27
The Runner
The wire itches under Gwen’s shirt. She pinned it so carefully that Mum wouldn’t even see its shadow as they sat down to breakfast. She’s been every inch the perfect girl today. The damn microphone was enough to remind her what was at stake. But then she started wondering if the wire had a transmitting limit, and then Avery texted her he’s here on the bus, and she’s not sure exactly how she got to the point where she was liberating Dad’s truck, but she’s almost in Greeley now and her phone pinged with messages every time she got Wi-Fi and she’s been praying for the last forty miles, Don’t take me now, Mary. I’ll really owe you one. Except I won’t turn straight for you or go to church.
She taps the brakes and the truck slides through a stop sign. She drifts and catches traction on the other side of the empty intersection, and Gwen lets herself exhale.
Her phone rings again, and she risks a glance. Mum. Like the last sixteen times. She doesn’t need to pick up; she knows she’s grounded for the rest of her life—assuming she makes it home again. She left them a note, and she thought about writing why. About saying, This is for Lizzy and for us. In the end, she just wrote, I’ll be okay, don’t worry. Please don’t be mad at me. I love you.
Of course they’re mad. Just like she was mad at Lizzy’s note. Unlike Lizzy, she’ll be able to explain when she gets home. If she gets home.
But things are happening too fast. She recalls the pale moon of Avery’s face outside her window last night, wide-eyed with fear. Avery gasping: “They found him.”
No one really made a contingency plan for what happened if Randy Silverman washed up in a bend of the river. Gwen supposes it was stupid now, to hope that he might be considered an unconnected death. So she let Avery in, and she made a plan, and she kissed Aves and said it would be fine. She had the feeling, even then, that she was lying.
She’s been trying not to think about him for three days. About the way he crumpled, the sound his body made as it hit the earth like a loose bag of cement.
She pulls into the parking lot of the Stadion Greeley and lets the truck roll inexorably up against a curb. Then she grabs her phone.
Where are you? Her finger hovers over the call button, but if she calls the police might overhear. They’d wonder what she was doing in Greeley when she wasn’t supposed to leave Lorne. Avery’s last text was about Glenmere Park. Why would she want to meet in Glenmere Park?
The phone lights up, making her jump. But it’s Mum. Again. “Hell on wheels, isn’t it?” Gwen mutters in her mother’s voice. It’s easier than acknowledging the stab in her heart. Mum’s going to think that she’s just like Lizzy. She doesn’t realize that Gwen’s trying to save Lizzy, the only way she can now.
I’m here, she texts after a few minutes, and gets out of the car.
The parking lot of the Stadion is dead except for the bus that drove the cheer team. As Gwen enters the lobby, she spots Natalie at the desk. She ducks behind a pillar. The heat of a properly warmed building burns her cheeks. She glances around for any sign of him, but the rest of the lobby is empty. Natalie waits at the desk for a while, tapping one foot, then says a cheerful “Thank you” to the receptionist before bouncing back toward the dining area. Through blurred glass Gwen can see shapes and colors, shifting and swirling. Is Avery among them?
No. If she’s scared, she’d pretend to have a headache and stay in her room. So with a final glance toward the dining room, Gwen forges into the open and approaches reception.
She feels as though she’s in a sniper’s sight. If he catches her—if anyone notices her and tells him she’s here—then it won’t just be her ass on the line. She should’ve told Avery to just lie low. To not give him an excuse to suspect her. What could he do on a school trip? She should be back in Lorne, dealing with the gun. Making sure Avery’s safe when she returns.
She’s at the desk. The receptionist purses his lips at her. “Yes?”
“I’m here to see my sister,” she says. “She forgot something for the competition.”
“You can go into the dining hall, but if you want to eat you’ll have to pay for it,” he says.
“I was thinking I could just drop it off in her room? Avery Cross.” She stands on tiptoes, as though he might have a convenient list of cheerleaders and their rooms right behind the desk.
He sighs. She resists the urge to look at the door to the dining room as he taps at something. “Sure. Room 202.”
She turns and walks toward the stairs, trying not to break into a run. “You’re welcome,” he calls after her.
