Did someone take her?
I look back, my heart thrumming, skin buzzing. I picture Cat, this girl I don’t even know, finding herself here, trying to open the door. She sees she needs the key. She needs the key, and she’d go get it, but there’s someone behind her, someone comes around from behind her—
No.
Stop.
I remember my fumbling search through the loneliest, emptiest places in Cold Creek, shouting out her name perfectly, solidly, holding out for that moment my voice would fracture because the fracture would mean I wasn’t alone, that Mattie had come back.
It was the only time in my life I wanted to stutter.
I kept calling for her, kept searching. I couldn’t let myself stop looking, couldn’t let myself cry either, because never in my life would I risk crying where Mattie could see because for Mattie, I was supposed to be strong.
I remember the moment when I finally gave in, when I no longer had the strength to push against reality. I let the tears come and as soon as I did, I got a text from May Beth.
The police are here. You need to get back.
A woman brushes past, startling me.
“’Scuse me,” she mumbles as she opens the bathroom door. She has a key in her hand.
Where the fuck is Cat? I run to the front of the station and push through the doors harder than I can keep myself from doing. The bells go crazy. The old man’s head jerks up in alarm.
“D-did you see a g-girl?” I ask. “She was w-with me. I c-can’t f-find her.” He frowns. “She was b-blond, c-curly hair…?”
He snaps his fingers. “Didn’t know she was with you. I saw her. She hitched a ride with some fella in a yellow truck. They pulled out while you were in here.”
I take a step back.
“O-okay. Thanks.”
“You bet.”
I walk back to the car and the panic inside me fades into confused embarrassment.
I bring my fingers to my lips.
Cat ditched me.
I mean, I don’t care.
It wasn’t like we were—
It’s not like …
When I get back to the car, I realize the backseat is a different kind of messy than it was before I picked her up …
She was going through my things, looking for—what?
I pull the door open and see blood. My stained shirt unearthed from where I stuffed it under the seat, now crumpled in a heap on the floor mat, the switchblade beside it. I slam the door shut and get back in the driver’s side.
I hope whoever she ended up with wasn’t a worse person than me.
THE GIRLS
S1E4
WEST McCRAY:
Cat Mather lives in Topeka, Kansas.
She was once a missing girl.
The first thing I find when I Google her name are desperate, public Facebook posts from her maternal aunt, Sally Quinn, asking after her niece’s whereabouts. Those posts are nearly two years old. Shortly after she put them up, Sally informs her friends to cease all searching; Cat has essentially divorced herself from her family and wants nothing to do with anyone and that’s that. She’s just a runaway.
Cat, in a lot of ways, is what I expected Sadie to be. Restless, reckless, dramatic. Her own Facebook profile is full of pictures with her tongue sticking out, her hair dyed bright, bold colors. She’s often wearing shirts with the anarchy logo on them. At least, she was then. That was when she was around to share status updates with not-so-subtle allusions to personal unhappiness. Fuck this family, one says. Stop the planet, I want off, says another. She was gone not long after that last one and spent the next two years moving from place to place, until just a few months ago, when she got caught behind the wheel of a stolen car.
Now she’s living with Sally and awaiting her court date.
At first, Cat doesn’t want anything to do with me. Her privacy is important to her, and she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of her criminal history being shared with the world. When I explained to Cat about Sadie, and how we found Cat’s credit card in her car, she’s more willing to talk.
CAT MATHER:
Yeah, I was with her, just for a little while. She gave me a ride. She scared me, kind of. I don’t know.
WEST McCRAY:
This is what Cat Mather looks like now: she’s a white, twenty-three-year-old woman with a plain, unassuming face that almost belies the actions that have gotten her into this mess. Her aunt, Sally, greets me at the front door. Sally is a friendly, middle-aged brunette, who gives me a brief primer on the Mather family on our short trip to the living room, where her niece awaits.
SALLY QUINN:
She’s my sister’s daughter. They’ve been estranged for a long time. Family problems. It’s terrible. Cat disappeared when she was nineteen. I’ve been hoping this whole … unpleasantness would help them reconcile somehow, but it hasn’t happened. Maybe it will, though. I really hope it does, because Cat’s father—
CAT MATHER:
Hey, Sal. Maybe leave something for me to talk about?
SALLY QUINN:
[LAUGHS] Anyway, here she is.
Good luck.
WEST McCRAY:
As soon as Sally’s gone, Cat quickly makes one thing clear:
CAT MATHER:
We’re here to talk about Sadie, and that’s all. Got it?
WEST McCRAY:
Fair enough. One thing that stood out to me when I got ahold of you was when I asked if you knew Sadie, you said yes right away. She’s been giving other people an alias, but she was up front with you when you met. She told you her real name.
CAT MATHER:
What name was she giving people?
WEST McCRAY:
Lera. How did she end up with your credit card?
CAT MATHER:
It was in my bag. I had it for emergencies, but I preferred dealing with cash. I must have dropped it when I was with her.
WEST McCRAY:
She didn’t use it.
CAT MATHER:
She wouldn’t have been able to. I realized pretty quick it was gone. Canceled it.
