Disappearance at Devil's Rock Read online

  Kate reseals the coin bag and places it back in the tin. She walks on her toes toward the door and the hallway. To her right is Tommy’s closet, and that white door is open a crack. She allows herself to imagine Tommy—the real one, not ghost or shadow-Tommy—simply hiding in his closet, and when she opens the door he shrugs and says, “Sorry,” and then he pulls the door shut.

  Kate stares at the thin, dark opening between the door and the frame, and then she opens the closet enough to see two lonely button-down shirts hanging on a rack that’s mostly empty hangers and belts he never wears. At the bottom of the closet are his dirty clothes piled up in the hamper. The dank, sweaty, stale smell is overpowering and seems somehow amplified. Does his closet always smell this bad? Is this the same smell that Mom claimed she smelled last night?

  Kate believes in ghosts. She believes ghosts are everywhere and anywhere. They are always watching and they are always coming for you. They can be in any room, in any closet, under any bed or desk, behind the door, in any dark corner, more dark or less dark it doesn’t really matter.

  But Tommy isn’t a ghost. He can’t be, because right now Tommy is the opposite of a ghost. He is nowhere.

  Kate leaves the closet door open a crack. Just in case.

  Elizabeth Finds Notes from Tommy

  The next morning Elizabeth is up and awake before Kate and Janice. Outside the sun peers over the backyard but it’s still dark in the house. She checks her phone for a morning-update email from Detective Allison. There is one.

  The search has expanded beyond the neighborhoods surrounding the park, and today they’ll canvass convenience stores, local malls, and other places that are local teen hangouts. They are monitoring local transit stations and bus stops. They are working their way through the list of acquaintances the other two boys and Elizabeth provided. They continue to monitor Tommy’s cell phone number and records, and they are monitoring various social media platforms for messages about and/or directed at Tommy. Overnight they received calls from three different residents whose properties abut Borderland, complaining of a person who cut through their yards and then into the state park. The Ames police responded and just after 10 P.M., they found a group of high-school-aged teens gathered at Split Rock. (Ill-advised vigil or mind-numbingly tasteless party, Allison didn’t specify). The SPLIT ROCK sign was vandalized to read ‘Devils Rock.’ The teens were escorted out of the park, questioned about Tommy, and were released to their parents.

  Elizabeth responds with a thanks, I’ll call soon, and a question: Have you ever heard of Devil’s Rock before?

  Elizabeth leaves her bedroom and doesn’t turn on any lights on her way into the kitchen. She intently stares under the kitchen table and into dark corners and nooks. Last night, she didn’t sleep much and spent most of the evening exploring dark spaces, looking under her bed and in her closet and staring at the emptiness between the chair and end table, desperate to see what she saw the previous night. Desperate to see Tommy again.

  She pours herself a glass of orange juice instead of making coffee, and she slowly shuffles out into the living room, still with the lights off, looking nowhere and everywhere at once. She slumps to the couch with her glass huddled against her and finds the TV remote wedged between the back of the couch and the cushion to her left. She’ll be careful to not tune the TV to any of the local news stations, most of which have been calling the house asking for statements and interviews. To any news source looking for information or a comment, she’s given one, and she’s e-mailed digital copies of Tommy’s seventh-grade school photo and a cropped candid of him taken at the Griffins’ Memorial Day barbeque. Tommy has on a red Iron Man T-shirt and baggy black shorts that hang down below his knees, and he’s almost smiling.

  She points the remote at the TV, and she notices something on the floor. In the middle of the throw rug, like a small pile of leaves, are pages torn from a magazine or book.

  Elizabeth leans to her right, reaches over the arm of the couch and sets down her glass hard on the end table, sending juice as sticky as tree sap spilling over the rim. She then fumbles to turn on the lamp.

  The pages are yellowish and covered in black scribble, covered in handwriting, not the neat type of something that was printed by a machine. She falls forward and to the floor, to the pages, and there are three of them. She flips the pages front to back and back to front. She sees the words without really reading them at first, registering that this is something that belongs to Tommy, this is something that he wrote. Her eyes fill with tears and she blinks madly to clear them.

