Page 11 of Another Girl Lost

The cops never really believed me about Della. They considered her a product of my imagination because I’d been so traumatized. “If it’s not Della, I can’t help you.” A bus rumbled behind him, and a horn honked.

“I’ve read your file. I understand your hesitancy.” He attempted to soften his tone, as if compassion were a rusty implement in his toolbox.

I didn’t open the door.

“It’s important we talk. Now.” Impatience bucked under his words, but he kept it reined in as if it had hurled him into too many disasters before. However, his rigid legs and braced back told me he would stand here and wait until I spoke to him.

I opened the lock. Hinges groaned as I pressed the door toward him. He grabbed the door’s edge and pried it open until there was nothing separating us.

My heartbeat quickened. Blood rushing, my head pounded against my temples—both sensations harbingers of a panic attack. It had been a year since I’d had a bad one. That episode had been triggered by an envelope filled with newspaper clippings about Tanner and me. I never figured out who had sent it or why anyone would bother to taunt me after all these years. For the weeks after the envelope had arrived, I’d had trouble sleeping.

Drawing in a deep breath, I stepped back, giving him a wide berth. I closed the security door behind him but didn’t lock it.

Dawson’s gaze scanned the interior of my warehouse space. Old brick walls stretched toward a twenty-foot metal ceiling supported by steel rafters. Five large skylights allowed in bright sunshine that mingled with the light from ten round industrial pendant lights.

Some of my prints hung framed on the brick walls, but most had been sold either via commission or at local shows in the art community’s NEON district.

He looked toward a portrait of a blond woman, her face turned away from the artist. “May I get a closer look?”

Impatience elbowed through rising panic. “Of course.”

He walked up to within inches of the print and leaned toward it. “Detail’s amazing.”

“Thank you.”

His attention remained on the painting another beat before he turned. “That one hasn’t sold?”

“Some don’t. I’ll try again at the fall art festival. You interested?”

He smiled. “More of a framed poster kind of guy.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Folding my arms, I waited for him to get to the point.

Some of the ease faded from his features. “Do you remember Sandra Taylor?”

“She’s the girl you’re looking for?”

“Yes. She’d be about your age. She’s the one who vanished a few months before you.”

“I don’t know her.”

“Did Tanner ever mention her?”

“No. He rarely spoke to me. He was never interested in conversation.”

Dawson’s jaw pulsed. “She looked like you. Did a little part-time waitress work. She went to East Norfolk High School like you.”

“You keep referencing her in the past tense.”

He drew in a breath. “We believe we’ve found her body.”

The Other Girl. “Della mentioned the Other Girl when she was warning me about being defiant. But I never met or saw her. It was just me and Della.”

He reached for his phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and then turned the screen toward me. “This is Della, correct?”

I’d drawn Della’s face for the detectives who’d been interviewing me. No traces of the girl had been found in the incinerated remains of Tanner’s house, and she hadn’t matched up with any missing person cases. After a time, detectives stopped believing in Tanner’s mystery girl.

Looking at the old cartoonish image with its immature pencil strokes, reminded me of how young I’d been when I drew thepicture. I was amazed how crude my work had been a decade ago. Della sketch #1.

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