The fall knocked the soggy copy of The Call of the Wild from the back of Cadie’s waistband. In all the commotion she had forgotten to leave it for Garrett. She hadn’t even felt it as she swam to the rocks where Daniela hid. Cadie thumbed through the fragile, wet pages, imagining what kind of message Garrett would have coded for her in the words.
If Daniela was too selfish to rescue him, Cadie would do it herself.
14
THAT SUMMER
Cadie closed her eyes, imagining how Garrett’s property connected to the wooded path where she sat. She visualized rowing past several homes and the long swath of woods. Around the tip of the Hook. She imagined herself a bird, flying over the lake and the forest. She could find his house from the woods.
She picked up a large stick and headed for Silas Creek.
Cadie thrashed through the icy water until she came to the barbed-wire fence. She rubbed the pink scar on her shoulder from where she cut herself the day she met Daniela in the woods. She lay on her belly in the water and slithered under the wire. With her walking stick for support, she navigated the slippery stones until the water became too deep to walk in.
She crawled up the bank and continued through the woods, unsure what she hoped to find. Maybe she could find Garrett and convince him to come home with her. Or what if the uncle saw her first? Gooseflesh crawled across her wet skin.
You know what happens to people who break blood oaths?
The look on Daniela’s face when she pointed to the door stung like a fresh wound. Cadie squeezed her walking stick tighter.
Cadie froze at a crackling sound followed by huffing, dragging. Her well-practiced instinct told her to make noise if she heard a bear, but a deeper intuition pleaded with her to stay silent. The noise came closer and Cadie crouched behind a bush. A sniffling, a scraping, like something being dragged through the underbrush. A pause followed by an unbearable silence. Cadie shrank into the bush and pressed her back against a tree. She could disappear into the branches.
The movement started again, inching closer. A grunt. Twigs cracking. Two people moved into view, struggling to drag something heavy. She craned her neck to see better. Not something. They dragged someone.
The lump in her throat swelled again. Don’t move. You are invisible. You are part of the forest.
The figures were too far away to distinguish faces, but she recognized the skinny arms and stooped shoulders. The silhouette from the pier. Garrett. He struggled to support the feet of a man’s body, while the other person gripped under the armpits and staggered backward.
They moved so slowly. One shuffled step after another. Garrett ran back to retrieve a long-handled shovel, tossed it ahead of them, and resumed. Cadie’s feet started to fall asleep as she crouched low for what seemed like hours as they dragged the body a painful twenty feet. Thorns stabbed at her ankles, but she didn’t dare move.
As they drew closer, the adult stood up and stretched. Cadie held her breath, expecting to see the face of the uncle. She clamped her hand over her mouth to hold in a gasp when Dolores stood up and stretched her back.
The phone call, the harried voice. Why wasn’t Dolores at the store?
Cadie wanted to scream, to run.
Garrett and Dolores struggled, one step and a pause; Garrett lost his grip on one leg and a heavy work boot thudded against a rock. Every sound in the forest seemed amplified. A squirrel scampered overhead and Cadie held her breath, hoping Garrett and Dolores wouldn’t look in the direction of the animal and see Cadie cowering.
“I can’t do it.” Garrett dropped a lifeless leg and crumpled to the ground. His face looked cold as granite, his lips as pale as his skin. “He’s too heavy.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Dolores said.
“Can’t we do it here?”
“It’s too rocky. We need to get closer to the creek bank.” Dolores held her gaze up high, not looking at Garrett, or the body. As Garrett sat on the ground, Dolores straightened her back and began pulling him without Garrett’s assistance. She barely moved the body an inch before stumbling and falling.
Cadie crept backward, sharp stones and twigs digging into her palms and knees. If she could get behind the large boulder fifteen feet away, she would be able to sneak off without being seen.
Dolores stood up and tried to lift the body again. She pulled the man by his armpits and heaved with all of her body weight. She lost her grip and the man’s head fell against a rock with a crack.
Dolores cried out at the impact and rushed to cradle the man’s head. She brushed the floppy black hair from his forehead, exposing the face.
