Next Day Gone

by J C Wing

  “The windows are amazing. I saw them from outside, but they look different from in here.”

  Edie smiled at him when he turned to look at her. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

  “You made them?”

  She chuckled at the surprised look on his face. “I did. I love being a psychologist. It’s the one thing I knew I wanted to be since I was young. I can’t imagine not doing what I do, but still, it gets heavy sometimes. Sit,” she told him as she dropped gracefully into an oversized chair, folding her legs beneath her. “This,” she indicated with a swirl of her finger as she looked up at the windows, “is an artistic kind of thing. I get to create with it, use my hands. It’s my own kind of therapy.”

  “You’re very talented,” Drew told her, realizing there was something similar about each of the panels. “You must like bears.”

  It took a moment for Edie to answer. “I do. But those are all for Willow.”

  Drew turned and looked at her. His brow was furrowed, and she could tell he was working hard to understand.

  “I know your school mascot was a bear …”

  Edie nodded, then sighed when she realized that his grandfather had passed before Drew’s first birthday. The juju bears were his thing. Obviously, that was something that hadn’t been carried along by anyone else in his family.

  “It was, but she didn’t care about that. Willow loved cinnamon juju bears. It was something between her and her dad. They were very close.”

  Drew looked up at the windows again and Edie watched as his eyes went from one to the other picking out the bear in each frame. “I never knew that.” His voice was quiet, and Edie felt a surge of emotion for this boy and the girl who never got the chance to raise him.

  Edie waited for Drew to find a comfortable spot on the couch. Both she and Rosie watched the boy. Thoughts were heavy in Edie’s mind, and she waited him out like she did her patients. It was better not to push. The people that came to see her did so for a reason. Edie found that when they were allowed to begin the conversation, the words that were finally spoken were the most important ones.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me,” Drew began. “I mean, you don’t know me, and you were friends with my mom so long ago …”

  “I want to talk with you, Drew,” Edie assured him. “I should have come and introduced myself to you years ago. Things have been,” she paused, “strange between me and the Larsens for a long time. Not at all like they were before …” She put her arm out and lowered her fingers. Rosie laid down without hesitation, her fluffy tail wrapping around her body and covering the tip of her nose. “What I said earlier is true. You’re my family. Things are just complicated. I didn’t want to overstep.”

  Drew watched her. Her thick red hair was piled loosely on top of her head, errant strands falling to frame her face. She looked much the same as she did in the photos he’d seen of her with his mom. Her features had changed with maturity, but she still had the freckles and the upturned nose. When she smiled at him, he could see it reach her eyes, and it wasn’t hard for him to understand why she and his mom had been best friends.

  He cleared his throat, and even after that had been done, he found it hard to find words. Edie waited him out.

  “I’m not sure if you read about Paige Barlow …”

  “The girl who was killed at the school. Winston.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Drew said. “My school. I’ve gone there since seventh grade.” He swallowed. “I knew Paige,” he told her, his voice cracking. “Uh, Paige was my girlfriend.”

  Edie let the words sit for a second. She’d heard about the murder, of course. She kept track of things like that. The Larsens had been drug back into the media again, although what they’d written about Drew had been minimal thus far.

  “I’m so sorry, Drew.” She reached over and grabbed a box of tissues that sat on a table at the end of the couch. He waved it away at first, but when she didn’t move, he pulled one out of the box.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” he told her. “I’m putting you in danger by talking to you.” He sniffed and scrubbed at his eyes with the tissue. “I’m being incredibly selfish. I was told not to say a single thing, I was threatened that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, other people would die.”

  Edie dropped the box back on the table and unfolded herself from the chair. She leaned forward and stared hard at Drew. “You were threatened?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Who threatened you, Drew?”

  He looked up, caught her gaze and held it. “Henry Mills. He’s always gone by Hank at school. He’s the one who killed Paige.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  Drew nodded. “I also know he didn’t do it alone. It’s connected, Dr. Heath.”

