by Riley Sager
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I can’t.”
“Nothing at all?” Freemont said.
“No.” Quincy was trembling now, on the verge of tears. “There’s nothing.”
Freemont crossed his arms and gave her an annoyed huff. Cole simply stared at her, squinting slightly, as if he could see her better that way.
“I’m a little thirsty,” he announced, turning to Freemont. “Hank, could you be a sport and get me a coffee from the vending machine?”
The request seemed to surprise Freemont. “Really?”
“Yes. Please.” Cole looked to Quincy. “Are you allowed to have coffee?”
“I don’t know.”
“We better not risk it,” Cole decided. “Caffeine and those pain meds you’re on might not mix too well, am I right? That wouldn’t be good for you. Sheesh.”
It was the last word that tipped Quincy off. Spoken with such forced cheer, it all but announced that it was nothing more than an act. Cole’s handsome face. Those warm, vaguely sexy smiles. All of it was just a charade.
Cole confirmed this once Freemont was out of the room.
“I’ll give you credit,” he told her. “You’re good.”
“You don’t believe me,” Quincy said.
“Not one bit. But we’re going to find out the truth eventually. Think about that, Quincy. Imagine how your friends’ parents will feel when they find out you’ve been lying all this time. Sheesh.”
That time, he winked as he said it. His way of telling Quincy he knew that she knew.
“Now, you can talk all you want about how you don’t remember anything,” he said. “But you and I both know you do.”
Again, a strange shift began to take place inside Quincy. An internal hardening. Everything galvanized. She pictured her skin turning to metal, polished and gleaming. A shield protecting her from Cole’s accusations. It made her feel strong.
“I’m sorry my lack of memory makes you angry,” she said. “You can spend years asking me stuff, but until my memory comes back, my answers will always be the same.”
“I might just do that,” Cole replied. “I’ll go to your house. Every month. Hell, once a week. I suspect your parents will soon start to wonder why that handsome detective keeps coming over asking questions.”
Quincy flashed a smart-assed smile. “Only mildly handsome.”
“I wouldn’t be smiling if I were you,” Cole said. “Six kids are dead, Quincy. Their parents want answers. And the only survivor is you, a wispy little girl who claims she can’t remember a thing.”
“You actually think I did it?”
“I think you’re certainly hiding something. Possibly protecting someone. Maybe I’ll change my mind if you finally tell me everything you saw that night, including the stuff you’ve conveniently forgotten.”
“I’ve told you everything I know,” she said. “What makes you think I’m lying?”
“Because it doesn’t add up,” Cole replied. “Your prints are on the knife that killed all your friends.”
“And so are everyone else’s.” Anger swelled in Quincy’s chest as she thought about how many times that knife switched hands. Janelle, Amy, and Betz all definitely touched it. He did too. “And I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but I was also stabbed. Three times.”
“Two stab wounds to the shoulder and one in the abdomen,” Cole said. “None of them life-threatening.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“You want to hear what the others experienced?”
Cole reached for the folder atop the table. When he opened it, Quincy saw photographs. Her photographs. Taken with her camera. Of course the police had found it at Pine Cottage and downloaded the pictures stored within it.
The detective slid a photograph across the table. It showed Janelle sticking out her tongue in front of Pine Cottage, mugging for the camera.
“Janelle Bennett,” he said. “Four stab wounds. One each to the heart, lung, shoulder, and stomach. Plus a slit throat.”
The comforting mental shell Quincy had felt earlier suddenly faded into nothingness. Now she was all exposed underbelly.
“Stop,” she murmured.
Cole ignored her, whipping out another photograph. Craig this time. Standing heroically atop the rock they had hiked to.
“Craig Anderson. Six stab wounds, ranging in depth from two to six inches.”
“Please.”
Next came the photo of Rodney and Amy squeezing each other on the hike. Quincy remembered what she’d said while taking it: Make love to the camera.
“Rodney Spelling,” Cole said. “Four stab wounds. Two to the abdomen. One on his arm. One in the heart.”
“Stop!” Quincy screamed, loud enough to bring in Freemont and a uniformed cop who hovered in the doorway. She recognized him immediately. Officer Cooper, fixing her with a protective blue-eyed stare. The mere sight of him filled her with relief.
“What’s going on in here?” he asked. “Quincy, are you okay?”
Quincy looked at him, still on the verge of tears but refusing to let them see her cry.
“Tell him,” she begged. “Tell him I didn’t do anything. Tell him I’m a good person.”
Officer Cooper moved to her side, making Quincy think he was about to hug her. She welcomed it. She wanted to feel safe in someone’s arms. Instead, he put a large, steady hand on her shoulder.
“You’re a wonderful person,” he said, addressing her but looking squarely at Detective Cole. “You’re a survivor.”
30.
A big rig thunders by, horn streaking as it rocks the Camry parked on the highway’s shoulder. I sit in the front passenger seat, legs bent out the open door. The interior light throws a dim halo over my hands and the folder gripped between them.