“Oh, Juan.” She held his head on her lap and leaned over until her forehead touched his. “Oh, Juan.”
Cadie stopped moving, the crack of skull on granite reverberating through her joints. No longer caring if they saw her, she wanted to run, to get far away from Garrett and Dolores, far away from that body.
Run, Cadie screamed inside her head. Run. But her body refused to move. She could not breathe as she thought of Juan’s fingertip fluttering against Daniela’s, his slippery S sounds, and broad smile.
After a few long minutes, Dolores stood up and groaned, covering her mouth with her hand to suppress a sharp cry. Her other hand moved to her lower back. She froze, stuck halfway between standing and bending over. Her shoulders shook, just slightly, but enough for Cadie to know Dolores was crying.
“What’s wrong?” Garrett asked.
“I’m fine.” Her voice quivered. She stood up slowly, both hands pressing into the small of her back.
“Please, can’t we just leave him here,” Garrett said.
“It’s too late for that.” Dolores bent over and tried again to drag Juan. She breathed in deep rasps as if trying to blow through the pain. Her chin trembled.
Dolores’s ache swelled inside Cadie’s chest. She thought of the fear in Daniela’s eyes as she had pressed herself into the corner in the kitchen. The air in Cadie’s lungs burned.
She was only a few feet from the boulder. She could get away.
Dolores’s pained breath grew louder, filling Cadie’s head until she could no longer hear her own thoughts. Dolores moaned again and Cadie jumped up.
“I’ll help you,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” Dolores grimaced as she tried to stand up straight. She scanned the woods behind Cadie.
Garrett took off running.
“It’s me. It’s Cadie.” She couldn’t see him among the thick trees, but she heard his footsteps stop abruptly.
Dolores grabbed Cadie’s shoulder so hard it hurt. “Why are you here? Who is with you?”
Garrett peeked out from behind a tree.
“I’m alone. She’s not with me.” Cadie chewed the inside of her cheek.
Dolores looked gray. Her dimples had disappeared and Cadie wondered if they would ever return. Could fear wipe away a lifetime of smiles?
“You need to leave,” she said.
Cadie stepped next to Dolores and put her hands under the man’s armpits. Through his work shirt the body felt soft, not stiff like she expected. She strained, digging her heels into the ground, but she barely budged him. She slipped and fell onto her backside, got up and tried again.
Dolores stepped next to her and took one arm while Cadie took the other. Garrett picked up the legs and they moved slowly toward the creek. Cadie felt as if she were watching herself from high up in the tree. She was in a movie. In a book. The trembling calmed. None of it was real.
They worked together, but each of them walked alone in that forest. Cadie stole sideways glances at Dolores, but Dolores would not make eye contact. She could feel Garrett looking at her, but could not meet his stare.
When they found a place near the creek with soil deep enough to dig in, they laid Juan down gently. His eyes were closed, a sliver of white showing between his lids. His jaw lay slack and she could see his soft tongue. He could have been asleep. One side of his collar stuck up higher than the
other because his buttons were off by one. Cadie felt the urge to correct the buttons, but quickly forgot when her eyes drifted to the dark red stain covering his abdomen and spreading down one pants leg.
Cadie moved away from the body. She no longer watched the scene from high up in the trees. On the ground, in her own skin, and surrounded by the smell of blood and decaying leaves, the weight of the moment choked her. She leaned against a tree and vomited.
The leaves and soil absorbed her sick nearly as fast as it burst out of her. A timid hand touched her back. She turned, expecting to see Dolores ready to comfort her. Instead, she found Garrett, looking as terrified as she felt.
The touch of his skin, which had once exhilarated her, now repulsed her. She jumped up, fetched the shovel, and started digging. The three took turns shoveling, prying rocks out, and untangling tree roots from the damp earth. As the sun climbed, Cadie dug faster, clawing at the earth with bloodied fingertips. The forest grudgingly gave up three feet of soil, deep enough to produce a dull thud when they rolled the body in.
