After Image, page 11
He grinned. “So, we gonna do some shots, or what?”
By the end of the night, they’d taken over the playlist in the living room and were singing along at the top of their lungs to some rap song with Spanish lyrics.
CHAPTER 21
“What is it?” Ruiz asks.
“Nothing. I just . . . Allie did know Jairo. Not well. But I saw them talking at parties once or twice.”
Ruiz leans forward, his eyes bright.
“It’s not like they were friends or anything,” I say hurriedly. Sometimes Allie just hit it off with someone at a party, and for an hour she’d seem to have a new best friend. Then, the next day, she wouldn’t be able to remember their name.
“Huh. I wonder.” He pushes his empty plate to one side. “At the time, when Greg was telling us this stuff about Jairo, it didn’t seem that credible. It just seemed like he wanted us to be looking at someone else. Anyone else.”
“Did you look into Jairo back then?” I ask.
“Of course.” He sounds offended that I’d even ask. “We didn’t get far, though. He’d been busted once for stealing a car, when he was a teenager, and he’d done a little community service time. But there was nothing that connected him to Allie. Or to dealing.”
“But you could reinterview him now,” I say. “You could reinterview Greg. Ask them both about the flash drive.”
Ruiz runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
“Listen,” he sighs. “The flash drive could be important. But on its own, it doesn’t give us enough cause to start reinterviewing witnesses. If we get close to Greg again, we’re going to have his lawyers down our throats.” He sighs again. “And . . . I should tell you, there’s been this reporter sniffing around the station. Neil Agarwal. He’s doing a piece for the four-year anniversary of Allie’s disappearance. He’s driving my boss crazy—the original Times article was bad enough.”
I feel a burning sensation in my chest. “So, what? You’re just going to ignore this?”
“No. Of course not. But we have to be careful about how we move forward. When we do talk to these guys again, we have to be sure of what we’re going after. We have to have something solid on our side. In the meantime, I’m asking you to sit tight.”
“Sit tight?”
Across the room, Diane glances over at us.
“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for the past four years?” My hands are shaking. “You can’t just take the key chain and then do nothing.”
“That’s not what I’m—”
“You know what? This is bullshit.” I dig through my purse for my wallet and throw a twenty-dollar bill down on the table.
“Natasha—” Ruiz says.
“It’s fine,” I snap, grabbing my coat and bag and scooting out of the booth. I don’t know why I let myself get my hopes up. Why did I think the cops could help when they never have before?
“Natasha.” He’s leaning forward, holding out a hand as if to get me to slow down. “I get what you’re going through. I really do.”
I stare down at his forearm, at the letters of the tattoo peeking out from beneath his sleeve. “Would you ‘sit tight,’ then? If you were me?”
There’s a long silence, and he flushes uncomfortably. We both know the answer to that question.
Turning away, I brush past the other customers and hurry out into the cold night air.
When I get back to my apartment, I pace restlessly from room to room. Sit tight, Ruiz had said.
Screw that.
For a moment at Gina’s, I’d let myself believe that the key chain was going to be the thing that broke the case open. That Ruiz would use it to actually do something. But clearly that’s not going to happen. The police will move at their usual glacial pace, and in the meantime, whatever message I’m supposed to have gotten from Allie’s key chain will drift further and further out of reach.
What I need is someone who can tell me more about Allie during the winter before she disappeared. Someone who might know something about this flash drive.
Greg.
I remember Greg lying on Allie’s bed while she was getting ready for some party, complaining about her slowness as he ate Ginger-O’s straight out of the packet. Eventually he got so bored of watching her try on different outfits that he grabbed her phone from the bedside table, typed in her passcode, and started flicking through her text messages. After a minute, he laughed and said, “Who the fuck is Anthony?”
Allie glanced over her shoulder. “Oh. That barista at Café Bijou.” If she was annoyed by Greg going through her texts, she didn’t show it. She turned to me, holding a gold top against her chest. “What about this one?” she asked.
