Everything That Follows

by Meg Little Reilly

  It was cold outside, but it felt warmer than it had when Kat walked into that bar thirty minutes earlier. She looked up and down the cobblestone. Nothing. She should probably call a cab, but then she’d have to take it somewhere. She wasn’t ready to go somewhere yet.

  Kat sat down on an iron bench with ornate armrests. She’d walked past that bench a million times, but she’d probably never sat on it before. It was cold as hell.

  Kat pulled out her phone and took a deep breath, knowing what she needed to do. She hadn’t answered a call or checked a message in over a week and the idea of looking back at the record of ignored names was growing less appealing with each hour. But she needed to look before she went back to her life.

  Erika had texted three times and called twice. Based on the texts, it was all just “Where are you and let me know you’re okay” stuff. Jesus, it hadn’t really occurred to Kat that people would be worried about her safety. She felt bad about that.

  Hunter had reached out twice as many times, more frantically than Erika. He was worried about her. He wanted to help her with whatever she was working on. And he was sorry for anything he may have done. He was sorry for everything.

  Sean had called twice. Just twice. No texts. Kat’s heart leaped at the number, which made whatever he had to say seem more meaningful, somehow. It was withholding—just two calls—which made her want more of him. Kat held the phone up to her ear and listened.

  The first message was just an inquiry: “Where are you and can we meet for coffee?”

  The second message, from three days later, she could see from the screen of her phone was going to be very long.

  Here was Sean: “Kat, I don’t know where you are, but I’m trying to respect your privacy. I know this has been a hard time for you—for all of us. I was going to say this in person, but I feel like it needs to just be said, so here goes. First, thank you. On behalf of my mom and Weeta and all of us, we’re really grateful for the glass studio. The renovations look amazing already. Better than the old place. Even Mom says that. We don’t have to talk about where the money came from...we probably shouldn’t...but I want you to know that I know that this wasn’t easy for you, and I’m grateful. That’s really why I wanted to talk to you. Because you know I’ve had reservations about all this. Everything’s gotten so fucked up and I wasn’t sure if I could get on board... But I want you to know that I’ve decided that I am on board. I forgive you. We can put everything behind us now because I forgive you. And I don’t mean to sound like a dick about it—I know you didn’t mean to do anything bad—but I couldn’t move forward until I really felt okay with it all. And now I do. So I hope you’ll come home. I love you. That’s all. I love you.”

  Kat slid her phone back into her pocket and looked around. A woman in heels clicked along the cobblestone a block away.

  Sean forgave her. He forgave her and wanted her to come home. It was what she wanted to hear—or something like it. What she wanted was to go back in time to the relationship that didn’t feel so weighed down with guilt and shame. But if he really did forgive her, then maybe it was possible to rebuild their relationship. That was the best anyone could hope for at this point. It was great news if you adjusted for the circumstances.

  Kat stood up and began walking. She should have gotten a cab five minutes before. Now she felt nauseous. She just needed to walk it off a little, maybe throw up along the way. Then she would get a cab.

  Focusing on her feet, Kat stepped slowly and deliberately. Right foot. Left foot. Her sneakers made almost no sound at all. They were worn-out, but she felt appreciative of the faded running sneakers that had taken her all over Florida. She hadn’t been running in them in quite a while. That would be a good thing to do tomorrow... No, no it wouldn’t. In her spinning mind, she’d nearly forgotten that she needn’t bother with quaint resolutions like jogging anymore. Those things were for people without real problems. Jogging was a dumb idea.

  She realized that this was why troubled people drank. Not the kind of drinking that she usually did—wine with dinner and occasional overindulgence—but, like, real drinking. Fast and alone drinking. Because of those three pints, she’d forgotten for a few moments that she’d watched a man die and done nothing to save his life. She’d forgotten how that night had changed all the relationships that mattered most to her. And she’d forgotten that someone was working at that moment to prove that she was responsible for Kyle’s death. It was a fucking brilliant reason to drink. It actually worked, if temporarily.

