I retrieve the crowbar.
“Cat . . .”
Noah reaches for me, but I sidestep him. I face off against the door and swing at the lock with all my strength. The impact sends shock waves up my arm and the noise echoes through my head, but I swing a second and then a third time. Again and again, I hit the lock. Physically, I’m not as strong as Noah, but that doesn’t matter: the cumulative force of all those blows adds up. I don’t need to hit it hard enough to obliterate it; I just need to hit it hard enough to finish the job.
The latch breaks free, leaving splintered wood in its wake.
Both Noah and I stare at the door.
I’m scared to move, scared to push it open, but when Noah takes a step forward, I know I have to stop him. I can’t let him go in there. Not until I know what’s inside.
With one hand, I push him back; with the other, I grab my flashlight. Screwing up every last ounce of courage I have, I step toward the door just as a floorboard groans above our heads.
Thirty-One
I GRAB NOAH’S HAND AND PULL HIM THROUGH THE BASEMENT. Past the sofa, down the hallway, into the room with the washing machine and the wall of tools. He crouches next to the window and laces his fingers, forming a step so that I can reach the frame and haul myself through.
I turn back to the house as the slam of car doors cuts through the night.
“Noah.” My voice is a strangled cry as I realize he’s not following.
He shakes his head. “I can’t. Not until I know. Just go.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
Conflicting emotions sweep across his face. He swears, half turns away, turns back, swears again, and then scrambles up. He slices his cheek on a stray shard of glass but doesn’t cry out.
I pull him to his feet. Gloved hand in gloved hand, we race for the safety of the field and the abandoned baseball diamond. A spotlight floods the yard behind us as a voice yells, “Stop!”
“Go.” Noah shoves me toward a tangle of bushes just past the property line. I trip and stumble forward several paces and then end up in a crouch in the shadows. Too late, I realize he hasn’t followed. Instead, he’s walking back the way we came, hands held up.
“Stop!” yells the voice again.
This time, Noah listens. He should look small, surrounded by all that light, but he doesn’t.
“On your knees,” says the voice, and Noah complies, kneeling in the grass as two officers approach him. One has a gun drawn, and the sight makes my thundering pulse swell until it seems to drown out all other sound.
I watch them twist Noah’s arms roughly behind his back. They cuff him and then haul him to his feet as Jensen strides across the yard. The chief gets right in Noah’s face, yelling words I can’t make out over the pounding in my head.
Paul Harding hovers in the background. Pale and nervous. Ghoul-like in the light.
Noah says something to Jensen. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make Jensen stop yelling. It’s enough to make him turn and look at Harding.
Their voices come rushing in as some of the pressure behind my ears pops.
“—just a kid,” Harding is saying. “You can’t take anything he says seriously.”
Jensen tells one of the officers to go down to the basement. “Look for a gray door with a broken latch,” he says.
“You can’t search without a warrant.” Harding’s voice rises in pitch; it’s almost a wail.
“You called to report an intruder in your house,” snaps Jensen. “This one could have an accomplice. They could still be inside. We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t go down and check.”
Harding takes a step back, his mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on land. “I was wrong. He wasn’t inside. No one was inside.”
But no one listens.
As the officer walks toward the house, Jensen tells Harding not to follow, that he’ll throw him in handcuffs if he sets so much as a pinky inside before they finish their search. “For intruders,” he adds, voice heavy with sarcasm.
Jensen leaves Harding sputtering and Noah standing in the middle of all that light and walks toward the very edge of the yard.
“You just going to let Noah Fraser take the fall?” he asks, coming to a stop on the property line. I’m deep in the shadows, there’s no way he can see me, but I stand anyway. Noah may have wanted to throw himself on his sword for me, but that doesn’t mean I have to let him.
Jensen nods approvingly. “Good girl.”
Bad girls don’t go to New York. They end up handcuffed and alone in an empty police interrogation room in Canada.
I guess that stupid T-shirt of Lacey’s really did get it wrong.
I try to figure out how long I’ve been here, but with no clocks and no windows, seconds feel like minutes and minutes feel like hours. By the time the door finally opens, I’m practically crawling out of my skin, and even the sight of an angry Chief Jensen can’t stop me from leaping to my feet. “What was in the basement? Was it Riley? Did you find him?”
Jensen strides across the room, all roiling energy. He tosses a folder onto the table and crosses his arms. “Sit.”
I stay standing, and he says it again, the single word cracking through the air like a whip.
Grudgingly, I do what he says.
Jensen scowls down at me. The last two times I was in a staring match with the chief of police, things were different. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. As much as Jensen seemed to dislike me—or the Montgomerys—there was nothing he could actually do to me. This time, it’s different.
“Was Riley in the house?” I ask again.
A muscle in the chief’s jaw twitches. Instead of answering, he says, “I’ve just spent the past forty minutes talking to Noah Fraser. Do you know what he told me?”
I shake my head.
“He says the two of you went to Paul Harding’s place because you thought he was helping Joey Paquet. Did it ever occur to you to pick up the goddamn phone and call the police?”
