Lies Like Wildfire

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

  Drummer backs out of the truth circle, his eyes wide. “I didn’t kill her.”

  Mo’s lips part. “Whoa, I didn’t say you did.”

  Luke unfurls. His eyes widen, his jaw clenches. “You’re dating Violet and you didn’t fucking tell us?”

  Drummer’s face scrunches. “We didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Luke’s breathing quickens; his cheeks color. He sweeps his finger around in a circle. “We aren’t anyone. She’s been missing almost two weeks—how could you hide this?”

  Drummer’s beautiful face twists; his blue eyes gleam with tears. “I’m sorry.”

  Luke glares at him. With his shaved head and chiseled, furious features, he looks like a stranger. “You were there, weren’t you? You took Violet.”

  “No! God, no!” Drummer glances at me, terrified, and then decides to tell the truth. “I mean, yes, I was there, but when I left, she…she…” He can’t finish.

  Mo clutches herself. “God, Drummer!”

  Luke pinches the skin between his eyes. “Were you…you know, with her?”

  We understand what he’s getting at: Could the semen sample belong to Drummer?

  I already know the answer to this, and I watch as my best friend struggles to speak. Luke grabs Drummer and shakes him, rattling his teeth. But I know Drummer. If he won’t fight back when he’s innocent, he certainly won’t fight back when he’s guilty. “Yeah, I was with her,” he admits.

  My stomach sinks.

  “And you didn’t tell the police!” Mo cries.

  Drummer throws up his hands, tries to back away. “I told you, I didn’t kill Violet.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  Tears leak down Drummer’s face. He wipes his nose and fumbles for words. “Nothing. We had a fight. That’s all.”

  Luke shoves him. “They found blood in her attic. Did you hurt her?” He’s trying to keep his voice low so the kids on the shore, who are staring harder at us now, don’t overhear.

  “Maybe a little,” Drummer cries.

  “Oh my god,” Mo says, gasping.

  Luke dives at Drummer, lifts him off the ground, and slams him onto his back. “You fucking bastard! She’s our friend and you let us believe some sickos raped her and killed her when all along it was you.” He punches Drummer in the face.

  “Stop!” Mo screams.

  Kids collect around us, holding up their phones.

  I jump onto Luke’s back, and he throws me off. I land in the shallow river, and my head slams against a rock and searing pain roars through my skull. Mo sprints to my side and helps me up. We splash to the embankment. I banged my ear too, and it’s numb and ringing.

  “I didn’t— I don’t know what happened to her after I left.” Drummer curls up and covers his head as Luke pummels him. His blood splatters across Luke’s shirt and face.

  “Stop, Luke! You’ll kill him!” Mo turns to me. “What do we do?” She digs into her bag for her inhaler and takes two deep puffs.

  But Luke loses steam when he realizes Drummer won’t fight back. He drags Drummer’s torso off the ground. “You’re a lying sack of shit.” He throws him several feet down the shoreline.

  Mo wheezes next to me, and I come to my senses.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Luke snaps at us.

  We’re all distracted when a police cruiser speeds into the parking lot. “What now?” Mo murmurs.

  Two of my dad’s deputies, Vargas and Chen, emerge and march toward us. Drummer is on the shore with blood pouring from his nose, his shoulders hunched.

  “We got a call about a fight,” Deputy Chen says, nodding toward Drummer’s bloody face.

  “He fell,” Luke lies.

  Our teenage audience quickly retreats, and Vargas sighs. Chen shakes her head at me. “Is everything okay here, Hannah?”

  Before I can answer, Luke points hard at Drummer.

  Don’t do it, my mind screams.

  “He’s Violet’s boyfriend,” Luke says thickly.

  Chen tenses and shifts her gaze to Drummer. “You’re dating Violet Sandoval?”

  Luke can’t shut up. “He was there the night she disappeared. He said he hurt her. He just admitted it.”

  Mo shakes her head; her lips part and tremble. My feet sink deeper into the river mud, and I can’t believe this is happening. Our protective circle is punctured. We are no longer five best friends.