WEST McCRAY:
Tell me about how you two met.
CAT MATHER:
We were both leaving this place, Montgomery, at the same time. I was hitching and she picked me up.
WEST McCRAY:
Do you know what she was doing in Montgomery?
CAT MATHER:
Nope.
WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]:
Montgomery is a postcard town.
Actually, it’s a city, but that’s what Danny likes to call a particular kind of place. You know—the kinds that make you wish you were there. Remember when I said Cold Creek wasn’t the dream Americans aspired to? Well, Montgomery is. It’s a beautiful, picturesque college town with a thriving economy, driven in large part by its student population and the wealthy baby boomers who want to live out their retirement basking in the glow of the young. If you haven’t been, you simply must. If it’s too far out of your way, check out the movies Love the One You’re With, A Fine Autumn Day, and Our Last Dance. They were filmed there.
CAT MATHER:
She wanted to get out of there. I could tell because I did too. Places like that, places that look so nice they don’t seem real? The worst shit you can imagine happens in them. And I’m not wrong. You seen the news?
WEST McCRAY:
Recently, Montgomery has been devastated by a grotesque scandal involving one of the pillars of its community.
Silas Baker is—or at least he was—a well-regarded local businessman, who played a part in Montgomery’s economic success. He invested in the legalized recreational marijuana boom, made a fortune, and then reinvested back into his home city. He owns a few department stores; a local bar, Cooper’s; the grocer’s; and has a financial stake in several other popular businesses within the city. For this, he was awarded Montgomery’s Good Citizenship Award six years ago.
A few months ago, he was arrested for sexually abusing
the young children he’s coached in T-ball over the last seven years. They ranged in age from five to eight years old.
CAT MATHER:
… I think she felt sorry for me because it was raining like you wouldn’t believe. I could barely see two feet in front of my face and I was soaked clean through. She sort of slowed as she passed me, then she pulled over. It was a black car—a Chevy, I think?
WEST McCRAY:
Yeah, that’s what she was driving.
CAT MATHER:
Anyway, she asked me if I was a psycho and I asked her if she was one and once we got that outta the way, I got in the car. She had this stutter. She was kind of messed up. Not because of the stutter, though, that’s not what I mean.
WEST McCRAY:
What do you mean?
CAT MATHER:
She looked like someone clocked her in the face. Her nose was swollen, bit of a black eye, scraped chin. I think it must’ve happened that day because it just got worse looking the longer I was with her.
WEST McCRAY:
Did she tell you what happened?
CAT MATHER:
She said she fell but that was clearly bullshit.
WEST McCRAY:
So you guys talked.
CAT MATHER:
Well, yeah. It’s awkward enough getting in a car with a stranger. You have to fill the silence somehow. She said she was on a road trip and she was picking up her little sister to go with her.
WEST McCRAY:
Her sister, Mattie, who had been murdered eight months earlier.
CAT MATHER:
And if I’d known that, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten in the car because that does sound kinda psycho to me. Not that I stuck around with her that long in the end, anyway.
WEST McCRAY:
What did she say about Mattie?
CAT MATHER:
Just … she told me they were sisters and that she was the oldest, and Mattie was a pain in that ass, and that was about it. I could tell talking about it upset her, though. It made me think they were estranged and trying to make up. I never once guessed the kid was dead, though.
MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]:
She was talking like Mattie was alive?
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
That’s what Cat told me.
MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]:
Are you sure? That’s what this girl said? That Sadie was talking about Mattie like she was alive? Did she mean it? Did Sadie actually believe that?
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
Maybe, maybe not. It could’ve been something she was telling everyone. Not everyone shares their life’s story with strangers, May Beth.
MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]:
But what if that’s what she believes?
CAT MATHER:
We were driving, and the weather kept getting worse and then we spun out—
WEST McCRAY:
You spun out?
CAT MATHER:
We hit some rain and the car ended up in the middle of the road. We were fine, but the weather wasn’t getting better, so we decided to pull over until it cleared up and uh, she couldn’t keep her eyes open after that. Like—it was almost instantaneous. Wham, hit her. I thought maybe she was on drugs or something.
WEST McCRAY:
Okay, so you said she looked like she got punched in the face, she loses control of the car, then she couldn’t keep her eyes open—it didn’t cross your mind she might’ve been injured? Concussed?
CAT MATHER:
No, it didn’t. I just … I thought she was on drugs. Soon as she passed out, I started looking around the car to be sure, you know—
WEST McCRAY:
For drugs?
CAT MATHER:
Yeah, I was looking for drugs. I wanted to know what I was maybe getting myself into. Don’t look at me like that.
WEST McCRAY:
I’m not looking at you like anything, Cat.
CAT MATHER:
I wasn’t going to steal from her, okay? I’ve hitched a lot. You have to be prepared for anything. You just have to.
Once I ended up with this guy, I got these vibes. He made a stop, and I looked through his car and I found a rope and a screwdriver under his seat and I shit you not, that screwdriver looked like it had dried blood on it. I can’t tell what a person’s about when I get in their car, but if I have a chance to find out, I’ll take it.
