[0:00]Okay, this is going to be chapter 20 36 of the reappearance of Rachel Price. Thanks for coming in Annabelle. Dave Winter sat across from her, the garrish light of the interview room reflecting off his badge. What's happened? Is it bad? It was bad, Bell knew it, not tumbling through the empty pit of her stomach, nothing to catch on. Dad had been missing for 10 days now. It's temporary, a test, a problem Bell knew how to fix. They couldn't take that away from her, Bell didn't know how to live without him. This is going to be pretty hard for you to hear, Annabelle. Harder if he didn't hurry the fuck up with it. Bell locked her jaw, readying herself. If Dad was dead, then so was Rachel. We tracked down his credit card. Dave said, shoulders tensing by his ears. We got a new hit at an ATM in Vermont, State police were able to get to the scene. It wasn't your dad using the card, it was a college student age 22 named Matthew Abby. Please question him about his connection to Charlie Price. There isn't any. He sniffed. He says he found the credit card under a table in a diner he went to last Monday. What diner? Bell asked, checking her hands together. Holding on. Dave glanced down at his notes, flicked a page. In Vermont, the How Cow Cafe near Barton. Bell recognized the town. That's where Robert Meyer lives. Dave nodded. He claims he didn't see your dad that night and that nothing was said on the final phone call. But the credit card being found there does point to your dad being in the area. Which still left it up in the air whether Bob from Vermont had lied to Bell or not. Matthew Abby is being charged with credit card fraud, but it didn't give us any other leads on Charlie's whereabouts, other than he'd been to that diner last Monday. No cameras before you ask. Okay, Bell said. That was one update and it wasn't so bad, good even. It showed that Dad wasn't traveling around Vermont spending money on burgers and beer like he chosen to be gone. What else? Dave sighed, took a moment to run his fingers over his mouth. The worst was yet to come clearly, the bad news and then the very bad news. What? Bell broke a tightening at the back of her throat. That tremor before you cried and before you threw up somewhere between the two. We didn't just find the credit card, Dave said carefully. Bell's mind skipped ahead of him, got lost there. Fuck. No, what else did they find? Not his body, no, no. No. We found his phone and his passport. The phone was switched off as we knew. They were found together by a janitor and a trash can at a private airfield in Vermont. Dave paused. Right up by the Canadian border. He left it there as though that were enough, the full story beginning, middle, end. What are you trying to tell me? Bell angled forward trailing shadows on the table from her hair, her stomach an endless cliff drop to the end of the world. Annabelle, he said even softer. I don't think your dad's in the country anymore. Looks like he wanted to go, left voluntarily. The credit card hits threw us off for a while, but he probably crossed the border last week. Dave cleared his throat. Got on a small private aircraft and we didn't know about it because, well, our running theory is he ditched his old passport because he had acquired another one. Under a new identity. Bell shook her head. Dave continued. We believe that's why he might have gone to see Robert Meyer, an individual who has ties to online criminal activity, who may be involved in that kind of thing. No. I'm sorry, Annabelle, Dave said, and he did look it. I slumped in heavy, a troubled fold in his chin. I really wanted to help you find him after everything. But all the signs point to the fact that Charlie left voluntarily, that he's left the country potentially using a different name. It's not a crime to leave your old life behind as much as it hurts. No. Bell said, voice finally catching, threading it skin coming out of a whisper. He's outside of our jurisdiction now, way outside. I'm sorry, but we can't look for him anymore. Dave's eyes darkened further. I want to be honest with you, Annabelle, because we've been through it, you and me. Your mom's disappearance and you are a big part of the reason it stuck with me so long. That tiny little girl left alone in the back seat. Then what happened with Philip Elves and everything since Rachel came back. I want you to be able to trust me when I tell you. We can't look for Charlie anymore, and, if I'm being honest, it seems like he doesn't want to be found. Bell slammed the front door, an explosion