Cemetery Girl

“I’m going to take the car and look,” I said, already moving. “She can’t have gone far. Jesus Christ, Abby. I should have seen this coming. The way she acted in the car. .”

“I think you should stay.”

“I’m going,” I said. “Around the neighborhood.”

“Tom, I want you to stay. Please. I don’t want to be here alone.”

I held my keys in my hand and moved toward the car. I looked back at Abby under the glow of the back porch light. Her face was full of pleading and fear.

Last time, I sat in the house, waiting. A fool. Not again, I thought. Not again. I couldn’t let Caitlin disappear this time without doing something. Immediately.

“I have the cell,” I said. “Call me if anything changes.”

“Tom.”

I didn’t look back. I got into the car and sped off.

Chapter Twenty-five

He took her.

As I made my way through the streets around our house, up one and down the other, peering into front yards and up driveways, trying my best to see through the darkness, one thought circled through my brain: He took her. Buster took her.

Televisions glowed blue behind drawn curtains, and regular people washed dishes or put out trash cans. They lived their lives, ignorant of and unaffected by my drama.

I didn’t see Caitlin anywhere.

The cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Abby. I answered.

“Tom, the police are here.”

My heart raced even more. “Did they find her?”

“No. They want to talk to you.”

“Tell them I’m looking.”

“They don’t want you to look,” Abby said. “They want you back here.”

“You want me back there,” I said. “The cops don’t care.”

“Tom-”

“Tell them to call Buster.”

“Do you really think-?”

“Tell them.”

Once I drove through our neighborhood, I headed toward campus and looked along the streets there. Students filled the sidewalks, shuffling to evening classes. I quickly felt like a man adrift, without hope. Engaging in a fool’s errand. Even in a town this size, what were the odds of finding one person, especially one person who apparently didn’t want to be found?

The phone buzzed again.

“Shit.” I checked the display, expecting to see Abby’s name. I was relieved to see it was Ryan. “Hello? Did you find her?”

“Tom, you should come back here. We have men looking.”

“Where? I’m over by campus, and I don’t see them.”

“Your wife needs you at home. If Caitlin comes back, you need to be here.”

“If, if, if, Ryan. I’m not going to be passive this time,” I said. “I should have seen this. I should have stopped it. I’m not going to sit at home while my daughter is lost, God knows where.”

“Listen to me, Tom-”

I hung up. I decided to head out toward the mall, to Williamstown Road, where they’d found Caitlin walking just that morning. It seemed like the next logical step. I backtracked through our neighborhood to get to Williamstown Road, but I avoided our street, figuring that if there was news, someone would call. And if there wasn’t, I didn’t want to get sidetracked. I took a longer way around and ended up abreast of the cemetery. I hit the turn signal and pulled in through the gate, heading toward the back to Caitlin’s headstone. I wasn’t supposed to be there. It closed at dark, but they didn’t always shut the entry gates. This was one such night.

The road through the cemetery was narrow and closely lined by trees. My headlights illuminated the gnarled trunks and bounced off the headstones, showing the names and dates in brief flashes. I took a fork in the road, one that bent to the left, and I knew I was getting close to the headstone.

Then I saw the girl.

First she was a white blur in the headlights, held in relief against the darkness. I hit a bump in the road, and the headlights jostled up and down. I lost sight of her for a moment, then picked her up again. She stood in front of Caitlin’s headstone, her hands resting on the top, as though she needed it for support. It was the same girl from the park that day, the one who ran off into the trees when I approached her.

Caitlin?

I hit the brakes, skidding to a stop. I pushed open the door.

“Hey!”

The girl turned and ran off, dashing into the darkness like a frightened animal. I went after her, dodging around the tombstones. But there was next to no light. As I ran, I saw the girl ahead of me, her light clothes showing up in the darkness, but in a short while she faded from my view, swallowed up by the night.

“Hey!”

I stopped running, my breath coming in short, huffing bursts. She was gone. I listened but didn’t hear the sound of twigs snapping or grass being trampled. If she was still out there, she was being stealthy and quiet, moving in the night like a guerrilla.

Beyond the edge of the cemetery were tracts of new and fairly expensive subdivisions. She could easily be from one of those homes, I reasoned, a kid who wandered out of her yard to play.

But what did she want from me? What did she have to do with Caitlin?

When my wind came back, I turned for the car. The headlights were angled toward Caitlin’s headstone and held it in a cone of light that carved through the darkness.