by Kit Frick
“She loved all kinds of animals,” I continue, confidence growing. “She was great with them. But she was terrified of thunderstorms. Like, drenched in sweat, full-on anxiety attack, terrified. There was this one closet on the first floor of her house, right between the bathroom and the living room, where she’d go during storms. There was a light in there, and all the coats, they’d muffle the sound.”
“Astraphobia,” Caden says softly. “She worried about storms at sea, didn’t want the phobia to hold her back from participating in marine research trips. We talked about it a lot.”
I nod. There’s no way my brain could have cooked that up. It’s so specific. It has to be a memory. Which means this last one is too. “And her favorite poem—our favorite poem—was Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ I’ve loved it since childhood, ever since I saw Anne of Green Gables. Anne tries to act out the poem and almost drowns in the lake.”
Caden’s eyes pop.
“I know it sounds morbid,” I continue, “but she gets rescued by her arch-nemesis, Gilbert Blythe. I think Zoe and I used to recite the poem together, our favorite stanzas, just like Anne did. The poem is the most beautiful tragedy. And it was ours.”
For a moment, we’re both silent. All the pieces that have been shifting and crossing like shadows in my mind are taking full, vibrant form. These memories are real; Caden’s confirmed it. In a way I still can’t account for, Zoe was a part of my life.
Then, Caden asks the question I’ve known would be coming. “How do you know all this, Anna?”
I’m silent because I don’t know what to say. Fact: Zoe messaged me in December, before she disappeared. Fact: I know things about her life that only a friend would know.
After that, it all gets blurry.
“Is this some sick kind of joke?” Caden is saying. “Is this coming from Paisley?”
“No,” I say, my voice insistent. “I promise it’s not that.”
“Because you look a lot like her,” he says, “as you know. You sure you’re not just … a little fixated? No one would blame you for being curious. But this, whatever this is with the pool and now all these supposed memories about Zoe, it isn’t healthy. You need to drop it.”
My breath catches because a part of me knows he’s right. Everything about this feels very, very not healthy. Almost dangerous. But … “I swear to god,” I say. “I’m not making this up.”
For a moment, Caden looks like he wants to scream at me. But when he speaks again, his voice is calm. “Before, you told me you used to party a lot. Black out. Did that happen often?”
“More than it should have.”
“Did it happen on New Year’s?”
I don’t say anything. I can see something happening behind Caden’s eyes. There’s some kind of calculus at work, variables shifting, a formula taking shape. I shove myself up off the grass.
“I should go.”
Caden gets up too. “I think maybe you should.” There’s a hard edge to his voice, a meanness there.
“Look, I’m not lying to you,” I say, suddenly defensive. After all, he’s the one who’s been lying to everyone about his supposedly perfect relationship with Zoe while he was trying to get up the nerve to leave her for Tiana. “These memories are real.”
“If you know something about where she is,” Caden says, jaw twitching, “you need to tell someone, Anna. You need to tell the police.”
“I don’t.” I take a step back. My heart is beating wild again. “I swear.”
Caden gives me a hard stare. I try to hold his gaze, but it’s piercing right through me.
“I think you should stay away from Windermere for a while,” he says.
My eyes fly automatically to the house, to the ravens gathered once more on the third-floor balcony rail. A window opens, and for a moment the sky in front of Windermere is a cloud of black feathers. Then, the birds reconvene in a nearby tree, revealing the thin face of Mrs. Talbot at the window. Her words from Tom’s party, which seems a million years ago now, come flooding back to me: I won’t expect to see you at Windermere again. We don’t need anything … stirred up.
I turn and run.
28 THEN
August
Herron Mills, NY
MY DREAMS ARE filled with a crackling, hissing static I can’t switch off. Even when I wake, it’s like a swarm of angry bees has taken up residence in my head and won’t leave. Mercifully, Paisley has a Monday morning playdate with Raychel, so I get a few hours to myself. I float aimlessly in the Bellamys’ pool, trying to clear my head, decompress. I need to get it together. I need to snap out of this, whatever this is. I dive under, let the water swirl around my body in a cool embrace. I imagine the bees swarming out of my ears, my nose, my mouth, drowning on the slick navy tile below.