of sound echoing down the hallways and trenches of number 33. Slammed her bedroom door, too, falling face first on her bed, bearing her head between the pillows. There was no reaction to the double explosion. No creeping feet, no quiet knocks on her door. Rachel must not be in. Good, because Bell couldn't see her right now. If she did, she knew their cold war would catch fire started by her. Dad did not choose to disappear to Canada, to leave his old life behind with Bell in it. Dave Winter was wrong, unbelievably, asking him to trust her. Unbelievable asking him to trust her. Bell didn't trust him, she didn't trust anyone. Bell punched the pillow with a closed fist, then the other. It was Rachel, it was Rachel, it was all Rachel. And she was the only one who could see it. The alternative was to side with Dave Winter, to believe Dad chose to go, to leave her. And Bell would never go that way. That way hurt much, much more. Bell rolled over, stared at the ceiling, the credit card left in a diner for someone to find, to distract the police. That must have been Rachel, right? She must have staged the phone call to Bob from Vermont too. She must have planted the phone and the passport to make it look like Dad had crossed the border. Rachel was the expert in disappearing after all. Maybe she'd simply had to recreate her own. But how could Bell prove it? How now the police had given up on him, now she was all on her own. They didn't know when the phone and passport were dumped, but the credit card had to have been left last Monday or the Sunday before for the student to have found it Monday afternoon. So where was Rachel in those first two days after Dad disappeared? On the Sunday, she was here at home, but Monday, a memory stirred. In the kitchen that evening, Bell throwing away a carton of apple juice, she'd only drunk it to piss Rachel off. There had been a take out coffee cup in the trash, hadn't there? That was what she was catching on, her mind trying to pull back to remember the logo. Wait, was the what was the name of the diner again where Dad's credit card was found? The How Cow Cafe. She heard it back in Dave Winter's voice snapping to attention. Bell scrambled for her laptop at the end of the bed, pressed a button, willing it to wake up faster. She typed How Cow Cafe Vermont into Google and clicked enter, the laptop dipping up and down with her touch. A page of results, the diner's website and an image of their logo, a red background, a white cartoon cow against it, purse lips to blow a steaming mug of coffee. This was it, wasn't it? The same thing she saw in the trash downstairs last week. Her memory wasn't that clear, hadn't held on to it because she hadn't realized it would ever be important. But she remembered enough, and this couldn't be a coincidence. Last Monday, Rachel planted the credit card in that diner in Barton, Vermont, on her way to dump the phone and passport farther north at the airfield. Thought she'd grab a cup of coffee to keep her going, had it in the car on the drive back to Gom. Took it inside the house to throw it away. She'd planted everything, but she hadn't planned on Bell seeing it. That was evidence. Real evidence that Rachel was the one making it look like Dad disappeared. If Bell found it, then Dave Winter would have to trust her right back, wouldn't he? Bell didn't waste another second. She darted out of the room, heavy down the steps like rolling thunder. Into the kitchen, she pulled the cupboard handle, the double trash cans rolling out, crashing at the end of hinge. Both were almost empty, their contents buried at the bottom, hidden by the waves and surges of the trash bag. Bell pushed her hand inside, grabbing handfuls and bringing them up to the light so she could see. Eggshells and banana skins, plastic food wrappers, used coffee grounds bleeding brown all over her fingers.
