She Once Vanished, page 22
He knew very well they were not. He would be surprised if they all had social media accounts. But he knew they were not active on social media. None of them had followed the trail Elysse had blazed into the forest of social media.
They cackled with laughter.
“I don’t even have Facebook,” Priscilla bragged. “I haven’t got a clue how to do any of that stuff. And wouldn’t want to spend all my time scrolling mindlessly through that crap. Have you seen the kids? How they don’t even turn them off when they go to bed? I’m surprised they aren’t all waterproof. Do they put them down when they’re in the shower? I know they don’t on the crapper. Gotta be scrolling, always gotta be scrolling.”
Celine nodded. “You just don’t understand. You don’t know how to do anything on your phone or computer. It isn’t that you’re so much more virtuous than anyone else. It’s just that you’re a Luddite. That means you don’t understand how to do anything online.”
“I wouldn’t want to even if I did,” Priscilla declared loudly, not denying her ignorance.
“So, you know what I’m here about,” Zachary started in a slow, calm voice, hoping that if he were slow and deliberate, the women would be too. He needed them to think carefully about their answers, not to fly from one thing to another and make jokes. He needed the answers only they could give him. “I’m trying to trace Elysse’s movements during the time she was missing over the summer.”
Priscilla wrung her hands. “You can’t imagine what that was like for me, her mother, to sit and watch the coverage, day after day, and wonder where Elysse was. Whether she was okay. I don’t understand why she disappeared like she did. I think there must be something wrong with her. Is that what you think? Do you think she was hit over the head? Or drugged? I can’t understand why she wouldn’t call one of us to tell us what was happening or ask for help if she was in trouble. If she just wanted some time on her own, that’s okay; who would have cared about that?”
Zachary nodded. “It does seem strange that she wouldn’t at least let you know she was okay.”
“She should have. What kind of child doesn’t think it is important to tell her parents where she is and what she is doing? We wouldn’t care if she wanted to spend a month in the Grand Canyon as long as she was happy and safe there.”
“It’s common courtesy,” Kenzie agreed. “You would expect it from anyone. That they would let you know what was going on in their lives and that they were safe.”
“That’s the way she was raised! Do you think any of us go anywhere without telling the others where we’re going or what we’re doing? We’re always calling or messaging back and forth to tell the others what is going on.”
“Even if Mom can’t do anything else on her phone, she knows how to call and text,” Celine said in a teasing voice.
“That’s right. If I can do that, anyone can! It isn’t like Elysse didn’t know how. I don’t know why she didn’t.”
“Before she disappeared, was she usually good about letting you know about things? Where she would be and what she was doing?”
The women looked at each other, all heads nodding vigorously. “Yes, of course. She was part of this family. She always let us know what she was doing. I mean… okay, sometimes it was a few days between when she was on a tour or just caught up with things. But she would always let someone know sooner or later. And if we called or texted, she would get back to us.”
“And she was posting online all the time,” Celine pointed out. “So if you wanted to know what she was doing, you just looked at her timeline, and you could see it.”
Silence fell momentarily. Zachary looked at Esther, who was scowling.
“But she stopped posting online at all. You didn’t hear from her at all during that time?”
“I told her not to go out east,” Esther said. “I told her there would be trouble. Everybody knows the kind of people you meet out there. No offense, but…” Zachary had noticed the tendency some people had of saying “no offense” when they were about to say something very offensive. “Easterners just aren’t as friendly as westerners. You can’t trust them. All kinds of gangs and psychopaths… she wouldn’t even agree to avoid New York City. New York City! She thought she could just walk the streets there like anywhere else. She thought people were the same all over, that she could just strike up a conversation with anyone. But believe me, I remember how New York City was in the eighties! You can’t just take a girl from backwoods Oregon and plop her down in the streets of New York!”
“It’s not the same anymore, Auntie Esther,” Celine protested. “Things have changed. It’s much safer there now than when you were a kid.”
“It still isn’t safe,” Esther insisted, shaking her head. “People get killed in New York every day.”
48
“Did you know of anyone who was harassing her?” Zachary asked, sliding his gaze over to Priscilla, who he assumed was more likely to know about an issue with her daughter. “Was anyone causing trouble for her? Someone she might have been afraid of?”
“You think that someone did something to her?” Priscilla asked, her lip protruding in a pout, “She said she was just camping out in the Grand Canyon.”
Camping? Zachary highly doubted Elysse had been doing any camping while she had been there.
“I’m pretty sure that she was not entirely honest about what she was doing or what happened to her while she was gone,” Zachary said slowly. “I wouldn’t want to call her a liar, but I do think… there was a lot happening that she was unwilling to reveal when she spoke to the press.”
“But we are her family,” Esther emphasized. “We weren’t just the people on the other side of a TV screen. We gave her a start in life. She wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for us. You can’t lie to your family.”
Zachary knew plenty of families who lied to each other. Some of them constantly. He would guess, based on the way the women’s eyes went back and forth, examining and monitoring each other, that there were plenty of lies in this one, too.
