by Kit Frick
After a minute, she says, “By the time I got there, she was gone. It was just her body left on the stable floor.”
The detective clears her throat and adjusts her position in her rolling chair. “Did you move Zoe’s body, Aster?”
Aster nods, then says yes before they can prompt her. “I panicked. My sister was dead because of me. I was scared of everyone finding out—my parents, my friends, the police. All I could think was that Zoe was dead, and it was my fault. People couldn’t know what I’d done.”
“You didn’t make your sister drink, Aster,” Detective Holloway interjects. “That was her decision. Concealing a body is a felony offense in New York State. Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re not telling us? If you’re protecting someone, we can help.”
Aster’s lawyer shifts in his seat. His client shakes her head back and forth. “I’m not protecting anyone,” she insists.
Detective Holloway and AD Massey exchange a look. “All right,” she says. “Tell us how you moved her body.”
“I buzzed the entry gate open from the inside and drove the car up to the front. Then I carried Zoe around the side of the house and laid her out in the backseat. She was heavy, but I managed. I never even thought about going back and cleaning up in the stable, but I guess Caden did that for me. I just knew I had to get Zoe away from Windermere, so no one would find her. I kept thinking over and over, I can’t get caught.”
“What happened after you placed Zoe in the backseat of the car?”
Aster takes in another shaky breath and reaches for a fresh tissue. “I don’t think I had a real plan until I got to the marina. I pulled over to the side of the road and dug out Zoe’s phone. Then I bought a Greyhound ticket. I picked Asbury Park ’cause I figured it would lead people off-track. I was thinking, I’ll just make it look like she ran away. For a while, I think I convinced myself that’s what really happened. That Zoe made it to Philly, that she was living a new, fabulous life and laughing at all of us.”
“But you knew that wasn’t true, Aster,” the detective says.
Aster dabs at her eyes. “It was a fantasy, but I wanted to believe it. It was a story I told myself to keep from completely falling apart.”
AD Massey rubs his hand across the back of his neck and begins his back-and-forth shuffle with his rolling chair again. Detective Holloway leans forward.
“What happened after you bought the ticket, Aster?”
“After that, I turned her phone off and drove around for a while. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had to get her body out of the backseat. I wound up in Parrish Park. The gate was open; you’re not supposed to be there after dark, but it was New Year’s. It was totally vacant when I got there, though. It must have been close to 3:00 a.m. There was a motorboat on the shore, on the far side, by the Arling Windmill. I guess somebody had been partying there earlier, brought the boat and then left it. There were bottles and cans all over the grass; the place was kind of a mess.”
Detective Holloway and AD Massey exchange a look. They’re seeing that quite a few things worked out in Aster’s favor. There had been footprints and tire tracks all over the place, and besides, no one had thought to look for Zoe at Parrish Park. Everything is so agonizingly clear in hindsight.
“Tell us about the motorboat,” the detective says.
“It wasn’t really docked, just wedged halfway on the shore, halfway in the water. When I saw it, I knew what I had to do. That’s how it felt. Like this was the solution, the only way to make it all go away. I drove the car across the lawn, right up to the shore, and got her body into the boat bed. I was so nervous someone would see me, my whole body was shaking, but I did it somehow. Adrenaline, I guess.”
“And how did you sink the boat, Aster?”
“I started hauling the biggest rocks I could find from the shore and putting them all around her. They looked like gravestones.” Aster’s voice is becoming hollow, her eyes a little vacant.
“Are you sure the rocks were from the shore of Parrish Lake?” AD Massey interrupts.
“Yeah,” Aster confirms. “From the shore.”
The detectives exchange another look. The rocks found in the boat bed were, indeed, from the lakeshore. Not from Windermere, as Anna had initially claimed. The truth makes Detective Holloway’s skin itch. So much of Anna’s story had held water. Until none of it did.
“What happened next?” she asks.
“I didn’t know how heavy I had to make it for the boat to sink, but finally I ran out of big rocks, and I knew I just had to do it. We had a tire iron in the trunk, and I swung it at the body of the boat a few times until it made a crack that looked big enough to leak.”
