Perfect Nightmare

Chapter Thirty-four

Useless, Dawn D'Angelo thought. It’s all useless. We should all be out doing something! The problem was, there wasn’t anything else to do, so she and the rest of Lindsay’s friends were gathered in Sharon Spandler’s office, getting everything ready for the vigil tonight. A vigil, Dawn thought. Like she’s dead.

She gazed down at one of the three hundred copies of Lindsay’s junior class picture — three hundred copies that she’d been pressing one by one onto buttons to pass out at the vigil tonight — and struggled not to start crying again. Crying, she reminded herself, wouldn’t do Lindsay any good at all. And maybe — just maybe — the vigil would attract enough attention from the TV people so that someone, somewhere, would recall seeing Lindsay sometime during the last week.

Taking a deep breath, she carefully placed one of the miniature pictures facedown onto the button blank, placed the back piece onto the picture, then leaned her weight down on the lever that crimped the pin together with Lindsay’s image protected beneath a layer of transparent plastic. She pulled the pin from the machine and assessed her work.

Straight.

Perfectly centered.

Lindsay looked beautiful, her hair long, her makeup perfect, her face surrounded by dark green letters that read FIND LINDSAY along with the 800 number the Marshalls had set up. She added the pin to the box holding the hundred-odd others she’d already completed and set up the next one.

The rest of the cheerleaders were gluing Lindsay’s photograph to signs, and as she watched them, Dawn wondered if they felt as frustrated as she did that there wasn’t something more they could do. Somehow, all this seemed… she searched her mind for the right word, and finally one came: useless. While Lindsay was going through whatever horrible thing had happened to her, all she and the rest of her friends could do was make buttons and posters and hold a candlelight vigil.

Like a vigil was going to find Lindsay!

Tina McCormick sighed, put down her last poster, and looked at Dawn as if she’d read her thoughts. “This isn’t going to do any good at all, is it?” she said.

Oddly, hearing her own thoughts spoken out loud instantly transformed Dawn’s frustration into anger. “Don’t be stupid, Tina. Of course it is. The problem is, we can’t do enough!”

“We can only do what we can do,” Sharon Spandler said, setting six boxes of candles on the table between Tina and Dawn. “At least that’s what my grandma’s always saying. Can you start passing these out, Tina? Consuela says there’s already almost a hundred people in front of the gym.”

As Tina left and Dawn began putting together another pin, Hugh Tarlington, who had taken over as principal of Camden Green High only last fall, peered into the room from the doorway. “How are we doing?”

“We’re ready,” someone said.

Dawn pressed down on another button.

“Good,” Tarlington said. As the rest of the girls began trooping out the door past the principal, their arms full of posters, Dawn felt him eyeing her. He seemed on the verge of saying something before changing his mind and pulling the door closed. Less than a minute later, however, it opened again and Sharon Spandler came in.

For almost a full minute the coach stood silently watching as Dawn continued to work. Finally, as the silence threatened to stretch on forever, she spoke. “Dawn? Aren’t you coming?”

Dawn couldn’t even bring herself to look up, let alone go outside and face all those people and all those candles, knowing that almost everyone secretly thought Lindsay was dead.

She just couldn’t do it. “You go,” she said, and as she spoke, the hot lump of pain in the back of her throat made her voice break.

“You come with me,” the coach said quietly. “Come on, Dawn. We’ll do more buttons later.”

Dawn was about to shake her head when it occurred to her that compared to whatever Lindsay was going through, the vigil was nothing. And it wasn’t about her anyway, she thought, it was about Lindsay, and even though she still didn’t want to go to the vigil — didn’t want to think all the thoughts the candlelit prayer meeting would raise in her mind — it suddenly didn’t matter how hard it might be for her.

Lindsay needed to know she was there, praying for her, with everyone else.

She finished the button she was working on, tossed it into the box, and picked the box up.

She would hand the buttons out herself, and ask every single person to wear one. Little as it was, at least it was something.

She stood and walked out of the office and through the girls’ locker room, followed by the coach. Lindsay’s gym locker, like her regular one on the second floor of the main building, was covered with notes and hearts and yellow ribbons, and just the sight of the tributes made Dawn want to cry all over again.

But she didn’t.

Instead, as they passed the decorated locker, Dawn kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the cold metal. “We’ll find you, Linds,” she said. “We’ll find you, and you’ll be home soon.”

