Page 56 of Forget Me Not
“Berkeley didn’t offer that as a major until 1988,” she adds.
I think back to the diary, those dates I know for a fact are correct. Mitchell met Marcia in 1983. Galloway was founded in 1984, which means Mitchell was far away from both Berkeley and the entire state of California the only time he could have gone to school.
“Are you sure?” I ask, even though the answer is so obvious now. Mitchell was never a student at Berkeley, though he wasn’t lying when he said he studied people—only, instead of in class, instead of with books, he studied by watching, observing. Scrutinizing the things that made them tick and tucking them away for his own gain.
I think of those early entries again, the way he had eyed Marcia in the back of that alley. Saying all the right things to pick away at her armor; homing in on her insecurities like they were scribbled all over her face.
“Positive,” the woman says, drawing me back. “You either have your dates wrong or he was enrolled somewhere else.”
“Okay,” I say, getting ready to thank her and hang up when she starts to speak again.
“Of course, ’83 was a hard year for the college, so it is possible he graduated late.”
“What do you mean ahard year?” I ask.
“We had a student disappear that year. The investigation took a toll, as I’m sure you can imagine. Quite a few kids took some time off.”
“A student disappeared,” I repeat.
“Sadly, yes. Right after finals. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“What happened?” I ask, leaning forward as my hands start to shake.
“Unfortunately, she was never found.”
I exhale, feeling like the wind was just punched from my lungs as I think back to that sweatshirt I found in their bedroom, buried like a body in the depths of the floor.
“What was her name?” I ask as I lower my phone, swiping to my pictures and opening one of the very last ones that I took.
The one of the tag with the university logo, those initials—KAP—written in bleeding black ink.
“Katherine,” the woman says, her voice suddenly muffled by the rushing blood in my ears. “Katherine Ann Prichard. To this day, her case is still unsolved.”
CHAPTER 37
“Here’s your coffee.”
I jump at the sudden presence of Bethany beside me, her body too close as she holds a mug by my side.
“Sorry,” I say, lowering my phone and taking it from her with trembling hands. “Sorry, thanks.”
“Cream or sugar?”
“No,” I say. “I drink it black.”
“All right,” she says, turning around to walk back to the counter until she stops, tilting her head. “Are you okay, Claire? You seem sort of jumpy.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie, pushing the pad of my finger into a drip I spilled on the table, a feeble attempt at keeping them still. “It’s just this story I’ve been working on. I guess it’s got me a little on edge.”
“What’s it about?” she asks, and I look down at my phone, those initials still pulled up on the screen.
“I’m not really sure,” I say, the most honest answer I can currently come up with as I think about how it started as nothing morethan a hunch, a nosy curiosity inspired by boredom and a simple desire to understand this couple who had graciously welcomed me into their home. But then, slowly, it became so much more. A nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right; finding that article and learning Marcia was missing. All the little details that seemed so familiar and the sense of duty I felt to figure it out, a responsibility to see it all through… but whatever it was I was searching for, whatever it was I had been expecting to find, I know for a fact it wasn’tthis.
“Okay,” Bethany says slowly, eyeing me curiously from across the table as I think about these names that keep popping up. All these young, missing girls who seem to have only one thing in common.
That they all wandered into Mitchell’s vast web.
“Well, I’ll just be back there if you need me,” Bethany adds and I nod, attempting a smile before I twist back around, grabbing my notebook from inside my bag and flipping it open to where I left off.
