by Riley Sager
Of Pine Cottage.
Of things I thought I had forgotten.
I tell myself that they can’t be. That almost everything bad about that night has been sliced from my mind. But I know I’m wrong.
I had remembered something.
Rather than sit up, I hunch down farther in the tub, hoping the hot water will wash it all away. I don’t want to remember what happened at Pine Cottage. That’s the reason I’ve mentally cut it out of my brain, right? Because it was all too horrible to keep in my head.
Yet like it or not, there’s no denying something has come back to me tonight. Nothing major. Just a brief flash of memory. Like a faded photograph. But it’s enough to make me shiver even while neck-deep in the steaming tub.
There’s a quick knock at the door. A warning from Sam that she’s about to enter. She manages one step before being stopped cold by my bloody clothes on the tiled floor. Wordlessly, she scoops them up.
“What are you going to do with them?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it. I know what to do,” she says before carrying them out of the bathroom.
Yet I am worried. About the memories that have suddenly scurried back into my consciousness. About the man in the park. About why Sam stayed back and watched as I beat him senseless, as if it were simply another one of her unspoken tests.
Suddenly, I’m struck with a thought. A question, really, made hazy and distant by the steam rising off the water and my own exhaustion.
How does Sam know what to do with my bloody clothes?
And another: Why was she so calm as we fled the scene of my crime?
Now that I think about it, she was more than calm. She was utterly thorough in the way she whisked me from the scene, making sure to shield me and the blood from onlookers, finding a water source in which I could be cleansed.
No one could be that efficient in such a situation. Not unless they had done it before.
Those thoughts are quickly followed by another one. Not a question this time. A certainty, screaming into my brain so fast and loud that I bolt upright in the tub, water sloshing over the sides.
The purse.
We left it behind in the park.
20.
“Don’t worry about it, babe.”
That’s what Sam tells me after I inform her about the missing purse.
“I already know that. If it was important, I would have taken it with us.”
We’re in her room, she smoking by the window, me nervously perched on the edge of the bed.
“And you’re positive there’s nothing incriminating in it?” I ask.
“Positive,” Sam says. “Now, get some sleep.”
There’s so much more I should be asking. What did she do with my bloody clothes? Why did she let me snap like that in the park? Was I so violent and unhinged that it summoned that brief glimpse of Him at Pine Cottage? All remains unsaid. Even if I asked, I know Sam wouldn’t answer me.
So I leave, heading to the kitchen for a Xanax and grape-soda chaser before lying down on the sofa, ready for another sleepless night. To my surprise, I do manage to drift off. I’m too exhausted to fight it.
Yet my slumber is brief, interrupted by a nightmare of Lisa, of all people. She’s standing in the middle of Pine Cottage, blood gushing from her slit wrists. In her hands is Sam’s purse, getting splashed with gore. She holds it out to me, smiling, saying, You forgot this, Quincy.
I awake with a start, sitting up on the sofa, limbs flailing. Although the entire apartment is silent, I sense the reverberations of an echo in the living room. A scream, probably, bursting from my mouth. A minute passes in which I wait for someone to inevitably wake up. Surely Jeff and Sam heard it. Or maybe I didn’t scream after all. Maybe it was just in the dream.
Outside the window, the night sky is quickly thinning. Dawn’s on its way. I know I should try to get more sleep, that I’ll collapse soon without it. But my nerves are a sparking jumble. The only way to calm them is to go back to the park and see if the purse is still there.
So I tiptoe into the bedroom, relieved to find Jeff fully asleep, snoring lightly. Quickly, I wrap myself in running clothes. I then slip fingerless gloves onto my hands to hide the abrasions that roll over my knuckles, already beginning to scab.
Once outside, I cross the blocks to the park at a dead sprint. I blast over Central Park West, crossing against the light, making an approaching cab slam on its brakes to avoid hitting me. The driver honks. I ignore him. In fact, I ignore everything as I fly to the spot where the purse had been knocked from my hands. The same spot where I had beaten a man so much his face resembled a rotting apple.
But now that man is gone. So is the purse. They’ve been replaced by police—a dozen officers milling around a wide square of yellow police tape. It looks like a murder scene. The kind you see on cop shows. Officers search the taped-off area, conferring with one another, sipping coffee from steaming paper cups.
I hang back, jogging in place. Despite the hour, several other onlookers are also there, standing in the blue-gray dawn.
“What happened?” I ask one of them, an older woman with an equally geriatric-looking dog.
“Guy got attacked. Beat real bad.”
“That’s awful,” I say, hoping I sound appropriately sincere. “Will he be okay?”
“One of those cops says he’s in a coma.” She practically whispers the word, putting a scandalous spin on it. “City’s full of sickos.”
Inside, I feel a thorn bush of emotions, tangled and jagged. There’s joy that the man is still alive, that I haven’t killed him after all. Relief that his coma means he can’t talk to the police just yet. Guilt for being so relieved.
