Blame

by Jeff Abbott

  “Why were his injuries so much more?”

  “The car tumbled as it went off the road and a steep drop to the cliff’s edge began. He was on the side of the car that smashed into a rock face along the hill. The car bounced off it and came to rest. And…”

  He waited.

  Jane said, “David didn’t have on his seat belt.”

  “Did he normally ride without it?”

  “Who could stand that constant pinging? The suggestion was he undid it…” She stopped.

  “To stop you from driving off the road and then off the cliff?”

  “That,” she said, “was one popular theory, thanks to the suicide note.” She took a drink of water.

  “What was your first memory on awakening?”

  Jane got up and paced the floor again. “Is this OK? I don’t feel like sitting.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “I was in the hospital room. I don’t remember being afraid, just confused. I didn’t know I’d been in a coma. I didn’t recognize my mother, who was in the room with me. She said, ‘Oh, Jane,’ and started to cry because I was awake. I didn’t know it was my name. It was as though I’d just been born in the world.

  “The doctors came in and checked me and asked me questions. What did I remember, where did it hurt? I panicked because I didn’t remember anything. Then they started testing me, asking me the year, my name, who was the president, where did I go to school. I watched this woman—my mother—I watched her heart break.”

  “Did anyone suggest you lied about your amnesia?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Hall. She thought I was faking it. To avoid responsibility. You know, someone is taunting me online that they remember what I don’t.” She explained about the Faceplace posting. “It’s my sore spot. I know they have to be lying, but it enrages me.”

  “Are you lying about your amnesia?”

  Her gaze met his.

  He continued: “Because if you are, I would understand. It would be a defense mechanism. You can tell me, no one will know, our sessions are privileged.” He leaned forward. “If you were lying, I’d be impressed you’ve kept it up for two years. But what a heavy burden.”

  The silence became uncomfortable. She finally said, “No, Kevin, I’m not lying about my amnesia.”

  “All right.”

  She wasn’t sure he believed her. “This person who threatened me online, who screws around with an amnesiac? Who wants to pretend that they know something I don’t remember, when there’s absolutely no way that they could?”

  Kevin frowned. “First, it could be a harmless—in their eyes—prank or joke. Second, it could be someone who believes you do in fact remember and is trying to provoke you.”

  “Why would anyone think I faked this for two years?”

  “They think you know something from that night. And the amnesia is a cover-up. Do you know who is taunting you?”

  “I have a suspicion.” Kamala, she thought.

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather have proof before I say.”

  “It’s all confidential here.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t trust him, quite yet.

  He didn’t press her, but he made a note in his papers. “Do you miss David?” Kevin asked.

  “No one has asked me that. I don’t think I’m allowed to miss him.” But she didn’t answer the question.

  “All right. Before we meet again, will you work on that time line for me?”

  “All right. What do I do about my harasser?”

  “I would ignore them. If you try to engage them, you give them power, you give them your attention, you validate them. You want peace, you want forgiveness? Practice it.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell them to go ahead and tell the world whatever it is that they know.” She stood and put on her backpack. “I think I’m done for the day.”

  “Jane?”

  “What?”

  “Is there any chance, from anything anyone has said to you since, that someone else was involved?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated. “That another car ran you off the road, or veered into your lane and you swerved off to miss them, or was racing you, or…pursuing you. Do you ever feel like someone is after you? Or wants to hurt you?”

  “Why would anyone want to hurt me or David? We were just high school students.”

  “I’m sure no one wants to hurt you, Jane.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?” she asked him. Why would he ask her this?

  Instead of answering her, Kevin looked at his notes. “Shall we meet in two more days?”

  9

  THAT NIGHT PERRI poured a glass of sauvignon blanc before Cal arrived. She’d spent the day taking phone calls and answering e-mails. She was grateful to those who reached out to her, but at the same time it felt like a bit of a burden to respond. She could have gladly spent the entire day alone, in silence.

  Cal texted that he was on his way. She checked the dinner in the oven and sat down at the granite countertop of the kitchen island with the glass of wine. She took a deep breath and opened up her laptop and jumped to her Faceplace page, finally ready to read it today. Lots of notes of condolence, lots of “thinking about you” private messages. A reminder from Ronnie Gervase about the gala volunteers meeting, and sending her a virtual hug. She felt grateful. Then she saw:

  Mrs. Hall, I wonder if we might talk. I know it’s the anniversary and it’s a hard time for you, but I’m thinking of writing a follow-up piece on the loss of your son and Jane Norton’s amnesia. I apologize but I don’t have a current e-mail address for you. I’m not at the newspaper anymore, but you can reach me through my Faceplace account or at mv@now-mail.net. Thanks, Matteo Vasquez.

  Perri didn’t feel like being on display again. Seeing another article about her son and still having it be mostly about the poor murdering so-called amnesiac who still hadn’t recovered. And if she talked about Jane, Jane would talk about her actions at the cemetery. And she had a witness. So she clicked, wrote No thanks, and hit Send.

