After Image, page 3
Taking a deep breath, I step up to the table. This should be the easiest thing in the world. All I have to do is look. But it takes a long moment before I can make myself reach out and pick up one of the bags. I start with the smallest. There’s a ring inside, with a stone in the setting that might’ve once been blue but is now caked with something black. Dirt. Or blood.
Allie loved rings; she used to wear three or four at a time, a mix of designer pieces and thrift-store finds.
Something sour rises up in the back of my throat. I swallow it down and force myself to look at the next bag. This one contains a set of copper bangles, bent out of shape. The third bag holds a necklace with a broken clasp.
I feel lightheaded. The room seems to be expanding and contracting around me. But there are still two more bags to go.
In the next one, a red shirt. In the last, a pair of jeans. Both are filthy and slightly charred. Bits of ash gather in the corners of the plastic bags. The body they found in the canyon . . . it must have been burned.
My vision flickers.
I back away from the table, knocking into Ruiz as I turn and push my way out of the room. I make it to the women’s bathroom just in time to throw up into the small metal sink. Nothing comes out but a thin trail of liquid, but my stomach still clenches, trying to rid itself of something that isn’t there.
Once the spasms stop, I spit a few times and then reach out to turn on the faucet. But I can’t see it; I can only find it by fumbling with my hands. Everything in the bathroom has gone black. As I rushed in here, I’d been vaguely aware of beige bathroom stalls, a checkered tile floor. But I can no longer remember the layout of the room, where exactly the door is in relation to the sink.
Fuck. Not now. These episodes began about a month after Allie went missing. The first time it happened, I was at the vigil for Allie on the LACSA campus, in the middle of the quad. One moment, I was standing next to Isabel as she spoke into the microphone; the next, the crowds of people had vanished, as if a black curtain had descended and separated me from them.
Conversion disorder, Dr. Rajmani explained to me later. A psychosomatic response to stress. They used to call it hysterical blindness, before that became an outdated term.
“Natasha?”
It’s Ruiz, his voice muffled behind the door.
I manage to turn the faucet on and cup water to my mouth, the cold liquid sliding over my lips.
I hear the door creak open and then his voice again, louder now. “Can I come in?”
I straighten, blinking rapidly, but there’s no difference between my eyes shut and my eyes open. I hear Ruiz step into the bathroom, and then the door clicks shut behind him.
“It’s not her,” I say. “It’s not Allie.”
There’s a long pause. Then he says, “Okay. You’re sure?”
Hot tears gather at the edges of my eyes. “The clothes, the necklace—she would’ve never worn things like that.” Department-store stuff. Cheap, generic jewelry. If Allie wore something, it had to be special. It had to stand out.
I feel Ruiz’s hand on my shoulder, the sudden contact jarring me.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“No. It’s not.” I shake my head, unable to hold back the tears. “You don’t understand. I wanted it to be her. I wanted her to be dead.”
“You want closure,” he says, his voice reverberating against the walls. “Anyone would want that.”
I put a hand over my eyes. It isn’t just that. Yes, I want closure. But I also want Allie to stop taking over my life. Since the beginning, she did that. And she’s still doing it, even when she’s not here.
“Hey. Look at me,” Ruiz says.
I pull my hands away from my face and turn my head in the direction I imagine his face to be.
“What’s going on? Do you need to sit down?”
I can smell the soap he uses, cedar and something else I can’t quite place. I feel the warmth of his body as he steps closer to me.
“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.” He puts a hand on my elbow and tries to guide me toward the door, but I resist.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
My shoulders tense. There are only three people in my life who know about my episodes: my mother, Matthew, and Dr. Rajmani. I’d like to keep it that way. But I can’t walk out of the bathroom like this.
“I can’t see,” I say, my ears turning hot.
“What are you talking about?” he says sharply.
“My vision, it’s—” It would take too long to explain, so I just shrug. “I can’t see anything right now.”
There’s a long silence. “You’re serious.”
I press my lips together. What I’d wanted, today, was to not seem like a train wreck. To seem like a new Natasha.