“You wouldn’t have believed us. You didn’t believe me when I told you about the medal. You didn’t think there was a connection between Riley and Rachel.” I do my best not to cower under his bad-cop stare. It isn’t easy. “Was Riley in the house?”
“You want to know what was in that house?” The harsh edge to his voice implies that I really don’t want to know but that he’s going to show me anyway. He opens the folder, then tosses a plastic-encased photo at me. Awkwardly, hands hampered by the cuffs, I lift the picture: Rachel Larsen.
The photo was taken through a window, while she was changing. It’s from a different vantage point than the pictures that were taken of me; the angle is lower and the window isn’t quite as far away. There are other photos in the folder. Photos of different girls taken in locker rooms and through bedroom windows. I recognize some of the girls from the trailer walls. As far as I can tell, none of the photos are of me.
And none of the pictures are of Riley.
“Hundreds of photos dating back years: that’s what we found. All taken by the goddamn school photographer.” Given the look on Jensen’s face, I’d be terrified to be in Harding’s place right now. “Harding forgot something and went back to the house. He saw your flashlights through one of the basement windows and called to report a break-in. He told dispatch that it was the third break-in this year, that someone had taken cameras and equipment a few months ago, and that someone had also broken in and used his darkroom last week.”
If Joey had broken in, that would mean Harding hadn’t purposefully helped him. But then why would Harding have photos of Rachel and those other girls? It doesn’t make any sense. “Why wouldn’t he have reported the other two break-ins right after they happened?”
The question seems to make Jensen even angrier.
“You are not part of any investigation. You are not owed explanations or updates. And after the shit you pulled tonight, I can arrest you for interference. You think that will help Riley Fraser?
What about his mother? You think she’ll thank you for wasting time that could have been spent finding out what happened to her son? Do you think Rachel Larsen and her family are going to pat you on the back for what you did tonight?”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand . . .”
“If you had called the police—like anyone else would have had the sense to—we could have searched the house. Quietly. We could have staked it out to see if Joey Paquet went back there or if he and Harding had any contact. Instead, anyone within a kilometer radius of that place knows we were there tonight. It’ll be all over town by morning—if it isn’t already.”
“I didn’t think . . .”
“Sure as hell right you didn’t think.”
The words sting. Not because I care what Jensen thinks of me, but because the last thing I ever wanted to do was keep anyone from finding the person who had hurt Riley and Rachel.
“What makes you think Harding is telling the truth about the break-ins?” I ask. I rush on before he can yell. “How do you know he isn’t just trying to cover his tracks? Maybe he heard about the trailer being found and got scared. Did Noah tell you we saw Harding at the river? That he told us he was photographing it for you?” I want to tell him about the taillights, about how Rachel couldn’t have been taken in Joey’s car, but there’s no way to explain how I know that. It’s like the vision of hellfire I saw when I touched Harding. No one in their right mind would believe me—least of all someone like Jensen.
He looks at me, long and level, while seconds tick into minutes and his silence edges closer and closer to unbearable. “Noah told me he broke into the house alone,” he says finally. “Claims you were only there because you were trying to stop him. That true?”
“No. It was my idea.” I don’t know which one of us had the idea first, and I don’t care: I’m not letting Noah take all of the blame. Besides, he’s over eighteen and I’m technically a minor. Assuming the Canadian system is like the one back home, I probably have a lot less to lose, legally speaking. “Probably” isn’t the most comforting thought, though, and I can’t quite keep my voice from trembling when I say, “It was my idea, and I’m pretty sure you can’t talk to me without a guardian present.”
“Oh, you’re sure, are you?”
I force myself to sit up straighter and look him in the eye. Because I am sure. Talking to me without another adult present is wrong, and he knows it.
This time when I speak, my voice doesn’t shake. “I want to call my aunt.”
Thirty-Two
I SPEND THE NEXT EIGHT HOURS ALONE IN A BARREN ROOM, WONDERING what’s happening to Noah and feeling like I might lose my mind.
When I am finally allowed to see my aunt, the relief is so strong that I feel like I might start crying, but Jensen whisks her away before I can get a single word out. Even through the station’s thick, supposedly soundproof walls, I can hear him yelling. This time, I can’t tell whether or not Aunt Jet yells back.
It’s another three hours before they let me go. When they finally do, I try to tell her about Noah, but she just shushes me and signs a bunch of forms. As we step out of the station and into the bright sunlight, everything catches up with me, and the tears I’ve been keeping locked away come pouring out.
“It will be all right,” Jet says.
That’s it. Just five words. And then she climbs into the Buick and drives me home.
Eventually, my nose and eyes stop running—although it still hurts a little each time I breathe in too deeply. Aunt Jet is so deceptively calm that I don’t realize how much trouble I’m in until she pulls to a stop in front of Montgomery House and says, “What were you thinking?”
Her voice is heavy with disappointment and anger.
Unlike yesterday, there isn’t a patrol car parked in the driveway. Either Jensen doesn’t have one to spare or he’s so furious at me that he doesn’t care if Joey turns up.
“What were you thinking?” Aunt Jet says again. Louder this time. So loud it makes me jump a little in my seat.
“I don’t know.”
“You and Noah Fraser had to have had a reason for breaking into that man’s house. I want to know what it is.”
