Lisa Unger - Fragile

“Do you know anything about him? A phone number, e-mail? Is anyone his friend on Facebook?” Henry asked.

Britney shook her head. “No one knows him. No one’s met him. Honestly, we all thought she was making him up.”

“Who were those Facebook friends of yours, the ones you and Charlene had in common?” Maggie whispered to her son.

“Who?” he asked. Just like Elizabeth, stalling with obtuse questions.

“The older ones from New York, Rick,” she said, failing to mask her annoyance. “You know who I’m talking about.”

He shrugged. “They’re just people we met. The guy who owns the studio, Markus, said he’d help us record our demo tape. We met him at a club.”

“Does he know you’re only seventeen?”

Another defensive shrug, the gesture of choice among teenage males. “I don’t know.”

“Have you been in touch with them since she disappeared?”

“What do you think?” he snapped. Then, more gently, “Of course. No one’s seen her.”

“And these were not the people she claimed to know, the ones who could get her into the music business?”

“No. I told you. I never met those people. Or the other guy she was supposedly seeing.”

“You know about him?”

“We had an open relationship.”

“Oh. Great. That’s great.”

Maggie noticed Henry was looking at them, raised her hand in apology.

“Do you have anything to share, Rick? You were closest to Charlene,” Henry said.

Ricky stood up. “I don’t believe Charlene left that message on Facebook, the one about being ‘large and in charge.’ She would never use language like that; it’s not her voice or her tone. I think she was making things up about who she knew in New York, her supposed other boyfriend.”

“So where do you think she is, Rick?” asked Henry. Everyone had turned to look at Maggie’s son. He stood strong with head and gaze straight at Henry. He was tall and proud, so like Jones, composed, not allowing himself to be overcome with the emotion she knew brewed within him. I’m not a child , he’d said to her the other night. He was right.

“I don’t know. I’ve talked to the people we both knew in New York, and no one’s seen her. She hasn’t been in touch with anyone, including me, since early yesterday evening, and I think that’s suspicious. Because if there’s one thing Charlene needs, it’s an audience.”

“But that’s assuming the Facebook message didn’t in fact come from Charlene. If she did send it, then she’s being true to form,” said Henry. “Someone would need her log-in and password to send it from her account.”

“Lots of people know that. I do. Her friends might.”

“I think it sounds just like her.” Britney was standing now, looking at Ricky. “She’s doing what she always does, making a show.”

Ricky shook his head. “You don’t understand her.”

“No, Rick,” said Britney softly. “It’s you who doesn’t understand. She uses people. She used you; she’ll use whoever she went to be with in New York.”

The air went electric with an awkward tension. Maggie heard someone laugh, but when she looked around, she couldn’t see who it was.

“I thought you were her friend,” said Ricky. He looked more sad than angry. Maggie heard a little catch in his voice.

“I am her friend,” said Britney. She started to tear up, dug her hands into the front pocket of her pink Hollows High sweatshirt. “I see her for who she is and care about her anyway.”

Denise stood up and put a bolstering arm around her daughter. Maggie resisted the urge to do the same for Ricky; he wouldn’t want that. Didn’t need it.

Ricky looked away from Britney and back at Henry.

“I think something bad happened last night. Something more than a fight with her mother. Charlene fought with her mother constantly; they never got along. It wouldn’t be a reason for her to run away, not like this.”

“Like what?” Henry said. “What do you think might have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Ricky said, seeming deflated. Maggie turned around to look at Jones, hoping he would step forward to support their son. But he was gone from where he’d stood by the door. She knew that he had a job to do, that something important had called him away. But she felt angry and disappointed anyway.

“I may have seen her. The missing girl.”

“May have?”

“It was dark. I’d had some wine.”

“Where and when was this?”

“Last night around eleven thirty. I was at my-,” he said, stumbling over the word. “At my girlfriend’s house on Persimmon Way. Well, she’s not really my girlfriend. We just started seeing each other. But, um, anyway… she was asleep and I went to the kitchen to get some water, went out on the veranda to drink it.”

“It was cold last night.”

“Yes, it was.”

“So why go out to the veranda?”

Charlie cleared his throat. “You know, just to get some air.”

“And?”

“I saw her-this girl with pink and black hair-standing on the sidewalk, talking to someone in an old car.”

“What kind of car?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not good with things like that. It was green, big. Like a muscle car, but I couldn’t tell you the make or model.”

“Okay.”

“Then she got in and the car pulled away.”

“She got in of her own free will?”

“It appeared that way. She didn’t seem afraid or upset. Maybe a little sad. But she opened the door and climbed inside. I never saw the driver. I mean, he-or she-never got out of the car.”

The detective was writing things down on his pad. Charlie felt an uncomfortable dryness in his throat, a slight shake to his hand. He felt guilty, edgy, as though he’d done something wrong and was trying to hide it. He always felt that way when cops were around, like they were looking at him, seeing a secret guilt he couldn’t acknowledge himself. Maybe it was because of Lily.

Now, at the police station, with Wanda sitting in the waiting area reading a paperback novel, he could feel a sheen of sweat on his brow. He wanted to wipe it away, but he didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was sweating in the first place. He kept talking.

“I heard about the disappearance late today at a client’s house. I didn’t know about it before then.”

“A client?”

“I work for a pest removal company.”

Charlie waited for some show of disgust, but the detective just nodded his head. The guy was slightly overweight, slightly balding. But there was something virile and intimidating about him, something in the set of his brow, in his cool, level gaze. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal muscular forearms covered with dark hair. The leather shoulder holster made him look beefy and strong. Charlie felt small and boyish in comparison, weak somehow.

“I’m not sure it was her, actually. But my girlfriend thought I should say something, just in case.”

The detective was still writing. What was he writing? Charlie knew he hadn’t said enough for all that writing. He looked around the room; it wasn’t how he envisioned a police station. He thought there would be big oak desks facing each other, some kind of chalkboard with a list of open cases, old rotary phones, a cell for holding criminals, flickering fluorescents. But it looked like the inside of any modern office building, with cubicles, fax machine, watercooler. The detective’s desk was faux wood and metal; a brand-new computer gleamed on its surface. Even so, he was writing on a notepad balanced on his crossed leg. A southpaw, pushing his hooked hand awkwardly across the page. His broad shoulders partially obscured a riot of crayon drawings tacked to the walls: a city scene, a stick figure in hat and badge standing next to what looked like a squad car, a family of four with enormous heads lined up beside a tiny house.