Somebody I Used to Know

by David Bell

  He turned to go, spinning with military-like precision.

  But his words lingered in the cool morning air.

  There was only one woman who could have been saying those things on that night, begging to be with me and harassing Marissa.

  “What did she look like?” I asked, my voice rising to carry over a sudden gust of wind. “This girl.”

  Roger Kirby stopped and looked back. “How the hell do I know? Some blond wreck. Some stupid little girl hung up on you.” He studied me for a moment. “I should have sent her to your house. You could have been together all these years, and maybe you wouldn’t still be chasing after Marissa.” He smirked at me, dismissing me. “Good-bye, Mr. Hansen. And good luck.”

  He left me standing in the parking lot, contemplating the unthinkable.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Heather didn’t answer the door when I rang the bell. I pressed my face to the glass and cupped my hand against the side of my head, cutting down on glare. Her house was open, airy, and I could see all the way through the kitchen to the deck off the back. A still, solitary figure sat there.

  I started around the right side of the house, down the slightly sloping lawn until I came to the rear, stopping at the side of the deck. Heather sat at a circular umbrella table, the umbrella closed despite the bright, early-morning light. She wore sunglasses and held a small glass full of an amber-colored liquid. She wasn’t reading or listening to music or talking on the phone. She stared straight ahead, the object of her gaze not apparent to me or perhaps to anyone. I came all the way around to the bottom of the steps leading up to the deck, and even though I stood just ten feet from Heather, she made no acknowledgment of me.

  I cleared my throat.

  She tilted her head a fraction of an inch in my direction, the sunglasses still obscuring her eyes.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  I went up the three steps so I stood on her level. She drained the rest of her drink and pushed herself out of the chair.

  “I’m going inside for a refill. When I come out, you can be gone.”

  She was at the sliding glass door when I spoke.

  “You called nine-one-one that night, didn’t you?” I said.

  Her hand rested on the handle of the door. She looked back at me.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The night of the fire. You called nine-one-one. Right?”

  I still couldn’t see her eyes, but her cheeks and the tips of her ears reddened in the morning sun. A flush rose along her hairline and spread beneath the loose, long-sleeved T-shirt she wore. With her free hand she maintained her grip on the glass tumbler, her knuckles turning white.

  “You didn’t think anyone would be home,” I said. “That’s why you said what you said in the nine-one-one call. ‘They’re in there.’ That’s what you said because you thought they were out at that party. It was around one thirty, and you didn’t think they’d be home until much later. But someone got sick. They left the party early to take care of her.”

  For a moment, all was silent. A car horn honked somewhere in the distance, its bleat urgent and aggressive in the still air. Heather turned her head away from me slightly, and her breathing quickened. Then she took one deep, huffing breath, something close to a sob, and her chin puckered. But she didn’t break down. She held herself in check, hiding whatever deeper emotion revved beneath the surface.

  “Was it really because of me?” I asked. “Were you following her that night? Stalking her? You were outside the house earlier in the evening. I know that.”

  “I have children, Nick.”

  “Is that what you were doing? You wanted me, and I rejected you, so you tried to kill Marissa?”

  “I didn’t try to kill anybody,” she said. “I wanted to scare her. I wanted to . . .”

  “To what?”

  “I wanted to do something to her. Just do something. Anything.” Some of the tension went out of Heather’s body. Her shoulders slumped. She threw the empty glass out into the yard, where it made a dull thump in the grass. “She always seemed untouchable. Above me. Above everyone. I just wanted to strike back. I wanted to make a mark on her.”

  “By killing four people?”

  “That was never the intent. You’re right. I did see her earlier in the night outside the house. She was with that older guy. And then later, when I went back to the house . . . I didn’t know they were home. After the fire and everything, somebody told me about Andrea getting sick at the party. They left early and came home.”

  “It was still late. There were four people in there, four college students, and you didn’t hear them? You didn’t even think about it?”

  “The house was quiet when I went in.” She shuddered, reliving the memory. “Everyone had been drinking at that party. It was a blowout. It always was on Halloween. They must have all just gone to sleep after they put Andrea to bed. Maybe they all passed out. I expected to hear music or talking, something that would tell me they were home, but there wasn’t anything. You know what we were all like back in college. We were never quiet. If the house was quiet, I figured they weren’t home.”

  I shuddered as well, her words sending a deep chill through my body.

  “They always left that back door unlocked. We all knew it. We used to warn them about it. Four girls living in a house with a back door that’s never locked.” She rubbed her hands together. “I didn’t want to kill anyone. I was angry, irrational. I found a candle they left burning in the kitchen. I touched it to the curtain above the sink. The curtains were old, some gross polyester blend or something. They smoked a little, but they didn’t catch right away. And then . . . whoosh. They went up. The flames were going so quickly I couldn’t believe it. I thought about tearing the curtains down, throwing them in the sink, but I couldn’t grab them, they were burning so fast.” She looked up at me, my face reflected in the lenses of the sunglasses. “So I left.”

