His mouth gives a sudden downward twist. “You met the good pastor, huh? He give you a load of fire and brimstone?”
I glance at Ingrid. She’s a few feet away, hands in her pockets. “Blood and guts, more like,” I say softly. “But they’re praying for Zahra.”
“Isn’t that nice of them,” he says. “Don’t see many of his church folk here right now, though. Do you?”
“No,” I say.
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “That old man is a piece of work. Charity hasn’t talked to him in years. He didn’t have much use for me, I’ll tell you that much. If he really wanted to help out, there are ways he could.”
“I still can’t believe Zahra tried to live with him,” I say.
He hesitates for a moment. “Yeah. I don’t know what that was all about. When they were little Charity used to take the kids over for visits. But she never trusted her parents with them alone. Not after the way she was raised.” He shakes his head. “I grew up Baptist and my grandma never spared the rod, but from what she told me, her parents really took it to a whole new level.”
“But then her freshman year . . . ?” I start to ask and he gives a hard chuckle.
“Yeah. Not long after you left, actually.” He purses his lips in thought. “She was going on about salvation and sin and all that crap. I always thought maybe someone at school got into her head about it.”
I nod. It sounds out of character for Zahra—especially out of character for the Zahra I knew back then. But you have to learn to deal with a whole new social ecosystem when you start high school. Maybe she’d been feeling particularly vulnerable, and her grandparents’ religion had seemed like a welcome bit of structure.
Or maybe whatever had happened to her—whatever Tabitha keeps alluding to, whatever apparently made Zahra so anxious and unstable—had left her looking for some kind of meaning.
“Anyway,” Ron says. “She came back home after a couple weeks. Refused to talk about it. But she hasn’t talked to them since.” He shakes his head again. It looks like he’s about to say something else, but someone calls his name from another cluster of people, and he glances up. “Sorry, Ruthie, I’ve got to make the rounds. You come by the house sometime soon. I know it’d mean a lot to Charity.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks, Ron.”
I look around again for Ingrid. I’m a little startled when I find her with the cross-country team near one of the trailheads. She stands out in her purple swing coat and wool beret in the middle of all that sleek winter workout gear. Tabitha’s watching her with mild irritation.
And there’s Ben.
His eyes meet mine, and I see the faintest hint of a smirk flit across his face. I steel myself and walk over to them.
“Hey,” I say to the group at large, fidgeting with the fringe on the end of my scarf.
“There you are,” Tabitha says. “What’s up, Ruthless?”
“Hey,” I say. “Just hoping we find Zahra today.”
I can feel Ben’s eyes on me, but I force myself not to look at him.
“So the cops been all over you, or what, man?” Marcus asks Ben.
Ben nods. “Yeah. Nothing formal yet. But they’re not subtle. I spent nine hours on Friday at the station making a statement, and they’ve come to the house almost every day since with follow-up questions.”
“Your mom must be freaked, huh?” says Marcus.
“Mom, Grandma, the kids.” He pushes his hands through his hair. The top is growing out, a long, thick pompadour that flops over one eye. “Yeah, they’re all scared. Mom’s spending I don’t know how much on this lawyer.”
“Lawyer?” The girl from the party—Annika, the cross-country co-captain—does a double take. “Why do you need a lawyer? Doesn’t that just make you look guilty?”
There’s an awkward silence, and then Marcus smiles at her, not unkindly.
“You know what else makes you look guilty?” Marcus says. “False confessions and planted evidence. It doesn’t just happen on, like, podcasts and shit. Some of us get to worry about that in real life, too. Especially if we have a little . . . what’s the word?”
“Melanin,” Ben says bluntly. They’re both smiling faintly, but there’s something almost weary about their expressions.
I feel my cheeks go warm. I’d reacted the same way as Annika to the news that Ben had a lawyer. I suddenly feel like an asshole.
Annika’s eyes go very round. “Don’t you think that’s a little paranoid?” she says. “I mean . . . the cops just want to find Zahra. They’re not going to frame you or something.”
Ben just looks at her, brows furrowed, like he almost feels sorry for her. “Sure. Let’s see how hard they try to find out what really happened to a black girl whose Native boyfriend doesn’t really have a decent alibi. Let’s see just how many resources they put into that particular search.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” She recoils a little. “The cops aren’t going to just . . .”
“Oh my God, Annika, just shut up while you’re ahead.” Tabitha rolls her eyes skyward. “Your ignorance is giving me a headache.”
I’m extremely relieved when an older white woman with a megaphone suddenly climbs onto the bed of a truck, and we all go silent.
“Okay, gather up, everyone, gather up.” She’s grizzled, with a smoker’s hoarse voice and hair that washed-out color in the limbo between blonde and gray. “I’m Becks. I’m a friend of the Gaines family. Thanks for coming to help look for our girl.”
“God, she knows the weirdest people,” Tabitha mutters. I ignore her. I’m pretty sure for Tabitha “weird” just translates to “poor,” at least in this instance.
“Couple ground rules before we really get going.” Becks adjusts the volume a little. “No solo acts. Go in groups, or at least find a partner. There’ve been bears around here this summer so make some noise while you walk. Talk, or sing, or whatever. They don’t want to mess with humans. If you let them know you’re coming they’ll leave you alone.”
