The Disappearance Read online

“Restless?” Patty supplied.

  Matt nodded. “That’s it. Restless.” He sighed. “I loved her, man. I wanted so badly to settle down with her. But she never seemed ready.”

  “It sounds like you fought about it,” Jones pointed out, her mouth twisted into a skeptical scowl. “Like you tried to force the issue, control her. Some of the texts you sent while we had her phone were scary.”

  Matt blinked, then nodded again. “Yeah,” he said, a little sadly. “I thought I could change her, you know? Like if I was serious enough about it, if I was mean enough, I could make her more ready.”

  “That’s really messed up,” I said.

  Matt swallowed hard, closing his eyes. “Yeah. I can see that better now. It got ugly once or twice. I never hurt her, but I scared her, and that really is messed up.”

  Jones glared at him. “Yeah,” she said pointedly.

  Matt opened his eyes. “I know. I do. I’m trying to work on my temper, but maybe that’s not enough.”

  “I think you should talk to someone,” Joe suggested, “before you do more than scare somebody.”

  “You’re right,” Matt said after a pause. “Anyway, the only thing I can think of is, she liked to talk about moving to a big city, going to art school. Maybe that’s what she collected the money for?”

  I looked at Joe and Jones. Moving to a city? Art school? It seemed like as good a lead as any . . . and also our only lead, so there was that.

  “Can we take the letter to the Margate police?” I asked Matt. “Or we could give you a ride, if you want to come along.”

  Patty snorted. “You would take him in your car with you after he chased you with a rifle?”

  “Well,” Jones said, “I’d still have my pepper spray.”

  I waved the letter. “We’ve been honest with you all along, Patty. All we want is to figure out what happened to Harper.”

  Patty looked from me to Joe to Jones, then shook her head. “You all are some good friends.”

  Matt stood up. “You take it,” he said. “I’m eager to know what happens, and that Harper is safe. But I think I should stay here. No matter what’s happened to her . . . I realize now I need to let her go.” He pushed the washcloth back onto his eyes. “And start working on myself.”

  11

  CRIMES OF PASSION

  JOE

  MATT COULD HAVE WRITTEN THE letter, you know.” It occurred to me just as we pulled off the highway in Margate, after swinging by Bayport to drop off Jones in time for her evening shift at the coffee shop. Matt and I had been through a lot together that afternoon—he tried to kill me, we helped him through a nasty pepper spray attack—and that had a tendency to create a bond. But Matt was still the suspect with the most obvious motivation for hurting Harper: jealousy.

  We couldn’t lose sight of that.

  “It was printed out, no postmark,” I went on. “Matt could have written it to throw suspicion off himself. He said the police had told him Harper owed people money.”

  Frank frowned, staring out the windshield. “But why?” he asked. “The police already cleared him, because he was at work. He didn’t need to do anything to throw their suspicion off him.”

  I shrugged. “His alibi doesn’t mean he couldn’t have hired people to abduct Harper. Maybe he knew there was more evidence out there. Maybe—” A horrible thought occurred to me, and I broke off before I finished that sentence.

  “What?” Frank prompted.

  “Well,” I said carefully, “Harper hasn’t been heard from since she vanished. Maybe, somewhere, there’s a . . .”

  Frank swallowed loudly as he seemed to get it. “Let’s not talk about that,” he said. “Let’s . . . take this to the police, and they can at least check it for fingerprints and DNA.”

  I nodded, trying to push the horrible thought away and just focus on this lead. “Right. That would give them a hint as to who wrote it.”

  • • •

  Gomez and McGill weren’t thrilled to see us—especially McGill—but when we showed them that we’d brought new evidence, they seemed to warm up.

  “You’re still working this case?” Gomez asked, as we settled into her office. She sounded a teeny bit impressed.

  “We care about Harper,” I said. “We just want to find out what happened to her.”

  Gomez breathed out through her nostrils, handing the letter over to McGill. He took it, still looking like he’d swallowed a lemon. But as he started to read, his expression softened.

