Last Seen Alive (6 page)

Chyna stared at the envelope, but she didn’t remove its

contents. She didn’t want to think about her mother giving instructions for her funeral, or lack of it, much less look at them written in her mother’s handwriting. “She knew then she was going to die soon and she didn’t say a word. That hurts.”

Ned nodded. “I understand. But you weren’t the only one left out, Chyna.
I
didn’t know she was sick, either, and I still don’t believe she thought she was going to die any time soon, even if she had heart trouble and didn’t tell us about it.” He sighed. “I also believed even if she didn’t change her mind about cremation, she’d decide to have her urn buried next to Dad’s grave.”

“She didn’t want the urn buried next to Dad?” Chyna asked in shock.

“She said she wanted you to keep it.”

“Me!” Chyna uttered shrilly. “Well, that’s just ridiculous! Maybe she didn’t want to be buried, but you live here, her home. She hated Albuquerque!”

“I don’t believe she was thinking of the local sightseeing,” Ned said with a trace of his old humor. “Besides, you were always her favorite.”

Chyna nearly shouted, “I
wasn’t!”

“You
were
and it’s all right, Sis. It never bothered me once I got past age seven.” Ned smiled at her. “Besides, things get pretty rough-and-tumble at our house. Maybe Mom was just afraid the urn would get turned over and her ashes spilled all over the carpet.”

“Oh, Ned, that’s dreadful!” Beverly exclaimed.

“Well, it’s a definite possibility,” he insisted, although Chyna knew he wasn’t serious.

For the next half an hour they talked about when the family attorney had told them the will would be read, when Chyna would return to New Mexico, what they would do with this house and the property.

By nine-thirty Ned and Beverly said they’d promised to be home by ten to release the babysitter and bade Chyna tired good-byes. Beverly hugged and kissed her, and both Ned and Beverly asked if she wanted to spend the night in

the house alone. “You could stay with us if you think you’ll be lonely,” Bev said, although Chyna knew she had meant scared instead of lonely. Ned had once confided to Chyna that spending a night alone was one of Beverly’s greatest fears.

“I won’t be lonely,” Chyna reassured her. “I have Michelle with me, remember? And she’s always my only roommate in New Mexico.”

“I’ll bet,” Ned leered.

“Ned Greer, you keep your salacious thoughts to yourself!” Beverly chastised, pushing him out the door. “Honestly, Chyna, he’s terrible!”

“You don’t think a woman who looks like Chyna studies
all
the time, do you?”

Chyna smiled with relief that her brother seemed to be acting more naturally. She watched fondly as the couple walked to their car, still quarreling yet holding hands the whole way. Beverly, four years younger than Ned, had drooled over him hopelessly for years. Then one day, blinders seemed to drop from Ned’s eyes and he discovered the pretty blonde. They’d been together ever since and seemed to have as close to a perfect union as marriage could get. Chyna envied them, but she didn’t see the same kind of relationship ahead for herself—another of those certainties she hated but couldn’t shake. She knew her own life would never be like Ned’s.

Chyna watched the red taillights of Ned’s car crawl down the asphalt drive to the main road running beside Lake Manicora. Then she gathered up the coffee cups and saucers, carried them to the kitchen, and rinsed them before she put them in the dishwasher. The strain and lack of sleep she’d suffered the last two days caught up with her and she finally felt tired enough to fall on the floor. She turned on the dishwasher and had her hand on the kitchen light switch, wishing she didn’t have to climb all those stairs to her bedroom on the second floor, when the phone rang.

She groaned, but habit would not allow her to ignore the call. She automatically hurried to the phone on the kitchen

counter and glanced at Caller ID. No number was listed— simply the words “Unknown Name.” Chyna was mildly puzzled and hoped this wasn’t a sympathy call as she picked up the receiver. “Greer here.” She caught herself. “I mean, hello.”

The sound of wind blowing in the distance seemed to tingle against her ear for a moment. Long ago, that sound wasn’t unusual for a long-distance call, but this was the twenty-first century. Calls hadn’t made that sound for over fifty years. “Hello?” she said again.

The sound grew louder. Chyna glanced at the window, wondering if she really was hearing wind, only coming from
her
end of the connection. The tree limbs she saw through the kitchen windows, though, remained perfectly still. After one more attempt at a greeting, Chyna was ready to hang up when a faraway voice asked, “Zoey?”

