You Were Never Here

by Kathleen Peacock

  Chase opens the door wide and glances at the police car. “They following you everywhere?”

  I nod.

  “They were here this morning. They searched the whole house. They thought maybe I was hiding him.” Him, not Joey. “That’s part of what’s got her so wound up: that the neighbors saw the cops tearing the house apart. She doesn’t want them thinking the police are back.”

  He waits for me to cross the threshold and then closes the door. His eyes are bloodshot and his clothes are wrinkled; I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure they’re the same clothes he was wearing last night.

  A trio of bags—duffel, laptop, camera—rests against the wall a few feet from the door. I touch the duffel bag with the toe of my sneaker.

  “Aidan dumped his stuff and left,” says Chase. “Ask me how happy my mom is to have him here.”

  “Sorry.” I follow him downstairs to the rec room. “My aunt is being . . . I don’t actually know what she’s being, but I can’t believe she kicked him out.”

  “Everyone is losing it. Myself included.” Chase sits down, hard, in the middle of the sofa. A video game is paused on the flat screen. He picks up the controller and sets it back into motion.

  I perch on the arm of the couch while, on-screen, a tiny version of Chase shoots at a bunch of what I can only assume are space aliens. Either he’s horrible at this particular game or he’s too upset to do much damage. “Where’d Aidan go?”

  Chase grunts. “He wanted to talk to Skylar.”

  Skylar . . .

  Thinking about her makes everything seem even more impossibly awful. “I saw her at the police station—just for a second. I don’t know if I should try to call her.”

  “And say what? ‘Sorry I told the police your boyfriend might be a serial killer’?”

  I flinch. Chase catches the movement. “It’s not like you guys had a choice. I’m just saying she’s upset. She might not want to see you or Aidan right now. Not that Aidan listened when I tried to tell him this.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  On the screen, the tiny pixel version of Chase is getting his ass thoroughly kicked. “I texted her this morning. After the cops were here. I’m not allowed to go over there. Mom’s never really liked Skylar all that much. Now she thinks Skylar knew.”

  I think about those pictures of classic movie monsters on the trailer walls. Some of them were the same monsters Skylar likes to wear on pins. And the ribbon holding the screenplay pages together looked so much like the ribbon I’ve seen her wear in her hair. But just as soon as those thoughts fill my head, others come rushing in. The way Skylar didn’t laugh when I told her I wanted to be the kind of person who could fight monsters. Her voice in the dark as we whispered secrets. How kind and concerned she is. That girl wouldn’t knowingly be with someone capable of such monstrous things. “She didn’t know,” I say. “There’s no way she knew.”

  “That’s what I said. But given that I didn’t know my best friend was a monster, I’m thinking I might not be the greatest judge of character.”

  “Aidan didn’t know, either.”

  Chase grunts. “Aidan’s only been here a year. Joey’s been my best friend since before first grade.” He tosses the controller. It hits the carpet with a muffled thump. “He used to be bigger than me. Did you know that?”

  I shake my head.

  “All through elementary school. I got picked on because I was small and my dad was the principal. Joey looked out for me. And now . . .” He runs a hand roughly over his face. “Aidan told me what you guys found. None of it makes any sense. You heard him up in Aidan’s room. Why feed us all that bullshit about monsters and needing to talk to Rachel if he was the one who did that to her in the first place?”

  I’ve been thinking about that, too. I’ve been wondering if we aren’t all just characters in Joey’s shitty movie script. Pieces for him to manipulate and move around. What was it Aidan said to me the day we met? Something about writers being like gods . . . It’s like Joey took that idea literally.

  “You know what really freaks me out?” says Chase.

  “Everything?”

  He continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “They impounded his car. It’s a crime scene. When the cops were here, I overheard them say they found one of Rachel’s earrings in the trunk. Just sitting there. They think it snagged on something and broke free. Up until that point, I kept thinking there must have been some kind of mistake. When I heard that, though, I realized I was just an idiot.”