  “We’ve been looking into the online victims, actually,” Gomez explained, “but most of them have alibis—and many of them live hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Honestly, we’re running out of potential suspects.”

  “What about Matt?” I asked, remembering my realization in the car. “He had an alibi, I know—but couldn’t he have hired someone to take Harper? To abduct her, or . . . whatever?” I didn’t want to think about the specifics of what “whatever” could mean.

  Gomez shook her head. “We don’t think—”

  But to my surprise, McGill interrupted. “It’s not the worst theory,” he said, looking thoughtful. “Of all the suspects, Matt definitely has the clearest motive.” He paused, looking off into space. But then he let out a disappointed sound. “Although crimes of passion are usually, well, passionate. It would be very unusual for the abductor to hire someone hundreds of miles away.”

  “But not impossible,” Gomez added. “We’ll look into it.”

  McGill passed the letter back to Gomez. “We’ll also test this for fingerprints and DNA,” he said. “See what we find. If that’s it, boys . . .”

  I was suddenly thinking about the last time we were in this office: when Dad had shown the security footage from our house. And McGill had come out with his crazy theory about us taking an Uber, and Dad had said . . .

  “One more thing,” I said suddenly. “We know you checked the security footage from the lobby and the walkway near the apartment, but did you ever look at the footage from the UrMotel parking lot? Or anywhere else, like any hallways?”

  Gomez looked surprised by my question, but McGill looked annoyed, and maybe a little embarrassed. “We didn’t find any evidence that you boys had gotten into another car or taken an Yber,” he said, adding bitterly. “Another point to the Hardy boys.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, cool, but I’m not worried about that. I’m just wondering if you saw anything else of interest.”

  Gomez and McGill exchanged a look. “No,” Gomez said finally. “We did watch the footage, but those cameras showed normal activity—people Geraldine identified as guests. Nothing helpful.”

  “Could we see all the footage?” I asked hopefully.

  McGill raised his eyebrows but shrugged. Gomez tilted her head. “Okay,” she said. “I mean, I don’t see why not.”

  After McGill headed back to his office, and Gomez took off to find the footage, Frank leaned over to me. “What are you up to?” he asked. “We’re already going to be late getting home. What do you think we’re going to find in this haystack?”

  “A needle, I’m hoping,” I said. “Specifically, I’m wondering if there’s any chance Matt showed up that night.”

  • • •

  WE’LL BE HOME LATE TONIGHT, I texted Mom a couple of hours later. Frank and I were still in the police station and had already sifted through hours of security footage.

  Gomez and McGill were right about one thing: it wasn’t super-thrilling stuff. In fact, it mostly showed guests moving around. I’d already recognized Complainy Guy (as Frank called him) walking down to the lobby a few times, but there was nothing you might call “unusual.” We’d already watched ourselves arrive and leave.

  “What time is it?” Frank asked, yawning.

  “In real life or in the footage?” I asked.

  “Both.”

  I pulled out my phone and lit it up. “It’s eight thirteen p.m. for real-time Joe and Frank.” Then I put my phone away and gestured to the numbers
on the lower right corner of the screen. “In UrMotel time, it’s two forty-five a.m.”

  Frank grunted. Things had gotten real quiet in the UrMotel footage. Every so often someone would come downstairs to have a smoke on the patio, or to get a drink or ice from the machine. But otherwise, it was kind of . . . boring. It was making my eyelids heavy. The pizza Gomez and McGill had let us order about an hour before lay nearly demolished on a table nearby. I felt a pizza coma coming on. . . . Should have ordered a Mountain Dew too . . .

  “Who’s that?” Frank suddenly asked, making me jump a few inches in my seat. After blinking a few times to focus, I realized he was pointing to a someone with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes who was crossing the lobby.

  “Look,” Frank whispered as the figure walked across the lobby.

  I looked, and my jaw dropped.

  The figure was wearing Chucks. Specifically, Von’s rather unique Batman-symbol Converse sneakers.

  I looked at my brother, as he put my thoughts into words.

