In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault Page A

and went quietly to bed.
    “Should I turn the light out?” I asked.
    “If you want.”
    Right before I did, I saw that Charlotte was sucking on a piece of her hair.
    “Good night,” I said, and ignored the sad tone of her reply as I got back into my sleeping bag.
    Just as I started to nod off, I heard her whisper, “Nora? Are you still awake?”
    I was awake enough that I should have admitted, Yeah. But I didn’t. Some small part of me wanted her whisper to go unacknowledged. I wanted her question to go unanswered. Whatever it was, I wanted her to have to wonder about it alone in the dark.

Chapter Four
    May 22, 2006
    I woke up the next morning to the sound of Charlotte bumping her way to the bathroom. I met her at the doorway of Paul’s old room.
    “Don’t even think about it,” Charlotte said when she saw me peering out the door. “Go back to sleep.”
    “I want to see you off.”
    “Now you’ve seen me. It’s five forty-five. I’m going to get dressed.”
    “You want me to make you some coffee?”
    “I’ve got it covered, Nora. It’s already brewing.”
    I wandered into the kitchen and fell into one of the chairs. It was the least I could do—keep her company for a few minutes before she headed off to face a bunch of nasty teenagers for seven hours. I nearly dozed off at the table, but a clunk at the front door jolted me awake—the paper boy sticking the Voice in the Hemsworths’ screen door.
    I crossed the kitchen and pulled the paper inside, rummaging through for more Rose news. There was a second-page story that mostly repeated the same information that had been in the article Charlotte had sent me. There were, however, a few additional details about the case. The article mentioned that when she disappeared, Rose had had over eight hundred dollars saved in a bank account that her parents hadn’t known about. This had led police at the time to believe that she might have planned to run away—except that no money was ever withdrawn from the account. The article also made mention of Rose’s boyfriend—Aaron Dwyer, a star soccer and baseball player at Waverly High, a year older than Rose and a senior at the time of her disappearance.
    Next to the article was Rose’s picture—the same one they’d always run when we were kids. It startled me to see it. In some ways she didn’t look how I remembered her. Her blond hair was blown out dramatically, rather than in her usual ponytail. She seemed to be straining to maintain a toothy, squinty smile. It was a facial expression I associated with cheerleaders.
    Charlotte click-clacked into the room in thick black heels, a long black skirt, and a snug short-sleeved lilac sweater that showed how trim she still was.
    After she had poured herself a cup of coffee, I pushed the Rose article toward her.
    “Do you remember much about Rose’s ex-boyfriend?”
    “Aaron Dwyer?” Charlotte said. “A little. Paul was sort of friends with him. They had soccer together. And I remember always asking her if she liked kissing him. I was such a brat.”
    “What’s the story with him?”
    “Well, as I understand it now, mostly from the chitchat in the teachers’ room, they had broken up a few weeks earlier. But he claimed to be as shocked as anyone that she’d disappeared. And he had a very, very solid alibi.”
    “Which was?”
    “The entire soccer team, plus the coach. They had a game in Fairville and had pizza afterward. They were out pretty late together that night. I mean, it at least vouched for the window of time when she’d disappeared.”
    “Why’d they break up, though? Anyone know that?”
    Charlotte shrugged one shoulder slightly. “They were only sixteen… did there need to be some big reason? And whatever it was, the rumor was that he was angry at her. That she was maybe interested in someone else, and he didn’t like it. But that sounds like the sort of thing people say as an afterthought.”
    “Has anyone questioned him recently, I