When I float back to the surface, they’re louder than ever.
I can’t focus. My skin itches where my sunburn faded weeks ago. The thought of food makes my stomach heave. When Elizabeth drops Paisley off in the early afternoon, I take her to Jenkins’ and chew ice cubes while she eats. We go to a movie we’ve already seen twice, and in the dark theater, my mind wanders to rooms filled with murky water and girls in gold dresses tumbling through blackness. When the movie ends, I sit frozen in the theater seat until Paisley shakes my hand.
“Anna, it’s time to go.”
I forgot where we were. I forgot about Paisley altogether. I can’t trust myself with her. I can barely hold two thoughts in my head at once.
Zoe and I were friends. I blacked out on New Year’s Eve.
Monday’s dreams are more static. When I wake on Tuesday, I’m not sure I’ve slept at all. In the bathroom mirror, dark rings bloom beneath my eyes like heavy storm clouds. I try to cover them up, but the concealer only succeeds in making me look like a ghost who lost a bar fight. The bees prod me into the kitchen, where Emilia has the local news switched on. I fill a bowl with fruit I know I won’t eat while a reporter announces that swimming and fishing have been prohibited in Parrish Lake until further notice.
“They found toxic algae,” Paisley says through a mouthful of cereal. “I want to see.”
I nod. Parrish Lake. I can do this. “Okay. I don’t know how much we’ll be able to see, but we can walk over after breakfast and check it out.” The bees hum louder in my ears.
Most of Herron Mills seems to have the same idea. Anyone who isn’t working is gathered on the shore, watching a crew of park staffers thread across the water on small boats. It’s hot out, but I can’t stop shivering. Some boaters are pouring something that looks like cat litter from large bags into the lake, while others skim the surface with nets and collect ropes of greenish-brown algae from the bottom with long, sturdy rakes. Paisley spots Martina further down in the crowd and tugs me over to join her.
“It’s a fish-safe chemical herbicide,” she says, barely glancing up from her phone to greet us. “I already asked.” I look at her screen, which is open to the notes app. The words dance like tiny insects in the sun. I think about ants, frying beneath a magnifying glass, and shiver again. Martina keeps typing, then finally drops her phone to her side.
“Fascinating stuff?” My voice sounds strangely high-pitched and strained through the bees’ persistent drone.
She shrugs. “School starts back up in a few weeks. I need to go into the semester with a few ideas for the paper.”
I nod vigorously, and her face bobs up and down, up and down.
For the first time, Martina looks straight at me. “Are you okay? You look a little … sallow.”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly. “Just didn’t sleep right.”
Martina starts to say something else, but before she can get the words out, Paisley is tugging on her dress pocket. “Tell me what happened.” She cranes her neck to get a better view through the crowd of adults. “On TV, they said that fish died.”
“Yeah,” Martina says, attention turning to Paisley. “There was a big fish kill over the weekend, and they did some
testing. Looks like there’s some new plant life in one part of the lake, and it’s toxic to fish. Might also be harmful to humans and pets. They didn’t find any in the swimming area, but to be safe, they’re doing full-scale algae control this week before they open the lake back up for use.”
“Wow,” Paisley says, impressed. I wrap one arm around my waist. I can’t tell if I’m hungry or nauseous. I forced down a few bites at dinner last night, to be polite, but I can’t remember the last full meal I ate. It must have been dinner on Sunday, before Caden told me to stay away from Windermere. My stomach heaves, then settles into a tight, painful knot.
Martina squats down next to Paisley and points toward a park attendant standing on the shore a few feet in front of us, directing one of the boats out further into the lake. “Paula Aimes, Herron Mills Parks Director. Extremely helpful.”
I let my eyes travel out across the lake. Toward the center of the water, closer to the bank that faces the Arling Windmill than the shallow, roped-off swimming area, a woman with one of the long rakes is speaking into a walkie-talkie. She’s much too far out for me to hear what she’s saying, but in the other boats, I can see people lifting their walkies to their ears, then the boats start motoring toward her. Someone in the first boat to arrive raises what looks like a massive spotlight and shines it down into the water below.