  “Seriously?” Frank wondered out loud. “Him?”

  12

  BATMAN RETURNS

  FRANK

  I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ORDERED THAT.”

  “Whuuut?” Joe looked up, chastened, but the effect was kind of ruined by the fact that his face was jammed full of Cowboy Burger. A Cowboy Burger—at least at the Supreme Diner—is a cheeseburger with a fried egg on top, covered in baked beans and, yeah, still served on a bun.

  It was gross, and nearly impossible to eat. Nobody would order this except Joe. It was even on the last page of the menu, the one no sane person ever gets to.

  I shook my head. “We’re on a case,” I hissed at him. The Margate police had agreed that it made sense for us to talk to Von first, since we had spoken to him earlier, and see if we could get at the truth. If Von admitted to anything, they were waiting in a patrol car outside and were prepared to arrest him in the parking lot. “You’re wearing a wire, remember? We’re here to get the guy who took Harper—once and for all! Do you really want to gross out Gomez and McGill with every chew and swallow and burp?”

  Joe looked wounded. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “You had three slices of pizza!”

  “Five is my norm! I was distracted by the footage!”

  I shoved Joe in the shoulder. “Finish that thing.”

  Joe shoved what remained of the Cowboy Burger into his mouth and began devouring it.

  • • •

  Von walked in the front door of the diner and spotted us right away. It was pretty quiet at ten p.m. on a weeknight. He walked over to us eagerly, his eyes bright.

  “So what do you think?” he started when he was still a good ten feet away. “Does she still have it? Is there any chance of getting it back? Or did she buy something with it, and I could try to get that. . . .”

  We’d texted Von, claiming that we’d been digging into the Harper situation and had a fairly good idea of what she might have done with his money. It was a lie, of course, but an effective one, because here he was.

  “Actually,” I said, gesturing to the seat across from us, “you might want to sit down, Von. This is going to be a deep conversation.”

  Von looked confused, but he sat. “Deep?” he asked. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, man, was Harper into some weird stuff? Was my money used for something illegal? Am I in trouble?”

  Joe burped, which cut the tension considerably. “Excuse me,” he said.

  Von shook his head. “It’s cool, man.”

  I took the pause in conversation as an opportunity to pull a printout from my pocket. “Von,” I said, unfolding it, “I want you to look at this.”

  Von looked at the black-and-white image and his face paled.

  “Note the date and time stamp,” Joe said, wiping his face with his napkin.

  Von looked up at Joe, clearly trying to look confused, but looking more like a freaked-out squirrel. “Ah . . . where is this place?”

  Joe winced. “Oh, come on,” he said. “You know this already . . . but this is at the building where Harper’s UrMotel apartment was located.”

  Von looked from the picture to me, back to the picture, and then down at his lap.

  “You were there,” I pointed out. “We asked you all about what you knew about Harper. You never said—”

  Von sighed and then took a quick breath. “Okay, but I can—I can—”

  “You can what?” I prompted. “How about this? You can tell us what really happened that night.”

  “Yeah,” Joe added. “No more of this I wouldn’t hurt a fly crap. You clearly know a lot more than you let on.”

  Von looked at Joe, then turned away, looking around the diner. “I don’t, though,” he said in a helpless voice.

  I slammed my hand down on the edge of the printout. “Are you serious?” I asked.

  Von looked back at me nervously, then said, “Okay, okay, I see how this looks. I get it. That’s why I didn’t tell you guys before that I went to her UrMotel—I knew it would look bad.”

  “It does,” Joe said. “It looks very bad.”

  “But I was desperate,” said Von.

  I glanced at Joe. “Desperate” is a common description of how people were feeling before they committed a crime. “Desperate” does not lead to good outcomes.

  Von spread his hands, appealing to us. “Harper stole my whole new car fund!” he said. “Do you know how long it took me to save up that money? Do you know what being a comics dealer pays? Not much! ”

  Joe scowled, unimpressed. “How about we stick to what you did that night?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “We can get to the whys and hows later.”

