Emma nods. She’s ready to make her blog debut—she’s even decided on her pen name. She thinks Adams West has a nice ring to it. “You know your jobs?”
“Get Lizzy’s phone,” Claude says.
“U-unlock it,” Avery stammers.
“Find her secret account,” Gwen finishes.
Emma nods. “I’ll do the rest. Don’t let him corner you. Don’t let him catch on.”
They fall silent. They don’t know what to do. They’re not friends, exactly; they’re less and more. They’re in this together. Three of them are risking it all, and one of them is dead.
She doesn’t wave. She hefts her bags and takes one step back into the woods, then another. Then another. And then she turns, and the dappling moonlight turns her into an incomprehensible jumble of shadows, moving between tree trunks until the girls cannot see her at all.
31
The Little Sister
BAINES: So Emma was the one in the woods? My daughter escaped my notice and evaded me?
GWEN: Maybe she had insider information on how to hide.
BRYSON: Chief—Miss Sayer, I’m going to continue with my original line of questioning, okay?
Who shot Randy Silverman?
GWEN: He shot himself. We told him what he was about to do, and he couldn’t go through with it.
BRYSON: It’d be pretty difficult for him to shoot himself in the back of the head. Your fingerprints, however, are on the gun.
GWEN: I fought him for it. He was trying to kill someone.
BRYSON: Why did you kill him?
GWEN: I didn’t.
BRYSON: Miss Cross and Miss Vanderly said it was you.
GWEN: No they didn’t.
BRYSON: They said you thought it was Mr. Garson. You thought he’d come back to finish off Emma, the way he finished off Lizzy. It’s an understandable point of view. You were acting out of self-defense. You wanted your sister back. He was trying to kill someone. One heated moment is all it’d take.
GWEN: Interesting. A few minutes ago, I shot him and killed Emma because I was a jealous lover. Now you understand my true motives? I don’t think so. You don’t even care about the truth, about how Emma and Lizzy were almost the same. You don’t care how Lizzy connects to all this. I shouldn’t be surprised. You never put much effort into her case in the first place. Even when we dropped the phone in your lap, you didn’t care enough to investigate it—
Oh my god. Oh shit. I just realized. Where’s the phone?
BRYSON: You can’t have access to your phone.
GWEN: Not my phone, her phone! Lizzy’s phone, that you confiscated from Claude! Give it to me. I know the password.
BRYSON: How about you tell us the password, and we unlock it for you?
GWEN: Fine. 74547252. My nickname. Pilipala. Butterfly.
BRYSON: Miss Sayer, if you’re lying about this . . .
GWEN: Look in her notes. Try her diary app.
BRYSON: Uh, why . . . Oh.
Chief?
BAINES: This . . . isn’t possible. This is a setup. This is a lie.
GWEN: Would you risk her life over it?
Again?
BAINES: If you’re lying, I will try you for murder, and I’ll try you as an adult.
Lizzy’s Diary
9/3/2015
Mendoza saw me going into G’s office today, fuck fuck fuck. He so knows. I told G about it, and he said I was freaking out, like normal, I needed to calm down. He said people go in and out of his office all the time, don’t worry about it. I told him we should meet off school grounds, and he said if I thought he was going to pick me up from Mom and Dad’s with a big bouquet I could go fuck myself. I cried in the bathroom. G hates it when I cry.
9/27/2015
Tried whiskey for the first time today. Whiskey is good. Whiskey-flavored kisses are better. Mmmm.
10/15/2015
I flunked the calc test. I know I didn’t study enough, but G kept me behind every day this week. He says it doesn’t matter if I fail one test. He doesn’t get it. If I don’t get the scholarship, I can’t get out.
11/6/2015
G wants to break up with me. I’m ugly and fat and my boobs are too big and I’m not smart enough and I want to fucking die and he said we’d be together forever and now I’m too fucking fat and I’m not even smart enough to get the scholarship and I don’t even get why I’m alive anymore.