  “Call me Edie, and what’s connected?” Edie had a sick feeling that she already knew the answer.

  “They haven’t shared this with the media yet. They’re keeping it a secret for right now, but it’s the Sleeping Beauty Strangler. Or someone who wants us to think that it is. The police don’t know for sure, but they suspect maybe the girls that died when you were my age. My mom … they’re connected to Paige somehow. They think I might be the link.” He shook his head in frustration. “I know too much, but in reality, it doesn’t feel like I know anything at all because none of it makes sense.”

  Drew looked away but Edie reached out and took his chin in her fingers, bringing his eyes to meet hers once again. All at once, Edie forgot about being a psychologist as she watched her best friend’s son.

  “There’s more, right? You haven’t told me enough to fill in the blanks.”

  “I saw it,” Drew said, choking up.

  “You saw what?”

  “Paige …”

  Edie’s stomach clenched. “You saw her murder?”

  “No …” Another shake of the head. “I saw her after … she … after she was dead. They’re keeping that out of the news reports, too.”

  “Oh, Jesus …”

  “They’re trying to protect me, but—"

  Edie moved to the couch next to Drew. She pulled him into her arms and he let her. Rosie stood quietly and approached her owner, sensing something was awry. Edie held Drew tightly and he finally broke. He was terrified, and the strain to keep everything to himself had been even greater than he’d realized.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Edie soothed. She wanted to push him, but she knew he needed a minute. She remembered what it felt like when she’d found out Willow had been killed. The world had swallowed her up that day, and the empty feeling Willow left behind had been filled with a sharp, agonizing pain. All these years later, Edie still felt it.

  “Rosie, up.”

  The command was quiet, but Rosie obeyed. She hopped onto the couch and nestled most of her body on Drew’s lap. He buried his hands into her fur and hugged her close to him.

  Edie jumped when the alarm on her phone suddenly beeped from inside her pants pocket. She scrambled to retrieve it and silence the noise. Her last patient of the day would arrive in fifteen minutes and she had to be ready.

  “Do you have any idea who else is involved?” Edie reached up and pushed the hair off Drew’s forehead. It was darker than Willow’s had been, but the resemblance between him and his mother was uncanny.

  “I have no idea, but I’m afraid.”

  Rosie made a noise in the back of her throat. She was a perceptive creature and felt the spike of anxiety that had risen in Drew’s body.

  “Hey, look at me.” Edie held Drew’s face between her palms. She waited a few seconds until he was focused on her. “You showing up here wasn’t random. You looked me up and you drove over here because something inside told you I would help. You did the right thing.” She swallowed. “I loved your mom, Drew.” Tears glistened in Edie’s eyes. “She was my very best friend in all the world, and I will always love her. I was there with her the whole time she was pregnant with you, I held her hand while you were being born. I felt like
dying after she was taken away. I understand. I get where you’re coming from.”

  “You said there was weirdness between you and my family, but I don’t understand why.”

  Edie took a deep breath. “They always believed I knew more than I did. They were sure I knew more about the boy who got her pregnant. Your dad. But I didn’t. They wanted me to tell them who killed her, but I didn’t know who that was. I did everything I could to help, but I was in the dark just as much as everyone else was.”

  Drew nodded. “I feel the same way. I’m right in the middle of this, and I can’t figure it out. I can’t work out how Hank fits in, how he could be connected with the person who killed Mom. When she died, he couldn’t have been much more than a year old. If the other guy he’s talking about is the original killer, why would he come back now?”

  Edie reached back and grabbed the tissues again. She pulled a few out for herself before handing the box to Drew.

  “There are dots that need to be connected,” she told him, standing up. “Can you stay here? Does your grandmother know where you are?”

  “She does. As long as I answer her calls and texts, I’m okay.”

