by R. J. Jacobs
It wasn’t Brian Peterson who was involved with Shelly.
It was Sean.
He’d been in the woods with her last night and now was covering his tracks. Maybe one of them tried to break off the relationship. Maybe they fought. Maybe the fight went too far.
My head is swimming and my insides churning with nausea. I retch, then hold back the sourness of what I might have thrown up. I’d promised myself I would never go back into a space like that. Once I did, part of me thought I’d never get back out again.
Breathe.
Every memory I have of them is changed: Shelly asking about Sean at the Petersons’ party—even drunk, her voice had sounded a little more than curious. Because she wasn’t asking as Finch’s mother.
I think of how the cooks had laughed about Shelly’s “obsession” with being young. And of Detective Marion saying Shelly had stopped wanting to see him, all of a sudden, a few weeks before she was killed. Now I understand who the person was she’d started seeing instead.
Robert Holloway had seen Brian’s car, except it wasn’t Brian who was driving it. Detective Marion was so blind with envy he could never have guessed.
Everything fits.
Except for my part in it. How was the murder weapon in my possession?
I can’t make sense of that fact now. The last phrase I heard Sean say keeps ringing in my mind. “… girl gets wiped off the face of the earth.”
He was the man Fitch had seen standing over her mother. He’d chased her, the only witness, through the woods. I picture the scratches I’d seen on her arms.
I have to warn her.
You have to go. Now.
I move down the middle of the stairs heel-toe, heel-toe, watching as the security guard stands still as a statue. The air still smells a little like Sean’s cologne, and somehow also like Lane. And like flowers. It feels warmer inside, the family’s movement having disrupted the stillness of the air. I tiptoe to the back of the house and find my shoes still sitting beside the back door where I left them, the key still tucked inside. It is a miracle they weren’t seen.
I’m slipping them on when I hear a door close. When I look up, the shadow of the guard in the black uniform moves toward me across the hall. In a second he’ll be close enough to grab me. I’ll be trapped behind him in the kitchen, I know, unless I move now. It takes half a second for me to know what to do—then instinct takes over. My hands move quickly, like a reflex, slipping the key out of the double-sided deadbolt and flinging the door open.
“Hey!” he shouts. I hear a thunder of heavy boots charge in my direction. I pass through the door, and when my feet touch the driveway, I slam the door closed behind me. I slip the key into the other side of the lock and turn it just as the knob rattles. In the precious second it takes for him to realize I’ve locked him in, I drop both keys—the tinny sound of metal against cement—and run.
I’ve nearly crossed the backyard when floodlights pop on—a jolt of white light all around, like frozen lightning across the sky. I hear a door slam open behind me as I crash into the bushes. He calls out in frustration, because he’s too late. I hop another fence, dart through another yard, and am gone.
* * *
I run—tree-named street signs flying past in backwards order. It feels like someone is watching from each house I pass, each lawn a tangle of shadows stretching toward a lantern-lit door. My first instinct is to call the police, to say what I’ve found out—but how can I tell how I know?
I’m not just afraid. I’m petrified.
For myself, and for Finch.
* * *
Just like he promised, Marion is waiting in the Walgreens parking lot when I return, sitting in the same car that he’d picked me up in earlier. The engine starts as I approach. As the lights go on, I shield my eyes and climb into the passenger seat beside him.
“You want to tell me what this is about? I was starting to worry about you.”
I’m very out of breath. I try to slow down, but it’s no use. “Can you drive me somewhere?” I ask him.
He looks at me for a second. “Where?”
“Please,” I say.
He steps on the gas and the car lurches forward.
“Hill West Shopping Center,” I tell him. It’s close to the Paramount Grille, but far enough away that he won’t be able to track me directly there. He hits his blinker as we turn out of the parking lot. “I have to tell you something important,” I say. “But it may … be hard to hear.”
“Let’s start with why we’re meeting here,” he says. “I could have come to your apartment. This looks sketchy.” His chin dips. “And it occurred to me that we’re not far from the Petersons’ place.”
He waits for me to respond, but I don’t.
“What’s at Hill West?” he asks.
“If I tell you that I did something I shouldn’t have, do you have to arrest me?”
“It depends,” he answers.
“Do you or don’t you?”
The car slows. “Did you remember something about last night?”
I can’t go back to jail. I have to set things right—warn Finch, and then disappear. To where, I don’t know, but I’ll worry about that after.
“It was Sean Peterson who was involved with Shelly, not Brian,” I blurt out. “I don’t know for how long, but it was him who met her in the park. I think he was the man I saw on top of the hill. He was the one who chased Finch when she saw him there. He chased me too before I picked her up and got away.”
He looks at me until a car horn honks and headlights flash across the windshield before setting his eyes back on the road. “Sean? The son? The one going to college? What makes you think all this?”
“I … overheard him.”
“Overheard when?” he asks, like he’s trying to sound incredulous, but his voice breaks because he knows already what I’m saying is true. The truth of it fits with something he’d sensed before now.
