a pay phone, or got online somehow. Either way, it’s starting to feel like we need to call the police. And before we do that, maybe we should check in with her family, make sure there’s nothing we don’t know.”

  Matt’s eyes widened at the word “police.” And I felt a little jolted too. But I couldn’t argue with Joe’s logic. If something had happened to Harper, they’d need to be involved.

  Matt pulled a smartphone out of his pants pocket and pushed the button to turn on the screen. Then he started clicking through menus. “I can call her aunt Patty,” he said. “She’s all the family Harper’s got—she raised her from the age of eight. Harper’s parents had their issues. They’ve both passed on now.”

  He pressed a button to dial.

  “Can you put her on speaker?” Joe asked.

  Matt looked a little annoyed but nodded, pulled the phone away from his ear, and pushed the speaker button.

  “Hello?” an older female voice answered.

  “Hey, Patty, this is Matt,” Matt replied. “Listen, have you heard from Harper?”

  “Harper? ” Patty asked, sounding as surprised as if Matt had asked whether she’d heard from Big Bird. “No. Why?”

  “She hasn’t come home today,” Matt explained. “And actually—well, I came down here to meet her at the place she was staying, and her car and stuff are here, but she’s nowhere to be found.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line—just breathing. It lasted a few seconds. “I haven’t heard from her,” Patty said. “But you know how she is, Matt. That girl’s a little wild.”

  Matt sighed, and a flash of annoyance moved across his face, like he’d had this conversation before—and didn’t like it.

  “Yeah, yeah. You don’t know nothing, though?”

  “I don’t,” Patty said. “But I bet she’ll turn up, and she’ll have some crazy story to tell.”

  Matt shook his head. “All right. Thanks, Patty. Bye.” And he clicked the hang-up button before Joe or I could say anything.

  “What does she mean, ‘wild’?” I asked.

  Matt groaned. “That’s what Patty always says. Harper was a tough kid to raise, I guess—she had a mind of her own, she was always taking off and getting into trouble. But she’s been growing out of that, getting ready to settle down with me.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “We’ve been saving up for a down payment on a house. Something must have . . .”

  Matt trailed off as the sound of footsteps on the stairs, then the walkway, grew louder and louder. Someone might be headed for this apartment. He stood up.

  “Harper . . . ?” he called.

  But when the door banged open, it definitely was not Harper who stood there.

  “Who the hell are all of you?!” asked an older woman wearing white capri pants and a T-shirt with a rhinestoned flamingo on it. Carefully styled orange-tinted hair winged out from her head like a crown.

  Then she pulled something out of her pocket and pointed it at us.

  It was a tiny pistol—only slightly bigger than the palm of her hand. It had a shiny pearled handle. Guess she liked sparkly things.

  “Um, hello. I’m Joe. And who are you?” Joe asked.

  This was not a great turn of events.

  Surprisingly, Matt stood up with a smile on his face, looking happy to see her. “I’m Matt. Do you know where Harper is?” he asked eagerly.

  The woman scowled at him, the lines around her mouth deepening into ravines. If I had to guess, I’d say this woman was a smoker. “I’m Geraldine,” she replied in a raspy voice, jabbing the gun in his direction. “I own this place. And if I’m not mistaken, I have the gun, so I get to ask the questions!”

  “Look, we’re just friends of Harper’s,” I said quickly. “You know, your guest, Harper. We came here today to give her phone back, and found her missing.”

  Geraldine pursed her lips. “Missing? Really?” She lowered the gun and shoved it back into her pocket. I hoped the thing had the safety on. “Sorry about that. I hate to get off on the wrong foot, but you can’t be too careful these days. World is going to the dogs.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but fortunately, Joe did.

  “So you own this place.”

  Geraldine nodded. Her hair barely moved. “I own five places, actually. Three apartments here in this complex and two in the Sandpiper on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Anyway, crime is up these days. I’ve even heard there’ve been abductions in the area. That’s why I invest in top-of-the-line security. Automated system, video cameras, the whole nine yards. Actually, I just got a complaint from another tenant that two weirdos have been hanging around, asking for access to the building.”

  I looked at Joe. That’s us—and the complainy guy. But before we could say anything, Geraldine suddenly turned to the door she’d walked through and pulled it toward her. “What on earth!”

  Matt, Joe, and I all looked at one another. “Is something wrong?” Matt asked.

  “You bet something’s wrong,” Geraldine replied, reaching into her pocket (not the one where the gun was) and pulling out an old-fashioned flip-style cell phone. “Someone ripped the dang chain lock off the door. This apartment’s been broken into. I’m calling the police!”

  • • •

  “And then Geraldine showed up,” Joe said. He sounded a little monotone, but I couldn’t blame him, really—we were telling the same story for the fifth time, sitting in an interrogation room at the Margate police station. The two police detectives who were listening to us now exchanged a glance, and one, Detective McGill, made a note. “She said the chain lock had been ripped off the door, and she called the police.”

  McGill kept writing, and the other detective, Go
mez, leveled a penetrating glare at us.

  “Just to recap,” she said, “you guys had never met Mr. Driscoll before?”

  Mr. Driscoll was Matt, we’d found out. And the police seemed super interested in learning all they could about him.

  “Never,” I said. “We didn’t even think he’d be there. We were just there to check on Harper.”

  “Even though you’d just met her the day before?” Gomez prodded.

  We nodded. “We wanted to give her back her phone, remember,” Joe said. “And when she didn’t answer the buzz, we were worried about her.”

  McGill wrote for a few more seconds. Then he stopped, and he and Gomez looked at each other.

  “Okay,” McGill said, closing up his notebook. “Thank you, boys. I think that will do it.”

  “That’s it?” asked Joe, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes,” said Gomez. “You’re free to go.”

  “After all that?” Joe pressed. Then he seemed to remember he was kind of challenging a police officer, and added a big white smile.

  McGill stood up. “You boys may have an interesting record, but it’s a clean one,” he explained. “And the security footage from the convention center and the apartment building backs up your story. We also spoke to your father by phone, and he told us what time you got home last night and left this morning.”

  For many people, the fact that police officers from a strange town had called and spoken to their parents about their possible involvement in a crime would have been the thing that jumped out about McGill’s statements.

  Not for me.

  “Security cameras!” I repeated, slapping my hand against the table. “That’s right! Geraldine said they were all over the apartments.”

  Gomez looked bored. “Yup.”

  “So they must show what happened,” I said, looking eagerly from Gomez to McGill. “Do you know who took Harper? If anyone took Harper?”

  Gomez and McGill looked at each other, and I could see the conversation playing out on their faces: We don’t have to tell them anything. (Gomez.) Yeah, but they seem harmless. And they’re worried about their friend. (McGill.)