  “You left a fire going?”

  “I watched from the outside. I was confused, and I thought I’d get in trouble. How could I explain any of it? And then . . . when I heard . . . when I heard someone scream from inside the house.” She took a deep breath. “When I saw someone come to the window once the flames grew, someone who was inside and trying to get out, I made that call. I wanted to get them help, but it was too late. It was over.” She scuffed her foot across the sealed wood of the deck. “I can still hear those voices, calling for help. I’ve lived with that, Nick. I’ve gone to therapy for it. Therapy can’t erase things.”

  “My God, Heather.” I had to walk away from her. I moved across the deck, my back to her. When I turned around, she remained in the same spot, her arms folded across her chest. “We dated after that. Back then . . . and now. We laid in bed together. We had sex, and all that time you knew what you had done. You knew what it did to me when Marissa died.”

  “I couldn’t change the past. None of us could.”

  “You could have accepted responsibility.”

  Heather came forward and returned to her seat. She slumped into it, her shoulders drooping forward. “I was a mess back then. I was angry. I was jealous. You remember how I was. How I could be.” She looked up at me and removed the sunglasses. I saw her eyes for the first time that day. They were clear and piercing. “I’m not like that anymore. That’s not me, that person who set that fire.”

  “None of us are who we used to be,” I said. “Or who we seemed to be.”

  And I thought of Marissa, who had also committed a crime when she was in college and failed to take responsibility for it. But one was an accident and one was murder. No, Heather hadn’t intended to kill anyone. But she acted out of anger and jealousy. Four innocent people got in her way.

  “I�
��m telling the police,” I said.

  She was out of the chair, reaching for me, placing her hands over mine so I couldn’t move. “No,” she said. “You don’t have any real evidence, Nick. And I have children.”

  “Those four kids probably wanted to have children too.”

  Heather took a step back, letting go of my hands, and then with a sudden movement, she slapped me across the face. The blow surprised me, leaving a stinging sensation across my cheek and awakening the pain from my accident. I touched my nose, making sure it wasn’t bleeding again.

  Heather backed away from me, heading toward the door of her house, but she stopped before she lifted her hand to go inside.

  “You’re so good, Nick. Aren’t you? You . . . Sir Galahad. Sitting on the sideline judging everyone else. Pining over Marissa these last twenty years while the rest of us lived. That’s why I have kids. That’s why I have something to live for. Don’t tell the police, Nick. It won’t help anyone.”

  Her eyes looked open and pleading. I saw through them for perhaps the first time to the person beneath. Someone scared. Someone who loved her children. Someone who in some strange and twisted way had always cared about me. Someone who killed and went on with life, passing as the most normal of people.

  “Don’t tell them, Nick,” she said.

  I turned and walked off the deck.

  I sat in the car a long time. Thinking.

  Thinking.

  And then I drove to the police station.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  I spent an hour explaining everything to Reece, while he dispatched a car to Heather’s house to take her in to the station. I told him about all of it: Nate’s suspicions about the origin of the fire, the 911 call, Roger Kirby’s admission that someone confronted Marissa on the night of the fire, and my long, unusual history with Heather.

  When we were finished, he said he’d look into it. All of it. But he didn’t sound that hopeful.

  “That fire was a long time ago, Nick. Without a confession . . . it’s tough to see how anyone gets convicted.”

  His words were a splash of cold water. I told myself I’d done all I could do.

  Then I asked him how Jade was doing.

  “She’s already on her way to Hanfort,” he said. “That’s where the crime was committed. That’s where she’ll face the music.”

  “Will it be bad for her?” I asked.

  He paused for a second. “As bad as having your son run over and killed in the street? As bad as having your child killed in a fire? Not even close.”

  We shook hands. Again. I needed to get my dog.

  * * *

  I parked my rental car and prepared myself for the worst. The woman at the front desk didn’t make me feel any better. When I gave her my name and the name of my dog, her face remained impassive. She held up an index finger and asked me to wait while she went to the back.

  It couldn’t be good. Not if she needed to go to the back.

  It was never good when they went to the back.

  He’s just a dog, I told myself. Not like the people who died. Not like the children who were killed. Just a dog. Just a dog.

  But I didn’t believe it, not for a minute.

  And when she led Riley out by a leash, I dropped down onto my knees.

  “Oh, Riley,” I said. “Are you really okay, boy?”