  Chen sways from foot to foot and prods Drummer: “Is this true?”

  Drummer squeezes his eyes shut, and his pulse thumps in his throat.

  Vargas and Chen exchange looks, and then Chen says, “We’re going to need more information. Come to the station with us. Let’s go.” Chen’s known Drummer since he was a kid and expects obedience as she turns toward the parked cruiser.

  Beneath his wrinkled shirt, Drummer’s chest rises and falls, too fast. His eyes glaze over, and his muscles flex. Then he makes an animal sound and bolts.

  “Drummer, no!” I scream.

  Chen shouts for help and takes off after him. Deputy Vargas leaps to join her, but Drummer is fast, really fast. And he’s terrified. He races downstream and crosses to the other side, leaping over brush and boulders, and then he veers into the woods.

  He has a head start, and I know the deputies won’t catch him, not right away—I’ll die if they put me in a cage. Oh Drummer, I think, exhaling, you might outrun Vargas and Chen, but you won’t outrun the law.

  30

  August 13

  Days Violet has been missing: 11

  Time: 3:00 p.m.

  Mo and I face Luke. “Why the hell did you do that?” she asks.

  “Because he fucking lied to us,” he says, spitting on the ground.

  Monsters don’t rat on monsters is one of our pacts, but so is monsters don’t lie to monsters. Our friendship has been slaughtered by secrets, lies, and fire. I start crying, because I’m worried that Drummer’s going to get shot in the woods. Luke stalks away, his hands balled into fists.

  I wipe my forehead, and my fingers come away bloody from where I hit my head on the rock. The sight of the red fluid makes me stagger. “I gotta go.”

  “Can I drive you?” Mo asks.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, Hannah.” I ignore her and climb the path to my dad’s truck. Mo’s voice follows me: “Call if you hear anything about Drummer!”

  “I will.”

  My phone rings soon after I arrive home. It’s my dad, sounding harried. “Have you seen Drummer? Is he there?”

  “No, he’s not here.”

  He lowers his voice. “When I asked you if Violet was seeing anyone, you said she wasn’t.”

  My chest tightens. “Drummer lied to me, Dad. I didn’t know.” That’s mostly true.

  “He lied to us too, Bug, and now we have grounds to swab his DNA. If he matches the sample we collected, he could be her assailant. Lock the doors. Don’t let him in.”

  I lurch out of my dad’s reclining chair. “That’s insane, Dad. Just because they were dating doesn’t mean he killed her.” Not on purpose, I add in my head.

  He expels a long breath on the other end of the phone. “We’re still investigating but you should prepare yourself.”

  “You’re reaching—what’s the motive?” I shut my mouth as soon as I say it, because I know the motive. Violet planned to tell on us.

  “Drummer was in Mo’s photo at Gap Lake, and she lied to us about being at the Gap on the seventh, which makes Drummer another suspect in the arson case,” he answers. “The FBI agents believe the two cases are related somehow, which explains why there’s been no ransom demand.”

  Fuck me. The agents are drawing the lines, following the leads, connecting the dots. But do they know about Violet’s final, damning text? I don’t think so, no
t yet.

  “Look,” he says, sounding tired. “I called because the special agents want to speak to Drummer, to rule him out. Do you know where he is?”

  Rule him out? We both know that’s bullshit. An investigator’s hope is never to rule anyone out. No, the FBI wants to nail the POS who harmed Violet, and they have their sights on Drummer. Nothing I say will change that.

  My heart rate spikes. “N-no, I don’t, but he would never hurt Violet.” I see Drummer sobbing in my mind’s eye, his admission that he drew blood, that he hurt her a little, but I can’t reveal anything until I understand how I’m involved. If I witnessed a murder or an assault, I could be in danger, and if I did nothing to stop Drummer, I could be considered an accomplice. Now more than ever, I need to know what happened in that attic.

  “I have to go,” Dad says. “Call me if you hear from him.” He hangs up.