I point at the turn I want him to take. “Take a right up here.”
I watch his throat bob as it swallows. I find my phone and text the photos I took of the Porsche tires to his number. His hands grip the wheel while I open my shopping bag. “I couldn’t find the phone. I took samples off Brian’s shoes, but only the tires matter now. I just sent the photos to you. I’m sure they’ll match what was in the park.”
He glances down at the Ziploc bags I set beside him. His breathing speeds up. “If you went into that house, it’s breaking and entering. Even if you’re right, even if they match, they wouldn’t hold up in court because of how you got them.”
“You … have to figure that part out. You said you know how to get around things. Another right,” I say.
He turns. “What’s at Hill West?” he asks.
But I can’t say, I know he’ll follow, try to stop me. I can’t risk that now. I can already see the shopping-center lights, glowing butter-yellow against the dark sky. The Paramount Grille is just on the other side of the hill.
“Take these.” I motion toward the bags. “Just one more thing I need to do. A little farther up here.” I point.
“I’m taking you to the police, Jessie. We’ll talk to them together. You’ll tell them what you know. I’ll sit right beside you.”
He still hasn’t heard about me running.
As we ease to a stop, my hand is already on the door handle.
“They were already at my apartment. I … had to get away from them. You can tell them what you need to about me,” I say. “Thank you, Detective.”
Then I’m out the door.
I’m on the sidewalk, crossing an alleyway as he’s yelling out my name.
* * *
The streets are busy with the rush of passing traffic. Ahead of me, I see a bright green sign lit up against the gray-orange night sky, and the name written in cursive there clicks in my head—it’s the place Sean mentioned. As I walk, I notice a woman across the parking lot leading her two kids away from me. In her eyes I see … the word for
when you’ve seen someone before … a look of recognition. Am I imagining it, or is she hurrying her kids along because she knows who I am? I can’t tell. I check the time on my phone and step against the side of a column, where I can see the entrance Finch would be coming through. The seconds seem like hours as I try to keep still.
The parking area beside the restaurant has only a few cars, none of which look like something Finch would drive. Two teenage girls stand beside the front door as if they are waiting for someone to arrive.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up when I think of Shelly’s SUV brushing past me just one night ago. Now, I’m following her daughter. The daughter everyone, even Detective Marion, assumes I envy.
I have envied her perfect life, her luck in being adopted into a perfect family. Is she aware of her luck, or has she not considered it much? I wonder why she would go out with friends so soon after what happened, but I realize that of course she wants to. She probably wants to think about anything aside from her mother being gone. And naturally, she wants to see Sean.
And she has no idea.
How did she not recognize him?
I hope he isn’t waiting inside, wearing that same forced smile I saw him welcome her with at his graduation party. She didn’t know who she was dealing with that night—and neither did Owen or Shelly. Neither did I.
I know Sean will arrive soon, but I don’t see the Porsche anywhere, or either of the SUVs from the Petersons’ garage. Is he aware that Robert saw him? Is Brian aware of his and Shelly’s affair? Is Lane? What must it take for their lives to look so perfect? Perfection calls for attention to every single detail. It requires discipline and calculation, like the fine movements of a knife against a cutting board.
I watch a few cars come and go, and then a set of red taillights appears—small, low to the ground. A bright green Mini Cooper. The girls beside the door seem to notice the car too. One drops her phone into the purse she’s carrying.
I swallow. I know it’s probably Finch arriving. I squint, trying to peer through the tinted windows as she slows down. I pray she’s alone, but I can’t tell. I can see the dark tombstone-shaped headrests, but nothing more. I may have only one chance to warn her before my time runs out.
As she gets out of her car, I try to put my words together, to organize what I need to communicate to her.
Your boyfriend is a murderer. He murdered your mother. The man you saw standing over her body was him. He chased you, wanting to kill you too.
“… girl gets wiped off the face of the earth.”
I clear my throat.
I don’t know how I’ll talk, but I have to. Her life may depend on it.
She closes her car door with a soft push and looks around, rubbing the back of her neck like it’s sore. She waves at two girls standing near the restaurant’s front door, who both wave back. We’re close enough that when the restaurant’s front door opens, I hear the sounds from inside—a girl’s quick laugh, a guitar solo everyone knows. I jog out into the lot, between two cars, speeding up so that I see her—and so she sees me.
I clear my throat.
“Fin …,” I start, then halt as my throat catches. I shake my hands out nervously, and try again, “Hi.”
She jumps a little.
I raise my hands to my mouth like I am stifling a cough. “I’m sorry,” I say through my fingers. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Finch’s eyes widen before she looks side to side, then toward her friends by the door.
From the corner of my eye, I see her friends stop. They look at each other. I steady myself to not lose my nerve. I keep rubbing my fingers and thumb together like Ms. Parsons showed me to stay in the moment. “It’s just me, I’m alone. I have to tell you something.”
But she looks confused. “What are you doing here?” she asks, sounding frightened.
“It’s about last night,” I stammer. “You’re not safe. Your mom … and Sean.”
