The Second Stranger
Page 26
There was a message waiting for me at work one afternoon when I got to the office. An agent had called and emailed, saying she had spoken with a couple of publishers and was sure she could land me a book deal.
“Do it. Hell, most of it is already written,” Neil said, when I told him. “Just throw in some personal stuff, maybe about how it affected you, things like that.”
“I don’t know,” I said. Something just didn’t feel right about it.
“Or don’t.” He shrugged. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”
I replied to the agent, telling her I was not in fact ready. She wrote back almost immediately, telling me time was of the essence, publishers would want something soon, before the public lost interest. I thought about it for a few minutes, then wrote back telling her I wouldn’t be able to do it. I haven’t heard back from her and don’t expect to.
Someday I might write about it. And if I do, maybe it will just be for myself. A catharsis of sorts, committing it all to the page. And of course, if I do write it, it will include what happened that day to Amanda and everything that followed her kidnapping and murder.
I also declined to appear on a few TV shows about the case for the same reasons I passed on the book idea. One of the programs did an hour special on the case. I didn’t watch when it ran that night, still haven’t. It’s on my DVR, though, and more than once I’ve clicked through my recordings and paused when the name of the program appeared on the screen. And then I quickly scroll by it, not allowing myself to be tempted.
It’s over. It’s all in the past now and I intend to keep it there until I’m sure I’m ready to relive it all.
Cole and I talked on the phone a few times when I was away. Mostly about the case, specifically about how things were progressing with the Bensons.
During one conversation, a few days before I left my parents’ house to return here, he said, “Maybe when you get back we could go out to dinner or something.”
I paused for what I know was just a couple of seconds, but it was too long for him.
“It’s just dinner, Kate,” he said. “When was the last time you went out somewhere?”
“No work talk,” I insisted.
“Deal.”
I’ve been in my new condo for a few days now. It’s coming together, finally looking like I live here, like it can be a new home. Cole is on his way over. Tonight is the night we’re going out to dinner.
He hasn’t been discovered as the leak, he’s positive he never will be, but he also doesn’t care if it happens. He says the department would have a difficult time firing him for it. It would be a negative story about their handling of the case, and they’d prefer to let it go.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what he said about my view of the world as we waited to see if Elisabeth Benson would be found. He was right. My view was—is—bleak. It wasn’t until the case was over that I realized I’d been viewing everything through that lens. Which isn’t surprising—I had been letting what happened to Amanda color my perception of everything for a decade and a half.
But things are becoming clearer now. Slowly, but it’s happening. I don’t have any sort of newfound positive, optimistic outlook on the world, on existence, on life at all. It may take me a while to get there, but for now I have done all I can: I have accepted that there’s a balance.
I don’t know if this is a scientific fact or not, and it really doesn’t matter, but in this life there’s no light without darkness.
I’ve spent time in the darkness, twice in my life now. I think I’ll stay in the light for a while, as long as I can, and I’ll try not to worry about the darkness finding me again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.P. Tompkins grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and now lives in Charleston, South Carolina.
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