Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

“We could look through her address book, if she has one.” Brian started toward Joan’s desk.

Gary saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Teri had opened the door and stepped into the room. He’d assumed that the door locked automatically after closing.

“No one’s seen either of them,” Teri reported. “And by the way, Joan loves her parents. They’re very close. Brady Bunch close. She calls them almost every day. They live up near San Luis Obispo in a little town called Cayucos. I went up there with her and Kara for a weekend this summer.”

Joan was close to her parents?

And they lived here in California?

Gary felt the first faint stirrings of… not distrust, exactly. Uneasiness? That was more accurate. He thought about the few references she’d made to what had seemed a very strict and restrictive upbringing. Had she deliberately misled him, or had he just put the wrong spin on what he’d heard?

“Do you have their number?” he asked.

Teri nodded. “Joan gave it to me in case of an emergency. Hold on a sec.” She dashed out the door, and Gary’s eyes met Reyn’s, although his friend’s expression was unreadable. Stacy was admonishing Brian not to look through Joan’s desk. Teri returned bearing a torn scrap of paper on which she’d written an address and phone number.

It was just like Joan to give a neighbor her parents’ number, Gary thought. Unfailingly prepared, she was always ready for any eventuality. For the first time since he’d awakened in the desert to find her gone, the emotional reality of her absence hit him, and he felt a sharp pang of loss as he took the paper from Teri. What was he doing here? He needed to call the police. Time was wasting.

Still, he dialed the number of Joan’s parents.

Teri was backing out of the room. “I have to go. I have a psych class. Tell me what happens.”

Gary nodded as he held the phone to his ear. Stacy walked with Teri to the door, the two of them talking in low tones.

He waited. Three rings. Six rings. Twelve rings. A robotic woman’s voice came on the line and said, “Your party is not answering. Please hang up and dial again later.”

Gary closed his cell phone, shaking his head. He had a bad feeling about this. For about the hundredth time, he tried calling Joan’s cell, but now there was no ringing, no busy signal, only a flat, cold silence that sounded like—

Death.

“I’m calling the police,” he announced. “It hasn’t been forty-eight hours yet, but it’s been more than twenty-four. They should be able to do something.”

Reyn nodded his approval.

Brian had been examining the contents that were on top of Joan’s desk. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up a rolled piece of paper slightly larger than a pencil. It looked like a scroll and was stretched between two small sticks.

Gary shook his head. “I don’t know. I never saw it before.”

“I don’t think you should be going through her stuff,” Stacy said. “It’s not right. She wouldn’t want you to.”

Ignoring her, Brian had already unrolled the scroll and was reading it aloud:

“O Lord of Heavenly Hosts! Protect me from The Outsiders. Shield me from sin and see me through times of trial and tribulation. Protect me from The Outsiders. Safeguard my friends and family from those who would corrupt us. Protect me from The Outsiders. Let Your light and goodness shine on me and mine. Protect me from The Outsiders. Amen.”

Brian looked up, frowning. “The Outsiders? What the hell does that mean?”

Gary didn’t know, but his heart was pounding. The prayer was disturbing in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He took the scroll from Brian and read the words himself. Joan had told him that her parents were religious and that she’d been brought up rather strictly, but while she refused to drink alcohol, did not take drugs and still exhibited the inhibited demeanor of someone who’d been raised in a repressive environment, she’d given him the impression that she had broken away from all that. He’d assumed that, like himself, she was not religious.

Did she actually say this prayer to herself each night?

The Outsiders .

His uneasiness grew.

Was the prayer to be taken literally? he wondered. Could there be a group or gang called The Outsiders who were harassing or threatening her? Perhaps that was who was behind this. Maybe she’d been a target all along and had known it. Maybe the prayer had been her way of trying to stave off just this sort of kidnapping.

But she hadn’t written the prayer. It was printed on the scroll. She had gotten it from somewhere else.

Her parents?

He needed to call the police. He’d tell them what had happened at Burning Man, give them her parents’ address and phone number, tell them about Kara, give them the prayer scroll, explain that he’d already reported Joan’s disappearance to police in Nevada… .

Brian was opening a desk drawer.

“Stay out of there!” Stacy said sharply.

Gary dialed 911. He was relieved to be able to pass off responsibility to the cops, though he felt guilty that he felt that way.

His call was answered before he heard a single ring: “Nine-one-one. Please describe your emergency.”

“My girlfriend’s disappeared. We think she’s been kidnapped. We were drugged and—”

“Slow down, sir. Start from the beginning.”

Gary knew he was babbling, and he was so nervous that his hand was shaking. “My girlfriend’s name is Joan Daniels,” he said slowly. “I think she’s been kidnapped.” Following the prompts of the dispatcher, he described what had happened, answering all questions put to him and keeping his voice as reasonable and matter-of-fact as possible. Finally, he gave Joan’s dorm, floor and room number.

“We’re sending someone over right now,” the dispatcher said. “Please stay where you are until the officers arrive.”

Although Joan was not Gary’s first girlfriend, she was the first one for whom he had fallen so hard. Back in high school, he’d been shy and awkward, and while it was conventional widsom that all teens were shy and awkward when it came to the opposite sex, Gary had been so to a much greater degree than other kids. He wasn’t quite sure why that was. He’d always had quite a few friends, and his parents were ordinary, well-adjusted people. But for some reason, he had not been able to make that normal transition into the world of teenage romance.

His first real date, which hadn’t been until his senior year, had been with Tammy Fieger, whose older brother, Craig, had voluntarily committed himself to a mental institution when she was a freshman. The truth was that Craig had been depressed after their parents’ divorce, had had no one to turn to, and had sought help in the only way he knew how. He had stayed in Parkview for less than a month and had been out and back to normal ever since, though he’d transferred to another school, but to the kids at Fairfield High, he was insane, and there was a high probability that his sister shared those genes, which was why no one else had ever asked her out. Even if she wasn’t crazy, she had a crazy brother, and that alone was reason enough to avoid her. Who needed that kind of complication?

But Tammy had been nice, he had felt sorry for her, and in the sparsely attended English elective they’d shared, he’d chosen to sit next to her, feeling bad that the other students had bunched together away from her on the opposite side of the room. Her social skills, if possible, were even worse than his own, but that was one of the attractions. There was no pressure on him to be cool or suave, and their mutual awkwardness was actually kind of comfortable. He found it easy to talk to her, and soon they were spending time together outside of class. His friends had liked her, too, and had been very nonjudgmental. Tammy had quickly become an integral part of his life.