  The pages, jagged along the left margins, must have been torn out of one of his sketchbooks. Accompanying the text are strange little drawings and doodles, each ranging from quick scribbles to one intricately detailed drawing of a zombie with both loose flesh and icicles hanging off his arms, nose, and hollowed-out cheeks. Some of the scribbles look like Minecraft characters. She doesn’t know their names but knows enough to know that the blocky little beasties belong to that video game universe. There’s a skeleton with three heads, a pig-faced human, and this one thing with creepy tentacles dripping off the front of its face. She remains there, on her knees and on the floor, reading the pages. The first page is a title page. It has a 3-D block-lettering title of MENTAL DROPPINGS 2.0, made to look as though it was carved from solid rock, and it takes up almost the whole page. Below the title, writ almost indecipherably small:

  The notes on the next page are written as bullet points:

  The last page doesn’t have any drawings and is written in a big block paragraph and the sentences all smooshed together, as though the text is a written equivalent of a whisper.

  On the kitchen table the pages are carefully laid out, one next to the other, like tarot cards. Elizabeth sits with her chair pushed back, her hands folded on the table, and her chin resting on top of her hands. At this awkward and extreme angle, the pages are blurry and the text cannot be read. The pages feel safer that way. Maybe if she keeps them all blurry like this, they’ll disappear and she’ll forget she ever found them or read their messages.

  Janice enters the kitchen yawning, and walks directly to the coffeemaker. She says, “Good morning.” She has on a blue, long-sleeved T-shirt with NANTUCKET printed across the chest, though as far as Elizabeth knows, Janice has never been to that island. Certainly not recently.

  Elizabeth bolts upright in her chair, like she’s a kid again, guilty of hiding something. “’Morning, Mom.” She is about to say something about the pages but doesn’t. Maybe she won’t say anything until Janice walks over to the kitchen table and discovers them for herself.

  Janice says, “Any news? Did the detective call or send a message?”

  “I got an e-mail but nothing really new. I’ll give her a call at eight if she doesn’t call first. But Mom, you need to come look at this.”

  Janice says, “What is it? Do I need my glasses?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “What is it?” She pats the pockets of her pajama pants and pulls out her pharmacy-bought readers. The frames are rainbow striped and totally not her, but at the same time they are her.

  Elizabeth doesn’t say anything and rearranges the pages on the table, playing the shell game, until they are in their proper order from left to right. She gets up so Janice can take her seat. She avoids physical contact with her mother as they pass each other. Janice sits and holds up the first page close to her face and her hands tremor a little. Elizabeth turns away and finishes making the cup of coffee her mother started.

  “Oh my goodness, where did you get these?”

  “When I got up this morning, I found them in the middle of the living room floor.”

  “What do you mean in the middle of the floor?”

  “They were there.” Elizabeth makes a circular motion with her right hand. “In a pile on the throw rug. No book or anything to go along with them, just these three pages.”

  “How did they get there?”

  “No idea. I’m
guessing you didn’t put them there.”

  “No, of course not. Why would I do that?”

  “I’m not saying you would do anything, Mom. You want your coffee?” Elizabeth places the steaming cup on the kitchen table, then backs away and leans against the kitchen counter.

  Janice carefully puts the pages down in a neat stack, safely away from the coffee. She says, “I don’t understand.”

  “Hi.” Kate pokes her head into the kitchen but leaves the rest of her body out in the hallway like she’s ready to bolt, a prairie dog nervously surveying the plains for hawks. She tucks her purple-streaked hair behind her left ear and half-smiles.

  Neither Elizabeth nor Janice responds right away. The way Elizabeth feels right now, she would be content to never have to say anything to anyone ever again.

  Janice finally says, “Hi, Katie, my dear. Come sit next to me, honey.”