“It happens sometimes,” I say, going for a casual tone. “It’ll pass in a few minutes.”
“This has happened before?” he says, his voice rising.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Jesus. When did this start?”
I close my eyes. The blackness feels less disorienting when my eyes aren’t open. “A few weeks after she went missing.” In the months after the vigil, I’d be going about my day—washing dishes, making toast—when suddenly the world would simply vanish. Like I’d dropped into some other reality. Which didn’t even seem that strange to me, at that point. After all, Allie had vanished, so why not everything else too?
“The episodes hardly ever happen anymore,” I say. “Just when . . .” I lean back against the sink, its metal edge pinching my lower back. “The doctor says it’s stress related.”
Ruiz steps back, and my sense of the room changes. I’m adrift in space.
“Jesus, Natasha. If I’d known about this, I would’ve never called you down here.”
“It’s nothing. Really.”
I want so badly for that to be true. And I don’t want him to be angry with me. So I don’t tell him what else Dr. Rajmani has told me. That if I want to get well, I need to stop obsessing about Allie. I need to put as much distance as possible between myself and the investigation.
CHAPTER 5
Ruiz walks me back to the reception area, one hand on my elbow as he guides me down the hall. I hate the way the blindness makes me feel—like, at any moment, I could be sideswiped by something unseen. When we pass people in the hall, I flinch at the sound of their voices.
Finally, we walk through the double doors that lead back into the lobby, and Ruiz eases me down into one of the plastic chairs. “Wait here, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”
I settle into the chair, grateful to sit still, and listen to Ruiz’s footsteps retreating across the room. There’s a TV on the wall in one corner of the lobby. I hadn’t paid much attention to it when I came in earlier, but now its noise seems deafening. After a brief mention of the cold front expected to roll in tonight, the newscaster launches into the story of the body found in Turnbull Canyon.
“Although investigators have not yet released much information, we do know that it is the body of a Caucasian female in her twenties, approximately five feet six inches tall—a description that has prompted locals to wonder whether this may be the long-missing Allie Andersen. You remember the Andersen investigation, don’t you, Jill?”
“Yes, I do, Darren. What a disturbing case.”
“For those who don’t remember, Allie Andersen went missing on January 10, 2013.” Now they’re replaying an old segment I recognize, recorded the same year Allie went missing. Dramatic music plays as a deep voice proclaims: “Allie Andersen, the daughter of acclaimed actress Isabel Andersen, was last seen in a coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway. She was twenty-one years old at the time of her disappearance, finishing out her junior year at LACSA, where she’d been majoring in costume design . . .”
They’re running through the last-known movements of Allie Andersen. But I don’t need this refresher. I know the details by heart.
It was ten thirty when Allie left our apartment in West LA that night, wearing vintage jeans, a green silk shirt, and Greg Novak’s battered leather jacket.
Thirty minutes later, her image was captured on an ATM camera at the Wells Fargo near Olympic and Bundy. At 11:02 p.m., she withdrew $300, the maximum amount allowed, leaving just $23.17 in her account.
At 11:23, she entered Barclay’s, a doughnut shop on PCH near Washington Boulevard, where CCTV cameras showed her ordering a coffee and taking a seat near one of the windows facing the street.
Barclay’s wasn’t a place you’d expect to see someone like Allie Andersen. The place had stained linoleum floors and scratched windows, and it charged a dollar for a cup of coffee. Allie’s order at her usual coffee shop, Café Bijou, was an almond milk latte with extra foam. But at Barclay’s, the camera showed her holding a Styrofoam cup of drip coffee, which she clasped between her hands for sixteen and a half minutes, during which time she took exactly two sips.
On three separate occasions, she opened a flip phone she held in her right hand, then closed it again. Eventually she set the phone down next to her key ring, which held a chaotic assortment of keys, her LACSA ID card, and a panda-bear key chain.
