Don't Trust Her

by Elizabeth Boles

  The pile looks big enough. “I think so.”

  Blanche walks down the hall slowly, as if she’s carrying a huge weight. Faith’s gaze flickers to me. From the corner of my eye it’s obvious that she’s studying me. She’s wondering if the lie I’ve told will hold up with the detective.

  I’m wondering that as well.

  Chapter 33

  I dream of my sister again. This time we’re on the bluff—just the two of us. She stands near the edge with her hand extended, calling to me. I reach out, but my fingers swim through the air. Everything is slow as my body drifts toward the edge.

  But as I’m reaching, my hand acts on its own and flattens. Now I’m not trying to pull her toward me, I’m pushing her forward. She is stumbling toward the cliff, her face twisted in shock, in surprise. She doesn’t understand why I’m doing what I am, and I don’t, either.

  This isn’t how it happened, I want to scream. This isn’t what occurred. But even as my mouth opens, my body doesn’t listen. She teeters at the edge now, her heels dipping from view. I can still pull her to me.

  It’s what I want. I want to reel her in. But my hand keeps acting on its own. It gives one last shove, and the look of surprise on her face sears into my brain—eyes wide, mouth gaping, and her expression asking, Why?

  Then blood drips in front of my eyes like its washing down a scene from a movie.

  The bluff disappears, and it’s years later. I’m in the Suburban. Scattered glass covers my arms, and blood trickles over my flesh. Jonas screams from the rear seat. The front of the SUV has collapsed, crushed. It’s hard to see anything. My ears buzz as pain serrates my head.

  But I hear her, calling to me. My fingers shake as I unbuckle my seat belt. Jonas is behind me, wailing. I climb over the seat to him. Glass punctures my skin, but I ignore the pain.

  My first reaction is to unbuckle the baby, but then I realize that isn’t safe.

  A man throws the door open. I tell him about the baby, and he helps get the car seat out. I’m outside now. Water rushes over my skin, plastering my clothes to my flesh. Everything is slick. Wet hands reach for me. They belong to the throng of people surrounding the vehicle. They’re trying to free my mom and dad.

  I see my sister in a ditch. I try to rush over, but my knees buckle. I must be strong. Her face is covered in sticky, warm blood, and she spits more from her mouth. It falls down her neck onto her shirt, staining the yellow fabric. She makes me say it then. She makes me promise.

  And I do.

  Then my eyes are open, and I don’t know why.

  Chapter 34

  The fire has died down. I add two logs and blow, waiting for the wood to catch. While I sit in front of the hearth, the cold seeps into my flesh. My body shivers against it.

  Upstairs, something creaks. I exhale into my cupped hands and think that again, it is nighttime, and again, I hear a noise. But this time the noise is moving.

  The living room glows with dim light from the moon that lies behind thick clouds that I wish would vanish. Maybe they will tomorrow.

  I crane my neck toward Blanche. She sleeps quietly, her light snores filling the room.

  Faith, however, is gone.

  Above me, the house moans. Faith is up there, but why?

  Doing my best not to disturb Blanche, I pad up the steps, wincing when one of the boards groans from my weight.

  The second floor is much darker than the first. The very middle of the hall faces the skyscraping windows, which do offer light, but once the walls rise up, the corridor is steeped in darkness.

  I move to the left and notice the extreme shift in temperature. In the waning light my breath curls from my mouth. Why in God’s name would Faith come up here? Surely not to sleep. Even if she was tired of contorting herself into a pretzel on the couch, it’s much, much too frigid to sleep up here.

  My feet are soundless on the thick carpet as I head toward Faith’s room. The knob turns easily, as if it’s freshly oiled. I peek my head in and wait for my vision to adjust.

  But even with my limited sight, I don’t hear what’s expected—a light rumble of breathing, or a fitful sigh that some people make when they sleep. There isn’t even the babyish whimper that I know Faith makes when she’s in deep slumber.

  She’s not in the room.

  The hall is empty, but I still hear creaking, the pad of footsteps coming from the other end of the house.

  “Faith?”

  The creaking stops.

  I’m standing in front of the door to what was my bedroom, listening. Maybe she’s downstairs, using the bathroom, and I’m imagining the sounds.

  But I swear that they were coming from this direction, from Paige’s room.

  I’m at her door now. My fingers brush the handle, and I shiver as the cold metal bites into my skin. I tug my sweater tighter to my body, but it doesn’t help.

  It’s more than the cold that disturbs me. The image of Paige’s prone body is tattooed into my memory. Damn it. There are things that cannot be unseen. That is one of them.

  If Faith is inside, I want to know why. But my own gut stops me. I can’t see Paige. To look on her body or even the sheet covering it makes my skin go cold and a clammy sweat sprinkle my brow.

  Faith is probably downstairs. It’s an easy narrative to believe because would she be up here? Why would she be in Paige’s room? Unless…

  The door opens.

  Faith gasps. “Court! What are you doing?”

  “I heard something up here and came to check it out.”

  “Why?” Her tone is accusatory. It quickly shifts to worry. “Were you afraid someone broke in?”