She takes the stairs two at a time until she makes it to the second floor. Her knock on room 202 is too prim, but she can’t risk calling out. She listens for movement on the other side of the door, and her heart leaps as she hears a light footfall.
The door opens. It’s not Avery.
Lyla gapes. Gwen’s mouth falls open.
Lyla gathers herself first. “What are you doing here?” she says, loud enough for the entire hall to hear.
Gwen’s heart jolts. “Can I come in?”
“Uh, no—” Lyla says, but Gwen shoulders her aside and slips into the room.
Avery’s open gym bag sits on her neatly made bed. “Where’s Avery?”
“She’s avoiding me. She doesn’t want to . . . Wait . . .” Lyla’s eyes widen. Her hands fly up to her mouth.
Gwen ignores Lyla and goes over to the bag. Maybe Avery’s just out. Maybe she left her phone in here. Gwen’s fingers have started to shake. She turns over tiny bottles of shampoo, shaving foam, bath gel.
“Oh my god,” Lyla says through her fingers. “Ohmygod. Avery’s been cheating on Michael with you?”
“Lyla.” Gwen grits her teeth. “Please. Where’s Avery?” She turns back to the gym bag. If the phone’s just here—
Her fingers close around a scrap of paper.
“Oh my god, no wonder she didn’t tell me anything. Don’t you realize Aves can do so much better than you?”
Gwen whirls on her, crumpling the note in her fist. Lyla steps back. “Where. Is. Avery. Right. Now.” She can’t get her breath back. She can’t shake the anger. She wants to hit something. Not Lyla. Not Lyla.
“Like I said, she’s been avoiding me. She didn’t show for dinner.”
Gwen can’t breathe. There’s a pain in her chest, so sharp and shooting she almost doubles over. She can’t do this again. She bolts for the door.
“We’re going to have a little chat, you and I. If I don’t just tell her to dump you,” Lyla calls as the door slams. Gwen doesn’t care. She only hopes Avery’s still around to be affected by girlfriend drama. Her fingers squeeze, tighter and tighter around the note, written in spiky all caps:
Good girls deserve favors. Bad girls deserve the water.
Glenmere Park is black on white, trees on snow. The world ends in a cloud and flurries, but as Gwen runs past playgrounds and over the asphalt path, it resolves into a lake, spiderweb cracks shooting through thin ice. The world is silent but for her boots, crunching on snow, and her breath, ragged and clouding the night. The lake glows. She looks for a dark hole in its surface, looks for telltale footprints headed out to the ice, but she finds nothing.
No one’s here.
Gwen scans the trees as she goes, slipping in her worn-down boots. She opens her mouth to call out. But she can’t bring herself to do it. If Avery is still here—if Avery’s still alive—he might be here, too. Waiting for both of them to reveal themselves.
Her lungs burn but she keeps running. She trips over a root, she slides on the path and has to catch herself with one hand. She keeps running. She circles the park twice. No one. She can’t stop now. Giving up means failing, and she promised herself she wouldn’t do that.
She promised Lizzy she wouldn’t do that. She’d been too late in Lizzy’s life; she’d sworn not to make the same mistake in death.
Her feet slip and she hits the ground with a thud.
She can’t get up. Ther
e’s no one to get up for.
She fails everyone in her life. Her parents, who deserve a good daughter who does what she’s told. Avery, who dumped her perfectly decent boyfriend for this. Lizzy, who needed help and not judgment. Who needed someone to believe her, and to believe in her. Who died angry and afraid and alone, tumbling down a ravine. Who called but never got an answer.
Gwen tucks her knees up to her chin. Snow sears a face hot with tears and desperation. Gwen’s life story: just a little too behind. If only she’d driven faster to get here. If only she’d called. If only she’d picked up the phone.
If only she’d been a better sister.
Gwen hugs her knees. Then her hand goes to her pocket, to Lizzy’s note folded like a talisman. I love you, Pilipala. Please don’t be mad.
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
And the sobs come, thick and angry and hopeless, swallowed up by the storm. Gwen squeezes her eyes shut as though she can push out everything that hurts.