At 11:35, two truckers—Roy Tucker and Miguel Hernandez—came in and bought extra-large coffees and a dozen doughnuts. At 11:37, Tucker glanced over his shoulder at Allie and then did a double take. Because he recognized her from the tabloids? Or maybe because—even under fluorescent lights, wearing hardly any makeup—Allie drew attention like a magnet. As the two men left the shop, Tucker took one last look at her before stepping outside into the darkness.
Allie continued sitting at the table until 11:39 p.m., when a call came through on the little black flip phone. She answered the call, listened briefly, said one word—“Okay”—and then walked out of Barclay’s, leaving behind an almost-full cup of coffee.
The newscaster’s voice continues: “But no one knows who was calling her. Or where she went next.”
Cue more dramatic music.
“Where was Allie Andersen going that night? And why? Four years after her disappearance, no one has been able to discover the answers to these questions. And Andersen’s fate remains a mystery.”
Not for lack of trying, I think.
I tried, Allie, for so many years. But where has it gotten me?
CHAPTER 6
February 2014
In my mother’s living room, I typed the WhereIsAllieAndersen address into my browser, then glanced over my shoulder to make sure the house was still quiet. It was three in the morning, so there was very little chance Mom would discover me out here. But if she did, and she saw I was back on the forums, she’d have a fit.
I couldn’t stay away from them, though. Allie’s disappearance was a mystery that should have been solvable. I thought of all the information, all the technology, at the cops’ disposal. But still, they hadn’t come up with anything. At this point, it was up to me to keep searching for new clues, new information.
As the WhereIsAllieAndersen website loaded, familiar snapshots of Allie appeared at the top of the page. Allie and me at Carbon Beach, sticking our tongues out at the camera; Allie and Greg and me taking a moody selfie in front of Angels Flight; Allie dancing at Luxe, her eyes glassy and her makeup smudged. Hurriedly, I navigated away from the home page, not wanting to linger too long on Allie’s face. It hurt to see how beautiful she looked. How alive.
The main forum page was more soothing—no photographs here, just neatly listed categories: Overview, Suspects, New Developments, Lingering Questions. The bluish glow of my computer screen cast an eerie light in the darkened room.
I knew I should stop, go back to bed. Dr. Rajmani had advised me to stay off the forums, especially at night. He felt they were a key factor in my insomnia.
After clicking on the Suspects page, I ran my cursor over the names listed in bright-blue font: Greg Novak. James Macnamara. Natasha Rossi.
Greg first, I decided. After Allie’s disappearance, the police had arrested him. And although they’d later released him—they hadn’t had enough evidence to bring charges—he remained the leading person of interest in the case.
Greg’s subheading read: The Best Friend. The label still rankled. I was Allie’s best friend—or at least I had been until Greg strolled into her life. The first time he showed up at our apartment, he’d been wearing a worn Psychedelic Furs T-shirt, electric-blue nail polish, and jeans so torn it was a wonder they stayed on his body. He had a line of piercings down each ear and a permanent sulky expression on his face. But nothing could disguise the delicate beauty of his features.
At the top of the page, a paragraph summarizes the relevant facts about Greg.
Greg Novak argued with Allie the night she disappeared, possibly about money, or Novak’s drug dealing, or both. Novak’s car—a vintage Porsche 356—went missing that same night and has never been located. (Novak claims the car was stolen, perhaps by Allie herself, along with $200 he had lying around his apartment.) Police questioned Novak extensively during the investigation but were never able to shake his alibi. He attended a party in West Hollywood that night, and four separate eyewitnesses confirmed he didn’t leave until dawn.
I scrolled down to the newest comments:
ChrisT: People get sentimental about his friendship with Allie, but c’mon. You’re an idiot if you don’t think he killed her. HIS CAR WENT MISSING THE SAME NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED, PEOPLE.
Here’s my theory: I think Greg was hanging around Allie for the reasons most people were: she was famous and she had connections. Don’t forget that Greg was trying to break into acting. He was totally using their friendship as an “in.” When Allie started causing trouble for him, threatening to expose his drug dealing, he killed her. Maybe not on purpose—I think it could have been an accident—but he definitely did it.