[9:22]The cup wasn't in this one. The other side held more promise. Cardboard toilet rolls and bits of paper, but Bell dug both hands through and couldn't find the cup. Rachel must have taken out the trash. It would be in the garbage cans outside. Bell was on her feet again, throwing flying through the house. She collided with the front door, leaving it open as she sprinted down the steps to the garbage cans. They were both left out by the sidewalk because it was always dad's drop to bring them in. Bell skidded to a stop in front of them, the metal can first. Bell unhooked the elasticated cord from the lid. It was black bear season, didn't you know? She pushed the lid off and it fell on the path, clattering, spinning on its rim like this was just a game, a building sound of drums. Bell looked. There was only one black trash bag here, crumpled at the bottom. She lowered her arm inside, cold metal pressed into her armpit as she reached. She grabbed the top of the bag and pulled it out. Fingers clumsy as she undid the knot. It released and so did the smell, a sour undertone to the spring air. Bell pulled the opening wide, sorting through with her hand, flinching every time it touched something wet. It was too dark inside the bag to see anything, and she trusted her eyes more than her fingers who lied to her, turning everything into spiders and slugs. Bell stood up and overturned the bag. Trash falling all around, a wrapper clinging to her boots. She bent down in the middle of it all, sweeping her hand through the mess. Apple cores and broccoli stumps, dinner last night. Slimy bits of plastic, crumpled paper towels with orange greasy stains, the hard outer skin of an onion, a lump of cheese fuzzy with mold. Bell checked everything. The cup wasn't here, but she wasn't giving up. Rachel could have put it in the recycling instead. She must have. Bell flipped the lid off the recycling bin, folded bits of cardboard and paper and cartons shifting in front of her eyes. Her heart doubled time, a pressure building behind her face reaching for her eyes. Bell gripped the bin and turned it over, spilling everything to the grass, shaking it for the stride bits stuck at the bottom. She dropped to her knees checking under and inside folded boxes. Flipping through cartons and packaging, eyes moving faster than her hands. They knew before her. The cup wasn't here either. Bell went through it all again, trash and recycling, filth soaking into the knees of her jeans. Grime embedding under her fingernails, hoping she could change the answer if she helped hard enough. It had to be here. Please, please. She dropped to the ground, sitting in the middle of the desperate swirl of trash cascading and shifting around her. Hands dirty and stained and empty. It wasn't here. It wasn't here and Rachel had won again. Bell kicked out at the trash, a growl breaking free from her throat, sparking red hot inside her again. What are you doing there? Asked a small voice behind her, frail and familiar. Bell's head whipped around. Miss Nosy from number 32, being nosy, living up to her name. Standing on the sidewalk with her arms tucked behind her, watching Bell and her pile of trash, a scowl on her face. I'm taking the trash out, Bell said, near hysterical, her arms wide, encircling her thread of garbage. You shouldn't have you shouldn't have them out. Miss Nelson tutored the final word. It's Tuesday today. Trash gets collected on a Monday morning. A sinking feeling in Bell's gut, beside the well of red hot. And there it was. The cup would have been right here, but Bell was too late. A day and a half too late and her evidence was gone was gone lost forever. Fuck, she erupted, kicking out again. Miss Nelson bristled. It's all right, dear. They come again next week. Bell couldn't cry, so she laughed instead, staring down at her filthy hands. Miss Nelson laughed nervously too, rocking on her heels. You should clean that up. seal the trash cans. Don't want to attract bears. It's black bear season. I know it's black bear season. Bell snapped, wiping her hands on her jeans. Yes, well, Miss Nelson inspected her own clean hands. I wanted to ask, it's your grandfather's birthday this week, isn't it? Friday. Bell mumbled, not looking up because it was some kind of deadline in her mind, a small voice in her head that said if Dad was at home by then, he never would be. You know he used to be one of my best customers. She said, like it was Bell's fault somehow. Part would be in Pat would be in the bookstore every other week. Don't see him around anymore. No. Bell said, because she didn't want to be having this conversation, any conversation, while she sat there in the stinking pile of trash with no way to bring Dad home. I wondered whether I should drop a few new books around for his birthday. Is that a nice idea? idea. Miss Nelson said, looking down at her. Really nice idea, Miss Nelson, except you know he can't read anymore. Can't even remember who I am. Forgetting was just another way of leaving, and everybody left eventually. Hopefully Miss Nelson would too because it was hard to fall apart with her standing over you. Oh. She drew a sharp breath swelling through her teeth. Still, it didn't go. She didn't go.