12/12/2015
Holy shit how much did I drink last night. I went to G’s house and blacked out and I have no idea what happened but I couldn’t find my underwear and G told me to pick up a morning-after pill on my way in? So I guess we had sex??? I thought we were waiting til I was 18? G says it always hurts the first time so maybe it’s good I don’t remember, like the next time will be better? I feel sick.
2/5/2016
What the actual fuck claude fucking vanderly. What is she doing in his office? G says it’s normal but if he’s fucking claude we’re done. We’re done and I’m going to Mendoza and spilling everything. I put my whole future in this, my scholarship is gone and my parents hate me and I need a drink halfway through first period, I am NOT going to end up some shitty side piece in the Mr. G show. He has to put as much on the line as I have.
2/7/2016
Fuck I feel awful. G’s done so much for me. He puts himself on the line every day, for us. He could go to prison if the wrong people knew about us. . . . I want to tell Gwen, but I can’t. I want to tell Mum and Dad that I’m ok but I can’t. I can’t fight with him. Life is hard but we can be strong. When I graduate, we’ll skip over to Utah or Wyoming or wherever, G can teach at a new school and I’ll work until I can go to college. It’s going to be ok. I just have to trust him.
3/20/2016
Who even fucking am I anymore
3/25/2016
G wants to go for a drive tonight fuck fuck he wants to break up with me I fucking know it wtf am I going to do
32
The Ghost
Emma Baines unclips her tentpoles from the body and folds them neatly, sliding them into their bag before rolling up the tent. Ms. Vanderly’s old MacBook sits on a tree stump; she checks the time on it before shutting it and sticking it in the second duffle. Her breath puffs in the night air. There’s nothing for her in Lorne now. The best she can do is move away, move on, forget what happened and what she left behind and what she gave up.
Something snaps behind her. Her hands freeze on the bag. Her brain hopes that it is Claude or Gwen or Avery coming to tell her that everything’s fine.
Her body knows it’s a lie.
She turns, slowly, ready to run. She keeps her eyes on the ground until she sees the Pine Nation boots. Then she can’t pretend anymore.
Garson doesn’t look out of his mind with rage. He doesn’t even look like he lost a night’s sleep. Light from her flashlight bounces off the snow to illuminate the sharp edges of his nose and cheek. It deepens the shadows beneath his eyes, turning them into wells.
“I really thought you’d just die,” he says. His voice doesn’t shake. “You didn’t strike me as the survive-at-all-costs type. Certainly not the type to kill a man.” His hand comes up. It’s wrapped around a gun. “Claude Vanderly did that part, didn’t she?”
She doesn’t say a word. One foot slides back.
“Don’t,” he snarls, and Emma freezes. “Don’t fucking move. You think you’re smarter than me? All four of you working together weren’t smarter than me.”
Emma tries to suck enough air into her lungs. The world tilts. “They’re going to catch you,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what you do now. They know what you did to Lizzy. And me. And everyone.”
Garson laughs harshly, an animal, barking sound. “With what evidence? I took your notebooks. I erased your files. There’s nothing linking Lizzy to me.” His expression shifts almost imperceptible in the darkness.
“You didn’t even care about her.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Garson says softly. “I lov
ed Lizzy. She was the one who didn’t love me. She wanted to leave me in Lorne and fuck the professors at Harvard. She was the one who said she’d tell. She was the one who ruined everything.”
He speaks with real pain in his voice. He speaks with earnestness. He really believes it. “I’ve spent my life helping kids be their best. I give them good advice, good educations, good scholarships . . . This town needs me.” His voice rings with self-righteousness. “I couldn’t let Lizzy destroy that, not when she was going to leave anyway. And I won’t let you destroy it, either.” He raises the gun.
Run. Hide. Fight. Emma dives to the side. The gun goes off and she screams. She digs her boots into the ground and launches, praying that her cheer training has given her the speed and strength she needs. And even then, she wonders: Can she really outrun him? She has nothing to run to. She’s just a dead girl who chose the forest as her grave.
