Sergeant Dunne nods. “So he’s your boyfriend?”
“No. I mean . . .” Kendall looks to her mother for help.
“Kendall doesn’t like to use that term because it feels too much like a commitment, but yes, for all intents and purposes here, Nico is Kendall’s boyfriend.” Mrs. Fletcher holds Kendall’s hand and squeezes it. She looks at Kendall and says, “Okay?”
Kendall nods. She agrees. She just can’t say it.
“Okay,” Sheriff Greenwood says. “When did you last see Nico?”
“Yesterday at school. I had to go into town to pick up a few things after school. He went home.”
“What things?”
Kendall blushes deeply. “Tampons. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Kendall,” Mrs. Fletcher says, “they’re just trying to figure things out.”
“Sorry, miss,” Sergeant Dunne says. “So that was at what time?”
“Three thirty-five, I guess.”
“You didn’t see him after that?”
“No.”
“Did you talk with him last night? E-mail, phone?”
“He calls me most nights around eleven.”
“Did he call last night?”
Kendall hesitates, trying to remember. “Actually, I don’t know. I fell asleep on the couch down here watching TV. Mom?”
“I didn’t hear your phone ring,” Mrs. Fletcher says. She turns to the men. “Kendall has her own phone line in her bedroom. It didn’t ring down here, as far as I know, but Dad and I were asleep by ten.”
“You go to bed early on a Friday night,” the sergeant says lightly.
Mrs. Fletcher looks at him sharply. “We live on a farm. Day begins at five a.m., sir. We don’t pause for the weekends.”
Sergeant Dunne nods. “Yes, ma’am.” He turns back to Kendall. “So you don’t think he called?”
“I don’t know if he called. I can’t hear my phone ring down here.”
Dunne looks at Greenwood. “I’ll have them check phone records. Please write your phone number here, Miss Fletcher. Nico’s, too, please.”
“Didn’t Mr. and Mrs. Cruz already give you Nico’s number?” Mrs. Fletcher asks.
“Ma’am, there could be more than one number. Teenagers hide things from their parents all the time. Don’t they, Kendall?” He glances at her.
She glares back at him. “I don’t.”
Mrs. Fletcher pours more coffee.
“All righty, Kendall,” Sheriff Greenwood says. “How has Nico been acting lately? The same as always, or different? Anything unusual that springs to mind?”
Kendall swallows hard. She doesn’t like Sergeant Dunne. Doesn’t want to say anything that might make Nico look bad. But she knows she has to tell the truth. “He’s been acting preoccupied the last few days.” Her voice catches a little, but she controls it. “We were supposed to go to Bozeman today to look at Montana State. He wants to be a nurse. So I think he had that on his mind.”
Sheriff Greenwood writes for a moment. “What else do you think could have made him act preoccupied? Anything?”
Kendall thinks hard. Shakes her head. “Nothing I can think of.”
“Were you two having relationship problems?”
“No. I mean, I asked him if he was acting weird because of me, and he said no, he loved me just like always.” Kendall chokes on a deep sob that comes from her gut. Mrs. Fletcher puts her arm around Kendall. She’s crying too now. The bad thoughts start going in Kendall’s head again. Stuff she can’t control. Could Jacián have done something to Nico, too?
Sheriff Greenwood writes a few more things, and then closes his notebook. “Okay. That’s it for now.”
Kendall looks up. “Are you going to question Jacián Obregon?”
Mrs. Fletcher turns sharply toward Kendall, surprised.
Sheriff Greenwood shakes his head firmly and says with an edge in his voice, as if he’s said it ten times before, “Jacián Obregon is not a suspect here or in Tiffany Quinn’s case. Do you have reason to think he should be? Real reason, I mean, not just rumors?”
Kendall opens her mouth, and then she closes it again. And then says, “No, sir.”
“Good. Then, let’s leave him out of it. He’s been through enough.”
Kendall stares at the sheriff. “I’m sorry,” she says after a moment.
He nods and smiles sympathetically, and suddenly he’s Eli’s dad again. “No harm done.” He stands up, and Sergeant Dunne follows. “We’re going to do everything we can to find him.”
