Free The Girls Are Missing by Caroline Crane Page A

funny little smile.
    No, Anita herself was crazy and vicious. Or only childish and unthinking?
    On the other hand, could there be something wrong with Foster? Something she had never seen? But not even Foster—Not that.
    And yet, there had been two murders. Where there were murders, there was a killer.
    It had to be somebody.

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    Anita, sensing that she was out of favor, tried a different approach. She became sweetly contrite—and emptily so, it seemed to Joyce—stroking Gail’s arm and trying to jolly her out of her silence, but never quite apologizing.
    “You had the lifeguard come and save you,” she purred. “Were you scared in the water?”
    Gail regarded her stonily.
    “My father does that to me all the time,” Anita said. “You get used to it after a while.”
    Gail glanced at her mother. Joyce smiled and winked. The response was too frivolous. Gail turned away, feeling betrayed there, too.
    Joyce saw Mary Ellen swimming back from the float, and decided it would be a good time to leave.
    As they walked toward the parking lot, Anita announced to everyone’s distress, “I’m supposed to go home with you until my mother calls. She’s going out shopping, and she’s scared for me to be in the house when nobody’s there. I always used to stay home alone. I think she’s crazy. It’s because of those dead girls. It makes people crazy.” She giggled.
    “I don’t really think it’s awfully funny,” Joyce reproached her. “Those were living girls, just like you, and now they
    won’t ever have any more life. It’s not fun or exciting.”
    Anita sobered on the surface, but her eyes twinkled. She skipped ahead, to show how unafraid she was.
    Gail muttered, “I don’t like her.”
    Mary Ellen stopped abruptly. “Uh-oh.”
    “Did you forget something?” asked Joyce.
    “No. I shouldn’t have gone in the water. I think I’ve got it.”
    “Got it? Oh, my heavens.” The problem was clear from the way Mary Ellen stood, with her thighs pressed tightly together.
    “There’s a little outhouse near the beach,” Joyce said.
    “But I don’t have anything with me. I’ll have to sit on a towel in the car.” So saying, Mary Ellen wrapped her towel around her hips. “It always does this. It just comes on without any warning.”
    “How long have you been having it?”
    “About half a year. I’m almost thirteen.” In another half year. “I have this friend of mine who started when she was ten.”
    Their car shimmered in the sunlight and its door handles burned their fingers. The plastic seatcovers burned, too. They all had to sit on towels.
    “Do you want to stop at a drugstore?” Joyce asked.
    “No, I have some at home.” Mary Ellen smiled, feeling a bond. They were both women together, while Gail stared at them, not quite understanding, and Anita sang, trying to attract attention.
    Joyce drove past the Farands’ house, hoping to get rid of Anita, but the house was locked and the car gone. She wondered if she ought to tell Sheila what had happened at the lake. But what good would it do? Would Sheila want to know her child was vicious, and could she help it?
    And if it was true about Foster, Sheila probably already knew that. What a mess it all was.
    When they reached home, Mary Ellen showered and dressed and settled in her room to catch up on her school reading list, as she explained. Gail went to her own room, but it was invaded by Anita, who did not wish to be ignored. The child was almost schizophrenic, the way she seemed to have no idea of the undesirability of what she had done.
    Joyce left it up to Gail to handle it. Gail’s distaste was bound to have more effect than anything anyone else could do or say, and besides, Adam was hungry.
    And she was tired. The heat had done her in. From the peace of her own room, as Adam nursed, she heard Mary Ellen’s radio playing its endless disco beat. She fell asleep before Adam did and slept away two hours with the baby in the crook of her