Chyna went completely still. Her hand clamped on the receiver. “Zoey?” A female voice was clearer this time, but still sounded unlike a voice on a modern phone.

A joke, Chyna thought. Someone was playing a cruel joke on her at night, thinking they could rattle her nerves. After all, there were still people in this town who thought she’d had something to do with Zoey Simms’s disappearance.

“This is Chyna Greer,” she said in a loud, firm tone, trying to sound as though she wasn’t frightened. “No one by the name of Zoey lives at this number.”

“Zoey?” This time the voice was even clearer. And familiar. “Zoey, darling, is that you? It’s Mom!”

Chyna’s hand began to shake. Caller ID had said “ Unknown Name,” but the woman sounded exactly like Anita Simms, Zoey’s mother, whose voice Chyna would never forget even if the woman had refused to see or speak to the family after Zoey’s disappearance. “Mrs. Simms?” Chyna asked, then could have kicked herself. If someone was playing a joke, she was giving them their money’s worth.

“Chyna? Is that you, honey? My, you sound so grown up!” Chyna’s mind spun back twelve years to the last time

she’d talked to Anita Simms on the phone. She’d said that very thing: “My, you sound so grown-up!”

“I… Mrs. Simms?”

“Yes, Chyna.” Chyna stiffened as she heard Anita Simms’ tinkling laughter that had sounded just like her daughter’s. “Are you girls having a good time this visit?”

A chill ran down Chyna’s spine and her hand stiffened on the receiver. Michelle sat vigilantly at her feet. Once again, the hair on the dog’s back was raised, her ears perked to attention.

All right, calm down, Chyna thought. There’s something wrong with Mrs. Simms. She’d refused to talk to the Greers for twelve years. Anything could have happened to her. They did know she’d suffered a nervous breakdown after Zoey disappeared. Maybe she was having another one. Did she believe it was twelve years ago and her daughter was here?

“Mrs. Simms, if this really
is
Mrs. Simms—”

Again that all-too-familiar laugh. “Bubble Gum?” Chyna’s old nickname from when she was four and had gotten bubble gum so badly tangled in her hair, it had to be cut short “Bubble Gum, of course it’s Anita Simms. What kind of game are you girls playing?”

“No … we’re not playing a game. I just don’t understand why you’re calling.”

Asking for your daughter who’s probably been dead for twelve years.

“I think you
are
playing a game, Chyna.” Still good humor in the voice, but the laughter was gone. “Is my daughter nearby?”

“Zoey?”

“I only have one child!” A bit of laughter. Then a pause. Next Anita spoke in a voice edged with suspicion. “Chyna, Zoey
is
there with you, isn’t she? You’re not covering for her, are you?”

“Covering?”

“She hasn’t gone out late at night to meet some boy, has she?” The voice was beginning to grow fainter, the sound of wind coming back. “I strictly forbade her to do any single dat

ing on this trip. A double date with you and your boyfriend was allowed, as long as you were home at a decent hour, but no going out
alone.
You don’t know what might happen to a young girl going out at night alone. I’ve told her that a hundred times. There are dangers young innocent girls like Zoey have never thought of, but I’m sure
you
know better. Chyna, you know I count on you to look out for my little girl when she’s visiting you….”

By now Chyna’s entire body felt like a column of ice and she couldn’t hide the shaking of her voice. “Mrs. Simms…”

“Where is Zoey?” The voice grew alarmed just as the windy sound grew louder. “Chyna, has something happened to her?”

Chyna stood with her dry mouth slightly open. The room started to spin as the voice on the other end of the line cried in hysteria over the wind, “Chyna, where is my little girl? Something’s wrong; I know it! Oh God, where
is
she?”

The line went dead.

Chyna closed her eyes. Then, slowly, she nearly pried her hand from the receiver and hung up the phone. She turned and, placing her back against the wall for support, sank to a sitting position on the floor. Michelle, only a step away from Chyna, placed a big blond paw on her thigh and licked her face.

“It’s all right, Michie,” Chyna said. “It’s all…” She fell silent, then began to vibrate all over. It was not all right. Nothing about that call was right.

Chyna sat on the cool vinyl floor for what seemed an endless time until finally she felt she’d calmed down enough to stand. She put her hand on the dog’s strong back, using the strength of her legs and a bit of the dog’s steady weight to raise herself to a standing position.