Next to her, George puts his head in his hands. Joan holds her daughter’s hand tight, but she’s staring at a fixed point on the station ceiling.
“There was a weather tarp on the shore near the boat,” Aster continues. “Whoever brought it out to the lake in the first place must have taken it off; I guess they’d taken the boat out earlier and then just abandoned it. Anyway, I fastened the tarp over the bed of the boat until it was totally secure. Then I started the motor, put it in the lowest gear, and shoved it off from the shore.
“At first, I didn’t think it was going to sink. It got pretty far out, and my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to explode. But then some water must have gotten in through the crack, and then more, and then the boat just went down, all at once.”
For a moment, the entire room is silent. Even AD Massey has stopped rolling his chair back and forth on the linoleum.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, Aster?” Detective Holloway asks.
“I know I shouldn’t have taken the flash drive from Zoe’s room or left it in the stable, but I could never, ever have thought that she’d find it, or that she’d drink that night. I never wanted Zoe to die. I wanted Caden to fess up, apologize. It was all for Zoe. Everything else was just panic. I’ll never stop being sorry.”
33 October
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY
“YOU HAVE TO TELL ME.”
I’ve been home for less than forty-eight hours. Mom took a couple days off work to be with me. The JusticeFund she started online covered most of my legal fees, but she can’t afford to stay home and babysit me for long. For now, though, it’s fine. I’m not ready to go out, face the neighbors’ gawking eyes.
But now it’s late, and Mom’s inside watching one of her shows, and Kaylee’s here, sitting with me on the fire escape. It’s chilly, but not too cold to be outside. Mom made us hot chocolate—a surprisingly maternal gesture—and it feels weird to be sipping the sweet, milky stuff from thermoses instead of our usual vodka and juice. Weird but good.
Kaylee sighs and leans her head back against the brick. “I wanted to,” she says after a minute. “I tried to get you to come home so we could talk. But you went to the goddamn cops instead.”
“I know.”
“You have to understand, you didn’t remember. For months, you didn’t remember anything. We thought it was the best thing, Ian and Mike and me. To just let you forget.”
“But then I did. I started to remember.”
“And you got everything mixed up.”
“So enlighten me, Kay. Tell me what happened on New Year’s.”
Kaylee takes a long, slow gulp from her thermos. Then she closes her eyes and begins to talk. I close mine too, and the night plays across the back of my eyelids like one of Caden’s movies, dancing vividly across the screen at Windermere.
* * *
It’s New Year’s Eve. We’re in Starr’s apartment, and I can scarcely keep my eyes open. I drank too much, too early. I’m curled up on her worn blue couch in my party dress, and Kaylee’s crouched in front of me, trying to jam my feet into the clunky winter boots I insisted on wearing out tonight, so I won’t ruin my flats in the snow that will freeze onto the sidewalks in a thin crust tonight before anyone tackles the cement with shovels and rock salt i
n the morning.
“Come on, Anna,” she says, irritation lacing her voice. “Party time.”
“Mmmm … ,” I manage.
“Everyone wants to go out on the beach. Get up, baby girl. You’ll get a second wind.”
She gives up on my boots and slides in next to me on the couch, then sweeps the usual tangle of hair out of my face and tucks it behind one shoulder.
“You coming?” It’s Mike’s voice. I blink once, twice, try to look up at him. He won’t come into focus; all I see is a blur of fist bumps and chin thrusts that make Kaylee burst out laughing.
“Yeah, we’re coming,” she says. “Seriously, Anna, you have to wake up.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, we’re on the beach at Coney Island, huddled on the stretch of sand between the murky gray water and the creaky boardwalk planks. To our backs, beyond the boardwalk, is Luna Park, its rides shuttered and silent in the deep winter chill. It’s ten o’clock, give or take. Too early to go dancing but too late to sit around inside, waiting for something to happen. Ian takes a pull from a pint of cheap whiskey, then passes the bottle to Kaylee.
