Page 62 of The Last to Vanish
I willed the images to load faster, but they came through in painful layers, top to bottom, as I waited for Alice to appear. And then, there she was, in my hand.
There she was at a kitchen island, standing beside a woman who must’ve been her mother, hands deep in a bowl of dough, head tilted and tongue out as she made a face at the photographer, while her mother laughed.
There she was in the driver’s seat of a car, the photographer in the passenger seat, so that Alice appeared too close to the screen, as she kept one hand on the wheel, the other giving a peace sign while she grinned.
There she was in front of the woods, with a large group of students, and a sign that saidOUTDOORS CLUB. She was front and center, her hands on the sign, the focus of the photo.
She was magnetic, I could tell just from these images. The way her mother looked at her; the way the person behind the camera focused on her. In the group shot, several people were lookingher way. A man behind her, a woman to her right, hand on her shoulder, laughing, as if she’d been the cause of the laughter. I wondered if this was one of the names on the list, someone the sister might’ve known. Lacy or Caroline, maybe.
I responded:These are perfect. She’s stunning. Would you know any of the other names in the group shot? Would love to connect with anyone else who was close with her, who might have more to share. Also, I had the names Lacy, James, and Caroline as friends to contact—do you know their last names?
Then I searched for photos of the Fraternity Four. They were everywhere—in blog posts and old articles. The four of them, two in hats, one in dark sunglasses, all facing the camera with the mountain behind them. I’d seen this image so many times. But on the screen, they always looked just slightly removed, out of focus. A picture of a picture. I pulled one of the images up, enlarged it on the monitor—
“Abby?” Celeste called. I’d been lost in my thoughts, didn’t hear the lobby door, and suddenly Celeste stood beside me, back from church. I closed out the page, turned to face her. The only change to her attire was the long chain around her neck that held a master key. “I put out the word we’d be looking for help. Already got a few leads. Okay?” she asked, and she smiled, like this was the only cause for concern.
My heart was still racing, from the surprise of her.
“You’re worried,” she said, frowning. “Is it Georgia? Or is this still about Landon West?”
I shrugged. “Both?”
Her eyes went to the hall, to the photos with her husband. “Vincent,” she began, and her eyes turned watery, lost. “He wasn’t the same after the disappearances. Didn’t like to leave the inn.”
The Fraternity Four, she meant. She had to.
She took a deep breath, eyes locking on mine. “You have to make your peace with it, Abigail. Even if there aren’t any answers.”
I nodded, though I didn’t know if I could. I wasn’t like her. I thought of Celeste going up on that mountain each morning. Refusing to be afraid, against all judgment. She had a fearlessness I envied.
Celeste nudged me out of the way, moving things around on the surface of the desk, until she found the fresh binder Georgia had started. “Now, let’s see how quickly this all comes back.”
Celeste had always been averse to technology. Said it wasn’t reliable, especially given where we were, and she was right.
“Do you want me to get the reservation page up?” I gestured to the computer. When we used to work together, I was always entering the notes she left behind, following up on the day.
But she raised a hand. “Don’t worry about that. I never had much use for it, so I’m not about to start now.” Her eyes crinkled in an almost smile. “All of you, you miss too much, looking down instead of out. A screen is no match for reality.”
Right then, I agreed with her.
I knew where I had to go now. I knew what I needed to see.
CHAPTER 18
THERE WERE THINGS YOUknew if you lived here. The types of things that had always made me feel like an insider, even if others didn’t quite see it that way: A weekly poker game was held in CJ’s Hideaway after closing on Wednesdays; you could borrow gear from the Edge without paying if you were a local and Jack Olivier was behind the counter, as long as you returned it in the same condition you found it; and the spare key to the Last Stop was kept in a lockbox tucked behind the light over the back door.
Cory had used it when he took me there off-hours, just the two of us, when he’d make me a drink and call it a date. He never told me the code, but he never made an attempt to hide it from me, either, and so I knew it was his parents’ anniversary: 0823.
There was only one piece of real evidence about the Fraternity Four, if you could even call it that—and it was in that tavern, nailed into the wall behind the bar. It had hung there, in plain sight, ever since the establishment changed its name to the Last Stop Tavern. The image had been replicated, digital copies sent to newspapers and websites, but there was only one original, and we had claim to it.
I stood on the other side of the block, in front of the abandoned entrance of the real estate office, where aerial views of available plots were taped to the glass from the inside. And then I slipped between storefronts, into the alley with the entrance to CJ’s Hideaway. A menu hung from the window, where the inside matched the alley itself—dim, like a cave, walls of wine bottles surrounded by dark brick and heavy wood.
The restaurant was closed at this hour, and the rest of the alley was deserted. Down at the other end was the back entrance to the Last Stop, and I headed that way.
I checked up and down the alley before standing on my toes to reach the box, wedged behind the back light fixture. The lock mechanism was slightly rusty, the numbers worn down, black showing under the silver etching. It looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. But when I shook it, I heard the sound of metal on metal. I slid the code into place, and the lock flipped open, a single gold key the only thing inside.
The back entrance to the tavern was at the end of the dark and narrow hall with the restrooms. Beyond that, the space opened up to the bar and large dining area with the glass windows beyond, facing the street. I locked up behind me, listening for signs of anyone inside: the hum of the machinery in the kitchen on the other side of the wall to my right; the rattle as the air-conditioning pushed through a vent overhead. Nothing else.
I walked to the end of the hall, where the rest of the tavern remained well lit, even without the overhead lights, from the wall of glass windows lining the street. The sidewalk out front appeared deserted for the time being.