  I stare at him, not following.

  “I was in his car the day after Rachel disappeared. We were trying to fix the taillights. If I had been paying more attention, if I hadn’t been so stupid, if I had just noticed the earring, then maybe none of this would be happening.”

  “Chase . . . That was after the fact. It wouldn’t have stopped anything. It wouldn’t have helped Rachel.”

  “You think so?” he asks, and his voice sounds more like a scared little kid than a seventeen-year-old varsity athlete. He looks young and frightened. He looks the way he did that night on the riverbank.

  “I know so.”

  And I do.

  There had been a moment, that night we all watched the movie down here, when Joey and I had reached for the same can of Coke. I don’t think he even noticed, but I had. Because I notice every small movement in relation to my position. Because I constantly make adjustments. Dozens, sometimes hundreds a day, to avoid coming into contact with other people.

  What if I hadn’t tried so hard that night? What if I had made a grab for the can and skimmed Joey’s hand? Would I have seen anything useful?

  Chase couldn’t have stopped what happened—I truly believe that. But me? Me, I’m a lot less certain about.

  Officer Buddy is not in a good mood by the time I slip out of Chase’s house. I guess having to babysit me while the rest of the force is out on a manhunt must kind of suck. When I try to quiz him about the earring and whether or not the police found anything else in Joey’s car, he asks what he ever did to make me hate him.

  After that, the rest of the drive is silent.

  As we approach Montgomery House, a figure detaches itself from the shadows on the porch and bounds down the steps.

  Buddy tenses. His left hand curls more tightly around the steering wheel while he reaches down toward the seat with his right.

  It takes me a second to realize that he’s reaching for his holster.

  “It’s Noah,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady even though I’m suddenly shaking. I want to yell, but yelling at a skittish, twenty-something cop who is reaching for his gun seems like a very bad idea. “It’s Noah Fraser. It’s not Joey.”

  I can visibly see the tension drain out of Buddy’s shoulders as he lets out a long breath and hits the brakes.

  Gruffly, not meeting my gaze, he tells me to get out of the car and go inside. “Do me a favor and don’t even try to sneak out again.”

  I nod weakly and climb out of the car. I’m still shaking as I slam the passenger door.

  I take one step and then two, and then Noah is there.

  “Cat . . .” He starts to reach for me but catches himself.

  I’m not that strong. I close the distance between us and press my face to his shirt. I don’t know what to do with my arms, so I leave them at my sides. Gently, carefully, he puts his hands on my shoulders, keeping the contact to where it’s safe.

  It’s not a real hug, but it’s close, and I allow myself to sink in.

  It’s like the day Noah hugged me at the mill to try to protect me. It’s like the day Riley kept me from falling and the memory of hearing him say “safe” inside Amber’s head.

  “Cat, what happened? What’s going on?”

  I don’t answer Noah right away. I don’t care that Buddy is probably watching or that being this close to someone is dangerous. I just want to feel safe. Just for a little while.

  Twenty-Eight

  AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE SEVERA
L MINUTES BUT PROBABLY isn’t really that long, I force myself to step away from Noah’s embrace. After years of never letting myself be held, the loss of the sensation feels a little like some sort of blow. “Come on,” I say, throat oddly tight. “I’ll tell you inside.”

  Once we’re in my room with the door tightly closed behind us, I tell him almost everything.

  There are only three things I leave out:

  What, exactly, I saw in Amber’s head, because some things shouldn’t be shared.

  That I kissed Aidan.

  That I’m leaving in a few days.

  I don’t know why I can’t seem to tell him that last one. Maybe because I promised to help him and leaving feels like letting him—not to mention Riley and Rachel—down. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t yet resigned myself to the idea of going, and telling Noah will make it feel real.

  He’s quiet for a long time after I finish.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask finally. We’re both sitting on my narrow bed, our backs against the wall.