  “Can you sit tight for an hour? This is my last patient, then I’m done for the day. Here …” She moved to a credenza across the room. She opened a drawer and pulled a notepad and a pen from it. “Write down whatever you can think of. Any detail. What Hank said to you. Anything at all that comes to your mind. An hour. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Drew nodded at her and took the paper and pen from her outstretched hands. “Okay.”

  “Eat and drink whatever you want. Watch TV, hell, rearrange the furniture if you want, just please be here when I get back.”

  She turned and headed toward her office and Drew’s eyes wandered around the room. It was comfortable and warm, not overly maintained like his grandmother’s house was. There was a blanket tossed over the back of the couch, and there was a stack of board games on the corner of the coffee table. Things weren’t organized just so. There were knick knacks, or visual static as Elias called them, on the mantel and the top of the credenza, but it looked like they hadn’t been dusted in a while. There was a tray in the foyer for wet shoes, and a pair of bright red rain boots that lay discarded on the floor about a foot away from the tray.

  Drew’s eyes moved up and found a photograph hanging on the wall. He moved his fingers in Rosie’s fur and she was still, uninterested in moving from her spot on his lap. It was a little boy, maybe seven or eight, that grinned at him from the frame. He had red hair and brown eyes that sparkled behind a pair of wire rimmed glasses.

  “Shit,” Drew sighed. There was no way that kid didn’t belong to Edie. A huge wave of guilt washed over him as he stared at the little boy. “Forgive me, Rosie.” The dog looked up and Drew caught a glimpse of her two-toned stare. “I think I just put your humans in danger.”

  “Awroo …” she said quietly, then dropped her fuzzy head back into his lap again.

  FAMILY HISTORY

  “His name is Dean,” Edie told him as she buttered slices of bread. “He just turned nine. My dad always picks him up from school on Fridays and takes him out to dinner. They’re having a sleepover tonight.”

  “I’m not messing up dinner plans with your husband or anything, am I?” Drew asked.

  “You’re not messing up any plans,” Edie reassured him. “I don’t have a husband. I lived with Dean’s dad for a while, but it didn’t work out for either one of us.”

  “Does Dean get to spend a lot of time with him?” Drew sat on a stool at the large island in Edie’s navy blue and white kitchen drinking Cheerwine soda from a glass bottle. Rosie was happily munching kibble from a big silver bowl near the fridge.

  “No,” Edie sighed. “That’s one of the reasons it didn’t work out for us.”

  “That was rude of me to ask that question,” Drew said, apologetically. “That’s none of my business.”

  Edie gave the boy a smile. “Relax. I met Bailey in college. I went to UGA,” she tilted her head, “that’s University of Georgia, by the way. That’s where I got my Master’s. We were living together when I got pregnant. I didn’t graduate until Dean was about a year old, but Bailey hit the road long before he was born.”

  Drew moved the bottle across the counter with his fingers. “That sucks.”

  Edie bit the inside of her cheek. At least Dean had a mom. Drew had grown up without either one of his parents.

  “You know, families are made up in all different ways. Bailey didn’t want to be a dad, so it was probably better he didn’t stick around. He wanted to stay in Athens, and by that time, I was ready to come back home again. I was raised by a single parent, and when I brought Dean home, Dad was over the moon. I was twenty-five then. I wasn’t your age and scared like Willow was when she had you.”

  Drew took another drink of his cherry flavored soda. “Did you leave because of what happened to Mom?”

  Edie nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t right away. I stuck around for about five years, got my degree. I spent a lot of time with you back then, but I know you don’t remember that. I kept hoping they’d find some sort of clue, kept thinking they’d find the person who killed Willow, but it got harder and harder to stay. After I graduated, I took off for Georgia.” The bread sizzled when she flipped the sandwiches in the pan. “You know what happened, right?”

  “You mean the night she died?” Edie nodded. “G-Ma doesn’t talk about it much. She doesn’t avoid it when I ask, but it’s hard for her.”

  “Sure it is. What about Elias?”