But I wasn’t looking at her. I was watching Greg type out a message on Allie’s phone. “What are you doing?” I asked sharply.
He didn’t look up. “Texting Anthony. On behalf of our girl.”
In my living room, I halt my pacing, Greg knew Allie’s passcode to her phone. What were the odds he knew the password to her laptop too? Had he scrolled through her emails the same way he’d browsed through her texts?
I sit down on the couch, open my laptop, and log in to the WhereIsAllieAndersen forums. I know exactly what I’m looking for—the picture of Greg’s house that was posted two years ago. Greg’s here in LA. He’s within easy reach. All I have to do is find him.
After a few minutes of scrolling, I find the photo. A sleek, midcentury house set into a hillside. But there’s no address. Quickly, I send a message to the poster: Did you happen to get an address?
MayBee634’s reply appears within a few seconds. Yeah. I posted it at the time, but then people started tagging his house and Greg sicced his lawyers on me.
I type out a response. Don’t suppose you’d be able to share it with me—just privately?
Are you nuts? His lawyers told me I could go to jail for, like, five years for spreading that info around.
I sigh. The pic isn’t much use to me if I don’t have the address. Leaning forward, I study the photograph carefully. The house number isn’t visible, but in the corner of the shot, partially obscured by a tree branch, I notice the edge of a street sign—the letters rena visible between the leaves.
Hunching over my laptop, I pull up Google Maps and scour the streets of Silver Lake, looking for a street name that ends in those letters. It’s got to be Micheltorena. Switching to Street View, I painstakingly navigate my way up and down the street until I find a house that resembles the one in the picture. This has got to be it. In both images, I can see a similar view of the reservoir. But there’s a different car in the driveway in the Google Maps photo. The discrepancy makes me realize: Greg may have moved since the forum post went up. Maybe the harassment drove him out of the neighborhood.
Well. There’s only one way to find out.
I scrabble around in my bag for my phone, then type Greg’s address into the Uber app. His place is only thirty minutes away. I stare at the phone screen. All this time, Greg’s been so close, and I’ve never even tried to contact him. I would’ve, when he moved back to LA, if my mom and Dr. Rajmani hadn’t been pressuring me so hard to step back from the case. If it hadn’t been for the incident with Roy Tucker, one of the truckers who was in Barclay’s the night Allie disappeared. He’d filed a restraining order against me after I started showing up on his street, watching him as he played with his kids in his yard.
I go into the bedroom, grab my coat and bag, and then—as an afterthought—pick up one of the cameras I’ve left charging on my nightstand. I’m not sure why I want it. I only know that Greg always made me feel nervous, and back in the old days, the only way I could battle that feeling was to raise a camera to my face.
CHAPTER 22
The Uber drops me off on a dark stretch of road in Silver Lake. As the car drives off and its headlights disappear around the corner, the night closes around me. Greg’s house is in shadow, but a faint light is coming from the front room.
Slowly, I walk up the path to his front door. Two big agave plants flank the entryway, and their leaves scrape at my legs as I pass by. Then I’m standing in front of the heavy wooden door.
It’s only now that my resolve begins to wobble. I remember my sessions with Dr. Rajmani, the way he always urged me to consider whether, in obsessing about Allie’s case, I was doing more harm than good. The restraining order had been a sign, he said, that I’d lost my sense of perspective.
I draw in a deep breath. What if Greg really had hurt Allie? If so, coming here to talk to him is the absolute stupidest thing I could do.
But I can’t turn back now. If I want to find out more about the flash drive, I have to blot out that fear. I have to make myself believe in the version of Greg who loved Allie, not the version who may have killed her.
I think of the night, sophomore year of college, when I’d come out of my bedroom and heard sobbing coming from the other side of the apartment. Shuffling down the hall, I hovered outside Allie’s door. It was closed, but light seeped out from the gap at the bottom, casting a dull glow into the hall. After a moment, I realized: that wasn’t Allie crying. It was Greg.