  * * *

  —

  I hop into my dad’s F250 and spend hours driving around Gap Mountain, looking for Drummer the way people look for their lost dogs. When I return home, I pop open a Coke and guzzle it on the front porch, thinking. I believe that Drummer is telling the truth about not knowing what happened to Violet after he attacked her. It’s just like him to make a mistake and then run away. And it’s just like me to rush in and protect him.

  “Oh no!” My stomach lurches and twists. I lunge forward and vomit soda onto the front lawn. What if I saw Drummer kill her and then I moved her body? “Please, no,” I whisper to myself. “No, no, no.”

  Hands trembling, I glance over at the empty spot in the driveway where my Jeep is usually parked. Hypnotherapy could take a while to work, and I need answers now. I wipe my lips, grab my phone, and dial my dad. “I’m ready to see my Jeep,” I blurt out.

  “Hannah, I’m busy.”

  I shake my head. “The psychologist recommended that I look at it. She said it might help me get my memory back. Please. Where is it?”

  He agrees but insists on going with me. Twenty minutes later, he walks through the kitchen door. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Here,” he says, handing me a small cedar box. “The vet dropped this at the station this morning. It’s Matilda’s ashes.”

  I rock back on my heels, and we both start crying. “Thanks,” I whisper. “Where should we put her?”

  “Fireplace mantel, I guess.”

  Past dogs were buried on the property, but Matilda died saving my life, so I guess she’s staying in the house. “Okay.” I open the box and view what’s left of my beloved dog: a plastic bag full of gray ash. I close the lid, kiss the box, and set it gently on the wooden mantel. Then I slip on my shoes, grab my purse, and we climb into my dad’s truck.

  An excited young man meets us at the body shop and leads us to my car. He can’t hide his stares, noting my sling and bandages and scarred face, and I feel my cheeks color. I look like a freak. At least this guy knows what happened to me, but the kids at college will have no idea.

  “Bear got you good,” he says. “What did you have in that backseat, a fresh kill?”

  “What?” I ask sharply.

  He recoils, glances furtively at my father walking ahead of us, and lowers his voice: “Last time I saw damage like that was when these out-of-towners bagged up a fresh-killed deer and loaded the carcass into the back of their Suburban. The blood and meat were a black bear’s dinner bell.” He clucks his tongue, like What are you going to do?

  “I had leftover beef stew in the backseat,” I say.

  He eyeballs me, because we both know that leaving leftovers in a car is as dumb as—if not dumber than—leaving a bloody deer carcass. “You’re lucky to be alive,” he adds in a conciliatory tone. “That animal wrecked your car, like totally.” He makes an exploding noise and then points ahead of me. “There it is.”

  I halt, catch my breath. The first things I notice are four deep claw marks cutting through the Firecracker-red paint.

  Dad pauses and turns to me. “Hannah, you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I slink forward, as if the bear is still trapped inside my Jeep. The black soft top is torn and bent around the roll bar. A wave of nausea grips me, but I soldier on and peek inside.

  “Oh!” The interior fabric and foam are ripped to shreds. The passenger seat is off-kilter, the headrests are cleaved off, and the backseat is clawed to ribbons. Dirt and streaks of dried saliva mar the cloth. Tufts of black fur cover everything. There are teeth marks in the steering wheel.

  My breathing quickens as I remember the growling, the force of being knocked over and dragged, and the bear’s chuffing rage. “Why didn’t it just take the food and go?” I whisper. The bear attacked my interior as if it were an enemy.

  Dad rubs his chin. “Animal Control believes that the container of leftovers broke open and spilled under the backseat. As the bear dug for the scraps, the car door must have shut, trapping her inside. Most of this damage is her trying to get out, not in. Eventually the door popped open, and she got free. We aren’t sure if you were attacked before or after that. The autopsy showed that the bear was starving.”

  “Autopsy?” the young man says, clearly impressed, and we both glare at him like You’re still here? He takes the hint and leaves us to examine the Jeep alone.

  “That guy was right. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “You were smart to climb into the bear can,” Dad says. “You saved yourself.”

  “I’m kind of glad I don’t remember.”