“You must have been very close to Elysse,” Zachary told Celine. “How close are you in age?”
“Just a year apart,” Celine agreed with a nod. “We were always together, joined at the hip. Until…”
She stopped, hesitating. Zachary waited to see if she would finish the sentence.
“Until she got to be a famous influencer?” Zachary suggested finally.
“No. I couldn’t care less about that. Having a famous sister isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But she’s still Elysse. She’s still my sister. No, it’s just that…” she trailed off and left it hanging. Zachary waited for her to finish, then looked at the others to see whether this was an old gripe they all knew about. Chances were, because they were so close and Elysse and Celine had been “joined at the hip,” everyone else would know exactly what she was talking about.
“You’re sisters,” Priscilla said sternly, “Sisters should never let a boy get between them.”
A boy. Zachary thought about Elysse out east on her publicity tour, juggling various partners, her sister back home nursing a grudge against her for the boy that got between them.
“Dain?” he guessed.
There were nods. Celine shook her head, tears escaping her eyes. She had remained dry-eyed when talking about her sister missing and presumed dead.
“Dain was interested in me, not in Elysse. She was the stupid kid sister. He didn’t want her. He wasn’t interested in her.”
“I thought they went to school together.”
“Sure, we all went to the same schools together.”
“But she was younger? She and Dain were not in the same grade?”
“No. He was a year older, in my class. But she had to go after him. Had to… seduce him and take him away from me.”
It wasn’t impossible that the younger sister had seduced the older one’s boyfriend, but it was far more common for the roles to be reversed, the boyfriend forgetting his interest in the one sister to explore a relationship with the other. Was the grass always greener on the other side? Did Dain prefer blondes? Did they just get along better? Have more in common? Or had Elysse done it intentionally to spite her sister for some perceived slight?
“That’s not what happened,” Priscilla disagreed.
“You weren’t there, Mom. You don’t know what happened.”
“I know what I saw. Two girls making fools of themselves over a boy instead of being loyal to each other and kicking him to the curb.”
“You blame Dain?” Zachary asked her.
“I didn’t raise Dain. I did raise the other two.” She gave Celine a sharp look. “They knew better than to both get involved with the same boy.”
“He was mine first,” Celine insisted. “It isn’t my fault Elysse decided to go after him. I wasn’t the one in the wrong.”
“It’s silly to stop talking to each other over a boy.”
Celine shrugged and folded her arms stubbornly.
“So is that why Elysse hasn’t been in contact with you?” Zachary suggested. “Because you had a falling-out over Dain?”
“We were still talking,” Celine said. “Sometimes, anyway. We weren’t best friends like we used to be, but we still talked to each other and messaged each other. Elysse stopped when she disappeared, and I thought… I thought he had done something to her.”
“A lot of people thought he must have harmed her. I’m sure it was all over the news here, just like in Vermont.”
Celine nodded. “She wouldn’t answer any calls or texts. I thought… they got in a fight. They were always fighting or arguing or something. I thought that if he killed her in a fight, then it was my fault. It should have been me. Because I was the one who was supposed to be with him. If he had done something to her, it was my fault.”
Priscilla left her seat to go over to her daughter and hugged her fiercely.
“It isn’t your fault. Whatever happened or happens to Elysse, it isn’t your doing. She’s made her own choices. She’s been the victim of circumstances. None of it has anything to do with you.”
Celine swiped at a few more tears. Zachary wasn’t sure now whether they were tears for her loss of Dain or the near loss of her sister. Feelings could be very complex.
“It’s this influencer stuff,” Priscilla said. “She should never have gotten involved in all of it. It isn’t good, honest work. Posting pictures of yourself online and expecting people to look at you or to pay you for it. That’s just… exhibitionism.”
“She didn’t do that kind of picture,” Esther said dryly. “That wasn’t her ‘brand.’”
“No,” Zachary agreed. “I’ve seen lots of her pictures, both selfies and pictures of other products, landscapes, and so on. It wasn’t anything racy. Nothing questionable.”
“It wasn’t honest work,” Priscilla repeated. “I warned her from the start that wasn’t the way to make her way in the world. A woman has to learn a trade. How to make things with her own hands, clean, cook, those are the things she should be getting paid for, not online pictures.”
Zachary nodded his understanding. He wasn’t going to argue with Priscilla about Elysse’s choice of vocation. Especially since that career had apparently come to an end. Elysse was no longer posting.
“How often do you see her now? Not very often because of your falling-out?” He looked at all of them to see what they would say, what their faces would give away.
“She’s been a total hermit since the disappearance,” Esther told the room in general. “She won’t come over here, and if we go to her house… she won’t have anyone in. We are her family, and getting past the front door…” She shook her head. “You should be able to go see your own kin. We brought that girl up. This is the thanks we get.”
“Has this all been since the tour and her disappearance? She would see you before?”
