18. Beth

The car idles outside of the run-down treatment center. It sits in a strip mall a couple towns over, positioned between a Dollar General and one of those scammy quick loan places where your interest seems to accrue by the minute. One of the windows has been boarded up with plywood. I assume someone wanted their treatment after hours. The rest of the windows have the shades drawn, providing privacy—or hiding what goes on behind those doors. People far more broken than my sister enter and exit the clouded glass door. From what I've read online, most of them will relapse. Nicole unbuckles her seat belt and climbs out of the vehicle.

"Want me to come in with you?" I offer.

"No, I won't be long," she says.

"You sure?"

She slams the door shut. Either she didn't hear me, or she didn't care to respond. She disappears inside the clinic. I tap my fingers against the steering wheel just to busy them, keep my mind focused before it strays. There's a light drizzle. Beads of rain hit the windshield, slithering down the glass. They stop when the liquid is depleted, nothing else to keep the momentum going. I pull out my cell phone and first check my missed calls. I tried calling Marissa last night, but it went to voice mail, and I didn't leave a message. She hasn't returned my call. I check my email next. It's the ninth time I've looked at it this morning. It's all junk, minus an email from HR, asking if I have an update as to when I'll return to work from FMLA leave. There's no reply from my father. He and I used to email back when my parents got a computer for the family—well, it was mostly for Michael, but we all used it. I remember him telling me it helped with his typing skills. Dad went from pecking to actually having all his fingers on the keyboard. As he improved, his emails got longer. The first couple dozen he sent were only a few sentences in length, but I'm sure they took an hour each. They were riddled with typos and sometimes, I could barely understand what he was trying to tell me. He'd send one in the wee hours of the morning before he left for the factory, and then I'd have to wait until he got home from work to ask him about his cryptic emails. He'd laugh and tell me I'd understand the next one better. And I always did until they stopped.

I glance up at the door leading to the treatment center. Another broken person scurries in and another exits. It's been fifteen minutes. I shut the car off and cautiously get out of the vehicle, clutching my keys in my hand. This isn't a good part of town. Honestly, I don't think there are any good parts in any town. Some areas just hide their indiscretions better. I make my way inside so quickly the rain barely touches me. There's a line of people, waiting for their next fix in order to halt the withdrawals. Nicole's not in it, so I cut to the front. A man growls at me. I apologize and tell him I'll be quick.

"I'm looking for my sister, Nicole Thomas," I say to the woman sitting behind a bulletproof window. She wears a scowl like it's tattooed on her face. I don't blame her though. This wouldn't be an easy place to work.

The woman inputs her name into the computer. "She went in for her dose ten minutes ago, so she should have come out already. Must have left through the back." The woman points to the hallway off to her side.

Before I can thank her, she's already yelling, "Next," and shooing me away.

I pass by medical staff and patients. Every one of them looks tired, and I don't believe it's from a lack of sleep. I think they're tired of life. Sometimes life gets old before we do. There's a parking lot in the back for the staff. I pull my hood up and scan the area. There she is at the far corner. She's talking with a man. He's tall, towering over my sister, dressed in a rain jacket and dark jeans. Then there's some sort of an exchange. He hands her a large manila envelope. She glances around and quickly shoves it into her bag.

"Nicole!" I scream as I run across the lot toward her. My damaged knee throbs, but I ignore the pain.

Her head snaps in my direction, eyes wide. The man turns to look at me and then moves to the side, so he's standing next to Nicole rather than in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing?" I yell at her the same way Mom used to whenever she came home late from curfew. I don't even look at the man. He's insignificant, just a bridge to her addiction. "Are you fucking using again?"

"What? No!" she says, vehemently. Her eyes are wild, and her jaw moves from side to side.

I grab at her bag. She tries to fight me, swinging aimlessly with her arm that's cocooned in a fiberglass cast, but I'm bigger and stronger. Nearly a decade of drug use has made both her mind and her body weak.

"Then what the hell is this?" I snatch the manila envelope from inside her bag and hold it up. It's thick and heavy.

"Give that back to me!" she yells, reaching for it, trying to swipe it away.

"What is it, Nicole?"