She doesn’t see the figure at the edge of the trees. She doesn’t hear him step out of the shadows.
28
The Living Girl
The world burns.
Avery passed the I’m going to throw up point some endless minutes ago. Everything tilts around her. Her throat is fire, her skin is melting. She’d close her eyes, but even blinking hurts. She slouches against the door and tries one last time to hit the glass, but she knows it’s useless. Even stupid Avery can tell when it’s time to give up. Her heart feels slow, each beat a stab in her chest. Everything fuzzes at the edges—the oak benches, the curve of her hand. The ping of the sauna seems far away.
There are worse ways to die. Hurtling over the edge of a slope, or crashing through icy water, at the mercy of a cruel current.
She hears a click. And then Avery knows she’s in trouble, because she’s falling and the air around her has turned cold, and isn’t that what happens when you get heat stroke?
“What the hell?” Two arms reach under her body and pull. No, no, no, she thinks. He’s back. And instead of leaving her to die, he’s going to do something worse.
“What the hell were you doing in there, Aves?” Something presses against her hand. A water bottle. She fumbles at the cap and more competent fingers take over. She squints at them. Focus. Then she dares to look up.
Michael holds the bottle up to her mouth. She grips it and tips. Goose bumps rise all along her arms as she drinks, and water sluices over her chin. Her body racks with a shiver. Is water supposed to be this cold? It hurts to drink.
“Avery, what’s going on. Are you . . . ?” Michael bends down until she can’t help but look him in the eye. “Were you trying to . . . ?”
He thinks she was trying to kill herself. Avery forces a rusty laugh. “The door was locked from the outside,” she points out. She pushes to her feet, but vertigo sends her right back down.
“Don’t.” Michael puts a hand on her shoulder. “What do you need?”
She needs to go. “More water.”
He goes over to the tap. “I didn’t see you at dinner. I thought maybe you’d stopped eating again. I thought maybe it was because I’m here. Then Lyla said you went for a swim, and . . . who locked you in?”
Would he believe her if she told him?
“Was it one of the girls?” A shadow crosses his face.
She takes the bottle and drinks again. Then she grabs her towel and uniform from the cubbyhole next to the sauna. She leans against the wall as she pulls her shorts over her still-wet bathing suit. “I have to go.” Gwen’s in danger. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Hang on. You can’t go anywhere. You have to sit down. You have to drink water.” Michael brandishes the empty bottle. “We have to call the police.”
Avery’s life has been full of men telling her what to do. She’s sort of done with it now. She draws herself up. “I need your phone,” she says. She doesn’t shout, and she doesn’t cry. Her voice doesn’t even tremble.
Michael stares for a moment. Then he fumbles in his pocket.
“Thank you.”
She leans forward then and wraps her arms around him. His arms stiffen, and even when he returns the hug, he doesn’t completely relax. Poor, confused Michael. “I’m sorry about everything,” she says. Now her voice does tremble, but she might not get the chance to say this ever again. “You deserved better.”
It’s time to go.
She jams her feet into her shoes and heads up the back stairwell. A uniformed officer leans against the lobby desk, and the receptionist looks grave.
He’s here for her. She doesn’t have much time.
She ducks through the restaurant and leaves out the side door onto the patio. Slipping between closed umbrellas and stacked plastic chairs, she hops the thigh-high fence and hurries into the parking lot. The outside air is pure relief.
Glenmere Park. She checks the map on Michael’s phone and sets off. The world is so quiet out here that she can hear her own heartbeat beginning to speed up.
She writes to Gwen. Its aves. DONT CALL. He has my phone. I dont know where he is. Text where u are.
The snow has lessened since their drive up, and now it falls in tiny flakes that rest on the hairs of her arm. She pads across the road, trying not to shiver, and onto the running path that circles Glenmere Park.
She checks Michael’s phone. Nothing. Maybe Gwen isn’t getting WiFi. Maybe she can’t check her phone. Maybe she’s planning what to write, or maybe she didn’t even fall for his trick. Maybe she’s not in Greeley at all.
If Avery called, she’d hear Gwen’s voice and know she was all right.