The thought makes the small hairs on the back of my neck arch up. Every kid in Alaska has grown up on stories of bear maulings. There was a girl a few years ago who got attacked right on the bike track. I remember seeing the pictures—the long ragged tears in her face and across her scalp, stapled together after the bear chewed on her head.
“Also, if you find anything—anything—that might have belonged to Zahra, that might be important to the investigation . . . do not touch it. The police have asked us to be very careful about that. Don’t mess with anything that might be evidence. Drop a pin on your phone and message me. My number’s on that whiteboard—go ahead and get it in your phones.”
From the expressions around me it’s clear that everyone’s picked up on what she hasn’t said: that “evidence” could be Zahra herself. Could be Zahra’s body. Most everyone is all tight-jawed and steely, but there are a few little breathy gasps, a few soft sobs from the crowd.
I turn to look around. The Key Club kids are pairing off. I see Ms. Yi from school, and a few other teachers, heading west on some trails.
Behind me, Tabitha starts to give directions.
“Okay, I think we should take some of the unpaved trails, since we’re more equipped for it. Marcus and Jeremy, you guys head north. Preston, Maggie, April, Tor, you can manage the university grounds, yeah?” She glances around. “Ruthless, how about you go with . . .”
“Me,” says Ben.
Tabitha and I both turn to stare at him. I open my mouth to say something, but before I can, he steps up to my side and winds an arm firmly through mine.
“Ruthie’s going with me,” he says again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FOR A MOMENT, I think about refusing to move. Just standing there in the parking lot, daring him to try to pull me after him. Really? You think I’m going to wander into the woods with you, when jus
t four days ago your friend had me at gunpoint? You think I’m going to trot obediently along when you screamed at me?
But then I do something else.
I squeeze his arm back. Hard, sudden, forceful. I make sure he knows that I’m there, and that I’m not afraid.
“Okay, whatever,” Tabitha says. She doesn’t look happy, but she just turns back to the others. They’re already breaking off in small groups, heading in their different directions. Her eyes fall on Ingrid as she realizes everyone else has a partner. “Oh, great, I guess I’ll be with the American Girl doll.”
I can’t make out Ingrid’s rejoinder. Ben’s already steering me sharply toward a fork in the trail.
There are dead leaves along the path, brown and gold, and the air is damp. It feels like it’s going to rain. Somewhere in the woods I can hear the croak of a raven, and then the answer of another. Probably alerting one another that there are humans coming. Ravens are smart, and work well together. More than you can say for us.
“So,” he finally says. Then he falls silent. I look at him out of the corner of my eye. His lower lip juts out, a thoughtful pout. I feel odd noticing it—the second I even register that fact I think about how many times Zahra must have kissed those lips, about how much she must have loved that full, expressive mouth.
So I’m already flustered and embarrassed when he speaks again.
“You could’ve been killed the other day,” he says.
I blink. I can’t tell if his tone is an accusation, or an apology. So I just nod.
“I mean, what were you thinking?” He kicks at a rock. It rolls down the path ahead of us. “Do you realize how crazy it is to just . . . follow someone around, when you don’t even know them?”
That word’s always rankled me. “I’m not crazy. Don’t call me crazy.”
He winces a little at that. “That isn’t what I meant . . . Look, I’m trying to apologize. I know, I suck at it, but cut me some slack here, things are kind of fucked up.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I freaked out at you. And I’m sorry about . . . you know, the gun. That was my cousin. I didn’t realize he was going to charge out there like that. He’s kind of . . . paranoid.”
“You think?” I ask.
“Well, you were sneaking around his yard,” he says. “His place has been broken into three times this year. He’s gotten twitchy.”
I look down. “We’re all a little twitchy right now, I guess.”
We’re quiet for a moment. I realize suddenly the ambient traffic sound has disappeared. We’re fully in the woods now.
“I didn’t hurt her,” he says, suddenly, softly. I wonder how many times he’s had to repeat that in the last few days. To how many people. “I wouldn’t ever hurt her.”
I can’t say “I know,” because I don’t. Not really. But I nod.
“What were you delivering that day I followed you, anyway?” I ask.
“Caribou,” he says. “I got a few of them, so I share the extra out.”
For a moment I think about that—about the kind of guy who goes out and guns down an animal when he’s angry at his girlfriend. That explains the blood on his shoe, anyway.
“Oh,” I say. “That’s . . . nice.”
He gives me a sideways look. “Glad you approve,” he says, his voice mild. “It’s important to me that white girls are comfortable with me exercising my ancestral rights.”
Blood rushes to my cheek. “Oh. I . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Relax, colonizer, I’m teasing.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Zahra hates it, too. She addresses my jerky as ‘Bambi’ if she ever sees me eating it.”
I can’t help it. I grin. “I can hear her saying that so clearly.”