  Von sat up straighter. “Okay. Okay. So I found you guys at the convention, which you know, but after I talked to you . . . I hid.” His face was flushing. “I followed you. I saw you meet back up with Harper, and I followed you to her UrMotel.”

  Joe was listening, rapt, eyebrows raised.

  Von paused and took a breath, looking down at the table. “I waited until you guys left with Jones.”

  As much as I’d thought I was prepared for this conversation, my stomach twisted. Joe didn’t look like his Cowboy Burger was resting comfortably either.

  “And what . . . you were angrier than you thought?” my brother prompted, looking horrified. “You confronted Harper, and things got out of control?”

  Von shook his head emphatically. “No, no,” he insisted. “That’s the thing—I never even saw Harper!”

  “You never saw her?” I repeated, confused. “Why, because you had someone abduct her for you? Why were you even there?”

  Von sighed and placed his hands on the table. “No, I was going to see Harper,” he said. “I wasn’t planning to hurt her—I just wanted to ask her about the money. Tell her how much it had meant to me, see if she would agree to pay me back.” He paused and looked out the window. “But I never even got past the patio! I went up the stairs that seemed to lead to her room, but I got stopped a few steps up by a guy who demanded to know what I was doing there.”

  “A guy?” I asked. “What did he look like?” But I already had an idea, and I could tell from Joe’s face that he did too.

  Von looked thoughtful. “Big guy, shaved head,” he said. “Kind of . . . thick eyebrows?”

  “How old?” Joe asked.

  “I dunno, early thirties, maybe? Definitely an adult, not like, a college kid or whatever.”

  Complainy Guy. The guy who’d threatened to call the cops on us when we were talking in Harper’s room. I could tell that Joe was thinking the same thing. Was Complainy Guy just enough of a busybody that he prowled the halls, acting like an unpaid security guard? And if so—how had someone gotten to Harper? Was Complainy Guy involved? Had he looked the other way, for a price?

  “I thought you were desperate,” Joe said. “This was your car fund, remember?”

  “Yeah,” said Von, looking like he didn’t understand the
question.

  I jumped in. “I think what Joe means is, is that all it took to scare you off—a threat from some random guy?”

  But Von shook his head. “Oh, no. It was not just a threat. You didn’t let me finish.”

  He stopped, and Joe and I stared at him.

  “Okay,” I said finally, annoyed. “Go head, tell us the rest.”

  Von nodded, satisfied. “The dude had a gun.”

  “A gun?” I asked, looking at Joe. “Complainy Guy?”

  “It was super tiny,” Von went on. “I wasn’t even sure it was real at first. But then I figured I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I took off fast!”

  Joe looked at me and laughed. “Complainy Guy had a gun the whole time. I guess it’s good we didn’t challenge him, then!”

  When Von looked confused, Joe explained, “Frank and I ran into this guy too—he kind of broke up our party. We thought he was really annoying, but we had no idea. . . .”

  I’d stopped listening to the explanation, though. My mind was whirring with another idea.

  Just a tiny thing . . .

  Suddenly a pair of fingers snapped in front of my face. I startled and saw Joe trying to get my attention, asking what I wanted to do. Von was staring at me too, looking equal parts confused and hopeful.

  “You can go, Von,” I said with certainty.

  “Wait, what?” Joe asked, looking from me to Von. “Just like that? You’re totally sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I believe him—he didn’t do anything to Harper. But, dude”—I looked up at Von, who was getting nervously to his feet—“stop giving money to strangers on the Internet.”

  He nodded. Then, a few seconds later, he laughed, as if on a delay. “Right! Yeah, I learned my lesson! Don’t worry about me! And thanks, guys—I really do hope you find her.” Without another word, Von turned and scurried away, clearly not wanting to press his luck.

  I spread out the printed photo with my hands and stared at it.

  Von walked out the front door and it shut behind him, the bell that hung over it dinging merrily. Joe looked from the door to me.

  “That’s it,” he mused sadly, “our last lead. God, Frank, what if we never find her?”