She didn’t realize how much she needed that until now.
The night is so silent. Her breath rasps like some beast. As the cold and wet sting her, it becomes harder to remember she’s no longer in Lorne. It’s that night. She is running for her life. Hearing the cock of a gun, the roar of the river. Screams.
Something breaks through her fear. A shuffling, broken sound. It reaches into her heart and squeezes in new, painful ways. Her feet turn toward it, and as she runs she sees a dark smudge on the ground. It takes on shape until she recognizes the fall of Gwen’s hair, the faded black of her fraying coat.
She’s lying on the ground. Why is she lying on the ground?
Avery runs. She runs faster than she knew she could. She doesn’t notice the figure that has detached itself from the trees, who now steps hastily back.
“Gwen,” she gasps, skidding and falling to her knees next to Gwen’s body.
Gwen opens red eyes. Her face glistens in the dim light. “You’re here?” she whispers.
Avery eases her up. “I’m here.” She leans Gwen forward until they touch, head to shoulder, arms sliding around each other slowly like that first, uncertain time. “Did he—did anything—?”
Gwen shakes her head. “What about you?”
“He tried,” Avery says, so fiercely that a laugh escapes Gwen, high and hysterical and accompanied by a fresh wave of tears.
She pulls back. “I’m sorry,” she chokes.
Avery pulls up the edge of Gwen’s scarf and starts to dab at her cheeks, pressing gently. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.” Even though it’s so, so far from okay.
“But I wasn’t there for you.” Tears drip onto Avery’s hand.
She turns her hand to cup Gwen’s cheek. Those brown eyes, always so guarded, are finally vulnerable, and the hurt in them makes her want to crumble. More than that, it makes her want to be strong. To stand in the way of anything that might come at Gwen, and to turn it aside. She presses her forehead to Gwen’s, then her nose, then her mouth. Gwen shudders against her. Her lips taste like salt and need. Her fingers contract around Avery’s arms, and she presses forward, easing Avery’s mouth open with her tongue, kissing like it’s the last chance she’ll ever get.
But when they pull apart at last, the despair hasn’t left her eyes.
“It’s n
ot your fault,” Avery says. “It’s never your fault.” Like it wasn’t her fault, or Claude’s fault, or Lizzy’s fault, or Emma’s fault.
“Tell me it’s going to be okay again,” Gwen murmurs, and Avery knows she doesn’t believe her.
“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” She leans forward and kisses Gwen. “It’s going to be okay.” One kiss for every time she says it.
They both hear it—footfalls on snow. Gwen freezes. “He’s here,” she whispers.
Avery wants to freeze, too. But she can’t. She has someone to protect. She turns, thinking of what she can use as a weapon, knowing her fists won’t be good enough.
“Put your hands in the air! Now!”
It’s the police.
“Up. UP!”
Avery and Gwen jerk their arms up. Avery squints in the sudden glare of half a dozen flashlights, all pointed at her.
Two hands pull her away from Gwen. “Avery Cross?” says a gruff voice she doesn’t recognize.
“Yes,” she says. It’s going to be okay.
“You’re under arrest, on suspicion of murder.” The cop all but pulls her to her feet. “We found the gun.” He rattles off her juvenile Miranda rights. “Maybe if you come quietly, you can get a good plea deal.”
It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. They’re safe now, from the worst of the monsters. From the monsters that lurk in the trees of Glenmere Park, watching the parade of officers and teens march to the Stadion Hotel parking lot, where red and blue flash in concert. The monster whose face contorts with rage as his quarry escapes again. The monster who slips into the hotel lobby while the rest of the cheer team stands, staring.
THE LORNE EXAMINER ONLINE
December 8, 2018, 7:45 P.M.
Three Teens Arrested for Murder of Fourth
On December 5, Emma Baines disappeared. Tonight, the Jefferson-Lorne Police department made three arrests.
The girls had all been questioned before. One has been skirting a juvenile detention record. One had a fierce academic competition with Emma and comes from a broken home. One took prescription drugs and may have lured Emma into a homosexual relationship.
The Good Girls Page 20