Now That She's Gone by Gregg Olsen Read Free Book Online Page B

Fast-forward a decade or more and all of those things mean nothing. Gold tarnishes just like tin.
    She read on about the girls’ friendship and how they’d known each other since kindergarten at Manchester Elementary. They’d been inseparable until the past year when Alyssa didn’t make the cut for the tennis team.

    AW: It bummed me out, but I didn’t think it would make much difference to our friendship, if you were thinking I was jealous of her or something.
    NM: Who said a word about jealousy?
    AW: I don’t know. I thought you did.
    NM: No. I didn’t.

    Next, Kendall read the interview with the third prong of the Katy trio, Tami Overton, also sixteen. It was recorded two days after Alyssa’s interview. Kendall wondered why the delay in getting her to sit down. That answer came a third of the way into the interview.

    T AMI O VERTON: Sorry I couldn’t come sooner. Been sick with the flu.
    NM: I’m glad you’re feeling better.
    TO: Just a little. I still might throw up, but if I do I’ll try not to make a spectacle of myself.
    NM: Can I get you a 7UP?
    TO: You have Sprite? I don’t do Pepsi products. My uncle Hank works for Coke and it’s been ingrained in us since childhood.
    NM: No, sorry. Our vending machines don’t feature Coke. Tell me about the last time you saw Katy. When was it? Where? What were you doing? What did you two talk about?
    TO: It was at school. The day she went missing. We really didn’t talk much. Like we were real close still, but not as close as we had been. I was sad about it, but she seemed to think everything was fine between us. Like she didn’t judge me because I couldn’t afford the best clothes like she and Alyssa. My parents just didn’t have the means. My dad drives a bus for Kitsap Transit and my mom is an unpublished romance novelist. I mean, there was always hope that something big would break for her and we’d be able to move closer to the beach. Like, we never could have had a house like the Frazier place, but something nicer that the tract home we have on Long Lake Road.
    NM: Did you think Katy would run away? Was there anything thing pointing to that kind of scenario?
    TO: What’s a scenario?
    NM: Situation? A possibility?
    TO: (shakes head)
    NM: Can you answer directly into the mic?
    TO: Ah yes. No, I never thought that. I mean there were times when she like acted all secretive, but, you know, I thought it was because she didn’t want to hurt me. She didn’t want to tell me something that would make me feel any worse than I already did.
    NM: Why were you feeling so bad? Was it about Alyssa and Katy and Scott having a better life than you?
    TO: How old are you, Mr. Detective?
    NM: Forty-three.
    TO: Wow, I thought you’d be older than that. You need Botox or something. My point—and I do have one—is that you can watch your life happen in front of your eyes and do absolutely nothing about it. You can see your own future and know that you’re never going to get where some of the other people around you are going to go. Port Orchard is a town full of wannabes and people who have big dreams to make it to a job in Seattle. Maybe get in on the ground floor of a dot-com. Maybe even open a Big Lots store. But for most of us, that’s never going to happen. Katy and Scott were different. Alyssa too. They were destined for something and I was going to be the girl they felt sorry for. The one who had a bald husband and a job at Walmart.
    NM: That’s a bleak picture you’ve painted.
    TO: Well, I guess it’s the truth, sir. (Starts to cry.) The thing is, I’m happy for her. I hope she escaped Port Orchard. I hope she got the F out of here and is living a better dream than the one her parents plotted for her. I loved her.

    The passage was moving. Kendall couldn’t help but think that the girl being tabbed had an undeniable sense of reality. Her assessment was simplistic