And worry. That, above all else. Worry about the purse, which could have been found by the police. Or stolen. Or dragged into the thicket by the coyotes that sometimes, inexplicably, find their way to the park. It doesn’t matter what happened to it. As long as it remains out of our possession, that purse has the potential to tie me to the beating. My fingerprints are all over it.
Which is why I come home with my mouth set in a grim scowl. Jeff is awake when I slip through the front door, standing in the kitchen in a T-shirt and boxers.
“Quincy? Where have you been?”
“I went for a jog,” I say.
“At this hour? The sun’s not even up.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Jeff peers at me through puffy eyes, the lingering fog of sleep hovering around him. He scratches his head. He scratches his crotch. He says, “Is everything okay? This isn’t like you, Quinn.”
“I’m fine,” I say, clearly not. My body feels hollow, as if my insides have been scraped out by the ice-cream scoop I use to drop batter into muffin tins. “Just fine.”
“Is this about last night?”
I freeze in front of him, wondering what, if anything, he heard last night. That I’m keeping a secret from him at all makes me quiver with guilt. That he could possibly know about it only makes it worse.
“Me having to go to Chicago,” he says.
I exhale. Slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion.
“Of course not.”
“You seemed pretty annoyed about it. Believe me, I am. I don’t love the idea of leaving you alone with Sam.”
“We’ll be fine,” I say.
Jeff squints slightly, frowning just-so. The perfect picture of concern. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because you were out jogging before six,” Jeff says. “And because you just found out that Lisa Milner was murdered and that there are no suspects.”
“Which is why I couldn’t sleep. Which led to the jogging.”
“But you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
I force a smile, trembling
from the effort. “Of course.”
Jeff pulls me into a hug. He’s warm and soft and smells faintly of sweat and fabric softener from the sheets. I try to hug him back but can’t. I’m undeserving of such affection.
Later, I make him breakfast while he gets ready for work. We eat in silence, me hiding my injured hand under a dish towel or on my lap while Jeff leafs through the New York Times. I take furtive peeks at each turning page, positive I’ll see an article about the man in the park even though I know it’s too early. My crime was past their deadline. That particular hell will have to wait until tomorrow’s edition.
As soon as Jeff leaves, I pull the key from around my neck and open my secret kitchen drawer. The pen Sam stole in the café is there. I pick it up and scrawl a single word across my wrist.
SURVIVOR
Then I hop into the shower, forcing myself not to blink as I watch the water smear the ink away.
• • •
Sam and I don’t talk.
We bake.
Our tasks are well defined. Apple tarte tatin with caramel sauce for me. Sugar cookies for Sam. Our workstations are laid out on separate ends of the kitchen, like opposing sides in a war sharing a common front. While I make the dough for the tarte, I keep checking my hands for signs of blood, certain I’ll find lingering crimson stains across my palms. All I see is flesh turned puffy and pink from being washed too many times.
“I know you’re having second thoughts,” Sam says.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“We did the right thing.”
“Did we?”
“Yes.”
I’ve started on the Honeycrisp apples, my hands trembling slightly. I stare at the red-yellow apple skins, which fall in long, drooping spirals. My hope is that if I concentrate on them hard enough Sam will stop talking. It doesn’t work.
“Going to the police now won’t make things right again,” she says. “No matter how much you want it to.”
It’s not that I want to go to the police. I think I have to. I know from Jeff’s work that it’s always better for a criminal to come forward rather than get caught. Cops have at least a grudging respect for those who confess. So do judges.
“We should tell Coop,” I say.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“He might be able to help us.”
“He’s still a cop,” Sam says.
“He’s my friend. He would understand.”
At least I hope he would. He’s said many times that he’d do anything to protect me. Is that the truth, or is there a limit to Coop’s loyalty? After all, he made that promise to the Quincy he thinks he knows, not the one who actually exists. I’m not sure it would still apply to the Quincy who’s already taken two Xanax since returning from the park this morning. Or the Quincy who steals shiny objects just so she can see her reflection in them. Or the Quincy who pummels a man until he’s comatose.
“Let it drop, babe,” Sam says. “We’re good. We got away. It’s over.”
“And you’re absolutely certain there was nothing in that purse that could lead to us?” I ask for what’s probably the fiftieth time.
“I’m positive,” Sam says. “Chill out.”
Yet an hour later, my phone rings as I’m pulling the tarte tatin from the oven. I place the tarte on the counter, tear off an oven mitt, and grab the phone. Answering it brings a woman’s voice to my ear.
“May I speak to Miss Quincy Carpenter?”
“This is Quincy.”
“Miss Carpenter, I’m Detective Carmen Hernandez with the NYPD.”
Fear freezes me—a sudden, numbing chill. How I manage to keep hold of the phone is a mystery. The fact I can still speak is a minor miracle.
“How can I help you, Detective?”
Hearing this, Sam whirls away from the counter, a large mixing bowl hugged to her stomach.
“I was wondering if you had time to come to the station today,” Detective Hernandez says.
I only half listen to the rest of what she has to say. The deep freeze of fear has made its way to my ears, blocking out a good deal of it. Yet the key words are clear. Like blows of a pickax against the ice.