"It's the goddamn case file for Emma Harper's disappearance," she huffs.

Her fleshy lids narrow, hiding those green eyes that have clouded over the years. She reaches for it again, but this time I let her take it from my hand.

I take a step back and finally look at the man standing next to her. I recognize him immediately. Casey Dunn. He was a grade below me and a grade above Nicole. They were friends in high school, just friends, but everyone knew there was something more between them. They just never figured it out. The two of them bonded over their love for the written word. I was surprised when he went on to become a deputy for the Walworth County Sheriff's Office. I'm sure he's much higher up now. But I always figured he'd be an English professor or a writer or something like that. I thought the same for Nicole, but obviously, she took a very different path than anyone expected. We all did.

"Hey, Beth," he says. His voice is deep, and there's an air of authority behind it. He's not that skinny little teenage boy anymore. He's filled out now with wide shoulders and a thick neck. His face is clean-shaven, free of the acne that speckled it in high school, and he's traded in that shaggy hair for a buzz cut.

I deliver a tight smile. "Nice to see you, Casey."

Nicole crosses her arms in front of her chest and juts out her bony hip. Sorry isn't enough for her, but of course that's where my mind went. Why else would she be meeting someone in the back parking lot of a methadone clinic?

"How have you been?" Casey asks. "I mean... never mind. That was a stupid question." He rubs his brow and mutters, "I'm sorry about your mom."

It's not a stupid question though. It's what people ask. And the answer is always fine or good, because no one wants to actually hear how you're doing.

"Thanks." I fold in my lips. "Are you still with the Walworth County Sheriff's Office?"

He nods. "Yep. Going on nearly twenty years. I'm actually in the Detective Bureau now."

My eyes flick to Nicole for a moment. She and Michael fought me on telling anyone about the tape and now she's going out of her way to uncover what happened. I wonder if Casey finds it suspicious that she's interested in the case after all these years. What did she tell him? What reason did she give him for wanting that information?

"Congrats," I say, though I'm not even sure that's the right thing to say. My gaze bounces back and forth between Nicole and Casey. It's like we're in a standoff but no one has a gun. Well, actually there's probably one hiding beneath Casey's raincoat, tucked in the waist of his jeans, or nestled in a holster. But in this case, the gun is the truth and only Nicole and I are holding it.

"Are you done?" Nicole directs her question at me. Her tone is full of attitude, and she taps her foot against the pavement.

"What's with the case file?" I need to know how she convinced him to swipe it.

"Nicole messaged me, asking if I had access to it and if I could get it for her," Casey starts to explain, but Nicole interrupts. "Yeah, for the true crime book I'm writing about Emma Harper's disappearance. Remember, Beth?" She raises an eyebrow—her way of telling me to go along with her story.

"Oh, yeah, that. I thought it was just an idea. I didn't know you were serious about it." My words weave together, forming a somewhat convincing lie. I glance at Casey. His face is unchanged, so I think he's buying it.

"Now you know." Nicole cocks her head.

Casey clears his throat. "It's great that you're doing that. Obviously, we were teens when she disappeared, but I always thought it was sad that they never found out what happened to her," he says. "Things like buttons and keys go missing. People shouldn't." He shakes his head and then gestures to the envelope. "At one point in time, that was the most important case file in this county. Now, no one even noticed me taking it. It's like a toy a child's lost interest in."

We stand there in silence, unsure of what to say. It's true. The case went cold after the first year. People forgot. Children played in the streets past dark again. It was like it never happened.

Casey pushes his sleeve up to check the time. "I've gotta get going," he says to Nicole. "It was good seeing you, Beth."

"Likewise."

"And Nicole." His eyes swing to her, and his face softens. "Let me know if you need anything else. I mean anything. I'm here."

Nicole smiles. "Thanks, Casey." She leaves unsaid the words I know she wants to say. "I'll text you."

He nods and heads to his vehicle. I don't say anything until he's out of earshot.

"You could have just told me, Nicole."

"I don't have to tell you anything," she says, stomping back toward the treatment center.

Nicole's always been that way, closed off, almost sneaky. She's lied for so long about her addiction and the things she's done that I don't think she knows where the truth starts and ends.