Chapter Five
Tiffany was late, but Gwen didn’t mind. She sat in one of the leather booths, deep in thought about everything that had been bothering her. While she thought, she traced the pattern on the cheap plastic tablecloth with her fingers. No matter how much time she spent lost in her thoughts, she couldn’t seem to make any progress. Her family’s secrets were still a mystery, tightly locked away. She would have to find a key to get to the bottom of things, but what that key was, she didn’t know.
The bell above the door chimed, and Tiffany strolled in, looking as fabulous as she had yesterday. She scanned the small coffee shop until her eyes found Gwen’s, and she smiled as she slid gracefully into the booth across from her. Her tan legs hung out of the side of the booth, shown off in a pair of cutoff jean shorts, and Gwen had to admit she was a little envious of Tiffany’s flawless complexion and long legs. It was hard not to be.
“How are you doing?” Gwen asked, a tiny smile on her lips.
“I know you guys told the police, and I’m glad you did. I never would have had the guts to admit I lied to them, so it’s good you guys did what I couldn’t. Now they have a better understanding of what might have happened to her. I just hope I didn’t wait too long to come clean to someone,” she said, casting her gaze down at the table. She tapped her manicured fingernails against the table in a quick rhythm. “I don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t find her in time.”
“Ginny will be fine,” Gwen assured her. “She’s smart, and she’s capable. She’s probably lost somewhere, maybe hurt, waiting for someone to find her. She’ll hang on until then, and everything will be okay.” Tiffany nodded, looking relieved. “You’re not in any trouble for lying to the police, are you?” Gwen asked, worried that she might have gotten an old friend in serious trouble with the law.
“No,” Tiffany said, shaking her head. “I got a pretty stern talking to from the police that showed up at my house, but they said given the circumstances and all the pressure and guilt I must have been feeling, they’d give me a break. I should probably be in a lot of trouble though. I hurt the investigation and the search effort.”
The waitress came over before Gwen could point out that most friends would have done exactly what Tiffany had. They placed their orders and the waitress left to put them in and bring back their drinks. Gwen quickly glanced around, making sure that nobody was close enough to hear what she was about to say. “Tiffany, don’t worry about it too much. Gabe and I should probably be in trouble with the police, too.” Tiffany’s eyes went wide and she leaned further across the table, closing the distance between the two of them.
“What did you do?”
“We got into Ginny’s email account. The fake one. We figured she would have written it down since it wasn’t one she used regularly, and then we guessed her password. It was the name of one of the boys from the posters in her bedroom. We didn’t find any emails since they’d all been deleted, but we did find another account she was messaging. We sent them a message explaining who we were and what was going on. Hopefully we hear back from them soon.”
“Will you let me know what happens?” Tiffany asked, her voice deep and breathy with excitement.
“Of course,” Gwen said, smiling. They were both excited and eager to see what happened next, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why. As they put their heads together over their lunch and contemplated all of the possibilities, Gwen felt the familiar feeling of friendship coming back to her, just like the old days. Back then, it hadn’t just been Tiffany and Ginny—it had been Tiffany, Ginny, and Gwen. The three of them had been thick as thieves, and it was nice to get a taste of that once more.
As lunch ended, Gwen checked her phone to see if Gabe had texted her. She wasn’t sure what he was doing while he waited for her to have lunch with Tiffany, but he must not have been done yet. Tiffany offered to buy, and the two of them walked out together, sipping at their drinks to beat the early summer heat. It wasn’t too bad yet, but it was going to get worse in the next couple of weeks. Gwen and Tiffany lingered by her car, and they both looked around.
“No word from Gabe?” Tiffany asked.
Gwen pulled out her phone again and shaded her eyes so she could see the screen more clearly. “Not yet.”
“I can give you a ride if you want,” Tiffany offered. “I don’t wanna leave you here and then have Gabe not show up. You said you didn’t know what he was doing in town, right? There’s no telling how long he could be.”
“I’m sure he’s on his way, or will be soon. He never leaves me hanging for long.”
Tiffany sighed. “Alright. If you get tired of waiting and want a ride, shoot me a text and I’ll come back. Okay?”
Gwen nodded. “Okay. Thanks for lunch, Tiff.”
Surprisingly, Tiffany reached out and put her arms around Gwen, pulling her into a hesitant hug. Gwen put her arms around her, too, and the hug deepened until it was just like their last one had been years ago. The day she had said goodbye to Brighton for good was the last time she had spent any real time with Tiffany. Hopefully there would be a chance to change that and get back their old spark. If one good thing comes out of Ginny’s disappearance, it will be this, Gwen thought, letting go of Tiffany.
