Kyle might be alive, she reminded herself. She should assume that he’s alive. And if he is, he’d know what happened out there. He’d tell the police that he’d been pushed. No, she thought again, maybe he wouldn’t tell. Because Kyle would also be ashamed of his drunken aggression. Probably. Maybe. Kat didn’t know anymore what was a greater threat—Kyle’s death or his survival. She felt nauseous.
At the street level, all was quiet except for the sound of the steady rain. Every nearby house was dark. Hunter looked down at Kat as she took the last step up. Water was dripping from his eyelashes, his hair and chin.
“I’ll call you in a few hours,” he said. He paused for a moment and then walked away without looking back.
“Hunter,” Kat tried to say, but no sound came out.
This wasn’t right, doing nothing. It left her feeling at odds with herself. You’re supposed to act, to do something at a moment like this. She knew she should go after him. They needed to go to the cops together and explain...what exactly? Someone went missing overboard? If Hunter felt that he was the reason Kyle was in the water, then he probably was, right? She wasn’t sure that he was, but she wasn’t sure of anything. Could she go to the cops alone and turn her friend in for fleeing the scene of an accident? Is that what they’d call it? Or would it become manslaughter if Kyle didn’t turn up? No, she mustn’t think about the consequences right now. The only thing that mattered now was Kyle’s survival. She definitely needed to go to the cops. But her feet wouldn’t walk in that direction.
Kat stood dripping, convulsing with shivers, as she watched Hunter disappear into the enormous Briggs family vacation house. She saw one small interior light blink on, then blink off again thirty seconds later. He was going to bed. Kat could hardly see through the rain dripping down her face. She wasn’t doing the thing she knew she was supposed to do, and in not doing it, she was choosing to do something else entirely.
Kat turned to her left and began walking slowly home, one foot in front of the other, along the wet sidewalk. She just kept walking, thinking of nothing but the motion of her legs and feet. Never stopping.
When she got to the glass studio, Kat unlocked the door and went inside.
She had done nothing, which was a choice in itself.
Chapter 2
Kat closed the door behind her and walked into the dark glass studio. She always went in that way at night—through the garage and up the back stairs—so she could double-check that the furnace and the white-hot glass reheater (the “glory hole”) were set low. Living above machines set to thousand-degree temperatures had made her a little paranoid. But on that night, it was also the best way to minimize the possibility of anyone seeing her slip inside and sneak up to the apartment.
She walked dripping through the dark garage with her trembling hands outstretched to catch a stray chair or wooden paddle that may have been in her way. Too much had happened in the preceding hours for her to remember where she’d left everything.
Kat banged her right knee into something rock solid. It was the edge of the annealing oven. There were three bowls in there, maybe a few paperweights too. She’d made them the day before. It was a fleeting comfort to remember these small details of her normal life, the person she was before she left a man in the ocean.
Kat ascended the stairs slowly with waterlogged sneakers. At the top, she went straight through the dark apartment to the bathroom, where she closed the door and turned on the light.
She hung her head over the toilet with her hands on either side, retching but producing nothing. The room was spinning.
Kat dropped to her knees, closed the lid of the toilet and rested her head upon it.
Why was she there and not at the police station? Why had she let Hunter talk her into this? Kat could feel a viscous string of saliva slide from the side of her mouth onto the cool porcelain, but she didn’t move. Kat didn’t know if she’d watched someone die, but she’d surely watched someone disappear. And although she’d done nothing intentional to harm Kyle, there was a distinct possibility that he had been harmed—fatally, perhaps—and she was paralyzed by her own guilt.
It wasn’t all new guilt. It was new mixed with old. The old guilt was shame, actually. It was the practiced shame of someone who’d grown up covering for, and protecting herself from, a delinquent parent. Her mother’s crimes had been minor, but capacious. They demanded constant caution on Kat’s part to avoid prying questions from teachers, social workers and classmates. It wasn’t only the petty thievery and insurance fraud in lieu of real jobs; it was also her mother’s regular disappearances with shady new boyfriends, and worse, her cruelty toward Kat when those boyfriends eventually left her. Kat had endured it all until the day she turned sixteen and left her mother. Kat woke up each morning with an unspecific feeling that she was guilty by association, complicit in the chaos around her. She thought she left that feeling behind, until now.
Kat was guilty of nothing in her childhood, but the stench of her past was hard to wash off. It was that shame that made going to the police station difficult for her right now, even as she knew it must be done. Kat had left her past behind, but apparently she hadn’t shaken the feeling that people like her—people on the margins, victimizers and victims alike—were all guilty of something. Those people didn’t usually fare well with police encounters. So all it took was Hunter’s gut-wrenching appeal for her to acquiesce to his wish.
But now, as the room spun around her, it was reality that made her panic. Kat and Hunter—one or both of them—might have directly contributed to Kyle’s demise. Their actions were most certainly provoked, but how much that mattered now, Kat didn’t know. If Kyle was dead, Kat realized that every version of this story from here on out would implicate her. The decision to go home and not report his fall overboard was irreversible, and becoming more treacherous with each minute she spent on the bathroom floor.