  I almost laugh. Here? The place where you can stand on a balcony and scream at the top of your lungs and no one will hear you? Are Faith and I staying in the same cabin?

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. I was worried when I didn’t see you downstairs.”

  “I’m here.”

  My eyes adjust, and I see her clearly. Her eyes are wide, her hands clasped behind her back. An undercurrent of decay burrows beneath the cold. I cover my nose with my sleeve, and Faith shuts the door quietly.

  The scent hits me hard. I tighten my stomach muscles against it.

  My eyes narrow. “What were you doing in there?”

  “I wanted to see her, one last time,” Faith explains.

  “Not like this, Faith. You don’t need to look on Paige this way. She’s not the same…person.”

  “I know. I’m sorry if I made you worry. It was unintentional.” She nods for me to move. “Let’s get some rest.”

  “Sure.” But I don’t go. I’m waiting for her to walk past me because her hands are still clasped behind her back. “Do you have something?”

  “No. Of course not. What would I have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She brings her hands to her sides. Her outline is fuzzy, her body more of a halo than a solid presence. She gives me a warm squeeze and slides past.

  Her right hand moves to the front of her nightgown, out of sight. As Faith slips down the stairs, I notice that she moves to the opposite side of the squeaking stair so that it doesn’t groan.

  How long has Faith known about that step? I wonder that, as well as what she’s hiding in her palm as I descend the staircase and make my way back to the couch.

  Chapter 35

  I awaken the next morning to the smell of coffee. Even though we’re trying to spare electricity, I’m not about to begrudge anyone a cup of joe—certainly not myself.

  Blanche sits at the kitchen bar, staring out the window. I stir the fire and add more logs, getting the blaze crackling before I head over.

  Steam from the coffee wafts into the air. She holds the cup to her face.

  “It’s freezing,” she says. “But this helps.”

  I pour a cup for myself. “Faith?”

  “In the shower.”

  “Hmm.” I lean against the edge of the counter and study Blanche. The half-moons under her eyes are purpl
e. “Didn’t sleep well?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I want to go home, even if it’s a broken one. I don’t want to be worried about the police and my livelihood.” She sighs with remorse and runs her fingers over her tired face. “Court, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay.” I smile weakly. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Everything’ll be fine.”

  It will if we keep things simple.

  Blanche rests the cup on the counter and curls her hands around it for warmth. “All this talk of Brittany is making me so sad. For what happened to her, you know? When y’all moved away after…”

  The bluff accident. “It was just too hard for Mama to live there. Too many memories, and knowing that no one would be punished for what happened made it all worse.”

  And Mama never realized that what she’d been told was a lie.

  Blanche nods. “I’m sorry we lost touch.”

  I shrug. These things happen.

  “I felt awful when I found out about the accident. You know, the one that…involved your dad, too.”

  She was going to say killed but thought better of it.

  “Yeah.”

  Blanche wipes her sleeve over her eyes. “And you had Jonas and I never even knew that you were pregnant. For God’s sake, we used to be best friends. I should have known about him. I should have been there.”

  My breath catches. We don’t talk about Jonas’s father much. They never asked too many questions—just assumed that it was an accidental pregnancy, and I never gave many answers.

  I guess some people have to talk about anything and everything to make them feel better and work through issues, but I internalize things. It all gets processed in my head, and when I’m at peace with something, then that’s it, there doesn’t need to be any more discussion about it.

  I settle my coffee on the counter and spread my hands over the cold, slick surface. “His father was a graduate exchange student from France—you know that part. But he didn’t desert me. I know people thought that. They think that because he was foreign, that he left and didn’t care. There was so much to deal with after Daddy’s and Brittany’s deaths, thinking about it was almost too much.”

  “Court,” she says, her voice overflowing with sympathy. “You don’t have to—”

  I lift my hand to silence her. “I didn’t realize that I was pregnant until he returned home. I told him, but he had moved on. He was with another woman. And I said that I would raise our baby and it would be okay.”

  She makes a throaty noise of disgust. “I just don’t understand that. How he couldn’t be interested in his child.”

  “Blanche, what we had, it was a semester of fun. It wasn’t the rest of our lives. I never pushed things with him, and when he found out that I had Tal, I think he was relieved. The burden was gone.”

  Her face crumples. “He sounds like an asshole.”

  I laugh and it feels good, breaking through the unease and discomfort that my insides are knotted in. “He sounds like a guy with the rest of his life ahead of him. Everything has worked out. There was never a need to push for something that wouldn’t last.”

  She stretches her arms in front of her. “And then you and Tal. Who would’ve ever thought it?”

  I know what she means. Tal had belonged to Brittany, not Court. Brittany was the kind one who loved Tal, and Court was the hothead who nearly attacked Charlotte on the bluff.

  Court dated jocks, not nerds. Brittany loved nerds because she was a nerd.

  “Yep,” is all I say. “Who would have thought that Tal would be interested in me?”

  Her face pales. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I wave her worry aside. “It’s not a big deal. It all worked out for the best.”

  “Didn’t it?”

  I pull my phone from my pocket and frown.