I think about the stacks of books in my room; I think about Ingrid’s Bible verses. We all try to find something stable to hold on to. And for Ben, coming from a people rooted in a subsistence lifestyle, it probably goes even deeper than that.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “I . . . honestly don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just so desperate.” I fidget with the ends of my scarf, bright red against the black wool of my coat. “When I left here, Zahra and I were inseparable. I didn’t expect things to be exactly the same, but . . . so much has changed. I feel so helpless. Like I’m fumbling around in the dark. Or like . . . it’s a stranger that I’m trying to find, and I have to do it by sneaking and spying and, like, tricking people into telling me things. It’s so screwed up. But I have to do something.”
I stop abruptly, suddenly afraid that I sound like a creeper, a stalker, a crazy person. But he just nods slowly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Zahra . . . I love her so much. But she keeps everything so close to her chest. Like, I’ve never heard her mention you, but that’s no surprise. She just doesn’t talk about herself. Not her past, not her present. Not whatever she’s feeling. So when something upsets her you just have to hold fast and make it through the storm, because she’s not going to tell you what’s going on.” He stops in his tracks. We’re in a small clearing, bright with fallen leaves. “I think that’s been the problem between us all along. That’s why we broke up. I mean, that’s not what we fought about. We fought about . . .” He trails off for a moment, his cheeks suddenly getting ruddy.
“Cheating,” I say softly. “Right?”
He nods. “Some guy at work, I guess. She kept saying they were only friends, and it wasn’t anything I had to be worried about, and I wanted to believe her. But . . . I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe her, because she doesn’t let me see inside. We’ve been together over a year now and I don’t know if she’s ever been open with me, about anything.”
He sits down on the side of a fallen tree. I pause for a moment, then sit there, too, a foot or so away from him. The bark is rough with some kind of scaly fungus that’s growing across it. Nothing goes to waste out here, as long as humans don’t interfere.
“It’s so stupid,” Ben says. He’s not looking at me; I wonder if he’s talking to me, specifically, or if he’d tell anyone willing to listen right now. “She’s always there for other people. When we first met, it was just a few months after my dad died. It was a car crash—but he lingered a long time, and we had to decide to . . . you know, to remove life support. And I was just wrecked. And there’s this girl in my life who somehow just knows when I need to be distracted and when I need to be held and when I just need to . . . to be sad.” He looks a little embarrassed. “But she won’t let me do the same.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I say softly. “My mom died just a few weeks ago.”
He looks startled. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah. I haven’t exactly advertised it. And Zahra’s kind of eclipsed it.” I look down. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but . . . I’m okay. I’m getting through it. But I don’t know if I can stand losing anyone else right now.”
I look around us. The temperature’s dropped since we arrived, and I shiver a little inside my coat.
“Do you think she’s out here?” I ask.
He opens his mouth to answer. But before he can, there’s a rustling in the trees, just behind us.
I jump to my feet, images of what it could be flashing through my mind—a moose, browsing for fall berries, or a bear, ambling blindly though the trees. Or a killer. A shadow-faced man with a knife, a gun, a garrote. But then I turn and I see Ingrid, coming through a narrow gap in the trees.
“Holy shit, you scared me,” I say.
“Hi to you too,” Ingrid says. Her cheeks are flushed apple red from the cold, and there are twigs in her hair. “Sorry. We got a little turned around on one of the side trails. We’ve been quiet so we could follow your voices.”
“Ingrid, right?” Ben asks. She smiles, obviously pleased that he remembers.
“Hi, Ben. How are you holding up?”
<
br /> Before he can answer, Tabitha stumbles out from behind her. “Slow down, will you?”
Ingrid turns a smug look back toward her. “I thought you were so worried about me keeping up with your amazing athletic stride.”
Tabitha’s voice drips venom. “I just mean you can’t crash around the trails like an elephant. You’re going to ruin any evidence.”
“You’re such a . . .”
Their voices fade abruptly, as if someone’s turned the volume down on a stereo. My gaze has snagged on something, some spot on the far side of the clearing. For a moment I don’t know what I’m looking at. My mind can’t quite put the pieces together: there are trees and bushes, dirt and rocks, and something else, something small and plastic and black.
Probably just trash, I think. But I’m already on my feet, moving across the clearing. Stooping down to look.
It’s an Android, a recent model, with a cracked screen. It’s covered in dried mud, but even still I can see how the black plastic case has been decorated. Someone’s drawn delicate, unfurling vines all along the sides and back in silver Sharpie.
“Ruthie?” Ingrid asks. I realize they’ve gone quiet behind me. I don’t turn around.
I know those vines as well as I know her handwriting. As well as I know anything about her.
“Zahra,” I say.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LATER THAT NIGHT I creep up the stairs, the wood creaking softly under my feet. It’s almost three in the morning. I’ve been trying to sleep for two hours, but I give up. It’s not happening.
I don’t know why I would’ve expected it to. Do you really get to go home from a crime scene and resume life as usual? Do you find your best friend’s phone, cracked and broken in the middle of the woods, and then go to bed for a restful night’s sleep?
Within minutes of my reporting the phone to Becks, the place was swarming with cops. Cordoned off with police tape, perimeter established. All civilians instructed to clear the area and go home. They didn’t want us trampling evidence.
I Know You Remember Page 11