“Are we going to do a massive search thing, like with Tiffany?” It strikes Kendall that a search could turn up absolutely nothing, just like last time. She can’t let herself believe it.
“It’s being planned right now, and the first responder teams are already out there, just in case. You should get a call this evening with instructions for an organized search first thing tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll find he’s just out hiking in the foothills or something and it won’t be necessary.”
“Thank you,” Kendall says. Mrs. Fletcher walks them to the door. Kendall lowers her head to the table. Numb. She knows he’s not hiking. He would never do that alone. Not without her.
Just then, Sergeant Dunne pops his head back in. “By the way, Kendall, what was the relationship between Nico and Tiffany Quinn? Did they know each other?”
Kendall lifts her head and looks at Sergeant Dunne. She narrows her eyes. “Of course. Have you seen the size of this town? Everybody knows everybody.”
He smiles disarmingly. “Did they ever do anything together? You know . . . maybe there was something going on between them.” He pauses. “It’s an awfully strange coincidence, two kids from a town this small.”
Kendall slowly sits up. “No,” she says. “No, there was nothing going on between them. She was just a kid.”
“At the time of her disappearance, she was fifteen. Nico was seventeen.” He stops, as if that explains something. “Were you and Nico dating then?”
Kendall speaks through gritted teeth. “Yes. Sort of.”
“Did he ever take you to any secret places, in the mountains or the woods, to get away from everybody? Maybe to be alone, have sex?”
“No!” she says, flustered. “We aren’t that serious. We aren’t . . . sexually active.”
“Oh, right. You said that you didn’t want a commitment in the relationship. Were you two free to see others, then?”
Kendall shakes her head, trying to grasp what he’s really saying, feeling like she’s in an episode of Law & Order: SVU. “He wasn’t seeing her. I know he wasn’t. Okay?”
Sergeant Dunne is quiet for a moment, looking at Kendall. And then he says in a low voice, “Well, maybe he is now.”
Mrs. Fletcher stands quickly as Kendall shoves her chair back and gets up. It makes an awful scraping sound on the wooden floor. Her hands are trembling. “What are you saying?”
“We’re just covering all our bases. Running through all the scenarios.” His cliché-laden monotone is deeply annoying.
“Why would he do anything to her? If they wanted to be together, nobody was stopping them!”
Sergeant Dunne tilts his head. “Maybe he got a little frustrated with your noncommitment and did something he was ashamed of. I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Well, you’re wrong!” Kendall’s voice breaks.
Mrs. Fletcher steps in, her voice clear and firm. “Sergeant, is there anything else?”
Sergeant Dunne doesn’t take his eyes off Kendall, though his gaze softens a bit. For a moment he doesn’t move. And then he says, “No, ma’am, that’s it for today.” He nods once and steps back outside. “Let us know if you think of anything else that might help us find your friend,” he says to Kendall.
Kendall flees the kitchen and runs upstairs to her room.
Falls apart. Sobbing. So lost in this situation, she cannot handle it. Her brain can’t handle it.
All she can do is try. Try to stop picturing Nico a
nd Tiffany in some secret mountain hideout having sex together.
WE
Panting in the depths of a lightless night, We sigh in collective. You made your way through, found your new home nestled in the ground. Your sacrifice has been received. Another trapped soul set free.
Our remaining souls beg, bloodthirsty now. Soul-thirsty. Together, imprisoned inside wood and metal, We wait again and scratch anew.
Touch me.
NINE
By early morning the national news networks pick it up. This small-town teen runaway story is no longer worthy of only a tiny blip on the radar of Bozeman TV. Within twenty-four hours it has become the unfortunate American horror sensation of the week. Nico’s face is splashed all over TV, and Tiffany Quinn’s entire history is resurrected and replayed along with Nico’s history. It’s not long before reporters try to connect the two in sinister ways, just like Sergeant Dunne did yesterday with Kendall. Did Nico “make Tiffany disappear” and now has disappeared himself? Where could they be? What is the dark side of Nico Cruz?
