Help Me (2 page)

“First time here?” the driver asked, glancing at me through the mirror.

“No, but it’s been a long time.”

“Well, welcome back.”

“Thank you.”

“That address you gave me, it’s a nice place, I think.”

“I hope so.”

“The neighborhood’s been getting a lot better. A girl got killed there a couple years ago, but haven’t heard nothing like that since then.”

His words stole away any of the joy I’d been feeling. Kat hadn’t come to get me. Something bad could’ve happened to her. I tapped out another text message quickly, and stared at the screen on my phone, willing her to call.

“Oh, hell,” the driver said. “You’ve gone all pale. Don’t listen to me.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m just anxious to get there.”

“Sure, sure. Must be, after your flight. Sit back and try to relax. I’ll get you there before you know it.”

I smiled and thanked him, but there wasn’t any way he’d drive fast enough to soothe my worried mind.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Scenery was forgotten and my eyes never left the screen of my phone. But no amount of holding it tightly or staring intently made a call or message from Kat appear.

So when the cab finally stopped, pulling in front of her building, I frantically pushed all of my money at the driver, not caring that I’d over-tipped, and yanked my own bag out of the trunk so I could run.

It took me a few seconds to work out how to get inside. The building was an old converted warehouse, like many in the area, and the front door didn’t have a conventional lock. I held the key Kat had mailed me and glanced around, frustrated. There was an intercom system to call up, but as expected, no one answered in her apartment.

Tugging on the glass door did nothing. Neither did kicking at the ground in front of it, of course.

Then, I finally spotted a tiny, unassuming box to the left of the door, opposite the intercom. I flipped the cover up and saw a keypad. Success. Sort of. I had no code.

I glanced around, hoping another resident might come in or out, but no one did. The cab driver was long gone and the street was relatively quiet.

“Now what?” I wondered aloud.

I scanned my memory for information, hoping Kat had told me something that might help. Something tickled at the back of my mind. A story about a tenant being evicted but sneaking in to squat in their apartment for weeks undetected. I remembered. We’d laughed at the story. It was a clever idea, but the management company hadn’t been amused. They’d changed the code, made it so every unit had a unique number that could be tracked and deactivated.

That meant Kat had chosen her own code. So I should be able to figure it out. I tried her birthday and my birthday and obvious sequential numbers. None of them worked.

I blew out a puff of air, exasperated, and chewed on the corner of my lower lip. I stopped as my mother’s voice filled my head. “You’ll poison yourself swallowing so much lip gloss, Amanda.”

I gulped and put my hand on the wall to steady myself. I knew what the code was, of course. I tapped in the date of our parents’ deaths and the light turned green and the door lock clicked. I grabbed at the handle and pulled it open.

Once I managed to get my bag inside and upstairs on the elevator, I stood in front of Kat’s door, feeling proud of myself. Once I found her I’d tell her the story and we’d laugh. It would be fine.

But when I unlocked her apartment door and shoved it open, I saw that nothing was fine at all. Furniture was overturned and papers were scattered all over the floor. The cushions from the sofa were shredded, stuffing leaking out, and the corner of the kitchen counter I could see was littered with spilled cutlery. A vase of flowers lay broken right next to the door and the puddle of water had dampened the welcome mat. The space was a disaster area, a mystery whose only clues led to thoughts of violence and damage.

Terror filled me so quickly I swayed on my feet. My worst fears were true. Something horrible had happened to my sister and I had no idea what to do.

I don’t know how long I stood there, hand gripping the doorknob so tight it hurt. But eventually I came to my senses. This wasn’t a time for panic. I wasn’t a helpless child anymore. I could handle the situation, do what needed to be done.

I carried my suitcase inside and set it down on a small empty spot on the floor. Kat didn’t have a landline phone, so I pulled out my cell and began to dial nine-one-one. But a sound from the back stopped me. Finger poised over the last number, I stepped over the mess and made my way to what turned out to be her bedroom. Passing the empty bathroom on the way, I walked in and found more of the same. Chaos. A whole closet full of clothes littered the floor and the mattress had been yanked halfway off its frame.