Priscilla nodded. “Before… I can’t say she was always welcoming. She was so ‘busy,’ you know? She couldn’t spare a few minutes to visit with her family because she had all of that ‘work.’” She rolled her eyes. “Posting pictures. That was ‘work,’ and she couldn’t afford to take a day or an afternoon off to go shopping, or to a family birthday, or just to hang out and visit.”
“But it was bringing in pretty good money.”
“Yes,” Priscilla seemed to disapprove of this as much as everyone else. “She made her money off her pictures, displaying herself online, and then she had to move away, and she had to have nice things for her home, and she had to go out to eat and go to big black-tie events. Having money changed her.” She shook her head. “It always changes you.”
“It was good she got her own place,” Celine protested. “I want to get my own place. I want to get enough money to afford my own place too, and decorate it to make it look nice and have nice things. It’s not bad to have nice things.”
“It is if it changes you,” Esther backed Priscilla up. “Not caring about your family anymore, not talking to them or having anything to do with them. That’s not the kind of person you want to be. You don’t want to be like her in that way.”
“She cares,” Celine said, her voice lowered slightly as if they might not be able to hear her. “She’s just… I don’t know. Something is wrong.”
“You think she’s scared?” Zachary suggested. “Maybe she has anxiety about leaving her house or having anyone in since her disappearance. Maybe something traumatic happened and it is affecting the way she can interact with you and the rest of the world.”
“Scared? Why would she be scared to leave her house or for us to come in?” Esther argued, shaking her head vehemently. She got up from her seat and went over to the bookcase, where a few bottles of alcohol shared space with some books that looked like they hadn’t been opened in the last century. She poured several glugs of high-test fluid into her coffee cup. “If she’s scared, then she needs to come home. We will take care of her. We’ll make sure that nothing can happen to her.”
“I’m sure that would mean a lot to her. That you want to protect her. But she might not feel like you are able to.”
Thinking about his own anxiety and being unable to sleep in the hotel rooms with the flimsy doors, Zachary could empathize with Elysse. However much she might want to come back home to her family or allow them into her house, she might feel too anxious to do so. Anxiety could keep a person locked up as a prisoner in her own home for years. Decades.
“If she’s scared, why doesn’t she have Dain look after her?” Celine sneered. Then she laughed. Dain wasn’t a big guy, or highly trained, or the type to carry a gun. There wasn’t a lot he could do to protect his girlfriend if she were too scared to leave the house.
“Do you really think something happened in the Grand Canyon?” Priscilla asked Zachary. “I mean… what could happen? She goes camping, sleeps rough for a few days, then comes clean and makes a statement on TV, and goes home to her nice, warm home. How traumatic is that?”
“I’m not sure she was alone. I’m not sure why she felt the need to abandon her old life to disappear, or to stay hidden now. The fact that she’s not even posting on social media anymore, that doesn’t strike you as a disturbing change in behavior? You don’t think that means something?”
The women looked at each other, exchanging shrugs and headshakes. “We didn’t want her doing it in the first place. If something happened to knock some sense into her…” Esther held out her palms. “That’s good. We’re glad that she’s coming around.”
“But not if she’s scared,” Celine said, defending her sister and former best friend, not quite liking Esther’s “tough love” approach.
“I’d like to get in to see her,” Zachary said. “I read online that she had sold her house. Do you have her current address?”
“She didn’t sell it,” Celine said. “Not really. She transferred it to a holding company that didn’t have her name on it anywhere. So her address wouldn’t show up on any public records and she could have some privacy.”
“Do you think she would answer the phone if you called or texted her? To see if I could talk to her for a few minutes? You don’t need to say who I am or who I’m working for… just that you have a friend who thinks he might be able to help and he wants to come see her.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Priscilla demanded. “Haven’t you heard a thing we’ve said? She doesn’t want to talk to us anymore. She doesn’t want anything to do with her family.”
“Maybe I could get her to.” Predictably, it was Celine who offered. “Sometimes she answers me. Or at least reads what I have to say. You can tell when someone has read your messages on some of the apps.”
Zachary nodded. “Would you give it a try? Maybe I can say or do something that will help. I can’t promise anything, but I’d like to give it a try.”
49
After extricating themselves from the Allan household despite numerous attempts to convince them to stay for lunch, watch the soaps, or have a longer gab session, Zachary climbed up into the cab of the truck, rested his forehead on the top of the steering wheel, and sighed.
It was quiet in the truck.
He felt like the Allan broads, as Esther had referred to them, had sucked the life right out of him. Their constant chatter and bickering with each other wormed into his brain and he felt like it was still echoing around in there.
Kenzie stayed talking at the door for a few minutes longer, which gave him a little time to himself before she also climbed into the truck and settled herself into the passenger seat.
“How are you?” she asked, a mixture of sympathy and amusement in her tone.
“I’m… still in one piece. I think.”
“You sound worse than you did after fighting the… Russians.”
Zachary chuckled, which hurt his ribs and reminded him of just how difficult that encounter had been. “Physically better. Mentally… I’m not sure yet.”