I swallow.
“Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to come home and find you gone? To have no idea how long it had been since you’d left or where you were? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
“Did you call Dad? Does he know?”
“No,” she snaps, “I haven’t called your father. He wouldn’t be able to get here any faster, and all it would do is worry him even more. And he’s already angry enough at me as it is.”
“Why would he be angry at you?”
“Why do you think, Mary Catherine?” Aunt Jet looks tired. Utterly exhausted. “Sending you here was supposed to get you away from trouble. I was supposed to keep you away from trouble. He’s angry that I let you go to that party and that I let you spend time with Joey Paquet. I can’t imagine how he’s going to take the news that you’ve started going on crime sprees.”
“It wasn’t a spree. It was just one house.”
As though I hadn’t said anything at all, she says, “You and your father are the only real family I have left. He finally trusts me enough to let you spend another summer here, and look what happens.”
“You know Dad didn’t send me here because he trusted you, right? Sending me here was just the best of a bunch of bad options.” At the hurt that flashes across Jet’s face, I realize how the words sound. They sound cruel and mean and spiteful, and that wasn’t what I intended. At all. I just don’t want her to read things into my visit that aren’t there. I want her to understand that Dad wasn’t so much placing any great trust in her as he was using her. “Aunt Jet—”
She stares straight ahead, not looking at me. “I want to know what you and Noah were doing.”
Telling the truth seems like a really bad idea, but I’m too exhausted and stressed to think of a convincing lie that won’t end up making Noah and me look even worse. “We’ve been trying to figure out what happened to Riley. We broke into Paul Harding’s house because we thought he might know something about Joey Paquet.”
Aunt Jet opens her mouth. Closes it. Flexes her hands. Closes them. “Does this have something to do with what happened in New York? Are you obsessing over Riley Fraser as some sort of distraction?”
“He was my friend, Aunt Jet.”
“A friend you haven’t spoken to in years. You can’t just use this thing with Riley to hide from your problems, Mary Catherine. Life doesn’t work that way. You have to face things.”
She has to be kidding, right? I stare at her and, no, she is definitely not kidding. There are times when Aunt Jet is surprisingly similar to Dad: astounding in her capacity for hypocrisy.
I push open the passenger door and climb out, then slam it so hard flakes of rust fall to the driveway.
Aunt Jet slides out of the driver’s side. I stare at her over the car. “You and Dad are exactly alike. The both of you run away from everything. The only difference is that he hides in New York and you’re hiding here.”
“I’m not hiding, Mary Catherine. One of us had to come back here. One of us had to look after things.”
“Years ago, sure. But what about now? What’s keeping you here now?” I think about the stack of travel guides in the basement. All those notes and plans that were stuffed in a drawer and forgotten. I think about the picture of Aunt Jet and how different she looked. How happy. I love Montgomery House and hate the thought of not having it here to come back to, but I hate the thought of Aunt Jet being trapped even more. I walk around the car. “Do you really want to be here? Think back to when you were my age: Is this what you wanted? You’re renting out rooms to strangers, you’re barely keeping the place afloat, and you’re emptying out the basement for cash.”
She doesn’t say anything. I should stop, but I don’t. “Do you know what Dad says? He says this place is a mausoleum. I used t
o think he was being mean, but maybe he’s right.”
She turns away from me and walks up the porch steps and into the house.
“Please, Aunt Jet,” I say, unwilling to let the subject drop as I follow her inside. “Just think about whether or not this is what you really want. You don’t have to stay in the house. And if you do sell it, you don’t have to stay in Montgomery Falls. You’re not trapped here—not if you don’t want to be.”
“Where would I go, Mary Catherine?”
“Anywhere.”
“And do what?”
“Anything.”
She lets out a long, deep breath. “You’ll understand when you’re older. Things aren’t as easy as they seem when you’re seventeen.”
I open my mouth to reply, but she cuts me off. Her voice is distant. Robotic. “You should go upstairs and change. Those clothes are filthy. I’m going to check on things here and then go next door. Someone has to tell Noah’s mother what’s going on.”
Bringing up Noah’s mother might be the one thing Jet can do to stop me from pushing. I wonder if she knows that.
“Mrs. Fraser might not . . . She’s not . . .” I hesitate, thinking about how Noah’s mother grabbed me the first time I went over there.
“I know, Mary Catherine,” Jet says, absolving me of having to try to explain.
Not knowing what else to do, I head upstairs.
When I reach my room, the door won’t open. I must have accidentally locked it. I cut through Jet’s bedroom and step into the bathroom.
She wasn’t wrong: the clothes I’m wearing are filthy. The knees of my jeans are caked in mud, and there are dark smears that I’m pretty sure are dried blood on my shirt. Not to mention sweat stains from being left in an uncomfortably warm interrogation room for hours.
I shower quickly, wincing as soap gets into the shallow cuts I earned crawling through that broken window, and then haul on fresh clothes. My face in the bathroom mirror looks tired and wan. Startled. Am I a hypocrite, too? I wonder. I told Jet to think about whether or not this was really what she wanted from her life, but in my own way, aren’t I just as trapped?
You Were Never Here Page 26