Todd Strasser - Kill You Last

When I heard the back door open downstairs, I went down to the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the table, reading the Soundview Gazette. I glanced at the oven and realized there was a frozen pizza inside. It was hard to remember the last time she hadn’t prepared dinner herself.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“How was your day?” she asked back.

“Difficult.” I told her how I’d gone to the studio at lunch and had seen the detectives going through Dad’s files. And how Dad had admitted that Janet looked for modeling prospects at the malls and sometimes picked girls who didn’t really have a chance at a career. “Dad said he did it for us.”

“What?” Mom’s voice shook with consternation.

“He was trying to make enough money so that we could live the way we do,” I said. “That’s true, isn’t it? I mean, about his not being able to make enough money from the work he gets in the studio? Two days ago, he was doing a Chinese food menu.”

Mom made an odd motion with her head. “I suppose.”

“I just wish he’d said something to us. I don’t have to have my own car. I could have done with less. I guess men are funny that way. If he couldn’t make enough to support us, it was like admitting he was a failure.”

Mom sighed mysteriously. I wished she’d tell me what she was thinking. It wasn’t like she was protecting me from some terrible truth by not sharing her feelings.

The kitchen phone rang. Mom studied the readout, then picked up the receiver. “Yes? Uh-huh. Okay.” She hung up and turned to gaze out the kitchen window. By now it was dark, and all I imagined she could see were the streetlights.

“Mom? What was it?” I asked.

Without turning she said, “Your father. They’re taking him to the police station…for questioning.”

The news was jolting. “Questioning? But yesterday, Chief Jenkins said he wasn’t a suspect. He said they had no evidence…”

Mom didn’t answer. It was understandable, since she probably knew no more than I did. But I had to believe that something about the investigation had changed. With all those police departments and media people involved, new information must have been turning up all the time. Just because Dad hadn’t been a suspect yesterday was no reason to think he couldn’t be one today. Once again, I felt my eyes grow watery.

“I don’t understand,” I said anxiously. “I mean, Dad might have done some things wrong, but he can’t actually be a suspect in the disappearance of these girls, can he? I mean…seriously, Mom, can’t you tell me what you really think?”

The timer in the oven binged and seemed to snap her out of a trance. She pulled on some oven mitts. “Sorry, what did you say?”

I repeated what I’d said, while she sliced the pizza and took a bowl of salad out of the refrigerator. “No,” she said, bringing the salad to the table. “I don’t think he could really be a suspect.”

She started to eat a slice of pizza while I pushed my salad around with a fork. Once again it came to me that just because we didn’t think Dad could be a suspect meant nothing as far as the rest of the world was concerned.

My BlackBerry buzzed. I quickly looked, then felt a sickening sensation when I saw that it was from vengence13773288@gmail. com: Hope ur enjoying the news. xoxo!

Of course, I thought miserably, it was the dinner hour-the start of the nightly news cycle. Placing the BlackBerry on the table where Mom could read it, I reached for the remote and turned on the TV. But whatever the anonymous e-mailer had been writing about wasn’t on the local news, and I had to surf until I found it on a network channel, where a reporter was speaking to a young blonde woman named Destiny Charles.

Destiny was cuter than the girl who’d been on TV that morning. At first her story sounded the same as the one we’d heard before: she’d been approached in a mall by a woman claiming to be a modeling agent. Later that day, she’d gone to the hotel with her mother and paid a lot for the styling, head shots, and credentials.

“I guess now that one channel’s found a girl who fell for the scam, every channel has to have one,” I said bitterly.

But I was wrong. There was more.

“So what happened after that?” the interviewer asked.

“About a week later, Mr. Sloan called and said he thought he had a modeling job for me, but he wanted to meet and talk about it first,” Destiny said.

“And what did you say?”

“I asked if my mom could come.”

“And what did Mr. Sloan say?”

“He said it would be better if we met alone.”

I felt myself start to tighten up. Oh no. Oh God, please, no!

“Did you ask why?”

Destiny nodded. “He said that he wanted to see how I acted on my own, without my mom there, because they were looking for a girl who projected maturity and independence, and that sometimes when girls were with their moms, they acted more like daughters.”

“So did you meet him alone?” the interviewer asked.

Destiny shook her head. “I was scared. It didn’t sound right. I mean, if he wanted to see how I acted alone, why couldn’t my mom bring me and then wait outside or something?”

“Did you suggest that?”

“No. I didn’t think of that until later. I was too nervous on the phone.”

“So something about the idea felt wrong to you?”

“I wasn’t sure. I mean, it could have been true that I didn’t act as mature when my mom was around. I just didn’t know.”

“But something about it felt wrong?” the interviewer repeated.

Suddenly realizing that I’d been holding my breath, I let it out. “She’s putting words in her mouth. She’s trying to get her to say it felt wrong.”

Mom watched silently.

“I didn’t know,” Destiny said again. “I guess I just didn’t want to take a chance.”

The interviewer thanked her and the camera shifted to an anchor behind a desk.

“So I guess we’ll never really know why the photographer Kirby Sloan wanted to meet Destiny Charles alone,” the anchor said.

“I spoke to several photographers at well-established studios, and none of them thought it sounded right,” the interviewer replied. “Most of them couldn’t think of a reason why the girl couldn’t have been asked to project maturity while her mother was there.”

The anchor nodded but didn’t comment. Thus, the last idea left in everyone’s mind was what the interviewer had implied-that other photographers thought Dad’s reason for wanting to see Destiny alone sounded dubious.

The show went to a commercial, and I muted the TV.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I said. “All that girl said was that Dad wanted to meet her alone. We don’t even know if she’s telling the truth. Maybe she made the whole thing up just to get on TV. People do that all the time. Or maybe she didn’t understand what Dad meant.”

I waited for Mom to say something, but once again she seemed to be gone. As if her mind was a million miles away. “Mom?”

She turned to me and blinked. “You’re right, dear, it doesn’t prove anything.”

I studied her tired face. “You’re not just saying that, right? I mean, to protect me?”

“From what?”

“From the truth,” I said, puzzled that she didn’t seem to understand.

“The truth,” she repeated woodenly.

Suddenly, I felt a new concern. Was this all too much for her? For years she’d been pretending that everything in our family was perfect and that we were just like every other family. Was she coming apart, just as our world was?

“Mom, are you okay?” I asked.

Her expression changed, as if she realized I was studying her. She reached for the salad tongs and placed some greens on her plate. “Of course I am, darling. It’s just…this is…you know…a difficult time.” She picked up a slice of pizza and offered it to me. “But don’t worry, we’ll get through it. Another slice?”