The cold keeps me awake, but barely. I force myself to look around. We’re not the only people out here tonight. A few yards down the beach, far enough away that they look like children under the glow of the lamps on the boardwalk, a group of guys is using the old playground equipment cemented into the sand like their own private gym, doing chin-ups on the handle bars and push-ups against a metal rail set into the ground. A few shops on the boardwalk are open, and people lick swirl cones despite the cold. There’s no swimming here in the off-season, but the beach isn’t closed, except in the area where we’ve made camp. Our stretch of sand is marked by a few red flags that whip and snap in the wind in an attempt to keep people off the wooden pier that stretches like a bony finger out into the ocean. We shouldn’t be here, but who gives a fuck. The deep shadow keeps us ghosted in the night, veiled from the prying eyes of cops or drunk old men.
“I’m going polar swimming,” Starr announces, pale hands and face flashing in the moonlight.
Mike snorts. “You’re crazy.”
“Watch me,” Starr says, and starts out toward the pier.
But we don’t watch her. Mike’s phone rings, and he holds up a finger, one sec, then walks down the beach toward the playground. Kaylee spreads out the blanket she’s had wrapped around her shoulders, and she and Ian collapse back on the sand, a blur of hands and lips and tongues. I leave them to their grope-fest. Up on the boardwalk, arms resting on the rail, is a boy I recognize from around. We’ve hooked up before. His hair whips into his eyes, then away from his face, reminding me how cute he is. Maybe one time last fall, I stayed the night at his place. I think he was nice. I wander across the sand to the boardwalk.
“I know you.” He’s looking down at me. I doubt he remembers my name, but I don’t remember his, so we’re even. He crouches down so his face is level with mine through the railing. He holds half a joint out to me, and I take it. For a minute, we smoke in silence, passing the joint back and forth. I tell him the name of the club where we’re going later, and he types it into his phone.
“Maybe I’ll see you,” he says, and when my lips curve up into a smile, the muscles feel tight.
* * *
“Where’s Starr?” Kaylee’s voice filters through the thin night air. She’s close and far away at the same time. Something’s wrong with me. I feel a little bit like I’m floating above the ocean and a little bit like I’m buried deep under the sand. I force my fingers to flex, and I’m not sure what I’m touching. It’s soft but gritty and a little damp.
“Anna, wake up. It’s time to go, and we have to find Starr.” Kaylee’s hand is on my shoulder, shaking me. Her voice booms in my ear as if through a megaphone.
“Not so loud,” I mumble. I peel my eyes open and wait for the world to come into focus. I’m on Kaylee’s blanket, sprawled on my stomach. For a moment, it’s a magic carpet, and we’re soaring high up in the clouds. I try to concentrate. That joint was laced with something. I don’t know what I’m on.
I get my elbows under me and push myself up halfway. Kaylee’s gone. I look around until I find her, running out along the pier. “Starr!” she yells. “Holy fuck, guys!”
I shove myself to a sitting position, then to my knees. Someone’s pulling me to my feet. Ian. His eyes drill holes into mine.
“Hello, Anna? You are deep in a K-hole or something.”
“Am I?” I mumble. Special K. Ketamine. Maybe that’s what cute guy’s joint was cut with.
Kaylee’s voice floats down the pier, across the sand. “ This is her coat. Her dress, oh my god!”
In a minute, Mike’s next to her. “Calm the fuck down, Kay.”
I force myself to start walking. The ocean gleams with the dull grays of storm clouds or car doors below me as I stumble down the pier, Ian trailing behind.
When we get to the end, it all snaps into focus. Starr’s coat, dress, and shoes lie discarded on the boards. Her giant satchel bag is nowhere to be found. Kaylee has her phone pressed to her ear with one hand, the other dancing nervously against her thigh. “She’s not picking up. God damnit, Starr.”
“She’s fine,” Mike insists. “She’s messing with us.”
“How do you figure?” Ian asks.