Paula Aimes’s walkie crackles to life on the shore in front of us, and suddenly the bees are silent. “Hey, Paula, I think we’ve got something out here. Looks like a small boat sunk to the bottom. It’s about ten yards down, give or take, so we’re going to need to bring in a diver.”
The crowd takes up the buzzing the bees left behind. I hear murmurs of “Catherine Hunt’s missing motorboat” and “Do you think she tried to take it out on the lake” and “Zoe” and “Zoe” and “Zoe.”
My eyes latch on to the water’s bright surface. My ears blot the voices out. The memory comes in a dark, airless rush: Me pitching to my knees on the shore, the water black and greedy in front of me. The cold whip of the wind across my cheeks, the sickening heave of too much whiskey mixed with god knows what else in the pit of my stomach. Kaylee’s scream shrill in my ears, her hands grasping at my arms, dragging me back.
Zoe’s body in the water. Sinking down, down.
“Anna?” Paisley’s looking up at me. I force myself to smile, tell her it’s fine. We’re fine.
When the police arrive, we’re all instructed to leave, go home, clear out. We make our way toward the park exit along with everyone else, Martina talking a mile a minute, Paisley clutching both our hands.
“We don’t know what they’ll find,” I assure Paisley, my voice a pale impression of normal. “That spotlight can’t work very well on a bright day like this. It could be anything on the lake bottom, just a big rock.”
But it’s not a rock. I know it, deep in the hollows of my gut. She’s down there. Zoe’s down there, in that boat. My legs sway beneath me, and Martina clutches my arm to keep me from falling.
“I’m walking you home,” she says. “You look sick.”
“I’m fine,” I mumble, but I’m not. I can’t keep the truth compartmentalized any longer: Zoe messaged me in December. She gave me her number. Told me things about her life. On New Year’s Eve, she disappeared. On New Year’s Eve, I blacked out. …
“I’ll take Paisley in to Mrs. Bellamy and explain you’re not feeling well. You need to get some sleep.”
I nod weakly. Paisley squeezes my hand and says she hopes I feel better soon. We keep walking until we get to Clovelly Cottage, and Martina sends me around back to the pool house while she and Paisley go up to the front.
Somehow, I get inside. When I’m alone, I pull out my phone with trembling hands.
“You need to tell me the truth about New Year’s,” I say when Kaylee picks up.
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line.
“I’m starting to remember,” I press. “Something bad …” I lean all my weight against the back of the pool house door. My legs are liquid beneath me.
“Anna,” she says finally. “We should talk about New Year’s. But not on the phone.”
“You need to tell me,” I say again. “We came out to Herron Mills, you and me. What happened to Zoe?”
“Look.” She sounds like a mother reasoning with a disobedient toddler. “I looked up that Zoe Spanos girl. We didn’t know her.”
Kaylee’s voice is insistent. But Kaylee is lying.
“I can handle it, Kay. We were together, you and me. She died that night.”
On the other end of the line, Kaylee lets out a deep, jagged breath. She’s protecting me, but I know. Contained in that sound are all the things she doesn’t want to tell me. “Come home, Anna. So we can really talk.”
I end the call without saying goodbye. The dark thoughts that have been haunting me all summer dance across the pool house walls in one violent vignette after the next.
Paisley floating facedown in the ocean, blond hair framing her small head like a halo.
Ravens on the Windermere balcony rail. Everything tilting. Falling.
Paisley’s broken body slumped across the backseat of the car. Dark water rushing in.
A girl, falling, body twisting in a long white party dress with a pale yellow sash. Her face frozen in terror. My face. Zoe’s.
Falling again. The balcony rail disintegrating beneath me. Beneath us.
Shapes in the dark water. Nighttime seeping over the surf. Bodies made faceless in the near-dark.
Kaylee’s scream shrill in my ears, her hands grasping at my arms, dragging me back.
Zoe’s body in the water. Sinking down, down.