  A middle-aged couple walking a tiny dog gave Kat a disapproving glance and kept going. Fuck those two for judging her for being sloshed on their precious cobblestone road. She was drunk for a reason.

  God, she was nauseous. What a dummy she’d been for having that third pint.

  A cab pulled up beside her and rolled down the window.

  Kat shook her head.

  He drove off.

  She needed that cab, but she really needed to puke first. If she puked in the cab, he’d drop her on the side of the road and probably demand another twenty dollars. It struck Kat as a little funny that she did actually have the twenty dollars now. She had plenty of money for puking in cabs, which was probably how people like Hunter went on doing dumb shit year after year—because they had infinite funds for fixing all the consequences of that dumb shit.

  Right sneaker, left sneaker. Right sneaker, left sneaker. Kat kept walking. She got to the end of the cobblestone street and turned left onto the main road that would take her back to Erika’s place. It wasn’t the kind of road pedestrians were supposed to use—there was no shoulder, just dark woods, and the cars drove fast. But there was hardly anyone out, so she figured the risk was minimal.

  Two minutes later, a car zipped by with blinding lights, apparently unaware of the hunched walker moving along the road’s edge.

  Five minutes later, the nausea lifted a little and Kat’s toes started to go numb. She started walking faster, which helped with her body temperature, but not her toes.

  Eventually, she began to jog. It was a hobbled sort of jog, but it had the benefit of warming her body and getting her closer to her destination. She regretted walking.

  As Kat considered calling a cab on her phone, she hurdled over a downed branch. She cleared it, but landed weird on her left ankle and fell to the ground.

  At that moment, another car rolled up from behind and slowed beside her. Kat looked over to see a police officer in his cruiser.

  “Ma’am, you need some help?”

  She straightened up and tried to sound breezy. “No, thanks, just tying my shoe.”

  The young officer watched her for a moment, then got out of the car. “You don’t look like a late-night runner to me. I’m going to help you up now and give you a ride home.”

  Kat let the man help her up. She suppressed a howl as her left foot came down onto the pavement and she nearly collapsed again.

  “I must have twisted it,” she said as he eased her into the back seat.

  “That’ll happen after a few pops.”

  The officer closed her door, then slid into the driver seat.

  It was warm inside the cruiser, thank goodness for that. But the trees were going by too fast. Kat closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply. She didn’t even care anymore if the cop knew she was drunk. She just didn’t want to throw up in his car.

  “You can take me to Addison... Church Street. I think it’s number six.” She had no idea what Erika’s address was.

  “Ma’am, I’m gonna take you into the station first, just to sober up.”

  Kat opened her eyes. “What? I haven’t done anything! Being drunk isn’t a crime.”

  “No, but I can take you into custody for public intoxication if you pose a risk to yourself or someone else. And you clearly pose a risk to yourself. You could have frozen out there with a sprained ankle.”

 
; “I’m going to the drunk tank?”

  He laughed. “We don’t really call it that around here, but yeah.”

  Kat slumped in her seat and closed her eyes again. She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around what was happening. She was in a police car, but not for a crime. This guy didn’t know who she was, not yet, anyway. Was it possible that this was a ploy to get her into the police station? Maybe. But it was too late to resist now.

  Kat looked around at the car doors. They just had normal handles like the inside of a normal car, but they were probably locked. Criminals would try to escape too much, so you’d have to lock them. And anyway, jumping from a police car was something that only a guilty person would do. She needed to behave like a not-guilty person. She was a not-guilty person.

  It felt like a thousand years ago that Kat had been standing in water, under the hot Florida sun, pleading with Tanya Billings. The days were all sort of melting together in a wavy timeline. She was guilty and not guilty, liberated by what she’d just accomplished and still chained to the story of that night. She wondered where the ghost of Kyle was. She hadn’t felt his presence since she’d left his mom’s house. He hadn’t traveled back with her on the ferry and he wasn’t sitting beside her in the police cruiser. Was he gone for good?