  She closed the laptop—she didn’t want to look at the words anymore—and took her glass and went upstairs to David’s room. She had kept it just as he had left it, as if it were a room encased in amber. The only item she had removed was a photo of David with Jane Norton, fourth grade, in their flag-football uniforms. They’d played on a coed team. David had been the star and Jane had been the pity player, but you couldn’t see that in the photo, in their white jerseys, Jane smiling in surprise, the participation medal on her chest, the same with David but also with a trophy for, what, most improved player? Best sportsmanship? Yes, that made sense. David was driven by such a sense of fair play. She’d taken down the picture because she could not bear to see Jane Norton’s face during the times she came alone into this room to lie down on David’s bed and let the grief and the loneliness fill her.

  She sat on his bed and let her gaze roam over the room. Pictures he’d drawn, he was so gifted. Books on a shelf, novels and instruction guides on drawing. He had been a talented artist, although she and Cal felt it was important to gently push him toward something practical. Art made for a nice hobby, but David was used to a certain standard of living.

  The wineglass broke in her hand. She jerked so that the wine didn’t spill onto the floor but stayed in the now-stemless bulb. The stem had broken cleanly but she couldn’t set the wineglass down, so she gulped down the entire serving of sauvignon blanc. It coursed through her and she hurried to the restroom and blotted a dot of blood from her hand. She threw the broken wineglass away.

  She fought down a sob. So what if he’d become an artist, if that was what he wanted to do? He might have been a very successful one. He might have been happy. What was wrong with her and Cal that they hadn’t told him, Yes, be what you want to be. Be an artist. No, you don’t have to be a business tycoon, a tech giant. Be yourself. Go draw superheroes. Be one.

  She washed the blood off her hand, making sure no particle of
glass was in the wound. She put on a Band-Aid that came from a box he’d kept under his sink. His cologne, his aftershave, his razor, his toothbrush, all still here. She should throw them away. But she hadn’t.

  She went back into his room, the blood welling up under the bandage.

  He had gotten an iMac computer a few months before he died and she woke it from sleep with a touch on the keyboard. She knew his password—that had been a condition of her buying it, she wanted to give him his privacy but was unwilling to give up access to where he browsed and his e-mails—but he had never given her a real moment’s worry. The dock along the edge of the window appeared on his Mac’s screen and she opened up Faceplace, his password already entered in by default.

  She went to his page. Tribute after tribute. She read of his friends, scattered now all over the state, and the country, to college, keeping David in their thoughts. There were fewer tributes than last year, and a hard little knot formed in her chest. Fewer people would remember him as time passed. He would further recede into memories. Lives would go on.

  Except for his.

  She wanted to send notes to some of the girls, and to David’s fellow football players, who left the most touching tributes. But she would do that from her own page. It was too strange to do it from David’s page, creating the illusion that he was still alive.

  She typed into the Faceplace search bar: Jane Norton.

  Perri clicked.

  The top posting was a new one. From someone Perri didn’t know, named Liv Danger.

  I know what you claim you don’t remember, Jane. I know what happened that night. And I’m going to tell. All will pay.

  Posted today. She stared at the words All will pay. The same three words that had been scrawled on her son’s grave.

  Her eyes scanned down the page. Jane herself had posted nothing since a few days after the accident, when she and her mother claimed that Jane remembered a deer bolting out in front of the car. Considering the fact that Jane could remember nothing else of the tragic night, and that there were no deer tracks or signs in the bushes or the damp ground of the too-steep hillside, this story did not hold up. Nothing on her return to Lakehaven, nothing about her time at St. Michael’s. Nothing on Christmas or birthdays or anything, although it looked like a few people had reached out to her. It was as if, like David, she had died. No photos of herself at college, no interactions with friends, no likes of photos or videos or other people’s postings.

  And then the postaccident torrent of inevitable garbage commentary on a newspaper article in which someone had so thoughtfully tagged Jane:

  They found a suicide note in the debris. She wanted to die. She wanted them both dead. Can u believe?

  It was just two rich Lakehaven assholes, who cares?

  Her heart felt like it would explode in her chest.

  Jane’s father died and it was suicide people said and now she tries to kill herself and David dies instead. We’ll miss you David.

  You know she was in love with him and he didn’t love her so she tried to kill them both. She must have thought she was driving off a cliff but it wasn’t. Stupid selfish bitch one day she’ll fry in hell

  How is she not in prison, why did the Halls drop their wrongful death suit, I smell a payoff!!!!!!!!!

  Her mom writes one of those mom-blogs and has a lot of views and so they must be rich so she’ll get probation and then go off to some rich bitch school up north and that’s that.

  Wow that mom of hers wrote about her all the time when she was a little kid and she and her dad both were suicides I guess a blog where you dissect your family life is a bad idea LOL too bad for the idiot in the car with her

  I blame the parents. Both sets. They shouldn’t have been out drinking and driving, kids do what they see at home if you ask me. Bad examples!! Bad parenting!! You don’t get in a car with a drunk kid you’ll DIE!!!!!

  No evidence they were drinking, dumbass, but thanks for playing.

  The news covers up for them, your the dumbas!s

  Try reading the article. I know it has words of more than one syllable but try.