It’s opened to the transcript of my interview with Freemont and that asshole Cole. Seeing the first few lines is all it takes to remember.
COLE: Now, tell us, Quincy, to the best of your ability, what you remember about that night.
CARPENTER: The whole night? Or when Janelle started screaming? Because I don’t remember much after that.
COLE: The whole night.
I toss the transcript aside, unwilling to read further. I don’t need to relive that conversation. Once was enough.
Beneath the transcript are several pages of emails, printed out and stapled together. All were sent during the same time period—three weeks ago.
Miss Milner,
Yes, I do know who you are and what happened all those years ago. I humbly offer my belated condolences and wish to say I admire the courage and fortitude you’ve displayed all these years. That is why I’ve attached the transcript of our recorded interview with Miss Carpenter that you so kindly requested. Although others may not, I understand your curiosity about Miss Carpenter. You two went through very similar ordeals. It’s been a long time since my dealings with Miss Carpenter, but I remember them well. My partner and I interviewed her several times after the events at Pine Cottage. We both felt she wasn’t telling the truth. It was my gut feeling that something preceded the horrible events that occurred at the cabin that night. Something that Miss Carpenter wanted to keep secret. This led my partner to believe she might have had something to do with the deaths of her friends. I didn’t share his opinion then nor do I share it now, especially in light of the compelling testimony given by Officer Cooper at a hearing on the matter. Still, even to this day, I do think Miss Carpenter is hiding something about what happened at Pine Cottage. What that might be is something only Miss Carpenter knows.
Sincerely,
Det. Henry Freemont
I’ve said all there is to be said regarding the matter of Pine Cottage. My opinion of Quincy Carpenter has not changed.
Cole
Other than Detective Freemont’s eloquence, nothi
ng about the content of the emails surprises me. Cole thinks I’m guilty. Freemont is in the middle. Yet their existence gives me pause, even more than seeing those folders hidden in Lisa’s closet. This is proof that she was looking into my past. Mere weeks before she was killed, no less.
I try to tell myself that one isn’t related to the other, but that’s not possible. They are. I know it.
Two more printed emails sit beneath the ones from Cole and Freemont. Unlike those, this pair rattles me.
It’s good to hear from you again, Lisa. As always, I hope you’re well. Quincy is also doing well, so your questions regarding what happened at Pine Cottage surprise me. However, I am thankful you didn’t pose them to Quincy herself and I hope you continue to display such discretion. I can only tell you what I’ve been saying all along: Quincy Carpenter endured a terrible experience, as you well know and can certainly relate to. She’s a survivor. Just like you. It’s my firm belief that Quincy is telling the truth when she says she can’t remember much about that night. As a child psychiatrist, you of all people know that repressed memory syndrome is a real condition. Considering what happened to Quincy, I can’t blame her mind for wanting to forget.
Franklin Cooper
P.S. I won’t tell Nancy what you’re doing. I’m sure she’ll frown upon it.
At first, disappointment nudges my ribs as I wonder why Coop never bothered to tell me that Lisa had recently contacted him. It seems like something I should have known about, especially in the wake of her murder. But I soften once I reread his earnest defense of me. It’s just so Coop. Firm, polite, revealing nothing personal. That’s when I realize why he didn’t tell me about it: He didn’t want to upset me.
As surprised as I am by Coop’s email, nothing prepares me for the one beneath it.
Hello Lisa! Thank you for contacting me instead of writing to Quincy directly. You’re right. It’s best that we keep this under wraps. There’s no point in upsetting her. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’ll be of much help. Quincy and I aren’t in touch as much as we used to be, but that’s how things go! Always so busy! If you’d like to talk, I’ll give you my phone number and you can call me when you’re able.
Sheila
The email’s such a shock that at first I’m not quite sure it’s real. I blink, expecting it to be gone when I reopen my eyes. But it’s still there, the words bold on the snow-white page.
That bitch.
Furious, I hop out of the car and stand on the road’s edge. Next to my feet is a spray of broken glass. A bottle, probably, yet I can’t help but think it’s the wineglass missing from Lisa’s house. Tossed out the window of a speeding car, its driver still high on a post-killing adrenaline rush.
I dig the lighter out of my pocket and hold it to the bottom corner of the folder. It’s a cheap thing that requires several flicks to spark a flame. No wonder the clerk let me steal it. The store probably gives them out for free.
Once lit, the fire smolders a moment, taking time to sink its teeth into the folder. Soon a flame is running up its side. When the flame threatens to burn my hand, I drop the folder, fingers of fire shimmering in midair. The driver of a passing rig sees it, blares his horn, keeps on trucking. On the ground, the folder burns until it’s just ash caught in the breeze of vehicles barreling down the road.
Once I’m convinced that every page has been destroyed, I snag the water bottle sitting in the car’s cup holder and pour it onto the folder, the flames vanishing into hisses of smoke.
Destroying evidence. That’s the easy part.
What I have to do next is going to be a whole lot harder.