  Kate shuffles into the kitchen and looks at Elizabeth with her head slightly turned in a way that silently asks if she’s in trouble. She’s so easy to read sometimes. Kate says, “What’s going on? Oh my God, do you know where Tommy is?” She dashes across the kitchen and sits at the table and leans against her grandmother.

  Janice says, “No, dear, no. We haven’t heard anything new about Tommy from the police, but we want to share something your mother found this morning. Right, Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth remains at her post, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded across her chest. She quickly runs through for Kate the what and the how of her finding Tommy’s pages this morning.

  Kate goes monosyllabic with, “Huh. Wow.”

  And sometimes, she isn’t so easy to read. Kate looks the pages over and her cheeks turn red right before she swaps the first page for the second. She must’ve read the “fine print” section that was directed at her.

  Janice fidgets, waits for Kate to be done reading, and says, “Have you seen these before? You have been spending a lot of time in Tommy’s room.” She enunciates each syllable properly.

  Kate says, “I’ve been in his room, I guess, yeah. No. I’ve never seen these. Not these ones.”

  Elizabeth repeats what Kate says as a question. “Not these ones?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I went looking through some of his notebooks and stuff but they’re all drawings and sketches.” The first half of her sentence is quiet and then she gets really loud, almost to the point of yelling. Her cheeks go an even deeper shade of red, like when she gets a high fever.

  Janice has one hand on the center of Kate’s back and she rubs little circles. “Where’d you find his notebooks? Are they out in the open?”

  “I know I shouldn’t have been looking through—”

  “It’s all right, it’s all right. Where’d you find them?”

  “They’re next to his desk. In the milk crate. But those notebooks aren’t like this.” Kate holds up the pages. “This—this looks like it’s, um, from a diary, or something. I didn’t even know he had a diary. Didn’t see any in the milk crate. He makes fun of my diary, you know, says it’s such a girl thing to do.” Kate talks fast, spewing out words until she runs out of breath.

  Janice says, “So you haven’t seen these pages?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re sure you haven’t seen these before, Kate?” Janice asks in that quiet I’m-on-your-side-but tone that drives and has always driven Elizabeth absolutely bonkers

  “What? Yes. I’m sure. Why do you keep asking me? I haven’t seen these, Nana. I haven’t.” Kate’s voice rises in pitch, turning into a persecuted whine. She always gets like this when she’s caught in a lie. But what if she isn’t lying? Maybe Kate is simply flustered and upset by reading what Tommy wrote. How could she not be? While she believes Kate, or wants to believe Kate, Elizabeth doesn’t mind that Janice is the one stepping up to ask from where the pages came. She doesn’t want to take part in this interrogation, even though Elizabeth knows that Janice arguing with and openly not trusting Kate could permanently tarnish Kate’s near-blind love and adoration of her grandmother. Add it to the terrible growing list of everything happening to her family that can’t be fixed or taken back.

  Janice says, “Okay, okay. Did you take one of his notebooks out of his room last night, and carry it out here—”

  “No! No, I didn’t take anything out of his room or do anything like that. I swear!” Kate volleys back and forth between looking at Janice and Elizabeth and the pages.

  Janice throws up her hands and says, “I don’t understand where the pages came from then.”

  Kate: “Well, it wasn’t me. Don’t blame me.”

  Janice: “No one is blaming you, sweetie. Did you, or you, Elizabeth, take a book—”

  Kate: “I didn’t do anything!”

  Elizabeth says, “Mom,” but stops there, not sure of what to say or how to proceed or how to stop any of this.

  Janice lowers her volume and softens her tone and pitch. “Okay, take it easy. Let’s not get upset. I know. I’m just asking. I’m not saying you or your mom took one of Tommy’s notebooks, okay? Or did anything on purpose. But how about any book or magazine or . . . something? Could’ve come from your room or the bookshelves or anywhere in the house, and maybe Tommy hid the pages inside and they, I don’t know, got loose and fell out without you knowing they were there.”

  Kate gets up and stomps out of the kitchen and runs down the hall.

  “Kate, I’m sorry. Please, come back. Kate?” Janice looks at Elizabeth and holds out her hands, palms up. “Do something?”