  “Here we are.”

  Kat’s door opened and the young cop used a surprisingly gentle hand to lead her toward the picture-perfect little police station. She still didn’t believe there wasn’t someone waiting for her with handcuffs and Miranda rights on the inside.

  There was not.

  As police stations went, it was adorable. In the seven years she’d lived on Martha’s Vineyard, Kat had never been inside the Addison station. It looked just as she’d imagined it would, from the tasteful muted walls to the natural wood beams. Lovely, but still a police station.

  “Make yourself at home on that bench right there.”

  Kat frowned.

  The cop shrugged. “Just for a few hours. Warm up for Chrissake.”

  “Can I pee first?”

  He pointed to the door behind her.

  For a moment, Kat thought the officer would insist on coming in, like they did in movies when suspects were trying to escape through bathroom windows, but he didn’t.

  There weren’t any windows in this bathroom, anyhow. Just a toilet, sink and a pine tree air freshener that made her feel nauseous all over again. It was as bright as hell in there. Kat tried not to look in the mirror as she washed her hands. It had been a few days since her last shower—an intentional choice as part of her streetwise Florida persona—but now it seemed so disgusting. Her hair was greasy and her pants stained. She wondered if she would have been taken to the police station if she looked like a pretty young woman after a rowdy bachelorette party. They probably took those girls straight home and fluffed their pillows for them.

  When Kat returned from the bathroom, the cop was still there, and he pointed to the bench. She sat down and let her head rest against the wall behind her. It was about fifteen feet away from the counter where an ancient-looking woman was stamping things. Behind the old lady, an older cop riffled through files. The young cop left Kat and joined him at the files. They weren’t doing the things that Kat imagined cops did, but what did she know. They were just puttering around, indifferent to her. She was really and actually only there for public intoxication, it seemed.

  It was almost funny, that she was going to spend a few hours at a police station for being drunk. It would make a good story one day, if she were to have the kind of future where you told lighthearted stories like that at dinner parties with your friends. She probably wasn’t.

  Kat closed her eyes. The bench was pleasingly long and broad, not the worst place to rest for a few hours. She wasn’t going to sleep, of course. She was too nervous for that. But she was warm and safe, which was something.

  The cops talked softly to one another about their lives. It sounded nice from a distance, like dozing off to an old movie. Henry was looking forward to his granddaughter’s christening next weekend. Josh was looking for another player on the softball team. The lady at the front desk stamped things and threw in her two cents now and then. It was hard for Kat to imagine these men busting up drug rings and wrestling people to the ground. Or finding dead bodies on the beach. Those things probably didn’t happen often on the Vineyard. Maybe there were tougher, more hardened cops to handle them when they did.

  A new set of shoes walked in, followed by the sound of files smacking on a desk. “The tox report finally came back from Boston,” New Shoes said.

  “Took long enough.”

  “Yeah, the backlog’s a mile long.”

  “Hey, Manny,” the younger cop said.

  There was a pause and Kat imagined them looking over at her, reminded of their mixed company. She kept her eyes closed and tried to make her face go slack. It was interesting to be a fly on their wall, so she wanted them to believe she was asleep.

  “Yeah, we’ll give her a few hours,” the other one said. He didn’t seem so concerned about the sleeping girl. “So, the tox report?”

  “Fentanyl.”

  “All three?”

  “Aliya Bergeron and Brad O’Connor were fentanyl and oxy. Kyle Billings was just oxy.”

  Kat’s muscles went rigid. She wanted desperately to open her eyes and somehow confirm that she’d heard what she thought she just heard. Kyle Billings...toxicology report...oxycodone. Kyle Billings’s body had oxy in it. Kyle was on oxy when he died. She tried to be still, to keep her eyelids relaxed and her shape in a drunken slump, but every nerve in her body was alive now. She focused on her breath, long and slow and like a sleeping person.