Gwen stood in the shade of a tree near the sidewalk and watched as Tiffany drove away. She sipped at her fruit smoothie and counted down the minutes as they went by. After ten minutes, she took out her phone and texted Gabe, asking him where he was and to come and get her. While she waited for his reply, she tried not to get heat stroke. She was sweating down her back and even between her breasts, and she was so uncomfortable. She plucked at her shirt repeatedly, trying to air herself out a little. Even the shade wasn’t helping much.
After twenty more minutes of not getting a response from Gabe, she decided to forget her promise to him and walk herself home. It was going to be a long walk and the heat was going to be unbearable, but she wasn’t going to just sit around and do nothing. The heat wasn’t going away whether she stood in one place or she walked, so she might as well start walking. If she got all the way home before Gabe caught up to her, she was going to be pissed.
She sent him another text letting him know she was going to start walking, and to pick her up on his way home after he was done doing whatever it was he was up to. Then she slipped her phone into her pocket and left the parking lot, sticking to the sidewalks that were shaded by trees. Her smoothie kept her a little cool, and she pressed the cold, wet cup to her skin, trying to keep her temperature down. She wished she had a pair of sunglasses or a hat, anything to keep her from getting possibly sunburned.
She pulled out her cheap mp3 player and shoved her ear buds in, drowning out everything around her. Hopefully some music would make the time and the walk go by a little quicker. Since she couldn’t hear anything around her, she made sure to double check each road before she crossed it, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hear any vehicles coming. She made good time despite the heat, and soon the busy town gave way to the woods that surrounded the area. As she walked down one road, a thought stopped her in her tracks.
This is the road Ginny was last on. We found her shoe not too far from here…
Gwen took her ear buds out and shut off her music. She didn’t feel safe with them in, not in this area. Not only had her cousin gone missing from this very stretch of road, but it looked eerily similar to the patch of road from her night terror last night. Her heart pounded in her chest as she forced her feet to carry her onward. It wasn’t too far to her aunt and uncle’s house, and it was still daylight out. Even though the area was secluded and a little off the beaten path, she thought it would be unlikely for anyone to try something.
As Gwen walked the same path Ginny had, she kept her eyes peeled for any sign of a disturbance. She knew Ginny had a fiery spirit—some in town called it the Grady spirit—and she never would have gone without a fight. If she really had gone missing from this patch of road, there was sure to be some sign of it, a sign
that might point them in the right direction. Even though Gwen knew the police had searched this area thoroughly after finding the shoe, she felt the need to look it over again. There was always a chance they missed something. Or maybe they didn’t know what to look for.
There might be some clue Ginny left that only someone who knew her might figure out. Gwen stopped in her tracks, her eyes going wide. Had she just thought about her cousin in past tense? As if she was dead and gone and never coming back? She mentally slapped herself, telling herself she couldn’t ever think that way, not as long as there was still hope Ginny might be alive. Unless they found her body, Gwen was going to continue believing Ginny was alive, even if the next twenty years passed without another development.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up and goose bumps broke out over her skin despite the blistering heat. An odd feeling overcame Gwen, one she was sure she hadn’t ever felt before, but she was certain she knew what it was. Someone’s watching me. Glancing around, she searched the trees for the eyes that she was sure were focused on her, but she came away empty handed. She wasn’t fooled though; just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t out there, lurking in the woods and waiting for their chance to strike.
Movement out of the corner of her eyes had Gwen snapping her head around so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. Her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry, but she remained where she was. Truthfully, she couldn’t have fled even if she wanted to. She was rooted firmly to the spot as fear flooded through her. But there was another feeling there, one that surprised her. Desperation. She knew whoever was watching her was probably the same person that had taken Ginny, and that made this person very dangerous, but if she ran, she might not ever find out what happened to her cousin.
Moments passed in total silence, nobody moving or making a sound, and Gwen nearly dismissed it as a trick of the light or something. But as she turned to continue down the road, she saw it again. Movement, slight and hard to notice, but she had been looking for it this time. She turned her head again just as a figure took off into the woods, away from the road. Gwen couldn’t see their face, but she could see that it was no shadowy man.
It was a girl. A girl with short, wavy black hair that went just passed her earlobes. One silver hoop earring hung from her left ear, the other was nowhere to be seen, perhaps ripped from the hole. Her bare legs were covered in dirt and god knew what else, and a pink sweater was tied around her waist despite the heat. The second Gwen saw her, her heart slammed up into her throat, choking the words she couldn’t find. Only one word came to mind right now.