They did not speak. The scratch of the rusty shovel on the wet, sandy soil followed by the gentle thump of loose earth landing on Juan Hernández filled the forest. Chush, thud. Chush, thud. Chush, thud.
They piled heavy rocks on top of the soil to keep animals away. When they had finished, Dolores formed a rough, almost imperceptible cross out of tiny stones and walked to the creek to wash her hands. Cadie and Garrett did the same.
“We will never speak of this. Ever.” Dolores looked at Garrett, then at Cadie. She splashed water on her legs and rubbed at her muddy shins. “Not to Daniela. Not to your parents.”
Cadie nodded, blinking back tears.
“What happened today is terrible. Unspeakable.” Dolores’s voice cracked as she looked back at the mound of stones. “Telling anyone about it will make the situation worse.”
Dolores took Cadie’s hands in hers. A warmth radiated from Dolores. A silent assurance. An apology for this moment that she must have known would twist and contort inside Cadie for the rest of her life.
“Mr. Garcia does not need to know about this. Not your mom and dad. No one. Do you understand what’s at stake if my family gets caught up in this?”
Cadie had to focus on each individual muscle in her head and neck to make herself nod, as if her body knew better than to comply.
“And you know what would happen to you and your uncle?” Dolores said to Garrett.
“I know,” he whispered.
“Why isn’t he here?” Cadie whispered to Garrett. “Why did he leave you to do this?”
“That’s not important now,” Dolores said.
“But how could he—”
“We won’t talk to anyone, especially not the police.” Dolores ignored Cadie and turned again to the pile of stones. Cadie didn’t know what prayer looked like or felt like, but when Dolores closed her eyes, so did Cadie. What would someone pray for in a moment like this? Protection from the police? To keep your family safe? To stay out of foster care? For Juan’s soul?
Cadie prayed for forgiveness. Not so much from God, if there was one, but from Daniela. She scrunched her eyes so tight it hurt as she pleaded to whomever or whatever listened. Please let Daniela forgive me. Please let her be my friend again.
She squeezed her eyes tighter, waiting for a sense of comfort she hoped praying might deliver. But nothing changed. I’m so sorry, she pleaded silently to Juan. I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I’m not standing up for you. If only she could wind back time and warn Juan when he spoke to Daniela at Angie’s. She would whisper something in his ear and change the course of everything that followed. She would wind back further and let that yellow boat drift right past her in the mist. Don’t jump, she would tell herself. Her stomach tightened. Without the boat, would she have become friends with Daniela?
Cadie shifted her weight from foot to foot, her soles sinking deeper into the damp earth until she felt rooted. She was a tree. A boulder. Affixed to this forest, this place forever. Garrett scuffled around her, adding rocks to the pile. The tick of granite on top of granite settling in Cadie’s bones.
Cadie opened her eyes. Dolores’s lips moved slightly as if she were talking, but no sound emerged. The numbness that had possessed Cadie while moving Juan and digging the hole began to fade. Blisters stung her palms. Her shoulders ached.
“Tía,” Cadie said softly, the breath barely escaping her lips. The endearment that once floated on her tongue now weighed heavy like a stone in her throat.
Dolores squeezed Cadie’s hand and opened her eyes.
“Go home and clean up,” Dolores said to Garrett.
He looked younger, frailer. Color had returned to his lips. Mud smeared his cheek and forehead. Cadie wanted to talk to him, to say something profound, maybe comforting, but the lump in her throat blocked her words.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make this right,” Garrett said in a low monotone. But his eyes told Cadie he was thinking the same thing she was—that nothing would ever make this right. “I don’t know how, but one day I’ll—”
Garrett let his sentence hang in the air. No words could finish that sentence.
Syllables crashed around inside Cadie’s head, desperate to get out, but words would not form.
“Cadie,” he whispered.
She would never see him again, she knew. She would never hear him say her name.
“We will never discuss what happened here.” Dolores repeated her command. “Ever.”
Her voice sounded like Daniela’s. We can never tell. Ever.
Cadie nodded. This time, she would keep her promise.