And goddamn Hunter was at home, probably passed out. She hated him at that moment. She almost blamed him for whatever may or may not have happened to Kyle, but it wasn’t her nature. Kat had tacitly agreed to Hunter’s plea to run, and now she was wrong right along with him.
The worst thing—the thing that Kat could hardly bring herself to consider—was the possibility that Kyle could be dead, but his death had been preventable if only they’d gone for help. If he did drown, Kat prayed that his death was sudden and decisive. And if it hadn’t been fast, she hoped to never know the truth.
Kat couldn’t shake the vision of Kyle’s wide, panicked eyes in the final moment before he went over the edge. One second her palm was still touching the wet wool of his coat. Then he was gone. Dead, maybe.
The pale blue and green tiles of her shower stall blurred before her. She heaved, expelled what bile was left in her stomach and passed out on the cold bathroom floor.
* * *
Six hours later, a fist pounded on the front door of the shop, sending a bolt to Kat’s fogged consciousness. The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes were those blue and green shower tiles...and then she remembered the puking...and the wet trek home...until she’d walked backward in her mind all the way to the panic in Kyle’s eyes. The memory of his eyes sent another tsunami of guilt over her aching body.
Another friendly knock came from outside.
Kat pushed herself up and reached for the knob of the bathroom door. She needed to go see who was there. She had to act normal. She was an innocent person who’d made a mistake. She had no reason to avoid a knock at her door in the early morning. But then she saw her reflection in the mirror—her stringy hair matted around her forehead and lidded hangover eyes. On one cheek was a fresh bruise from when she’d passed out on the tile, and on the other, the dried stomach bile she’d been sleeping in. It wasn’t an innocent look. She waited for the knocking to stop. Then she counted to one hundred and left the bathroom.
The apartment was flooded with mo
rning light. The storm had moved on.
Through a kitchen window, Kat looked down at two men and a woman standing at the side entrance to the shop. The people who’d been knocking, she presumed. They all wore the same windbreakers, which said Woods Hole Erosion Team across the back. She’d seen them around town for the past three days, ever since the landslide on their beach. At the reminder of the landslide, Kat felt another wave of panic, this one mixed with despair. There were suddenly too many unsolvable problems before her. And those problems were intersecting in troubling ways. Ever since the landslide, area beaches had been crawling with police, scientists and cleanup crews. People were watching those beaches with greater attention now. They were seeing things that might normally go unseen. Things, she worried, like late-night boating excursions.
No, she reminded herself. There was no one else on the beach last night. She definitely hadn’t seen anyone else.
Kat watched the three windbreakers below. They were discussing something; it looked lighthearted. The older man told a joke and the other two laughed. The woman pulled out a flyer and stuck it in the doorjamb. They walked away, laughing again.
Relieved, Kat went to the kitchen sink and drank a tall glass of water. Then she walked back to the bathroom, turned on the shower and let it run while she peeled the damp clothes from her body. She needed to see Hunter, but she couldn’t leave the house looking filthy and wild. She just needed a few minutes to pull herself together, then get out there into the world and do what needed to be done.
The sun was shining brighter when she emerged from the bathroom and she worried that she’d taken too much time. Kat wanted to look like she was in a rush when she arrived at the police station. She was in a rush.
A walk to Hunter’s house at a brisk speed. Nothing strange about that.
By Kat’s calculation, it was 7:50 when she knocked on Hunter’s door. She knocked loud and without any pauses because the minutes were moving faster than she’d anticipated, and 8:30 was her new arbitrary deadline for getting to the police station. After that, it would look too casual, like it hadn’t been a priority.
The door swung open and a tall man in a pressed oxford shirt greeted her.
“Please. Come in,” he said.
“Is Hunter here?” Kat had never seen this guy. She stepped inside and let the man close and lock the door behind her.
“Hunter’s resting,” he said calmly.
A family doctor, she considered...but he didn’t seem like a doctor. His clothes were too sharp, his wristwatch too ostentatious.
“I’m an associate of the senator’s,” the man explained.
Kat looked past him, around the grand entrance of the house, up the stairs. “May I talk to Hunter, please?” She didn’t want to act alarmed before this stranger.
“Let’s have a quick chat, first.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the door, then back at the man. “Okay.”
“I know about the accident,” the man said, rolling up the cuffs of his powder blue shirt. His forearms were covered in dense white-blond hair that crept up his knuckles. The hair curled around the enormous face of a gold Rolex.
Kat considered running. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. But you’re safe here, Kat.”
“Who are you?”
“Like I said, I’m a friend of Senator Briggs. I help out where I can. And, Kat, you and Hunter need help right now. So listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
She stared at the broad and solid creature, a Scandinavian brick with fluffy white eyebrows.
“Let’s just assume Kyle Billings is dead,” he started. “He was a very disturbed young man who was attempting to assault you. Hunter thwarted his attack, and there was an accident in the process. Nothing could be done. In all likelihood, a life has been tragically lost, but we have a chance now to save the lives of the people who remain. Let’s stop the bleeding, shall we, Kat?”
