Todd Strasser: Kill You Last

When the commercials came on, Mom muted the TV. “I spoke to Beth today. She has to go to Boston in December, and she’s trying to see if she can arrange her flights so that she can visit with us for a day.”

“That would be great!” I said. Beth was Mom’s younger sister, a vagabond ESL teacher who’d lived all over the world and was currently teaching English in Shanghai. She couldn’t afford to come home every year, but when she did, she told wonderfully exotic stories of her adventures. Thanks to her, I planned to get a teaching degree and teach abroad after college.

Mom smiled. Then the commercials ended and the news came back on. She turned up the volume, as if needing to fill the emptiness left by Dad.

Later in my room, video chatting with Roman, I talked about almost winding up in Gabriel’s arms that day.

She sighed disapprovingly. “What do you see in him? I mean, yes, he’s gorgeous, but you know that deep down he’s totally shallow.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Uh, hello? The Christmas party?” she said. Every Christmas, Dad had a party in the studio. My friends loved to come because he would take pictures of them posing like models. “All Gabriel could talk about was his car and his apartment and how he made so much money gambling and knew all these famous people. He was so full of himself.”

“I think he just does that when he’s feeling insecure,” I said, trying to defend him. “If you’d seen him today, you’d have a different opinion. He was funny and charming and relaxed. And it really did feel like he was attracted to me. I keep wondering if maybe working with my father is what’s holding him back. Couldn’t that be it?”

“Shouldn’t it be the opposite?” Roman asked. “I mean, don’t guys always want to marry the boss’s daughter?”

“What if he’s worried that if he breaks up with the boss’s daughter he’ll have a problem with the boss?”

Instead of answering the question, Roman said, “What about Chris Clarke? Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all want him. This time next year, you could be sitting in Harvard Stadium watching him play Yale.”

“He’s interesting, too,” I allowed.

“So?”

“So all he ever does is smile and wave. If he’s really serious, why doesn’t he do something?”

“Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he’s waiting to see if you’re interested.”

“I always wave and smile back,” I said. “What else am I supposed to do? Accidentally bump into him and drop my books?”

“Oh God, no. That is so middle school. Why can’t you just walk up to him and say hi?”

“I guess I could.”

“Could?” Roman echoed.

“Okay, okay. I guess I will.”

“Hmmm.” When Roman made that humming sound, she wanted you to believe that she was thinking about what you’d just said. But it was really her way of taking a moment so that when she changed the topic it wouldn’t feel abrupt. “Did you show your dad that e-mail?”

“Yes. He didn’t think it was any big deal. But things were weird there anyway.” I told her about the detectives and the two missing girls.

“Seriously?” Roman’s interest perked up.

“They’re probably just runaways.”

“Or it could have something to do with those bodies they found on the south shore of Long Island a few years ago.”

I’d heard about that case. For a while the police had suspected two serial murderers were at work. “But they were mostly prostitutes.”

“And your point is?” Roman asked.

“Why now, after all that time? Doesn’t it make more sense that they’re just runaways?”

She hummed for a moment. “Okay, ask your dad if they went for their head shots together or came in separately.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Because if they went together, maybe they’re friends and ran away together, right? But if they went separately, then it could be something else.”

“Roman, come on-”

“Oh, please, please? This could be really exciting.”

“To you.”

“Just ask him if they came in together or separately.”

“He’s at work.”

“It’s a five-second phone call. Come on, please? I’ll be your friend for life.”

“You’re already my friend for life.”

“Then in the next life, too.”

I gave in. The truth was, Roman’s interest had piqued my curiosity, too. Since we were video chatting, I picked up my BlackBerry and called Dad, who answered on the second ring. “

Hey, hon, what’s up?”

I asked him about the girls.

“Why do you want to know?” Dad asked.

“I was telling Roman about it. You know how she’s obsessed with true crime stuff.”

“What crime?” Dad asked. “They’re just missing. And I’m kind of busy right now.”

“I know, Dad. Roman just wants to know if they came together or separately, that’s all.”

“Probably separately,” Dad said. “We do a lot of head shots. It’s hard to remember.”

Meanwhile, Roman had hastily written something down on a piece of paper and was holding it up on the screen: Names and where from?

“Do you remember their names? And where they were from?” I asked.

“Shels…” Dad sounded impatient. I wondered why he didn’t just answer, since that would have been the fastest way to get off the phone.

“The police must have had some idea,” I said.

“Yeah, uh, Rebecca, Margaret, maybe from Pennsylvania or Connecticut or New Jersey, something like that. I really have to get off the phone, hon, okay?”

“Sure, Dad.”

We hung up and I told Roman what I’d learned.

“You’re the best,” Roman said. “Love you. Later.” She was gone, probably to search for every crumb of information she could find about missing girls named Rebecca and Margaret. Meanwhile, I still had homework to do, and an outfit to pick out for an interview at Sarah Lawrence College the next morning. But an hour later, Roman was back on video chat. “Go to the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Select female, Connecticut, and missing within one year.”

I did what she said and three thumbnail photos popped up.

“See Peggy D’Angelo from Hartford?” Roman asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Hit view poster.”

I did. Peggy D’Angelo was a round-faced girl described as five feet six inches tall and weighing 135 pounds.

“Now do the same thing with Pennsylvania,” Roman said.

“This one’s name is Rebecca Parlin, from Scranton.”

Rebecca Parlin had a bony face and thin lips. She was five feet nine inches and weighed 120 pounds.

“So?” I said.

“Both were aspiring models, and both went missing after saying they were going to a mall to meet someone.”

I went back and took a closer look. Peggy D’Angelo was cute but, at that height and weight, far from model material. Rebecca Parlin was closer to an acceptable model’s height and weight. But she was hardly what you’d call a beauty.

“I bet those are the two girls,” Roman said.

“All the way from Hartford and Scranton?” I asked. “Aren’t they both, like, hundreds of miles away?”

“About a hundred miles…Maybe a two-hour drive.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Lots of photographers do head shots. Why would they come all the way to Dad’s studio?”

“Good question,” said Roman.

I went to the interview at Sarah Lawrence the next morning. Even though I imagined myself going to a large university in a college town like Amherst or Ann Arbor, I’d promised Mom I’d consider Sarah Lawrence because I knew she wanted me to stay close to home. The college had a well-respected teacher-training curriculum, and it was one of the few in the United States that offered an exchange program with the University of Havana in Cuba, which sounded exciting.