  Perri Hall stopped. Closed her eyes. Her son’s beautiful life, his tragic death, dismantled and discussed—with no knowledge of him—by strangers, who felt they could yell and argue over her son’s dead body, figuratively. Who felt that just because they had a keyboard, they could and should say whatever they wanted.

  She toggled back to the top of the page. She clicked on Liv Danger, who claimed to have a better memory than Jane’s. The account had only a few friends, a few of which looked like fake spam accounts, and only one she recognized: Jane Norton.

  So it was a fake account? Someone just messing with Jane and with her and Cal as well. Desecrating his stone was much worse than posting on Jane’s social-media page. What if this Liv Danger was telling the truth and knew something about the crash that wasn’t known?

  All will pay.

  I could try and find out who this is, she thought.

  The doorbell rang.

  You have to be better than this. You can be better than this. She went downstairs.

  * * *

  She cooked a favorite of David’s: baked chicken breasts stuffed with feta cheese, wrapped in bacon, with quinoa and salad with homemade lemon-and-shallot dressing. Cal brought a cold bottle of Grüner Veltliner wine from Austria and, without being asked, poured a hefty glass for her and then one for himself. He hadn’t realized she’d already opened a bottle of wine, which was now tucked in the fridge door, and she thought, Well, this will numb us. She took a long, gulping drink and then set the wineglass down and stepped into his arms. He was surprised. He didn’t hesitate to fold her in his embrace, kissing the top of her head.

  “The cemetery management is going to increase security. There shouldn’t be further issues with David’s grave.”

  The oven chimed. She turned away and busied herself, feeling the wine kicking in hard, and he finished making the salad. Just like he still lived here.

  “I spent the day outlining that mentorship program for David.”

  “Alone?”

  He nodded, surprised.

  “You said you didn’t want to be alone today and I thought,” she said, thinking of the perfume in his car, “that maybe you were seeing someone.”

  “I’m not,” he said after a few moments of silence. “I would tell you if I was.”

  She started to clean up and he said, “No, I’ll do it, you cooked,” and so she sat back down with her wine while he cleaned and then he came and sat by her and refilled her glass and his own with the cold Austrian white wine. Two glasses were her limit, and he’d chosen what he nicknamed her big “book-club glasses,” which she could normally only drink one of. She didn’t trust open bottles of wine tonight. It would be too easy to dull the pain, get too lost, and she’d feel sick and tired tomorrow.

  He took her hand. She let him.

  “What do you know about Jane Norton these days?” she said.

  She felt his hand stiffen and then squeeze her fingers with just a bit more pressure. “Nothing. Unlike you, I prefer not to think about her.”

  “It was why you dropped the lawsuit, you felt sorry for her.” And that was the first crack in our marriage.

  His glass paused on the way to his mouth. “Do you think bankrupting my best friend’s widow with a brain-damaged daughter would have brought back our son? No.”

  “But it could have gotten us to the truth. Forced an investigation into whether or not they were lying about her amnesia, or maybe encouraged a witness to come forward.”

  “Perri.” He sounded exhausted.

  Fine, she thought. I won’t tell you about my scene with Jane, or this Liv Danger person. You wouldn’t do anything about it anyway. I know you. You give up too easy, Cal. You accept.

  “I love you,” he said. “I always will.”

  “I know.” But she couldn’t say it back.

  A resigned pain crossed his face. He told her he was tire
d and he left. She closed the door. Picked up her glass of wine. She went back upstairs. The Faceplace screen was still up. She clicked on Liv Danger’s link.

  I’m going to find out who you are. Perri sent a friend request.

  10

  BRENDA HOBSON COULDN’T sleep. Numbers danced in her head: the amount she still owed off her husband’s credit card debt, the college payment that would be due soon for her son. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could see the numbers sliding around on the ceiling. She’d worked hard after Rick died to pay off the debts he’d left; the insurance had covered some but not all. He liked her to have nice things, he just didn’t like paying for them.

  She’d erased forty thousand in debt—ten thousand still left. But Hunter was starting at the University of Texas at San Antonio, studying accounting, and he wasn’t on full scholarship, and Lindsay was coming up two years behind him, and she wanted to go to art school. Considering how little artists were paid, you’d think art school would be cheap, but it was the opposite. She hoped it was a phase and Lindsay would want to make a more practical choice. But she hated to tell either of her kids no—they were not spoiled, but they’d lost so much when they lost their dad. Her life had turned into one giant making of amends for her husband’s death. The debts. Not all of it had been credit card debt; she didn’t want the kids to know that some had been to people he made bets with. Those she had paid off first, trembling when she met one bookie’s representative in a department store parking lot to hand him five thousand in cash. Rick had gambled because he firmly believed life was short, and then his heart conked out, far too early at age forty-four, and proved him right.

  The dark days were behind her. She’d gotten slowly back on her feet. Last year she’d bought the small house here in the new development on the outskirts of San Antonio suburbia, a new start for her and the kids, and more importantly, one that she could afford. Austin had been too expensive for her, after she lost Rick’s income and with his debts, and too full of bad memories. Soon enough the houses on each side of her would be sold—it seemed like everyone was moving to San Antonio—and the new, better memories would start here. She had bought the first house built on this street.