She looked into the man’s eyes and tried to understand what was happening. He was telling her the story of last night, giving her the script. But that isn’t exactly how things had gone down. Or was it? Kat didn’t move.
“Can we agree that the death of Kyle Billings—if it happened—is a tragedy, Kat? And that we don’t need to compound that tragedy? That won’t help anyone, will it?”
She heard nothing beyond the name: Kyle Billings. She’d never known his full name. Kyle Billings, Kyle Billings, Kyle Billings. Kat rolled it around in her head. With a last name, he became a son, maybe a brother, an old friend. He was a person connected to other people, a person with a past.
“Kat, are you listening?”
She nodded.
“I know this is difficult,” the man said, though he didn’t seem particularly troubled by any of it. “So we’d like to offer you a gift of thanks for your discretion.”
He reached into his back pocket and handed her a small, folded piece of paper with only the following written on it: $1.3M.
Kat stared at the paper for three seconds, confused. And then alarmed. “A million dollars?”
“One point three, yes.”
“This is a bribe? What is this for?”
The man folded his arms, annoyed by her indelicacy. “It’s a gift of thanks...for keeping this between us. And I’m sure you understand why this is the best tactic for everyone. The Briggs family has a lot to lose, as you know.”
“No, no, no!” Kat pushed past the man and ran through the foyer. She looked around the living room and kitchen, then ran upstairs.
Every bedroom was empty and orderly, with piles of nautical-themed throw pillows arranged atop beds. Why did they need so many rooms if no one was ever there? And which one was Hunter’s? At the end of the hall, Kat nearly crashed into a stunned young woman wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of a Portuguese soccer team. She’d been cleaning the last room, Hunter’s bedroom, it seemed. He wasn’t in there.
Kat flew down the stairs, past the man and out the door.
The fresh air felt good in her lungs.
Kat looked up and down the street with squinty eyes. It was unusually sunny and warm for mid-October, a completely different place than the street they’d shivered along the night before.
Kat crossed the road and looked down at the water. There was Hunter, sitting in a lawn chair on his dock, looking straight into the sun.
“Let’s go, Hunter,” she yelled as she ran down the stairs. She looked around and whisper-yelled the rest. “We need to tell the police what happened. He might be alive.”
Hunter didn’t move.
“Hunter!”
Still nothing.
Kat walked the length of the dock and stood in front of him, blocking the glare of the sun. With her shadow cast across him, she could see the hollows of his eyes. He looked awful.
“This was your solution?” Kat held up the paper from the white-haired man. “You want to pay me to keep quiet?”
Hunter met her stare, but he didn’t move. “I don’t like it, either, Kat. I had to tell my dad, though. This could cost him the election and end his career. It’s bigger than us.”
The boat thudded gently against a dock post beside them. It made her sick to see it there. It was covered now. Kat wondered if the man with the arm hair had covered it for them. That seemed like something that would fall to him now.
“Hunter, we have to take responsibility for this! If they find the body and track us down, this is going to be a million times worse.”
He stood up slowly. “How would they track us down? No one knows that the three of us went out last night. And it was raining too hard for anyone to hear us. The universe is handing us a fucking lifeline here, Kat. Let’s take it.”
“No. I’m going to the cops. I’m going right now.”
She turned to leave and he grabbed her forearm. “Please don’t
. This will be it for me. I’ll go to prison, and I will have officially ruined my father’s life which, despite the fact that he’s an asshole, I don’t want to do.”
Kat considered telling Hunter that there was a chance that it was she and not he who pushed Kyle into the water. Last night, she’d been sure of it. But her muddled thinking made her question her memory. Maybe it didn’t matter who pushed him. And maybe a small part of her wanted to leave some room for the possibility of her own innocence.
Hunter had every resource in the world to weather a criminal conviction. What did she have? No money or family or connections of any kind. She sure as hell wasn’t going to take the fall for a crime she had only maybe committed. No, she was just going to tell the police a sanitized version of the story: that Kyle had been drinking, the weather turned bad, he lost his balance and he went overboard. Then he disappeared into the water. They looked for him, then returned on the assumption that he was swimming in. She would emphasize that it was all an accident.
“You can come or not come, but I’m going to the cops right now, Hunter. I don’t want your money.” Kat walked back along the dock and started up the stairs.
“You think you’re going to get off free here?” he yelled.
She turned around. “What?”
“You’re in this now, Kat. Forget the money. The money doesn’t change any of it. You’re a highly suspicious person now.”
“No, Hunter, I’m not.”
“Then why did you go home after we got back to the dock? Why didn’t you call for a rescue? Why’d you go to sleep, and take a shower this morning, and change all your clothes?”
“I didn’t...”
“Seems like strange behavior for an innocent person, is all I’m saying.”
Hunter wasn’t enjoying himself. He was doing what he needed to do to keep Kat from reporting what happened. She could see the self-loathing on his face. But he was still doing it, and it was working. She was nervous now.
Everything That Follows Page 4