Her boot catches on a hidden root and she falls through the blanket of snow. Lightning flashes through her head as her temple strikes something hard and her teeth slam together. Something hot trickles down the side of her face.
She hears a shout. It doesn’t sound like him but he’s getting closer, his rubber-soled boots thundering on the ground. She has nothing, she grabs for the nearest thing she can find, her hand closes around a rock—
A boot hits her shoulder and flips her over. Her spine thwacks against the tree root. Mr. Garson pushes down with his foot, trapping her arm on the ground. She screams again. Close up, she can see how his hand shakes.
That doesn’t really matter when he’s aiming point-blank.
“You did this to yourself,” he breathes. “You bitch.”
And then there’s the crack of the gun.
THE LORNE EXAMINER ONLINE
December 9, 2018, 3:29 A.M.
Developing Story
Emma Baines is no longer considered deceased, but a missing person, according to testimony and evidence provided late last night, Saturday, December 8.
A warrant was obtained to search the house of Kenneth Garson, lacrosse coach and counselor at Jefferson-Lorne High School, after new evidence was secured. Mr. Garson was not at home, but his car was located at the side of County Road 43, near the site popularly known as Anna’s Run. It is believed that Garson was searching for Emma Baines with the intent to kill; he fired on officers in the woods and died in the resulting cross fire. Near Garson was a laptop bag and a fire pit, and food waste was found in a container nearby. It will be tested for a DNA match with Emma.
“This is a difficult day,” said Police Chief Baines, the man who fired the killing shot. “The police are still conducting their investigation, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Ken Garson went into these woods with the plan to murder Emma, and he has possibly killed before. We want to stress that we’re working through this, that the threat is neutralized, and that no one else is currently a suspect in any crime involving students at Jefferson-Lorne High school. Emma, if you hear this, if you read this: Please come home. It’s safe now. You don’t have to hide in the woods or behind Adams West on the internet. Just come home.”
The three former suspects, friends of Emma’s from high school, could not be reached for comment.
33
The Uncaring Bitch
Officer Muñez takes her home in a squad car, but she doesn’t make Gwen sit in the back. It’s after two in the morning.
“We’ll release the truck in the morning. We’re sorry it can’t be sooner.” Muñez does sound sorry. But Gwen doesn’t particularly care.
The squad car crunches over the snow and stops outside her house. The light in the kitchen’s still on, fluttering weakly with a poor connection that they’ve needed to fix for years.
Muñez escorts her to the front door, knocking stiffly once they get there. Gwen hears Mum moving around inside, slowly, as though she’s been replaced by a stringless marionette. After a few moments the swollen wooden door shudders open and Mum’s face peers out. Her eyes flick between Muñez and Gwen.
“Officer, you want a cup of tea?” she says in the coldest voice Gwen has ever heard.
Muñez wisely declines. She mumbles something about Gwen getting a good night’s sleep and retreats to the car. Gwen slides inside and takes off her boots. The air here feels colder than outside, for all that her breath doesn’t puff out in a cloud.
The plastic Christmas tree droops with cardboard and paper ornaments, candy-cane reindeer and hand turkeys. The house smells stale. Nobody ate tonight. Mum and Dad stare as Gwen shrugs out of her coat, unties her shoes, does whatever she can to not look at them.
But then she’s standing in her socks and sweater and she can’t put it off anymore. “Um. So.” What next? So I deliberately framed myself for attention. So Lizzy got sexually assaulted by a teacher and I knew months ago. So I didn’t have dinner—is there anything in the fridge?
“I’m gay,” she blurts.
They stare at her, unblinking. This is it. Mum’s going to ask, Are you sure? Dad’s going to say, Don’t be ridiculous, Gwen. Maybe one of them will change the subject without addressing it at all.
“Is that why they arrested you?” Mum says.
“What? No.” Gwen tries to wind up this new thread. “They thought I had something to do with Emma—they thought a lot of things. But, um. I’m innocent, and they know that now. And also I’m gay.” And the police know that, too, for all the good it will do them.