Vero88: So tell me how he’s supposed to have killed her and disposed of her body while he’s also at a party in West Hollywood. Also, the cops went through his apartment and there was no sign of a struggle taking place there.
ChrisT: Uh, except for his blood on the wall!
In Greg’s statement to the cops, he’d said that he and Allie had argued the night she went missing, and, in a moment of frustration, he’d punched the wall. Which might have been true. But the blood and his bruised knuckles didn’t sit well with the cops.
Beryl85: And those witnesses who saw him at the party? They were all his friends. Or his clients. Greg was selling to practically everyone at LACSA. He could have easily gotten people to lie for him. As for his apartment, let’s say he kills her and it’s not, like, a blood-spatter type of thing. Like, maybe he strangles her. It’s quiet and leaves no trace.
I worked my jaw back and forth. The people on the forums had no trouble imagining Allie’s death in a thousand vivid variations.
I skimmed through the commenters rehashing a variety of theories about that night. The first and most popular: Greg killed Allie in his Porsche and then disposed of the car. The second, he and Allie had a fight; then she stole his car and ran off the road somewhere remote. Least popular, the car just happened to be stolen on the same night that Allie went missing, and the car going missing was a total red herring. That option was treated with some contempt.
ChrisT: That’s asking us to believe in a hell of a coincidence. And I’m not a big believer in coincidence. My bet is that the car was covered in Allie’s blood, which is why Greg got rid of it.
I swallowed, trying not to imagine Greg’s immaculate Porsche stained with blood.
That was the last post in the thread. I knew I should stop reading, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. As if propelled by some outside force, I clicked on the Macnamara thread.
PI-Leo: Look, he was sleeping with her and she was his student. That gives him the most motive out of anyone. He wanted to break things off, but she could’ve made a lot of trouble for him if she went public about their relationship. And he was in a boatload of debt. He needed that job.
Abraham437: Well, neighbors definitely overheard their breakup at his apartment on Wednesday evening—it wasn’t quiet. But she left his place at least 24 hours before she went missing.
AJBaltimore: so? maybe he tracked her down later and the argument continued. imagine: she threatens to tell the administration about their relationship. they argue. he pushes her, she falls and hits her head and is killed by accident. he panics, drives her body out of the city, and dumps it somewhere.
This was a popular theory, but it was easy to poke holes in it. How had Macnamara gotten rid of all the forensic evidence? Plus, he’d been visiting a friend in San Diego that week, had been with the friend that night. Would it even have been possible for him to drive back to LA, kill Allie, dispose of the evidence, and return for breakfast with his friend the next day?
A headache began to pulse at the base of my skull. Dr. Rajmani was right; my mother was right. I had to stop doing this to myself. I needed to put down the laptop and go to bed. Try to get some sleep. But, as I clicked out of the Macnamara thread, I found my cursor hovering over the last name on the Suspects list.
Natasha Rossi.
I didn’t need Dr. Rajmani to tell me it was a bad idea to read this thread. Still, I only paused a few seconds before clicking on the link. I scrolled quickly down to the most recent comments, avoiding the picture at the top of the page. I’d seen it too many times already: a snapshot of Allie and me at a college party our freshman year. In it, Allie wore a green dress with an asymmetrical neckline and could easily have passed for twenty-one or older. Standing beside her, dressed in jeans and a black tank top, I looked exactly like what I was: a recent refugee from high school. I stood like I wasn’t sure what to do with my arms, and my eyes glowed orange in the camera’s flash.
At the bottom of the page, I found the newest comments, the ones I hadn’t pored over already.
ShaunaRose: I always thought there was something weird about this girl. She had, like, no reaction to Allie’s disappearance.
I flushed, as if I were standing in a crowded room rather than sitting alone with only my laptop for company. I’d never known what to do when I was interviewed on camera. It paralyzed me, made me forget the words I meant to say. But that didn’t mean I was guilty of anything.