  Elizabeth is still leaning against the counter and she shrugs. They both wait to hear Kate’s bedroom door slam shut. But that doesn’t happen. Janice releases a series of sighs and readjusts the pages and coffee cup on the table.

  A few moments later Kate stomps down the hallway and into the kitchen, and she throws a plastic sandwich bag on the table that lands with a hard clunk.

  She says, “I didn’t see or take or do anything with those pages, all right? I looked at a couple of his sketchbooks and then I found these weird coins on his bureau.”

  Neither Janice nor Elizabeth makes a move toward the bag.

  Elizabeth says, “I believe you, Kate. I do, really.”

  Janice, for the first time since she arrived at the house and hugged and held her inconsolable daughter on the front stoop, starts to cry. Her reading glasses are still on and she sticks her hands under them to cover her eyes. The little tremor that was in her hands earlier now spreads through her body, most notably to her head, which shakes as though it’s impossible to continue to hold up.

  Kate folds her hands into little balls and holds them close to her mouth so that they block most of what she says. “Nana, please don’t cry.”

  Janice says through her hands, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Kate, I believe you, too. Okay? I’m sorry. Look, I’m not blaming anyone. I’m not trying to blame anyone. I just don’t get it. I don’t get how this could happen. Any of this. You know? And I don’t understand how the pages got to where Elizabeth says she found them.”

  “I’m not making that up either, Mom.”

  “Oh, Christ, I’m not saying you are.” Janice finishes wiping her eyes, the skin around them now puffy, and splotchy red. She takes off the reading glasses, puts them on the table, and sits up straight. Her head still shakes a little and she looks down into her black coffee. “Look. We need to figure this part out. The three of us. At the very least, we can figure this out. Can’t we? If it wasn’t one of us, even if it was by accident and we didn’t know that we’d somehow carried the pages out there and dropped them, then what? What’s left? One of his friends snuck into the house in the middle of the night and left them on the floor? The doors were all locked, right?”

  Elizabeth says, “I’ve been leaving the back open. Just in case.” No one needed to ask what her just in case meant.

  Kate: “Kids on Twitter are saying there’s been someone running through people’s yards and looking into houses and going int
o the park and stuff at night.”

  Elizabeth: “Really?”

  Kate: “Yeah. I can show you.”

  Elizabeth: “Detective Allison told me they found high school kids sneaking into the park, going out to Split Rock.”

  Janice: “All right, I guess we should make sure to lock the doors. Still, who would come into the house in the middle of the night, and what, drop Tommy’s diary pages on the middle of the floor? How would that person even have Tommy’s diary? I don’t think—I don’t know. I think we’re simply running out of explanations if it wasn’t one of us.”

  Kate still has her hands all balled up, held up close to her face, ready to block a punch. “I don’t know, maybe they were like under the couch or something, and they got blown out from under there by, um, wind?” Kate drops her hands, looks at Elizabeth and adds, “’Cause the front door opened and closed like a million times yesterday. Right?”

  Kate’s explanation is weird and awkward and only makes sense in a dog-ate-my-homework way, as her scenario is technically possible, but not bloody likely.

  Elizabeth wraps herself more tightly within the coils of her own arms. She says what she’s been thinking (and secretly hoping) all along: “Maybe they came from Tommy.”

  Janice says, “Well, yeah, no one is disputing that he wrote them.”

  “No, I’m saying that maybe Tommy left the pages, and he wanted us to find them and read them.”

  Janice says, “What? No. Jesus H. Christ, no, Elizabeth, no. What are you saying? Are you saying Tommy’s, what, in hiding? And he snuck back into his own house to drop those notes and then go away again? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? He wouldn’t do that to us. Even if he did in fact run away, do you think Tommy would do that to us?”

  Elizabeth: “No, Mom, that’s not what I’m saying at all.”

  Janice: “What are you saying, then?”

  “It was him.”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “It was him. Just like it was him I saw and smelled in my room the other night.”