Ginny!
Gwen took off into the trees, leaving the safety of the road far behind her. She raced through the trees, never stopping to think how insane she was for thinking this girl was Ginny. She didn’t stop to wonder why Ginny would be in the woods so close to home and not return, even knowing how worried her family would be. She never questioned why Ginny would run away from her own cousin—one of her closest friends since they had been born. She didn’t try to calculate the odds of finding Ginny alive after being missing for as long as she had.
Tree branches slapped Gwen as she ran. She swatted most of them out of her way, but the ones she missed left her skin scraped and bleeding. She didn’t care though; she hardly felt them in the first place. All she could feel was the elation spreading through her chest at the thought that she might have found Ginny. When she stopped to catch her breath, the girl kept running, showing no signs of tiring or stopping. Gwen knew she would never be able to keep up, but she couldn’t just let her go, not without seeing her face and knowing for sure.
She sucked in a lungful of air. “Ginny!”
The girl froze in her tracks, her back still to Gwen. She was too far for Gwen to get a good look at her, but she could hear the girl’s harsh breathing, and her crying. She sobbed, her shoulders shaking with each breath. Before Gwen could catch her breath, she took off again into the trees, leaving Gwen far behind. Even though her legs both ached and her chest burned, she forced herself to keep going in the hopes that she might catch up to her.
Gwen didn’t make it far before the pink sweater caught her attention. It was caught on a branch, like it had snagged and been ripped from her waist. She loosened it from the tree and looked it over, trying to recall if she ever saw Ginny wear it before. Her mind drew a blank, but that didn’t mean anything. Gwen and Gabe were only in Brighton for two weeks of the year. It was entirely possible that Ginny had bought it sometime during the other fifty weeks of the year.
The sweater was dirty and torn in two places. There was a smear of blood along one of the rips, like something had bitten the girl right through her sweater. As she looked over the sweater, tears burned at Gwen’s eyes, and she hastily wiped them away. It doesn’t make any sense. When I said her name, she froze! She reacted. It had to be her! But why would she run away from me?
Gwen’s first thought was that perhaps Ginny was on drugs after all. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was one that made the whole situation make sense. If she had been experimenting with something, she could have been coming down from a disastrous high, one that left her confused and paranoid and panicked. If that was the case, perhaps she hadn’t recognized Gwen and thought she was going to hurt her instead of help. If she was tweaked out on something, she might have been too paranoid to reach out to any of the searchers scouring the woods for her.
This is going to crush Geoffrey and Sandra. There’s a chance their daughter’s been this close to home the whole time, right under their noses, and they didn’t even know it. But it should give them some hope that she’s still alive.
Clutching the sweater tightly to her chest, Gwen made her way back to the road. When she broke through the trees, she found a furious Gabe waiting for her. He stormed forward, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. He’s really angry. Just like dad, Gwen thought sadly. Before she could begin to explain herself, Gabe pulled her into a bone-crushing hug that cracked her spine and nearly drove the air from her lungs. For a smaller guy, Gabe sure wasn’t lacking in the strength department.
I guess all that obsessive working out is doing him some good after all.
“What is wrong with you?” he shouted, startling her. She flinched, but he continued shouting. “You promised me you were gonna wait for me when lunch was over! I sat and waited in that damn parking lot for twenty minutes before realizing you probably walked home! Do you have any idea how worried I was? Do you realize what could have happened to you?”
“I waited for you. Texted you, too,” Gwen said defensively. “You didn’t reply, and I wasn’t going to wait around and get heat stroke. Where were you?”
Gabe stopped, his face losing some of its fury, and his hand drifted to the pocket of his shorts. “I was in the library doing research to see if I could find out what happened between Dad and Uncle Geoffrey. I had my phone off so it didn’t disturb anyone, and I forgot to turn it back on.” He hung his head, looking bashful and regretful. “I didn’t think you guys would be done so early.”
“There wasn’t much for us to talk about. I told her about getting into Ginny’s email and I promised to let her know if anything came from it, and then we caught up for a little bit. It was just like old times,” Gwen said sadly.
Gabe sighed, running a hand through his curly black hair. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. What were you doing in the woods anyways? Don’t you know how dangerous it is out there?”
She glanced down and her eyes lit up as her gaze settled on the sweater still in her arms. Ginny! “Gabe, I found Ginny!” His face went blank and his mouth nearly dropped open. Before he could voice the doubt she knew he was feeling, she hurried to explain. “I got the feeling someone was watching me, and I saw a girl off in the trees. She looked just like Ginny, Gabe. She took off running and I went after her, but I couldn’t keep up with her. So I called out to her. I shouted Ginny’s name, and the girl stopped. She stopped, Gabe. She reacted to the name
.”