I had never seen Greg cry. Nothing ever seemed to pierce his shield of cool sarcasm. I couldn’t imagine what could’ve happened to reduce him to tears.
I leaned closer to the door. Allie was murmuring, saying soothing but inaudible things. After a minute or two, she emerged from the bedroom, clutching an empty mug.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, taking a step back from her.
She pulled me into the kitchen after her. “He’s having a rough day,” she said in a low voice. “His dad came by his apartment this afternoon.”
“So?”
“So . . . his dad’s the one who kicked him out of the house,” Allie said. “After he came out to his family. He was only fifteen. They’ve, like, barely talked since.”
“Oh.” I watched her make another cup of tea. Chamomile. That had to be for Greg; Allie loathed herbal tea.
“Obviously, don’t tell him I said anything,” Allie said. “He’s really private about it. He spent most of his high school years bouncing between friends’ houses. I don’t think he’s been back to his dad’s house since then.”
I bit my lip, revising my mental image of Greg’s high school years, in which I’d imagined him smug, spoiled, living in an opulent house with his rich parents.
“So, what’s his dad coming around for now, then?” I asked.
Allie stared into the mug of tea, at the steam rising off the hot water. “He says he’s willing to bring Greg back into the family again. Let bygones be bygones . . . if Greg agrees to give up his ‘lifestyle.’” She let out a sharp hiss of breath. “God, I could kill that asshole.”
I leaned back on the kitchen counter, feeling unsettled. I’d disliked Greg for so long that it felt strange for those feelings to suddenly waver, threaten to dissolve.
She turned to go back to the bedroom. “Anyway, back I go.”
“Wait,” I said, going over to the pantry. “Bring these too,” I said, holding out a package of Ginger-O’s.
She pulled me into a tight hug, and I was engulfed in the smell of her expensive shampoo. “You’re a good friend, Tash.”
But it was Allie who was the good friend. The one Greg trusted so much he’d broken down in front of her, the one he’d let see past his prickly exterior.
Now, I think: That had to mean something, didn’t it? That had to mean he wouldn’t have hurt her. Even if he was angry, even if he suspected she was dealing drugs behind his back.
Standing outside the front door, I know my reasoning is thin. I’m clutching at straws. As I turn and stare out at the dark street, I see a flicker in the shadows that might be a cat, or a fox. Greg loved Allie. That’s why he’d been as unnerved as I was when Allie started pulling away—and why, during those last few months, his fights with Allie became more frequent. Greg had been furious with her, for her strange behavior, for the way she’d stopped showing up for him the way she used to.
I turn back to the house, knowing I’m stalling. Knowing my courage won’t last much longer. Raising my hand, I knock on the door.
Nothing happens. There’s not a hint of sound from inside the house.
After a long pause, I knock again. Then I peek in through one of the sidelights and catch a glimpse of the living room. Angular couches and a large sheepskin rug. The place is empty, no signs of life. Greg might not even live here anymore—in which case, I’ve wasted my time. Come all the way over here for nothing. With a sigh, I turn and sit down on the front step.
I slide my hand into my bag to grab my phone, but instead my fingers hit the familiar angles of my Nikon. I pull it out, balancing its weight in my hands. When I first bought it, it had seemed state of the art, a precious investment. Now, six years later, its buttons look quaint, old fashioned. I turn it on and scroll back through the most recent photos.
The pictures are blurry, full of shadows and smoke. Crowds of people in a low-lit room. Silhouettes on a balcony, the LA skyline in the background. One of Greg’s famous parties. I remember this one in particular because there had been a smoke machine in the living room.
That night, I stood with my back against the wall, taking pictures of the people dancing in front of the fireplace. Playing with the focus, I framed a group of dancers in a shot, catching their silhouettes against the wisps of white smoke. Once I’d taken the photo, I paused and examined the image on the camera screen, the way the light made halos around everyone’s heads.