All right, what do I do now? Chyna thought. Call the po-

lice and tell them Zoey Simms’s mother had just called asking for her daughter who’d been missing for twelve years? They’d think she was drunk. Or nuts. She already knew many of the local law enforcement officers thought she’d had something to do with Zoey’s disappearance and maybe her probable death.

Ned. She’d call Ned. He was the only family she had left, and he’d never laughed at her, even when she was a little girl claiming to know things from the past, have premonitions, even occasionally read minds. He’d always taken her seriously, even when she’d lied and told him she never had “visions” anymore, a lie she’d never retracted.

She dialed Ned’s number and was relieved when he picked up, obviously reading the number on Caller ID. “Hey, Sis,” he said teasingly before she’d uttered a word, “I’m not gone half an hour and you can’t wait to hear my voice again.”

“Something happened—” Chyna burst into tears.

Immediately Ned’s voice turned serious. “Sis, what is it?”

“N-Ned, I’m scared.”

“I was afraid you might be, there in the house all alone.”

“That’s not it.” She grabbed a tissue from a nearby box and wiped her wet face. “Ned, Anita Simms just called here asking for Zoey.”

Ned went silent for a moment. Then he said with forced calm, “Chyna, someone was playing a bad joke on you.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but the Caller ID read: ’Unknown’ and the woman called me Bubble Gum and there was this sound of wind blowing in the background and then she got hysterical and …” Chyna drew a deep breath. “Ned, did anyone let Anita know Mom just died? Has Anita had another breakdown? She sounded so weird….”

After a moment, Ned said, “Chyna, I think you’re really tired or, like I said, someone is playing a joke—”

“I’m not that tired and it wasn’t a joke!” she snapped, torn between frustration and fright. “Ned, I remember Anita Simms’s voice. Her laugh. It was just like Zoey’s. And she knew my nickname and …” She drew a deep breath. “Ned, I know you. You’re keeping something from me. What is it?”

After about three beats of silence, Ned said gently, “Chyna, it
couldn’t
have been Anita Simms on the phone. Mom and I didn’t want to tell you because we knew you’d blame yourself, but Anita couldn’t accept that Zoey was gone. She kept having breakdowns.”

“So she’s had another one and thinks Zoey is alive? Has she called before? Recently?”

“No, Sis.” She heard Ned draw a deep breath. “Last year Anita’s sister finally called Mom, but it was to tell her that Anita had another breakdown, only this time she slit her wrists. They found her too late….”

Chyna’s hand began to shake violently. “No, it couldn’t have been too late. There was a mistake. Ned, she
called
me—

“No, she didn’t,” Ned said firmly. “There was no mistake—Mom went to Anita’s funeral in Washington last year without ever telling you.” His tone softened. “I’m sorry, Chyna, but Anita Simms is dead.”

Chyna jerked awake, bitterly cold although she lay under a down comforter. She’d even pulled it over her head. She struggled out of the tangle of silky sheets, the comforter, and a duvet that had come unfastened. After she’d crawled from the nest she’d made for herself, Chyna went to the window and looked at the day. Sun. She could actually see the sun trying to pierce through gunmetal gray clouds. Thank God, she thought. She didn’t believe she could have endured another day as desolate as yesterday.

And she certainly couldn’t endure another phone call like the one from Anita Simms.

Except the call couldn’t have come from Anita Simms. If Chyna hadn’t drunk two glasses of brandy, she would never have relaxed enough to go to sleep. This bright morning, it seemed easier for her to believe the whole thing had been a macabre joke and she would expose the prankster by looking at the numbers from which the Greers had received calls yesterday. If she hadn’t been so shaken, she would have thought to do so last night. Instead, she’d checked locks on all the doors and windows and turned to booze, she thought. Her father would have disapproved. Her uncle Rex would have probably emptied the decanter and become boisterous, telling jokes, making her laugh in spite of

everything. She certainly wished he had been able to get here yesterday.

Still, she’d finally slept deeply and felt normal, or as close to normal as she could under the circumstances. Thank goodness, she thought. She had a lot to do today. She couldn’t wallow in the fear struck deep into her by someone’s cruel prank.

Michelle thundered down the stairs behind her toward the kitchen, obviously deciding she was starving. Chyna fixed coffee and cinnamon toast for herself, and, unusually hungry just like last night, she felt like she couldn’t get everything down fast enough. Michelle was another matter. She looked at her bowl of Gravy Train with disdain, then stepped away from it and stared up at her mistress with an expression Chyna could only interpret as insult.