Oh, yes, it’s all speculation. The reporters admit it.
But you can tell they believe it.
* * *
Mr. Fletcher turns the TV off. Kendall stares at the blank screen, her hair disheveled, eyes red.
“Kendall,” he says. He puts his hand on her arm.
She doesn’t move.
“Honey.”
Kendall just shakes her head. Whispers, her throat sore from crying, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Her father stands up, pulls her to her feet. Hugs her close and whispers, “Come on, pumpkin.”
Kendall nods, her cheek against his shoulder. When she pulls away, she sees the shine in his eyes.
He looks away. “Let’s go find him.”
There are helicopters. News teams are arriving, setting up camp in front of the Feed and Seed shop and inside the farmers’ market.
More police mill around than Kendall’s ever seen before in one place. Many people drive or walk to the town center, but several come on four-wheelers for the sake of faster off-road searching. Marlena and Jacián are among them. Kendall narrows her eyes.
Sheriff Greenwood stands on the steps of the restaurant with a bullhorn, and he holds it up, testing it out to get everybody’s attention.
Kendall looks around. It’s barely dawn on a Sunday morning, and everybody is here, just like last time. Except for Nico.
Students eye Kendall warily, sympathetically, looking unsure if they should approach her. Most don’t. Kendall and her parents walk over to Nico’s parents and stand quietly, the moms exchanging hugs. Nothing much to say. Lack of sleep is evident in all their faces, and that says it all. Kendall sees Tiffany Quinn’s mother standing in the crowd. She looks old, like she’s aged ten years since May. Kendall glances at Nico’s parents and wonders what will happen to them.
Sheriff Greenwood speaks, quiets everyone down.
Everything is so horribly familiar, and for Kendall, a thousand times worse.
“Thanks for coming out,” Sheriff Greenwood’s voice booms. He clears his throat as the crowd grows silent, and he lifts the bullhorn to his lips again. “It seems impossible that we are doing this again. Yet here we are.”
He pauses a moment, glancing at a white paper that shakes in his hand in the breeze. “To give you an update, we officially declared Nico Cruz a missing person at around seven p.m. yesterday. We’ve spoken to a number of people since then, and trained officials have been searching overnight. We’ve found no sign of him at this point.
“I’ve decided, after conferring with the other law enforcement who’ve come down to help us, that we’ll run our search much like last time. This time, however, there will be no groups smaller than three, and no child under eighteen will be permitted to travel anywhere alone from now on, until further notice. Not on foot or by car or horseback. That’s not just for the search—that’s a new Cryer’s Cross curfew.”
There is a wave of murmuring in the crowd, not just surprise but fear.
“Let me define that further: No child or teenager seventeen and younger shall travel alone in the village limits of Cryer’s Cross at any time until further notice. Children thirteen and under must be accompanied by someone over eighteen. Teens fourteen and up will be allowed to move about using a buddy system. You will be assigned school buddies based on where you live, for the sake of convenience.” He pauses. “If you do not comply, you will be arrested.”
Arrested? Kendall stares at the Sheriff. School buddies? The only other teenager who lived in her direction from school was Nico.
There is more murmuring. “Quiet, please,” urges the sheriff. “This is very important. We don’t want to lose another one of you. Please feel confident that even though I’ve known most of you teenagers since you were babies, I will not hesitate to arrest you if I see you wandering or driving alone. We don’t yet know what we are dealing with here, and we must proceed with appropriate caution rather than foolishness.”
He pauses. “Let’s start searching. Please find your same groups from spring and wait for instruction. If you are in need of a group, see me. Stay together, return together. Teens, when you return today, see me. I’ll have the buddy list ready.”
Kendall glances at Mrs. Cruz, who holds tightly to her husband. It sounds like Sheriff Greenwood expects they won’t find Nico today, the way he’s planning this buddy thing. It feels terrible.
The sheriff lowers the bullhorn, a resolute look on his face. Then he nods, and people disperse into groups on the sides of the streets.
Kendall stays close to her parents at her mother’s request. It’s kind of comforting, since Kendall is group-less. Last time she searched with Nico.