  “About the wallet. About how it means I was right and Riley’s really gone. Everyone’s going to have to accept it now. Someone is going to have to tell my mother. I’m going to have to tell my mother.” He clenches and unclenches his left hand.

  “It might not mean . . . that,” I say gently. “I know you believe he’s gone, and I understand why, but we don’t really know what the trailer does—and doesn’t—prove. We don’t even know if Riley was in the script. I never saw his name, and there were pages missing.”

  “Come on, Cat . . .”

  “What?”

  “Even if you didn’t see Riley’s name, who else could Joey have been writing about?”

  “It’s Joey. I can see him hating a lot of guys in varsity jackets. Chase aside.”

  “Yeah, and how many of those guys hooked up with a girl he brought to a party—a girl he ended up dating? Even if you take the screenplay out of the equation,” Noah continues, “there’s still the wallet.”

  “Joey could have stolen it before Riley went missing or found it afterward. Maybe he just thought it would be some kind of twisted joke, finding the medal and then leaving it with Rachel . . .” I think about the wallet. Something about the wallet bothers me, but it takes me a moment to put my finger on it. That raised circle on the leather had to be from the medal, but . . . the medal had been on a long cord. That’s how Rachel had held on to it in the water: the cord had been tangled around her fingers. That cord was way too long to squeeze into that tiny slot in the wallet. Even the silver chain the medal had hung from when Riley first found it probably wouldn’t have fit.

  Noah runs a hand over his face roughly, then pushes himself to his feet. He walks over to the Styrofoam model of the solar system and taps Mars lightly, sending it spinning. “I remember you guys making this. You ran out of red paint. Riley wouldn’t shut up about it until Mom went out and got you more.”

  I don’t remember the paint or Noah being there. I just remember carrying the mobile home, taking the long way around so that it wouldn’t get caught on the hedge, trying to keep the strings from tangling.

  Tangled strings: that’s what it feels like everything is now. Bits and pieces that should form straight lines, but the threads are all too twisted for anything to make sense.

  As my gaze travels over the mobile, I try to slap a label on each Styrofoam shape, imagining each one as a piece of information.

  Riley’s disappearance. Finding Rachel. The marks on Rachel’s arms and the medal. The things I saw when I touched her at the hospital. My eyes fall back on Mars, on the spinning red sphere.

  Red . . .

  “When I touched Rachel, I saw taillights. Red taillights in the dark.”

  Noah turns to me. “So?”

  “The taillights in Joey’s car don’t work. They haven’t worked the whole time I’ve been in Montgomery Falls. It couldn’t have been his car I saw in Rachel’s head.”

  “Then how do you explain the earring the police found in his trunk?”

  “Maybe it got there after? Maybe he kept it—like a souvenir or something.” That’s what serial killers do, right? They take souvenirs. That’s what happens in all of the movies. “And there’s something else: Rachel said it was early when she left work, but the scenes I saw in her head were definitely at night. Joey went with Skylar, Chase, and me to the movies that evening, and it wasn’t full dark when we left the theater. He would have had to grab Rachel before the movie and stash her somewhere.”

  “He could have just left her in the trunk.”

  “Not his trunk. If it had been his trunk, she wouldn’t have seen the taillights later. Besides, he couldn’t have left her downtown for all that time. There’s too big a chance that someone would have heard her.” I shiver and push myself to the edge of the bed. The idea that Joey sat through an entire movie with Skylar, Chase, and me after taking Rachel is beyond creepy and messed up.

  “You’re saying he used someone else’s car to transport Rachel after it got dark . . . Maybe even to grab her in the first place . . . You’re saying finding the earring was just luck.”

  “Does that sound totally ridiculous?”

  “No, but then whose car was it?”

  “And did they know what he was using it for?”

  Noah walks back toward the bed. “You said there were things in the trailer that reminded you of Skylar. We know she had reasons to hate Rachel—and my brother—and she has a car.”

