Laney
The apartment on Oakey Boulevard looks exactly like the photos Laurie sent me two weeks ago, except everything feels wrong.
I stand in the doorway with keys heavy in my hand, the spare set Laurie mailed me with a pink Post-it note stuck to them. "Can't wait for you to get here! We're going to have SO much fun! Love you!"
That was twelve days ago.
The apartment is silent. Not the comfortable silence of an empty home, but the heavy, suffocating kind that presses against my eardrums and makes my heart race. I flip the light switch.
"Laurie?" My voice cracks. "You here?"
No answer. Not that I expected one.
I move into the space and sweep my eyes over the small living room. My sight catches on familiar things, the thrifted couch we picked out together online, the string lights Laurie hung across the window, her collection of plants lined up on the windowsill. Everything exactly where it should be.
But covered in dust.
I move closer to the plants. They're all dead or dying. Shriveled brown leaves, bone-dry soil. Laurie would never let her plants die. She talked to them every morning, gave them names, sent me updates about "Fran the Fern" and "Pattie the Pothos."
My hands are shaking.
I force myself to move deeper into the apartment, checking each room.
The bathroom, toothbrush still in the holder, makeup scattered across the counter.
The bedroom we were supposed to share until we could afford a bigger place.
Her bed is unmade, clothes draped over a chair, her phone charger plugged into the wall with no phone attached.
Everything frozen in time.
The kitchen is worse.
I open the fridge, and the smell hits me immediately.
Spoiled milk, rotting produce, leftovers growing mold in take-out containers.
I check the dates on everything, the milk expired five days ago.
The yogurt, six days. A half-eaten burrito in a to-go container has a receipt stapled to the bag: Sunday, 9:47 PM.
The night of her last shift.
She came home. She ate. And then...
What?
I close the fridge and lean against the counter, trying to breathe through the panic clawing up my throat.
The dead plants. The spoiled food. The unmade bed.
It all points to the same thing: Laurie hasn't been here in at least a week.
She didn't quit her job. She didn't ghost me.
She didn't decide Vegas wasn't for her and run home.
Something happened to her.
I slide down to sit on the kitchen floor, knees pulled to my chest, and let myself fall apart for exactly sixty seconds. That's all I can afford. Sixty seconds of gasping sobs and terror and the overwhelming wrongness of being in this apartment without her.
We've never been apart for more than a few days. Never. Even when she moved here ahead of me, we texted constantly. Morning coffee photos. Outfit checks. Random memes. Goodnight, love you.
Seven days of silence, of my twin being gone, and I felt it. I knew something was wrong, but I let my boss convince me I was overreacting. I let the police tell me to wait. I wasted so much time.
My phone buzzes.
I scramble to check it, hope flaring so bright it hurts. But it's not Laurie. It's Madison.
Hey, wanted to make sure you're okay. Also realized I wasn't clear earlier.
We were PLANNING to go to Vine and Crimson but changed our minds last minute.
Ended up at the club inside the Korolyov instead.
Laurie left before we changed our minds.
Don't know if that helps. Sorry I didn't remember sooner.
I read it three times.
Vine and Crimson. They were planning to go there. Laurie knew about it. What if she changed her mind about going? What if she decided to meet them there after all but they'd not told her about the change in plans? What if she went looking for them?
My breath whooshes out of me.
I push myself up off the floor and wipe my face. No more crying. No more falling apart. Laurie needs me to be smart and strong.
I take photos of everything. The dead plants, the spoiled food, the receipt from Sunday night. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all evidence. Then I walk through the apartment one more time, looking for anything else that might help.
In Laurie's bedroom, I find her laptop on the desk. Dead battery. I plug it in and wait for it to boot up, rifling through her drawers while the screen loads. Clothes. Jewelry. A journal I don't read because even now, even terrified, I respect her privacy.
The laptop comes to life. Password protected.
I try our birthday. Wrong.
I try her middle name. Wrong.
I try the name of our childhood dog. The screen unlocks.
Her browser history shows the last thing she looked at before she disappeared. I scan through it quickly, social media, a blog she follows, a few shopping sites. Then I see it: a Google search from Sunday night at 10:23 PM.
Vine and Crimson, Las Vegas, reviews
She was researching the bar. Thinking about going. Maybe trying to decide if it was worth it, or if she should just stay home like she'd told Madison.
I keep scrolling. More searches earlier in the week show she was getting used to the area. Nothing unusual. Normal searches for someone new to the city.
I screenshot everything and email it to myself. Then I close the laptop and look around the room one more time. There has to be something else. Some clue about what happened, where she went, who took her…
My phone buzzes again. Unknown number.
I answer without thinking. "Hello?"
Heavy breathing. Then a man's voice, accented, speaking English but with something Eastern European underneath. "You're looking for your sister."
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. "Who is this?"
"Someone who knows where she is."
"Where? Where is she? Is she okay—"
"Vine and Crimson. Nine PM. Come alone, or you'll never see her again."
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone, heart hammering so hard I can barely think.
It's a trap. It has to be a trap. No one just calls and offers to help find a missing person. No one except…Except maybe whoever took her in the first place.
I dial 911 and just as I’m about to stab the call button with my thumb, I hesitate.
What if this is my only chance to find her? What if I call the police and they don’t take me seriously, again?
I delete the numbers from the screen and open the Uber app with shaking hands to request a car. Vine and Crimson. The bar Madison mentioned. The place Laurie was researching before she vanished, the place I was told by a man I don’t know to meet him there in a little under an hour.
I'm going. Alone. Like they said. Because I'm not stopping until I find my sister.
The Uber arrives in twelve minutes. The driver tries to make small talk but gives up when I don't respond.
The Strip glows in the distance as we drive, all bright lights and false promises. Somewhere in this city, my sister is alive. I can feel it. That twin connection, that bone-deep certainty that she's still breathing, still fighting, still waiting for me to find her.
The Uber pulls up to Vine and Crimson at 8:53 PM. Early. Good. I want to scope it out first, see what I'm walking into.
The bar looks exactly like the Google images. Dim lighting visible through dirty windows, cheap drinks advertised on a flickering sign, the kind of place that caters to locals who want to forget they live in Vegas.
I pay the driver and step out onto the sidewalk. The air is still hot, desert heat radiating up from the concrete. Music thumps from inside the bar. Laughter. The clink of glasses.
Normal sounds.
But nothing about this feels normal.
I check my phone one more time. No response from Madison. No missed calls from Laurie. No miracle text saying this is all a misunderstanding and she's fine.
Just me, alone, about to walk into a bar that may be the last place Laurie was seen.
I take a deep breath and push open the door.