And then I know. This isn’t my mind playing tricks on me. This is guilt beating against my skull, forcing itself out. My brain trying to show me the truth about Zoe. About what I did.
In Brooklyn, I was able to keep it at bay for a while. Drown the truth in booze, pot, pills. But not here. Not anymore.
I collapse on the bed, on top of the covers, and press my face into the cool white pillow, willing sleep to come.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF MISSING ZOE EPISODE SEVEN: MAX FACTOR
[MISSING ZOE INSTRUMENTAL THEME]
MARTINA GREEN: In our second segment, we’ll hear from another acquaintance of Max Adler’s. Mr. Adler was brought in by the Herron Mills PD this past Sunday, September twenty-seventh, for questioning. This follows my own observation that Anna Cicconi’s former employers, the Bellamys, spoke with Herron Mills detectives on Saturday the twenty-sixth, however the Bellamy family could not be reached for confirmation or comment.
Getting back to what we know for sure, Mr. Adler is not under arrest at this time, but police are calling him a new person of interest in the Zoe Spanos investigation. While charges against Anna Cicconi have not been dropped, Judge Castera is considering a pretrial motion filed by the defense to dismiss both the charges of second-degree manslaughter and concealment of a corpse brought against Miss Cicconi. If that happens, this case could be reopened as a homicide investigation.
To get the inside scoop on Max Adler, I spoke yesterday with Michelle Heath, a third-year student in the marine biology program at Brown University.
MICHELLE HEATH: Sure, I know Max. He graduated last year, but he was a pretty big presence in the bio department when he was here.
MARTINA GREEN: Can you tell us what you mean by “a pretty big presence”?
MICHELLE HEATH: Max has a big personality. He wasn’t the top student in the ecology and evolutionary bio program, but he probably could have been if he scaled the partying back a couple notches. He’s charming and easy on the eyes. I’d say most every straight, female biology major knew who Max was.
MARTINA GREEN: Going back to last fall—the fall of his senior year. Was Max dating anyone?
MICHELLE HEATH: Not that I’m aware of. He was dating this girl Maxine when I was a first-year, which I only remember because they were Max and Maxine. But they broke up a long tim
e ago. I heard rumors about him hooking up with a couple girls that fall, but I don’t really know. I think he was holding out for Zoe.
MARTINA GREEN: Can you clarify for our listeners that the Zoe in question is Zoe Spanos?
MICHELLE HEATH: That’s right. Max had it bad for Zoe, it was pretty obvious. I wasn’t super close with her, but we had a lab together that fall. This one time toward the end of the semester, she was getting all these texts during lab. We were partnered up, and she kept stopping to check her phone. It was annoying. She apologized, saying Max wouldn’t stop texting her.
MARTINA GREEN: And you’re certain the texts were from Max Adler?
MICHELLE HEATH: Completely. She showed me her screen; there was a whole string of texts asking her to meet up with him that night.
MARTINA GREEN: Do you remember when this was specifically?
MICHELLE HEATH: Early December, I think. It was right before winter break.
MARTINA GREEN: Do you know if Zoe did meet up with Max? Did she tell you anything else about the nature of their relationship?
MICHELLE HEATH: No, sorry. Like I said, we were just bio friends. I knew she had a boyfriend from home; probably, Max was trying to get Zoe to break up with him. But I’m just guessing.
MARTINA GREEN: Listeners, while the exact nature of Max Adler’s relationship with Zoe Spanos remains unclear, what we know for sure is this: They knew each other from Brown and were close enough that they had exchanged phone numbers. We know also that the Herron Mills PD found reason to bring Mr. Adler in for questioning this weekend. I hope to bring you further updates on this development next week.
I had planned to conclude this episode with a follow-up conversation with Anna Cicconi, but her legal team is not permitting further interviews while her pretrial motion is pending. I did speak with Anna off the record on Saturday, and she expressed her enthusiasm that Missing Zoe has gained so many listeners since we spoke earlier this month. In fact, Episode Six reached a record sixty thousand downloads, which is all thanks to you.