The tone is somber and way too familiar as the groups get their instructions and set out to comb the most remote part of the valley again. Last time everything was freshly planted. This time the potato fields are plump and green, ripe for harvest, and the leaves on the trees are just starting to change colors. Kendall wonders how many days her parents can search when there’s so much to do on the farm right now. But she’s too tired to ask. All she can do is wearily count steps, and rows, and trees, repeating crazy sentences in her mind as she scans the vegetables and grain, and then goes on to grassy fields and woods. Looking for the body of her best friend. Torn between hoping she finds it and hoping she doesn’t.
She doesn’t. No one else finds him either.
When they return to town, Sheriff Greenwood is there, talking with Hector, Jacián, and Marlena, and what must be their parents.
Kendall stops. Doesn’t want to see Jacián right now. Still doesn’t know what to think of him. And certainly doesn’t want him to say anything to her about Nico. Fresh tears spring to her eyes as she pictures going to school without Nico there.
“Stop it,” she mutters to herself. “He’ll be back.”
But it feels so much more futile this time. With Tiffany everyone was so hopeful. Now that disappearing seems to have become an epidemic, the hope is gone.
“Dad?” Kendall says. “We have to find him. I want to keep searching. It’s not dark yet.”
Mr. Fletcher checks his watch. He glances at Mrs. Fletcher.
“I’m in for another round,” Mrs. Fletcher says. “Why don’t you head back to the farm, Nathan. Kendall and I will go out again with someone else.”
Kendall smiles tearfully. “Thanks, Mom.” They go out with another group.
After dusk, when Kendall and her mother return, they find Sheriff Greenwood again. Exhausted, Mrs. Fletcher goes into the restaurant to call Kendall’s dad to come out and pick them up. Kendall approaches Sheriff Greenwood.
“I need my school buddy assignment,” Kendall says. She’s so tired she can barely hold back the tears now.
Sheriff Greenwood glances at her and takes his clipboard out. “You’re all alone out that direction,” he muses.
“No kidding.” Kendall can’t help it. She’s still stingi
ng from yesterday’s interrogation, even though the sheriff played the good cop.
He mumbles, “Eli’s grouping with the north end. Travis is east, but one of you would have to travel alone to meet up . . . hmm.”
Kendall scratches the toe of her boot in the dirt as the sheriff reconfigures his list.
Darkness descends quickly without big-city lights. The stars twinkle. She hears the four-wheelers before she sees them. It’s Marlena and Jacián.
“Ah, now there’s a thought,” Sheriff Greenwood mutters, looking up. “Yes. That’ll work.” He turns toward them. “You two can swing by for Kendall on school days, right?”
Jacián is silent, and in the dark, Kendall can’t gauge his reaction. Marlena pipes up, “Sure. We’d love to.” She climbs off and goes over to Kendall. Gives her a swift hug. “I’m really sorry. You must feel horrible,” she says softly.
Kendall’s throat tightens. She nods. Can’t speak.
“We covered miles and miles, made it to the foothills and up beyond Cryer’s Pass, along the woods, and back.”
“That’s awesome,” Kendall says, without enthusiasm. Her body aches. She just wants to crawl into bed and forget everything.
“Jacián and I can give you a ride home now if you need one. You look exhausted.”
“My dad’s coming. Thanks.” She’s almost asleep on her feet.
At home she checks all the windows and doors in the entire house before falling into bed.
WE
The quiet stretch unsettles, rattles Our aching souls. We roam the floor, bitter, restless, shoving others out of Our way. Searching for new life. And then We grow quiet and return to Our spot. Remembering, hoping.
We save Our energy for another day.
TEN
After a week of chaos the local search for Nico Cruz ends. They’ve combed every accessible section of the valley on foot. Every American with a TV has heard about the strange situation in “quaint” Cryer’s Cross, Montana, where young, innocent Tiffany disappeared in spring, and sinister, older bad boy Nico disappeared only months later . . . probably because he killed her. Or brainwashed her into hiding out for three months so they could fool people into thinking their disappearances were unrelated.