The loft-style window was open and I discovered the source of the noise I’d heard. A breeze blew in and made a set of wind chimes hanging from a pipe ring out.

“Damn it.”

I finished dialing and raised the phone to my ear.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Emergency. Just hearing the calm voice use that word threatened to push me over the edge. “My sister is missing.”

“How long has she been missing?”

“I-I’m not really sure. I was supposed to meet her about two hours ago…”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-six. Almost twenty-seven.”

“And she’s only been gone for a few hours?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have reason to believe she’s been injured?”

“Well, I’m not sure. Her apartment is a mess, but I don’t know if she-”

Before I could finish the sentence she interrupted. “You need to contact the local station. I’ll give you the number.”

“Wait, I-”

But again, she was rattling off digits before I could say anything, and then she hung up. Moved on to a
real
emergency I guess.

I shook my head and dialed again. This time I was on hold for a while before getting a receptionist who then put me on hold again.

Wandering back out into Kat’s living room I noticed something. The furniture, while mostly destroyed, was really nice. I didn’t know much about it, but the pieces seemed fancier than anything I’d ever owned. The wood thicker and heavier. The fabrics softer and richer.

I was about to right an upended bar stool when I snatched my hand back. The police would want to collect fingerprints and photographs. Everything had to be left as it was. I could be contaminating evidence, something that might tell us where Kat was. I stayed frozen in place, trying not to touch anything while I waited.

Finally, an office came on the line. “How may I help you?”

“I need someone to come out to my sister’s apartment. I think she’s in danger.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She was supposed to pick me up from the airport, but she never showed and I can’t reach her.”

“Where are you now?”

“Her place. I have a key and it’s a mess. I mean, it looks like something terrible happened here.”

“Any signs of a struggle?”

“I…I’m not sure. There’s no blood or anything like that. But everything is torn apart. Every room looks ransacked.”

“I see. Address and your sister’s name, please.”

I gave them both.

“Hold on for one second, please.”

“Okay.”

He came back quickly. “There’s nothing in the computer. No records of calls from that address recently.”

“Oh. Is that good?”

“Perhaps. It just means no one called to report something going on.”

“Oh. So, how long will it be? And should I go outside so I don’t damage the scene?”

The office chuckled. “No, Miss. This isn’t television.”

“So when are you coming?”

“We’re not. You can come to the precinct to file a report. Someone will follow up within twenty-four hours.”

“But what about her place?”

“Is this your residence?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t file a vandalism report. Unless there’s a sign of a break-in?”

“No, it was locked when I got here.”

“In that case you’ll have to come down to the station.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry, Miss. Most cases like this are nothing. Your sister probably just forgot she had to meet you. Maybe she had a little too much fun last night and is sleeping it off. Does she have a boyfriend?”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Well, see if she does. Make some calls.”

“All right.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No. Thank you.”

When I hung up I felt more lost than ever. Was it possible he was right? That Kat had just forgotten? But if so, that didn’t explain her apartment. She’d never leave a place in such a mess.

I looked around and spoke to her, hoping that somehow, wherever she was, she would hear me. “They don’t know you like I do, sis. I’m going to look around and then go down to the station like he said. I don’t care if they think I’m a silly fool.”

Part of my reason for not going immediately was I was scared. Filing a police report seemed too real. So serious. I wanted it to be nothing. A misunderstanding. Kat was all I had. I couldn’t even begin to face the idea of losing her, too.

Fortunately, I had the perfect distraction all around me. If the cops didn’t care about checking her apartment, I’d do it myself. I waded through the mess back to her bedroom and sat down on the floor next to a particularly large pile of papers and began to read.