  “Alright, close ’em out,” the old cop said. “Notify the families quietly. We don’t need any more press on this garbage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shoes scuffled around and then there was the sound of coffee brewing.

  “Jesus H. Christ, if this shit is still going around when my grandkids are in school...” the older cop said.

  “I know it.”

  Kat murmured and turned her head, so her cheek was pressed up against the cool wall. They weren’t interested in her anymore.

  Close ’em out. That’s what he’d said. This was over. The file was closed. And it wouldn’t matter anymore what crazy Ashley had to say because Kyle was using drugs on that night and everything the cops thought they knew about his death had just been validated. The story made sense and it didn’t matter what was true.

  There was a sick relief in knowing that Kyle was the user he was rumored to be. It almost made his late night drowning true, like it could have happened that way, so it may as well have happened that way. It was a tempting line of reasoning for Kat. If he hadn’t died on the boat with them, he would have killed himself in some other undignified way...or so the thinking went.

  She couldn’t commit to that logic, though. For one thing, Kat knew that Kyle wasn’t high on the night he died. They would have noticed. He may have had drugs in his system, but he wasn’t high when he was out with them on that boat. More important, Kat had grown to like the ghost of Kyle, so news of his drug use made her sad. Kyle hadn’t died because of his drug use and his future wasn’t foreordained by it. No, she couldn’t allow this revelation to ease her guilt.

  But! This revelation of Kyle’s drug use and the decisive closing of his case meant that she was free. This was over. Was it possible? Kat seemed to recall that there was something about reopening cases if new evidence was uncovered, but that may have come from the movies too. And what new evidence could there be? The scarf was gone, buried under the wreckage of the glass studio. The boat was clean. Now it was just Ashley’s theories about tidal patterns against everything else. And who the hell was Ashley? She was nobody. She was certainly not as authoritative as a tox report—that was the final word. Kat went
around and around in her head about what had just happened and the only logical conclusion was that, yes, this was over. She was free.

  “What’s the story with the sleeping girl?” the new cop asked.

  “Few too many. My guess is boyfriend troubles.”

  “It always is.”

  Kat smiled to the wall and opened her eyes.

  At first, no one noticed her. And then, the lady at the desk raised her eyebrows. “Well, look who’s up.”

  “Ma’am, do you think I could call someone to come get me?”

  She frowned and looked over her shoulder. “Josh?”

  The younger cop walked over. “You have a safe place to go tonight?”

  “Yes, a friend. He can pick me up.”

  “Yeah, alright. You can use the phone on the wall.”

  Kat walked over to the big telephone hanging on the wall. This part was just like the crime shows. She smiled at the realization that this could now be a story that she could tell one day—a story about how happy, normal, not-incarcerated Kat had been detained for public intoxication and used her one phone call on a big old-fashioned police station phone.

  She put two quarters into the coin slot and waited.

  Hunter picked up immediately.

  Chapter 21

  When they finally opened their eyes, the sun was already high and the room flooded with light. Kat rolled over in her cocoon of down bedding and blinked. What an exquisite room it was. Bright ivory walls with pale yellow toile accents. She’d seen the room from the end of the hall, but she’d never been in it.

  “How’d you sleep?” Hunter rolled over and wrapped a bare arm around her waist.

  “Really well. I think I slept really, really well.”

  The white of his grin was magnified by the bleached light. Something smelled of lemons. Maybe it was her.

  Kat’s deep, dreamless slumber had been so immersive and disorienting, it took a moment to find her memories of the night before. Hunter had picked her up from the police station. She remembered that. And she told him everything. From the station to the house, and through half of the turkey sandwich he’d put in front of her at his kitchen table, she kept talking until the story of how she’d spent the previous eight days was fully told. Not a detail edited, softened or massaged. If there was such a thing, she wanted Hunter to have the truth.