Mum and Dad look at each other. “Okay,” Dad says uncertainly.
“That’s not what we need to talk about—” Mum says.
“I just—” Gwen starts at the same time. They stop. Mum nods for Gwen to speak, tears brimming at the bottom of her eyes.
She just wanted them to know. She wanted to get it out of the way and tell them what she should have told them years ago, with Lizzy holding her hand. She wanted to be out to them before the paper outs her to the world. She wants control over her story.
She wants Lizzy there.
She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the first tears drip onto her hand. She looks down blankly. The tear shimmers in the white lights of the tree. A moment later Mum’s arms come around her.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “Don’t be upset.”
“I’m not upset about that.” She’s overwhelmed with the simplicity of it. That she waited years for this. That she feared loud declarations, protestations, Mum wondering if she should ever have left her cult church. That she was so afraid of “okay.”
The couch creaks as Dad gets up. He comes over and joins in, wrapping his arms so carefully around his wife and daughter. His bristly mustache presses against the top of her head. “We love you, Pilipala,” he says. “We’re proud of you. Nothing’s ever going to change that.”
“But we have to know the truth,” Mum says.
The truth. “It’s about Lizzy,” Gwen says. Mum’s grip around her hand tightens. Dad nods. They need to know.
Telling them is harder than telling the police. She wants to leave out bits she knows will hurt them. But that story is the story they need to hear the most. Even when she has to admit that she snuck out of the house twice—and once to get rid of a stupid wig.
The water roared. A branch snapped wetly behind her. And though Gwen always thought of herself as the girl in control, she couldn’t control the scream that slipped out.
“Chill! Calm down!” Emma sounded like she didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. Gwen whirled around.
“You chill,” she snapped. “I thought—”
“There’s no reason for him to come out here,” Emma said.
Gwen folded her arms, hugging herself. “Maybe he wanted to see if his hired gun finished the job.”
Emma cocked her head. “The police would already know if he hadn’t. And since they’re sniffing around after you . . .” She shrugged. “Bring me anything? I could kill for a burrito.”
Gwen blushed. The friend thing with Emma was hard in a way it wasn’t with ot
her people. Memories sliced at her, all the ways in which Emma was more deserving of love, of scholarships, of Lizzy’s help.
She quashed them. She wasn’t here to snipe at Emma. “I came looking for the wig,” she said.
“What . . . ?” Emma’s frown cleared. “Aves was supposed to get rid of the wig.”
“Yeah, but I realized.” Gwen looked down at the water. Anna seemed sated, but it was just a ruse. The current tugged from beneath, dragging everything from stray branches to stray people under. “She came out of the river without it.”
Emma stared at her. “They can’t find it downstream. They’ll know.” Panic tinged her voice.
“That’s why we’re going to look for it, isn’t it?” Gwen snapped back. “I have an idea.”
They walked in silence, using Gwen’s phone as a flashlight. After a few moments, Emma said, hesitantly, “I’m straight, you know.”
“So?” Gwen bit out.
“So . . . I know Aves and I are close. And maybe that was weird for you. But she’s a really good friend, and . . .” Emma took a deep breath. “She likes you a lot. She admires you.”
“Um, okay. I’ll call you the next time I need relationship advice,” Gwen said, but her skin warmed and a smile tugged at her mouth.
They came to the tree with the rope still hanging, soggy, around the middle. “You didn’t haul it in?” Emma said with a touch of incredulity.
“She was getting hypothermia,” Gwen protested.
“I can’t believe you’re going to win the scholarship,” Emma grumbled, and pulled on the rope.
Branches and other flotsam made a tangle of it, and the heavy weave of it scraped their hands. It reminded Gwen of trying to climb rope in PE, pulling and pulling and getting nowhere. She ignored the burn in her arms, heaving until the rope finally flopped free and they could bring the end to shore.
They untangled branches and rotting prairie grass and roots until Emma held a muddy mess up to the light of the flashlight. “Is this it?” She tried to wipe a clump of wig clean but only succeeded in smearing mud onto her gloves
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