Gwen was nearly squealing with excitement, but she tried to calm herself down to give Gabe a moment to process what she had just told him. Slowly, she could see the doubt fading from his eyes, though a hint of uncertainty lingered. She didn’t care that he wasn’t one hundred percent on board with her. He hadn’t completely dismissed her as crazy yet, and that was all that mattered.
“Where is she now?” he asked slowly, his voice a little uneven. He was trying so hard to control himself. “If it was Ginny, why did she run from you, even after you called out to her? Ginny would have stopped.”
“Remember, Tiffany said one of the reasons she didn’t wanna come forward to the police was because she was worried they would think Ginny was on drugs. Maybe she is. Maybe she wanted to rebel a little and got in over her head. I don’t know, and I don’t care. What matters is, if she did try something, she could be paranoid while coming down from it. This girl was filthy and crying. It sounds to me like a girl on drugs.”
Gwen tried not to rush Gabe as he thought it through, but she was anxious to get back home and alert the police so the search could shift its focus once more.
“Gabe, this means Ginny is alive, and she’s close. We have to get home and let everyone know. I have proof this girl exists,” she said, holding up the sweater. “Geoffrey and Sandra will be able to tell us if it belongs to Ginny or not. We won’t know until we get home, though. So let’s go!” She pulled Gabe towards the car, eager to be home. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Geoffrey and Sandra’s faces when they saw the sweater, and when they realized it meant their daughter was still alive.
Gwen refused to believe it could have been anybody besides Ginny. Her mind was firmly set, so made up that nothing could have changed it. Her cousin was alive, and she was out in the woods somewhere, waiting for help. She wasn’t sure if Ginny was on drugs or if something traumatic had happened, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the Grady family had something to hold on to, something to give them hope that this disastrous chapter in their lives would have a happy ending.
When Gabe pulled into the driveway, Gwen was out of the car and racing up the front porch before the car was even stopped. She threw open the door and made her way to the living room, where all of the adults were conveniently gathered. She was huffing and gasping, and her mother had a concerned look on her face. “Honey, what—”
“I saw Ginny!” Geoffrey was on his feet in an instant, his eyes locked on the sweater in her hands. She clutched it to her chest as everyone looked at her, waiting for some kind of explanation. She took a deep breath, calming herself as Gabe took his place beside her. She launched into the story of how she had ended up walking home—her mother interrupted to scold Gabe for being careless with his phone at a time like this—and when she got to the part about calling out to Ginny, everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting to hear what happened next.
“She stopped. She stopped running away from me. Hearing that name affected her in some way. I never got to see her face, but I know it was her. She had the same build, same height, same short dark hair. Mom, I’m not crazy,” she said, noticing the doubt in her mother’s eyes. “She had this sweater with her, and she dropped it while running. I don’t recognize it, but I thought you guys might,” she said, holding it out to Geoffrey.
He slowly took it from her, as if he was afraid to even touch it. She glanced over at her aunt and was disappointed to see doubt that matched her mother’s. “I don’t recognize that sweater,” she said, her face crumpling.
Gwen felt like she had been punched in the gut, or like someone had stuck a red hot knife into her heart and was mercilessly twisting it. What if she was wrong? What if it hadn’t really been Ginny, and she had burst into the room and gotten all of their hopes up? She would feel like such a fool, not to mention like a jerk for giving them false hope, if only for a moment. She looked to Geoffrey, waiting to see his reaction, and was surprised when he brought the sweater to his face and inhaled deeply.
He shuddered and his arms tensed. He tightened his grip on the sweater and held it to his chest, just like Gwen had done before. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed. “It’s Ginny’s sweater.”
Gwen’s knees nearly buckled and she would have stumbled if Gabe hadn’t been there with a steady hand on her shoulder, giving her strength to remain upright. When he handed Sandra the sweater—delicately, as if it was the most precious possession in the world—her eyes lit up and she sobbed into it, rocking back and forth on the couch as his words sank in.
I was right. Ginny’s alive and we have proof!
She wasn’t sure why Geoffrey had sniffed the sweater, but right now it didn’t matter. That sweater was undeniable proof that the continued search effort wasn’t in vain. Ginny was out there somewhere, holding on until someone could find her and bring her safely home. Gwen didn’t know what was going on with her or why she was still out there, but she would have all of her questions answered as soon as Ginny was safely back home.