  He sucks in a breath and puts his arm around me as we gaze at the Wrangler. “Why don’t you poke around and make sure all your stuff is out before they tow it?” he suggests. “I’ll talk to the people inside, let them know they can haul it to the scrap heap tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” He leaves and I walk to the passenger side to pry open the glove box. Inside are my sunglasses, my registration, a few tampons, and old papers. I grab the sunglasses and leave the rest. Checking under the front seats, I find spare change and straw wrappers. When I get to the back, I balk as I remember sliding the leftovers onto the backseat.

  Leaning deeper into the car, I try to remember more. Beef stew juices stain the carpeting, and a few red droplets sprinkle the backseat. Is it bear blood? My pulse quickens and my chest tightens uncomfortably. Something shiny glints at me from under the back bench. I force the passenger seat forward so I can lean farther inside, my hand reaching, reaching…

  My fingers land on a small object that is hard and cool to the touch. I stretch farther, and my long arm helps me grasp it and pull it out. When I see what it is, I stifle a scream and let go. It sprawls on the asphalt, sparkling in the evening sunshine.

  I glance around for my dad, but he’s inside the shop, not paying attention.

  No one is watching me. No one notices what I found in my car. I bend over, grab it, and study it more closely. Yes, it’s what I think it is, and white light washes across my eyes, blinding me for a moment. I pocket the sleek metal and breathe slowly.

  It’s Violet’s Tiffany necklace, the link chain and circular pendant with the letter V engraved on it. This necklace is listed as one of the items she was last seen wearing. It’s her favorite piece of jewelry, and she never takes it off.

  How did it get inside my Jeep?

  31

  August 15

  Days Violet has been missing: 13

  Time: 6:30 p.m.

  Two days later, I remain in a manic state about the necklace, because it confirms my burgeoning theory: that I witnessed Violet’s murder and then moved her body to protect Drummer from being caught. I am either a really good friend or a really fucked-up friend, and the fact that I’m not sure which I am is confusing as hell. I wonder if the blood on my backseat is Violet’s too? God! I rub my eyes, exhausted. I should turn the necklace in, I know it, but I can’t—not un
til I’m sure what Drummer did to her.

  Dad is working late again tonight, so I sit on the sofa with Violet’s platinum necklace wrapped around my fingers. Tears sting my eyes as I stroke the letter V and think of pretty words that begin with V, like valiant, vivacious, and victorious, and awful words like vindictive, violent, and vanished. I keep it in my top drawer, but I need a better place to hide it.

  Glancing around the family room, my eyes land on Matilda’s box of ashes. No one would ever look for it in there, and since I love them both, I open the cedar box and lower the necklace inside, mingling my dog and one of my best friends. They will keep each other company. I feel cold as I do this, and horrified. Burying this necklace is like burying Violet—I know it’s wrong, I know I’m hiding evidence—but I do it and shut the box and then run back to the sofa. My heart gallops as if I’ve just sprinted a mile.

  It’s done. I can always take it out later.

  I make a cup of steaming coffee and sit down to watch the television, because there’s supposed to be breaking news on Violet’s case. I wonder if they found Drummer. He’s been missing for two days!

  A female newscaster opens the show with the new developments:

  California’s Automated Latent Print System, known to law enforcement as ALPS, identified the fingerprints taken from Violet Sandoval’s attic window earlier today.

  I lean forward, lick my lips. This is it—they’re going to name Drummer.

  The prints were matched positively to Lucas O’Malley, a close friend of the missing girl. The special task force led by Sheriff Robert Warner made a statement late this afternoon.

  My heart stutters—Luke?

  The screen cuts to a clip of my dad, talking about the evidence. I turn up the volume.

  We questioned and released Lucas O’Malley today as a person of interest in Violet Sandoval’s case, and we executed search warrants at his place of residence. I can confirm a second suspect, Nathaniel Drummer, who remains at large this evening. We believe the seminal fluid collected in the attic will positively match to one of these men. If you have knowledge of Nathaniel’s whereabouts, please call the number provided.