A muggy breeze poured through the oaks and maples and pines, carrying the iridescent taste of fear across the shallows of the cove, beyond the vastness of the lake, and up into the mountains where the broken fragments of Cadie’s childhood took refuge in the fissures—and waited.
15
PRESENT DAY
As Cadie walked away from Ryan and the firefighters, the entire town seemed to press in on her, wringing out the sharp memories and scattering them across the uneven sidewalk. She yearned for the comfort in Ryan’s annoying posture.
Hers should have been a fairy-tale childhood. Two loving parents. A cottage in the woods. But fairy tales always turn dark, especially the ones that take place in a forest. She wanted to remember the Girl Scout, the scrawny girl fighting her way up hills on a rusty bike. Not the scared child cowering in the woods.
A staccato of bouncing balls and whoops from a group of teenage boys echoed off the cinderblock wall at the far end of the middle school basketball court.
“Cadie!” a voice called.
Garrett, now wearing a Maple Crest Police Department T-shirt and athletic shorts, left the group of boys and jogged toward her. Sweat glistened on his brow as he clung to the chain-link fence separating them.
He wiped his forehead with his arm. His splotchy cheeks glowed red from exertion and he smiled the first real smile Cadie had ever seen on his face. As a boy he always looked scared. In the police station he’d appeared nervous, uncomfortable.
“Who’s your lady friend?” one of the boys called. Garrett ignored him.
“Police work?” Cadie looked over his shoulder at the boys.
“I’m part of a mentor program.” He squeezed the links in the fence. “I’m getting too old to keep up with them.”
Garrett didn’t look out of shape. Long, lean arms and chiseled calves. Cadie had never imagined the skinny boy in the lawn chair filling out. A basketball rolled toward him. He stopped it with his foot and picked it up. A boy sprinted over to get the ball.
“Who’s your friend?” The boy punched Garrett in the shoulder.
“None of your business, Fernando.”
“You know, he is, like, totally available.” Fernando grinned. “I tried to get him to ask my aunt out, but he’s too shy.”
Cadie felt her face reddening.
Garrett put a hand on Fernando�
�s shoulder and pushed him back toward the other boys, who were all watching them.
Fernando winked at Cadie and nodded his head encouragingly as he walked backward toward the basketball court.
“Sorry.” Garrett wiped his face again and rocked back on his heels.
“Should you get back to your game?” Cadie put a hand in her pocket to stop herself from twisting a strand of hair.
“Yeah, but they have to be back in class in five minutes. Do you have time for a coffee?”
“I’m going to the diner for lunch. You can come if you want.” Cadie knew Daniela would be annoyed if she met with Garrett alone, but she needed to know more about the boy imprinted in her memory.
Cadie felt like a schoolgirl as she gripped the fence, watching boys playing ball. When she was their age, none of the boys had looked back.
“I need to finish up with these characters.” He nodded toward the boys, who were now making kissing noises directed at him.
“See you at the diner?”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He joined the boys and they walked toward the gymnasium door.
“You ask her out?” a boy yelled, holding his fist up to Garrett.
Garrett answered with a fist bump and all the boys roared with approval.
Time folded in on itself. The Summer Kid. Officer Tierney. Garrett. Cadie couldn’t suppress a smile as she walked toward the diner.
Angie’s had closed years earlier. In its place stood a new lunch and breakfast spot with the same table configuration and breakfast bar. Colorless walls and furniture replaced the warm, earthy tones she remembered. The view from the picture window, however, had not changed.
She walked past the lunch counter and spun a black leather bar stool. Instead of the easy glide she remembered, the seat creaked with rusty resistance.
A huddle of elderly women drank coffee at the counter. A couple with twin toddlers wrestled eggs into their kids’ mouths. The group of men who had passed her at the fire station sat at a table in the corner, reading menus.
No one recognized her as the girl who had picked the blueberries for Angie’s famous blueberry pies. She had become a stranger in her hometown, a ghost of the carefree girl who spun herself dizzy at the counter.
Waiting for the Night Song Page 11