Sharon Spandler put her arm around Dawn’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

Kara Marshall stared in astonishment at the mass of cars crowded into the high school parking lot. She’d expected no more than twenty people — maybe thirty at most — to show up for the vigil Dawn D'Angelo and her friends had organized, but the lot was so full, there were cars blocking other cars, and still more spilling out of the parking lot onto the front lawn. She was about to give up and try to find some place on the street to park her Toyota when she saw someone waving frantically, beckoning her to drive to the end of the parking lot closest to the gym. For a moment she almost backed out into the street anyway, but when she saw it was the principal, Hugh Tarlington, waving, she followed his direction to a spot that had been roped off with a sign that read RESERVED FOR STEVE AND KARA MARSHALL. She bit her lip as she pulled into the spot, wishing once more that Steve was with her.

Indeed, she wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to get through the evening without him.

One minute at a time, she told herself as her eyes burned with sudden tears. Just one minute at a time.

She got out of the Toyota, shook the principal’s hand, then let him guide her toward the crowd that had gathered in front of the school.

Not twenty or thirty. Not even forty or fifty.

No, hundreds of people had shown up. Hundreds of people, many of whom she recognized, but even more whom she’d never seen before.

And all for Lindsay.

She fished in her purse until she found a small packet of Kleenex, pulled one out and dabbed at her eyes.

On the steps of the school, all the cheerleaders were gathered, wearing their uniforms and holding signs that bore Lindsay’s picture — the same picture Kara had been putting up on walls and lampposts and windows every day since Lindsay disappeared. “Here comes Mrs. Marshall,” she heard one of them call, and suddenly everyone turned toward her and started to applaud as Hugh Tarlington led her up the steps.

At the top, she turned around and looked out at the mass of people who had gathered, and at the television cameras, and at the candles that were already lit, and suddenly she didn’t have the slightest idea what to say. Or even what to think. Her mouth worked for a moment, and finally she heard herself utter the only two words she could possibly speak: “Thank you.”

As if sensing her inability to say anything else, Hugh Tarlington led her back down the steps, and then the crowd was all around her, everyone reaching out to her, speaking to her, gently squeezing her hand or kissing her cheek. Her mind reeled as she moved through the crowd, recognizing old friends, and neighbors and acquaintances, and people she hadn’t seen in years.

All of Lindsay’s friends, along with their parents, and their teachers, and everyone else from the school.

Even Sergeant Grant was there, wearing khakis and a golf shirt.

Soon Kara was using the last of her tissues, but the outpouring of love and support kept flooding over her, and at last she let her tears flow unchecked.

Then Dawn D'Angelo was there, and Kara gathered the girl into her arms, hugging her close. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You have no idea what—” Her voice broke as her emotions once more overwhelmed her, but Dawn obviously knew what she’d been about to say.

“We’ll find her,” Lindsay’s best friend whispered, and for a magical moment, Kara believed her.

Then Claire Sollinger appeared out of the crowd, her patrician features softened by her concern. She kissed Kara on the cheek, then held both her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

Kara, choking back a sob, managed a weak smile. “Well enough,” she said. Her eyes swept the crowd. “I’m overwhelmed.”

“It’s exactly what I expected,” Claire said as she drew a man only a couple of years older than Kara forward. “I’d like you to meet my brother, Patrick Shields.”

Patrick took Kara’s hand and leaned in to gently kiss her cheek. “I’m so very sorry about what’s happened.”

Their eyes met, and Kara could see the pain of his months of grief deep in Patrick Shields’s dark brown eyes.

Exactly the kind of pain she herself was suffering.

“And I’m so sorry for your loss—” she began, then fell silent as she realized how hollow the words must sound to him and how often he’d heard them before.

Patrick gave Kara’s hand a gentle squeeze, and as their eyes met again, she knew she needed to say no more; what they were going through could never be described with mere words. But in that brief moment when their eyes met, Kara felt a glimmer of solace. He understood exactly what she was feeling.

Suddenly the crowd fell silent, then the principal began to speak. As he began his litany of thanks, first for Lindsay’s friends, who had organized the vigil, then for the people who had come, more and more candles were being lit in the gathering night, until finally their warm glow seemed to hold the darkness at bay.

“I’ve also just been told that the reward for any information leading to Lindsay Marshall’s safe return has been increased to fifteen thousand dollars.”

A murmur passed over the crowd, and Kara looked around, wondering who had put up the money. But of course it could have been anyone — maybe even a group of people. But why remain anonymous, and give her no one to thank?

Steve should be here.

The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes, but now she concentrated on the principal’s final words, refusing to let herself break down again. “All of us here offer our love and support to Kara and Steve Marshall,” Hugh Tarlington said. His eyes moved over the crowd until he found her. “Kara, please know that all of us hold Lindsay gently in our thoughts and hearts and prayers tonight, tomorrow, and every moment until she comes home. And now, let us take you home.”

As someone began singing “Amazing Grace,” the crowd moved across the lawn toward the street, and as more voices joined in, Dawn D'Angelo and Patrick Shields fell in beside Kara. Each of them linked an arm in one of hers, and the slow march from the high school to the Marshall home began.