WEST McCRAY:
What did you find?
CAT MATHER:
She had a shirt and it was fucking covered in blood. It was stuffed in the backseat. There was also a switchblade on the floor, must’ve been forced out from under the front seat when we spun out.
WEST McCRAY:
Are you sure what you saw on that shirt was blood?
CAT MATHER:
I know what blood looks like! It was just—it might’ve been hers, it might’ve been someone else’s. But the knife too? She had it stashed, like she was hiding it, was the thing. So I started thinking I was in trouble.
WEST McCRAY:
You didn’t ask her about it?
CAT MATHER:
That’s a really stupid question.
It was … she seemed really nice, you know? I didn’t get vibes from her like I did that guy—but that shirt … if you’d seen it, you’d get it. It was completely covered in blood.
I stayed in the car, thinking I should leave the whole time, like I just went back and forth over and over, until she finally woke up. That was about an hour from when she fell asleep. Then I drove with her until we hit a gas station. I was headed for this town called Markette, still a ways off, but I couldn’t—even if she was nice, I couldn’t risk not knowing for sure. So I ditched her at the gas station. I felt a little bad about it, but you gotta do what you gotta do to stay alive.
WEST McCRAY:
Is it too much to hope you know where she was headed?
CAT MATHER:
Actually, yeah, I do. She needed me to look up directions on my phone. I wrote ’em down for her and I never got it out of my head.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
She’s looking for her father.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]:
Right.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
And I have two separate witness accounts who say she had a switchblade. Caddy said Sadie threatened him with it. Cat found it in her car.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]:
You mentioned she was hurt.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
Yeah, she got hurt in Montgomery. So what happened there? What is it about her father that’s taking her to these places, and why is she arming herself? And how’d she end up with what sounds like a broken nose and a black eye? [PAUSE]
There was something about meeting Cat …
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]:
What?
WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]:
It was hard to articulate to Danny, what I was feeling at the time. I couldn’t stop thinking about Cat—that if I had been looking for her, if her aunt had tracked me down for help, that’s where the story would have ended: sitting across from her in a living room with her refusing to talk. But it wouldn’t have ended there, not really because it was also Cat, ending up in cars with strange men and bloody screwdrivers, all to get away from whatever was haunting her at home. And then there’s Sadie in her car, her own face bruised and battered. It all suddenly, and belatedly, felt too real, the things these girls had gone through, what can happen to missing girls. I didn’t like that. But I couldn’t say it out loud to him then. I changed the subject instead.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]:
Never mind.
Okay, so I know she didn’t stay in Montgomery and I know where she ended up. Where do you think I should head first? Montgomery or Langford—Hang on, I got another call.
Hello?
MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]:
Claire’s back.
sadie
I get to Langford.
Four in the morning.
/> First thing I see is a twenty-four-hour Laundromat, and I decide that’s got to be a sign. I pull in. I’m about ready to drop, but I need this, some step toward feeling more human. My face has turned into the kind of pain that’s almost sickening in its persistence, and when I look in the mirror, I wonder if I should go to a drugstore and buy some kind of makeup to put on top of the damage so I can keep from scaring people away. Mattie knew more about makeup than I did. Once, when she was eleven, I caught her in the bathroom with black liquid eyeliner making a perfect kitten eye. I told her I didn’t ever want to see that shit on her face until she turned thirteen and I don’t know why I made that rule. Was it so bad of her? It just seemed like something a parent would say so I made myself say it, when what I really wanted was to ask her how she did it and if she could make that same perfect line across my own eyelid.
I step inside the Laundromat. Behind a counter is an old woman who looks like she’s keeping herself alive through sheer force of will. I hand her a bill and she hacks up a lung into the same hand that passes me change and detergent.
The machines are old. I put the quarters in the slots and don’t even bother sorting my clothes. I sit in one of the hard plastic chairs, listening to the spin, then glance at the old woman, who still has her eyes on me. Can’t blame her for it, given how I look.
“C-can you t-tell me what’s at 451 Tw-Twining Street?”
She tilts her head to the side, thinking, then she says, “That’s not the Bluebird, is it?” I don’t know what the Bluebird is until she gets out her cell phone and gestures me over to show me a blurry photo of a motel with a bunch of middling reviews beneath it.
* * *
One of my mother’s last boyfriends was Paul.
He was six foot six, thick inside and out. Arms and legs like old-growth tree stumps and hands too big to hold. I didn’t mind Paul because he didn’t give a damn about Mattie or me. If we had to occupy the same cramped trailer together, so be it. He didn’t act like we were in his way and even when we were, it didn’t matter. Not a lot got under Paul’s skin, which is why I think he lasted so long. Anyway, Paul—he didn’t talk a lot. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. When I was around Paul, I’d watch, rapt, as the people he surrounded himself with led one-sided conversations without ever expecting anything in return. It was unmistakable, the way they looked at him. They respected him. Paul taught me a person committed to silence can suggest importance, strength. So long as they’re a man, I mean. It’s not an option when you’re a girl, not unless you want people to think you’re bitch.