  He looked at me impassively, his expression asking where I’d been and why I’d left him overnight among strangers. But when I bent down and rubbed his back and ears, he started licking my face.

  “Is he really okay?” I asked.

  “He’s fine,” the technician said. “We kept him overnight and checked him out. The doctor says no broken bones, no internal injuries. He slept well and ate this morning.”

  “What was wrong with him, then?” I asked.

  “He’s an old dog. He probably just got overexcited. And he has a little lump on his head. Keep an eye on him for a couple of days, but chances are he’s going to be fine.”

  I took Riley right home, and when we went inside I fed him his favorite food and gave him a treat from the cabinet. He ate more than normal and gulped the treat down like he’d never tasted anything so good before. We were both tired, and when the food was gone, he curled up in his bed and let out a long, contented sigh.

  I needed to shower and change my clothes.

  I needed to get my car fixed, even though I suspected it was totaled.

  I needed to get back to work. I needed life to be normal again.

  I emptied my pockets.

  I found the piece of paper Jade had handed me in the police station the night before.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Riley raised his head.

  I unfolded it. In Jade’s handwriting, the same handwriting on the note in Emily Russell’s pocket, was written another address.

  This one in Wisconsin.

  Would I let the love of a lifetime pass me by again?

  The watch sat on my nightstand. I picked it up, fastened it to my wrist.

  “Riley?” I said. “Are you well enough for a road trip?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all my friends and family for their love and support, especially Kristie Lowry and Kara Thurmond.

  Thanks to all the readers, bloggers, reviewers, librarians, and booksellers who keep books and the love of reading alive.

  Big thanks to Loren Jaggers and the entire NAL publicity team for getting the word out about my books. Special thanks to Jan McInroy for the thorough copyediting.

  Huge thanks to my editor, Danielle Perez, for her ability to gently push me—and the book—in all the right directions.

  Huge thanks to my agent, Laney Katz Becker, for her loyalty, drive, and friendship.

  And special thanks to Molly McCaffrey for everything else.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Nick is hung up on Marissa twenty years after her presumed death. Do you believe that someone could still have feelings for a college love after so much time? Do we ever forget our first real loves? Do you think part of the reason Nick hasn’t been able to move past his relationship with Marissa is that he has idealized her and/or their relationship since she supposedly died?

  2. Nick gets a great deal of happiness from his relationship with his stepson, Andrew. Do you think Nick has a significant role to play in Andrew’s life?

  3. Nick relies a great deal on Laurel. Do you think they have an equitable relationship in which they both benefit? Or is Nick taking advantage of Laurel?

  4. Do you think the police handled the initial investigation of Marissa’s death appropriately? Or did they make assumptions and overlook obvious clues?

  5. Why do you think Nick and Heather maintain their on-again, off-again relationship? What is each of them getting from the other? Do you trust Heather’s motives for being with Nick?

  6. What do you think of the reason for Marissa’s family disappearing? Do you think her parents did the right thing? How far would you go to protect your child from legal jeopardy?

  7. The Maberrys lost a child and never really received justice for it. Do you empathize with them? Do you understand why they behave the way they do?

  8. Jade has been through a great deal: the pregnancy, the accident, and then the adoption of her child. Do you think she can ever move on from these things and have a normal life?

  9. Roger Kirby plays a pivotal role as a friend of the Minor family. Did you know or suspect he was covering up for them the whole time?

  10. Were you surprised that Marissa was still alive? Do you think she’s gotten off easy over the years, since she was able to have a normal life and raise her own children?

  11. What do you think of Riley, Nick’s dog? Were you surprised that he played such a heroic role at the end of the story?

  12. Wh
at do you think is going to happen when Nick travels to see Marissa? Will they be able to resume their relationship after twenty years? What challenges will they face as they try to pick up where they left off?

  Don’t miss another exciting novel of suspense by David Bell.

  THE FORGOTTEN GIRL

  Now available from New American Library.

  PROLOGUE

  T he detective came into the room. He wore a sport coat and tie, the collar of his shirt open. He didn’t look at Jason. He tossed a small notebook onto the table, pulled a chair out, and sat down. He flipped the notebook open and scanned one of the pages.

  “Can I go yet?” Jason asked. “You said this wouldn’t take long.”

  “Easy,” the detective said.

  “You said this would be a friendly chat, that I didn’t need a lawyer or my parents.”

  The detective looked up. “Haven’t I been friendly?” He pointed to the empty Coke can on the table. “I got you a soda.” He flipped the notebook closed and smiled, but it looked forced. “We’re almost finished here. I just want to go over some things we talked about before. Now, you said you and your friend, Logan Shaw, fought pretty hard the other night. You told me you landed a couple of good ones against the side of his head.”

  “One,” Jason said. “One good one.”