  “She never told me she hated Riley,” I say quickly.

  Noah shoots me an exasperated look, one that says I’m being obtuse. “Whose car did you guys take to the movies that night?”

  “Chase’s. Chase and Skylar picked me up in his mom’s car. Joey met us downtown.”

  “And you’re sure Joey drove his own car?”

  “He said he did. He said he had to get home before it got too late because of the taillights.”

  “But you didn’t actually see the car?”

  I try to think back to that night. The movie theater in Montgomery Falls doesn’t have a parking lot. Chase had parked a few blocks away. We ran into Joey on the walk over, but I don’t remember what direction he had been coming from. “No,” I concede. “I didn’t see his car.”

  “So it’s possible Skylar let him use her car and that’s why she asked Chase to drive.”

  “No.”

  “Cat . . .”

  I cross my arms tightly over my chest. I know I’m not being reasonable, but I can’t help it. “She’s my friend.” Maybe I hadn’t meant for it to happen, but it had.

  “We have to at least consider—”

  “Not yet. Not until we’re out of possibilities. Not unless we have to.”

  Noah stares at me for a long moment and then gives a small, tired nod. “All right. Is there anything else you remember about the trailer? Any sign that someone other than Joey could have been there?”

  I push myself to my feet and retrieve the folder from the desk.

  After separating me from Aidan, the police had dumped me in an interview room. Someone had left a pen on the table. I’d scrounged a take-out bag from the trash and written down every detail I could remember about the trailer, desperately trying to get it all out because my brain was already attempting to put as much distance between me and that small space as possible.

  I hand the list to Noah. “This is everything I could remember. Somehow, I didn’t think that they’d let us go back for a second look or that Jensen would show us the crime scene photos.”

  Noah shoots me an appreciative, approving look and then scans the list. “You didn’t tell me about the pictures with the scratched-out eyes. Harding is going to have nightmares photographing this stuff.”

  “Not Harding,” I say. “There was already someone on the way to take photos when we left. Some photographer on loan from the police department in Saint John. One of the officers was complaining about having to wait for her before they could start going through
things.”

  “I guess using Harding was a one-off. Were there really this many photos of Rachel?”

  I nod.

  “And four of you?”

  “I think so.” I glance at the window, making sure the curtains are still shut. A thin strip of sunlight falls through a small gap. I have to fight the urge to get up, to readjust, to secure. Noah is here. The cops are here—or at least Buddy is here. I’m safe. “I’m going to get a Coke. Do you want one?” I’m not really thirsty; I just need to do something before I break down and duct-tape cardboard over the window.

  “Sure,” says Noah absently, still focused on the list. “Hey, what do you mean ‘big’?”

  I pause at the door and turn back. “What?”

  He crosses the room, paper in hand, and then points to spots where I’ve jotted big next to some of the descriptions of photos. I shrug and hold my hands apart. “Not poster-sized, but close.”

  “So he blew up pictures of both you and Rachel?”

  “And some of the other girls,” I say. I head down the hall, grateful for a small break, as Noah goes back to the list.

  I don’t know why, but the fact that some of the photos had been enlarged makes the whole thing even more disturbing somehow. It’s like a regular picture wasn’t creepy enough. Wasn’t intimate enough. I mean, where do you even get something like that done?

  Downstairs, Marie is making a tuna sandwich while Brisby winds himself around her ankles, begging for a taste.

  “How long do you think the cops will be here?” she asks as I head to the fridge.

  I shrug.

  “It’s kind of unnerving, having them just sit outside. When I moved in, your aunt promised a quiet, safe building. This isn’t what I signed on for.”

  I want to say something sharp and sarcastic—because, really, she can’t honestly think any of us have any control over this—but if Jet does kick Aidan out, she’ll need Marie’s rent checks that much more. With effort, I ignore her and pull open the fridge.

  As I reach for two cans of Coke, my eyes drift to the inside of the door, to two small canisters of film.