“Hey.”
Startled, I looked up. A lanky guy stood beside me, peering over my shoulder.
“Can I see?” he said, gesturing at the camera.
I hesitated but then relented. He had a nice face, and he handled the Nikon like he knew what he was doing with it. As I watched, he scrolled back through the last couple of photos.
“These are cool,” he said. “Are you in Hadfield’s class?”
“Hadfield?”
“Shooting After Dark,” he explained. “He’d, like, go nuts over these.”
I shook my head. “No, these are just for me.” I wasn’t in any photography class. I couldn’t waste my college credits on a class like that.
“Oh, gotcha,” he said, handing the camera back to me. “Well, you’re really good.”
He smiled at me, but I turned away when I heard Allie’s laugh ring out from across the room. It was a laugh that told me she was on the verge of being very, very drunk.
“My man! Where have you been all night?” she said to someone. I craned my head to see who she was talking to, but the room was crowded, and I lost sight of her just as she disappeared down the hallway. That was the last I saw of her for hours.
Sitting on the steps of the house in Silver Lake, I keep scrolling back through the photos, seeing details of the night that have blurred in my memory. Greg wearing a gorilla mask. Some girl doing a handstand next to the fireplace.
I pause when I catch sight of Allie in the background of a group shot. In the shadows at the edge of the room, framed by the arched doorway that led into the hall, Allie stood with her shoulders turned partially away from the camera. Beside her, someone leaned close to speak in her ear. I recognize the stocky silhouette, the glint of stubble on a shaved head. Jairo. Allie’s head was tilted slightly to one side. She could have been listening closely. Or pulling away in fear.
Headlights sweep across my legs, and a car pulls into the driveway. It’s a sports car—silver, brand new—and the man who steps out of it wears a business suit. As he slams the door shut, I scramble to my feet, stuffing my camera in my bag, and the automatic lights snap on, bathing me in bright-white light. Shit. This must be the house’s new owner. He does not look pleased to see me.
“Who the hell are you?” he says as he strides across the driveway.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just leaving—”
“Were you? It sure as fuck didn’t look like it.”
I suck in a breath. I know that voice, even if I don’t recognize the person it’s currently attached to.
Greg Novak.
CHAPTER 23
When he steps into the light, I see that his hair has been trimmed into a neat clipper cut, and there’s not an earring stud in sight. Stripped of his piercings, his eyeliner, his outrageous clothes, he looks strangely ordinary. If I’d passed him on the street, I wouldn’t have recognized him. That way he has of drumming his fingers impatiently against his thighs, though—that hasn’t changed.
“Greg?” The skin on my palms is tingling.
He scowls. “I swear to God, if you’re a reporter—” He steps toward me, and I stumble backward, banging my ankle against the concrete stair.
“Greg,” I say, putting my hands up in front of me. “It’s Tash.” It feels strange to call myself that. No one calls me Tash anymore; only Allie called me that.
He stops short. “Natasha?” Then he gives me that once-over that is so familiar from our days in college—taking in my outfit, my hair—and raises his eyebrows. “Holy fucking shit,” he says. “You’ve changed.”
I try to regain my composure. My pulse is thumping in my neck. “Look who’s talking.”
He frowns, a dull red creeping up his neck.
“I’m just here to talk,” I say, trying to sound calm, steady. This is just Greg. This is just a conversation.
“Jesus.” He blows out a breath, and I catch a whiff of vodka on his breath. It’s a smell I associate so closely with Greg that it might as well be his cologne. “You haven’t heard of texting?” He looks around the yard, at the street. “This isn’t some stunt, is it? You’re not here with Dateline or something like that?”
I shake my head. “Of course not.”
“So, you just—what? Thought you’d suddenly visit your old friend Greg?” His voice is full of bitterness.
I shift my bag on my shoulder. “Something like that.”