  “Elias is cool. I hang out with him a lot. He talks about her. He misses her.” He played with the bottle, his fingers wet from the condensation on the glass. “I’ve looked it up online. What I know is what the newspapers printed.”

  Edie placed two perfectly toasted grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate in front of Drew. Then she gave him a bowl of tomato soup and handed him a spoon.

  “There’s salad, too, if you want it. You need another soda?”

  He watched Edie, wondering if she would do what all the other adults did that knew his mom.

  “You’re seventeen years old, Drew. She’s your mom. I think I knew her better than anyone else, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  He looked hopeful, yet his shoulders sagged. “Yes, please to the soda,” he said, “and thanks.”

  Edie handed him a sleeve of saltines and another bottle of soda, then came around and sat next to him, her dinner spread before her.

  “I started applying for a ton of scholarships the second we started our junior year. I’d taken both the ACT and the SAT, and if there was any money I thought I might get my hands on, I applied for it. Dad worked as a plumber. His salary was decent, but I wanted to do all I could to pay for school on my own. My GPA was high, and I got lucky.” She took a bite of her sandwich, knowing she wouldn’t eat much more once she got into the story. She thought about Willow every single day, but she hadn’t talked about her, or the night she died, much in the past several years.

  “I’ll be paying off student loans till I’m old and gray,” she said with a humorless smile, “but I got a lot of help those first four years. I signed up to go on a weekend long visit at Mars Hill University. It was a meet and greet kinda thing with some of the profs, and upper classmen were there to show us around and basically sell us on the school. I really wanted Willow to go. She told me she wasn’t interested, and you were tiny. Not quite three weeks old. Corinne said she was helping with dinner that night and mentioned that she might want to go. Your grandmother told her she’d take care of you. My guess is that your mom knew you were safe, so she hopped in her car and came to the university.” Edie reached up and scratched the side of her face. “I didn’t know she was coming. She called, but we’d been asked to turn our phones off for the evening’s activity. I forgot and didn’t turn it on until the next morning.”

  Edie didn’t say it, but they both knew that by that time, Willow was
already dead.

  Drew looked away when he heard a noise across the room. He watched as Rosie’s tail disappeared through a cut out in the back door. He watched the dog door without speaking, his mind on the night his mother died.

  “I read that she wasn’t killed at the school.”

  “No.” Edie studied Drew. She was trained to sense distress. This was not an easy conversation, but the boy seemed to be holding up. “Someone hit her so hard they knocked her out. The autopsy showed blunt force trauma and swelling of the brain. The parking lot at the trailhead of Crabtree Falls is about a forty-minute drive from the Mars Hill campus. No one knows how long she was unconscious. She could have woken up after a few minutes. She could have been out the whole time.”

  Drew sniffed and pushed his plate away. He’d only eaten half of one sandwich. The soup remained untouched.

  “I hope she was asleep.”

  Edie gave him a silent nod. “Me, too.”

  “All the girls were strangled to death.”

  “Yes.”

  “Elias told me Crabtree Falls was Mom’s favorite place.”

  Edie nodded again. “He’s right. It was. She loved to hike just about everywhere, but your grandfather introduced her to the falls when she was little. She loved being outside. She played baseball a lot with some kids we went to school with. One of them was a suspect in her murder.”

  “Zac Roth.”

  Edie cleared her throat. Willow had asked her to keep what happened that night in the pool house a secret. Edie broke that promise after Willow died. Zac was questioned, and after a short time admitted to what he’d done. Several more hours of questioning and a polygraph later, police cleared Zac of the crime. He still remained on Edie’s suspect list. She’d seen Willow fall that night. She’d seen all the blood when the skin on her chin had split. She’d heard Zac’s words, witnessed first-hand how angry he’d been, and she’d run her fingers over the bruised skin on Willow’s neck. Some people got away with things. Some people, like Zac in Edie’s opinion, were just incredibly good liars.