Finch steps back, wobbling, reaching for a car’s sideview mirror to keep herself from falling. Neon from the restaurant window shines in her eyes. It’s amazing how much she looks like Shelly James, I think in a flash. Or how much Shelly had looked like her.
“Wait, what?” Her voice rises. “Stop. Okay? Stop! You’re that stalker girl.”
Something is wrong. I’ve misunderstood the situation.
“You’re not safe,” I tell her again, searching for the right words. The more nervous I get, the harder talking becomes. My head fills with a noise that makes it hard to hear my own thoughts.
Finch steps back again, and I stop cold.
She looks at me like she has never seen me before.
It makes me doubt, for the first time, if I really picked her up from the side of the road last night.
I step back again, trying to understand her expression. Finch James seems to be looking at a complete stranger.
“You’re that stalker girl,” she says again, even louder the second time, glancing to where her friends are standing.
They start toward her again. One is looking at her phone but drops it to her side. The other steps off the curb and calls out, “Finch?”
I stop rubbing my thumb and forefinger together. I meant to do the right thing, but I can see that coming here was a mistake. Finch’s eyes glisten like she might burst into tears. I know I need to run.
“What are you doing here?” she screams, her voice carrying like a shot across the parking lot. “Someone help me!”
More people rush toward us like a flock of shadows. I shake my head as I raise my hands.
“No, no, no. I just want you to be safe. Sean Peterson …”
But Finch is screaming, “Help! Oh my God, help! What the fuck!”
She slips as she tries to turn, landing on her knee, crying out from the pain. Then her friend from the doorway is at her side, her hand under Finch’s arm. When Finch looks over her shoulder at me, her expression has changed so much that she looks like an entirely different person.
Across the parking lot, a boy yells out her name. Her friend helps her stand up, and I watch as she merges into a group. I see a finger point at me. I step back again, my shoes rippling neon-lit puddles. When I see a phone light up, I turn to run.
I feel kids watching as my feelings chase each other like ghosts inside my chest, swirling and fighting. Why is Finch so afraid of me? Doesn’t she know, after I found her on the side of the road, that I would never hurt her? Last night, she’d seemed so thankful after she climbed into my car. But now she didn’t seem to remember that at all.
Did I dream all of it?
When I told Detectives Marion and Williams I’d seen Finch, they’d both said that was impossible. But I was sure, until just now.
I know she was real. I drove her to the police station.
There’s something I don’t understand—invisible but painful, like a sharp rock inside a shoe. A small fact that explains everything.
Maybe she’s confused, I tell myself. Maybe something’s happened to her memory.
Or maybe something’s happened to mine. Even as I replay the sequence from last night over and over—my being recognized at the party, asked to wait, walking to my car, seeing the man on the hill, finding Finch along the road—I know there is a part of the story I’m not seeing.
There has to be.
When I turn to walk away, two police cars enter the parking lot.
I cut through the space between the restaurant and the shopping center, then hop a guardrail. I feel the blacktop under my shoes, then grass. In the distance, a siren begins to wail. Old sets of curtains and vertical blinds in shop windows shimmer in the blue light. I sprint around a corner, then cross another parking lot before jumping over a ditch. Cool, muddy water splashes over my ankles, soaking my shoes and the bottoms of my jeans. I follow the ditch, then cut up through another lot. From there, I cross through a drainpipe so big a car could drive through it. Each step is a heavy splash. I kick away clumps of leaves as I move i
nto the dark. I follow the sound of the water through the end of the tunnel, then push open a drain—wet metal slipping against my hands, my shoulders struggling with the weight. I try to stand but fall down an embankment, rolling down the hill until I stop at the edge. The rush of water has turned to a powerful flow. My body is beaten, the starts of bruises already forming under my wet shirt.
In front of me is the rush of the Cumberland River, swollen and muddy from the recent rain. I catch the flicker of a flashlight on the wet drain behind me just as I dive into the water.
15
Most people won’t do what it takes to stay hidden. Detective Marion had said that. Did he do what it took? Will I?
I can’t see through the gray-brown water. Reflex forces me to breathe, at least to try, but water fills my mouth, my lungs. It tastes a little like metal. The river is full from the rain the days before. It pulls like it wants to swallow me. I push to the surface and gasp for air as I try to blink the water from my eyes. My arms flap under me like a dog’s paws, hands sweeping beneath me, like I’m dragging myself through outer space. I have only a basic idea of how to swim, so my struggling only manages to keep me afloat as the current drags me away.
I have the thought that if I live, I’ll be very, very cold once the shock wears off.
A branch scrapes my shoulder as it floats past. A small wave slams into me, forcing my head under water again. Chilly as it is, the water burns the inside of my nose. I draw another breath when I come up and search the surface for any straight line that could be the riverbank. I see only water, rushing soundlessly in every direction, little waves rising into angry peaks. I don’t know how far the river has taken me, but I do know I will drown if I stay in it. A part of me would rather die than face the police. But a stronger part won’t let me give up.