At first, I was only shifting things around. Running my fingers over her electricity and cable bills. Tracing her signature on tiny photocopies of checks on her bank statements. But the more I sorted though, the more a depressing realization sank into me. Reading through her lease on the apartment, it dawned on me that I didn’t know anything about my sister’s life. Kat was living in a nice place and spending more money on bills than I could have ever imagined. A hundred and fifty bucks for cable. Her credit card statements left me breathless.

How the hell was she affording all this along with the last four years of my expenses? What kind of cocktail waitress buys shoes that cost five hundred dollars?

“Kat, what the hell?” I asked the empty room. But then, a twinge of guilt hit me. I wasn’t there to question her. I was there to find her. With doubts roiling in the back of my mind, I stood up and went into the living room. There had to be someone I could contact who knew her, who might be able to at least tell me where she’d been recently, or places she frequented.

I tried to remember the name of the bar she worked at, but came up with nothing. Why hadn’t I paid closer attention? I’d been so wrapped up in my own life that I’d missed hers. For years. And now that self-centered behavior could be the thing that kept me from finding Kat and bringing her home safe.

While I was riffling through a drawer on the floor, full of takeout menus and other random flyers, I had to smile. Kat, always so organized, had even made ordering dinner into a project. She’d circled everything she ate from each place and wrote a grade next to each dish. A veggie calzone from a place called Mario’s got a “D,” but their spaghetti with hot sausage earned a “B+.”

Underneath the pile of menus there was a notepad. It had five different phone numbers on the top sheet, but no names. They were all local numbers. I flipped through the menu pages and found no matches, so they weren’t likely to be restaurants.

Heart pounding, I grabbed my phone and typed each number in the search box. I thought about dialing them right away, but I wanted to have some idea who I was dealing with, first. Unfortunately, none of the numbers returned any results, which I thought was weird. Google is supposed to know everything.

I got up and walked over to the kitchen counter and leaned on a clean area before calling the first number. I wasn’t sure what I’d say, but I had to do something.

A few minutes later I was putting the last number in my phone and frowning, dejected. All of the other numbers had been out of service and I didn’t have high hopes for anything different. Until the call went through and I heard the phone on the other end ringing.

“You’ve reached the Eden Club,” a recording of a woman’s voice said in a smooth, and warm, yet professional tone. “Please leave a message.”

At the beep I gulped and hung up. What was I going to say, “I don’t know who or what this place is, but have you seen my sister, Katherine Devlin?” Sure, that would work very well.

Eden Club
. Maybe that was the place she worked? Or it could’ve been somewhere she met a friend. It could be anything.

I groaned and shoved my phone and the slip of paper into my pocket. Standing here speculating wasn’t going to do any good. I went back to searching the apartment.

So intent had I been in sorting through my sister’s possessions, I didn’t notice how late it was getting until I couldn’t see without turning on a light. That too was more work than it should have been. A line of a dozen switches next to the front door powered the overheads and things I didn’t even see.

Under the bright lights, my frustration and fear grew. I hadn’t found anything that might help me find Kat. She’d filed away every bill for the past three years but nothing for her cell phone, which struck me as odd. And annoying, since it would at least contain more numbers I could try calling.

But there was nothing anywhere. Unless I came up with a way to teach the beautiful dresses in her closet to speak, I was on my own. Checking my phone again reflexively, an idea came to me. When I’d searched for the phone numbers I found nothing, but maybe the name Eden Club would lead me somewhere.

I typed it in and clapped my hands together as a map result appeared. The Eden Club was apparently a private membership club, whatever that meant. The address was fairly close by, in an old and very expensive part of the city. That didn’t surprise me. Anyplace that secretive and vague had to be for rich people.

After casting one last glance around the apartment I made the decision. I was going out. But two steps from the door I realized I couldn’t just stroll in looking like I’d spent a day traveling and digging through the rubble of Kat’s apartment. If this was where she worked and for exclusive clientele, I had to look presentable enough for them to let me in the front door.