  “Still no service?” Blanche asks.

  “It makes no sense. Do we have TV?”

  “Let’s check.”

  Blanche gets off the chair with a grunt and heads to find the remote. She clicks on the TV, and within seconds the news is on.

  “But still no Internet,” I muse. Several boxes sit in the cabinet where the satellite box is. “One of these has to be the modem, right?”

  “I’m guessing.”

  Blanche and I start to shift through the gray and black rectangular boxes. I move to the side of the cabinet and peer at the wall.

  “The cable line isn’t connected,” I say. Cold dread floods my stomach. “Do you see a cable—the kind with the little prongy thing at the end?”

  Blanche sifts through the boxes. “No.”

  My hand grazes the floor. There’s got to be a simple explanation. The cable came loose and fell to the floor. Surely that happened. But how could a cable that twists and practically clamps to the wall so easily come loose?

  My search for the snaking black cord reveals nothing. “Blanche?” My voice is weak. The weakness surprises even me.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s gone,” I murmur.

  “What?”

  “The cable—the one that connects to the router and fires it up—it’s missing.”

  She straightens and comes around to me. Dark hair covers her face, and she brushes it away. With her dark eyes and hair woolly with dust and fuzz from the entertainment center, she looks like stranger.

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  I move out of the way. “See if you can find it.”

  She searches same as me, scratching and pawing at the back of the cabinet. Finally she sighs.

  “It’s not here.”

  “It was here when we arrived,” I remind her. “We all connected to the Internet.”

  She blows a bubble of air from her lips. “Right. Well, where the hell is it?”

  It’s hiding in the cabinet, I decide, because the alternative isn’t possible. It must be secreted away behind a shelf or caught behind a box. Blanche must have missed it.

  Yes, that’s it. It’s simply well concealed behind a black box. For God’s sake, the whole cabinet is cast in darkness anyway. The light from the windows doesn’t penetrate the farthest corners of the deep.

  I peel back the router. It’s only become disconnected. Easy as that.

  But the only thing protruding from the router is the power cord.

  My heart falls to the floor. I yank the router out. My hand scours over the generic shelf of wood that fits into entertainment centers sold across the country.

  But I find nothing.

  “It’s not here.”

  Blanche’s head bobs. “Who took it?”

  She’s launched straight into it without even blinking. “I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”

  “Of course not,” she snaps. “It wouldn’t be you. It would’ve been someone else.”

  I stare at the console and sigh. “Which one was it, you mean?”

  She shifts to the hall and glances down toward the bathroom. “Water’s still running.”

  “Why would it have been Faith?” I say. “Scratch that. We should ask first.”

  “Why? She’s already pointed a finger at me.”

  “Oh, Blanche—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Court. Don’t try to cover up. Don’t try to act like the conversation that the three of us had didn’t happen, because it did. Faith thinks I had something to do with Paige. Wouldn’t it make sense that she would maybe want to make sure that we couldn’t shift things?”

  “No,” I say. “It wouldn’t.”

  “Then you don’t remember events like I do.”

  I frown. “What are you talking about?”

  “On the bluff.”

  I back up a few steps. “On the bluff? What are you saying?”

  “Oh, come on, Court.” She shakes her head. “We don’t need to go into the past, because you know as well as I do what happened.”

  “I thought you weren’t looking,” I ground out.

  Blanche shifts un
comfortably.

  As much as I want to ask Blanche what she meant, we need to focus on the cable. “Think about it—it’s not Faith who wanted to keep us from reaching the outside world.”

  “Oh,” Blanche says, realizing what I’m talking about.

  “It was Paige.”

  Blanche’s eyes narrow as she mentally picks apart my theory. “If we could reach the outside world, then we could call an attorney before the police showed up. Hell, we could have driven away.”

  “That would’ve made us look guilty,” I point out. “So would calling an attorney. I think she wanted us mentally screwed over when the detective arrived.”

  “That’s why it took us so long to find the letter,” Blanche muses. “Paige wanted to ensure we didn’t have time to see it—or at least not enough time before its delivery and that of the officer.”

  “She thought of everything.” I smirked. “Except for a freak ice storm.”

  The water stops running in the bathroom. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”

  “We need to search for the cable. Paige could’ve put it anywhere.”

  Blanche picks at her hair nervously. “In her room.”

  “In her room,” I repeat.

  It’s a stare down until Blanche breaks it. “I’ll go.”

  “No, I will.” I cut her off from the stairs. “I know you don’t want to see her—not after your history together.”

  She shrivels a little. “Yeah.”

  I offer a feeble smile. “Be right back.”

  I’ll admit that all I can think of is getting into the room to see what Faith was doing there last night.

  What had she taken?

  Or did I imagine the whole thing with her hands—that she was hiding something.

  That thought is shaken away. No, it wasn’t my imagination. I know that.

  Must be quick.

  I take the steps two at a time and am standing outside Paige’s door within seconds. The cold is different up here—it penetrates to the marrow. My fingers are already small and cold against it.

  The doorknob feels like frozen steel under my fingertips. It springs open, and I’m standing in the room for the first time since yesterday.