Page 57 of Another Girl Lost

SCARLETT

Then

Maybe six or seven weeks in the basement

“What’s your mother like?” Della asked.

Della and I sat in the dimly lit room. Upstairs, AC/DC blared. Tanner hadn’t been in this room to see either of us today. By my estimate it was a Saturday—maybe the sixth or seventh I’d spent down here. Normally, he took Della out of the room at night, but not last night.

“I don’t like to talk about my mother.” Absently, my hand went to my naked wrist where I’d worn the bracelet Mom had given me. Tanner had stripped me of everything that linked me to the outside world.

I wondered if Mom had called the cops. Did she realize I was missing? Because the hard, pounding rock music had been on a loop for days, there’d been no radio or news.

“My mother is a bitch,” Della said. “She can go days or weeks and never say a word to me. She does the silent treatment when she’s mad. Does yours do that?”

Bitterness bubbled. My mother wasn’t evil—she was an addict. And addicts flaked. But I couldn’t throw my mother under the bus. She wasthe only person out there who might realize I was gone and call the cops. “Mom does the best she can.”

“That’s not saying much. I’m doing the best I can, but what good is that right now?”

I drew in a breath, wishing I were in my room eating the last of the Rice Chex cereal. Maybe I’d not been the best daughter. Maybe she was glad I was gone and she didn’t have to fight me about school or homework. I’d thought my life had sucked at home, but I’d had no idea how bad it could get. “She’s probably called the police and told them I’m missing. People are looking for me.”

Della leaned forward and began to braid my hair. “Tanner says your mom hasn’t called the cops.”

I turned and studied Della’s eyes. “How does he know my mother?”

“He’s still working on the project across the street from your house.”

My mouth began to sweat, and my stomach churned with acid. “That’s not true.”

“It’s true,” she said mildly. “He talks to his girlfriend about that job after they do it—blah, blah, blah.All I can do is lie in my box and listen to the pillow talk. I bet I know more about him than anyone right now.”

I pushed away, pulling my hair from her hands. “Did he talk to my mother? How would he know?”

Della seemed pleased to have cracked through my silence and won my full attention. “He said there are no ‘Lost’ posters, no cops. She likes to sit on the front porch, smoke, and stare into space.”

I turned away from her, picturing my mother sitting on the floral porch glider, her bare, dirty feet tucked under her body. Unmindful of the heat, she liked to sip a cola and watch the traffic pass as she came down from a high. “She’s going to call the police.”

Della ran her fingers over my knotted hair. “Sounds to me like she’s using and hasn’t put the pieces together yet.”

That could be very true. She was never sober long. But just as I had when I was little, I believed deep down she loved me more than her drugs. “She’ll get clean and call.”

“Tanner said a cop stopped by his jobsite. He was looking for a missing girl. Not you or me.”

“The Other Girl?”

Della shook her head. “I guess.”

I didn’t know the Other Girl’s name. I only knew she’d been in this house and now she was not. “Did the cop talk to my mother?”

“No.” Dangling answers hovered in the damp, dark air. “After the cop left, your mom asked Tanner what was going on. He told her nothing to worry about.”

“Tanner spoke to my mother?” I massaged a tight muscle in my neck.

“Yeah, he got a kick out of it,” she said softly.

“When was this?”

“Weeks ago.”

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