Back in the car, I swerve back onto I-65, heading north. I steer with one hand and dial my phone with my other. Then I lay the phone flat on the passenger seat, set to speaker mode. Each ring sounds out loud and clear inside the car. The noise reminds me of my phone calls on Mother’s Day, when I count each ring, guiltily hoping no one will pick up. Today, someone does.
“Quincy?” my mother says, clearly shocked to be hearing from me. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me Lisa Milner contacted you?”
31.
There’s a pause on my mother’s end. Long enough to make me think she’s hung up. Seconds pass in which I hear nothing but the whoosh of air sliding across the car’s exterior. But then my mother speaks. Her voice is lukewarm and without inflection—the aural equivalent of melted vanilla ice cream.
“What a strange question, Quincy.”
I huff out an angry sigh.
“I saw the email, Mom. I know you gave her your phone number. Did she call you back?”
Another pause. A bit of static crackles from my phone before my mother says, “I knew you’d be angry if you found out.”
“When did you talk?” I say.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“You do, Mom. Now, tell me.”
More pausing. More static.
“About two weeks ago,” my mother says.
“Did Lisa say why she was so suddenly interested in me again?”
“She told me she was worried.”
This sends a chill scudding through me.
Quincy, I need to talk to you. It’s extremely important. Please, please don’t ignore this.
“Worried for me? Or about me?”
“She didn’t really say, Quincy.”
“Then what did you talk about?”
“Lisa asked me how you were doing. I told her you were doing great. I mentioned your website, your nice apartment, Jeff.”
“Anything else?”
“She asked—” My mother stops herself, thinks, carries on. “She asked if you’ve recovered any memories. Of what happened that night.”
Another chill goes through me. I switch on the car heater, hoping that will make it go away.
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” my mother says.
“And what did you tell her?”
“The truth. That you can’t remember a thing.”
Only, it’s not the truth. Not anymore. I remember something. A keyhole-size peek into that night.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the dusty hot air rushing from the heating vents. It does nothing to warm me. All it manages to do is make my throat itchy and dry. My voice is a rasp when I say, “Did Lisa mention why she wanted to know this?”
“She said she’d been thinking about you lately. She said she wanted to check in on you.”
“Then why didn’t she call me?”
Instead, Lisa had reached out to Cole, Freemont, Coop, and my mother. Everyone but me. By the time she did reach out, it was too late.
“I don’t know, Quincy,” my mother says. “I guess she didn’t want to bother you. Or maybe—”
Another pause. A lengthy one. So long that I can feel the distance stretching between my mother and me. All those fields and cities and small towns that sit between this Indiana highway and her too-white house in Bucks County.
“Mom?” I say. “Maybe what?”
“I was going to say that maybe Lisa thought you wouldn’t be honest with her.”
“She didn’t actually say that, did she?”
“No,” my mother says. “Nothing like that. But I got a feeling—and I could be wrong—I got the feeling that she knew something. Or suspected something.”
“About?”
My mother goes quiet. “About what happened that night.”
I squirm in the driver’s seat, suddenly unbearably hot. Beads of sweat have popped along my brow line. I wipe them away and click off the heater.
“What gave you this feeling?”
“More than once, she stressed how lucky you were. How you recovered so quickly. How your wounds weren’t that bad. Especially compared with what happened to the others.”
/> In ten years, this is the most my mother has ever talked about Pine Cottage with me. Four lousy sentences. I’d consider it some sort of warped breakthrough if the situation weren’t so dire.
“Mom,” I say, “did Lisa suggest that I had something to do with what happened at Pine Cottage?”
“She didn’t suggest anything—”
“Then why do you think she suspected something?”
“I don’t know, Quincy.”
But I do. It’s because my mother also suspects something. She doesn’t think I killed the others. But I’m certain that, just like Cole and Freemont, she wonders why I lived when no one else did. Deep down, she thinks there’s something I’m not saying.
I think about the way she had looked at me after I trashed the kitchen all those years ago. The hurt darkening her eyes. The utter fear quivering in her pupils. I wish to God I could forget that look as thoroughly as I’ve forgotten that hour at Pine Cottage. I want it erased from my memory. Painted so black I can never see it again.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I tried,” my mother says, going heavy on the faux indignation. “I called you two days in a row. You didn’t call back.”
“You talked to Lisa two weeks ago, Mom,” I say. “You should have called me as soon as it happened.”
“I wanted to protect you. As your mother, that’s my job.”
“Not from something like this.”
“All I want is for you to be happy,” my mother says. “That’s all I ever wanted, Quincy. Happy and content and normal.”
Within that last word lies all my mother’s hopes and all my failings. It’s as powerful and potent as a grenade dropped into the conversation. Only I’m the one who explodes.
“I’m not normal, Mom!” I scream, my words bouncing off the windshield. “After what happened, there’s no possible way for me to be normal!”
“But you are!” my mother says. “You had a problem, but we took care of it and now everything is fine.”
Tears burn the corners of my eyes. I try to mentally force them not to fall. Yet they leak out anyway, slipping down my cheek as I say, “I’m as far from fine as you can possibly get.”