Mike shrugs. “Her bag’s gone, right? Either she went swimming with her purse, or she brought a change of clothes. Wouldn’t be the first time Starr’s pulled some stunt.”
We’re all silent for a moment. Mike’s not wrong about the satchel bag. Unless of course someone stole it. But did any of us actually see her go in the water? My legs buckle, and then I’m kneeling at the edge of the pier, staring out. The water is cloudy and impervious. It’s easy to believe Mike. To believe Starr’s fine, standing on the boardwalk at our backs, laughing at us. Because if he’s wrong, we’re all to blame. We all heard her say she was going in, and none of us checked on her, even once. I stare hard at the water until I think I see the flash of a girl’s hand break the surface, and I gasp.
“Starr!” I scream, and then Kaylee’s hands are clasped tight around my wrists, and she’s pulling me back from the edge.
Because there’s nothing. Just greedy, murky water that foams and froths like a hungry wild thing when it hits the legs of the pier below.
* * *
“You passed out in the Lyft,” Kaylee is saying. Her chin is trembling, but her voice is steady. “On the way to the club. Mike insisted we all still go, even with Starr missing. That we should all just act normal. He’d convinced us, mostly, I guess. That it was probably a joke. And if it wasn’t, that calling nine-one-one would only get us in trouble. If she was out there, it was too late to save her.”
She takes another slow pull from her thermos. “I called anyway, from the club bathroom. Told the dispatcher I’d seen a woman swimming off the pier. Hung up without giving her a name.” She turns, looks me in the eye. “Even then, I knew. Too little, too late.”
“Where was I? Where the hell was I?”
“You never made it inside the club, babe. You passed out completely in the Lyft, and then I got you into a green cab headed home.”
I close my eyes again.
The cab smelled like Indian spices and old leather.
I think I remember that, but I can’t be sure.
I lean my head back against the brick wall behind us. Kaylee’s words swirl all around me, inside me, cutting deep. Starr. And I let myself remember. I remember the water, the wind slicing across my cheeks. I remember the darkness. The wet mist in the air. I remember staring out across the water, knowing deep in my bones that this was no joke, that my friend was out there somewhere. A girl’s body lost beneath the waves. I remember the guilt. Because we didn’t even try to help. We wanted to believe that what Mike said was true. Because the alternative was too horrible to consider.
And so I didn’t consider it. I let the truth get snared in cheap whi
skey and weed and whatever else. I let it lie dormant at the back of my mind for months, unacknowledged, unexamined, until I came to Herron Mills. Until I learned about Zoe. Until the two stories—girls snatched by dark water—became inexorably tangled in my mind.
I let Mike convince me that Starr moved to Orlando the next week. He said she got a job at one of the theme parks, and it started right away. And I believed him. Why would he lie about something like that?
And no one looked for her. Not all girls have a family like Zoe’s. Starr had been estranged from hers since she was sixteen. Because of us, because of what we did, no one even knew she was missing.
Starr always talked about moving south, where it was warm. I missed her. I hated her for not writing back, not keeping in touch.
But mostly, I was happy for her.
Kaylee reaches out her arms, wraps them around my shoulders. I fold my head into her hair, her neck, her chest. And then I start to sob.
34 October
Herron Mills, NY
CADEN’S LATE. After school on Tuesday, Martina waits in the newer of the two coffee shops on Main, at a table near the door. She clicks her nails against her mug, an oversize ceramic bowl with a black and pink houndstooth pattern. This place is cute, but the coffee could be stronger.
She taps her phone, checks the time. He’s not really that late, only a few minutes. She was early, is nervous about seeing Caden in person. Now that she’s here, she just wants to get it over with.
It’s been five days since Martina and Aster went to the ruins of the Windermere stable. Five days since they were brought to the station for questioning—and Martina was swiftly released after Mrs. Talbot declined to press charges for trespassing. A small mercy. Mami and Dad were still furious, of course. She’s grounded until further notice, is only here right now because she lied about an after-school project. She checks her phone again. If Caden doesn’t show up soon, she’ll have to leave. She only has a few minutes.