Central Park. Purse. Questions. Lots of questions.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Once I end the call, the frigid grip of fear subsides. Taking its place is the hot burn of despair. Trapped between cold and heat, I act accordingly, melting into a puddle on the kitchen floor.
TWO DAYS AFTER PINE COTTAGE
Their names are Detective Cole and Detective Freemont, although they might as well have been called Good Cop and Bad Cop. Each had a role to play, and they performed them well. Cole was the nice one. He was young—probably not yet thirty. Quincy liked his friendly eyes and the warm smile that sat beneath a wispy mustache grown in an attempt to make him look older. When he crossed his legs, Quincy saw that his socks matched the green of his tie. A nice touch.
Freemont was the gruff one. Short, stout, and balding, he had the jowls of a bulldog. They flopped slightly when he said, “We’re confused by something.”
“More curious than confused,” Cole added.
Freemont shot him an annoyed look. “Things just don’t add up, Miss Carpenter.”
They were in Quincy’s hospital room, she too sore to leave the bed. Instead, she was propped into a sitting position by several pillows. There was an IV needle in her arm, its low, perpetual sting distracting her from the detective’s words.
“Things?” she said.
“We have questions,” Cole said.
“A bunch of them,” Freemont said.
“I’ve already told you everything I know.”
That was the previous day, when Quincy had been so groggy with painkillers and grief that she wasn’t sure what she had said. But she covered the basics. She was certain of that.
Yet Freemont glared at her, his eyes bloodshot and weary. His suit had seen better days, the cuffs frayed. A yellow splotch of dried mustard marred one of the lapels. A ghost of lunches past.
“That wasn’t a whole lot,” he said.
“I don’t remember a lot.”
“We’re hoping that you might be able to remember more,” Cole said. “Could you try? Just for me? I’d really appreciate it.”
Leaning back into the pillows, Quincy closed her eyes, searching for something else she could remember from that night. But it was all a black stew, turbulent and dark.
She saw before: Janelle emerging from the woods. The flash of blade.
She saw after: Running through the forest, the branch whacking her face as rescue appeared on the horizon.
The in-between, however, was gone.
Still, she tried. Eyes and fists clenched, she swam through that mental stew, diving under, searching for the tiniest memory. She came up with only fragments. Glimpses of blood. Of the knife. Of His face. They didn’t add up to anything substantial. They were lost puzzle pieces, giving no hint of the complete picture.
“I can’t,” Quincy finally said as she opened her eyes, shamed by the tears threatening to slide from them. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t.”
Detective Cole patted her arm, his palm surprisingly smooth. He was even more handsome than the cop who had saved her. The one with the blue eyes who immediately rushed to her side yesterday after she cried out that she wanted to see him.
“I understand,” Cole said.
“I don’t,” said Freemont, the folding chair beneath him creaking as he shifted his weight. “Did you really forget everything that happened the other night? Or do you just want to forget it?”
“It’s completely understandable that you do,” Cole quickly added. “You suffered a great deal.”
“But we need to know what happened,” Freemont continued. “It
doesn’t make sense.”
Confusion clouded Quincy’s thoughts. A headache was coming on. A light, pulsing pain that exceeded the angry pinch of the IV needle in her arm.
“It doesn’t?” she said.
“So many people died,” Freemont said. “Everyone but you.”
“Because that cop shot Him.” Already she had decided to never speak His name. “I’m sure He would have killed me too if that cop—”
“Officer Cooper,” Cole said.
“Yes.” Quincy wasn’t sure if she already knew that. Nothing about the name was familiar. “Officer Cooper. Did you ask him about what happened?”
“We did,” Freemont said.
“And what did he say?”
“That he was instructed to search the woods for a patient reported missing from Blackthorn Psychiatric Hospital.”
Quincy held her breath, waiting for him to speak that patient’s name, dreading it. When he didn’t, a warm rush of relief coursed through her.
“During the search, Officer Cooper heard a scream coming from the direction of the cabin. On his way to investigate, he spotted you in the woods.”
Quincy pictured it, the moment superimposed over the image of the two detectives beside her bed. Officer Cooper’s surprise when he noticed a flash of white fabric at her knees, realizing how her dress had been dyed red with blood. Her stumbling toward him, gurgling those words that continually echoed through her pill-stuffed brain.
They’re dead. They’re all dead. And he’s still out here.
Then her latching onto him, pressing herself hard against him, smearing the blood—her blood, Janelle’s blood, everyone’s blood—all over the front of his uniform. They both heard a noise. A rustling in the brush several yards to their left.
Him.
Breaking through the branches, arms flapping, skinny legs churning. Coop drew his Glock. Aimed. Fired.
It took three shots to take Him down. Two in the chest, their impact making His arms flail even more, like a marionette in the act of being abandoned by his puppeteer. Yet He kept coming. His glasses had slipped off one ear, the frames slanted across His face, magnifying only one surprised eye as Coop fired the third shot into His forehead.